Waterfalls

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “We aren’t quite sure what the next step is. We’re praying about it and, of course, talking a lot about different options. That’s why we decided to drive out here this morning. We thought it would give us some good thinking and talking time.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear all this, Dad. It seems so unfair.”

  “I suppose it seems that way. Your mother and I are trusting that this is God’s timing, and we’re trusting him for the next step.”

  It seems like pretty lousy timing to me.

  As if her father had read her thoughts, he said, “Of course we know that God’s timing isn’t always the same as our timing.” He rubbed his hands together and said, “His ways aren’t our ways. His thoughts aren’t our thoughts.”

  Meri remembered memorizing that verse long ago. The verse after it said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” She tilted her head toward the silent sky. Not even a wisp of a cloud flawed the seamless blue.

  What are you doing up there? Have you forgotten about us down here?

  “Is there anything I can do for you and Mom?” Meredith asked as they started back to the cottage.

  “Pray,” Dad said. “Just pray for us.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Meredith hadn’t prayed a lot for her parents over the years. That seemed to be their job—to keep the church running and to pray for everyone, especially their four daughters. Mom was a capable woman. The only time she had hinted at needing prayer was when she had had a hysterectomy during Meredith’s second year of college. Megan had come home for a week to help around the house, and Meredith had helped for a long weekend. Aside from that, her parents had never “needed” prayer for anything she could remember. They never needed anything.

  “Would you like me to be there tomorrow when you make the announcement at church?” Meri asked.

  Dad thought a minute. “Yes, I think that would mean a lot to your mother.”

  As Meredith shuffled through the pebbles along the lake trail, her head down, her heart heavy, she thought of how irritated she had been with her mom these past few weeks. It made sense now. Mom had been under an unusual amount of stress. Her natural response would be to try to fix or control the few areas of her life where she felt she still had some power. Meri, as the youngest and only unmarried daughter, probably seemed the logical choice of someone who needed “fixing.”

  Now that Meredith realized how much tension her mom must have been feeling, she understood why she had been so overbearing. After all, how do you go about everyday life knowing that with a show of hands “the board” has altered your life forever? Why couldn’t they have let Mom and Dad stay a few more years as her parents had planned? They could have retired joyfully, with a big party and their future goals set. Now the church would be transitioning out of the old, and the big party would be to welcome the new pastor and his fresh, young family.

  “I will be praying for you, Daddy,” Meredith said when they reached the Tulip Cottage and started up the steps. “If I can do anything else, anything at all, you let me know, okay?”

  “Thanks, Meri,” her father said warmly. He reached over and took her hand in his to give it a squeeze. It startled her to feel the crooked roughness of his aging fingers and the thinness of his wrinkled skin. When was the last time she had felt her hand in his?

  She squeezed his hand and gave him her biggest, most comforting smile. “I love you,” she said softly.

  For half a second he looked as if he might shed a tear at her words. But he composed himself and said, “I love you, too.”

  They entered the house. Meredith looked around, feeling like a girl in a fairy tale who had stepped into the wrong cottage. The place was clean.

  “Mom?” Meri called out, noticing that the counters were cleared and wiped off and the dishwasher was making its happy, whirling sound. Even the table had been returned to its usual position.

  “In here,” Mom called from the back of the house. “I’m looking for a—” Her words were sliced through with a piercing scream.

  Dad took off running toward the back guest room. “Ellen, what is it? Are you okay?”

  Meri heard a loud thump. She dashed back and entered the guest room right after her father. Mom was flat on the floor with her eyes closed. Sprawled across her was Guard Man Fred, who had fallen out of the closet.

  “Hey!” Meri’s dad yelled in alarm. He grabbed Fred by the shoulder and belted him one, right on the ol’ kisser.

  Fred’s baseball cap flew across the room, and Fred flopped to the floor, his pleasant expression unchanged. Ellen Graham’s startled eyes opened and darted to and fro across the room.

  Meredith’s dad stood his ground, fist drawn, face red. When the mannequin didn’t move, he leaned in for a closer look and said, “What? Who? How?”

  “Meredith Jane Graham!” her mother spouted, pulling herself up. “Of all the …!”

  “He’s not real?” Dad surmised.

  “What are you doing with that thing lurking in your closet?”

  “Where did you get such an absurd, ridiculous.” Her father’s voice trailed off.

  “From your sister,” Meredith said, swallowing her laughter.

  “Jane sent you that?” Dad’s face was still beet red.

  “For my birthday,” Meri answered. “She says she takes her Guard Man all around town with her for protection, which is what she thought I needed since I live alone here in the tules.”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other. Neither of them was willing to place blame on anyone now that the truth had come out and it pointed to Aunt Jane—that subject no one wanted to discuss.

  “I named him Fred,” Meredith said, a silliness bubble gurgling up inside her. “What do you think? He’s a pretty good dancer and not real opinionated about stuff. The strong, silent type.”

  Mom smoothed back her hair. “Honestly,” she muttered.

  “What were you doing in here, Ellen?” Dad said, still sounding gruff.

  “Looking for a mop. I looked everywhere else. Don’t you own a mop, Meredith?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “How in the world do you clean your floor?”

  “With Windex and paper towels.”

  Mom looked at her incredulously.

  “It’s not a very big kitchen floor, Mother!”

  Completely unraveled, Mom excused herself and went back out to the kitchen where her comforting cup of java waited for her on the counter. Meredith stuffed Fred back in the closet and, still swallowing her laughter, joined her mom and dad.

  “Thanks for cleaning up, Mom,” Meri said. “You didn’t have to.” She understood after her talk with dad how necessary it was for her mom to have something to order, sort, and organize. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t bother her that Mom had cleaned up the remains of her birthday party. “I really appreciate it.”

  “I couldn’t save much of the food,” Mom said with a cluck of her tongue. “And such a pity. You left it out all night, and I didn’t feel it was safe to keep.”

  Meredith nodded. She hoped Mom wouldn’t launch into a lecture about how when she was a girl they had to eat everything on their plates because food might not be available tomorrow.

  “Anyone else starving?” Meri asked, hoping to change the subject and get them out of the house—and get herself off the hot seat. But the minute she said it, she realized the timing and subject were bad.

  “We could have had lunch here with the leftovers I had to throw out,” Mom said, shaking her head.

  “Come on.” Dad tenderly led his wife by the elbow. “I’d like to take you both to lunch.”

  Meredith sat in the backseat and looked out the window. Somehow this position felt strange. When she was really little she had been the one who sat in the front between Mom and Dad while her three sisters ruled the backseat. Meri had secretly longed to be old enough or at least big enough to be relegated to the backseat, where her sisters
pushed each other and whispered and always had fun things to read. Now she had the backseat all to herself and found it a lonely place.

  “I told Meri about the board’s decision,” Dad said to Mom as they drove into town. “She asked if we would like her to come to the service tomorrow morning.”

  “What did you tell her?” Mom asked.

  “I told her I thought that would be nice.”

  Meri felt strange sitting in the backseat of Dad’s Buick, being talked about as if she weren’t there. Was this what criminals felt like in the back of a squad car?

  “Okay,” Mom said. Dad had been waiting for Mom’s stamp of approval before the invitation would be official.

  He glanced at Meri in the rearview mirror. “We’ll look for you, then, a little before ten. Now, tell us, where’s the best place for lunch around here?”

  Meredith suggested several places, and Mom made the final decision. Their time together was comfortable. The conversation revolved around the usual catching up on what was happening with family and friends. None of them brought up the impending crisis of Dad’s forced retirement.

  Later that evening, Meredith thought perhaps it had been better that way. Dad had told her what he wanted her to know. They didn’t have any other details yet. To hash it all out would have been painful for her parents.

  But Meredith was of the opinion that difficult situations should be talked through. People should examine their hearts and their minds to decide the next step. She had pushed her ever practical sister to reconsider her relationship with Jonathan during a time when Shelly couldn’t admit she still felt something for him. Meredith liked to think that had been a good thing, especially since Jonathan and Shelly ended up together.

  With her parents, though, she never pushed. They had their own set way of dealing with problems, and Meredith didn’t see it as her place to instruct them in new methods of conflict resolution.

  Taking the cordless phone out onto the front deck and perching on the railing, Meredith pressed three on her speed dial. Shelly answered, and Meredith could hear laughter in the background.

  “Hi, did I catch you in the middle of a party?”

  “Meri!” Shelly squealed. “We were just talking about you. It’s Meri, you guys!”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “Kyle and Jess, Lauren and Kenton, Jake, Jonathan, and me. Remember? I told you Jake was coming. He was just telling us about your Mr. Guard Man and the tango or whatever it was you were dancing when he got there last night.”

  Meredith leaned her head against the porch’s wooden frame. With the disruption of her parents’ visit, she had forgotten Jake was going down to Shelly’s.

  “Don’t believe a word he says,” Meri pleaded.

  “I think it’s hilarious!” Shelly said. Another round of laughter echoed in the phone.

  Meredith found it disturbing to be the life of the party when she wasn’t even there. “I just wanted to let you know something that’s going on with Mom and Dad. I don’t know if Mom was planning to call you or not.”

  The reverberation of Bob Two’s bark broke up her words as Shelly said, “Just a minute.”

  Meri waited, and a moment later she heard a door closing, and the noise greatly diminished. “There,” Shelly said. “I’m in the bedroom now. What did you say about Mom and Dad?”

  Meri told her sister about Dad’s announcement. Shelly had the same angered reaction Meri had.

  “I’m going to the ten o’clock service tomorrow,” Meri said. “I wanted to show them my support, but it seemed hard for them to accept it.”

  “Do you think Jonathan and I should come?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a long drive for you guys to get there by ten o’clock. You would have to leave at around three in the morning, wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe we could fly up,” Shelly suggested. “I think there’s a seven-fifty out of Eugene we could catch. I’ll ask Jonathan what he thinks. I agree with you. Mom and Dad would never ask for our support, but this is one time when I think they would really appreciate it. Have you told Molly?”

  “No. I think Mom wants to tell them after it’s official. If you guys need a ride from the airport, let me know.”

  “No, I’m sure we’ll rent a car if we come up. It’ll be quicker. Thanks so much for calling. I wish Mom and Dad would have told us what was going on.”

  “I know. I think it’s their generation or something. They feel more comfortable keeping woes to themselves.”

  “Maybe so,” Shelly agreed.

  “I’d better let you get back to your party.”

  “By the way,” Shelly said, “the meeting went great today with Jake, Kyle, and Jonathan. It looks as if they’re going to start filming here in about a month. You have to come down. It’s going to be great fun. Jake offered our kitchen staff a contract to cater all the food for the crew. We’re going to be busy! Our first group of campers for the summer arrives three weeks from tomorrow.”

  “You will be busy,” Meri agreed.

  “Oh, hey,” Shelly said, “I heard about your goldfish. Jake said you named him Elvis. Was he another birthday present from Aunt Jane?”

  “No,” Meri said, offended by her sister’s insinuation that Elvis was a strange sort of pet. “I bought him myself. He’s adorable.”

  Shelly laughed. “I’m sure he is. I’d better go. I’ll let you know what Jonathan and I decide about tomorrow. Ciao, baby.”

  “Ciao, baby?” Meredith repeated. Shelly didn’t hear; she had already hung up. Was that movie-star talk or something?

  Meredith sat on the railing and watched the sky turn pink in the west. That afternoon she had weeded and watered her garden. Now the rich scent of earth mixed with the evening breeze as the day cooled her heels, ready to hand off the baton to the night.

  On an impulse, Meredith went into the house and pulled something from her hall closet that she hadn’t looked at in months. She returned to the deck and opened the case. Lifting out the mouthpiece, Meri put the three parts of the silver stock together. With an agile fluttering of her fingers, the keys of her long-dormant instrument flexed their soft pads over the holes.

  After blowing warm air into the chilly flute, Meri took a deep breath. It all came back to her. “Nocturne of the Flower Fairies.” The first six bars rumbled low and mellow, sounding like the deep-chested humming of a miner coming up from the belly of the earth. Then it tumbled into the next measure like runaway dandelions racing across a meadow. Sweet, high, trilling notes echoed through the cedars. The playful refrain repeated as she played the end of the song without error.

  Taking a breath that came from the hollow of her very soul, Meredith kissed the last note a tender farewell and let it breeze through her flute. That final note, an A-flat, released itself into the splendid night air, dancing and twirling as if it held in its arms an invisible flower fairy.

  Meredith laid the flute in her lap and pressed her lips together. The only sound to be heard in the forest was the haunting call of the lonely bird in the tall trees. “Fee-bee, fee-bee,” it cried.

  Chapter Eighteen

  All the enchantment of Meri’s Saturday night concert was gone with the morning sun. She rose early to another warm, sunny day and hurriedly dressed in her most conservative beige suit. She caught the ferry just as she had hoped and arrived at church at twenty to ten.

  Shelly and Jonathan had decided to fly up and arrived in their rental car about ten minutes after Meri. The three of them sat in the front row next to Mom, who was wearing an old dress. She had a dark look around the eyes but kept her thoughts to herself.

  Dad stood in the pulpit, looking like a pillar of strength and virtue, as always. His sermon was on Gideon and how, when the angel of God appeared to Gideon, the angel called Gideon a “mighty man of valor.” Dad preached on how we are all called to be strong and courageous when God asks us to do his work, especially when we don’t feel strong or courageous.

  Shelly and Meredith gave each oth
er little pokes during the sermon. When they were little they used to nonchalantly pinch each other on the thigh to tease and torment during the long sermons. Now their pokes expressed love and a sharing in their knowledge of Dad’s deeper message behind his sermon.

  Mom sat tall and straight and kept her eyes forward.

  At the end of the sermon, Dad made his announcement. His voice quavered a little at the end. The congregation gave a strange response. Some whispered in surprise. Some rustled in their seats. Overall, there was a startled hush.

  Meri had noticed when they entered the church that the majority of the congregation were people over fifty. Many of them she had known her whole life, and they had greeted her with hugs and smeared lipstick kisses on her cheeks. The congregation was warm and loving and had been generous to the Graham family over the years.

  However, very few young couples or singles Meri’s age attended the service. And no teenagers, offering hope for a next generation of believers, sat in the pews. In a way, Meri could see why the board felt compelled to make a change in their pastoral staff. Everyone knows that the most money in tithes comes from the young families, especially the double-income households. Only the occasional retired parishioner who is well off will make a large contribution.

  Meri felt angry with herself for allowing her thoughts to go that direction. Even though she knew it could be true, she didn’t want to think that perhaps the board had made its decision to let Dad go based on finances. This was a large church facility on prime downtown real estate. Even with the weeknight activities, the building wasn’t being used to its potential and hadn’t been for a number of years.

  It was all very sad. Being there, in the front row, and looking at her balding father as he held up his wrinkled hands in a benediction over the congregation brought Meri to tears.

  They all went to her parents’ home after church. As she had always done in their youth, Mom had stuck a pot roast in the oven before church. The house smelled warm and inviting. It was a glad, familiar fragrance.