The Presence

by T. Davis Bunn

  ****

  After his Bible study the next morning, TJ came downstairs. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee lured him to the kitchen, a room equipped with white breakfast table and chairs, white cabinets, and all the most modern conveniences. Light streamed through floor-to-ceiling bay windows opening from the breakfast nook onto the garden.

  Jeremy was seated at the table with a cup of coffee and an open Bible in front of him. TJ paused in the doorway long enough to take in the two places set for breakfast, the coffeepot on the stove, the bacon draining on a paper towel, and the eggs waiting beside the frying pan.

  “I don’t recall ever seeing you in a tie before,” TJ said in greeting.

  Jeremy did not even look up. “Catherine warned me not to expect a civil word out of you until you’d had your second cup of coffee.”

  “When did you talk to Catherine?”

  “This morning. She said to tell you that Elaine’s doing much better. She also said for you to behave yourself and remember what you’re up here for. I told her that if you started to forget I’d take it as my personal responsibility to whang you upside the head with that fryin’ pan over there.”

  “Did she say when she was coming up?”

  “Directly.” Jeremy stood and moved to the stove. “How many eggs you want?”

  “One. What does that mean, ‘directly’?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. Your daughter still isn’t well enough to manage two little kids and a house by herself.” Jeremy broke an egg into the skillet. “She didn’t say it, but I imagine Catherine figures you’re gonna have your hands full gettin’ used to this new work. She’ll be up after you’ve had a chance to settle in.”

  TJ poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “I don’t imagine this job is going to be so difficult that my wife has to wait to join me.”

  Jeremy turned around, propped the hand holding the spatula on his hip, and gave his friend a look of pure pity. “Wasn’t either one of us talkin’ about the job, TJ.”

  TJ sipped his coffee, slid Jeremy’s Bible around. It was opened to Habakkuk. “What are you reading him for?”

  “Now that’s an intelligent question if I ever heard one.” Jeremy took a pitcher of orange juice out of the refrigerator, poured two glasses, and set them in front of TJ with a clatter. “You ‘bout ready to tell me what’s really botherin’ you?”

  “All right,” TJ agreed. “How long do you intend on keeping this up, Jem?”

  “I kinda figured you weren’t going to do the sensible thing and just let it be,” Jeremy said. He scooped up the egg, placed three strips of bacon beside it on a plate, opened the oven door and brought out a plate of toast, then set it all down before TJ. “One thing I gotta do today is buy us a toaster.”

  “You’re not joining me?”

  “Be right there. Go ahead and start. We can bless it in your belly just as well as on the plate.” Jeremy broke two eggs into the sizzling pan. “Times like this, I really miss Ella. She had a way with words that I always loved to hear. Wasn’t much she couldn’t help a person understand. I never could decide if it was what she said or the way she said it that I liked better.”

  TJ paused with a forkful of egg in midair. Jeremy seldom talked about his dead wife. The loss remained an open wound. “She was a fine woman, Jem.”

  “That she was. Better’n anything I deserved havin’, that’s for sure.” Jeremy loaded his plate and sat down, then folded his massive work-worn hands above his plate and bowed his head. TJ laid down his fork and closed his eyes.

  “Lord,” Jeremy began, “I’ve always been better at givin’ orders than at persuadin’ people. Takes ten times longer and a hundred times the words, and you never gave me the patience or the knowledge. My brother here needs me, and I know in my soul this is where you want me to be. But I don’t know how to make him see that. So it’s up to you, Father. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.”

  “You forgot to bless the food.”

  “It’s a free country,” Jeremy said, digging into his bacon and eggs. “You got any complaints, you go right ahead and do your own thing.”

  TJ picked up his fork, laid it down again. “I just don’t feel comfortable having you do this, Jem.”

  “Doin’ it for you is what you mean. If you’d just get it through that thick head of yours that I’m doin’ it for the Man upstairs, you wouldn’t have any trouble with it at all.”

  “You really feel that way?”

  “Never felt surer of anything in my life. Felt it in my bones the first moment I realized He really had spoken to you. Now eat your breakfast before that egg freezes to your plate.” Jeremy chewed a few more bites, then said, “I’ve been starin’ retirement in the face for a couple of years now, TJ. All those things I’ve been doin’—the schools and the boat and the relief program—it’s all felt like I was just bidin’ time. I always figured I was just gettin’ ready to follow Ella on across the Great Divide. But not anymore. Nossir. For the first time in I don’t know how long I know I’m where I’m supposed to be. Doin’ exactly what the Lord wants me to do. And that’s all that matters, old friend. I feel like my whole life has been leadin’ up to this moment. Don’t know why, but that don’t matter either.”

  “You’re too young to be thinking about retirement,” TJ said mildly.

  “I’ve got a great future, and it’s all behind me. All I’ve got left is servin’ the Lord, and where He wants me to be is right here.”

  “Did you talk to Catherine about this?”

  “Now that’s a remarkable woman. I was all huffin’ and puffin’, figurin’ she was gonna be up in arms about me crowdin’ her. Know what she did? Kissed me on the cheek and said I was a blessing. That’s what she said. A blessing. Said you’d put up a fight, but that I was to just hang in there and you’d come around.”

  “Catherine said that?”

  “The day I left and again this morning. Said you were prob’ly determined to go out there and face the world all by yourself. I was to remind you that the Lord didn’t say anything about you marchin’ in solitude. He just said ‘go.’ ““But we can’t afford this house, Jem.”

  “We who?” Jeremy laughed.

  “I mean I can’t.”

  “I thought that was gonna come up sooner or later. You think maybe you could refresh my mem’ry, tell me what the Bible says about pride?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Everything. You know good and well, better’n me prob’ly, how much I’m worth. What’m I supposed to do with it besides help others in the Lord’s name?”

  “There’re others who need it more than I do, Jem.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll get their share. I’ve already started workin’ on that.”

  “You must be spending a fortune on this place.”

  “Yeah, I had myself a real good holler when the real estate lady told me how much this cost. In actual fact, she told me I was gettin’ it for a song ‘cause the owner was in a hurry to go overseas. The thing is, TJ, it seems expensive because we’re used to down-home prices. This here house would fit in your basement back home, and that’s a fact.” He held up his hand. “I know what you’re gonna say. But listen, old buddy. There’s gonna be some real tough times comin’ down. I can feel it in my bones. He didn’t bring you up here for any old picnic.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that too,” TJ confessed.

  “Yeah, well, you and Catherine are gonna need a place to come home to, you understand what I’m sayin’? An island of peace. I tell you, TJ, there hasn’t been anything in a whole long time that’s felt as right as gettin’ this house for y’all.”

  “You mean for us,” TJ said, giving in.

  “That’s right, and don’t you forget it.” Jeremy hid his pleasure in a flurry of activity. “You best go get yourself ready for work while I tidy things up here. We need to leave extra early this morning. I’ve studied a map, but I swear we might end up in Kentucky before I find my
way downtown.”

  TJ climbed the curving stairs, tried to accustom himself to the fact that this was his home. He looked around the spacious bedroom with its four-poster bed and period furniture, then stepped into the marble-tiled bath. He stood in front of the full-length mirror that opened into a walk-in closet.

  His friends said TJ was a man whose age was hard to place. He could look fifty, they said, or thirty, depending on whether he was smiling. In truth he was fifty-three, and for the past few years had been struggling against a bulging middle. But in a suit he looked fighting fit, broad in the shoulders and tapering to a leanness accented by his six-foot height.

  His reddish brown curls were trimmed close to his head. He had inherited most of his grandfather’s face—a strong jaw, razor-sharp features, slightly slanted eyes—but there among the harshness were his mother’s full lips. And the color of his skin told the whole world about his father.

  TJ learned about his heritage at the ripe old age of eleven. After a long week of worry he approached his grandfather. He did not hesitate because he was afraid his grandfather would be angry. His grandfather’s stern yet placid nature was one of the foundations upon which his young life was based. No, he hesitated because he knew his grandfather would be totally honest.

  His grandfather had a favorite chair, a throne that was reserved for his exclusive use in the evenings. When TJ had been very young, that chair had been his favorite playground during the day. No matter how miserable he might have felt at any time, the chair was there to embrace him with the ancient strength of his grandfather.

  The chair was an old winged horesehair monstrosity with a back so high that TJ could barely see over it when he stood on the seat. The chair was covered with a blood-red crushed velour that his grandmother despised. She tried on numerous occasions to get his grandfather to let her have it re-covered. You most certainly may, was his traditional reply. On the day I am dead and buried you may take it out and burn it as far as I am concerned. The chair stayed as it was.

  Beside it stood an equally ancient brass lamp, an enormous edifice as tall as a man. It possessed a magnificent total of five bulbs, which could be turned on one-by-one until the brightness rivaled the sun. As a child, TJ loved to turn the switch, watching with fascination as the room became illuminated in stages. His grandfather would lift him, his strong old hands around TJ’s ribs, squeezing so hard it threatened to stop his breathing as he switched the bulbs up to four. The only time all five were lit was when his grandmother sat across the room reading her Bible.

  That evening he stood at the doorway for the longest time, watching his grandfather read the newspaper and wondering if he should ask. He was almost ready to turn away when his grandfather lowered the paper slightly and peered over the top of the glasses that always slid down his nose as he read.

  “What you want, son?”

  “I was just wondering something,” TJ said lamely, wishing he could back out, knowing it was too late.

  “Well, these old ears can’t hear if you’re gonna talk like a summer wind and stand on the other side of the room.”

  The old man dropped the paper to his lap and signaled him to come nearer. Standing beside his grandfather’s chair, his eyes dancing all over the room, TJ asked, “I was just wondering why you don’t never talk about my daddy.”

  His grandfather sighed. “Been waiting for you to ask me this,” he said, his voice a rumbly echo and his face grave as he carefully folded his paper and laid it on the side table. “Kept wondering whether I should say something, but how’s a body supposed to know? I just decided to leave it up to the Lord. I figured He’d know better than me when it was time.”

  His grandfather’s tone set TJ’s heart to hammering. He stood on legs that suddenly felt weak and wished he were somewhere else, anywhere else, knowing without knowing what was about to come.

  “Son, your momma ran away to marry your daddy,” his grandfather said, reaching one hand out to caress TJ’s shoulder, as though feeding strength to young limbs.

  “But Grandma said—”

  “I know what your grandma’s been saying, and I know how she’s spent years tiptoeing all around this subject. She’s done the best she knew how, raising a boy when most people her age are getting ready to meet their Maker. You know I never said anything when she started off on her stories, you know how I always left the room, and you know I’ve never lied to you in all your life. And that’s why you’ve come to me, isn’t it?”

  TJ nodded, growing more scared by the minute.

  “Son, your momma fell in love with a white boy when she was eighteen years old. I don’t mean she was infatuated. I mean that little girl was totally head over heels in love with the man.

  “We all make mistakes, son. All of us. Your granddaddy most of all. I gave that angel an ultimatum. You know what that is? Well, that’s when you tell somebody they’ve got to either do what you say or else. I told your momma—” The old man stopped, clenched his jaw for a moment, then went on in a quieter voice. “I told your momma that she either had to leave that boy or leave my house. Two days later she quit school and ran off with him to Boston.

  “We all pay for our mistakes. All of us. I lost my little girl for being such a pigheaded fool. Maybe God will be able to forgive me. I hope so, because I sure as goodness can’t.”

  He was silent so long that TJ thought his grandfather had forgotten he wasn’t alone. The boy stirred impatiently, and his grandfather turned two misty eyes toward him. He seemed to search his mind for a moment before bringing the world back into focus.

  He sighed a shaky breath. “We didn’t hear anything for eleven of the longest months in my life. Then a letter came, just four lines long. The boy had died of pneumonia in the coldest winter anybody could remember. She didn’t have any money for food and she was pregnant. She knew that we”—the old man stopped, fought for control, went on—“she knew that we hated her, she said. She asked for pity for the sake of her unborn child.

  “I drove up to Boston and brought her back. Child wasn’t nothing but skin and bones. Your grandma spent what time she had putting some meat back on her. But she never came home. Not really. The light in her had died with that boy.”

  He looked down at TJ, tears flowing freely now, not the least ashamed of crying. “It was love that brought you onto this earth, child. That’s the one thing you got to remember above all else. Your momma loved your daddy with all her heart and soul, and she never got over losing him. When she went into labor, the doctor saw at once that she was too weak. Said he’d have to do a Cesarean to save you. That’s when the doctor cuts a hole in the mother’s stomach and takes out the baby. But while he was doing that, your momma just slipped away. He did what he had to do, son. He brought you into this world and made sure you were all right. Then he tried to save her, but it was too late. She was gone.”

  TJ clung to his grandfather and cried, and the old man held him close, rocking him gently. “It was hate that killed your momma, son. I’ve waited these eleven years to tell you how sorry I am, and to say I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me for what I did. Hate and fear are the devil’s tools, son. White against black, black against white, it don’t make the tiniest bit of difference. It’s a sin big as all creation. And I promised God there wouldn’t be any of it in the way I brought you up. It’s too late to do anything about your momma, son, but sure as tomorrow’s sunrise, this is one lesson you’re gonna learn from me.”

  ****

  Jeremy pulled up to the Old Executive Office Building entrance on Seventeenth Street. Beyond the gate and the uniformed guard the building loomed like a palace, all lofty towers and spires and turrets and gray granite carved in gingerbread shapes.

  “Got that letter in case they ask?” Jeremy inquired quietly.

  “In my briefcase,” said TJ, making no move to leave the car.

  “Well, if there was ever a time for prayer, this is it.”

  “You start,” TJ suggested.

 
; “Heavenly Father,” Jeremy prayed, “all-powerful Lord, we stand here before you and ask for your help. We are dwarfed by the might of this world. It is so big and fancy and impressive. It makes us feel so small. Help us remember who you are, Lord. Help us remember that all power comes from you.

  “I’m prayin’ for my brother here, Lord. He’s answered your call, and he’s come to a place far from home. Watch over him, Father. Guide his footsteps. Give him the strength he needs to do your will.”

  TJ remained silent a moment, then began to pray. “Lord, everything in my heart has been spoken by my brother. Thank you for sending Jem to enrich my life. It is at times like these that I realize how truly important friendship is, and what it means to be brothers in Christ. Make us vessels of your love and mercy. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

  The two men raised their heads and knew a moment of embarrassed silence, as most men will after letting their hearts be seen. TJ studied the misty rain that had begun trickling down the windshield until he saw Jeremy stick out his hand. With effort he met his friend’s gaze.

  “Go get ’em, TJ.”

  He found himself reluctant to let go of that rock-hard hand. “Why do I feel as if I’m about to be fed to the lions?”

  Jeremy smiled. “Prob’ly because you are.”

  Chapter Six

  Breakfast at Au Pied de Cochon had become a daily ritual for Congressman John Silverwood. “At the Foot of the Pig”—he remembered enough of his college French to translate the name—was an all-night cafe possessing a sort of low-life charm. It was also the only neighborhood place open at six in the morning, which was when he normally wanted breakfast. At that hour the clientele consisted of groggy lovers just ending a night of revelry and early risers trying to get a jump on the competition.

  The restaurant was a three-block stroll from Silverwood’s small Georgetown house. Actually “small” did not begin to describe it, especially when he thought of what he had left behind in North Carolina. This place was four cramped rooms on three floors, with bathrooms so squeezed under stairways and eaves that he could not stand up straight in the shower. From the outside the house was quaint, and the address and location were what he’d been looking for, but none of the rooms were large enough to give him any breathing space. And the price was simply staggering.