The Presence

by T. Davis Bunn

  “It is the most beautiful experience,” TJ replied instantly. “And the most natural. Sometimes when it is upon me, I feel as though the whole world could live all the time knowing this peace, if only it would put aside its selfish ways and learn to follow the Lord.”

  “Is that the way you feel right now?”

  “Yessir, it is.”

  “Thought so,” President Nichols said. “I’ve been feeling that sense of, I don’t know, power is probably the best way to describe it, ever since you came into the room.”

  “It would be very wrong to ascribe it to me, Mr. President. I am only a human being whom God has reached out and touched. He uses me to reach out and touch others.”

  “I understand.” The President leaned forward. “So tell me, Mr. Case, what is it I’m supposed to be doing that I’m not?”

  There was a sensation of being consumed within a pillar of light. And from the Presence came the reply which he spoke. “It is time for you to choose, Mr. President. Which direction will you take? If you decide to follow the Lord, then it must be a wholehearted move. You must seek out the Lord’s will on all decisions, on all actions. It must take precedence over politics, over the needs of the office, over the needs of your party, and over your future as a politician. It is a total commitment to lead this nation away from darkness. You cannot do it by executive order. You must do it by example. The people of this nation need a leader to whom they can turn for inspiration. They require spiritual as well as political guidance. An example must be set. A direction must be chosen and adhered to. And it can be done only by you, Mr. President. This is your greatest challenge. It is your primary responsibility as leader of your people.”

  The President turned and looked into the fire, silent for a very long time. TJ waited patiently.

  Finally he shook his head, said softly, “The mistakes I’ve made.”

  “It is nothing that cannot be undone were you willing to accept Christ as your Savior and Lord and turn your life over to the doing of His will,” TJ replied.

  The President did not turn from the fire. “It’s as simple as that, is it?” He did not sound convinced.

  “The commitment of your life to God is only the first step,” TJ replied. “The learning and the doing and the facing up to challenges will last for the rest of your life.”

  President Nichols turned back to TJ, asked in a quiet voice, “So where do I start?”

  TJ replied, “Perhaps you might like to join me in prayer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jeremy hesitated before knocking on the open door. “What you doin’ in here, TJ?”

  “Come on in, Jeremy.” TJ finished folding up the pages, fitted them into the envelope, asked, “Do you have any idea what Catherine’s done with the stamps?”

  “Ain’t they in that little drawer with the extra pens?”

  “So they are.” TJ licked and fastened a couple on the corner. “Where’s Catherine?”

  “She’s upstairs. Didn’t you hear her call?”

  “No, I guess I was a little preoccupied. I wanted to finish this and get it in the mail.” He pressed the envelope closed, asked, “Jem, could I please ask you to do a favor for me?”

  “Sure thing, buddy.”

  “Could you please walk down and put this in the mailbox? I’m sorry to ask, I know it’s late, but this needs to go out first thing tomorrow morning. I’d do it myself, but I honestly don’t know if I’ve got the strength left to make it down there.”

  Jeremy was all concern. “You coming down with something, TJ?”

  TJ smiled at his friend. “No, I’m just tired, is all.”

  “It hasn’t been an easy road for you, has it?”

  “No,” TJ replied softly. “Not that easy. But it won’t be long now.”

  “Sounded to me like the man was going to have you stay on a while.”

  TJ looked up at his friend, said, “Jem, if there were only some way I could tell you how much your friendship’s meant to me.”

  Jeremy seemed embarrassed. “Ain’t no need for you to say that, TJ.”

  “No, there isn’t, is there,” TJ agreed. “You’ve known it all along. I just wish I knew the words to thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “Shoot. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

  “I don’t mean just here in Washington.” TJ’s eyes glistened. “You’re the best friend a man could ask for, Jem. A true brother in Christ.”

  “Now you just stop that before you have us both blubberin’,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “Who’s the letter to?”

  TJ gave it to him, asked, “Do you remember Reverend Harbridge back home at the Church of New Zion?”

  “‘Course I do.” Reverend Harbridge had taken Reverend Amos Taylor’s place at the church upon his retirement at the age of eighty. Jeremy hefted the letter, said, “You been busy, old son.”

  “I had a lot to say,” TJ replied, and stood. “Jem, I want—”

  “Now you just hold it right there, TJ,” Jeremy said. “I can’t think of anythin’ much sillier than two grown men standin’ around bawlin’, and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen if you keep on.”

  TJ walked around the writing table, came up to his friend, put his arms around the man’s shoulders, drew him close. Jeremy hesitated, then awkwardly embraced him back.

  When TJ released him, Jeremy wouldn’t meet his eye. “I’ll just go get my coat,” he said gruffly.

  TJ was waiting for him at the front door. He held it open, said quietly, “Thank you, old friend.”

  “Won’t be but a moment,” Jeremy replied, still avoiding his gaze.

  TJ shut the door, turned, and walked up the stairs. He entered the bedroom, found Catherine propped up in bed, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, all four pillows behind her back, the Bible open in her lap.

  “Where you been, honey?” she asked.

  “There was a little something I needed to finish up,” he replied, walked around, and sat down on the bed beside her. TJ took his wife’s hand in both of his, began playing with her wedding ring. He smiled faintly, asked, “You remember the day I slipped this on your finger?”

  With her free hand Catherine took off her glasses, said, “Child, what on earth’s gotten into you?”

  “I was so scared,” TJ said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been as scared in my whole life.” He looked into her eyes, said, “Marrying you was the best move I’ve ever made, Catherine.”

  Her look softened. She placed her other hand on top of his, murmured, “How you do go on.”

  “You’re the best wife a man could ask for,” he said. “I just hope I’ve been worthy of you. I know I’ve made mistakes, a lot of them, but I’ve tried to be the best husband I could. I really have.”

  She gave him that deep-down chuckle, said, “I do believe I know now what my man is after.”

  He shared her smile, said, “All I want is to be here with you. You know I couldn’t have done this without you, don’t you?”

  She inspected his face a long moment, growing steadily more solemn. “Is it what you told me about this morning?”

  With a slow movement of his head, TJ nodded once. His eyes never left hers. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  Catherine had to swallow before she could reply, “I didn’t think the time was coming so quick.”

  “It’s the Lord’s timing, Catherine, not ours,” TJ told her, his voice as soft as his eyes. “There are still the children, honey. It’s your choice.”

  She gave a heartfelt sigh and set her head back against the pillows. Wrapping her fingers around his, she drew their hands up close to her heart. “I can hardly believe this is real.”

  “I love you with all my heart,” TJ said.

  She drew him to her with a violent strength. “You’re my man,” she said.

  With a soft and silent beginning, that quiet, holy Presence filled the room, so gentle, so gradual, that at first it was hard f
or either to believe that He was truly there.

  “Honey!” Catherine held her husband close with excited fingers. “What is it?”

  His voice was sure, the words the last he ever spoke.

  “The Lord is here,” was all he said.

  The light grew beyond the power of human vision, and with it grew a love so total, so complete that there was room for nothing else. All was light. All was love. All was eternal.

  ****

  Jeremy had his hand on the mailbox slot when the blast rocked him. People screamed up and down Connecticut Avenue as windows shattered and cars swerved in their paths. Jeremy leaned on the mailbox for support, his hand still clenched to the letter, and let the sobs wrack his body. He ignored the cries and the running footsteps and the sirens and the people. He stood where he was and bowed his head and cried for what he knew had happened.

  When he could, he turned around, the tears streaming down his face, and said to no one in particular, “I believe I’ll just deliver this letter in person.”

  EPILOGUE

  They made fairly good time, all things considered. The motorcade leaving Washington in the early morning darkness was over a mile long. Jeremy and Nak rode in the first car with Reverend Wilkins and TJ’s eldest daughter, who had come up to accompany them home. The lights on the squad cars up ahead continued to blink in through the front window, hurting Jeremy’s eyes. The funeral service was to be held at noon, so they left at four in the morning, which was fine with Jeremy. He hadn’t slept much the last few days.

  For reasons Jeremy could not explain, he had decided to drive rather than fly the bodies home. There was something solemn about the process of driving his friends on their final journey. It just seemed to fit better than putting them in a plane and flying them home. Much better.

  The telephone had rung constantly. Although the blast had almost completely destroyed the back of the house, Jeremy insisted on sleeping on the sofa in the living room. He ignored the detectives and the yellow police-warning tape and the curious onlookers. TJ’s secretaries brought him sandwiches and words of encouragement.

  Two phone calls had stayed with him through it all. The first had come from Congressman John Silverwood. The man had sounded totally shattered, his pain so sharp that it had cut its way through the fog of Jeremy’s own grief. I can’t talk to TJ anymore, the man had said time and again. I know it’s too late for that. Jeremy had struggled for words that might have eased the man’s agony. The Lord is here with us, he had said. At that Silverwood had completely broken down. I don’t know how to talk to Him either, he had told Jeremy. Over the phone Jeremy prayed for the man’s relief from sorrow, feeling the words had been aimed more at himself than at the congressman.

  The second call had been from the President of the United States. It had come early in the morning after another sleepless night, and Jeremy had not been able to respond. The man had seemed truly bereaved, but before Jeremy could share in his sorrow, the President promised a full inquiry into the cause of TJ’s death. Jeremy had felt himself return to his familiar numbed state as he thanked him and hung up as quickly and politely as possible.

  Most of the phone calls were from people who wanted to be a little closer to the center of their grief, who needed details of the funeral service. Jeremy told everyone when and where the service was to be held, when the procession would leave, and suggested that everyone just fly down. But by three-thirty in the morning of their departure for Raleigh, there were over four hundred fifty cars parked as far away as Dupont Circle, all waiting for the motorcade to get underway.

  Jeremy was pleased to see Senator Atterly’s limousine directly behind the hearse, completely filled with friends from the Community of Hope. The senator spent the entire trip down discussing various ways that he might be of further assistance. His staff filled two more cars farther back in the line.

  Almost as soon as the motorcade crossed the North Carolina border, dawn broke upon a cloudless sky. By the time the mourners arrived at the Church of New Zion, the day had turned warm and spring-like. The procession was by then national news, and had been buzzed a dozen times by low-flying television helicopters. It passed through Raleigh as though guided by remote control. Patrol cars guarded every major intersection, and officers replaced stoplights to wave them on through.

  The Church of New Zion had done what it could to prepare. There was no way the church could hold the crowd, no way at all. So all the pews had been carried outside and set in careful rows. Behind them were placed all the folding chairs the church could possibly find. At the front was the altar and low stage used for revival meetings, with a space reserved before it for the two coffins.

  Thankfully, it had been a mild winter—so mild, in fact, that it had seemed to many as though autumn had simply drifted into an early spring. The dogwoods encircling the churchyard had grown fresh leaves, and now the first blossoms were beginning to appear. In the sparkling spring sunlight it seemed as though the motorcade was pulling up to a brilliant field of green, crowned the entire way around by snow-covered trees.

  As pallbearer, Jeremy helped carry the coffins up through the long line of local mourners. There was almost total silence, broken occasionally by the sound of quiet weeping and the sporadic birdsong. Jeremy kept a tightly clenched jaw and willed himself to hold fast to his composure. As soon as the caskets were set in place he fled to the distant perimeter, only to be recruited by a frantic Nak. He was trying to help the police and sort out the press, keeping them to the separate line of chairs set underneath the dogwoods. Jeremy didn’t mind lending a hand. It kept his mind occupied. It also gave him a chance to console a teary-eyed Sandra Hastings and send her up into the mourners’ section. By the time he had corralled all the photographers and cameramen seeking pictures of the three senators, nine congressmen and two members of the President’s Cabinet who dotted the crowd, Jeremy was feeling much more in control.

  Jeremy stood between the press section and the main gathering, watching people reaching over the rows to shake hands, seeing many shared hugs, murmurs and tears. He was in no hurry to move. A man in a hurry needed someplace to go.

  “You’re Jeremy Hughes, aren’t you?”

  Jeremy turned around, saw an overweight woman with bright red hair and weepy eyes. “Yes, ma’am, that’s me.”

  “I’m Bella Saunders. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Jeremy held out his hand, said, “TJ’s talked so much about you I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. It’s a real honor to meet you, Miss Saunders.”

  “Call me Bella. Please. Everybody else does.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tattered tissue, said brokenly, “I feel as if my whole world’s been shattered.”

  “Know just how you feel,” Jeremy replied. “Would you care to sit with me, Bella?”

  “If you don’t mind sitting next to a fat old woman who’s gonna bawl her eyes out.”

  “I’d consider it a privilege,” Jeremy replied. “Besides, it’ll keep people from payin’ too much attention to me. C’mon, I think there’s some chairs up front where we’re supposed to sit.”

  Bella held back. “Oh no, please, not where everybody can see me.”

  But Jeremy was very insistent. “Make TJ proud of you, Bella. That’s the only thing that’s keepin’ me goin’ right now. Remember all he did for you and make him proud.”

  She took a shaky breath, said, “All right, then. Let’s do it now before I lose my nerve.”

  They walked forward together, heads erect, jaws set into firm lines. They nodded to the people around them, sat down, looked straight ahead.

  Jeremy asked her, “Do you want to join them?” He pointed with his chin to where a long line of people toured slowly around the two closed coffins. Some people reached out and touched the lids; others just looked down sadly, many were crying. Bella shook her head in a brief sharp jerk. “Couldn’t bear it,” she said.

  “Mr. Hughes? May I sit here?” It was a very red-eyed John Nakamishi.

/>   “Why sure, son, set yourself down. You two know each other, don’t you?”

  “Yessir. Hello, Bella.”

  “Hello, Nak.” She said to Jeremy, “After all this, I’ve just got to find something to do to keep myself going. I’ve been wracking my brains, but all the ideas I have don’t seem very meaningful. I need to do something, though, something to keep it alive.”

  Jeremy did not need to ask her what “it” was. “You’ve got that prayer session, don’t you?”

  “Sure, Bella,” Nak agreed. “We need you.”

  “It’s not enough,” she said firmly. “I want to do more. But I can’t see myself getting involved with some little church group that gets together twice a week and talks about their kids.”

  Jeremy thought it over, asked, “You ever heard of the Community of Hope?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “That’s a great idea, Mr. Hughes,” Nak affirmed.

  “Looks like it’s about time,” Jeremy said, suddenly having difficulty with his voice. “Tell you about it later, Bella.”

  Reverend Harbridge approached the podium, looked out over the gathering, said gravely, “There’s a big question in everybody’s mind about why this had to happen to such a godly couple. Don’t know how many people’ve come up to me, asked how the dear Lord could let this be.”

  He reached into his inner coat pocket, came out with a few papers, unfolded them, set them on the podium. With studied slowness he spread them out flat, said, “I believe the best thing to do is to let Brother Case answer that for himself.

  “Our dearly departed brother was kind enough to leave precise instructions with our friend Brother Jeremy as to just how we are to proceed today. These were written the evening of their homegoing.”

  He stopped, waited, let the words sink in. The crowd gave voice as the import of this message went home.

  “We will therefore follow the wishes of Brother Case as closely as we can,” Reverend Harbridge went on. “We will start by singing his and Sister Catherine’s favorite hymn, ‘Just As I Am.’ Y’all be sure that those who don’t know the words have the hymnals.”