by Karen Kelly
Annie watched her daughter disappear behind the door, and then slipped into her own room. Boots was already curled in a ball atop the spare pillow, showing no sign of response to Annie’s arrival. The rain still sheeted down the windowpanes, although the wind’s power had weakened.
She went about her nightly regimen until she came to the last thing she did most every night, her Bible reading. Since January she had been following a schedule to read through the entire Bible, reading portions from the Old Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, and the New Testament each day.
Annie’s hand reached out for her English Standard Version Bible, which sat on the bedside table. It paused when her eyes caught the Bible LeeAnn had found in the attic. “Hmmm, maybe it’s a good night for doing this a little differently.” She took the old Bible from its new home on the bureau and climbed beneath the quilt on her bed, resting the heavy book against her bent knees.
Her reading schedule instructed her to read Isaiah, chapter 59, for the Old Testament portion. Annie paged through the Old Testament books, remembering evenings during her childhood when she had nestled between her parents as they read from the King James translation. The melody of the words had soothed her, even though she had often not understood their meaning. The faith her mother and father had had in what they read had since become her own, and Annie felt closer to them every time she read her Bible.
Under her fingers lay Isaiah 59. Annie began reading: “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.” Annie couldn’t hold the smile from her lips, thinking what her response to that verse might have been when she was young. Trying to picture the infinite God with short, stubby arms or ears too heavy to work properly.
The following verses began to describe the ways that had separated the Israelites from the Lord. Annie’s smile faded as she read further. Verse 3: “For your hands are defiled with blood … your lips have spoken lies …” The Creator, indeed, knew the hearts and ways of fallen man well.
Verse 4 had been meticulously underlined in thin lines of blue ink. Words were written in the margin next to it—words Annie didn’t recognize. The verse read, “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.” Annie squinted at the added notations: gladius and venator. Neither word made sense to Annie. Glancing through the rest of the chapter, she saw another small notation next to verse 14, which was underlined in blue: “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” The notation first appeared to be a word in all capital letters, but as Annie stared at it, she realized it was more likely she was looking at Roman numerals.
She muttered, “How odd,” and then reminded herself that she needed to finish her passages for the night before spending time pondering her ancestor’s markings. After reading the rest of the chapter in Isaiah, Annie paged back to the Psalms, where she was to read Psalm 82. A “Huh!” escaped from her lips when she immediately noticed verse 3 sporting the same treatment of blue lines with notation.
“Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.” Out to the side in the now familiar blue spindly letters were the words auceps, bellis perennis, and filia. Though her curiosity was begging for attention, Annie didn’t stop reading until she reached the end of the chapter. The Psalmist’s call to defend, do justice, and deliver the poor and needy stirred her heart. The illumination of the verse of justice encouraged her to think that her ancestor had trusted in the Lord most High, if William had been the one to make the markings.
For the final portion of her reading, Annie reached toward the back of the Bible to 2 Timothy, chapter 2. From the first verse in which the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy with the words, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” Annie thought of Pastor Mitchell, the family’s pastor in Texas, and Reverend Wallace, and their zeal for training and encouraging their church members over the years. She was so deep in her contemplation of the chapter that she almost missed noticing the blue lines highlighting verse 20: “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.” The verse was tagged with another shorter Roman numeral and the words altus and platea. Annie read the verse again, puzzled at how different it was from the other notated verses she had read.
“A great house?” she repeated to herself. “Vessels. What did this mean to you, Judge Holden?” Annie read to the end of the chapter, taking care to read mindfully each verse, especially those with unfamiliar language. “… if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” Coming to the end of her daily reading, Annie flipped through the entire Bible with tenderness toward those pages that were almost one hundred years old. In many other places, blue lines and notations winked at her.
Before taking a closer look at them, Annie glanced at the clock and gasped. Boots’s gray head rose off its cradle between her front paws.
“Boots, it’s after midnight! The twins always bounce out of bed before sunrise.” The cat blinked and yawned, as if to remind Annie that she had been sleeping just fine. “Sorry, girl. You’ll have no more interruptions from me tonight.” Annie laid the old Bible on top of her own on the nightstand, cracked the bedroom door for Boots, and climbed back under her quilt. She drifted off to the sound of rain and the echo of biblical writers in the King’s English.
4
“It’s official,” said Herb as he strode back into the kitchen where LeeAnn and Annie were finishing breakfast cleanup with the twins’ help. “I just checked the Jetport website, and there’s a three-hour delay.”
John did a fist pump with his free hand, the other one wiping the table with a damp cloth. “We can go look for stuff on the beach now, can’t we Dad? There’s plenty of time.”
“I want some more sea glass.” Joanna shot a hopeful look at her parents.
LeeAnn turned from her place at the sink. “You might not be so happy about the delay when we get home so late. But it could have been worse than three hours.”
“Definitely,” Annie agreed. “You know, I think there’s time now to make a batch of whoopie pies for the trip home. If I can get a little help with the frosting when you get back from the beach.”
Joanna bounced on her toes. “I’ll help, Grandma! Whoopie!”
“Whoever’s ready to treasure hunt on the beach, go get your gear,” said Herb, jumping back with exaggerated fear when his children stampeded across the kitchen and down the hall to where their warm coats and boots were stored.
LeeAnn retrieved the damp cloth John had left behind, and then gave her husband a quick kiss. “Make sure they keep their hats on. I don’t want them going back to school with colds.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Herb drawled, doffing an imaginary hat. “I’ll do my best.”
LeeAnn tossed her blonde hair and placed her hands on her hips. “And you know what your ‘best’ best be.”
Annie watched the banter between her daughter and son-in-law, allowing both the joy and the poignancy to flow through her. She loved seeing the easy freedom growing between the young couple. They were settling in for the long haul, as she and Wayne had. She missed that still; she probably always would. A consistent theme of prayer between Annie and her Heavenly Father had been Herb’s health. Wayne had put many other things before his health, and she didn’t want Herb to do the same, for his sake—and his family’s.
A smile broke on LeeAnn’s face after Herb disappeared down the hall. “I still can’t believe he came for the whole week, Mom. A long weekend maybe, but nine whole days of not being at the office or working at the computer? I could get used to this.”
Annie moved over to the antique oak baker’s rack where she stored her grandmother’s cookbooks and recipe box. After returning from the Thanksgiving Dessert Social, she h
ad copied Alice’s whoopie pie recipe onto a card and given it a home in the box. Opening the lid of the box, she said, “I’m proud of Herb. I could tell he had to work at relaxing the first couple of days, but then he got the hang of it.” She pulled the card out from the WXYZ section. “I hope it will be but the first of many times of rejuvenation throughout his life.”
“Amen to that.” LeeAnn looked over her mother’s shoulder at the recipe. “So, what do we do first? If we don’t get those whoopie pies finished in time to leave for the Jetport, we may have a mutiny on our hands.”
“With the extra hours, I think we’ll be able to prevent any murmurs of rebellion. We start with the cookie batter. LeeAnn, grab the milk and one egg from the fridge.” Annie gathered the other ingredients from a cabinet, setting them out on the counter, murmuring as she double-checked the recipe. “Crisco, sugar, vanilla, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.” Reaching over the stove, she turned the oven on to preheat and took two mixing bowls from their perch.
LeeAnn set the milk and egg by the other ingredients and pulled open the drawer that housed the measuring spoons and cups. “Mom, I like how you renovated the kitchen. It’s homey and logically laid out at the same time.”
Annie opened her mouth to respond to her daughter’s compliment, but a yawn crowded out her words. She cupped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, excuse me!”
“Are we wearing you out?” LeeAnn peered into her mother’s eyes.
“Absolutely not!” Annie opened the small can of Crisco and spooned out enough to fill a quarter cup. “I stayed up a bit later than I had intended.” The Crisco dropped into the larger bowl.
LeeAnn consulted the recipe card and poured a cup of milk on top of the shortening and returned the milk carton to the refrigerator. “That surprises me after a long day of playing with the twins. I almost fell asleep while I was brushing my teeth!” With a swift flick of her wrist, she cracked the egg on the rim and emptied the contents into the bowl.
Annie measured and poured in a cup of sugar. “You know that Bible reading program I’m following?”
“Uh huh.” LeeAnn drizzled a teaspoon of vanilla over the sugar. “Did you have to read all 150 Psalms in Hebrew last night?”
Setting the large bowl under the mixer, Annie lowered the beaters into the mound of ingredients. “I think that’s the Bible-in-a-Month plan. My reading for the day was a chapter each in Isaiah, Psalms, and 2 Timothy. I decided to use the old Bible you found in the attic, and I found odd notations in each chapter I read. There were even more of them in other places.”
“Odd in what way?” LeeAnn asked, pulling the other bowl closer to begin measuring out the dry ingredients.
“Let me blend this first, and then I’ll try to explain.” Annie switched on the mixer, spatula poised to reposition any wayward batter. LeeAnn nodded and combined flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt to be added to the mixture her mother was beating. When the wet ingredients were well blended, Annie pointed to the other bowl. Mother and daughter bent over the larger bowl, LeeAnn shaking a portion of the flour mixture from the smaller bowl, Annie scraping the sides of the spinning batter as it grew and thickened.
Annie switched off the mixer. “Mmmm, rich and chocolaty.” She pointed to a lower cabinet. “We need a couple of large cookie sheets from the top shelf, LeeAnn.” Her daughter retrieved them, setting them side by side next to the batter bowl.
“Here.” Annie handed her a tablespoon. “Let’s see how uniform we can make them.” She dipped her spoon into the bowl and dropped a circle of batter onto one of the baking sheets.
“Alice’s looked like they could have been stamped out by a machine.” LeeAnn took note of the size of her mother’s circles and duplicated them as closely as she could. “Now, tell me what was so odd about those notes in the Bible.”
“Well, for one thing, they weren’t in English.”
“That’s strange. I thought the Holden family has been in America for at least two hundred years.”
Annie nodded as she dropped another bit of batter to finish a row. “We have. Some of the words looked like French or Italian, but others didn’t. I think it might be Latin. There were Roman numerals too.”
“I almost wish the nor’easter had come at the beginning of our visit,” LeeAnn said as she spooned out one last circle to finish her sheet. “I hate to leave not knowing whether you have a new mystery on your hands or not.” She glanced at her mother, and a wry grin spread across her face. “What am I saying? The Bible was in Great-Gram’s attic. Of course it’s a mystery!”
Annie bent to open the oven door. “Just remember: Whatever mystery does happen to spring from William Holden’s Bible, you were the one who found it.” She slid both baking sheets into the oven, shut the door, and set the timer for eight minutes.
“I may never forgive myself,” LeeAnn said, only half in jest. “Mom, please remember what I said about being careful. If you must go snooping around anywhere, please take at least one other person with you. Four or five would be even better.”
Annie washed the batter bowl clean and placed it in the drain board. “There are no accidents, LeeAnn. No matter what I find out about the notations, you were meant to see that Bible under the lamp.” She put an arm around her daughter. “But I do promise to restrain myself from doing anything that’s wantonly dangerous. After all, I have two grandchildren in need of spoiling.”
LeeAnn hugged her mother—a light, quick squeeze. “Not sure how needy John and Joanna are in the spoiling category, but we would all appreciate your caution on our behalf.”
Annie opened the refrigerator door, took out two sticks of butter and set them on the counter to soften for the cream filling. As they waited for the cookies to bake, and then for Herb and the twins to return, Annie and LeeAnn sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed the last private face-to-face conversation they would have for several months. LeeAnn was telling the last sweaty details about her first kickboxing class when the back door banged open and the treasure hunters made their triumphant return.
John tramped into the kitchen in his socks, proudly bearing a piece of driftwood longer than his arms. “Look what I found!”
“That’s one beautiful piece of wood, John.” Annie walked over to examine John’s treasure. The wood was still wet from the surf and storm.
“D’ya think we can make a lamp out of it like the one in the attic, Grandma?”
“The shape looks right for it,” Annie answered. “If you leave it with me, I could have Wally take a look at it once it’s completely dry and see what he thinks.”
LeeAnn stared at the damp treasure, contemplating how awkward it would be to store on an airplane. “That sounds like a great idea to me.”
“OK,” John agreed. “Wally can make just ’bout anything.”
Joanna and Herb entered the kitchen. “Mama, I found a ton of glass!” Joanna patted the bulging pockets of her coat. “All kinds of colors too.”
“Don’t know if we can bring all that home. It might weigh the plane down,” Herb joked.
Joanna rolled her eyes at her father. “Oh, Daddy, you’re silly.”
Annie took a wire sieve off the top shelf of the baker’s rack. “Put your glass in here, Joanna. I’ll give all of it a good wash while you three give yourselves a good wash before lunch and whoopie pies.”
“Can’t we have food first?” asked John. “Treasure hunting is hungry work, Grandma.”
LeeAnn picked a beach rose twig from her son’s hair. “Showers or baths first. Grandma and I need time to make the lunch. If you get yourselves clean enough, we may let you ice your own whoopie pies.”
“Deal!” John yelled. “I’m gonna put half the icing on mine.”
Herb herded the twins through the kitchen door again, this time to Joanna’s protest. “Are not, John! You’re not ’llowed to be an icing piggy.”
Annie turned to LeeAnn. “Which task do you want, icing or lunch?”
“It depends. What’s for lunch?”
“Grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade tomato soup ready for heating, and salad.”
“I’ll do lunch. The kids like different cheese-to-bread ratios—including the kid named Herb.”
Annie opened the refrigerator door, pulled out the pot of soup she had made the day before and settled it over a back burner to simmer. She returned for the milk container and then turned the refrigerator over to her daughter. “There are several different kinds of cheese in the drawer and either French, pumpernickel, or Alice’s multigrain with flaxseed bread.”
“You really do want us to come for another visit soon, don’t you?” LeeAnn chuckled, diving into the deli drawer to sort through the cheese options. “Ooh, Gouda and Gruyère! And mozzarella for the twins. Did you have to special-order from Mr. Magruder?” She stacked the different cheeses onto the counter and added the butter and breads.
“I did give him a heads up about the Gruyère, but he regularly stocks the rest. Lincoln County is a pretty densely populated county, you know.” Annie poured warm milk over the softened butter, Crisco, sugar, flour and vanilla, and switched on the mixer. By the time the cream was smooth and white, five sandwiches of varying combinations were assembled on a plate and ready for grilling.
When the beachcombers reentered the kitchen in layers of warm, dry clothing, LeeAnn was setting the sandwiches on the table as Annie ladled soup into bowls.
John sat down and pulled the two halves of his French bread sandwich apart. “Mozzarella for this fella! Oh yeah!”
Herb drew in a hearty sniff over his soup bowl. “Ahhh, the secret Dawson family recipe. You should market this. Puts all the fancy chefs to shame.”
Annie smiled her thanks. “It just wouldn’t be the same in huge quantities, I’m afraid.”
“I guess I’ll just have to be thankful I married into the recipe.” Herb dipped a corner of his Gouda on pumpernickel into the soup before taking a bite.