The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  She shook away her wayward thoughts about love and turned back to emptying out drawers and packing. She added Miss Mona’s fans and recipe box to the kitchen shelf pile for the church people. Brother Forrest said there wouldn’t be any need for either at the Shaker village.

  Each piece of furniture they carried out made the house echo with a little more sorrow. When Rachel melted into tears for the fourth time, Lacey grabbed the little girl’s hand and pulled her out the back door past the garden where the onion tops were beginning to fall over on the dirt and the corn was practically knee high. Another thing the church people could share, or maybe by the time the corn was ready to harvest they’d have a new preacher and his wife in the house. She wasn’t bothered by the thought of some other woman pulling the ears of corn off the stalks she’d planted. No need in her labor being wasted.

  “Are we going to pick flowers to put on Mama’s grave?” Rachel asked when they went through the gate into the little cemetery.

  “We won’t have to. Look.” Lacey pointed toward the grave where dandelion fluffs were so thick they made a bed of cotton. The yellow flowers hugging the ground had been transformed into fluff balls sticking up their heads to catch a breeze. Lacey bent down to softly touch one of the white fluffs and seeds took flight to leave nothing but the empty stem. So quickly gone through its cycle of life.

  “Can I blow one, Lacey? Will Mama care?”

  “She’d tell you that’s what you’re supposed to do. Blow the seeds. Open the door for new flowers.”

  Rachel blew the seeds off one of the stems and giggled as she carefully picked another to do the same. Lacey put her hands on the warm gravestone. She shut her eyes and thought on meekness again. Miss Mona had been meek yet strong. And so good. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. She skipped around in the “blesseds,” saying whichever came to mind.

  She didn’t realize she had spoken them aloud until she opened her eyes and saw Reuben standing there beside her. “Was you praying, Miss Lacey? Or just practicing reciting? They was Bible words, weren’t they? I stayed real quiet so as not to disturb you.”

  “Thank you, Reuben.” She smiled a little at him before her eyes sought out Rachel chasing some of the dandelion seeds floating on the wind across the graveyard. “I was praying for help.”

  “Help? I can help you. My mam always said I was good at helping.”

  “That you are, but this is different help. Spirit-strengthening help. The kind you have to get direct from the Lord.”

  “I can help you pray for it.” Reuben put his big blocky hands flat together under his chin and bent his head.

  “You can, Reuben. Thank you. And I’ll pray for you too.” When she reached out to touch the man’s arm, his face lit up. She looked straight into his eyes and said, “I’m going to miss you.”

  His smile faded away. “Do you have to go away, Miss Lacey?”

  “I have to go where the preacher goes.”

  “But he shouldn’t ought to go either. He’s always been here. Since before I can remember.” Reuben’s broad face looked worried.

  “I know, but sometimes things change.” Lacey kept her voice soft.

  “Even when you don’t want them to?”

  “Even then.”

  He let out a heavy sigh and stared down at the ground. “My mam said that too. After she took sick and the Lord started calling her home to heaven. She said things was gonna change, but I’d have to keep going down here.”

  “And you have.”

  “But I’m sad sometimes.” He peeked up at Lacey. “I’m gonna be sad when you aren’t here no more to help me with my letters the way Miss Mona did.” He reached over and ran his fingers across Miss Mona’s name on the tombstone. “I won’t be able to carve the names.”

  “Yes, you will. Miss Sadie Rose will help you with that.”

  He shook his head. “She don’t make them all square and straight the way you do. The way Miss Mona did. The way I have to have them.”

  Lacey stared at the letters of Miss Mona’s name and tried to swallow down the sorrow that was making tears creep up in her eyes. Why did everything have to be so hard? The man before her knew nothing but meekness and service. Where was the earth he was supposed to inherit? She held in a sigh and stared down at the white cloud of fluff on Miss Mona’s grave. New beginnings in every ball of seeds. But every seed didn’t have to fly off to a new spot to begin. Some could take root right where they were and stay the same.

  She looked back up at Reuben. “The Shaker town is not all that far from here. Somebody passes on and nobody in the church can write out the name so you can see it right, you bring me the paper with the name on it over there and I’ll do the letters for you same as always.”

  Relief exploded on his face as he grabbed her in a bear hug.

  Lacey couldn’t keep from gasping a little as she tried to push him back. “Not so tight, Reuben.”

  Reuben turned her loose at once and cast his eyes down at the ground while his cheeks burned red. “I’m sorry, Miss Lacey. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s all right, Reuben. Everybody needs to hug somebody now and again.” Lacey wondered when the last time was that she’d hugged anybody besides Rachel. Never a man, except maybe her father when she was a little girl. Certainly not the preacher. And now that she was going to the Shakers who didn’t believe in romance of any kind, the only embraces she’d have much chance of experiencing would be in her stories. Nothing but a figment of her imagination. How funny that the only man to ever actually hug her as an adult woman would be the childlike Reuben.

  His face was flaming red. “My mam told me not to hug on you church ladies. That it wasn’t nice. I forgot.”

  “We all forget sometimes.”

  “I saw Preacher hug that girl. But preachers are different. Mam told me that too.”

  “Preacher Palmer?” Lacey stared at Reuben. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the preacher hug anybody. Not any of the church people. Not Rachel. Not even Miss Mona. But Miss Mona’s health had always been so delicate. A body worried the little woman was too fragile at times to withstand a touch much less a hug.

  “He’s the preacher. Mam said he started the church afore I was born. My mam liked Brother Palmer. She said he was a man of God and me seeing him with that girl didn’t mean nothing. She told me preachers was appointed by God to comfort them that was in need of comforting, and it weren’t our place to judge who was needing comfort.”

  “What girl?” Lacey couldn’t keep the question from tumbling off her tongue.

  “That one I told you about. That put that box on your porch back when Rachel come to you.”

  Rachel, hearing her name, stopped blowing the dandelion fluffs and came to lean against Lacey. She’d been practically attached to Lacey’s leg for three days now. Ever since the preacher started talking serious to those Shaker men.

  “Well, you said she was crying when you saw him talking to her. That was a pretty good sign she was needing comfort.”

  Reuben peeked over at Lacey with an odd little grin that made Lacey wonder if he was quite such an innocent as she’d always thought. “It weren’t that day,” he said.

  Lacey stared at Reuben and didn’t know what to say. Especially with Rachel there listening. Rachel knew Lacey had found her on the porch in a box, but she’d never asked about how she got in that box. Lacey wasn’t ready to try to answer that question today. Not with everything else that needed answers. Why in the world had Reuben picked now to tell her about seeing the girl after all this time?

  Reuben was as much a part of the Ebenezer church as the preacher. More now, Lacey supposed, since the preacher was turning his back on his congregation to go to the Shakers. Reuben was rooted as solid in the church as the oak tree out in the churchyard. The church people were his family. The tending of the graveyard his mission. At every service, he showed up with his boyish smile and drifted aroun
d the edges of the fellowship ready to pounce on any chance to talk. And yet he had hidden this secret for years. How many other secrets did he know?

  Lacey pushed a smile out on her face. The curiosity Reuben’s words had awakened inside her was nothing but a poison she didn’t dare let spread in her mind. Curious imaginings about other people put a body’s feet on the path to trouble.

  “It’s a preacher’s duty to comfort his sheep on any day they need help,” she said.

  “Deacon Harold says he’s trying to scatter the sheep.” Reuben’s brow wrinkled with worry.

  “The Lord will take care of you, Reuben. He’ll take care of all of you. He won’t let you be scattered.”

  “But you’re going, Miss Lacey. You’re gonna be a lost sheep. You and Rachel.” He looked ready to cry.

  “No, no, Reuben. The good Lord isn’t confined to one place. You know that. He’ll be right there with us wherever we go, the same as he is here with us now.” She lightly touched his arm. “We won’t forget you.” Lacey looked down at Rachel, who was staring up at Reuben with sad eyes. “And Reuben won’t forget us either, Rachel.”

  They left him standing there by Miss Mona’s grave. Lacey tried to leave the questions that wanted to circle in her head because of his words there with Miss Mona too, but they trailed along after her like bits of a spider web she’d run into and couldn’t get wiped off. She didn’t need to pile on worries about things in the past atop the ones that were fresh and new.

  Miss Mona used to tell her the Bible said each day had its worries and that was enough to keep a person busy without borrowing from yesterday or tomorrow. That was sure enough true on this day with leaving this place she’d called home these many years and going to somewhere she didn’t know the first thing about except they danced in church. What a thing to know! That sort of rumbled around in her head and made her feel almost dizzy.

  She pulled in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Whatever it was, she could handle it. “Blessed are the meek” popped up in her head again, but she didn’t let the words linger there. Meek wasn’t going to work. She was going to have to stiffen her spine and face whatever was coming head on. She’d done that plenty. And it appeared she was going to have to do it plenty more.

  “Lacey.” Rachel pulled on her apron.

  Lacey looked down at her. That was going to be the hard part. Not being able to keep some of those hard times from Rachel. She’d thought she could by agreeing to marry the preacher, and look where that had got them. Stuck down in a deep hollow of unhappiness. It had been her intention to keep sunshine pouring in on Rachel, but there wasn’t anything but worriment on the little girl’s face as she looked up at Lacey.

  Lacey asked, “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

  “Did Reuben know the mama I had before you found me on the porch?”

  “He said he saw her, but he didn’t really know her.”

  “Did Papa? Did you?” Her eyes were trusting. She didn’t seem worried about what Lacey might answer. More like she was just asking what happened next in one of Lacey’s stories.

  “No, I didn’t. But she must have been very pretty because you are.” Lacey leaned down and hugged the little girl. “How about a Maddie story while they finish loading the wagons?”

  Rachel’s face brightened. Stories were always an easy way to distract her from things not going right. Lacey too. What would she have done all these years without her stories?

  “Not a Maddie story. Tell me about the angel Mama saw. The one that came and peeked in the windows to make sure you and her could take care of me.”

  “That’s not my story. That was Miss Mona’s story.”

  Rachel yanked on Lacey’s apron. “But you can tell it. You know it. I like the part where the angel dances on the roof to get you to go outside and see me before I got too cold.”

  “That’s not real, Rachel. Your mama just made up the angels to make you smile.”

  “Please, Lacey. Please.” She stared up at Lacey with pleading eyes. “There could be angels, couldn’t there?”

  Lacey relented. “There could be. An angel told the shepherds about baby Jesus for sure.” She looked toward the wagons. They weren’t completely loaded, so she just sat down in the grass next to the garden and pulled Rachel down beside her. The sun warmed their shoulders as she told the story about the angels that Miss Mona liked to tell Rachel. Miss Mona liked talking about angels. She said they were everywhere all around them. Ready to lift them up and keep them from dashing their feet on a stone in the path. She said that if a person paid proper attention and had her spirit open to the Lord, that sometimes, just sometimes, that person might feel the flutter of wings. That was the way she always ended the story and that was the way Lacey ended it too.

  And then she held Rachel’s hands in hers and wished hard that Miss Mona’s angels would follow them to the Shaker town.

  15

  It was good Lacey fed Rachel some bread and cheese back home at the preacher’s house before they climbed into the buggy with Preacher Palmer to follow the wagons to the Shaker town. Lacey had thought about cooking the eggs that wouldn’t be needed for breakfast, but the fire was out in the stove and there wouldn’t have been time to wash the dishes. She wasn’t about to leave dirty dishes for the churchwomen to find.

  It was a long ride and past dusk before they came to the village. A silent ride as the preacher spoke not a word. His grim silence stilled Lacey’s tongue and that of Rachel’s as the child held tight to her Maddie doll and leaned against Lacey’s side. More than once Lacey wished they could be riding on the back of one of the wagons where the two of them could have marveled out loud over the sights along the road. Houses with flowers blooming in the yards. Mares with new foals running beside them out in the pastures. The scent of lilacs on the breeze. A stand of trees with dogwood blooms lingering among them.

  Of course there were dogwood trees in the Ebenezer woods. And lilacs in the people’s yards and horses in the fields, but somehow everything looked different along the road. New and strange and, from the way Rachel scrunched up against Lacey, a little scary.

  Lacey could understand that. She’d traveled this same road when her father delivered her to the preacher’s house. She’d been frightened then, just the way Rachel was now, not knowing what lay ahead. But Miss Mona had been at the end of her journey. Lacey took hold of Rachel’s hand and sent up prayers that somebody just as kind might be at the end of this journey. The Lord could make good come of everything. Even tangled messes like the one she and Rachel were in.

  She did her best to hang onto that hope as they rode into the village. The buildings loomed up in the near darkness, larger than anything Lacey had ever seen. The wagons turned to the side and stopped in front of a brick building that could have held the preacher’s house and the church twice over with room to spare. And that was only one of the buildings. Brother Forrest helped them down from the buggy and led them along a road between two white buildings. One was built out of white stone that seemed to have gathered the sun’s light and was continuing to radiate it now even though night was falling. On the other side of the road was a white frame building not as big but one that Lacey would have thought large if she hadn’t just seen the other two buildings.

  “Our meetinghouse.” Brother Forrest nodded his head toward the smaller building.

  “Where you dance.” Lacey was sorry for the words as soon as she spoke them. They seemed to hang in the air and echo disrespect for their ways. Ways she was going to have to learn.

  “Hush up, Lacey.” Preacher Palmer’s voice was harsh.

  “Worry not, Brother Elwood. The young sister is right. That is where we go forth in exercises of worship. It is a gift to worship so.”

  After that, Lacey made sure she didn’t open her mouth again even when Brother Forrest directed her and Rachel to go up separate steps and through a different door into yet another large brick building while he and the preacher went in the opposite door. For
a few seconds Lacey had the crazy idea to grab Rachel and run. But where would they run? So instead she took Rachel’s hand and climbed the stone steps into the building where three Shaker sisters and the elder who’d been at the preacher’s house on Monday were waiting. Waiting to take Rachel away from her.

  Miss Sadie Rose had warned her. She’d told her straight out the Shakers didn’t believe in families in the usual sense, but somehow Lacey hadn’t eyeballed the truth of that. After all, in the telling, stories oft as not got skewed a bit. Instead she had gone on thinking that she and Rachel could keep being the way they were back at the preacher’s house. Together.

  That might have happened for a few more days, even weeks, if not for Preacher Palmer. The minute one of those strange-looking Shaker women named Sister Janie took hold of Rachel’s hand to lead her away, the little girl started wailing every bit as pitiful as she had the morning Miss Mona had passed on. The sound like to have broke Lacey’s heart. She grabbed Rachel close and stared down the Shaker woman until she dropped the child’s hand and stepped back. Sister Janie looked at the other Shaker women, and Lacey could almost see them thinking on maybe changing their minds about taking Rachel from her. Not that she was going to let any of them peel her arms away from Rachel anyway.

  “Perhaps we need to give them a little while to adjust to the Shaker way,” Sister Janie murmured.

  Lacey felt her breath coming a little easier with the words. They weren’t heartless.

  But Preacher Palmer was. He turned cold eyes on Lacey. “Let the child go, Lacey. Right now. We’ve come into this community to leave things of the world behind and do as they say.”

  Lacey held Rachel against her even tighter. “But she needs me.” She spoke barely above a whisper.

  “She needs discipline. And so do you.”

  Lacey stared down at Rachel’s head and wanted to lean down to kiss the sweet part dividing her dark hair. With her face pressed tight against Lacey, the child stopped crying but stood stiff, taking tiny breaths like as how she might escape the notice of the people around her if she could only be quiet enough. Lacey felt the same stiffness inside, along with a swelling of pain in her chest. They wouldn’t listen to her over the preacher.