The Promise of Jesse Woods

by Chris Fabry

  “All right, then,” Earl said. “Looks like we got us a wedding after all.”

  Jesse stepped toward me and reached out a hand, then held it in front of her mouth like she was going to spit in it. Then she smiled at me and shook my hand and ran toward the office door.

  My father was the last out. He turned back to me. “You staying?”

  “I think I’ve seen enough. Got a lot to think about on the drive.”

  “We both have a lot to think about.”

  He gave me a hug and I told him I’d call after I returned home. I sat in his chair listening to the vows. My father’s voice sounded lighter, somehow, as if he weren’t speaking from a script or onionskin, but from the heart. When I heard Jesse say, “I do,” I took the stairs to the basement and exited the back door and left Dogwood.

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1984

  A week later I sat with Dantrelle in my kitchen as he wolfed down macaroni and cheese. We’d walked to Jewel for groceries and talked about the Chicago Bears and their season. He was excited to tell me about his new home and what he was learning in school. He commented on how different the view was from this side of the el tracks.

  “Have you heard any more from your mom?”

  He shook his head and grabbed a spoon to get the final bits of macaroni. “No. They say she’s going to be in jail for a while.”

  I scraped the rest from the pan and he dug in with abandon.

  “What I don’t understand is why I can’t live with you,” he said. “I like my foster parents, but school would be a lot closer if I walked from here rather than driving to it every day.”

  “I wish I could offer that, Dantrelle. I can’t right now. And I don’t think it would be good for us. I think I need to keep being your mentor—your friend, rather than your parent.”

  A bell rang and I pressed the buzzer to let a visitor in the front door downstairs.

  “Is somebody coming over?” Dantrelle said.

  “A friend of mine is bringing dessert.”

  “You’ve got another friend besides me?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” I said, rumpling his hair.

  I went to the door and opened it while Dantrelle watched from the table. The elevator stopped at the third floor and Kristin got off and walked into the apartment holding a plate of brownies.

  “Miss Kristin!” Dantrelle said. He jumped up and hugged her, and I took the brownies and placed them on the table.

  Dantrelle told her the same stories he’d been telling me all afternoon and she sat in rapt attention, listening and asking more questions. She leaned down to be on his level and got more information in ten minutes than I had in three hours.

  We had dessert and Dantrelle said he wanted to swim again, but I told him his foster parents would arrive soon, so we took the elevator to the first floor and he ran around the atrium until they arrived.

  He gave both of us a hug before he left, and I told him I’d see him after school on Tuesday. He smiled and waved as he walked hand in hand with the two people who were trying to give him a fresh start.

  “They seem nice,” Kristin said. “He deserves someone who cares about him.”

  “He sure does.”

  “So you’ve recuperated from your trip?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recuperate, but yes. It was one of those eye-opening life events for me.”

  “Really?” she said. “That sounds ominous.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”

  She smiled.

  “Listen, Kristin, there’s something I want to say. About us. When you called it quits, I was upset. I didn’t understand. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I see you were right. We have a lot in common but we’re not really on the same page spiritually. I couldn’t see that. But the trip home opened my eyes.”

  “What did you see?”

  “It’s complicated. My dad was a pastor—is a pastor. So I picked up a lot of knowledge as a kid, but I think I confused being a Christian with being someone who rescues others. I’ve always felt that everything depends on me. It’s hard to break out of that. To believe that God cares in spite of what you see and is really in control.”

  She was leaning forward with her chin in one hand, listening intently.

  “What I’m saying is, I make a lousy savior. And I’m ready to leave that to God. To start over with him.”

  She nodded. “That’s a great way to put it.”

  “I’m not saying this to get you to change your mind about us. I’m not trying to rescue our relationship. I wanted you to know that what you said made a difference.”

  She let me walk her down Wells Street, back to her dorm, telling me along the way about her classes and a difficult situation with a roommate. I thanked her for dessert and started to leave.

  “Matt?” she said.

  I turned.

  “I can tell. There’s been a change. I’m really glad for you. It feels like a breakthrough.”

  I smiled, then laughed, and then I put my hands over my face and couldn’t stop the tears.

  “Was it something I said?” she said.

  “No, you made me remember something good. Something someone used to say.”

  She hugged me and I walked home with something burning in my chest, something white-hot and real.

  Six months later, on the Cubs’ opening day, the smell of spring in the air, I received a letter from my mother in her usual scrawl. She told me about the latest in the community, the deaths and events that felt distant. My relationship with my parents had opened a little and there was even talk of a family reunion that summer, with Ben returning with his wife and family.

  Tucked into the envelope was a clipping from the Herald-Dispatch.

  Jesse and Earl Turley, of Dogwood, announce the birth of their son, Matthew Richard Turley, at 8:15 a.m. April 2, 1985, at St. Mary’s Hospital. He weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces, and was 21 inches long.

  I closed my eyes and brought back that summer again, tasting the watermelon and hearing the clicks on the CB and breathing the dust. Those days would always be part of me, and so would Jesse and Dickie and Daisy Grace. All the hurt and pain and longing and loss and joy began in the summer of 1972. And life had come from it. And I gave thanks to God for new seasons, new hope, and the promise of Jesse Woods.

  Acknowledgments

  IF I WERE TO ACKNOWLEDGE everyone who had a part in this story, it would be a book in itself. I suppose I should thank the 1972 Pirates and the 1984 Cubs to begin with. Loss has a way of bringing good but painful stories.

  I owe a debt to Grace, my maternal aunt I never met. She was the inspiration for Daisy Grace and died during a diphtheria epidemic in the early 1920s. She would toddle into the field near my grandparents’ house and pick daisies for her mother, who always acted surprised when she returned to the house. My mother still puts daisies on her grave, though not as often as she would like.

  Mrs. D. Wilson taught English at Milton Junior High and provided my first summer reading list. Eighth grade, as I recall. It was that summer I read To Kill a Mockingbird. Life never returned to normal after that.

  A relative who shall remain nameless uttered the immortal line “Mommy made me all the whipped cream I could eat.” I’ve been waiting for just the right time to put it in print. Also, it was my uncle John who asked how much I weighed each time he saw me. I wish I could sit with him again and hear that question or play a game of Rook with him and Uncle Willy and my father. I miss their laughter and wisdom.

  My mother plays a special role in this book, as does my father. He was never a pastor but he had the heart of a good one. My mother taught me a love for words by modeling a love for reading and classical music. They have such broad shoulders on which to stand.

  I will also thank my brothers for scaring the stuffing out of me when I was younger with stories of the Mothman, monsters, Area 51 Martians, flying saucers, and such. They were model rocket aficionados and I learned to duck and
cover from them.

  Thanks to Bud Voreland, Charles and Fran Bright, Beth and Dave Calvert, and Brad and Jeanne DeVos for their mentoring, modeling, and love. And to the congregants at the First Evangelical Free Church in Hurricane, West Virginia, who suffered through my song leading for a season.

  Sarah Rische, Karen Watson, Stephanie Broene, and Shaina Turner at Tyndale made this a better book than I could write. The best friend a writer ever had is a good editor, and I have a bushel basket full. As always, I am in your debt.

  My family puts up with a lot while I write. That’s my excuse for being distant and in some other world much of the time. They are the best part of me and keep me grounded. So to my children and my wife, Andrea, a wagonload of thanks for understanding even when you don’t.

  Finally, to the God from whom all blessings flow and his Son and the Spirit, I give thanks. May praise flow back to you for anything good that comes from this story and the truth and grace contained herein.

  About the Author

  CHRIS FABRY is a 1982 graduate of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism at Marshall University and a native of West Virginia. He is heard on Moody Radio’s Chris Fabry Live, Love Worth Finding, and Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. He and his wife, Andrea, are the parents of nine children. Chris has published more than seventy books for adults and children, including the recent bestselling novelization War Room. His novels Dogwood, Almost Heaven, and Not in the Heart won Christy Awards, and Almost Heaven won the ECPA Christian Book Award for fiction.

  You can visit his website at www.chrisfabry.com.

  Discussion Questions

  Is there a particular year or season that was pivotal in your own life, as the summer of 1972 was for Matt? What was so important about that time?

  When he calls with news of Jesse’s engagement, Dickie says Matt owes it to Jesse to go back. Do you think he was right? Would you have counseled Matt to return to Dogwood? Why or why not?

  Matt, Dickie, and Jesse bond partially because they are all outsiders in Dogwood society. How does being on the outside shape each of them? Can you think of a time when you didn’t quite fit into a place or a group of people? How did it affect you?

  Throughout the story, Matt highlights moments that he believes changed his future: He turned left his first day in Dogwood and saw the horse, eventually leading him to Jesse. He held on to his camera in the woods rather than dropping it. And on one fateful night, he followed Jesse instead of staying behind. How do you think each event would’ve changed if he’d made a different decision? Was Matt right to think of these as turning points?

  Describing his parents, Matt says, “I rarely saw them march together in my teenage years. Instead it was a push-pull, teeter-totter parenting method that left me disoriented, wondering which to trust and who was really on my side.” Where in the story do you see Matt’s parents demonstrate this dynamic? In the family you grew up in, what roles did your parents play? Did they “march together,” as Matt wishes his parents would’ve?

  Why did Matt’s parents object so strongly to Jesse? What were they afraid of?

  This story gives us several examples of the influence of fathers on their children—through Matt, Dickie, Jesse, Gentry Blackwood, even Earl Turley. What similarities do you see between each kid and his or her father? How have Matt’s conflicted feelings about his father colored his view of God? Did you agree when he told Jesse, “We’re all like our daddies”?

  Mr. Lambert, one of Matt’s teachers, saw and channeled Matt’s talents when few others seemed to appreciate them, and even when Matt is an adult, his encouragement is “like water on a parched ground.” Is there someone who has played a similar role in your own life, as a mentor and champion? What did that person’s encouragement mean to you—and if he or she is still in your life, what does it mean now?

  Both as a teen and as an adult, Matt is frustrated by his dad’s dealings with Basil Blackwood. He believes his dad should stand up to Blackwood, while his dad says, “I think trying to get along with him and keeping peace is one way to show I’m taking God’s Word seriously.” Whose perspective do you agree with? How might things have been different for Calvin Plumley and his family if he’d stood up to Blackwood from the beginning?

  One important theme in this book is that human beings make lousy saviors. In what ways does Matt try to play this role? Has there ever been anyone in your life you wanted to “save”? What happened with that relationship?

  How important is it to always keep your promises? Do you think it can be true that, as Jesse said, “some promises cancel others”? Or are there good reasons for breaking some promises? Can you think of any examples?

  What did you think of the story’s ending? Did all involved make the right decisions? What do you imagine the future holds for Matt?

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