The Missing Piece (Inspirational Love Story)

by Carol McCormick

  Rousing himself from the bed, he flipped the sheet back and slowly sat up then flopped his bare feet on the floor. A pack of cigarettes lay on the nightstand. He stared at them for a moment, knowing that he should quit, and debated about having one. “Cancer sticks,” he said out loud, as the debate quickly ended with puffs of blue smoke curling about his head. The ashtray overflowed with bent filters, so he laid the cigarette on the rim of the table with the tip of it hanging off the edge.

  Dylan stood and stretched, his muscles flexing and bulging in all the right places as he reached his hands toward the ceiling. A giant yawn escaped to make him sound more like a growling puma than an awaking man. He scratched his head with all eight fingers then sat down on the bed. He bent over and picked up the socks that lay on the floor, held them up for inspection, deemed them fit for wearing, then stuck his foot into one and then the other. He glanced at the nightstand where his sleepy gaze drifted to the spot where a picture of Lorraine leaned against a lamp. He picked up the cigarette and squinted through the smoke as he looked at the photo.

  There she was beautiful as ever, tanned from head to toe in her yellow, flower-print sundress. A perpetual ray of sunshine. Her long hair pulled back in a thick French braid of variegated shades of gold that draped over her left shoulder. She rested her hand demurely on his chest, while smiling up at him in the photo. He stood next to her, his complexion slightly darker with his arm encircling her shoulders, while he looked into her shining eyes as the camera clicked and froze the moment in time.

  Dylan made room in the ashtray to twist the cigarette out, and then picked up the photo to examine more closely. If he closed his eyes and thought real hard, he could transport himself back to that pivotal moment where his life had changed forever.

  Lorraine was practically a child the first time that he saw her. She was only fifteen the day she stood outside Lena's, laughing and drinking Pepsi with her girlfriends. He was home on leave from the Army and dressed in uniform when he pulled his mother's noisy Pontiac up to the Pizzeria. When he opened the door to get out of his car, one of the girls stood at attention and gave him a mock salute. “Hey, soldier,” she called out. “I see you drove your tank!” This produced a roar of laughter from everyone in the group. Everyone that is except for Lorraine. She looked down at her drink and acted as though she was fishing some mysterious object from her soda.

  Even then she was a real knockout. He could see it in her eyes when she looked up at him and then shyly turned away. Her eyes sparkled and danced between glances at him and attention to them, as she chatted and laughed with the girls. He knew right then that she was the one, and a few months later he told her so. He yelled across Main and Seymour streets while she waited for the stoplight to change. “I'm going to marry you someday, Lorraine! You're going to be my wife!”

  He could see the remark shook her padded pedestal, which pleased him immensely. She shifted her weight from one foot to the next, while her arms seemed like foreign extensions as they were folded and dangled and then crossed again in a flurry of motion, as though she didn’t know what to do with them. When the light finally changed color, she had turned a few shades herself, before trotting across the street and yelling over her shoulder something about him being insane, her long curls bouncing behind her.

  Then one day while her parents were away, she and her friends were playing CDs and throwing popcorn in the living room. Dylan could see them through the picture window as he leaned against the lamppost in the cul-de-sac at Castile Heights. And he could see Robbie Stuart hovering over Lorraine.

  That's when he barged into the house, snatched Robbie up by the collar and dragged him to the door with his feet pedaling beneath him. He held the hoverer up from the floor, pushed the door open, and released him down the porch stairs. Then turning around, Dylan clapped his hands off as though he'd just finished taking out the trash.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t told the guy to watch his step before. The first time he collared ol’ Robbie boy, he gave him a firm but cordial warning to back off from Lorraine. The second time he caught the kid hanging around, he hung his bicycle up in a tree, which was actually funny to watch, when he and two of his buddies shimmied up the trunk to retrieve the bike, and then handed it down one to another like a runner’s baton. This time the boy should get the drift that Dylan meant business to stay away.

  Lorraine stood behind him with her hands on her hips and her teeth firmly clenched. “He was trying to get something out of my eye!” she said, annunciating each syllable when she spoke. Dylan merely winked at her and smiled, before returning to his post to wait for her to grow up.

  When Dylan leaned the picture back against the lamp, he knew in his head that Lorraine was gone, but sometimes his heart forgot. “If you were here, you’d see,” he said to the photo as he pulled on his T-shirt and jeans. “You’d see that I’m going to change,” he told his reflection in the medicine chest, as he squeezed toothpaste onto his brush and scrubbed. “I’m going to make it, Lorraine.” He pointed his brush at himself in the mirror. “Soon, you’ll see.”

  Dylan rinsed and dried his face before walking into the kitchen to put the kettle on to boil. When a steady stream of steam appeared, he poured himself a cup of tea to drink, before beginning his mile-long trek to the church.

  * * *

  Pastor Jacobson seemed rushed when he met Dylan in the foyer. He greeted him warmly, but immediately handed him a sheet of paper, and said, “Someone from my congregation is very ill and I must go see him right away. These are the areas in dire need of repair. I’d appreciate it if you’d tackle one or two jobs in addition to the routine maintenance.”

  Dylan glanced at the list and nodded as he read.

  “There are a few rooms that eventually need painting, but the rest of the work is basic: cleaning, dusting, grounds-keeping, those types of things. I think you’ll see what needs to be done, so I'll leave it up to your expertise. Cleaning supplies are in the closet on the right. The mower and outdoor tools are in the storage shed out back. Take a look around and make yourself at home.”

  “Thank you,” Dylan said, “I will.” When the pastor closed the door behind him, Dylan folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket before he entered the sanctuary. He walked slowly at first in awe of the church, and immediately noticed the hollow sound of the empty auditorium. If he was a kid, he would probably yell something to check out the echo effect on the high ceilings, but at this point in his life, he felt that he should be bowing a knee or blessing himself or doing some other reverent gesture instead. That’s what he’d been taught in the past when he went to church as a boy. But there was no water to dip his finger or kneeler to say a prayer or candle to light near a coin box, so he nodded toward the pulpit in respect instead, and then walked to the closet to gather supplies.

  Dylan busied himself inside the church, and although much of the work was repetitive, he worked methodically. There was something therapeutic about the gentle motion of sweeping floors and polishing wood that temporarily set his mind at ease. He rubbed the cloth over the oak pews and then buffed a walnut table to a high sheen. As he surveyed the effect, his motions slowed as glimpses of his father’s face reflected in the wood. He stopped and braced his hands on each side of the table while studying the face that stared up at him, and then covered the juxtaposed image with the cloth, wondering when that transformation took place.

  The front door swung open and jarred Dylan from his reverie, and when he looked up, a petite young woman with nutmeg-colored hair floated into the church like a fresh summer breeze, calm, peaceful, and pure. Dylan continued to polish the wood, but took note of her graceful demeanor. She wore a swingy print dress with her hair pulled back and tied with a turquoise ribbon. Her heels clicked and echoed through the sanctuary as she hummed her way down the aisle, while appearing almost angelic.

  Dylan coughed to make his presence known.

  “Oh! Hi! I didn't know anyone was here! Who are you?” she asked in a
voice as bubbly as Alka-Seltzer.

  “Dylan. Dylan Clark,” he said, with his hand still on the cloth. “I started working here today.”

  “I'm Denise Benson. I work at the travel agency around the corner. I come here on my day off to practice the piano for Sunday services. I hope the music doesn’t distract you from your job.”

  Dylan continued buffing. “I’ll be fine.”

  Denise smoothed her dress before she sat down, and then adjusted the hymnal to the right page. Her tapered fingers stroked the keys as though she was tenderly tickling a child in a gentle, playful fashion, but instead of shrieks of childlike laughter, a sweet melody filled the air. He found the music soothing in a bittersweet kind of way and his eyes began to tear. There was something about her manner and the sound of the hymns that touched his heart. They exuded something that he was missing. Something he never possessed.

  When he was a boy his mother used to drag him to church by his ear, but religion bored him half-to-death. He'd done the penance, candle-lighting, and genuflecting, but came up empty every time. The confessional gave him the creeps at that age. He hated stating all of his evil deeds in the dark to a man he couldn't see.

  Once, he confessed to pulling Jenny Logan's pigtails at school and he was told to say twenty prayers. That was pure torture for a ten year-old boy who’d rather be playing baseball or catching frogs on a sunny spring day. He learned his lesson about sin after that. Don't tell.

  Then one day a few years later, his mother came home and said that she'd found Jesus. That was three months after his father came home in a drunken stupor and fell down a flight of stairs. His mother had enough of his drinking and booted him out the door. Dylan was glad to see his father go after being the recipient of one too many potshots in the middle of the night, while defending his mother from the wrath of Rod.

  Sober, the man was meek as a kitten. Drunk, he was mean as a mountain lion. When his eyes glazed over and he gritted his teeth, he looked like he could bite chains in half. But despite his tough exterior, cancer eventually ate him up, and rather than go through further agony, his father put a bullet in his own head.

  After her conversion, his mother went from moping around depressed to singing about Jesus, sometimes at the top of her lungs. She attended church at least twice a week and helped neighbors when they were in a jam. She gave money to the church and to the needy, although she herself could have been carted off to the poorhouse. She certainly couldn't spare what she gave, but that didn't matter to her. “I'm rich in my heart,” was her usual reply. “The Lord will take care of me.”

  And the Lord did, from what he could see. Dylan noticed it from the start. Some sort of transformation had taken place, but he didn’t understand it all. A light seemed to radiate from her face that made it nearly glow, but her new lifestyle scared him at times, because he thought she’d lost her mind.

  Dylan's world turned upside-down with the death of his father and the rebirth of his mother. The final collapse of his ever-dwindling security came the night she took him to a revival meeting. The preacher pounded the pulpit and shouted about Judgment Day, so when the fires of hell licked up at his heels, he didn’t wait around to hear the rest of the story. He high-tailed it out of there before the devil snatched what was left of his soul.

  There was so much going on back then. Too much confusion to deal with. Too much pain to endure. So he escaped it all by running away and enlisting in the army. Green Valley is the first church that he'd stepped into since that fateful day seven years ago.

  “Mr. Clark? Mr. Clark?” Denise stood a few feet from Dylan waving her hand in front of his face.

  “Sorry, did you say something?” Dylan asked, refocusing.

  “Would you like to join us for services on Sunday?”

  “I’m sorry, but I already have plans that day. Maybe some other time,” he lied.

  Dylan pushed his key into the lock and opened the door to his home. He felt the wall and flicked the light then scanned the room and groaned. Although his work at the church was impeccable, much was left to be desired about his own housekeeping. Clothes draped the backs of chairs, papers littered the floor, and the wallpaper peeled like an old dry onion.

  His shoulders sagged in frustration. He’d just finished cleaning the church and didn't feel like tackling this mess. What a contrast his home was to the shining auditorium he’d just left. What a contrast to the way it was before Lorraine had left.

  When she lived here, her feminine touches gave a cozy-warmth to their home. Country blue curtains had covered the kitchen windows. She went to great lengths when starching and ironing to make them crisp and stiff. He used to tell her, “I'll bet those curtains can stand on their own,” but now they hung tattered and limp and have faded to gray. A gingham cloth had draped the table and a vase of wildflowers often sat in the center. He could almost see them sitting together in the early days of their marriage, laughing and smiling as he teased her about driving nails in the wall with the heel of her shoe to hang a picture, or catching ants from the floor and then setting them free on the porch.

  Then later when he least expected it, she'd sneak up behind him and smack his arm with a rolled up newspaper. He’d jump up and chase her and they’d run through the house like children playing a game of tag. But the laughter ended when he bumped a table, and Lorraine’s porcelain doll fell from its perch and crashed onto the floor. The red velvet dress was the only thing that remained unscathed on the pale-faced doll that day. The doll she’d had since she was six.

  They’d often share their dreams over fried chicken dinners of mashed potatoes with gravy, buttered peas and warm biscuits with honey. She was a great cook that was for sure, but eventually she ate alone.

  Dylan shook the memory from his mind.

  He walked to the refrigerator and yanked the door open then stared inside as though some wonderful meal would magically appear, already prepared and cooked for him. Instead, he found a bottle of ketchup, a shriveled green pepper and a twelve pack of beer, minus eleven. He grabbed the sole can and punched the tab open, then took a long swallow.

  He flicked on the radio and it played a love song that tugged at his heart. He listened for a moment until the melancholic crooning became unbearable, so he spun the dial as the old radio crackled and buzzed as though it, too, was in pain. He chose a news report to listen to instead.

  The tension released its invisible grip as the alcohol flooded his stomach, but he needed something to eat. He walked to the cupboard and picked up three of the four items left inside. A can of tuna, a can of peas, and a half box of elbow macaroni. After boiling the pasta, he mixed everything together then poured the hot conglomerate into a bowl to quiet his rumbling stomach, before beginning the tedious task of cleaning his house.

  THREE

  Pastor Jacobson was in his office when Dylan pulled the cleaning supply cart out of the closet and pushed it down the aisle. He could see the minister most of the morning as the man busily moved in-and-out of his office. He stopped on occasion to check-in with Dylan, to see how he was doing, or to see if he needed help with anything, or to see if he needed more supplies.

  Dylan wove his way up and down the pews to straighten hymnals in the racks and to pick up bulletins that were left behind. As he started down a new row, Pastor Jacobson approached and stopped to talk to him. “Dylan, my wife and I were wondering if you would like to join us for dinner tonight. She can cook up a pot roast that will melt in your mouth.”

  Dylan thought the pastor seemed to instinctively know what he needed. Although the offer sounded tempting, he didn't feel deserving to socialize with the man of God and his wife on such a personal basis. He just wanted this week to be over and to have a little cash in his pocket, so he could buy his own pot roast. “Thank you, but I can't make it tonight.”

  Turning, Dylan busied himself by checking the light fixtures for burned out bulbs while hoping that the pastor wouldn’t ask him anymore questions.

  “Maybe anothe
r time,” Pastor Jacobson said in a low tone, before walking through the sanctuary and back into his office.

  “Sure, maybe another time,” he replied in kind.

  After Dylan emptied the trash, he swept the entry area. From where he worked, he could see Pastor Jacobson in his office kneeling beside his desk. His head was bowed and his hands were folded near his face, and a Bible lay open before him on the floor. The scene pricked Dylan's conscience in a way that he'd never felt before. Something about the pastor’s life turned a mirror on his own soul to reflect the darkness of his heart. The man of God seemed to radiate that same Inner Light that his mother possessed. Denise had it too. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was so unusual that he promised himself he would study these people to find out more about it. But for now, he pretended not to see the man praying, and quickly finished sweeping the hall.

  It was almost noon when Dylan made his way to the church library to take a break for lunch. He sat down at one of the reading tables and pulled out a stack of saltine crackers then began to eat them. They tasted stale, so he only ate a few of them then threw the rest away. He found a Dixie cup dispenser and pulled one down, then filled it with water from the drinking fountain to choke the dry sustenance down. What he wouldn't give for a thick, juicy T-bone and baked potato right now.

  After brushing the crumbs from the table to his hand, he clapped them into the wastebasket and then contemplated what to do next. He scanned the area and decided that the utility closet could use some straightening. And, since Pastor Jacobson entrusted him to make most of the decisions concerning what needed to be done, he decided to organize this area next.