It Happens Every Spring

by Gary Chapman; Catherine Palmer

  Curious in spite of herself, Brenda stopped shivering and studied the creepy figure on her porch. Freaky long hair. Big, bushy beard. Weird blue eyes. Why did he speak like that—like a little boy? Adults didn’t talk about “the magic word.” They didn’t come begging for chocolate cake in the middle of the night. They certainly didn’t claim to have seen Jesus in the basement. He must be schizophrenic or psychotic or something like that.

  “Hi, I’m Cody,” he said again. “What’s your name?”

  “Brenda.” She had no idea why she told him.

  “How old are you?”

  “You can’t ask that. It’s not polite.”

  “Okay.” He turned away.

  Brenda stepped toward the door. “Wait. Just hold on a second, all right?”

  He turned around and pressed up against the window again. Making a tunnel with his hands, he looked at her.

  Sure she was completely nuts, Brenda fumbled toward the kitchen. She found a box of matches, lit one of the many scented candles she kept around the house, and then cut a perfectly squared piece of cake. “Triangles are okay, but I like squares better,” the man had told her. Who talked like that?

  She should be hunting for her cell phone and calling 911 instead of cutting cake for the murderer on the front porch, but so what? Sliding the portion onto a small plate, she added a fork and a napkin. Then she carried the candle in one hand and the cake in the other to the front door.

  “I thought you went away,” he said. “I thought you pro’ly left me.”

  “I brought you some chocolate cake. Now, go sit on the porch swing over there.”

  He smiled. “Chocolate cake! I love chocolate cake!”

  “Sit on the porch swing. I mean it. Sit down and don’t move.”

  “Okay.” His shoulders slumped and his muddy shoes crossed the wooden deck to the swing.

  Brenda could hear the rain pouring outside as she unlocked the door, quickly set the plate and candle on the welcome mat, and then shut the door again. When she turned the lock, the electricity in the house suddenly came back on.

  “Hey!” Cody said, gazing up at the porch fan with its central light fixture. He focused on Brenda. “Hey! Look!”

  She nodded. “You can get the cake now. It’s by the door.”

  “I’m not allowed to touch candles,” he told her. “Because fire is hot. Because it can hurt you.”

  “Then don’t touch the candle. Just get your cake.”

  He stood, looking tall, bushy, and frightening again. Wearing only a yellow T-shirt, a faded blue zippered jacket, a pair of ragged jeans, and grubby sneakers with holes in the toes, he looked as wet, bedraggled, and forlorn as a stray dog. He must be about to freeze, Brenda thought.

  Bending over, he lifted the cake from the plate. In two bites, it was gone. “Chocolate cake!” he said, beaming at her. Dark crumbs coated his crooked teeth. “I knew you were a Christian.”

  “You’re right,” Brenda said through the locked door. “I am a Christian.”

  “Because I saw Jesus in your basement.”

  “No, you didn’t. He’s not here, Cody.”

  She studied the man as he licked his fingers. He must be some homeless person. She had read in the newspaper that many of them were mentally ill. Maybe he was harmless after all. Feeling less fearful with the brightly lit foyer and porch, she let out a breath. “Are you still hungry?” she asked.

  He looked up in surprise. “Yes, I am! I could eat another piece of chocolate cake.”

  “I’ll fix you some dinner. Wait there on the porch swing. Don’t move.”

  At least she would have something to tell Steve when he came home tonight, Brenda thought as she returned to the kitchen. Her husband had zero interest in the chairs she was painting downstairs. Or anything else she did, for that matter.

  Working day and night during the fall, she had sewn brand-new slipcovers for the sofa and two armchairs. He hadn’t noticed. She waited three days before calling her handiwork to his attention. Then he had said, “Brenda, if you wanted new furniture, why didn’t you just tell me? I’m making enough money now to buy you a whole new living-room set.”

  As if that’s what she had wanted. Brenda took two pieces of baked chicken, some leftover green-bean casserole, and a dollop of mashed potatoes from the refrigerator. Setting the plate in the microwave, she felt her anger and hurt grow as she set the timer and punched the Start button.

  When the kids were growing up, Steve had worked in sales at an auto-parts store, and he had eaten up all the details of what the family had done each day while he was away. He wanted to see every drawing and read the kids’ book reports. He roughhoused with Justin and piggybacked Jennifer and Jessica all through the house and yard. He laughed at the stories of their shenanigans, and in the evenings, he even listened to Brenda’s plans for the weekend or a coming school holiday.

  But Steve didn’t care about the pink-and-yellow-plaid chairs she had been painting for the dining room. Plaid was very tricky—various-sized bands of glazed color going this way and that. He would have no idea how hard it was to paint. Who thought about the intricacies of plaid?

  Steve wouldn’t notice how the dining chairs matched the napkins and placemats she had sewn. Or how all of it coordinated with the new slipcovers in the living room.

  “Pink?” he had said when he finally focused on the sofa with its beautiful print of roses, ivy, trellises, and butterflies. “Well…I guess I can learn to live with it.”

  Learn to live with it? What kind of a comment was that?

  “It wasn’t Jesus after all.”

  The voice in the kitchen knocked the breath right out of Brenda’s chest. She turned to find the long-haired stranger standing less than five feet away. Streaks of mud trailed from his shoes back across the living room toward the stairs that led to the basement.

  The sliding glass door. The unlocked screen.

  Brenda grabbed the knife she had used to cut the cake. “I told you to wait on the porch swing!”

  He took a step backward and held up his hands. “Whoops. Are you mad at me?”

  “Go outside. Get out right now. I mean it!”

  “Because I went around the house to check on Jesus, and He wasn’t there. It wasn’t Him after all, and you know how I figured it out?”

  “Cody, you may not stay in this kitchen. Go out the front door over there. Do it now.”

  “It wasn’t Jesus. It was me.” He smiled, chocolate-cake crumbs still filling the crevices of his teeth. “The door was like a mirror. When I looked in the basement, I thought it was Jesus, but it was me. Just me in the glass, like a mirror. Can you see how I got confused—with my beard and hair all long? It was me, not Jesus. That’s funny.”

  “It’s not funny that you came into my house without asking. Now go outside this minute.”

  “Okay.” He looked at the floor as he turned away. “I thought you might give me some more chocolate cake even though Jesus doesn’t live downstairs.”

  “I’ll give you some dinner…and cake…if you’ll go outside.”

  “It’s warmer in here.”

  “But you can’t stay. You’re not invited.”

  “Okay.” Cody shrugged, then dragged his muddy shoes back across the kitchen and through the foyer. “You are the nicest Christian I ever met. And you are the only lady I ever knew with a pink cat.”

  “A pink cat?” Behind him, Brenda carried the plate of steaming food, unlocked the door, and gave him a gentle push back onto the porch. It was cold outside.

  “For your information, my cat is gray. Here, take this,” she ordered, handing him the plate.

  Then she picked up the candle from the welcome mat, retreated, and locked the door again. As Cody sat on the porch swing to eat his dinner, Brenda raced down the stairs and locked the sliding glass door.

  When she turned around, she noticed what she had missed on her way down. Muddy footprints mingled with a pattern of pink paw marks that covered the basement floo
r. And on the coffee table, where her three children had propped their feet while watching television, sat one miserable—and very pink—cat.

  Charlie Moore’s teeth were chattering as he drove his golf cart past the Hansen house. With the electricity back on in Deepwater Cove and all the neighbors safe and sound, he was eager to get home to Esther. Before he set out on his appointed rounds tonight, she had packed him a thermos of water—cold, of course, since the power was off and she couldn’t make coffee. And she had put some of her famous chocolate-chip cookies in a Baggie for him. Those were long gone now.

  A mug of hot chocolate sure would taste good, Charlie thought. He knew Esther would have the stove on and the water heating when he walked in the front door. He would ask for two marshmallows even though it was against the rules for his diabetes. Esther would give them to him too, because she’d realize he was about frozen to death. Besides, if a man couldn’t have marshmallows in his hot chocolate, what was the point?

  “Now, what in the dickens…?” Charlie muttered as his golf cart crept to the top of Sunnyslope Lane. He pushed the brake pedal, put the cart in reverse, and looked over his shoulder as he backed down the hill. There was a man sitting on Steve Hansen’s front porch. He was eating off a plate and rocking so hard in the wicker swing that it looked like the whole porch might come down.

  Glad he had decided to leave his dog, Boofer, at home, Charlie parked beside a large lilac bush that was just beginning to leaf out and set the brake. He could see immediately that the swinger was not Steve Hansen. Steve kept his dark hair cropped short and his face neatly shaved. These days, he usually wore a suit and tie, because he was always driving around the lake to show houses listed with his real-estate agency. He had gotten a little thicker around the middle, but who didn’t as the years went by?

  The fellow on the porch was as skinny as some old alley cat. He wore a yellow T-shirt with the word Cheerios printed on the front in bold black letters. His brown beard and curly hair hung long and tangled. Charlie would have considered going home for his gun if the man hadn’t looked so goofy sitting there swinging his legs back and forth like a little kid.

  Flipping open the glove compartment in his golf cart, Charlie took out a can of Mace. A mail carrier knew to be careful at all times, no matter what. He slipped the can into his pocket and gingerly stepped down onto the wet road.

  As Charlie walked toward the Hansen house, the swinging stranger looked up.

  “Hi, I’m Cody!” the man called out. “Guess what. She’s got chocolate cake inside! Squares, not triangles.”

  Wary, shoulders tensed the way they did when he was facing a growling dog, Charlie stepped onto the porch. “Cold night to be without a coat,” he remarked, keeping his voice casual. When the stranger didn’t respond, Charlie asked, “So, is Steve Hansen home?”

  “I’m Cody!” The bearded man stopped swinging and held out his empty plate. “Look. It was chicken and potatoes and green beans. And more chocolate cake. I ate two pieces, so you know what that means.”

  Charlie gripped the Mace can in his pocket. “No. What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s a Christian. Because my daddy told me that anyone might give you food, but only a Christian would give you chocolate cake, too.”

  “I see.” This guy clearly wasn’t all there. Anyone could tell that from the get-go. But was he dangerous? “So, who gave you the cake?”

  “Her.” He pointed toward the Hansens’ front door. “She’s a Christian even though Jesus isn’t in the basement.”

  “How ’bout that. Well, I believe I’ll just check on her, then. Make sure she’s okay after the big storm.”

  Charlie carefully crossed the porch. The man might look like a half-drowned alley cat, but he could turn out to be as mean as a junkyard dog. You never could tell. Charlie pressed the doorbell.

  For a moment, the horrible thought crossed his mind that something might have happened to Brenda Hansen. She was without a doubt the prettiest female in Deepwater Cove—except for Esther, who would always be the most beautiful girl in the world to Charlie. But Brenda was young—probably still in her forties—and she had spunky, short blonde hair and sparkly green eyes. She was always out working in the garden or washing windows or mowing. The Hansen home never collected the large, dangling black spiders that inhabited the eaves and screened porches on most of the lake houses. Brenda took her broom to them every night, and she made sure her driveway was swept and her porch was neat as a pin. Steve never helped her with that kind of thing anymore, not since his work kept him so busy. Charlie sure would hate to think Brenda was in trouble without her husband around to protect her.

  Just as he was working up a full head of worry, Brenda emerged through the foyer with a mop in one hand and a wet pink cat under her arm. She peered through the window that was set into her front door.

  Spotting Charlie, she put the cat down and gave him a bright smile. “Hey, there, Charlie!” Brenda said as she opened the door. She glanced over his shoulder at the porch swing. “I guess you’ve met Cody.”

  Charlie nodded and quirked an eyebrow at her. “You okay?”

  “I am now that the lights are back on.”

  “Want me to call the sheriff?”

  She leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and spoke in a low voice. “I don’t think so. Have you ever seen him before?”

  “No, but folks do come out of the woods sometimes, you know. They can live in the hills and hollers for years without attracting a bit of attention, and then something brings them back into the public. The sheriff would take him off your hands. I really think you should notify the authorities, Brenda.”

  “Oh, here comes Steve,” she said. As a sleek silver hybrid car pulled into the Hansens’ driveway, the garage door rose. “He missed all the excitement.”

  “Steve won’t want someone like that hanging around Deepwater,” Charlie predicted. “Might drive down real-estate values, you know. That husband of yours is sure stirring up things with his business. Heard he hired a secretary and took on a couple of agents. You folks have got such a pretty house here that—”

  “Thank you, Charlie.” Brenda cut him off as her husband walked up from behind her.

  Steve Hansen had come into the house through the garage, and Charlie felt surprised to see him suddenly there. Steve peered around his neighbor to have a look at the stranger.

  “Hey, Charlie,” he said, putting his arm across his wife’s shoulders. “Quite a storm, huh? Who’s that on the porch?”

  “It’s Cody.” Brenda spoke as if a skinny man wearing a Cheerios T-shirt and sitting on her porch swing were the commonest thing in the world. She shrugged out from under Steve’s arm. “I fed him dinner. He likes my chocolate cake.”

  “What?” Steve stared at her in disbelief. “Who is he?”

  “Cody,” Brenda repeated. She smiled at Charlie again. “Thanks for checking on me. It’s nice to know someone cares.”

  Charlie glanced at the man on the porch. Cody was licking his plate. “I guess I’ll get on home to Esther, then,” he said. “Give me a call if you need anything.”

  “We’re fine.” Brenda tilted her head a little, the way she used to when she was talking to one of her kids. “Everything’s fine, Charlie. It really is. Just fine.”

  Gripping his can of Mace, Charlie stepped past Cody and started back to his golf cart. He might ask Esther for three marshmallows tonight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The next morning, Patsy Pringle almost lost her temper. She was repairing a set of acrylic fingernails for a regular client at the time. It seemed that no one who came into the Just As I Am beauty shop could talk about anything but the stranger who had appeared on the Hansens’ front porch during the storm. By ten o’clock, Patsy had just about had it up to here. It was all she could do to focus on her work.

  Some people said the man’s name was Cody. Others called him Colby. One woman kept calling him Cory. He had been described as everything from a Mexica
n to a hippie to a hillbilly to a drunk. He had bushy black hair, long brown hair, filthy blond hair. He was fat, skinny, tall, short, young, old. He was creepy, menacing, sweet, innocent, and dumb. If Esther Moore hadn’t come in for a redo on her set-and-style this morning, Patsy would have concluded the man was a figment of everyone’s imagination.

  Now Esther sat over in the tearoom and repeated the story to anyone who would listen. A sunny, glass-windowed area on the far side of the salon provided three tables, plenty of chairs, a wide choice of teas, and countless goodies for Patsy’s clientele. She had planned it as a place of relaxation, quiet reflection, and spiritual refreshment. Esther and the women gathered around her had other ideas.

  Several people claimed to have seen the fellow during the storm. Some said he had been spotted in the lake area even before that. Evidently he had knocked on quite a few doors during the rain, but only Charlie had actually talked to the man. This made Esther queen of the henhouse, forcing the others to gather around her for grains of information they could take home to their own little nests and savor in private.

  “Property values will go right down the drain,” she was telling two of the Deepwater Cove widows who had joined her for a cup of Earl Grey. “You can’t have someone like that wandering around your neighborhood. It’s just not right.”

  Patsy fought the urge to march right over to the radio and turn up the volume. She didn’t play Christian music at the shop for nothing. In the local newspaper, Patsy pointedly advertised the Just As I Am salon as “a faith-based beauty experience.” On the sound system, she alternated a Christian station with CDs of Christian recording artists, including her favorite local trio, Color of Mercy. A stack of free pamphlets explaining the path to salvation waited by the cash register for anyone who wanted one. Uplifting, decent women’s magazines filled the shelves in the waiting area. She had painted the tearoom a soothing pale lavender and had hung lace curtains at the windows. A hand-lettered copy of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28—“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”—hung right over the hot-water urn.