“You took control of your own life.”
“I guess I did.”
“Maybe it’s time to do that again.”
“What do you mean?”
Agnes pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Mary, and I think you and Jack should stay here— with me.”
Mary’s mouth dropped in surprise.
“Stay here in the house with me—indefinitely,” the woman added.
“We can’t do that—”
“And why not?”
Why not? “Well, for one thing, the offer is way too generous.”
“It’s not generous—it’s practical,” Agnes said with a firm shake of her head. “We can split the rent,” she explained. “Henry’s life-insurance money is going to run out, and, frankly, I could use the help.”
“I’d be happy to split the rent with you, but my money will last only a few months. I have to find a job. And there are too many people here who recognize Jack from the paper.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Yes, Agnes! You saw how that woman practically chased us around the bus station. That was nothing compared to what was going on at the Edmundses’ house.” Mary felt herself stiffen at the memory. “Remember, I told you about it? Reporters and photographers out on the lawn, people calling—coming to the door. A drifter even broke into the house to try to get to Jack. It’s why we had to leave, why I was trying to escape this city the night we met.”
“In the newspaper, they called Jack a prophet,” Agnes mused, looking down at the boy between them. “Is that what he is?”
Mary also looked at her son, his focus now trained on a tree whose branches were just beginning to bud. “The only thing I know for sure is that he’s special. I see it . . . as a divine gift.”
“A gift from God?”
Mary nodded. “Yes, I believe it is.”
“So Jack touches someone and can see the future?”
“No . . . not like that.” Mary paused to look over Jack’s head at Agnes. “I believe when he touches someone, he somehow sees numbers . . . maybe even words. I’ve figured out that—that the numbers match a chapter and verse in the Bible, and the passage means something to the person he touches.”
“So he writes the numbers he sees?”
Mary nodded. “With my help.”
“That’s such a blessing, Mary. For both of you. I really don’t think it’s something to hide.”
“I’m happy that because of the gift some were spared from that tragic fire,” Mary said. “I’m glad that people finally see how special Jack is. Something that I’ve always known.” She looked away again. “But the gift can also be a burden.”
“How do you mean?”
“The verse won’t always be good news.” Mary turned away from Agnes’s questioning gaze.
Agnes leaned toward Mary. “If God would allow Jack to live in his own world of silence, then surely God knows he’s strong enough to live with the burden of the gift.”
“Jack won’t live with it anymore,” Mary said, “because I’m going to make sure he won’t be in a position to see the numbers—the chapter and verse—again.”
“Pardon me for saying so, dear, but I think you’re looking at this the wrong way,” Agnes said. “You’re afraid of the gift because of what’s happened. The situation got out of control. It seems to me that you need to take charge—”
“I don’t understand what you mean.” Mary frowned.
“That woman in the bus station,” Agnes said. “The one who was so desperate to get her ‘chapter and verse,’ as you call it, was willing to chase you across the room waving money in your face.”
“That’s the kind of craziness I’m talking about!”
Agnes raised her eyebrows. “The woman wouldn’t have chased you if you’d given her what she wanted.”
“You mean right there in the bus station?” Mary shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been possible.”
“I was only using that woman as an example, dear. I’m suggesting that you make appointments—one at a time. If people think they’ll be given a chance for a word, they’ll be patient. They want some hope, some insight. They want to believe in something more than what they can see with their eyes. They want to touch the divine. If you took charge of the gift, there wouldn’t be the craziness. Because everyone would have their chance.”
“It sounds like you’re suggesting a . . . a business,” Mary said.
“I’m suggesting that you allow Jack to use the spiritual gift God gave him and in return receive money.”
“You want us to profit from a spiritual gift?”
“A pastor profits from his spiritual gift of preaching, a gospel singer profits from his or her spiritual gift of singing, a Christian author profits from the inspirational words he writes, does he not?” Agnes sounded as if she was just warming up to the subject. “Jack has a gift—a divine gift—that has a purpose.”
Mary mulled that over, finally giving a brief nod.
“In fact the evangelist D. L. Moody, who preached right here in Chicago, founded the Moody Bible Institute, which is still going to this day. Should he not have received financial help from his supporters for all the good things he did?”
Mary did not answer, but she remembered the statement she’d overheard in Richard Edmunds’s study . . . “We’re all going to die someday. Some of us will just leave our loved ones more prepared. . . .” She slipped her arm around Jack’s shoulders.
“Don’t you think God wants you to keep a roof over his head and food on the table? Give him some kind of security?”
Agnes’s words echoed those running through her own mind, and Mary nodded slowly. “I do worry about what will happen to him when I’m gone,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible even to herself.
“Things happen all the time that we don’t expect,” Agnes said. “Like a bad case of influenza that knocks you out in a bus station. You could have died from that, Mary—and then what would have happened to Jack?”
Mary shuddered. “My worst nightmare is that . . . that he could end up in a state hospital.”
“If you save up enough, that would never happen. You could make arrangements in advance for his care.”
“I know I need to provide some kind of insurance for his future.” Mary hesitated, then, “But I still wonder if God really would want him to be paid for his gift.”
“Maybe God has given Jack this gift, this ability, for that very reason, Mary. As a way to help you . . . help Jack. A way to save enough to provide for him when you are not able to. I just don’t see how you can turn your back on that. . . .” Agnes was silent.
“Your home will become a revolving door for people looking for answers,” Mary argued. “And there is no guarantee that Jack—that he will always have a verse for someone who is wanting direction.” She rushed on, “And sometimes it wouldn’t be what the person wanted to hear—that could get unpleasant.”
“Let me worry about all that, Mary. I can be a bulldog when I need to be. I think together we can figure it all out—make it all work. And Jack will be using his gift—just like God intended when He blessed him with it.”
“You’ll probably get tired of it all,” Mary murmured.
“Even if things get difficult, I will not ask you to leave, Mary. Not unless you want to. I think you might possibly be the daughter I never had . . . but always wanted,” she concluded, her tone full of warmth.
“That’s an amazing thing to say, Agnes.” Mary looked at her with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“You and I and Jack can be a family. We can help each other the way families do. I’m too old to hold down a steady job, and you can’t find a job where you can bring Jack. I think we were meant to meet, Mary. I think it really was Providence.” Agnes got up from the porch step and smiled. “I’m going in to start some stew,” she said. “I’ll leave you here to think it over.”
Before Mary could respond, Agnes had slipped
through the front door, leaving her alone on the porch with her thoughts.
She glanced at Jack, who was lying back on the porch, hands behind his head, staring at the wispy clouds floating by.
We could stay. Stay in this house, Jack. Stay with Agnes, and she’ ll make our supper and bake cookies and be our bulldog if people get too pushy. Preparation for your future, little buddy . . .
Mary watched as two boys rode past on their Schwinns. A mother pushing a baby buggy smiled at them as she passed. The trees in the yard were beginning to bud in the spring temperatures, and the grass would be dark green in only a few weeks.
Mary spotted something she hadn’t seen in nearly a year. She got Jack’s attention and led him from the porch to a wispy, round white puff on a stem—a dandelion that had sprouted up overnight. A wish stick. Mary grasped the hollow stem and pulled it out of the lawn. How many of these did I find when I was a little girl? How many wishes did I make?
Mary looked down at Jack and held the dandelion out for him to see. She felt the warm spring sun on her face, heard the radio wafting out of the front door. Somewhere in the neighborhood a dog was barking and a child laughed. Make a wish. Wish for normal. Wish for safe. Wish for Jack to live happily ever after even if . . . even when I’m not with him.
Mary put the wish stick right next to her lips and blew.
Chapter Nineteen
THE OUTLINE OF A SLIGHT WOMAN was silhouetted on the other side of the screen door. Agnes leaned a little closer to the mesh and peered through. “Yes?” she asked.
“Yes. Yes, hello, I’m Trudy Childress. I’m here to see the boy . . . Jack.”
Agnes opened the screen door. “I’m Agnes.” She smiled. “Please— come in.” She held the door open, and Trudy entered the house and looked around nervously.
The young woman attempted a smile. “I need some help.”
“Well, you may have come to just the right place.” Agnes beckoned her into the room. “That’s a lovely dress,” she noted. “Perfect for a spring day.”
“Thank you,” Trudy answered, her hand fluttering briefly at the neckline.
“And it is a beautiful day,” Agnes continued. “Isn’t it? I think summer is just around the corner.”
“Uh-huh . . .”
Agnes put a reassuring hand on Trudy’s arm. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, my dear. I promise.”
Trudy nodded—but didn’t seem convinced. She gazed around the living room. “Is he in here?” she asked timidly.
“Jack is with his mother in the other room,” Agnes replied. “I’ll take you to them if you wish.”
Agnes moved across the living room, but when she glanced back, Trudy was standing as if glued to the floor.
“Miss Childress?”
“I . . . I just need a minute,” Trudy stammered. “Is that okay? Only a . . . a minute?”
Mary entered the room from the opposite side and approached the young woman. “Hello—I’m Jack’s mother, Mary,” she said warmly, reaching out her hand.
“Trudy. Nice to meet you,” she mumbled, shaking her hand but looking past her to the hallway beyond.
“Jack’s waiting in the other room,” Mary told her.
Mary watched the young woman, obviously debating if she wanted to go through with this or not, and wondered if this moment was as surreal to her as it was to Mary. She followed Trudy’s gaze as she looked around at the floral-print couch and the chairs and the braided rug—everything looks normal, but the normalness of everything actually accentuates the strangeness of the situation. Benny Goodman’s band on the radio playing “Sometimes I’m Happy” gave way to Bing Crosby’s smooth voice singing a love song. Seconds seemed to actually slow down as Mary waited and Trudy avoided eye contact.
Agnes cleared her throat. “Trudy? Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked quietly. “Because if you don’t—”
“I’m sure!” she answered quickly. “Really, I am. It’s just that what Jack writes for me today will impact the rest of my life.”
Mary had to strain to hear the last phrase. She glanced at Agnes, but she looked unperturbed and was nodding sympathetically.
“Well, yes, I suppose that could be true,” Agnes said calmly.
“He could write down something that will make me so happy . . . or . . . or it can be the end of everything. . . .”
Mary cut her gaze to Agnes again, filled with new doubts about this undertaking. No amount of money is worth this fear, this uncertainty. But she reminded herself that the gift wasn’t hers or Jack’s, but God’s. Then Jack walked into the room.
He looked completely innocent, peaceful. His hair was longer since they’d left the Edmundses, and it brushed his eyebrows and framed his chestnut-colored eyes. For a moment Mary saw that lucid look—that aware look she couldn’t predict.
“That’s him,” Trudy said with an awe that made Mary both proud and uncomfortable. But Agnes smiled encouragingly.
“I’ve been carrying around his picture from the newspaper ever since I saw it, but it really doesn’t do him justice,” Trudy said, staring at Jack.
“Why don’t you follow Mary and Jack into the other room,” Agnes suggested. “I’ll wait right here. All right?”
At Trudy’s nod, Mary took Jack’s hand to lead him down the hall, and Trudy moved slowly to follow. “I’m scared,” she whispered. Mary heard her and paused, glancing back over her shoulder as Agnes gave Trudy a reassuring pat and smile. “True courage is not the absence of fear—but the willingness to proceed anyway.”
The room was quiet and dark enough so they all seemed like silhouettes.
“It’s best for Jack if the room is darkened,” Mary began when they were all seated at a small table near the wall. “And now I’m going to place your hand on Jack’s. Okay?”
Mary could hear Trudy take a deep breath.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Using just the tips of her fingers, Mary guided Trudy’s hand onto Jack’s small one.
Trudy blinked and squinted against the light when Agnes appeared quietly to open the curtains. The girl watched in amazement as Jack, with his mother’s help, began to form numbers on a piece of paper.
“I feel like my heart might beat out of my chest, I’m so worried,” Trudy said with a nervous little laugh.
Completing the last number, Mary handed the paper to Trudy. “These numbers represent, first, the sequential book of the Bible,” she explained, pointing to each one, “then the chapter and the verse.”
Trudy looked at the paper, then at Mary and Jack, her eyes full of questions.
“Agnes will bring a Bible if you’d like her to. . . .”
Trudy nodded slowly, laying the sheet on the coffee table.
Agnes was already moving toward them with a Bible in her hand. She looked at the sheet. “One, two, and twenty-four,” Agnes murmured, opening to the book of Genesis and turning to the second chapter. “Here it is. Should I read it, or do you want—?”
“No. No, please. You read it,” Trudy begged her.
“ ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,’ ” Agnes read aloud. She looked up from the page to Trudy. “What do you think, my dear? Does this have meaning for you?”
Trudy half laughed, half sobbed. “I’ve been engaged for three years to a man I never thought would leave his mother—but now . . . now I know he’s going to do it. Lyle’s really going to get up the courage to cut those apron strings his mother has knotted around him! I was wondering if I should break off the engagement or what . . .”
The young woman’s eyes were filled with tears as Mary came up beside her and placed a hand on her arm. “It’s easier to be patient when you know your patience will be rewarded.”
Trudy smiled. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome,” Mary said.
“Please . . .” Trudy pressed a bill into Mary’s palm. “It’s a donation— for Jack.�
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“This is a lot of money, Trudy,” Mary protested, looking at the five dollars lying on her glove.
“You can’t put a price on peace of mind,” Trudy said. “I’d give him ten times that if I had it!”
Mary looked over at Jack, who had moved to look out the window as Agnes led Trudy from the room. Maybe Agnes was right—maybe this gift was intended to be a blessing to those who were looking for help. And a blessing to Jack.
Chapter Twenty
AS SPRING MOVED INTO EARLY SUMMER, the number of people coming to meet the “boy prophet” grew each day. Mary and Agnes were amazed at the quick-spreading news of the gift—and never turned anyone away, no matter what time of day or night it was. As Agnes had pointed out, they had no idea how long the gift would remain. They must “let his gift shine, dear, while he has it.”
But Mary worried aloud. “I wish Jack could understand why we’re doing this, Agnes—why we’re spending hours each day in the company of complete strangers. I wish there was a way for me to help him realize this gift is to help people—and to help him . . . to ensure his future—”
“He’ll know someday, dear,” Agnes said confidently. “Someday it will all become clear to him. Until then you’ll keep saving enough money to make sure he has that secure future, whatever happens.”
It wasn’t long before they had fine-tuned how it all worked. Agnes met the clients at the door and led them to a room to meet Mary and Jack.
“The prophecy, the verse you receive,” Mary would say, “is usually about what is most pressing on your heart and life.”
Though Mary saw the reverence that each client had for Jack, she did not want to hear the passage being read to them. She knew that some might experience pain when they looked up the numbers Jack wrote, so Agnes took on the role of leading their guests to the front room and helping them find their chapter and verse. Agnes received any donations they felt they wanted to give—a jar of jam or a nickel and, occasionally, an amount unfathomably generous to the two women, particularly during such hard times.
The Silent Gift Page 13