by Lynne Hugo
It had been the second big failure of his work, after being unable to herd his own mother into the flock. Louisa claimed her fields, woods, and creek were her church, and the creatures that lived there were all holy to her. Now, though, Gary saw an opening with his aunt CarolSue. She owed him. He didn’t know what work he’d ask her to do, but he would. And she had money, too. Maybe down the road a bit, she’d join. Support his growing church. Maybe it had all been meant to be. It was another Sign.
CarolSue
I don’t know what I expected when I turned the knob on Louisa’s bedroom door and pushed it open, but certainly not that time had stood still three-and-a-half years ago when my brother-in-law Harold killed himself by stepping in front of a Dwayne County Waste Recycling truck. Good Lord, and bless my sister’s heart, but Harold’s pajama bottoms were laid on the bottom of the bed, and his good brown shoes left in front of the dresser. His wallet and keys and what must have been the change from his pocket scattered themselves all casual on the dresser, in front of their wedding picture, and their grandson Cody’s framed picture—a different one than was in the living room—right there next to it, plus Harold’s spare pair of glasses, as if he might need them again. By his side of the bed, on the nightstand, the Farmers’ Almanac under the lamp. Harold was more a television man than a reader. A basket with his dirty laundry was next to the wall; I recognized his blue plaid shirt on top, the one Louisa said she loved.
I looked around and startled. Glitter Jesus. Hanging behind me on the wall. He was Gary’s creation, a depiction on black velvet that vaguely resembled a blond Elvis, add on a sparkling halo. Utterly sincere, Gary had made it himself as a gift for Louisa after he was Saved. He always did fancy himself to be artistically talented, which was wrong, so wrong. It was as bad as Louisa had told me on the phone. I’d chided her that she needed to hang it anyway, but she’d kept stashing it where she needn’t look at it. Other than Glitter Jesus, though, the rest of the room was entirely Louisa and Harold’s, as it had been the day Harold died.
I made my way into the master bathroom. There on the counter was Harold’s toothbrush nestled in a glass next to what I assumed was Louisa’s at the time. His razor, on the sink. Shaving cream, definitely for men. A man’s hairbrush, too, gray hair matted at the bottom of the bristles. Prescription bottles lined up with Harold’s name on them. It was too much, too much.
I left the bathroom, quietly pulled the door shut behind me. I looked around the bedroom again. This time I scanned Louisa’s bureau. Of course, I’d seen the picture of Harold there before. There was an anniversary card standing up. It must have been the last he’d given her. For My Wonderful Wife, curly script flourished over a bed of roses. Oh, how those two did love each other. I always knew that. My eyes started to water. I had cards like that from Charlie. They were packed in one of the boxes I’d brought, one that I’d not been able to bear opening.
On Louisa’s dresser, I saw a scrap of paper, too, with Harold’s handwriting, and picked it up to read. I shouldn’t have taken the time. That was my mistake. Otherwise I might have gotten out of the room, shut the door, and she’d not have caught me in there. As it turned out, she was able to tiptoe in behind me while I was engrossed in Harold’s last list, which apparently had to do with parts his tractor might need.
I was so startled I jumped and screamed. Which, of course, made me look guilty.
Louisa just stared at me, waiting for me to give it up. I’m the older sister, though, and I know all about the best defense.
“You’ve let your hair go way too long. If you get some Miss Clairol in town, I’ll do your roots for you,” I said. It was a decent try, but she just stood there, hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes to slits.
I took another shot, going for a direct hit this time. “So what is this, some kind of crazy memorial to Harold? I thought you had finally moved on,” I said. Perhaps I could have phrased that better.
“Looking for something?” she shot at me angrily. “Put that down,” she said, meaning Harold’s note. I did and took a couple of steps away from his dresser toward her.
“What’s going on?” I wasn’t about to back down. “I thought you were doing . . . better.”
“I. Am. Fine.” This wasn’t good. She’d crossed her arms over her chest.
“Louisa.” I softened my tone. “Honey, it’s me. What’s going on? You can tell me.”
“I told you after he died. I’ll always be Harold’s wife. This is Harold’s space, Harold’s bathroom, Harold’s bed. I’m not sharing it with another man. Please close the door behind you and keep it closed.” Then she turned and walked out.
* * *
After that fiasco, things settled down some. It was a whole peaceful three days before Gus showed up, probably scared to death of what Louisa’s big sister might have to say, having doubtless heard all kinds of stories about me, entirely true, since I’m the sensible one of the two of us. I remembered Gus from high school—skinny, acne, undistinguished. When he did make an entrance, it was in an entirely different body (“puffy,” Louisa called it, with a gray crew cut, and glasses too tight on his face), and with a peace offering of paint charts, telling me to pick any color for my room I wanted, because Louisa had a charge account at the Supply Company and he was authorized to sign for any improvements she wanted to the house or property. And she wanted my room done to my specifications. She’d already laid out catalogs for me to pick out a bedspread and new curtains once I chose the wall and trim colors.
I wanted a woodsy green with white trim. Louisa rolled her eyes but managed to bite her tongue. She’d suggested hydrangea blue, her favorite color, pointing out for the thousandth time that it would match my eyes. It was a good thing she didn’t persist. Maybe she didn’t even remember that green and white were the colors of Charlie’s and my bedroom, or did she think I’d lost my memory as well as my husband and home?
Oh, maybe that sounds ungrateful, and truly I wasn’t. I needed my people, including Gary, who drives Louisa up a tree sometimes. It was that somehow Louisa’s mourning managed to fill the available space, like a canvas already fully painted, with the length of her marriage and the magnitude of the two tragedies, that there seemed no room for mine. I kept it to myself, releasing it in private, in my room at night, and when Jessie decided she wanted to sleep with me—though I’d never been a dog person in my former life—I welcomed the familiar comfort of soft, steady breathing and occasional soft snoring, the felt safety of a near body. Charlie, my Charlie. I’ve not forgotten, I’d whisper. I love you. I miss you. Stay with me. Thank you for our time.
“I have my own money,” was all I said about the bedroom paint colors I wanted, which weren’t on the chart Gus had brought. “I want to pay for this.” I knew perfectly well that Charlie had left me far better off than Harold had left Louisa, and her own pension, after all those years in the classroom, was shameful. “I insist on paying my share of the expenses around here, too. Or I can’t live here. That’s the way it’s going to be. Isn’t Gary going to be upset about losing his room?”
“Gary’s in his forties. Don’t you think it’s time?” Louisa had brushed me off about that, and she had a point there. I didn’t bring up the stupidity of Louisa’s refusing to use the second bathroom, knowing it was too delicate a subject to argue about. And besides, Gus hadn’t been around to crowd the one in the hallway with a man, either, so I knew I didn’t have an upright toilet seat to fall into yet. Really, though, I was chafing about my not getting the guest room, which was bigger than Gary’s old room and had better light and a queen-size bed. It just seemed silly to me for Louisa not to acknowledge that Harold was gone and that she was sleeping with Gus, that it was perfectly fine for her to go on with her life by redecorating the master bedroom and bath.
I didn’t know then what a good thing it would turn out to be that that room was sacrosanct, that everyone knew not to open the door, how badly we—I—would need it for the Grand Plan of my life that would make Louisa
look like an amateur Planner. I suppose I should admit, she did assist me, even if she didn’t want to at first.
* * *
During the daytimes, I’d distracted myself from thinking about Charlie: unpacked, gotten used to Jessie, who’d taken to me like a yellow shadow, and to Marvelle and the girls wandering around. Louisa talked to the chickens and the animals so much I was never sure if one of her comments had been addressed to me. That was a bit of a bump in the road until I caught on that it was best to shut up unless she added, “Sister?” at the end of a question.
Gus showed up the fourth day with new samples, I picked the colors and he left again, pecking Louisa’s cheek on the way out in a brotherly manner. Ha, I thought. Don’t think you’re fooling me, you old lech. But being, as I’ve told you, the sensible one, I kept my mouth shut. After all, it takes two to tango and she’s my sister.
I helped out in the enormous garden, harvesting vegetables out in the August heat. I remembered about that because Mom used to raise our vegetables. Louisa always cans them for the winter, more heat in the kitchen with the cleaning and cutting and cooking. It seemed unnecessarily labor-intensive to me when there are grocery stores available and I have money, but my sister went on and on about the goodness of the land and the meaning and self-sufficiency of raising your own food. She shook her head at me and said, “It’s a lot of work, but it’s good work. Did you have a total blood transfusion down South? Have you forgotten?”
I guess I had, some of it, anyway. The backbreaking parts. There’s an upside and a downside to every way of life. It was the downside of this life that I hadn’t missed when I was in Atlanta.
* * *
The next night was when things started to change. Meaning that people started showing up, and I started to realize that it was going to get busy around here, and not just with the animals.
After breakfast, I got dressed for another day in the garden. We tried to get out there early, in the morning cool, saving the indoor work for lunchtime and the afternoon. I thought that I was being helpful and that felt good. “Brandon may be here this afternoon to mow,” she said. “Rosie can’t take care of all the grass, much as she likes to eat. Such a sweetheart. Brandon, I mean. Well, Rosie, too. But Brandon, you remember him, he brought Jessie home the first night you were here? I keep a list of barn chores for him to do. He’s working for Al Pelley this summer, too, he’s my guy who does the plowing and planting since Harold’s gone. The field corn, you know. Then he harvests in the fall. He’ll have his annual hissy fit about what I keep wild for the deer. Kinda funny. I’ll keep him on, though, as long as he does what I want.” That’s just how Louisa talks. She gets to the point eventually.
“I remember,” I said. “I mean I know the name.” Then, an afterthought, I added, “Brandon seemed like a good kid. We were so exhausted that night I didn’t talk to him, but he was really polite.”
“I’m proud of him,” Louisa said. “Hard worker, and a reader.” Louisa didn’t have higher praise than that someone loved to read. Sometime after Harold died, she’d told me that she was helping Brandon plan for college. “He’s got those blue eyes . . .” she said, and right then I could tell that he put her in mind of Cody, the grandson she’d lost. I patted her hand so she’d know I understood. Some things are better unspoken.
Louisa waited until that afternoon, when Brandon was there, to spring it on me that Gus would be coming to dinner. “Oh,” I said. “Huh. What will we have?” I knew we hadn’t been to the grocery store yet. That was supposed to be tomorrow, she’d said, for staples.
“You worried about our dearth of vegetables?” she teased. “Gus’ll bring the meat, for you and him. He always does. There’s huckleberries to pick behind the barn, and I’ll bake a pie. I’ve got a crust in the freezer already. Brandon’s not staying tonight, he’s already got plans with some high school friends. You know, getting together with them before he goes back to school.” It hadn’t occurred to me that Brandon might be included. I had a lot to learn.
“Uh . . . Al?” I was afraid to ask.
“You’re kidding, right?” she said disdainfully. “Never. What do you think I’m running here?” Well, I thought, how would I know? There’s apparently a lot you haven’t told me. But I kept my mouth shut then, at least while I was figuring things out. I figured I’d use that strategy unless there was something I really had to fight for. I didn’t know then that soon there would be.
* * *
When Gus came right after lunch, sure enough, he brought pork chops with him and stuck them in the refrigerator as comfortably as if he did it regularly. Maybe he did. It was all news to me. And he had brought extra for me—Louisa had gone vegetarian after Harold died, but said Gus was meat and potatoes all the way. He arrived in paint-splattered clothes and brought a gallon of the wall color I’d picked, plus a quart of the trim for the closet and woodwork, a supply of rollers, a tray and some brushes. Carried in Harold’s old ladder from the barn and got to work while Louisa and I continued canning vegetables, which I don’t mind telling you I was already mighty sick of doing.
“How many jars of tomato sauce do you figure we’ll use this winter? I mean, after breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, November through April?” I don’t even charge extra for subtle sarcasm, which I feel is generous of me. We were standing at the stove “bathing” jar after jar in boiling water until the lids sealed, after peeling, coring, and cooking huge vats of tomatoes from the garden. I’ve heard that saunas keep your skin looking young. Well, now I wanted to check myself in the bathroom mirror, because I figured I must have reverted to the skin of my thirties. Another day or two of this, and I’d be totally wrinkle-free.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my sister said. “It’s a basic ingredient in many recipes, and I season it brilliantly. People beg for my recipe. Don’t think you can sell it, either.”
I decided to try another approach. “You do realize that all the steam in here is going to peel the wallpaper off?”
“Good. Wallpaper is out of style. You told me that, remember? Gus can paint it. That old wallpaper is tired. What color shall we go with?”
I was doomed.
Chapter 6
Gary
It hadn’t been easy, starting his church, but Gary was positive it was what God wanted him to do. The crowd that Brother Zachariah had drawn to the tent revival was hungry for the assurance and certainty of salvation, the ease of obtaining it. They’d wanted more, Gary had seen that, just as he saw a way to redeem his own life by giving the people what they wanted, letting them donate like Brother Zachariah had let him. Surely they’d bring their brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends into the church, too, and Gary would be the one to baptize their children. He’d Save them all. Well, technically, Jesus would, but Gary would be His right hand man. Sooner or later, he told himself, it would happen. He’d seen it like a heavenly vision.
He hadn’t thought the new church would have to meet in the rented barn for several years while the small flock saved money, but he hadn’t expected to have to buy land, either. He’d told them he’d have the land, meaning his mother’s, but that hadn’t exactly worked out. The members didn’t blame him, though. He helped them understand, to feel sorry and sad for his poor mother who didn’t grasp what God wanted. They were all praying for her and not holding a grudge, even though it meant that now they all had to have their many meetings in a barn which still smelled faintly of manure even though the Clean for Jesus Committee had done their diligent best with Pine-Sol. (That had set off Sister Rebecca’s allergies something fierce and she started skipping services until they switched brands.)
At least the folding chairs that members had scrounged from various places were set in neat rows, and he’d fashioned something like a pulpit in the front. His own art work was on the wall behind it, a large portrait of Jesus, even better than the one he’d done for his mother because this time he’d used both gold and silver glitter in the halo and found a way to make the portrait
suggest both the blood of suffering, by adding just a few spots of red glitter on the forehead, and shining salvation, by the use of the silver and gold. Some of the members were struck speechless in awe of his talent. When he had more time, he planned to do more art to brighten up the barn walls, now that it was clear they couldn’t afford to build a new church anytime soon.
Now, back home from Atlanta, Gary thought about how death led to rebirth. His ministry had been validated by the Baptist, and not only that, he’d been of true service to his aunt, who’d always been good to him. His flock needed him, and there was much to which to attend. Sister Amanda had misplaced the telephone prayer list, for one, and the Sisters who worked the daily prayer call team were in such an uproar about it that Sister Amanda was going to be in need of prayers for herself. He was going to have to call a meeting, that was obvious. It was a plain relief that having received the mercy message, too, at Charlie’s funeral, and knowing now that he was forgiven, he guessed he needn’t avoid the office he’d fashioned for himself, at one end of the barn. It had been a tack room in the olden days, before the farm changed hands and the next owners brought in cattle, which was why it was separate, with a door closing it off from the main part of the barn. Gary had laid flooring down himself, well, with the help of some of the church Brothers, who agreed he needed a private place to meet with members of the flock and to prepare the weekly messages and plan revivals.
As it turned out, the old saddle racks had been the ideal base for shelving. Take them down, tack up some drywall, apply some paint, and it had looked downright professional once the members sussed out some used furniture, a couple lamps, and an old desk that had been in someone’s garage or barn. He’d hung up his community college associate’s degree and his printable certificate of ordination, in Walmart’s nicest frames, and his church had been in business.