Earthly Vows (22 page)

“Won’t get them today,” said Alfred. “They’ve gone off to help their new preacher move in.”

Angel could not swallow. “Why did they get a new preacher?” she asked.

“The old one quit, I reckon,” he said.

Angel figured he was confused. “Do you know where he is? I mean, the other preacher? This is important.” He was irritating,
not knowledgeable at all like Will’s old employee, Val.

“Can’t say as I know. Today’s my first day.”

Mrs. Abercrombie yelled outside that the minute was about up.

Angel slammed down the receiver. “I didn’t get an answer,” Angel said through the door. “All right if I try another number?”

She muttered loudly enough that Angel felt she could take it as a yes. She picked up the receiver and read the number to the
operator off the back of the card. A click and then the first ring. There were seven rings and Mrs. Abercrombie was yelling
again. Angel was about to return the receiver to the hook when she heard a voice. She leaned into the mouthpiece and said,
“Is someone there?”

“Bill Foster. Who is this?”

“I’m Angel. Nash asked me to call. Is this the right number?”

There was some muttering in the background. Finally a familiar voice came through the earpiece. “Angel Welby from Arkansas?”

Angel breathed in deeply. “Oklahoma, I’m in Oklahoma now.”

“You sound good, girlie. How’s that sister treating you in …Norman, is it?”

Her bottom lip trembled. “Not so bad.”

“Hey, you all right?”

A sob slipped out.

“I’m one hour from Norman. You need a ride out?”

“I don’t know, that is—”

Mrs. Abercrombie was coming up onto the porch.

“I have to go.”

“Give me your number. Let me check on you, you don’t sound so good,” said Nash. “Mrs. Abercrombie, what is your number?” Angel
said it plainly, facing her as she came through the door. “Franklin, one, oh, two, nine, nine. Is that your family?” Angel
forced a smile. She nodded. “I heard,” said Nash. “I’ll call you back tomorrow.” Angel placed the receiver back on the hook.
“How nice you got in touch. Now you won’t be so troubled,” said Mrs. Abercrombie.

“I don’t think I can let you go, Jeb,” said Will. “I can’t get it all straight in my head that this is the right thing. But
I trust you.” Freda waited in the car, not able, she said, to say good-bye.

The truck was pulling in with the Gracies’ belongings.

Fern was inside saying good-bye to Gracie and the girls.

“Gracie did all this, you know,” said Jeb. “Not because he wanted Church in the Dell for himself.”

Will knew the same as he did. “He was thinking of you.”

Fern came out of the parsonage. She kept patting Philemon and telling him how good he looked. “I guess we’re ready. Josie
gave me some cookies for Willie and Ida May for the road.”

“Fern, how about a kiss for an old man?” asked Will.

“Don’t you make me cry,” said Fern. She kissed his cheek and waved out at Freda.

“You can’t get married without us, you know that,” said Will.

“Of course, you’ll come, you’ll come,” said Jeb.

“Philemon says he’ll officiate at the wedding, Jeb. I asked him and he said he’d not miss it.”

Jeb put his arms around Will. Fern kept putting her handkerchief to her face. Jeb could not muster the word “good-bye.”

“See you in December then?” Jeb said.

Will would not let go.

A
SET OF WHEELS FOR US,” HE SAID.
H
E WAS
holding up a set of car keys. Henry gave it to him. It was an old car that had belonged to Henry’s father; the car had sat
out in his garage since his father died. “They must have seen your old truck.” Fern laughed.

Jeb ushered Fern from her car, his hand at her back, taking measured steps on the faintly green grass to give her the full
breadth of the place. She carried a box of kitchen gadgets, she said, from Abigail’s, and had dropped in at the grocer’s to
boot. The least she could do was cook him a decent meal. She kept her other things at Abigail’s house, where she planned to
stay until the wedding. His gear he stowed in the bedroom: a desk for studying, his suits, one brown, one black, the one Myrna
fixed up from Fern’s daddy’s closet; the sofa. But the rest of the house was stark and echoing Fern’s absence. “Are you happy
at your mother’s place?” he asked.

“For now. I shouldn’t mind the drive to church on Sundays. Give me time to think along the way,” she said. “You’ve a good-size
yard. Lots of trees, like the old place. But different.”

“Better though, I think.” Except for the fact it had no creek out back. Willie mourned over it. But he made his bed in a storage
room away from Ida May. “I thought you’d like to know the last minister’s wife had gardens.” He imagined Fern would garden.
“Lots of places for flowers. Twice the room. And a few ladies from the church brought a small bed each for Willie and Ida
May. Gives them a place to sleep for now.” The neighborhood was blocks from the church too, a sleepy street of bungalows,
yellow, white, blue, and green.

She barely glanced at the gardens. “Have you decided yet when they should join Angel and Claudia? Has either of them said?”

“Ida May, of course, wants Angel to come home, that is, to live here. She was too young to remember Claudia. We’ll pay a visit
come Friday to Norman. I said that in my letter to Angel, I’m pretty certain. She ought to be expecting us. After a couple
of visits with their sister, I expect Willie and Ida May will want to stay. Family is family. Since you have time on your
hands, I thought we all should go this first go-round.”

“Mother wouldn’t have it any other way than that I would be teaching in Ardmore. You know how fast she gets in my business.
It’s not a permanent job, but the school’s not far from the house. One of their teachers has gone home to have a baby.” She
pulled her sweater closed to guard against the brisk air. “I told them I’d do it.”

Fern had talked, hadn’t she, of finally having some time to do as she pleased. Of course she never had to work, no more than
Donna. “Take off Friday then to be with me. You know I’m not as good around Angel as you are. And Claudia is a real piece
of work. I lose patience.”

“You’ll do fine. I’ve promised already, Jeb. They’re expecting me. Can’t leave a new mother in limbo,” she said. There was
that air that he knew so well, that way she had of making known her will and wishes. It was all set then. Fern had a teaching
position in Ardmore. She always did as she pleased.

“Good enough, good enough,” he said.

“You’re annoyed,” she said.

“Not in the least.”

“Disappointed.”

“You surprise me, is all.”

“I can’t sit around the house all day. You know I can only take my mother in small doses. It’s best I stay busy,” she said.
She did not sound put out or irritated. He would try and give back in return. Today was Monday. “When do you start?” he asked.

“Not until Thursday.”

Ida May yelled from the front landing. “Miss Coulter, come see my room. Angel is going to love it.”

“Be right there,” said Fern. She carried the kitchen bric-a-brac through the front door. It was all she brought this go-round,
nothing else of her own. She was pleasant about the distance between them, but she had always been levelheaded. It was good
they had time to plan the wedding, talk out things that they had not had the time to work out in Nazareth. Jeb knew it was
idiotic to trouble over small things like Fern taking a teaching job in Ardmore. She wasn’t a married woman yet. What was
a teacher to do but teach? They had plenty of time to shake out the particulars of making decisions together.

“So he would stay up nights, I’d read to him and he would memorize Scriptures,” said Angel. “He couldn’t read a lick when
I met him. A real outlaw.”

“You’re making this up,” said Mrs. Abercrombie, “but I like it, I do!”

“It’s not made up,” said Angel.

“And what’d you say his name was?” asked Mrs. Abercrombie. She was crocheting.

“Jeb Nubey.” Angel kept her threads straight and spooling out of her bag.

Mrs. Abercrombie laughed. “So the two of you pulled the wool over a whole town, making them think this Jeb was a real preacher.”

Angel remembered. “I was trying to feed my brother, Willie, and my sister Ida May is all, ma’am. I wouldn’t do that again.
Jeb, he is a real preacher now.”

“Mended his ways, did he?”

“He did, ma’am.”

“So he’s looked out for you all along, all this time, since your momma got put in the nervous hospital?”

“Like a daddy to me and my brother and sister. Him and his fiancée, Fern. She’s a teacher.”

“Why’d they send you here?”

Angel pressed her fingers together over a knot, smoothing the thread. “We found Claudia. She’s who I was looking for when
I met Jeb.”

“Sounds like you had a better deal back in Nazareth.” Mrs. Abercrombie put down her crocheting. “I can’t see any more. These
glasses don’t help.”

“I know the stitches you’re doing, ma’am. My granny taught me back in Snow Hill. Want me to finish your row?”

“You are a lamb, aren’t you? Tell you what, I’ve got to run an errand. You finish where I left off, wash down the pork belly.
You’ll find it in the icebox. You’ll find some salt and fennel in a dish. Rub it on the pork and let it set. When I get back
tonight, we’ll make cracklins.” Her hat was already on the table, so she put it on.

“If John and Thorne wake up from their naps, I may have to bring them over, if that’s all right,” said Angel. Mrs. Abercrombie
had taken to calling her over after she got them down for the afternoon. The adult chat was welcome company.

“You make them wipe their feet. Their momma hasn’t taught them any manners.”

“I will.” Angel picked up her needles. “Not my business, ma’am, but can I ask who your gentleman caller is? If you’d rather
not say, I understand.”

Mrs. Abercrombie dug through her pocketbook. She pulled out two coins and laid them on the table. “Those are for keeping things
to yourself.”

“You don’t have to pay me to shut my mouth.”

“Then take it for the help you give me. You’re smart, I can tell.” She left out the front door. Angel waited until she thought
she had crossed the front lawn. She ran to Mrs. Abercrombie’s bedroom window. Sure enough, the man in the black car waited
a few yards up the pasture on the side of the road. She got in the car and they drove down Meloncamp Lane.

The pork fat was, as Mrs. Abercrombie said, in the icebox. Angel got the dish out. She rinsed the slab under the sink pump
in case that had not yet been done. Mrs. Abercrombie had ground up salt and fennel with a mortar and pestle. Angel scored
the pork skin and rubbed the seasoning into it. She washed her hands clean and dried them so she could return to the crochet
work in the parlor.

The front door slammed. Mrs. Abercrombie had gone off and forgotten a handkerchief or maybe her brooch. Angel smiled and walked
into the parlor, drying her hands.

“Look who’s made herself at home,” said Edwin. His trousers were stained with grease, as if he had been under a half dozen
cars.

Angel folded up the towel. “I’m on my way out. Got to take your mother’s crocheting with me, though.” The sofa was between
them, Edwin standing in the doorway behind it.

“No hurry, Angel.” He walked around the couch, closed the gap between them. “Was that name a joke? Did your momma know how
you’d turn out?”

Angel wound up the spool and tucked it with the needles into the sewing bag.

“Claudia home?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Stay a spell. Make me some coffee, why don’t you. Momma pays you. You may as well earn your keep.”

The telephone rang.

Angel was standing between Edwin and the telephone. After a third ring, she said, “I’ll get it.”

“Stay put,” he said. He walked past her.

It was no matter. She could go out the front door as easily as the back. The sewing bag hung nicely over her shoulder. She
nearly made it out the front door when Edwin said, “It’s for you.”

She didn’t believe him for a second.