Songbird (22 page)

I ride through the Hardee's drive-thru and get myself a Diet Coke and Leo a Sprite. We just smile at each other. I pull away and utter a prayer for Grace and in the same space of brain wonder how she could not see the value of this little boy.

What a great night's sleep I had last night! That prescription sleeping pill beat the over-the-counter variety. This may just be the answer. And maybe Harlan's right. In his sermons he says we're so quick to seek our own methods of healing and redemption, that we're too slow in falling at the Savior's feet and giving it all over to Him.

It's 3:15 and I am hoping I catch my grandma coming home from school. But as I pull up, I notice a car already sits in the driveway. It's a dark blue Escort.

And so I begin to look for clues. All the curtains are lined so I can't tell if frilly pink ones hang in the upper, dormered windows. I figure if a girl grew up there, surely there'd be pink, frilly curtains at one of the windows. The garden has been mulched this autumn and the bushes trimmed, but not in perfect shapes. And then the warm breeze blows and I notice it sitting there in the backyard. A rusty old swing set. I see my mama swinging there, dangling her legs, all alone, for she never spoke of a sibling. And I see Grandma Min checking at her from the kitchen window from time to time. And Mama is just lonely.

It is a lonely house.

What has Grandma Min been thinking all these years? How sad did Mama's choices make her?

I can't believe Grandma Min was the abusive type that pushed her daughter from the house. I mean, she is a school-teacher. So what happened to drive Mama to Lynchburg?

I just need to do this. Just go on up to the house and knock on the door. I picture myself doing so in my mind's eye, which is always a good first step. And so I decide that if I don't do it now, I just may never, and we're leaving town tomorrow night.

I pull the truck into the drive.

“Now Leo, just sit here a minute while I go ring the bell. Try not to wake Hope. You know how she can be.”

“Uh-huh.”

I check my hair in the rearview mirror, freshen up my lipstick a little, turn off the engine, and roll down my window.

I should have told Harlan. He'd be here with me now. He'd run interference or something. Maybe he'd even go up to the door and tell Grandma Min the entire tale.

What if she is really a bitter old woman who wanders around inside her little house? What if she really doesn't want to know about me?

So I breathe in and set my feet on the brick path.

Bitter old women didn't spread mulch and trim their bushes, did they? Bitter old women didn't keep the swing set around, did they?

But I’ll bet bitter old women did buy lined draperies.

I step onto the landing and ring the bell before I could talk myself out of it.

A long slim window lines either side of the dark blue door and I see someone peer out the right one. A white brow lifts, her florid forehead knits, pale blue eyes widen then disappear. Locks click as they are disengaged.

The door opens and there she stands, my own flesh and blood. She wears a plaid skirt and a dark green turtleneck and her white hair is cut short and boyish. “Can I help you?”

How do I start this? Why didn't I think up a good starting sentence. “Are you the mother of Isla Whitehead?”

She pales.

“Are you Minerva Whitehead?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m your granddaughter, Myrtle Charmaine.”

She shakes her head in bewilderment. “What?”

“I’m Isla's daughter. She named me Myrtle Charmaine and always called me Myrtle, but a few years ago I decided to go by Charmaine.”

She remains silent.

I expect her to ask if this was some sort of joke, you know, like they always do in books and movies and stuff. But she just stands there with her mouth open. My nerves jangle like silver charms. Should I offer proof? I open my purse and pull out my driver's license. “See here? Charmaine Whitehead Hopewell.”

“You're married?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

I can't even begin to gauge what she must be thinking, but the color returns to her face. She looks at the picture of me on the license and then back at my face.

“I know it's not very good, but I just get so nervous in front of those motor vehicle cameras. Why, when Mr. Reasin taught me to drive and took me to get my learner's permit they had to take five shots before they got one of me with my eyes open.”

I don't know what else to do but fill the empty spaces with my babble. No wonder God had the people of Babel disburse. He probably got tired of hearing all their noise. Just like I am tired of hearing mine. But still I go on.

“I’m here in the area just until tomorrow. Mama mentioned you from time to time —”

“She's still alive?”

I shake my head.

“Oh, no!” She jams her hand against her mouth.

“No, I didn't mean ‘no,’ I meant I don't know! I don't know whether she's alive or dead.”

Grandma Min turns away, walks over to the steps in the center hall of the house, and sits down. I follow her inside. “You said your name was Charmaine?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She bows her head. “And your maiden name was Whitehead?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“So you're mother wasn't married?”

“No, ma'am.”

“I’m sorry for you then.”

I don't want to tell her that isn't even the worst of it, so I don't just then. I’m hoping there will be time for that. “I know this is a shock.”

She sits there with her head bowed, still clutching my driver's license. I pull out my little calling card that has Bee's phone number and replace the license with it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't have come here, I guess. But well, you being family and all …”

Grandma Min starts to cry and I don't know what to do. “Good-bye, then, Mrs. Whitehead.”

I leave the house, hoping against hope that someday she'll call that number.

16

M
ark is the Rodney Danger-field of the gospels. People go on and on about the book of John, not that I blame them. Matthew, well, he was an apostle and gets a good deal of exposure from the pulpit. And Luke, the physician, wrote such a beautiful account of the nativity, and anything written to someone named Theophilus must be good. But Mark? You just don't hear too much about Mark.

But I’ve been reading there and I do believe I found a new female Bible hero. The lady with the issue of blood. I’m not quite sure what an “issue of blood” is, but it's a woman so I figure it must be she's bleeding vaginally. Can you imagine having your period for all those years? Twelve years?

That poor, poor thing.

Too bad Mrs. Evans wasn't there to comfort her.

I think I’d have spent all my money on doctors, too, so I cannot blame her there. In fact I can't find anything to blame this poor woman for, not like the Woman at the Well who slept with all those men. I admire her for stepping through the crowd like she did, for falling on her feet, for reaching out and touching His hem. I don't think I would have had her courage.

Harlan preached on this passage the night before. Now sometimes my husband can be a little bit forthright about things and this current series, “What's
Really
Eating at You,” has given me food for thought, pardon the pun.

Ha.

He talked about how we're looking for a pill to cure everything. Don't I know it! And darn that sister-in-law of his who hand-delivered this bone for Harlan to pick.

He said, “We need to be bold in our faith! Not rely upon man. Do I hear an ‘amen’?”

And of course, all the men amened.

“We need to step forward in the crowd, we need to kneel, yes, we need to kneel!” “Amen, brother!”

“We need to kneel at the feet of the Savior. We need to grab hold of the hem of His holy garments. We need to want His power enough to do that, amen!”

“Amen!”

“Hallelujah!”

“We need to grab hold.”

And he reaches into his pocket and wipes his brow. “Yes, we do,” his voice quiets and he leans forward, the silence of the building suddenly deafening. “Grab hold of that hem. Grab hold of that hem.”

His voice intensifies. “Grab hold of that hem!”

He shouts now, “Grab hold of that hem!”

The ladies in the front start chanting, “Grab hold of that hem. Grab hold of that hem. Grab hold of that hem.” And since it was an Assemblies church, I hear a couple of people speaking in tongues.

Harlan continues, now in full sway. “Jesus says ‘Come to Me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest! Take My yoke upon you and learn of
Me
for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest for your souls! Rest for your souls!’

“Are you sin-sick and weary?”

He claps.

“Are you laid down with the cares of this life?”

He claps.

“Have you a sickness that you've tried to heal? Have you spent money on doctors? Have you been disappointed by the workings of man on your behalf? Are you ill in body and soul and nothing anyone ever does heals your ailments?”

He claps twice. “Lay them down! At the feet of Jesus! Lay them down and lay yourself down while you're at it, beloved, and grab the hem of Jesus! Grab that hem!”

Henry Windsor begins to play and the group works itself up into a frenzy.

“You've been trying! You've been trying to dig yourself out of the miry clay. Give Jesus a turn! Grab hold of that hem!”

I felt the Spirit fill me, telling me to grab hold of that hem. Grab it Myrtle Charmaine Whitehead! Now is the hour of your healing.

From what, Lord?

Grab the hem, Myrtle Charmaine.

What hem, Myrtle Charmaine? What a bunch of crackpots!

Oh, Jesus.

Now is the hour of your healing, Myrtle Charmaine.

Suddenly, I came to. I was on the floor and Harlan stood over me, fanning me with Sunday's old bulletin.

“Honey, you okay?”

But I couldn't speak. All I could do was cry.

Now, a day later, I am sitting at the dinette, rereading the Mark passage as Melvin drives us away from Suffolk. It is midnight. Harlan is always exhausted when we pull away. I tell him he doesn't have to help Mel and the boys load up, but he insists. So he's asleep in the back of the motor home. Little Leo is asleep in my loft. He has a little nose whistle that is so cute. I can hear the pace of his breathing and I am comforted.

We are heading back west on 58 where we'll hit 1-85, then head on south to Atlanta. Melvin and Randall slept all day in their truck camper so they'd be fresh to drive. I’d hate to have their schedule.

So here I sit. I took my sleeping pill and I’m pulling a Martin Luther of the mind on myself and wondering why I have such little faith. Didn't the Spirit say I was healed and yet I swallowed that pill anyway.

Of course you did, Myrtle Charmaine. You think you're so spiritual.

That's not true, Mama! I’m a struggler like everyone else.

So I pray in the dim light of my little lamp and I watch the lights go by. Not many of them out here. And I am glad God can see me. He knows I took that pill and in a strange way that comforts me. Imagine how horrible life would be if we could hide things from God.

I called Bee's this morning and no messages came in. I called her this afternoon and still nothing.

17

I
wonder what that demoniac did when he went back through the Ten Towns, as it says in the book of Mark? I mean, first of all, people were probably pretty scared of him to begin with even though he was clothed and I cleaned up. Crazy they said about him, I’ll bet.

“That guy is crazy!”

Then he shows up, after being healed by Jesus as this normal guy. Imagine that. One day he's more animal than man. The next he's experienced the touch of the Divine and is probably more fully human than I’ll ever be.

Nevertheless, he went to the towns.

Too bad it couldn't have happened like this for Mama. Too bad God didn't just reach out and perform a miracle.

The bad thing about meeting Grandma Min is that now I know she doesn't know a thing about Mama's whereabouts, even though Mama is probably dead. I’m thinking that maybe I can find Mama now that I’m a little older. Of course, I don't have a lot of money for a private detective.

I figure I’ll send away for a D.C. phone book and call hospitals. Maybe they saw her years ago when she went up there. Maybe they have her on record. Maybe they can tell me how she died or where she ended up.

Maybe they can tell me something.

“Bee?”

“Oh, hey, Charmaine.”

“Any messages?”

“Nope. None today.”

I hop back up into the motor home and we are on our way from Spartanburg, South Carolina, and back on 1-85 toward Atlanta.

Melvin fixed me up a way to put my sewing machine on the side table and anchor it to the wall so it doesn't slide around. I just sew and sew on the road. Right now Hope is strapped in her car seat at the dinette and Leo sits belted in. They are listening to a Robin Hood tape and looking at the picture book together. Leo tickles me. Hope kept grabbing the book so he unbuckled himself, got a lollipop out of the kitchen cabinet under the silverware drawer, and gave it to her.

It worked. They're looking at that book so nicely now.

That boy's so smart!

Harlan, sitting in the captain's chair next to Melvin's, swivels around. “How's the dress coming?”

I take the pins out of my mouth. “I’m not sure. Maybe I should have gone a little more plain Jane.”

“For an event called ‘Gospelganza’? You must be kidding me, Shug. I think magenta with orange trim will knock ‘em dead!”

“You do?”

“Oh, come on. You're the prettiest thing going.”

I smile and he smiles and swivels back to study from his concordance and reference books. The smiles stays on his face all the way around.

To tell you the truth, after only one day I’m already tired of being the one to rush and get the messages from Bee. I’m going to tell Harlan about Grandma Min tonight.

Harlan was able to get a church to speak at in Atlanta. It may not be much money, but it should go far in helping us. Thank You, Lord, the church in Suffolk reached out their arms of generosity. We not only made payroll, but Harlan told me yesterday his surprise is around the corner! “Pretty soon we'll really be living, Shug!”