Southern Fried Sushi (46 page)

I carried the plate and glass to Rick with a fresh napkin and watched as he opened his eyes in surprise. “You made all that for me?” He grunted, forcing a smile. “Thanks, Shiloh. You’re a lifesaver.”

When I went to clean up the kitchen, I found Todd pouring half his smoothie into another glass and dividing his crackers on either side of his plate.

“Ain’t you gonna eat, too?” he asked, pulling out a chair. “See? I saved ya some. We can eat ‘em together.”

For a split second I understood why Becky wanted so much to have children. A little guy like Todd could light up your world. “Sure.” I sat down next to him with a smile. “I’d love to.”

When Adam found me, I was sound asleep at the kitchen table. I’d helped Todd finish his homework after our snack, taken the army-men-and-Purple-Heart tour, folded and flicked paper footballs, sent him to bed, and doled out the rest of Rick’s medications.

Rick asked me to bring his Bible when the pain hit especially hard, and I read for him from Psalm 139: “‘O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar…. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.’“

“Read to me,” he said, “how we are made.”

“‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’ “

It was medicine, it was music. A song swelling inside me I could barely contain.

I read with voice choked, blinking back tears. If Rick noticed, he never let on. When I left him around midnight, he slept peacefully, chest rising and falling in the gentle rhythms of slumber.

“Shiloh,” whispered Adam, brushing my hair back from my cheek.

I opened my eyes and saw Todd’s math book inches from my nose. I jerked my head up and rubbed my eyes.

“We’re back. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” The kitchen was dark, but the microwave glowed a bright green 1:39.

“How’s your dad?”

“He broke his arm in two places. Took awhile to set the bone, but he’ll be fine. Guess he won’t climb up on the roof anytime soon.”

I fumbled for my purse. My eyes felt stuck together.

“I’ll take you home. Just jump in the truck.”

“No, I need my car tomorrow. I work.”

“No problem. I’ll bring your car by in the morning.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“That was a statement. Not an offer. The truck’s unlocked.” He squeezed my shoulder affectionately and disappeared into Rick’s room with me staring after him. If his dad was stubborn, Adam was a chip off the old block.

I yawned, forgetting what I was supposed to argue about. And let Adam drive me home. I saw nothing except warm summer stars, balmy night breeze, and locking the front door behind me.

Home. Quiet. And my own comfortable bed, so warm and welcoming.

But I had one more thing to do.

I switched on my bedroom light, seeing the soft shine on the golden floor, and grabbed Mom’s Bible.

Mom’s journal lay there, sparkling blue in the lamplight, but for once I needed someone else’s words. God’s.

I paged back to 1 John with trembling fingers. And spotted it in verse 9, waiting for me exactly where I’d left off: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

That was it. That was what I hadn’t done. I believed—I saw—I knew—and now I wanted to come home. Forever. Like Mom had done. To hang up my coat of anger and hurt and let this Jesus, whoever He was, bathe my feet with His tender mercy.

I wanted not just to sprout but to bloom and grow and multiply. To explode with life. To trade my selfish, near-sighted ways for His eternal vision.

God can raise the dead.

Like Indian summer, I’d been given another chance.

I slipped awkwardly onto my knees in my jeans and heels, pressing my face into the blankets. I knew I didn’t need to; if God was as powerful as He said, I could pray standing on my head. But I wanted to remember this moment. To remind myself that I was dependent—not only on grace, but on Grace-in-the-Flesh called Jesus Christ. That my own self-sufficiency was no better than the smelly Green Tree clothes moldering in my tote bag.

“God,” I whispered, voice echoing against the remnants of Mom’s life that colored the room, “I don’t really know You. You know me though. You created me. I read it tonight in the Psalms. But … I want to change. I want not just to know You, but to come home to You.”

I scrunched my eyes closed, aware I’d missed a Billy Graham prayer by a long shot. But something inside urged me to go on. To speak. “I don’t really know how to do this, but I’m sorry I sinned against You. That I’ve built my own kingdom like Rick said—which is nothing more than dust.”

Sin after sin came to my mind—the lies, lots of lies, the puffed-up pride and unforgiveness, the self-righteousness and words I’d spoken in anger. My fracas with AP. My arrogant judgment of those around me, including Adam and Faye and others. Dark and painful images stabbed me with regret.

“I’ve sinned against You, and I’ve hurt others, too. It’s too late for me to tell Mom I’m sorry, but I have a feeling it’s not too late with You.” I took a deep breath. “I want to be different, God. I want what Mom had. I want Jesus. I want Him to raise me from the dead and forgive my sins. I want to live and not die and give You glory, all the days of my life.”

T
he phone was ringing.

I rubbed my face, blinked, and then stumbled out to the kitchen, squinting at the bright sunlight. Put the phone up to my ear and plopped down in a chair. Yawned. Realized I hadn’t said anything.

“Hello?” Randy better not call me again. I’d talked to him several times, making it clear he’d receive nothing more than my friendship, but he still kept offering to take me to battlefields. And e-mailing goofy pictures of us Photoshopped together, along with lengthy love poems.

No one spoke on the line, and for a split second I thought maybe Carlos had called. I reached to hang up.

“Shiloh?”

Odd. “Stella?” I sat down again.

“You okay, honey?”

“Me? I’m fine. Why?” I rubbed my eyes again, still feeling groggy. The kitchen sweltered, and I stretched the cord to the window to let in the fresh morning breeze.

“Oh, I just didn’t hear nothin’ on the other end. Wondered if you was there.”

“I’m here. Just half asleep. What’s up?”

“Yeah, I saw ya come back real late last night with that fella in the blue truck.”

I yawned. “Adam? I was helping his brother.”

“He’s a nice one, Shiloh.”

“His brother? You’ve met Rick?”

“Naw, Adam. The blue-truck fella. Such a gentleman. Sheeewwwweee!”

“Yeah, he’s a good guy.” I rubbed my eyes, which had fallen shut again.

“You ken say that again! Come by and give me yer keys this mornin’ ‘cause you was sleepin’. Real nice and polite. Didn’t know God still made men like him!”

“He dropped my keys off?” I glanced out the window, seeing the back curve of the Honda.

Stella kept right on going. “He always waits for ya outside when you’re alone, like he’s got some kinda class or somethin’. I noticed he was differnt right off.”

“Yeah, he’s got this thing about always waiting out … what? You noticed?” I wrinkled my nose.

“Well, it’s a small world, hon, and these eyes don’t miss much.” She tittered. “Ev’rybody round here’s talkin’ about ya, tryin’ ta figger out what kinda gal you are. They think you’re a peach by now! A good head on yer shoulders, yessiree! I told ‘em myself! Not like Misty Wilcox, always foolin’ around with whatever Tom, Dick, or Harold shows up in her livin’ room. Why, jest last week she an’ that Shifflet fella …”

This was a really weird conversation, albeit enlightening. I didn’t know people actually paid attention to anything I did, good or bad. However, we’re talking about Stella here.

“Um … so maybe I should come over and get my keys?”

“Keys? Oh sure, honey. But that ain’t why I called. I done fergot.” She giggled. “It’s about yer roses.”

“My roses? What’s wrong with them?” I was already scrambling for my sandals.

“No, hon. They look fine. It’s just that white bush.”

“The white one? That’s the most important one, Stella. Did something happen to it?”

“No! That’s why I’m callin’! I don’t know what kinda fertilizer you been usin’, but it’s workin’!”

“What do you mean?”

“You jest gotta see it! I went out this mornin’ for a smoke, and there it sat, all …”

The phone clattered to the floor. I ran, still in my pajamas, and threw open the door. Jumped the deck steps two at a time. And stopped short at the snowfall of lush white blooms covering Mom’s Kobe rosebush, petals sifting lightly to the ground in the gentle breeze.

I stepped through the warm mulch and knelt there, gawking at the spectacle of sparkling white rimmed with faint pink like a sunrise. Thick blooms loaded on the leafy stems, mounded like scoops of ice cream and perfuming the breeze.

Mom’s Kobe rosebush bloomed.

The one as good as dead. The one without leaves. The one that hung brown and bare.

I felt déjà-vu-like there on my knees, remembering last night’s prayer by my bed. Everything became new. The dead rose to life. The heart beat clear and strong. I can live again! I can bloom again!

“Jesus,” I whispered. “You did it. You really did it!”

A whiff of smoke tickled my nostrils, and Stella’s flip-flops came skooshing through the grass.

“Toldja it was bloomin’,” she crowed, letting out a hazy breath. “Ain’t it something? What’d ya put on it?”

“I didn’t do anything.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the piles of white, shimmering in the morning sunlight and bending down the branches with their weight. “It’s just … God.”

I sounded like Becky, but with proper grammar. It felt weird. I wiped my eyes.

“Hmm. Yeah. I reckon so.” Stella puffed in silence. “Them’s real pretty. Seems like I remember yer mom takin’ special care of this’n. Always real careful prunin’ it and stuff. Her favorite, I reckon.”

I pinched off a perfect cup-like blossom and placed it in Stella’s chubby hand. “Here. Mom would have wanted you to have it, too.”

She turned the white bloom over then shyly pressed it to her nose. Snuffed out her cigarette and plopped down on my porch in her housedress, eyes pooling with tears.

I sat down next to her, not saying a word, and we watched the morning together. The blue jays and finches in Stella’s tree. Squirrels scampering across my yard. Mist rising over the pastures, pearly pink.

And then I bade Stella farewell. There was still one more thing I had to do.

The narrow road up to Green Hill Cemetery twisted through emerald woods, long and lonely. The iron gate swung in the breeze, unlocked. I idled my car at the entrance and pushed it open then drove inside and parked. Listened to absolute stillness descending as I slammed the door.

Robins twittered overhead in the latticework of green and hints of yellow as I strolled quietly among the headstones. Some crumbled with age, dating all the way back to the early 1800s. I paused by a child’s grave decorated with a lamb, imagining the black-clad crowd that gathered here so long ago. An eleven-year-old boy. No explanation, just a name and dates. Infection? An epidemic? An accident? I winced, thinking of Todd.

“Safe in the arms of Jesus,” read the lichen-covered script. My breath caught in my throat.

From now on that would be me, safe in the arms of Jesus. No matter what happened, He would stay with me. In me. Living through me.

I walked through the years, watching them pass by me, ghostlike and silent. I touched stones so old the carvings blackened and faded with lichens, and a sudden rash of markers dated 1863. My spine quivered. The war? I wondered if any Donaldsons numbered among them.

Mom’s grave lay toward the back, up where the grass met a thick stand of woods. I hadn’t come here since the funeral, so I felt lost, weaving through the markers in search of hers.