The Blessed (11 page)

“She weren’t no woman. Not much more than a girl like you, Miss Lacey. But no, I never saw her no more. And my mam always said I could remember faces like I can remember numbers. Like I could see you ten years from now and still know you was Miss Lacey.”

“I won’t forget your face either, Reuben.” Lacey touched his arm. “But maybe Miss Mona was right and we shouldn’t talk about the girl anymore. Everything worked out the way the Lord intended.”

“That’s what Miss Mona told me. That it always does. She said the Lord could make a person see sunshine on the cloudiest day.”

“And the devil can bring clouds on the sunniest day.”

Reuben’s smile faded. “Yes, ma’am. I have knowed her to say that too, but she told me to think on the sunshine and not the clouds. So that’s what I do. You should too.”

“You’re right. I should,” Lacey said. “I will.”

But it seemed like the clouds kept gathering even with the sun beating down on them as she and Rachel walked back to the house. The Shaker men were still on the porch, and she’d no more than set foot in the yard than they were wanting her to come up and sit with them. To listen to their nonsense. She made them wait until she got Rachel settled down for a nap with her Maddie doll. The digging and chasing after butterflies had worn the little girl out, and her eyelids were drooping even before Lacey spread the little coverlet Miss Mona knitted over her legs. She didn’t even ask for a Maddie story. So Lacey had no reason to delay going out on the porch.

“Do you need more water?” she asked as she stepped out on the porch and gently shut the door behind her. She tried to smile, but the attempt died on her lips in the face of their solemn expressions.

“Nay,” the older Shaker said as the younger one jumped up out of the chair the Preacher had carried out of the kitchen for him. “Please sit and join us.”

Lacey looked at the chair but made no move toward it. “That’s kindly of you, but I need to be about my chores.” She reached back toward the door.

“Sit,” Preacher Palmer ordered.

She looked across the porch at him and wanted to defy him. To tell him to throw his glass if that would make him feel better, but that hardly seemed proper with the two Shaker men there between them. She moved in front of the one called Brother Forrest, who was intently studying his hands spread out flat on his knees, and perched uneasily in the chair. The young Shaker sat down on the edge of the porch with his back toward her. She was having the same bad feeling about this that she’d had listening to Reuben in the graveyard. The clouds the devil was blowing her way were thickening. Served her right, she supposed, for not remembering to pray more for the sunshine.

The silence deepened on the porch and almost clanged in the air as the seconds ticked past. The Shaker men didn’t move. They all sat there as though one of them had heard something and now the rest of them were listening to hear it again. A bobwhite call or more likely, with the way they sat stiff and on edge, a mountain lion’s snarl. Nobody had heard any of the big cats in this area since before Lacey was born, but Miss Mona said they were prowling the woods when she first came here with Preacher Palmer to start their church in the wilderness.

Actually Lacey wouldn’t have minded hearing the big cat scream. It would have taken the men’s thoughts off whatever they were waiting for somebody to say and she could go inside, bar the door, and be safe for at least one more night. Of course she couldn’t bar the preacher outside or the two Shaker men either. Then there was Reuben over in the graveyard with nothing but a shovel to defend himself. She shouldn’t be conjuring up any mountain lions to bring new trouble down on them.

When she peered over toward the church house to see if Reuben was still there, she could only see the front of the church and none of the graveyard from where she was sitting. But there would be a clear view from the back porch. She pushed those thoughts from her mind. One bunch of clouds at a time.

Lacey folded her hands in her lap and waited. She wasn’t going to be the one to shatter the silence over them. After what seemed like a half hour, the preacher cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was almost as slowly and deliberately as Reuben, like the words were having a hard time getting from his head to his mouth.

“Brother Forrest here, he says our marriage is an abomination in the eyes of God and his Mother Ann.”

Lacey was so taken aback by his words that she forgot to watch her own tongue. She stared straight at the preacher and spoke right out loud with no consideration of the other two men sitting there listening. “Well, for heaven’s sake, I could have told you that without you spending three days out here on the porch fussing back and forth.”

A smile slipped across the older Shaker’s lips, and he raised his hand up to cover his mouth and wipe it off his face. “It seems our young sister already has her feet firmly on the Shaker path to salvation.”

That wasn’t true at all, and she wanted to deny it outright. But she’d already spoken out once when she should have kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t about to do it twice.

11

The next morning Preacher Palmer was up early with his hat on and out the door before he even finished swallowing his last bite of biscuit. They didn’t talk about the Shakers or anything else. Words were scarce as hen’s teeth between them, but then that was hardly new. Even before Miss Mona passed on up to heaven, Lacey hadn’t shared many words with the preacher other than paying mind to his Bible readings and his sermons.

Now it was more a report of this or that church member who had dropped by to give news of somebody sick in the community or stating the need for coffee or flour when the preacher made his trip into the town on Saturdays. One thing Lacey had to say for Preacher Palmer. He didn’t deny them any of their needs or ever complain the first time about fetching home yard goods for her to make Rachel a new dress.

Lacey heard him ride his horse away from the house. He wasn’t a bad man, she reminded herself as she sat at the table sipping her tea. He hadn’t said where he was going, but there was always somebody needing the preacher’s ear or prayers in the church community.

Rachel was still asleep up in the attic room. Now with the preacher out and gone, the house was quieter than church at prayer time. Miss Mona used to call such early morning minutes before work had to commence the sweet part of the day. A time when a person could think on what the Lord might be wanting to plant in that person’s heart. That was, if a person could push aside all the stray worries that wanted to hang around from the day past.

Lacey shut her eyes and tried to do that. Just clear out her head completely. To go back to a better time before she had to worry about being the preacher’s wife. Or not being the preacher’s wife in the common way. Again the thought was in her head. Preacher Palmer wasn’t a bad man. He was a man chosen by God to shepherd his people. He was a man chosen by Miss Mona to love. Neither one of them would have picked a bad man.

It wasn’t him and it wasn’t her. Imperfect both of them, but not chasing after evil. It was the knotty situation they had got embroiled in, like a skein of yarn yanked and tangled in a hundred wrong ways until there didn’t seem any way to pull out a loose string. A person had to sit down and patiently untangle each knot to make the yarn useful again. But she wasn’t sure she could undo these knots she and the preacher had gotten tied up in, no matter how diligently she worked at the untangling.

An abomination in the eyes of God.
The words burned through her mind. If she really thought that was true the way she’d told those Shaker men and the preacher, then shouldn’t she just stand up and walk away? Wouldn’t it be better to go off in the woods and live on roots and berries than be part of something the Lord thought an abomination?

Lacey looked up as though expecting to see some answer coming down to her. But all she saw were the smoke-blackened planks over the cookstove that she should have already washed down in spring cleaning. The ceiling would have never gotten that black if Miss Mona were living to see it. She was an ardent believer in spring cleaning for both the house and the soul.

Lacey could almost hear the dear woman’s words in her head. “Sweep out bad thoughts that bedevil you. Knock down the cobwebs of poor attention to the Bible teachings. Mop up any feeling sorry for yourself and cast out grudges like you’d throw out a broken chair that can’t be fixed and is taking up room that could be put to better use. A body’s spirit needs a good going-over on a regular basis to keep it pleasing to the Lord.”

Lacey sighed a little and was glad to hear Rachel’s bare feet coming down the stairs, stepping whisper soft, to give her a reprieve from thinking on how she surely needed that spiritual cleaning every bit as much as the ceiling needed washing. The same as every morning the little girl made a beeline for the kitchen to lean against Lacey for a hug. Lacey breathed in her sweet child scent and held her a little closer. A gift from heaven.

She’d been wrong when she’d agreed with those Shaker men. Whatever allowed her to put her arms around this little child and be her mother, that couldn’t be an abomination. A tangled mess for sure. But hadn’t Miss Mona told her over and over that there wasn’t any mess the Lord couldn’t make right if a body surrendered it up to him? That the trouble with most people was they wanted to rush on ahead and try to fix things on their own instead of waiting for the Lord’s perfect time. That’s what she and the preacher had done. Rushed on when they should have waited.

Now as she turned loose of Rachel to stand up and dip her out a bowl of oatmeal, she could only hope the preacher wasn’t rushing on again instead of giving the Lord a chance to untangle their mess. But it was worrisome thinking on how intently he’d listened to those Shaker seed peddlers as they talked about their perfect ways and how their village was like heaven on earth. As if any human being could bring down heaven and live perfect.

If there was one thing Lacey knew for certain, she couldn’t. The second thing she was pretty sure of was that the preacher couldn’t either. Then while she might not ought to pass judgment on those Shaker people, somehow even without knowing any but the two who had spent three afternoons on her porch, she suspected they lacked some being perfect too.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
That was what the preacher had quoted to the Shakers that first day out on the porch. Paul’s words to the Romans. Preacher Palmer had without a doubt spoken that verse in church or wherever he was witnessing for the Lord hundreds of times.

All have sinned and come short.
Those words kept running through Lacey’s head as she went about her chores. Some truths a person just couldn’t get away from.

That afternoon she was standing on a chair, scrubbing clean the kitchen ceiling, when she heard somebody coming up the front porch steps. She thought at first it might be those Shaker men back to find the preacher. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to them after she’d admitted being an abomination, and she thought to keep quiet and let whoever it was think nobody was home. But Rachel was in the front room playing with her doll and she ran right for the door.

“Miss Sadie Rose.” Rachel squealed and jumped up and down. “Did you bring Maddie’s new dress?”

Lacey finished wiping off the planks on the square of ceiling she could reach before she climbed down off the chair. As she dried her hands on her apron and went into the front room, she had the uncharitable thought that she’d have rather seen the Shaker men. At least she could have sent them on their way. Now she’d have to sit down and drink tea and wait for whatever it was Sadie Rose had come to tell her. It wouldn’t be good.

They settled on the front porch with the tea Lacey stirred up the fire to brew. They didn’t have anything sweet to go with their tea, because crumbs were all that was left of the Sunday spring cake in the pie safe, and Sadie Rose hadn’t bothered to bring cookies. But she had brought the promised new dress for the Maddie doll, so Lacey couldn’t hold no cookies against her.

At least Sadie Rose hadn’t brought Jimmy with her to whisper more of his troublesome words in Rachel’s ears. They sat there in the early afternoon sunshine and talked about the sick in the community. Mr. Jarvis had tried to pick up the end of a log and bothered his back. Dottie Whitlow was nigh on ready to birth her fourth baby, and Sadie Rose was lining up women to carry food over to the family during her confinement. And of course she knew Lacey would want to help out. The church windows could use a good washing, and the women needed to set aside a day for some spring cleaning at the church. Like Lacey was doing at the preacher’s house. Miss Sadie Rose almost looked approving when she said that.

Lacey listened and waited. Sadie Rose had her work clothes on the same as Lacey. She hadn’t even put on a clean apron. That meant she’d taken time out from the middle of her chores for some purpose other than noting the dirty windows in the church building.

The tea was all gone in both their cups and they’d run out of sick people to talk about before Sadie Rose set her mouth in a hard line. She put her cup down on the porch with a clatter and leaned forward a little with her hands on her knees, like as how she was ready to take Lacey on.

“I reckon I should just be out with it, Lacey,” she said.

“Miss Mona always thought that the best way. If you want to say something, say it. Don’t leave a body guessing.”

“Dear Mona.” Sadie Rose sighed and looked sincerely sad. “I do miss her and the steadying influence she had on the church. Even when she wasn’t able to walk over and meet with us at the church house, we knew she was praying for us and that the good Lord was bending down his ear to hear her and us.”

“Do you think he’s stopped bending down his ear to listen?” Lacey asked. It was a question she needed answering, because there’d been times in the last few weeks when she’d felt that might be true. But then she reminded herself that a person had to send the prayers up for the Lord to bend down to listen. That’s where she’d been negligent since Miss Mona died. She’d think prayers but then let them slide right out of her mind without offering them up proper. It was like she was afraid of the answers the Lord might send down to those prayers.

Sadie Rose’s forehead wrinkled up in a frown. “No, no. Of course not. That wasn’t my meaning at all. The good Lord pays attention to anybody’s fervent prayer. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss Mona. Or that Preacher Palmer doesn’t. She was a steadying influence on him too.” The woman’s eyes sharpened on Lacey. “And on you.”

Lacey glanced over at the steps where Rachel was singing to her Maddie doll and was relieved to see the child wasn’t paying the first bit of attention to any of her and Sadie Rose’s talk. Lacey looked back at Sadie Rose, who was still leaning a little forward in her chair as if ready to argue down anything Lacey might say. But Lacey didn’t want to do any arguing. Being crossways with Miss Sadie Rose and the churchwomen was just another mess of tangled knots she was in.

Lacey stared down at the cup she was holding and felt a tear threatening to leak out of her eye as she said, “I didn’t want Miss Mona to die.”

Sadie Rose let out a breath of air and then surprised Lacey by reaching across to touch her hand. “Of course you didn’t, Lacey. We know that. We all know that.”

Lacey didn’t look up at her. She kept her eyes on the woman’s work-worn hand with its calluses and chapped skin. Sometimes it was easier to stay mad at a person than to stand up to her kindness without completely falling apart. Becoming a puddle of tears wouldn’t serve any real purpose.

“We know the fault of none of this can be laid at your feet, Lacey. We’re seeing that more and more.”

Surprise wiped the tears right out of Lacey’s eyes as she looked up at Sadie Rose. “How’s that?”

Sadie Rose sank back in her chair and didn’t meet Lacey’s eyes. Instead she studied her hands now twisted together in her lap. After a long moment with the only noise Rachel’s chatter to her doll over on the steps, the woman let out a tired sigh. “I’ve never felt it proper for church members to speak ill of their pastor. Always thought the error in thinking was more apt to be in the church member than the man the Lord called to be his messenger of the Scriptures.”

Lacey didn’t know what to say to that, so she kept quiet. For a minute she didn’t think the woman was going to say anything more, but then she looked up at Lacey before letting her eyes drift to something beyond Lacey’s head. Something in the air that might make what she was wanting to say easier to speak out loud.

“We’ve . . . me and Harold, I mean. We’ve been hearing some disturbing news about Brother Palmer. We were of the mind to not think much about it, knowing the preacher the way we do. We figured it was some kind of mistaken thinking on them that were doing the talking to Harold, but then this Shaker man came by with his seeds this morning before Harold went out to the field. Jacob, he said was his name. Not much more than a boy and so mixed up on the truth of the Bible. We were all right with that. A person has to make his own choices and we could pray he’d see the light. But then he said our preacher had sent him our way and that he was hoping we’d be as open to the true way to salvation as Brother Palmer. The true way, mind you, like we didn’t already know that way. Like we were the ones who didn’t know the truth instead of them. Like the Bible didn’t tell Adam and Eve to go forth and be fruitful.”

Miss Sadie Rose’s voice had started out calm enough, but with each word it rose a little, like as how she was trying to outtalk a thunderstorm only she could hear. Rachel looked up from playing with her doll, then deserted Maddie on the steps to come lean against Lacey and stare at Sadie Rose with big eyes. Lacey figured her own eyes were every bit as big. She didn’t try to say anything to stop the stream of words coming out of Sadie Rose’s mouth. She just listened.

“That they—we’re supposing he meant him and others of those Shakers—had been talking a right smart to the preacher and thought that come Sunday Brother Palmer might be bringing us all the truth of how Christ hadn’t just come to earth once, but how he had to come back as that woman they go on about over there in that Shaker town.”