The Blessed (14 page)

She shook her head a little with a knowing smile. “Lots of things are forbidden among church folks. That doesn’t mean they don’t sometimes happen.”

He was saved from having to respond to that by a child running in from the back of the house. “Lacey! Lacey! Those men are here.”

The little girl’s eyes, as blue as the woman’s were brown, flew open wide at the sight of Isaac. She skidded to a stop in the doorway as if afraid to come closer to him. Her hair was dark as night and her cheeks very pink. She didn’t favor the woman who held a hand out to her. The child crept forward and grabbed hold of the young woman’s skirt pulling it in front of her.

“It’s all right, Rachel. He’s one of the Shakers. Brother . . .” She stopped and looked over at Isaac. “I can’t recall you telling me your name.”

“Isaac. Isaac Kingston.”

The woman called Lacey put her hand tight against the little girl’s back and pressed her close against her leg. “How about that, Rachel? A Bible name just like yours.” She looked down at the child and then back at Isaac. “This is Rachel. She doesn’t take to strangers.”

“Your little sister?”

“Do you always jump to conclusions about how people are related when you meet them?” Lacey said with a smile that took the sting out of her words. “We aren’t sisters. And before you ask, she’s not exactly my daughter, but she’s mine. Every bit mine. I’d try explaining it all, but it’s complicated and would take awhile. So instead of storytelling, I guess I’d better go on and pack up these books to leave here for the church people if I can’t take them with me.” She glanced down at the books. “I’m beginning to wonder what’s the use of packing anything. Could be we should leave it all for the church folks here to fight over.”

“Will they?”

“Will they what?”

“Fight over it. Fight over those books and whatever else you leave.”

“Of course they will. Church folk fight over everything even when they’re pretending not to. Don’t they do that over there where you live? At that Harmony Hill place?”

“Not so you notice. Everybody follows the rules.”

“Rules.” Lacey looked at him with a puzzled frown between her eyes. “What rules? The Ten Commandments?”

“Those too I suppose. But more. Shaker rules.” The ones he was breaking, he thought, but there was no need telling her that.

“Oh, you mean like the no-storybook rule. And the no-romance rule. Who makes up all those rules?” Her frown grew darker, and the little girl peeked up at her before burying her face in the woman’s skirt.

“The Ministry. Or so I’ve been told.” Isaac wondered if he should warn them about more rules. Something about the way the woman gently stroked the child’s head stabbed Isaac’s heart with loss. Not only for the child he and Ella would now never have but for the two in front of him. The Shakers would separate them. Their rules not only separated husbands and wives but mothers and children. But what good would it do to tell her? It would just bring the sadness sooner.

“A bunch of their preachers, you mean?”

“Their leaders anyway. They don’t exactly do church like most people around here.”

“I guess not if they just hand down rules and don’t let their people have any say in it. Our church people here aim to have a say in nigh on everything.” One side of her mouth twisted up in a little smile and her eyes sparkled. “For sure, I can’t imagine getting them or any body of church folks to agree to that one about the no marrying. The Bible we read speaks plenty about a man taking a wife and being fruitful.”

“The Shakers have a different way of looking at those parts of the Bible, I suppose.”

“You think they’re right?” Her smile disappeared as she waited for him to answer.

“It’s what they believe.” He avoided an answer, but she didn’t let him slip past her question.

“But what do you believe? Isn’t that what we need to figure out? Not what they think, but what we think.” The child eased the woman’s skirt away from her face to peer at him as if she wanted to know his answer too.

“Me, I’m not worried about that kind of fruitful. Not since my wife passed on.” Isaac felt the familiar stab of sorrow and regret mixed with guilt.

Her face seemed to reflect some of the same sorrow and regret back to him as her shoulders sagged a little. “Guess as how I’m not either, with how I’ve been living here with the preacher. But if everybody lived that way, believed that nobody should be fruitful, there wouldn’t be any babies.” Lacey tightened her hand on Rachel’s back as her voice took on a pleading tone. “That can’t be what the good Lord wants. It just can’t.”

Isaac heard the men coming into the house, but there was no escape from their notice now. It was going to take a lot of confessing to get Brother Verne’s forgiveness for this lapse of obedience.

The man’s voice was harsh and condemning. “Brother Isaac, you were told to wait out on the porch.”

Lacey spoke up for him. The very worst thing she could have done. “He was doing no harm. Merely explaining your beliefs.”

Brother Verne turned his scowl on the young woman. “It is surely impossible to explain that which one has no understanding of himself. Obedience is the first duty.”

Lacey met his stare with no give in her own as she asked, “Duty to who? You or God?”

“That’s enough, Lacey,” the preacher said, his voice every bit as harsh as Brother Verne’s. “You speak out of turn.”

She turned her eyes to the man she’d claimed as her husband, and for a second Isaac thought she was going to defy him too. But then she shut her lips tight together and bent her head before she muttered, “Sorry. Forgive my rudeness.”

In the uncomfortable silence that followed her words, the child began to sob. The woman pulled the little girl around in front of her and held her tightly against her apron.

The preacher looked completely disgusted with them both as he said, “Rachel, stop that noise right now.” He raised his hand as though he might be thinking of striking the child to make her hush.

Brother Forrest spoke up quickly. “We must all keep in mind that kindness is as much a duty as obedience.” Brother Forrest’s voice was soft with no censure as he looked at Brother Verne.

A bit of color climbed into Brother Verne’s face. “Yea. Forgive me as well, my sister and brothers.”

Brother Verne looked over toward Lacey, who acknowledged his words with a barely perceptible nod and then at Isaac. Brother Forrest and Brother Jacob were looking at Isaac too, expecting him to ask forgiveness as well. To bring peace back among them. So he said the expected words asking forgiveness for his disobedience, but what he really wanted to say as Lacey raised her eyes to meet his for a brief second before she turned away was
don’t go.

He’d told her that once already when she’d asked how he liked living among the Shakers, and it had been plain from the look on her face that she had little desire to go to the Shaker village. The words, ill advised then, were impossible to speak again in front of this man who was her husband. It was just as she had answered him earlier. Of course she had to go. She was the man’s wife. The same as Ella had been his wife.

14

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
That verse kept running through Lacey’s head. Words straight out of the mouth of Jesus, telling folks gathered on that Bible mountain how to live. Miss Mona had taught her the blessed verses early on. She’d told Lacey a person might not understand them all exactly, but that didn’t mean there weren’t lessons to be learned and attitudes to be sought.

Lacey had trouble with the meek part. Not understanding it. She knew what meek meant. It was the being it that was hard for her. She didn’t know why. If anybody had reason to be meek, it was her. A girl whose father had the same as given her away instead of standing up to his new wife. A girl who had to depend on the kindness of others for a place to live. A girl like that had no reason to be anything but meek. And yet her spirit resisted any hint of meekness.

Even when she bent her head there in front of the Shaker men and the preacher and pretended meekness, her insides knew better. She wanted to stare right into the face of that Shaker brother with his condemning attitude and talk some Bible at him. “Judge not that ye be not judged” and the like of that. But then the meek verse had slid through her mind and the “turn the other cheek” part of that mountain sermon and the “so far as a body is able live in peace with one another” verse.

Miss Mona was surely pelting her with those bits of Scripture straight from heaven. And if that was true, then Miss Mona must be telling her to go on and set her feet on this new path without fighting against it inside or out. Besides, she didn’t want to get the young brother in deeper trouble with the frowning brother. He seemed nice. The younger one. Isaac.

If you don’t want to go, don’t go.
That was what he’d said. She wondered why. He was there living with those Shaker men learning obedience. And kindness, she reminded herself. Brother Forrest was that. Kindness on foot. So could be there were more brothers and sisters like him at this village Preacher Palmer was determined to take them to than those like that other brother with his frowns and grudging apologies.

That’s what she would have to hope for, because she didn’t have the first choice except to follow the preacher wherever he went. He was her husband, in the sight of God and man. Didn’t matter if he acted like a husband or she acted like a wife. They were married. She’d stood up in front of a preacher and promised to love, honor, and obey till death do them part. Against her better judgment perhaps, but the vow had been made. While she hadn’t done the first two so well, she could manage the last one. Especially since to do any different would mean being parted from Rachel.

After the Shaker men started carrying the furniture out to the wagons they’d brought with them, Lacey hushed Rachel’s crying and mopped up her face with her apron. Then she and the little girl carried the storybooks to the kitchen and stowed them away on the shelves next to the rose-covered plates. She’d leave Miss Sadie Rose a note telling her everything left on those kitchen shelves was to go to the churchwomen in memory of Miss Mona. Maybe they wouldn’t fight over it that way, in spite of what she’d told that young brother about church folk fighting over everything. Maybe they’d remember that “meek inheriting the earth” verse and divide it all up with no cross words or hurt feelings.

Meekness. That was what she was going to dwell on. That and the verse about how the good Lord would never desert those who followed after him. She should have told the young brother that. His eyes had been so sad when he talked about losing his wife. Just the thought of a man loving a woman that much made Lacey feel all soft inside. That had been the kind of love she’d once dreamed of knowing while reading those storybooks the Shakers didn’t believe in. The kind of love a body could read between the lines in some Bible stories. The kind of love she’d likely never have a chance to know.

She shook away her wayward thoughts about love and turned back to emptying out drawers and packing. She added Miss Mona’s fans and recipe box to the kitchen shelf pile for the church people. Brother Forrest said there wouldn’t be any need for either at the Shaker village.

Each piece of furniture they carried out made the house echo with a little more sorrow. When Rachel melted into tears for the fourth time, Lacey grabbed the little girl’s hand and pulled her out the back door past the garden where the onion tops were beginning to fall over on the dirt and the corn was practically knee high. Another thing the church people could share, or maybe by the time the corn was ready to harvest they’d have a new preacher and his wife in the house. She wasn’t bothered by the thought of some other woman pulling the ears of corn off the stalks she’d planted. No need in her labor being wasted.

“Are we going to pick flowers to put on Mama’s grave?” Rachel asked when they went through the gate into the little cemetery.

“We won’t have to. Look.” Lacey pointed toward the grave where dandelion fluffs were so thick they made a bed of cotton. The yellow flowers hugging the ground had been transformed into fluff balls sticking up their heads to catch a breeze. Lacey bent down to softly touch one of the white fluffs and seeds took flight to leave nothing but the empty stem. So quickly gone through its cycle of life.

“Can I blow one, Lacey? Will Mama care?”

“She’d tell you that’s what you’re supposed to do. Blow the seeds. Open the door for new flowers.”

Rachel blew the seeds off one of the stems and giggled as she carefully picked another to do the same. Lacey put her hands on the warm gravestone. She shut her eyes and thought on meekness again. Miss Mona had been meek yet strong. And so good.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
She skipped around in the “blesseds,” saying whichever came to mind.

She didn’t realize she had spoken them aloud until she opened her eyes and saw Reuben standing there beside her. “Was you praying, Miss Lacey? Or just practicing reciting? They was Bible words, weren’t they? I stayed real quiet so as not to disturb you.”

“Thank you, Reuben.” She smiled a little at him before her eyes sought out Rachel chasing some of the dandelion seeds floating on the wind across the graveyard. “I was praying for help.”

“Help? I can help you. My mam always said I was good at helping.”

“That you are, but this is different help. Spirit-strengthening help. The kind you have to get direct from the Lord.”

“I can help you pray for it.” Reuben put his big blocky hands flat together under his chin and bent his head.

“You can, Reuben. Thank you. And I’ll pray for you too.” When she reached out to touch the man’s arm, his face lit up. She looked straight into his eyes and said, “I’m going to miss you.”

His smile faded away. “Do you have to go away, Miss Lacey?”

“I have to go where the preacher goes.”

“But he shouldn’t ought to go either. He’s always been here. Since before I can remember.” Reuben’s broad face looked worried.

“I know, but sometimes things change.” Lacey kept her voice soft.

“Even when you don’t want them to?”

“Even then.”

He let out a heavy sigh and stared down at the ground. “My mam said that too. After she took sick and the Lord started calling her home to heaven. She said things was gonna change, but I’d have to keep going down here.”

“And you have.”

“But I’m sad sometimes.” He peeked up at Lacey. “I’m gonna be sad when you aren’t here no more to help me with my letters the way Miss Mona did.” He reached over and ran his fingers across Miss Mona’s name on the tombstone. “I won’t be able to carve the names.”

“Yes, you will. Miss Sadie Rose will help you with that.”

He shook his head. “She don’t make them all square and straight the way you do. The way Miss Mona did. The way I have to have them.”

Lacey stared at the letters of Miss Mona’s name and tried to swallow down the sorrow that was making tears creep up in her eyes. Why did everything have to be so hard? The man before her knew nothing but meekness and service. Where was the earth he was supposed to inherit? She held in a sigh and stared down at the white cloud of fluff on Miss Mona’s grave. New beginnings in every ball of seeds. But every seed didn’t have to fly off to a new spot to begin. Some could take root right where they were and stay the same.

She looked back up at Reuben. “The Shaker town is not all that far from here. Somebody passes on and nobody in the church can write out the name so you can see it right, you bring me the paper with the name on it over there and I’ll do the letters for you same as always.”

Relief exploded on his face as he grabbed her in a bear hug.

Lacey couldn’t keep from gasping a little as she tried to push him back. “Not so tight, Reuben.”

Reuben turned her loose at once and cast his eyes down at the ground while his cheeks burned red. “I’m sorry, Miss Lacey. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s all right, Reuben. Everybody needs to hug somebody now and again.” Lacey wondered when the last time was that she’d hugged anybody besides Rachel. Never a man, except maybe her father when she was a little girl. Certainly not the preacher. And now that she was going to the Shakers who didn’t believe in romance of any kind, the only embraces she’d have much chance of experiencing would be in her stories. Nothing but a figment of her imagination. How funny that the only man to ever actually hug her as an adult woman would be the childlike Reuben.

His face was flaming red. “My mam told me not to hug on you church ladies. That it wasn’t nice. I forgot.”

“We all forget sometimes.”

“I saw Preacher hug that girl. But preachers are different. Mam told me that too.”

“Preacher Palmer?” Lacey stared at Reuben. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the preacher hug anybody. Not any of the church people. Not Rachel. Not even Miss Mona. But Miss Mona’s health had always been so delicate. A body worried the little woman was too fragile at times to withstand a touch much less a hug.

“He’s the preacher. Mam said he started the church afore I was born. My mam liked Brother Palmer. She said he was a man of God and me seeing him with that girl didn’t mean nothing. She told me preachers was appointed by God to comfort them that was in need of comforting, and it weren’t our place to judge who was needing comfort.”

“What girl?” Lacey couldn’t keep the question from tumbling off her tongue.

“That one I told you about. That put that box on your porch back when Rachel come to you.”

Rachel, hearing her name, stopped blowing the dandelion fluffs and came to lean against Lacey. She’d been practically attached to Lacey’s leg for three days now. Ever since the preacher started talking serious to those Shaker men.

“Well, you said she was crying when you saw him talking to her. That was a pretty good sign she was needing comfort.”

Reuben peeked over at Lacey with an odd little grin that made Lacey wonder if he was quite such an innocent as she’d always thought. “It weren’t that day,” he said.

Lacey stared at Reuben and didn’t know what to say. Especially with Rachel there listening. Rachel knew Lacey had found her on the porch in a box, but she’d never asked about how she got in that box. Lacey wasn’t ready to try to answer that question today. Not with everything else that needed answers. Why in the world had Reuben picked now to tell her about seeing the girl after all this time?

Reuben was as much a part of the Ebenezer church as the preacher. More now, Lacey supposed, since the preacher was turning his back on his congregation to go to the Shakers. Reuben was rooted as solid in the church as the oak tree out in the churchyard. The church people were his family. The tending of the graveyard his mission. At every service, he showed up with his boyish smile and drifted around the edges of the fellowship ready to pounce on any chance to talk. And yet he had hidden this secret for years. How many other secrets did he know?

Lacey pushed a smile out on her face. The curiosity Reuben’s words had awakened inside her was nothing but a poison she didn’t dare let spread in her mind. Curious imaginings about other people put a body’s feet on the path to trouble.

“It’s a preacher’s duty to comfort his sheep on any day they need help,” she said.

“Deacon Harold says he’s trying to scatter the sheep.” Reuben’s brow wrinkled with worry.

“The Lord will take care of you, Reuben. He’ll take care of all of you. He won’t let you be scattered.”

“But you’re going, Miss Lacey. You’re gonna be a lost sheep. You and Rachel.” He looked ready to cry.

“No, no, Reuben. The good Lord isn’t confined to one place. You know that. He’ll be right there with us wherever we go, the same as he is here with us now.” She lightly touched his arm. “We won’t forget you.” Lacey looked down at Rachel, who was staring up at Reuben with sad eyes. “And Reuben won’t forget us either, Rachel.”

They left him standing there by Miss Mona’s grave. Lacey tried to leave the questions that wanted to circle in her head because of his words there with Miss Mona too, but they trailed along after her like bits of a spider web she’d run into and couldn’t get wiped off. She didn’t need to pile on worries about things in the past atop the ones that were fresh and new.