The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek (2 page)

“Don’t suppose you have a bed?”

“Sleeping bag.”

“Sofa? Chair?”

He shook his head.

She took a step forward and scrutinized him. Adam felt judged and found wanting. No hope of redemption existed. Miss Birdie’s expression didn’t even hold out the promise of grace. “Do you have a towel? A bar of soap?”

“Soap. Yes, I have soap.” Glad to have finally passed one of her tests, he pointed toward a box and a small suitcase. “And probably a couple of towels.” He waved at a tattered suitcase held together with a belt. “Somewhere.”

With a deep sigh—one that Adam felt came from the very depths of her soul and left no doubt what she thought about this feckless young man who stood to eat and yet had the audacity to undertake the task of becoming her spiritual adviser—she placed the dish on the kitchen counter, turned, and squish-squished out of the house. Without a
Good-bye
or a
Blessings
or a
Welcome to Butternut Creek,
she left.

After she slammed the front door, Adam discovered a spoon and plastic tumbler in one of his boxes and was able to eat some of the delicious chicken spaghetti right out of the dish. Still, he kept checking the entrance hall in case Miss Birdie might fling the front door open and shout
Aha!
when she found out he hadn’t even bothered to find a plate because he was a rude and boorish young man, as most twenty-five-year-old bachelors he knew were. The fear of her appearance made locking the door seem like a good idea.

He put the leftovers away in the refrigerator provided by the church. Inside were a carton of milk, another of orange juice, butter, and a dozen eggs, all left by some helpful person. If he could find a frying pan, he could fix breakfast in the morning.

Over the next few hours, more members of the congregation stopped by. They smiled and welcomed Adam and brought cakes and bread and vegetables and fried chicken and a brisket.

Once that slowed down, Adam considered unpacking, but he had no hangers and none had been left in the tiny coat closet. Probably some hung in the huge number of closets upstairs, but he didn’t feel the call to explore tonight. All those large empty rooms would probably depress him. He left everything in the suitcases, boxes, and plastic bags. Surely everyone—except Miss Birdie—would understand.

Next he called his parents, who’d retired to London after his father sold his company for gazillions of dollars. It was very early morning there, but his mother was glad to hear he’d arrived safely and promised they’d visit soon. His father expressed amazement that Butternut Creek had telephone service.

Tomorrow he’d email his sister in Kenya. Not that she’d worry. Traveling between refugee camps as she did was a lot more dangerous than the trip through Tennessee and Arkansas he’d just made.

Having completed everything he needed to take care of right away, at nine thirty he rolled out the sleeping bag, plugged in the television, and searched for a baseball game. Unfortunately, only one station came in, a feed from Austin transmitted from Llano. The picture was snowy, and the sound faded in and out. The problem constituted another introduction to the difference between city and rural life, but he didn’t mind. He listened to the local news and watched the blurry rerun of a sitcom before deciding to go to bed. Or, to be more exact, to go to sleeping bag.

Filled with gratitude to be here, he said his prayers and dozed off as soon as he finished.

After the long, exhausting trip, he slept well.

The insistent ringing of the doorbell started at nine o’clock. Adam shook his head in a futile effort to clear it, slipped into jeans and pulled on a T-shirt. When he opened the door, two muscular men stood there, carrying a sofa between them. Adam stepped back and watched as they brought it in without a word. They settled it against the wall of the room where he’d slept, then headed back out to a large truck with
HILTON FURNITURE
painted on the side.

“What are you doing?” he asked as the furniture came inside. “This isn’t mine. I didn’t order it and I can’t pay for this,” Adam attempted to explain as they carried in a large dining room table. They didn’t stop.

Like a yappy little dog, he ran after them asking where all this had come from.

“You’re in the wrong house,” he said but the men continued to ignore him. Taciturn and focused, they kept unloading and placing the furniture where they thought it appropriate: a recliner, a coffee table, that dining room table with six hefty chairs, a queen-size bed—well, almost everything a bachelor minister needed to set up housekeeping except, of course, that big bed they’d taken upstairs, which suggested marriage at some time down the road.

During this entire time, the men didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to him. When they had finished, Rodolfo—the name embroidered on his shirt—handed Adam a clipboard and pen. “Please sign, Pastor.”

He took the invoice and read it, attempting to find out the source of the furniture and where it should have been delivered. There was nothing on that page except the word
WIDOWS
and his address. Well, not the real address because, as he later learned, no one knew one another’s numerical addresses. This house was described as “the parsonage next to the Christian Church.”

“I can’t pay for this.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“Everything’s been paid for?”

“Uh-huh.” Rodolfo took the page Adam had signed, then tore off and handed the minister a copy. Followed by his crew, he left.

“Who paid for it?” Adam ran along behind the crew.

“Don’t know.”

“You’re sure you’re in the right place?”

“This is the parsonage, right? Next to the Christian Church?” He turned back and pointed at both. At Adam’s nod, he and the other men got into the truck.

“Who are the widows?” Adam shouted as they drove away. When the truck disappeared down the highway, he wandered inside to look around the newly furnished rooms.

Where had all this come from?

The only person he could think of who knew he didn’t have furniture was Miss Birdie. Well, the other church members who’d dropped by must have noticed the lack, but they hadn’t seemed to mind. Perhaps they believed the rest of his stuff would be delivered later. Or they might have realized that young ministers seldom had money and wouldn’t have a great number of worldly goods.

But Miss Birdie had cared deeply about the inadequacy. She’d taken it almost like an insult to her personally and to the church that had called him. As he walked through the parsonage on the hardwood floors he bet the ladies had buffed earlier in the week, he remembered her deep disappointment in his lack of possessions and her sharp words.

Now a sofa sat against the north wall of the larger parlor, a great green-plaid beast with soft pillows. He’d have a place to sit and watch television. He sat down. Comfortable and exactly long enough to take a nap during a slow ball game.

Miss Birdie wore comfortable shoes and inexpensive clothing. Surely she didn’t have enough money to buy all this. Was Adam wrong about that, too?

Only a few minutes later while he admired the rest of the furnishings, the doorbell sounded again. When he opened it, a white-haired gentleman stood there.

“Jesse Hardin.” He grasped Adam’s hand in a huge hand. “Got a card table for you.” As he dragged the table inside, Jesse said, “My wife and I own a farm outside town. Do you like to ride horses?”

“Well, I’m from Kentucky so I should,” Adam began. “But I don’t.”

“Well, if you want to give it a try, give me a call.”

A few minutes after Jesse left, Howard Crampton dropped by with two folding chairs and put them in the breakfast nook with the card table.

“Great cowboy hat,” Adam said, noticing the wide-brimmed hat the elder wore.

“Son.” Howard’s expression was someplace between a smile and a frown. “I’m going to teach you a little something about Texas. Don’t ever call this a cowboy hat. You could insult some good ol’ boy who might take exception, physically, to your sentiments. This”—he pointed to his head—“is my Stetson. Some men prefer a Resistol, but real Texans wear Stetsons.”

Adam nodded. “Thank you, sir.” He dropped his gaze. When he did, he noticed Howard wore cowboy boots, too, with intricate tooling on the toe, but Adam sure wasn’t going to ask about those. Instead he asked a completely different question, the one that really bothered him. “Howard, who are the widows?”

“Don’t worry about that.” The elder shook his head. “You’ll find out soon enough. Relax today, get settled.”

Before he could ask more, Howard sprinted out.

Now Adam really worried.

After Maudie Adams left, a set of towels hung over the bars in both upstairs bathrooms, the bed was made, and more linens were folded in a closet. Later that afternoon, two high school football players lugged in an enormous rustic oak armoire, which they settled against the wall opposite the sofa. Adam’s little portable television sat in splendor inside.

He had furniture. An abundance of furniture. More than he’d ever owned or thought he’d possess. The sight of his parlor and the new furniture filled him with a feeling of comfort, security, and joy. Even if they were temporary, even if the furnishings belonged here, stayed in the parsonage for the next minister of Butternut Creek, the sight of this plenty and a self-indulgent pride of ownership filled Adam with such an agreeable warmth that he struggled to force back that unholy and impious sentiment and attempted to refocus on the spiritual.

That not quite accomplished, he wandered onto the front porch and settled on the swing, pushing back with his feet a couple of times until the movement became established. A soft breeze dried the perspiration he’d worked up from watching those fine new belongings being brought in.

He looked out across the wide green yard he’d need to mow soon. Then his gaze again turned toward the church with the tall pillars in front, two on each side of the massive front door that looked as if it could have been part of the Arc of the Covenant. His eyes climbed the spire to the cross atop the steeple.

On that lovely, gentle evening, he whispered a verse from Psalms: “I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify Your name forever.”

The beautiful town wrapped itself around Adam, enveloped him in peace while the pale blue of the sky relaxed and refreshed him as the last rays of the sun warmed the air. The wonders of creation filled Adam with awe as day became night.

“All is right with Your world, dear Lord.”

And it was.

Yes, it was and it still is.

B
irdie’s feet hurt.

But pain wasn’t the worst of her worries. Neither was the certainty that the new minister was a disaster. No, her biggest concern was money. Actually the lack of it.

She glared at the back of the last customer as he strolled out of the diner. He’d left her a quarter and a dime. Thirty-five cents on a seven-dollar order. She shoved the tip in her pocket and balanced his dirty dishes on her arm.

The lunch crowd was getting stingier and stingier. Due to the uncertainty at the asphalt plant, the town’s biggest employer, fewer people ate out and those who did left smaller tips. With two teenage granddaughters to raise on her salary and tips and the payments from her husband’s Social Security, eking by was difficult. Sadly,
eking
was the best she could do. She needed new shoes if she continued to spend six hours a day on her feet, but couldn’t buy them now, not with school starting in a couple of months, not with the girls’ expenses.

She dumped the dishes in the plastic bin and rolled it into the kitchen, then returned to wipe down all the counters and tables. That finished, she pulled out her cell to call Mercedes Rivera, her lifelong friend, who had a break at work now.

“The new minister is a disaster.” Birdie spoke into the cell as she settled in one of the booths. “I don’t know what to think of the man. He’s so darned young.” She knew her friend would disagree. That’s what she always did, but Mercedes disagreed courteously.

“Now, now, we all have to start someplace. He’ll learn through experience.”

“I don’t want a minister to learn his job by practicing on me. I want a minister with an established connection with God.”

“Stop complaining, Bird. I swan, you’re getting so grumpy.”

Birdie didn’t respond. If she said what she wanted to, she’d just prove Mercedes right, again, so she didn’t say a word.

“Think of him as a novice,” Mercedes said. “Someone who will benefit from your influence.”

Birdie snorted. Mercedes had learned years earlier—back in the toddlers’ class at church when she’d attempted to use the purple crayon Birdie wanted—not to confront her directly. Now Mercedes attempted to lead Birdie.

“We’re not Catholic,” Birdie snapped. “We don’t deal with novices.”

“Then an apprentice. You’ll get him in shape. You know you will.”

Birdie leaned back against the high back of the booth and sighed. “I’ve got a lot going on with the girls and work. You know, I’m not a spring chick. I may be too old to train him.”

She knew Mercedes struggled not to laugh—or be heard laughing over the phone—at the statement. Her friend was always polite.

After a pause, Mercedes said, “Bird, Bird, Bird, as if you’d allow something as insignificant as being busy or growing old to turn you away from your duty.”

The problem with a lifelong friend was that she knew Birdie far too well.

“Rodolfo told me the preacher was really pleased with the new furniture.” Mercedes changed the subject as she always did when Birdie was upset. “Nice of you to bull… to persuade people to donate.”

Birdie harrumphed.

“I know you don’t like to be thanked for good works, but it
was
nice of you.”

“Hated to see the house bare,” Birdie explained. “He didn’t have a thing, not a stick of furniture, nothing worthy of that beautiful old parsonage. I couldn’t stand it.”

“All right. You got the community together to provide furniture only to preserve the architectural integrity of the house.” Mercedes didn’t contain the laugh this time. “I should know better than to compliment you for doing something nice.”

Birdie glanced at the clock. Nearly two thirty. She needed to get home if she wanted to see the girls. “Talk to you later.” She folded the phone and stuck it in her pocket.

As usual during the summer, the girls had slept in this morning. Bree, a junior, had volleyball practice until six and Mac, a sophomore, would be marching with the band until five thirty. If she hurried home, she could see them before they took off.

Her daughter had given the girls silly names: MacKenzee and Bre’ana. Whoever heard of putting an apostrophe in the middle of a name or identical vowels at the end? Birdie had given her daughter a sensible name. Martha. Martha Patricia. Had Martha lived up to such an honest, trustworthy name? No, at seventeen and without finishing school, she’d run off with a no-good man who’d deserted her when she got pregnant the second time. Everyone had told her he was all hat and no cattle, but Martha wouldn’t listen.

Martha, irresponsible Martha who’d always needed a man to take care of her and couldn’t take care of anyone else, spoiled by her father and disciplined by her mother, had come home to have the baby. She’d disappeared only weeks after MacKenzee’s birth, as Birdie had suspected she would. Birdie had ended up raising two girls when she was looking to retire, but what else could she do?

The community had shortened the girls’ names to Bree and Mac. With that, every trace of Martha disappeared from Butternut Creek except the memories of her miserable mistakes and her terrible grades in the permanent record of the school district.

All that had happened a few months after Elmer’s death. The double loss about killed her. Not that she let anyone know, but inside, deep inside, she’d felt as if she didn’t have anything left but a future of pain, exhaustion, and sorrow. But the girls, they’d pulled her out of that. They’d brought new meaning to her life, as well as worry and fatigue.

After she finished wiping down the last table, Birdie shouted, “Bye, Roy,” to the manager as she left the diner. He waved, then went back to separating the checks and credit card receipts.

After the two-block walk to the bungalow she and Elmer had bought forty years earlier, she entered and shouted, “I’m home, girls.”

“Hey, Grandma.” Mac came down the stairs to hug her. The child had curly brown hair, matching brown eyes, and the sweetest smile in the world. “Gotta go. Band practice starts in fifteen minutes and I need to get my trumpet out of the music room.”

“Did you eat lunch?” Birdie shouted as the girl ran out the door.

Then Bree, always in motion, dashed across the room, her long, straight dark hair swirling behind her. Everything about this older grandchild snapped with energy. She made Birdie tired just watching her. With a quick wave, she passed her grandmother and shouted as the screen door snapped shut behind her, “Love ya. See you tonight.”

At least she’d seen them. Birdie grinned for a second. They were good girls, turned out well. If she weren’t so worried and weary, she’d admit she loved them more than anything. They’d been the joy and center of her life since she’d first held them, but Birdie’d never tell them. Well, maybe on her deathbed. They’d get swelled heads if she got all sentimental. Besides, she wasn’t real good about expressing feelings. They’d all feel uncomfortable, her most of all.

Stepping out of her shoes, she headed toward the laundry room and tossed a load into the washer. Within two hours, she dropped folded towels on a spot she’d cleared on Bree’s unmade bed by shoving several stuffed animals on the floor. She hoped the child could find the pile when she needed them.

She rotated her left shoulder. Impingement. That’s what the doctor had said a month ago, then sent her to physical therapy. When her shoulder started hurting, Birdie quit picking clothes up and straightening the girls’ room. They were old enough to do that. If Bree couldn’t find a clean uniform because they were all in her athletic locker or Mac complained the jeans she’d planned to wear that day were dirty, Birdie just shrugged. Amazing how quickly the girls discovered the location of the dirty clothes hamper and learned to use the washing machine.

For a moment she paused, considered her thoughts, and shook her head. She had become a crabby old lady, exactly like Mercedes had told her, politely and as only a friend of long standing could. The realization had surprised her a little, but this was not the time or place for self-examination. She had plenty to do and no time to find a new attitude.

On Bree’s side of the bedroom hung posters of men and women with tattoos. She called them tats and wanted a rose on her back. What did she call it? A “tramp stamp”? If that didn’t beat all. Birdie’d never allow that. At times, the girl acted a lot like her mother, except that Bree made fair grades and didn’t get in trouble, and had the possibility of a college scholarship in either volleyball or basketball.

Birdie smiled. A MacDowell in college. Every member of Mercedes’s family had gone to college, most to graduate school, but Bree would be the first MacDowell.

In contrast with her sister’s, Mac’s side of the room looked spare. Desk with a lamp on it, desk chair, dresser, and bed. One of the posters on her wall showed some scientist from England with numbers floating over his head. Stephen Hawking, Mac had told her. Why would anyone have a poster of a physicist—that’s what Mac said he was—on the wall?

The other poster showed Wynton Marsalis playing a trumpet, the instrument Mac played. The portraits of the two men faced each other across the bedroom, precisely hung and as straight as if they’d been lined up with a ruler. Birdie felt as if she should straighten the stack of clean towels to conform to the rigid angles of the room.

Forget it. Little Miss Perfect—Bree’s name for her younger sister—could refold them if they didn’t please her.

In her own bedroom, Birdie padded barefoot across the scuffed hardwood to put her shoes in the closet and slide into a worn pair of slippers. On the way, Carlos the Cat attacked her ankles before he ran under the bed.

Lord, she was tired. She leaned against the wall. For a moment, she felt dizzy from exhaustion, but she shoved the feeling aside. She couldn’t get sick. What would happen to her granddaughters if she did? How would the church survive this new minister without her guidance? She attempted to pray for strength but it took too much effort and never seemed to help much anyway.

Or maybe it did. Maybe she’d be in an even worse state if she didn’t pray.

She needed to sit down for a minute, rest. After pausing in the kitchen to pour herself a glass of tea, she went out to the front porch of the small house and settled into one of the Adirondack chairs. Elmer had built them so he and Birdie could sit on the porch and wave to neighbors. He’d died only a year after that and she no longer had the time or the desire to sit there. She hadn’t when Elmer had placed them there, but he’d enjoyed that hour together even if it made Birdie want to leap up and start sweeping the steps or pull a few weeds.

Early evening was surprisingly cool for June, although the weather was never really cool in Texas during the summer. Less hot, at maybe eighty-five degrees. The big maple she and Elmer had planted years ago shaded the area. A nice breeze cooled the porch as peace and quiet overcame her. She took a deep breath and leaned back, closing her eyes to breathe in the warm Texas air laden with the scent of gardenias.

The calm lasted five minutes before she got antsy. She hated peace and quiet. Too much to do. She wouldn’t relax until they put her in the casket, if then. She pulled the phone out of her pocket to call Pansy about the food pantry. The woman would destroy the entire effort if Birdie didn’t step in and set her straight.

When Adam explored the entire house the next morning, the sheer size again overwhelmed him. Downstairs, the tiny basement had a dirt floor. Spiderwebs hung from supports and a twenty-watt lightbulb illuminated a small circle, but a washer and dryer sat in the corner so he didn’t mind the primitive surroundings.

The second floor had five bedrooms, each larger than both the bedrooms together in the Kentucky parsonage, and two bathrooms. The space on the third floor stretched across the entire house with storage closets built into the eaves. It seemed like a huge playroom for all those children he didn’t have.

He strode up and down staircases and across halls and into bedrooms, his footsteps resonating loudly on the hardwood floors. Last night, his sleeping bag had felt warm and familiar. Tonight he’d haul his things upstairs, and approach the nuptial bed.

Before he could decide which to do—to laugh at or worry about that thought—he checked his watch. It was after nine o’clock, the time he’d decided a
real
minister started the day. He’d dressed like a real minister in a pair of black slacks and a white shirt with one of his two ties: a red one and a ministerial one with black and gold stripes. He also had a Christmas tie his best friend had given him. Red with elves on it that played “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” He doubted he’d have many chances to wear that one, now he was a real minister.

Because he was already running late, Adam hurried, descending the steps from the second floor two-by-two. Reaching the first floor, he grabbed a file folder and his Bible and headed out the door toward the church.

“Hello, Preacher,” a woman called from behind him as he headed north across the lawn.

When he turned, Adam saw a smiling blonde coming down the steps of the even larger Victorian next door, a plate in one hand and a little girl grasping the other.