Summer of Joy

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “You’re late,” her mother said without even saying hello.

  “Not much,” Leigh answered as she gave her mother a little peck on her cheek. “Are you ready to go get some shopping done?”

  “Just a week late,” her mother said. “We always go shopping the first Saturday in December. Not the second Saturday.”

  “I was busy last week. I explained that to you. Hollyhill was having its Christmas parade.”

  “So you said, and you had to take that preacher’s daughter and that baby she has to the parade. Looks like he could have taken her himself.” Her mother pulled the door shut behind her as she stepped outside.

  “He was taking pictures for the paper. And I didn’t have to—I wanted to. Parades are fun. Don’t you remember when we used to go to the Christmas parade downtown here?”

  “I can’t even imagine standing on a street, watching a parade now. Not with the way my legs are. I don’t know how I’ll make it shopping today.”

  Leigh looked at her mother’s feet. They were swollen but didn’t look too bad. Her mother was too heavy, had always been too heavy ever since Leigh could remember.

  She’d told Leigh it ran in her side of the family and so Leigh shouldn’t worry about being too heavy herself. That there wasn’t anything she could do about genetics.

  But of course, there was, and Leigh had done it finally. She’d stopped eating everything in sight and started walking every day. And she looked the other way when she went past the potato chips at the grocery store. Even though she wasn’t skinny, probably would never be skinny, she was a lot closer to the “pleasingly” part on pleasingly plump. She didn’t look bad. She kept being surprised whenever she saw her reflection in a window.

  “Have you been putting your feet up the way the doctor told you?” Leigh asked her mother as she helped her get into the car.

  “How do you think anybody could sit around with their feet up this close to Christmas with everything still to do and no presents bought?”

  “We’ll get the shopping done today,” Leigh said. “One week won’t make that much difference.”

  “Not if you don’t mind everything being picked over,” her mother said glumly as she put her hands on top of her purse in her lap and let Leigh close the car door.

  “Maybe there will be more sales,” Leigh said as she slid in the car behind the wheel and started the motor. She was determined to stay cheerful and to hang on to the joy no matter what her mother said.

  “I doubt it. They just put the prices up the closer you get to Christmas. They know you’re going to be desperate to buy something, anything then.”

  Leigh pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She loved her mother. She really did, but loving her and enjoying being with her were two different things. It was as if her mother had a grudge against the world, and she nursed that grudge like a favorite child.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Leigh said, and she meant it. She might not be sorry she was a week late, but she was sorry her mother was upset. She was sorry her mother didn’t feel well. She had gotten out of breath just walking to the car, and no doubt, her feet did hurt. “Maybe it would be better if you just gave me your list and let me do your shopping for you.”

  “You think I can’t do my own shopping?” She sounded insulted.

  “I didn’t say that. I was just thinking about how you said your feet were hurting.”

  “Well, of course my feet are hurting. They’ve been hurting for years,” her mother said. “But you weren’t too worried about that when you decided to move off to Hollyhill when you had a perfectly good job right here in Grundy and could have lived at home and wouldn’t have had to spend all that money on an apartment.”

  “You didn’t want me to be a child all my life, did you?” Leigh asked softly.

  “You are my child all your life.”

  “Your child, but not a child. I’m an adult, Mother. I need to try my own wings just as you did when you left home and got married.”

  “Married?” Her mother almost choked on the word. She pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and fanned her face with it. “You aren’t thinking about marrying that preacher, are you? Your father and I haven’t even met him yet and you’re talking about getting married!”

  “I’m not talking about getting married,” Leigh said. But she’d like to be. She couldn’t think of anything she’d rather be talking about. “And I want you to meet David. You’ll like him. I know you will.”

  “Does he want to meet us? That’s the question.”

  “I told you he did. He does. Christmas is on Friday this year. I’ll get David to come up with me sometime that weekend.”

  “But you’ll already be home on Christmas Day and you always spend the night on Christmas after we go to Stella’s.”

  Leigh opened her mouth to say maybe not this year, but then shut it again. She felt cowardly letting her mother take her silence as agreement, but they had to get through the day shopping. And Leigh didn’t know what she was going to be doing on Christmas Day for sure. She just had hopes. No plans. But oh, what hopes.

  10

  The church was nearly full. A children’s Christmas program always brought the people in. Mothers and daddies, grandparents, aunts and uncles packed the pews to see their little shepherd, angel, or wise man in his or her moment of glory. The only other time David saw the church pews any fuller was at Easter, but he didn’t believe in lambasting people for not coming more often when they did show up at church. That was the time to welcome and embrace them. Show them the Lord’s love. He’d never found anything in the Bible about only loving the faithful who came to church every Sunday. The Lord received all who came to him.

  Up front Miss Sally and Lela Martin shooed three shepherds in bathrobes out from behind the white sheets that served as stage curtains. The little boys peeked out from under their towel head wraps and headed toward the red construction paper flames sticking up out of a circle of sticks in front of the podium. The pulpit had been moved to make room for the hill where the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks.

  On the other side of the stage, Dorothy McDermott and Myra Hearndon pushed four little sheep out into the limelight. They crawled toward the shepherds slowly to keep from losing their cotton ball fleeces and ears. Two of the sheep—the Hearndon twins, at two and half—had been prone to wander from the flock in practices. Myra had tried to talk Miss Sally out of putting them in the play, but Miss Sally insisted every child needed a part.

  Myra couldn’t argue with Miss Sally. Nobody in the church could. Not this year after she’d lost her brother and her house to the fire in September. Not that anybody ever wanted to argue with Miss Sally. She might not step out and be in the play. She might stay behind the scenes, but her part in the program, her part in the church, was to represent Christ with his arms outstretched. She played her part well, but with Miss Sally it wasn’t acting. She radiated love.

  So when Myra had worried about her twins wandering down the aisles or crawling under the pews or who knew where, Miss Sally said that was why there were shepherds. To keep their sheep from wandering. And because those shepherds were out on that hill that night doing their job and keeping their sheep safe, they were blessed. David was thinking about using that thought for his sermon next Sunday.

  Of course the little shepherds tripping on their bathrobes and stumbling over their wooden staffs toward the fire weren’t much older than the little lambs. Two of the little shepherds made it to the fire and sat down without a glance at the sheep milling around behind them. The other little shepherd, Jeremy Sanderson, shoved at the towel that had slipped down over his eyes and fell right over top of Eli Hearndon who was doing some kind of spinning sheep moves in the middle of the aisle with a full chorus of baas.

  Jeremy fell into the campfire. He jumped back as though the construction paper flames were real, and the towel fell off his head. The other two shepherds tried to help him put it back on, because it was a well-kno
wn fact that nobody could be a shepherd without a towel on his head.

  Meanwhile the sheep, seeing their chance, took off crawling up the center aisle. One of the little shepherds, looked around at the escaping sheep, put his hands on his hips, and announced, “I told Miss Sally we should’ve had cows instead of sheep.”

  The congregation let out a roar of laughter, and Miss Sally, who had come out from behind the curtain to be sure Jeremy was okay, laughed so hard she had to sit down on the front pew and wipe her eyes. The little sheep might have made it to the door if Jocie hadn’t put down her camera to give chase. She herded them back to the front, settled them into position while Miss Sally got the shepherds situated around the fire. The rest of the church folk, still smiling, caught their breath and waited for the angels to appear.

  Leigh leaned over and whispered in David’s ear. “I don’t see how the rest of the play can top this.”

  “You never can tell with kids,” David whispered back. Her hair brushed against his cheek, and he was glad he’d come back two rows to sit beside her, Tabitha, and Aunt Love who was holding Stephen Lee. The baby had jerked awake at the burst of laughter but had settled back to sleep when Aunt Love started patting his bottom.

  David reached over and took Leigh’s hand and thought about how the ring he had picked up the day before from Rollin Caruthers would look on her finger. It had turned out better than David had expected. The diamond was small, but the setting made it look bigger. Rollin had known exactly who to send it to, and he’d gotten them to rush the order.

  “For you, Brother David, we’ll get it done. Wouldn’t want Miss Leigh to be disappointed on Christmas Day, now would we?” he’d said and then grinned at David. But he’d kept David’s secret. Had promised not even to tell Mrs. Caruthers, although he said he’d probably be in the doghouse when she found out.

  He’d also been understanding when David told him he couldn’t pay him the whole amount until sometime after the first of the year. “That’s okay, son. I know things are tight for you right now. You should tell that church out there to up your pay. I’d wager they’re not paying you half what you’re worth. If they’re like most churches, they think preachers don’t have bills the same as regular folks.”

  “They’ve been good to me at Mt. Pleasant.” David had taken up for his people. “They’re always giving me things.”

  “I’m sure. Cabbages and green beans and turnip greens, no doubt. They need to bless you with some other green stuff.” Rollin had rubbed his fingers together as though feeling for dollar bills. “But don’t concern yourself. You just pay me whenever you get the money.”

  David didn’t like being in debt. Paul spoke against it in Romans. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. Then again, weren’t they all debtors to the love of the Lord and to one another? David owed a big debt to this church, to his family, to his town. And the Lord would supply David and his family their needs. But did the Lord think David needed to be engaged? Did David need to be engaged? Married again?

  He’d been wearing that prayer out as he searched for assurance that he wasn’t about to ruin Leigh’s life by asking her to share his. He’d allowed himself to be carried away by impulse when he married Adrienne. That had obviously turned out to be wrong. He shifted a little in his pew as the older kids sang a verse of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” He brushed against Leigh’s shoulder and she turned to smile at him.

  And suddenly a verse from Psalms was playing through his head as though he was hearing Aunt Love quoting it to Jocie. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Psalm 37:4.

  Was this beautiful woman sitting next to him a gift from the Lord? She was definitely becoming a desire of his heart. If only he could come up with a way to tell her that. He wondered what would happen if he just pulled the ring out of his pocket right then and there and handed it to her. But no, she deserved more thought than that. She deserved better than he could ever give her.

  “Here come the angels,” she whispered as the singers finished the carol.

  Cassidy Hearndon, Sandy Wilson, and Mollie McDermott stepped out from behind the sheet curtains up onto the back of the podium. Mollie started proclaiming the Good News. “Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” She stopped to swallow, and for a minute it looked as if she might have forgotten the good tidings.

  Cassidy leaned over close to Mollie and loudly whispered, “Jesus. Tell them about baby Jesus getting born.”

  Mollie picked up the angelic message. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

  Then the multitude of the three angels, the singers in the front pew, and the mothers behind the curtain said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” For a minute even the sheep stayed still as the angels held out their hands to sprinkle blessings down on the shepherds before they disappeared behind the curtains again.

  Chad Everts, the shepherd who’d wished for cows earlier, stood up and said, “Wow! We’ve got to go see this. God told us to.” He turned to look at the sheep. “Come on, sheep. You can’t stay out here by yourselves. You’ll have to go too.”

  Not exactly the way it was written or the way they’d practiced, but Chad had found an audience and was enjoying it. Dorothy McDermott and Lela Martin pulled the sheets together to set up the manger scene behind the curtains while the older kids sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

  Improvise. Maybe that was what David needed to do as he tried to figure out when and where to pop the question. At the park on the ball field where they’d had their first kiss? Another picnic in Herman Crutcher’s cow pasture? At least there wouldn’t be mosquitoes in December. Snow maybe, but no mosquitoes. After a night out at the Family Diner? At the Banner’s offices after Tuesday night’s newspaper folding session? None of those passed the romance test.

  Maybe he needed to sneak a look at one of Zella’s romance novels to come up with a romantic scene. Zella would tell him a candlelight dinner for two where they served roast duck and had men with violins playing beside your table. The violins might be too much to ask, but David was sure Grundy had restaurants with candles on the tables, but he didn’t know where they were. Plus that led him back to the no-money problem.

  Maybe he’d just wrap the ring up in a big shoe box and put it under the Christmas tree and invite Leigh over to open presents. Not very private, but maybe he was afraid to be too private.

  Chad the shepherd didn’t try to steal any more scenes as he and his fellow shepherds and the two sheep that had made the journey settled down to worship the baby Jesus. The two baby sheep, Eli and Elise Hearndon, had been sent out from behind the curtain to their father. The wise men brought in their gifts and laid them before the baby in the manger.

  Behind the curtain, Myra Hearndon started singing “What Child Is This?” Her voice was so true and beautiful that David felt shivers up his spine. What a blessing she and her family had turned out to be to the congregation. Proof that the Lord answered prayers his people didn’t even know to pray.

  Blessings sometimes brought with them special challenges, though. The church had received threatening letters, and many of the members feared another fire. Every prayer meeting someone stood up and made a special appeal for the Lord to watch over their church building. They also put feet to their prayers, and the deacons and some of the other men took turns driving by the church several times every night.

  As Ogden Martin had told David last week, “We’re glad and all that Myra and her family are in the church. She has a fine voice and Alex is a good man. Being colored doesn’t make a bit of difference in how the Lord blesses a person with talents, but the Lord didn’t tell us to bury our heads in the sand. Them being part of our church could make trouble for us because some people just can’t accept
coloreds and whites worshiping together in the same church.”

  “Praise the Lord that we can here at Mt. Pleasant,” David had said. David prayed every day that he was speaking the truth.

  It seemed true as Myra finished up the song and then came out from behind the curtains to lead the congregation in “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

  So many prayers. So many blessed answers. The privilege of leading this church. Leigh beside him. Little Stephen Lee in Aunt Love’s arms. Jocie snapping pictures and radiating the joy of Christmas. Wes walking. This Christmas play and the baby in the manger. He felt ashamed to have spent so much time worrying about money. Hadn’t the Lord always supplied? Hadn’t the Lord always been right there beside him in good times and bad?

  David stepped forward on the last line of the song to lead the congregation in prayer before they went to the basement where one of the men was going to play Santa Claus and hand out sacks of candy to the children. Maybe David should put the ring in a sack of candy and let Santa Claus deliver it to Leigh.

  11

  Mrs. Brooke.” The nurse stepped half out the door that led to the examination rooms and waited for Adrienne to stand up and run to her like an obedient dog.

  Instead, Adrienne looked around as if hoping some other woman would look up from leafing through a tattered six-month-old magazine to answer the call. After all, she hadn’t been Mrs. Brooke for years. She told everybody she met she was Adrienne Mason as if she’d never been married, but she’d never made the name change official.

  Her social security card read Adrienne Mason Brooke and that’s the name they’d used when she’d moved up into the manager’s position at the restaurant and been eligible for the health insurance coverage. She’d never had health insurance before. Hadn’t been to a doctor more than five times since she’d left Hollyhill. Waitresses didn’t have benefits. They just had to work their tails off and smile and act as if they weren’t waiting on idiots. Then if they were lucky and the idiots felt generous, they might get enough tips to pay the rent.