Summer of Joy

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Adrienne’s car was blocking his in the driveway. “Move your car,” David ordered her.

  “Sure. Just give me a minute,” Adrienne said. “Where did I set my purse?”

  “I don’t have a minute.” David ran out to his car. He flattened two rosebushes going through the yard to get around Adrienne’s car, but Aunt Love would understand.

  He drove like a maniac out the road. He had to catch Leigh. But then he realized he didn’t even know how long she’d been gone. How long had he talked to Adrienne? Too long. He got to the end of the road and didn’t know which way to turn. Right toward Hollyhill or left toward the parkway where Leigh was supposed to meet her parents.

  He sat there without turning either way. He didn’t know what to do. Oh, dear Lord. Help me. Bring her back to me.

  37

  Tears dripped off Leigh’s cheeks as she drove back to Hollyhill. She kept seeing David and that woman, his first wife, stepping down into the porch. She kept seeing the door closing behind them, shutting her out. She couldn’t just stand there and act like everything was okay. Jocie had wanted her to. Had begged her to. But the tears had been building inside Leigh, and if she was going to cry, she wasn’t going to do it where that woman could see her.

  And things weren’t okay. Even if David said they were. At least that’s what she thought he’d said. Her mind had been spinning so much the words might have come through to her wrong. Everything had been wrong. She had to get away where she could think things through. Figure out what to do. Where she could cry without anybody seeing.

  She did. She no more than pulled out of David’s driveway than she started wailing. Just the way the Bible said the mourners did back in Bible times. In one of his sermons, David had said those women were professional mourners. It was their job to cry and wail and be in sorrow. What a terrible job, Leigh had thought at the time. To be a griever. That was what David’s sermon had been about. How some Christians seemed to want to be chronic grievers, always ready to see a slight, always seeing the dark side of every situation, always moaning and wailing that things weren’t fair.

  But he hadn’t been preaching at her. Not then, but maybe he would be now. Still, this was different. It wasn’t fair that Adrienne had picked now, this very week, to show up after all these years. Leigh had reason to wail, didn’t she?

  She angrily swiped the tears out of her eyes and mashed her mouth together. She’d never been a wailer. She’d always been a good girl. Always kept smiling when the kids at school made fun of her for being fat. Always kept smiling when her father stared at her with that puzzled frown as if wondering how a child so inept could be his child. Always kept smiling when her mother held her in her lap so long Leigh felt as if she might smother. Always kept smiling no matter what happened. Good girls smiled. Good girls didn’t misbehave. Good girls didn’t complain. Good girls certainly didn’t wail. Not even if they were watching every hope and dream they’d ever had pop like soap bubbles in the air.

  She didn’t want to give up hope. In her mind she reached for the bubbles to gather them softly to her. She couldn’t let them all burst. What was life without hope? And who was the source of hope? Just two weeks ago her Sunday school class had a lesson about hope. Leigh had memorized the focal verse from Romans. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

  At the time she’d already been filled with joy and peace as she contemplated being Mrs. David Brooke. She had abounded in hope. Hope for her and David’s future. Had she given it up so easily? Was that what the Lord wanted? For her to just open her hands and turn loose of that hope? Surely if she could do that, the hope that had been in her heart had been shallow with no power. As easy to pop as those soap bubbles in her head. Not true hope.

  Of course she still had the hope of the Lord. The Lord hadn’t deserted her. He was standing there waiting for her to stop wailing, to stop letting her thoughts shoot in every direction. He was standing there reaching for her. When she was a child afraid of the dark, she had often imagined Jesus standing in the room with her, promising to stay with her through the dark. He was with her now too.

  Leigh stared at the road as she came to Hollyhill and turned down the street to her apartment, but she wasn’t seeing the familiar buildings and trees. Instead she was trying to picture Jesus in her mind, promising her peace and joy. But it wasn’t the Lord she saw reaching for her. It was David.

  Leigh pulled into her driveway. What was she doing there? She had a shower to go to. Her parents would be waiting at the parkway. She looked over at the stairs up to her apartment. Edwin Hammond was standing on the bottom step. When he saw her, he smiled. As if he thought she’d come back just to see him.

  The man started across the yard toward her, his smile getting broader as he must have seen the distress on her face. “Are you all right, Leigh? What has that man done to you?”

  She started rolling up her window. She didn’t want to talk to Edwin Hammond. She didn’t want to see Edwin Hammond.

  “Don’t shut me out. You and I were meant to be together,” Edwin said as he ran toward the car. He put his hands on top of the window glass before she got it all the way up.

  “Go away, Edwin,” she said flatly. “Let go of my window and leave.”

  “Truly I cannot. For you need me. I need you,” he said.

  “Why?” Leigh asked.

  “Why what?” Edwin looked puzzled.

  “Why do you need me? You barely know me.”

  “But I do know you, my dear. I know when you rise in the morning and when you retire at night. I know the songs you sing before breakfast. I know the way you dance in the rain. I know the things you throw away and the things you keep. You should have kept my roses. You should have stored my poems in your heart. Then you would have no need for these tears.” He reached through the small space left at the top of the window toward her cheek.

  She jerked back before he could touch her. She didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want him to watch her. She didn’t want him anywhere near her. She was repulsed by his words in her ears, by his nearness.

  “Don’t fight it, my dear. You know you love me. It was destined by the stars.” Edwin leaned closer to the window until she could feel his breath coming through the opening.

  “You don’t know the first thing about my destiny. Turn loose of my window and leave me alone.” She stared at him coldly.

  He stared back at her with that smile that made her cringe inside. “You fear you have no destiny.”

  “The Lord is in control of my destiny.”

  “The Lord?” Edwin laughed. “How parochial. You people are so totally and unendingly amusing. And I suppose you think David Brooke is part of your destiny? Has he told you that? Is that why you’re here? Running away from that destiny? If so, I applaud you for that.”

  “I’m not running away from anything, but I do have somewhere I need to be, so let go of my window.” Leigh put her car in reverse.

  He kept smiling at her without moving away from the car. She took her foot off the brake and began pushing down the gas pedal. For a few seconds he ran alongside the car, but then he jerked his hands free and fell back. Leigh didn’t look toward him as she backed out into the street, shifted into drive, and mashed down on the gas. She didn’t want to see him.

  She was looking ahead toward where David was waiting for her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so foolish as to run away. To so have doubted the wonderful love David had promised her. Not for a day. Not for a week. But for the rest of their lives. How could she have run from that? Without even trying to hold on to it.

  She dug a tissue out of her purse as she drove and wiped the last of the tears off her cheeks. She blew her nose and fluffed back her hair. She pulled the rearview mirror down and peeked at her face. She had looked better. But that was okay. Her nose had been redder when David had proposed. He wasn’t going to turn his back on her because of a red no
se.

  She was surprised when she saw his car off the side of the road where he either had to turn right to go toward Hollyhill or left to go to the church or to the parkway where her parents were no doubt in a tizzy by now as they argued about whether to wait for Leigh to show up or go on back home. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten all about meeting them. But right now she was more worried about meeting David.

  She drove over on the wrong side of the road to pull up beside him, window to window. There weren’t any other cars around and even if there were, she didn’t care. They could just go around her. Still, after she was there beside David, she was afraid to look at him. Afraid of what she might see. Disappointment? Anger? Regret? Could she possibly hope to see what she most wanted to see? Love.

  That ye may abound in hope. The bit of Scripture ran through her mind again as she kept her eyes away from his face and instead studied the hairs on his arm laying in the sun in the open car window. She found her voice. “I’m sorry, David.”

  “Look at me, Leigh. Please.” His voice was gentle, kind, and his hand was reaching across the divide between them toward hers.

  She raised her eyes to his and felt the hope bounding up inside her. Knew her prayers were being answered even though she’d been too distraught to offer them in words. Her hand went out to his even as she repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said. “You came back.”

  “But I shouldn’t have left. Not without talking to you.”

  He caressed her hand with his fingers. “No, you should have trusted my love. You should have remembered how I told you we could talk about anything and how nothing could ever keep me from loving you.”

  “I’m glad because I’ll probably do some other dumb things,” Leigh said.

  He tightened his hand around hers. “As long as you don’t think it was a dumb thing saying you’d marry this preacher man.”

  Her eyes flew open wide as she realized he was feeling as vulnerable and open to hurt as she had felt earlier. “Oh no, David. Surely you’d never believe that was possible.”

  “I didn’t know what to believe. You were gone and I came after you, but I didn’t know which way to turn. I’ve been sitting here trying to say the right prayers, trying to believe you’d come back. Hoping beyond hope that you hadn’t decided being Mrs. David Brooke was going to be too hard. Hoping my love would be enough.”

  “That’s what I asked the Lord for too when I got back to town and realized how sorry I was that I’d run from your love. And he gave me a verse, made me remember that he is the God of hope.”

  “‘Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.’ Romans 15:13.” David’s eyes burned into hers as he said the verse.

  It was better than a mere physical embrace. As they held hands, every part of their minds and hearts and souls embraced. The heat of the sun was forgotten. The time was forgotten. Her waiting parents were forgotten. The church people preparing their shower were forgotten. Adrienne was forgotten. It was just Leigh and David becoming one. Forever.

  She almost started crying again. Happy tears this time. But then a horn was blasting beside her as a car went around them. “Maybe I should get out of the road before somebody hits me,” Leigh said.

  “Good thinking,” David said, but he didn’t turn loose of her hand.

  “And my parents will be wondering where we are.”

  “They will.” His grip tightened on her hand for a second. “I love you, Leigh Catherine Jacobson.”

  “And I love you, David Enoch Brooke.”

  David smiled. “I didn’t know you knew my middle name.”

  Leigh laughed. “A girl always knows the name of the man she loves.”

  She followed David back to the house. Jocie was out at the edge of the yard watching for them. Leigh waved at her and Jocie smiled all the way across her face before she ran back to the house. Abounding in hope. Oh dear Lord, help them all to be abounding in hope, Leigh prayed as she stopped her car and got out. David was waiting for her.

  “What happened to Aunt Love’s rosebushes?” Leigh asked as they walked toward the porch.

  “I sort of ran over them,” David said.

  “Aunt Love will never forgive me,” Leigh said with a groan.

  “Those old rosebushes are tough just like Aunt Love. They’ll be okay. We’re all going to be okay.”

  “Okay,” Leigh echoed him, and this time she believed it.

  38

  Jocie woke up early Wednesday morning. She lay still on her back porch bed and listened to the mockingbird outside. It felt strange not having to jump up to get ready to go to school. School was over. Complete. Finished. She’d made it through her freshman year in high school in spite of Mr. Teacher Creep. Three more years and she’d really be finished with it all.

  Then it would be time to do something else. Maybe go on to school somewhere else. She’d have to leave Hollyhill to do that. Jocie didn’t like to think about that. It made those spiders start crawling around on the inside of her ribs.

  So she didn’t think about it except in a way-off wondering kind of way. Someday this or that might happen. Someday, but not right now. That’s the way she used to think about her mother. Someday she might see her again. Someday she might come home. Someday she’d tell Jocie why she’d left her behind without so much as a goodbye.

  If it was strange waking up and not going to school, it was even stranger waking up knowing her mother was sleeping in the house. Not on the couch. Not in Tabitha’s room. She’d taken over Jocie’s father’s room. Jocie’s dad was bunking in with Wes until she left.

  Maybe that was the strangest of all. Waking up and knowing that her father wasn’t sleeping in the house. It bothered Jocie. She didn’t like thinking her father was miles away. Not that Hollyhill was that far. She rode her bike to town all the time. But what if something happened? What if her mother did something?

  She didn’t know what she expected her mother to do. But whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. Her showing up unannounced on their front porch hadn’t been good. Talk about bad timing. DeeDee had practically scared Leigh silly. Jocie wasn’t sure why. There was no way Jocie’s father was going to forget about Leigh and fall in love with DeeDee again. No way. He’d just been irritated when he’d seen DeeDee at the bottom of the stairs. Jocie had seen that plain as day in his face.

  Leigh must not have figured out Jocie’s dad’s expressions as well yet. Maybe because she’d been too busy going into full-scale panic. First wife back. Wedding one week away. Trouble for sure.

  Leigh had no reason to think trouble, but Jocie knew about panic. Sometimes it made a person do things that didn’t make the first bit of sense. Like running when that person should be talking to find out the truth. That’s what she’d done last summer. Run away instead of talking to her father after Ronnie Martin had said those hateful things. And look what kind of fix that had gotten her into. Landed her and Wes right in the path of a tornado.

  Thank goodness Leigh hadn’t needed to get almost blown away to come to her senses and turn around and come back. When Jocie had seen Leigh’s ’59 Chevy coming back down the road, she’d been so happy she’d jumped up and down. Until that afternoon, Jocie hadn’t realized how much she depended on Leigh being around. She’d thought she was just happy about the wedding for her father because he seemed to be so happy about it all. She’d thought she didn’t really care one way or another whether her dad and Leigh got married. It was all what they wanted.

  Then when Leigh had looked so ready to cry as she’d gone out the door, Jocie’s heart had gotten heavy inside her and she’d wanted to wrap her arms around Leigh and make her stay. And not just for her dad. She wanted Leigh to stay for her. She even thought about calling her Mom, but she was afraid that might make Leigh run away faster. Still, the word Mom had been in Jocie’s head. It was still there.

  Jocie had wri
tten about it in her journal late Saturday night after they’d gotten back from the shower and her dad had left to stay with Wes.

  I don’t guess I’ve ever had a mom. Certainly not DeeDee. She may have been my mother, but never my mom. And then all of a sudden I’m looking at Leigh and thinking Mom. I guess that has to take the weird award for the year. Me wanting to call Leigh Mom when my actual mother was standing in the next room after being gone all these years. I never thought either thing would ever happen.

  So now I have a granddaddy I call Wes and a mom I call Leigh. Maybe I’ll tell Leigh that after the wedding. After DeeDee has left. After things have settled down a little. I wouldn’t want to scare Leigh. While I think she really might like having a kid of her own, I’m sure she has in mind some sweet little baby like Stephen Lee, not some ugly duckling like me who’s fourteen, going on fifteen. Mom might be the last word she wants to hear me say.

  That’s certainly the way DeeDee was, Jocie thought now as she got out of bed. She hadn’t wanted to hear Mom, Mama, Mother, or anything from Jocie. Jocie tiptoed to the back door and carefully opened it to keep it from squeaking when she let Zeb out. It was early. Aunt Love wasn’t even up yet. And here Jocie was wide awake.

  She hadn’t slept very well since DeeDee had shown up. Jocie kept jerking awake and listening. She wasn’t sure for what. Maybe so she’d know if her mother got up and drove away in the middle of the night. Maybe so she could be sure DeeDee didn’t try to pack up Stephen Lee and take him with her. She seemed almost obsessed by the baby.

  Tabitha had thought Jocie was way wrong when Jocie said something about how maybe they should watch their mother so she couldn’t carry off Stephen Lee. “DeeDee wouldn’t do that,” Tabitha had said. “She never wanted a baby. She doesn’t even like babies.”

  “She may not like babies, but she likes Stephen Lee. A lot,” Jocie had said.

  Tabitha couldn’t argue against that, and Jocie had noticed that she had started sticking close by when DeeDee had Stephen Lee.