Orchard of Hope

by Ann H. Gabhart

  She’d worked hard to be the perfect daughter. She ate everything on her plate. She put away her toys without being told. She didn’t complain when her mother made her wear her hair in ringlets even though none of the other girls at school did. She hid her tears when some of the kids called her a big fat baby. She didn’t once doubt the fault was hers when her father never seemed to have time for her. She spent hours studying to get the top grades in her classes. She stayed home and got a job right out of high school because her mother cried when she’d talked about going off to college.

  Her mother had cried again when Leigh moved to Hollyhill years later, but Leigh shut her ears. She loved her mother, but she wanted to have a life on her own and not be a child forever in her parents’ house. Now five years later, her mother hadn’t given up on finding a way to bring Leigh back home.

  She’d called just the night before. She usually only called on Thursday, so Leigh had not expected to hear her voice when she picked up the phone. Her mother didn’t bother with the usual greetings. Instead she went straight into guilt trip number three thousand and six. “Your father’s sick.”

  Leigh took a deep breath and sat down at the kitchen table. She twisted the curly telephone cord around her hand and wished for the hundredth time that she could remember to get a longer cord for the receiver so she could move around while she talked. Leigh couldn’t even reach the refrigerator to get something to drink. She was stuck at the table until her mother was ready to say good-bye.

  Leigh picked up an envelope off the table where she’d thrown the mail when she’d come in from work and fanned herself. “Oh gee, that’s too bad. What’s wrong with him? Nothing serious, I hope.” She wasn’t too worried. Her mother was always talking about somebody being sick or going to be sick. Of course it was usually herself and not Leigh’s father.

  “Who knows? It could be, but you know how your father is. He won’t go to the doctor, but something’s wrong with him. He’s been complaining for over a week now about a pain in his back.”

  “Maybe he just strained it somehow,” Leigh said.

  “But he hasn’t done any lifting or anything.” Her mother’s voice took on a little whine. “I thought you’d be home to see us this weekend, and I was going to tell you about it then, but you didn’t come.”

  “I was busy, Mother. I told you I wouldn’t be there this weekend when I talked to you last week.”

  “How could you be too busy to come see your parents?”

  Leigh fanned a little faster and mentally counted to ten before she said, “I’m planning to come home to see you Saturday afternoon.”

  “But I thought you were coming on Sunday. You know that’s a better day for visiting. Your father is always out playing golf on Saturday.”

  “He’s always out playing golf on Sunday too,” Leigh said. “Besides, I thought you said he was sick.”

  “Well, you know your father. He’d have to be on his deathbed to not play golf. Especially on Saturday afternoon.”

  “If he’s not there, we can go shopping,” Leigh suggested.

  “Shopping? How can you even talk about me shopping? You know my legs are in too bad a shape to do any shopping. Besides, your aunt Wilma was going on about how you hadn’t been coming home very much lately, and I told her that you’d be here for sure on Sunday. Jenny and Aaron always take their kids and go for dinner at her house on Sunday. And me, I’m just stuck here all alone.”

  Leigh took another deep breath. Her cousins had done everything on schedule. Married, moved three streets over, produced grandchildren for Aunt Wilma. “I’m sorry, Mother. Why don’t you go over to Aunt Wilma’s on Sunday afternoon and see the kids? I’ll bet Jenny’s little Teri Jean is growing like a weed. What is she now? Three?” Leigh tried to get the conversation to a better level, but it didn’t work.

  “Almost four and it’s a madhouse over there on Sunday with all Wilma’s grandkids running around screeching like a bunch of wild hyenas. Wilma spoils them rotten.”

  “Oh.” Sometimes no matter what Leigh said, it was the wrong thing. But she held back her sigh and gave it one more try. “Well, then I’m sure there are some other ladies at the church who might like to go out for dessert or maybe to a movie. The theater would be air-conditioned.”

  “They all have family coming home. Sons and daughters who don’t just forget all about them when they move off away from home. Sons and daughters who remember what their parents have sacrificed for them. Sons and daughters who remember their parents want to see them.”

  Leigh let the sigh come out. “Now, Mother. You know I haven’t forgotten all about you, but I think I’m going to be busy Sunday.” At least she hoped to be. David had been coming by the county clerk’s office nearly every day to lean on the counter and talk to her and Judy and sometimes Ralph, if he ventured out of his air-conditioned office. The last couple of Fridays, David had looked straight at Leigh and said he hoped he’d see her at church. While that might be a little vague to count as a real date of any kind, it was an invitation that Leigh wasn’t about to ignore. Not even if her mother started crying on her. Leigh braced herself for what was sure to come next.

  “You’re still chasing after that preacher, aren’t you?” her mother said. She didn’t wait for an answer. “I can’t see why you couldn’t have found a boy more your age to chase if you were going to run after somebody. I hear that preacher has a daughter almost as old as you are.”

  “Tabitha’s a lot younger than I am. Twelve and a half years younger.”

  “And obviously without the first hint of morals. Why, Mrs. Simpson tells me she’s going to have a baby but that she doesn’t act one bit ashamed that she’s not married. And a preacher’s daughter to boot. What kind of preacher lets that kind of thing happen in his own family?”

  “That kind of thing happens in a lot of families,” Leigh said patiently. “And you always used to say we shouldn’t judge others unless we’ve walked in their shoes.”

  “I’m not judging anything. I’m just looking at the facts. Facts that you’d better pay more attention to if you’re foolish enough to want to throw away your chances on that man.”

  “He’s a nice man, Mother. You’d like him. Maybe sometime when David takes Tabitha to the doctor in Grundy, I could ride along and we could drop by to see you and Dad.”

  Leigh wished the words back even before her mother let out a shriek as if Leigh had stabbed her with her words. “You’re talking about bringing him home to meet us!? With his daughter about to have a baby out of wedlock!? Your father would take to his bed.”

  “I doubt it. He’d probably like David. You would too. Nearly everybody does.”

  “If he’s such a saint, how come he’s divorced? Mark my words, Leigh Catherine, there must be something wrong with the man.”

  “For heaven’s sakes, Mother! He’s a preacher. There’s nothing wrong with him. There was something wrong with his ex-wife.” Leigh had tried to keep her voice calm, but the irritation had bled through.

  Now Leigh shook away the memory of her mother’s phone call as she picked up her pace along the street toward the park. Her mother should be happy for her. Her mother should be glad Leigh wanted to try her wings. She should be wishing Leigh’s wings would be strong and carry her far. She should be happy that such a man as David had noticed that Leigh was alive. She should be praying along with Leigh that he would go past noticing and fall in love with her.

  Leigh’s cheeks got red at the thought of praying for love, but what could be more important to pray about than the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?

  So he had family. So he was going to be a grandfather. He was going to be a young grandfather. And she loved babies. She wouldn’t mind the thought of a baby or two of her own, although she didn’t let that idea come to the surface of her mind often. After all, she was already thirty-two. She didn’t have a lot of years to think about having babies, and David might not want to think about having babies at all.
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  Her cheeks started burning as if they’d caught fire. She must still be dreaming to even think about the possibility of her and David having babies. Leigh opened her mouth and blew out air. Jocie had taught her that trick. And it seemed to work.

  She needed something that worked. She colored up easy as pie so everybody always knew when she was embarrassed. Of course if they noticed her red cheeks now, they might just think it was the exercise. If anybody had been out to notice. The only people she’d seen were a couple of women in their housecoats coming out to pick the Lexington daily paper up off their porch steps.

  The Banner wouldn’t be out until tomorrow. Leigh had baked brownies last night even though the heat from the oven had made the small apartment nearly unbearable till after midnight. But she had to have brownies to take to the newspaper office tonight when she went to help fold the papers. Another time when she’d just sort of made her own invitation into David’s routine. Tuesday night folding papers. Sunday morning church. And last Sunday she’d stayed for the night service. That was surely progress.

  Sunday morning he’d come out to meet her in the churchyard. He seemed glad to see her. He kept his eyes on hers when they talked. But he didn’t kiss her. Not that she expected him to kiss her in the middle of the churchyard, but he followed her home after the evening service. He got out of his car to say good night, even walked her up the stairs to her door. Then they both just stood there in the dark for an awkward moment before David lightly touched her arm and said good night.

  A missed opportunity, Leigh thought now. She should have reached out and hugged him the way she had the day Jocie had run off, but that had been a crisis situation. He might have let anybody hug him that day the same way you let people you barely know hug you when they come to the funeral home to pay their last respects to somebody in your family. Thank goodness they hadn’t had to pay any last respects that day, and Jocie and Wes had survived the tornado. Still, the hug was nice. Another hug would have been even nicer, and a kiss would really mean progress.

  Yesterday at lunch, Zella had said, “Of course, he hasn’t kissed you. I’ll bet you haven’t been alone with him more than five minutes. He has family hanging off his arms all the time. Or church people. The man is hopeless.”

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s hopeless,” Leigh had stabbed at the lettuce in her salad and hit a tomato, squirting juice on her white blouse. “See. I’m a klutz.”

  “You’re not a klutz. A little clumsy sometimes, but not a klutz and certainly far from hopeless,” Zella had said matter-of-factly as she fished a piece of ice out of her tea. “Here, rub this on the tomato juice. Then blot it with your napkin. It’ll come right off.”

  And Zella had been right about that. Leigh hoped she was as right about some of the other things she’d said. Like Leigh was perfect for David. Like sooner or later David would see that. Like they were making progress even if there hadn’t been a kiss. Like it wasn’t really hopeless.

  Leigh picked up her pace a little as she went through the entrance into the park, past the empty picnic tables and swings on the playground, past the inviting turquoise blue of the water in the community pool that was locked away until noon, down the gravel road that led to the back baseball field where some team was either practicing or playing every evening. At this time of the morning, she nearly always had the field to herself.

  But not this morning. A man was leaning against the concrete block dugout on the third-base side of the field as if he was waiting for someone. As if he was waiting for her.

  Leigh’s heart started beating faster as she wondered if she should turn and go a different direction. The man pushed away from the dugout and took a couple of steps toward her before he stopped and waited again. Leigh’s heart pounded even faster. It was David.

  Maybe she was still dreaming. Maybe she hadn’t really put her feet on the floor and gotten out of bed, but instead had drifted back into her dream. Leigh pinched the inside of her upper arm. No, she was definitely awake. She had a sudden mental image of how she looked. Maybe she should just pretend she hadn’t seen him and turn around and walk the other way. Of all mornings to go out without fixing her hair and wearing the rattiest T-shirt she owned. Maybe she shouldn’t just turn around. Maybe she should run before he got a good look at her and decided he never wanted to see her again.

  But she kept walking toward him as part of a Bible verse popped into her mind. Be strong and of good courage. It was part of the Scripture when David preached about the Israelites entering the Promised Land a few weeks ago.

  This was Leigh’s promised land. She had prayed for this moment when David would step up to meet her. She certainly didn’t want to run away from the Lord’s answer to her prayer. Besides, she was close enough to see that David was holding something in his hand in front of him. Something red. A rose.

  She could see his face now. He was smiling, and she started smiling too. Clothes didn’t matter. Sweaty faces didn’t matter. Messy hair didn’t matter. What mattered was what was in the heart. And in her heart she didn’t want to run away from David. In her heart, she’d been running after him for weeks. She wouldn’t stop now just when he had turned to face her.

  And nobody had ever, ever brought her a rose. She hoped she didn’t cry when he gave it to her.

  16

  Be strong and of good courage. David wondered where the bit of Scripture came from. Of course, he knew where the Scripture was in the Bible. It was sprinkled throughout the story about the Israelites going into the Promised Land. He’d preached on that passage just a few weeks ago. What David didn’t know was why the verse had popped up in his mind at this particular moment.

  He’d been in plenty of situations where he’d needed courage. Courage while serving in the war encased in a submarine stalking the enemy through the black ocean waters. Courage to believe the Lord had called him to preach. Courage to step behind a pulpit the first time to deliver the Lord’s message. And even now he still needed courage every time he stepped forward to preach.

  This, standing here at the edge of a deserted ball field, waiting for a young woman to walk close enough so he could hand her a rose, shouldn’t take any courage at all. But it did.

  It took courage to step out of the shadows where he’d been hiding out ever since Adrienne had left him. He had stayed faithful to his marriage vows even though she had not. She’d divorced him two years after she left. He signed the papers that came in the mail. It seemed futile not to, but he had still felt married. If not to Adrienne, then to the past.

  Now he was turning the past loose. He was standing there holding a rose and ready to step into the future. And even though he had no idea where that first step would lead him, he wasn’t sorry he had come. He’d prayed about it that morning even before he’d gotten out of bed. Then he’d looked for signs that the Lord was in favor of his early morning mission. The day had dawned clear—which wasn’t much of a sign since every morning had dawned clear and hot for weeks. He’d dressed and slipped quietly down the stairs in the fuzzy gray light of dawn to see Wes sitting up on his cot, waiting for David. That seemed more of a sign.

  “Are you okay, Wes?” David asked.

  “Now, that’s a pretty dumb question, David. If I was okay, I wouldn’t be camped out here in the middle of your living room, would I?”

  “No, I guess not. But I was meaning, are you in extra pain? Do you need some kind of painkiller?” David looked at Wes. The man had lost pounds he didn’t have to lose. His cheeks were sunken in, and he had a mashed look to his mouth.

  “No, them pills the doctor give me just make my head swimmy and don’t help all that much. The pain ain’t nothing I can’t handle.” Wes shifted his leg that he had propped on a pillow in a chair. “I just couldn’t sleep, so I been sitting here thinking.”

  “What about? Anything interesting?”

  “Nope,” Wes said.

  A little more light crept into the room. David peered at Wes’s face before he sat down acro
ss from him. “You need to talk about something?”

  “Nope.”

  “You aren’t going to shut out an old friend, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  David waited a minute for Wes to add something to prove he meant it, but Wes was silent. “You are going to get better, Wes,” David said finally.

  “If I don’t die first.” Wes kept his eyes straight ahead on the wall in front of him. “It might’ve been better if I’d just bled out that day at the church. Just gone on.”

  “The Lord wasn’t ready for that to happen.” David leaned forward in his chair, but Wes wouldn’t look at him. “And neither was Jocie or me. We need you here a little longer, Wes.”

  “It would’ve been hard on Jo,” Wes admitted. “But this ain’t easy on me. I ain’t sure how much longer I can take being anchored to the ground with this thing.” He hit his hand on his cast.

  “A few more weeks. That’s not so long in the whole of a man’s life.”

  “It’s this sitting still. It gives a man too much time to think about the whole of his life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All men have demons that bite at them more when they can’t stay busy and outrun them.” Wes was still staring at the wall.

  “Do you want to pray about it, Wes?” David leaned closer and touched Wes’s arm.

  “Nope,” Wes said, moving his arm away from David’s hand.

  David leaned back in his chair and was silent for a few seconds. It was easy to see the man was struggling with something, but David didn’t want to say the wrong thing. He chose his next words carefully. “The Lord can help.”

  “I ain’t doubting it, David, but I think I’m too old to change my stripes now.”