The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  “Did the train hit my daddy?”

  I nodded. Though the slow-moving train car had only knocked him aside into the pushcart along the tracks, he had lived just six hours in the hospital emergency ward, with internal bleeding that could not be controlled. It was wrong. Senseless. He should have lived. He would have lived, the doctors said, if he hadn’t both hit his head and ruptured a blood vessel in the impact.

  Eliza’s tears rolled softly, soundlessly, down one cheek. “Did the old man have lots of grandbabies?”

  I would never in a thousand years have expected that question. “Yes. I think someone told me there were five children in his home who’d lost their mother a year or two before.”

  “Then they needed him. Daddy helped them.”

  She didn’t seem to see the inconsistency of her own statements. She needed her daddy too. We both did. Why hadn’t that mattered to the Almighty God?

  “Yes,” I was able to tell her, despite my selfish thoughts. “He helped them very much.”

  “Then God made a bad thing be a good thing,” she reasoned. “Because those people needed their grandpa and Johnny James was gonna need his daddy to hold him as soon as he got to heaven. I miss him, but it wouldn’t be right for baby Johnny if Daddy wasn’t there.”

  “But there’s nothing to fear there and no one is alone,” I protested. “There are angels, and the Lord himself. Johnny would have been – ” I suddenly couldn’t go on.

  “If it was me that went to heaven, I wouldn’t want to go first of anybody I knew,” Eliza told me. “I’d be glad for somebody to be right up there waiting for me. We could have a party when I come in the door. That’s what Aunt Marigold says it’s like in heaven when somebody gets saved. The angels have a party, and then everybody has a big party all over again when the person gets to come right up there to be with them and God.”

  “Yes,” I muttered uncomfortably. “Maybe that’s so.”

  “Daddy and Johnny is waiting to have a party for us, isn’t they?”

  I raised my head from the pillow and propped on one elbow. “We really should be getting up in a few minutes . . . see? It’s daylight outside.”

  She hugged me again. “Okay.”

  We both sat up slowly, and I was relieved for her attention to be turned to the start of our day. I could not have borne another moment of talk about death and heaven. Though such things seemed to be a comfort to Eliza, who’d brought up the subject more than once with Marigold, I could barely manage, and this time had been the worst. I felt wobbly in the knees and entirely drained of stamina. How could I make it through a morning that might require even more strength than usual? I’d be facing church for the first time in so long. And Josiah again, and who could know how he’d react to me today?

  The horror of my dream stuck to my mind like a haunting phantom, and worst of all, I could see the tears still in Eliza’s eyes. Though her countenance had brightened, I knew she couldn’t help but be affected by the things she’d learned. Had I told her too much? I did not want her to be fearful as I was, or mournful and glum.

  I could not eat anything at breakfast, especially when Eliza decided to tell Marigold every word she’d heard about her father’s death. I could not even bear to listen but had to step outside to catch my breath.

  And that was a mistake. Apparently Josiah’d had the same idea in order to avoid encountering us at the breakfast table. He was sitting on the slant of the cellar door, and I didn’t see him until it was too late.

  “Did Mari send you out to fetch me?”

  “No,” I said, far more snappily than I should have. “I guess she figures if you want to skip breakfast that’s your privilege. She didn’t say a word about it.”

  “Fine. What are you doing then?”

  “Nothing. Just getting some fresh air.” I was feeling rather peevish that he would ask about my business again, but at least I had the sense not to say so. I turned from him and walked to the garden, wishing he would go inside. I didn’t like knowing he would be where he could see me. I only wanted to be alone while Eliza and Marigold finished their jelly toast and cambric tea.

  In a few moments I heard him get up from the cellar door. But I didn’t hear the porch door and wasn’t sure where he went. I turned, afraid he’d be right behind me, but he was nowhere in sight. I sunk to my knees on the garden path, feeling suddenly guilty. Had he been outside all night? I wasn’t sure, but those might have been the same clothes he’d been wearing. Should I have been more gracious and told him that indeed Marigold did wish him to come in?

  She’d said nothing about him this morning. I hadn’t asked. I’d only assumed he must have come in sometime after I went to sleep, but had he? Where had he gone? Had he succumbed to drinking again? What must it be like to carry the guilt that he bore?

  I remembered my thoughts last night that if I were a praying person, I should pray for him. Someone should. And someone should pray for my daughter too, who despite her cheerful reasoning still carried the lonely ache of missing the father she dearly loved. But Aunt Marigold was praying for all of us. I was sure about that, and as long as there were prayers being said, it didn’t matter where they came from. Or where they didn’t.

  I tried to comfort myself with that logic but knew nonetheless that it was dead, empty, and utterly selfish. I was being stubborn and spiteful. Far less than the person John and my mother would have wanted me to be. Over and over my own heart tried to tell me that prayer could help bring peace, but I was still waiting for God to satisfy my own personal demands. Yet at what cost?

  What benefit might there be to Eliza through her mother’s faith? And might others benefit as well? Marigold or Josiah? How might I be different if I chose to tell God I would honor him regardless of whether I understood the things that had happened? Mother had said it helped to trust him, to give everything over to him, and relinquish your own desire for retribution, elucidation, or control. How had I become so stubborn that I still refused to do that?

  My father had ridiculed her terribly for her faith. When she spoke of prayer, or trusting for answers, he would shake his head and scoff. “How do you know he’ll lift a finger just ’cause you ask him to? He ain’t been all that careful to keep things painless before.”

  How had I not realized that my father’s sentiments had become so nearly echoed in me?

  I heard the porch door and looked up, for some reason thinking that I would see Josiah heading in my direction with a frown on his face, ready to rebuke me. But instead it was Eliza standing on the back steps, looking across the yard at me with a worried expression.

  “Did you fall down, Mommy?”

  I had forgotten. Here I still knelt on the garden path. That must have looked strange indeed.

  “No, honey, I’m fine.” I rose and dusted myself off, tempted to think of some quick lie to explain myself. But maybe it would be better to offer no explanation at all.

  “Aunt Marigold says it’s almost time to go to church,” Ellie told me. “Rosie Batey’ll be here in a few minutes because she likes to be early.”

  I’d almost forgotten about the ride Marigold had told us about. Every week the same dear friend came by in her jalopy and picked her up for church. Marigold was certain she wouldn’t mind the extra passengers. I’d asked if Josiah rode along too, but no. When he attended, he always walked. Rain or shine. I wondered if he’d attend today.

  “It does seem early,” I observed, more to have something to say to put Eliza at ease than anything else.

  “Aunt Marigold says they have a good Sunday school before the regular church and I’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  I looked down at my clothes, hoping I hadn’t carelessly soiled my skirt. There might be little time to change, and the other things I had were for everyday and not for church anyway. I didn’t see any stains, but Eliza’s hair was mussed, and I decided to turn my attention in that direction. I had no idea whether anyone at Marigold’s church knew of us yet,
but whether they did or not I hoped to not leave too bad an impression.

  Marigold seemed worried about me being distant this morning. Eliza had told her about our conversation and even that I’d had a difficult dream.

  “Would you like to talk about it, dear?” she asked me when we came inside. “Or have special prayers in church?”

  I shook my head. There was no way I wanted attention drawn to myself in such a way. She gave me a hug and said I looked wonderful, which I took to be more her effort at encouragement than actual fact.

  “Don’t worry about Josiah,” she told me then. “I talked to him early this morning, and he assured me he was fine despite the struggle he was going through yesterday. He’ll meet us at church later.”

  I wondered if she thought I was troubled for him, or “burdened,” as John and his minister friend would have said, with a need to intercede. Perhaps I should have been and would have been if my own hard head had not stood in the way.

  17

  Leah

  Rosie Batey was a lovely woman nearly as old as Aunt Marigold but considerably more spry. She drove an old model A splashed with green paint and made me nervous by scarcely slowing down around corners. Fortunately, Marigold’s church was only a few blocks away and we only had to make three turns. Two young men stepped out as soon as we parked to help Marigold up the steps, and I knew this was a place where she was deeply loved and respected.

  I would have preferred to wait until the worship service to come to church and not have to sit through Sunday school. That was what I expected Josiah would do. But after everyone was directed to one of four class groups – young children, older children, young adults, and older adults – he walked into my classroom two or three minutes late.

  Several people, including the man who was teaching, greeted him, and he sat at the far side of the room, never turning his eyes in my direction.

  The lesson was about forgiveness. I’d heard the like before and didn’t think I needed to hear it again. But a number of the people responded as though it were exactly what they’d been longing to listen to. The class got into a lively discussion about what Jesus meant by “seventy times seven” and how a person should behave toward someone he claims to have forgiven.

  When one man suggested that believers should treat people as though their transgression had never happened, Josiah stopped the entire class with one word.

  “Impossible.”

  “What do you mean?” the teacher asked. “When we’ve repented, God no longer remembers our sin.”

  I held my breath, waiting for Josiah’s answer.

  “I understand that. God wipes away the past and we’re reborn with a clean slate. But just because God can do that doesn’t mean men can.”

  Every eye in the room was on him as he continued. “If a man killed my wife or child, I couldn’t act like it never happened. My whole life is changed because somebody important to me is gone. You can’t pretend something bad didn’t happen when you live with the consequences every day. Pray for the killer’s soul, maybe, but to behave the same as before is impossible. We can’t go back and put things the way they were. No one can.”

  The room was silent for a moment, and I wondered how on earth anyone could respond. Finally the study leader, with a deep sigh, made his attempt to address Josiah’s words.

  “I’m glad you said about praying for a killer’s soul. You’re right that evil deeds can change the whole course of life for victims and their families. Sometimes people can’t go on the way things were before. And that’s not really what we meant by the suggestion to forgive and forget. What we’re saying is we don’t continue to hold on to blame against the one who did wrong. We release that into the hands of God, pray for the person as you said, and become free from the burden of that bitterness.”

  Josiah said nothing. I almost wished he would say something. But a woman in the room spoke up with words that probably were devastating for him to hear. “Perhaps the hardest person to forgive is yourself.”

  Did she know about Josiah’s family? If she did, it seemed a callous moment to bring it up before everyone like this. It made me mad. But the words of a man in the back corner of the room shook me even further.

  “Maybe so. But an even rougher predicament is holding un-forgiveness ’gainst God.”

  No one in this room could know the thoughts of my heart. Maybe I’d given Josiah a tiny peek, but I couldn’t imagine that he’d run to tell anyone. He wanted nothing more to do with me. He wouldn’t bother. But God himself might be trying to speak through these people, to work over my heart. And that was such an unnerving notion that I wished I could flee the room.

  The Sunday school teacher talked on as one might expect, about understanding God’s forgiveness for us, and learning to accept and extend such grace to ourselves. And about not blaming God for the unexplained hardships of this fallen world. Better to trust God’s goodness and believe that he’d bring us through every trial into joy again.

  These were words that had found their way into my ears before. But not into my heart. I still felt like fleeing the room. I was too tired of the struggle to have all of this shoved at me again. Why would the Lord take my husband and son, exhaust me with poverty and nightmares, and then try to insist that I acknowledge everything to be all right? Maybe it would be better if he just left me alone.

  Josiah was quiet for the rest of the class until someone asked toward the end if he were all right or needed prayer for anything. I expected continued silence from him or maybe a dismissive shake of the head, but instead he lowered his eyes and answered honestly. “I’ve been struggling. I guess you can tell.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” someone asked.

  “Just pray for me.”

  For some reason it made me shake inside to see him so humbly acknowledge his need. And it made me feel guilty because I’d been aware of it, I’d thought of doing exactly what he was asking for, yet talked myself out of it for no better reason than I still didn’t wish to pray whether I knew of a need or not.

  Even worse, Josiah prayed for other needs and to dismiss the class after the Sunday school leader finished praying for him.

  We were opposites, plain and simple. He was responsible for what had happened to his family, whereas I could not have done anything to change the outcome for mine. It had been completely out of my hands. And yet I knew that he was justified before the Spirit of the Almighty far more than I. Because I blamed God. And he laid a charge against no one but himself. My mind warred with my heart, trying to reconcile the matter.

  The church service itself started out worse than Sunday school. They sang “Have Thine Own Way, Lord” followed by “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” with its repetitive admonition to “take it to the Lord in prayer.” I did not want to be affected by anything that happened in this place, yet I could feel God’s drawing on my heart, ever stronger.

  Why do you keep meddling at me? I asked him. I’m not sure I can ever change. Why don’t you give up and leave me alone?

  “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” the preacher suddenly said. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. As the Lord told Joshua of old, so is his word for us today: Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

  The preacher’s words called to my mind the psalm Josiah had read to Marigold on our very first day here. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

  I’d been running in anger like a distressed child, rebelling, arguing, crying out, as ill-mannered youth are wont to do. But he remained patient, reminding me of his presence, gently calling me to return to him.

  I’d given my life to God when I
was fifteen. And my mother had told me then that nothing, nothing but my own heart, could ever separate me from his great love. She’d read me a Scripture about that, and I tried to remember it even as the preacher went on talking. Not height nor depth. Nor principalities nor powers. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. I wasn’t remembering the words perfectly, but I knew they were in the book of Romans and I at least had the basic idea.

  You’re stubborn, Lord, I suddenly thought. Even more stubborn than I am, but in a good way. You don’t quit. You don’t back down. You stay right with me, refusing to give up, even though I don’t deserve you.

  My eyes filled with tears, thinking of the cosmos suddenly being brought into existence by the spoken word of God. He who hung the stars and set the earth in its orbit, he who formed the ocean and the dry land and all the mysteries of life, chose to love people. Vehemently, unabashedly, unconditionally. And I would turn my back? Puny little me?

  I don’t know all of what the pastor’s message was. I heard him turn to the book of Matthew in the New Testament and tell his church more of the words of Jesus: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” But I could not concentrate on the rest. The tears got in the way. I sat and cried through the remainder of the service. And strangely, though I thought I would wish myself invisible, it suddenly did not seem so bad if my daughter and Marigold, nor even Josiah and the whole world, should see me crying.

  I don’t think the pastor had any idea what to do. At the end of his sermon when he was about to dismiss the congregation, he paused in front of me and then finally said, “Dear lady, do you have special need for prayer?”

  I nodded my head in acknowledgment but could not tell him anything more. By this time, both Eliza and Marigold were in tears too, though I wasn’t sure why.

  That pastor tried to pray, though clearly he had no way of knowing which direction to take. Then he dismissed the service, and several ladies of the church gathered around, I suppose to be a comfort and at the same time find out what in the world was troubling this stranger in their midst. But I could give no explanation. I didn’t want to speak to anyone at all. If I could’ve had the sanctuary completely to myself right then, I would’ve preferred it, but no one seemed to be in any great hurry to go. Except Josiah. With a pained expression, he left abruptly without another word to anyone.