Son of a Preacher Man

by Karen M Cox

  Finally, it occurred to me that part of the problem was that I was intermittently angry with Lizzie. None of this consternation would be swimming around my head if she’d just marry me like I wanted, but I was afraid to say anything to her for fear of losing her again. If I thought she’d agree to it, we’d go right across the state line to one of those wedding chapels and tie the knot. Then there would be no problem, no dilemma. We could just let things take their course—live our lives together.

  I was daydreaming about that very thing when she found me in the hospital courtyard. I’d taken advantage of an unusually warm November day and sat at one of the iron-mesh picnic tables that were scattered about. While I munched my sandwich, I watched the passersby—pallid patients in wheelchairs and gowns, pushed by attentive family members, a nurse or two in starched caps and uniforms, a groundskeeper raking fresh mulch around a hedge.

  Lizzie plopped down beside me with her own brown bag and a bottled soda she’d bought at the vending machine outside the doctor’s lounge. She offered me a swig of her drink, and I shook my head. She took a drink herself and opened her lunch bag.

  “Thought I might find you out here. It’s too nice a day to be cooped up inside, isn’t it?” Her cheeks were glowing pink, and her eyes twinkled with affection. She had no right to be so lovely, so settled, so gosh-darn happy! Not while my own mind was so heavy and troubled.

  “Yeah, it was crazy in there today. I wanted some time to myself.”

  She stopped in mid-bite, carefully chewed and swallowed. “I see. I didn’t mean to intrude then.” She wrapped up her sandwich and stuck it back in her bag, all the merriment wiped clean as her face fell. She stood to turn away. “See ya round, Billy Ray.”

  As she walked off, the sunshine that had been so warm and welcoming just a minute before became thinner and cooler. I sighed, annoyed with the both of us, and went after her, touching her elbow. “Lizzie, wait. I’m sorry.”

  She turned but wouldn’t meet my gaze. “It’s fine.” But her face told a different story.

  It was odd. Mired in my own conflict, my first response had been to shut her out, and to my surprise, I’d hurt her. It was encouraging that I had at least enough of her heart to make her feel something. But that also meant I had a responsibility to hold her heart and protect it, even if it meant protecting it from me.

  “I did come out here to be alone, but that was before you showed up. You’re always welcome.”

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “Even if it’s true?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me all week.”

  “I have not!”

  “I can only assume it’s because of what happened in your apartment Saturday night.”

  It ticked me off that she knew me so well.

  “You know, if you want to cool things off with me, all you have to do is say so.”

  I took it back; she knew nothing about me at all if that’s what she thought was going through my head.

  “You’ve got some weird hang-ups, Billy Ray.”

  “Hang-ups? What kind of new-fangled word is that?”

  She pursed her lips in mild annoyance, but her expression was tinged with insecurity too. “I understand it, you know. In your mind, I can’t be your steady girl and the town slut. Thing is—perhaps I’m both of those things, and if you try to make me just one or the other, you’ll make us both miserable.”

  For the first time in weeks, the heat in my cheeks was the result of anger and not desire or embarrassment. “I don’t think that about you, Lizzie. You’re not a—loose woman, but boy-oh-boy, you aren’t any sweet, simple girlfriend either, I tell you that.”

  “If sweet and docile is what you want, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “That’s not what I want! Don’t you know it by now? I could have that a dozen times over.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, that’s so. I’ve turned my back on sweet and docile for two years while my dreams were full of you.”

  “Then I think you need to come to terms with what you want and name it out loud.”

  “And what do I want, exactly?”

  “You’ve been told you should want a stale, orderly kind of life, but you don’t. And you’re smart enough to know it, deep down. You want to soar above the Earth yet see the underbelly of life too. You want what’s exciting, what’s real. I know that’s what you want, or you wouldn’t have decided to be a doctor. Meeting and taking care of all those different people, that’s one way to see it all. It makes you experience life, puts you in the thick of humanity, with all its joy and its suffering. I know, because I want those things too. But earthly trappings make life awfully messy, don’t they?”

  She paused and covered my hand with hers. “Saturday night, when we were together at your apartment, you were unhappy, hurting—in your body, in your mind. I could tell, and it hurts me too. I wanted to care for you, to soothe you. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to want, and it’s not dishonorable.”

  “You still think of me like I’m the boy you knew in Orchard Hill two years ago. You think I’m confused and ignorant about men and women and…sex.”

  Her eyes widened at my atypical use of the word, but she waited for me to continue.

  “I’m not naïve, not anymore. But no matter what you’ve decided about them, the rules, the guidelines I’ve been taught—they’re ingrained in me so deep, they’re part of me. If and when I decide to defy those rules, I have to be sure, and it doesn’t happen without sacrificing a piece of who I am. Or who I was. If I alter the rules, I have to know I’m doing right.”

  “Two years ago, I said this thing between us would change you.”

  “You did.”

  “Life is change—constant adjustments, and many times, it’s unsettling.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I muttered.

  She smiled, a tiny, knowing smile.

  “I have changed a lot over the last couple of years—in the way I think, the way I believe. I’ve broadened my opinions and let go of my narrow judgments about my fellow man when I haven’t walked in his footsteps. Some adjustments are easy, petty things, but there are some, that, once they’re made, will alter something fundamental in me. I think sex is one of those. I wish you felt the same way about the matter, but I’m not surprised that you don’t.”

  “’Cause I was the town slut?”

  My temper snapped. “Enough! I don’t want to hear you refer to yourself like that again—ever!”

  She startled at the vehemence in my voice and stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “I mean it, Lizzie!” My voice was vibrating with anger as I watched her, and slowly a dawning light rose from her beautiful lips to her dark eyes.

  “You’re right,” she said. “You are absolutely right. It was a mistake—what happened with Seth—but a mistake only because of my reasons for making it, and probably the time and place as well.”

  Well, I thought it was a mistake regardless, but I knew she viewed it differently. Maybe she had to; I don’t know.

  “But I shouldn’t have let it dictate who I was or how I treated people—regardless of how they treated me.”

  That, I definitely agreed with.

  “Out of habit, I still keep the Orchard Hill gossips’ view of sex—and of me.” She clasped my hand and intertwined our fingers. “It’s a bad habit too—one that stops now. I swear it. I’ll try to see myself through your eyes, not theirs.”

  I didn’t think it was possible to love her more, but it was. Every day, I found more to love about her.

  “You want to make love to me.” She went on. “Of course, you do because you’re human and you’re passionate, and for some reason that I can’t fathom, you’ve chosen to be with me. But it has to be on your terms, or you risk losing a part of yourself, something that’s elementally you. Do I have that right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So, what are your terms? Where’s the line?”

  “I’m confused
, Lizzie. I don’t really know.”

  “Then how do I know if the terms have been met? Or if I’ve crossed a line?”

  I stared at her and shrugged, helpless to answer.

  She gave me a gentle, loving smile and brushed back a lock of hair that the wind had blown across my brow. “What am I gonna do with you, Billy Ray Davenport?”

  I contemplated what to do, and finally spoke the only thing that made sense to me.

  “Let me lead the way.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know everything about…physical love.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “But you’ve experienced it, and I haven’t.”

  “Not sure it was really love in my case, but that’s a fair statement, I suppose.”

  “So, let me decide what steps to take and when. Let me lead us.”

  After a long pause, she promised in a soft voice. “All right then, I will.”

  I knew it would cost her to relinquish control of anything, given how hard she’d had to work to regain mastery of her life, but love shone from her eyes, and she did just that. She let go.

  She did it for me.

  Chapter 23

  As the days went by and Thanksgiving drew near, I began to think the time was right to broach a serious topic of discussion with Dad. Those kinds of conversations had never been easy for us, but I’d made an important decision, and I owed it to him to let him know. He was my father, and I honored him. And more than that, I loved him.

  Last year, I drew short straw and had to work over Thanksgiving, but it meant that this Thanksgiving I was off for the holiday. So, on Thursday morning, I climbed into the 1955 Chrysler Aunt Catherine gave me when she bought her rag top Chevy and drove the three hours to her house in the town of Kent. Dad and I were joining her for the Thanksgiving meal, which promised to be a rigid, formal affair.

  Aunt Catherine was my father’s older sister, prim and proper as an old school marm. In fact, she had been an old school marm until she retired a few years back. My grandparents left quite a bit of money to them both, but while Dad kept a large part of his trust fund in the bank earning nice, safe interest to pay for his travel expenses and my education, Aunt Catherine spent her money freely: on renovating her home, or on that new rag top car of hers, for example. She liked playing the stock market too, which Dad considered little better than gambling.

  Even though Dad believed a modest lifestyle might have been more seemly, he knew he wasn’t going to change Aunt Catherine’s mind, and she knew she couldn’t ever change his. Still, whenever my aunt mentioned that she was using her inheritance and he should as well, he would draw his lips into a thin line and quote Matthew 19:24 to her: “You know Catherine, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

  To which Aunt Catherine would reply, “Well, Raymond, that might be true for men, but then, I’m not a man, am I? So, it doesn’t apply.”

  Dad would just laugh at that, and it made me smile, too, to know that even though they disagreed so completely on this one thing, they loved and respected each other in spite of it.

  I pulled up in the driveway of the old family house, built by my grandparents in the 1920s when the economy was booming, before the Great Depression. It was a burgundy brick, two-story with a wide front porch, supported by concrete columns—a symmetrical, orderly house for a symmetrical, orderly lady.

  Dad came out to greet me with a warm handshake and a hug.

  “Hello, Son. How are you?”

  “Doing very well, and you?”

  “I’m well. I’m well. The Lord keeps me strong to do His work.”

  Dad may have been strong in his spirit, but as I looked at him, I began to realize that his body was aging. There was more gray in his hair, a few more wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and a lack of robustness in his stride that indicated he was approaching his later years. Before, I’d always seen my father through a child’s eyes, and as the years went by, I continued to see him like that—ageless and strong. On one level, I knew he was getting older, just as I was, but rarely did I let myself become aware of the fact.

  As we entered the house, the smell of roast turkey and pumpkin pie baking made my mouth water. Aunt Catherine came in from the kitchen and gave me an appraising look up and down.

  “You’re too skinny, Billy Ray.” She pursed her lips and frowned.

  I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “It’s good to see you too, Aunt Catherine.”

  She snorted. “Well, this dinner ought to fatten you up a bit. It took Zelda and me hours to fix it, and I’m sure I made way too much. You’ll have to take some back with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I grinned at her, which made her face soften a bit.

  “Glad you made it here safe and sound,” she answered and turned to go back into the kitchen. “You two can wait in the dining room. We’ll be ready to eat shortly.”

  We sat in the quiet elegance of my aunt’s dark, somber dining room. The mahogany table and chairs, enough seats for twelve, were empty except for three settings of china and silver. A matching sideboard was filled with enough food to set those other nine places.

  It was a slow-paced, silent dinner for the most part, different from most of the meals I now took amidst the cacophony of the hospital cafeteria or in the diner. The most prominent sound was the tick, tick of the large grandfather clock in the hall—that is, until my father spoke at last.

  “Are you home through Sunday, Billy Ray?”

  “No, I have to work Saturday, so I thought I’d return to Glenwood tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ah, I see.” He picked up a dinner roll and went on. “Well, I’m scheduled to give the sermon at Corinth Hill this week. It’s too bad you won’t be able to attend.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You still going to church every Sunday over there in Glenwood?”

  “When I’m not working, I do. Even when I do have to work, I try to slip into the hospital chapel for a bit.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to work on the Sabbath.”

  “People still get sick on Sunday, unfortunately.”

  “That is true. Working nights and weekends is part of the doctor’s mission.” Dad smiled at me. “Like it’s part of the minister’s.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Still, if you have a chance sometime, you might want to attend a Sunday or two at Corinth Hill.”

  “Oh?”

  “The lay minister there has a daughter about your age who sings lead soprano in the choir.”

  “Dad—” I began.

  “Pretty as a picture, and a voice like an angel.”

  “Dad—”

  “Just consider it, won’t you? It’s time to start thinking about those things. Medical school won’t last forever.”

  “Sometimes it feels like it will though.”

  He smiled again as he cut another bite of turkey and paired it with a forkful of cornbread dressing.

  I could tell from my father’s expression that he noticed the way I deftly turned the topic. I had never told him any of what had happened between Lizzie and me two years ago, or why she vanished into thin air. It seemed that to tell him would betray her confidence, so I kept all that to myself. And I was sure he thought if we didn’t discuss her, she wasn’t real any longer—that I had relegated her to my past. To tell the truth, he was probably just relieved she was gone.

  I certainly hadn’t told him we were working at the same hospital, or that I spent every spare minute I could with her—or that I was getting closer and closer to a physical point of no return. Emotionally, I knew, I was already over the cliff. Knowing I was committing my heart to her was the only way I could assuage the guilt I felt when she and I pushed the intimacy a little too far.

  No, I certainly didn’t tell him that.

  After dinner, while Aunt Catherine went upstairs to take a nap, I found Dad in the living room, reading the newspaper.


  “You want to see the funnies?” He reached into the pile to fish out the section that contained the comics. I used to always read those first when I was a boy.

  “No, thank you.”

  I waited until he finished the article he was reading and turned the page.

  “I wanted to talk to you if you have a minute.”

  He folded the paper and stacked it neatly on the coffee table in front of him.

  “Of course. I always have time for you.”

  I took a deep breath. “Do you remember the girl I courted in Orchard Hill a couple of summers ago, Lizzie Quinlan?”

  “I don’t know that I’d use the word ‘courting’ for that situation, but yes I remember her.”

  “She’s going to a midwife school over in Hyden, and right now she’s working at the hospital in Glenwood. I ran into her at a mixer a while back.”

  “I see. And how is she faring?”

  “She’s doing very well, Dad. You’d be so proud of her. I know I am. She’s one of the best students, and the patients—they love her. Her instructors do too.”

  “I’m glad for her, then,” he said with a guarded expression. He leaned forward to pick up another section of the paper.

  “I’ve been dating her for over a month now.”

  He stopped in mid-reach. “Dating her?”

  “Yessir, going to the movies and dinner and such—when we both have free time, which isn’t as often as I’d like.”

  “Well.”

  “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  The tick, tick of the grandfather clock swelled and filled the room.

  He sat there, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled, staring at the coffee table in front of him. He tapped his fingers against his lips, considering what to say. When he spoke, he was careful to keep his tone even. “If you’re asking for my approval of your choice, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. I didn’t think Miss Quinlan was right for you two years ago, and I don’t think so now.”