Son of a Preacher Man

by Karen M Cox

  “I don’t think it can be seen right now. You need something more to believe in it.”

  “Something more?”

  “You need faith.”

  He stopped short.

  “Trust us to do what is right. Take that leap of faith with us, Dad. She’s worth it—you’ll see.”

  His voice sounded agitated, frustrated and impatient. “I can’t see my way clear to take that step. All I can see is how many ways I could lose my son.”

  “The only way you will lose me is if you force me to choose.”

  I realized then that sometimes even a preacher man is just a man, and he has to actually see the next step with his own eyes and hear it with his own ears. He has to be shown the walk of faith, at least as it regards the people he loves. How could I illuminate that step for him though? How could I show him that Lizzie was a woman of integrity whose actions supported her beliefs?

  “I never told you this, but I asked Elizabeth to marry me two summers ago.”

  He looked at me in shock. “You did?”

  “I did. And I did it badly and for all the wrong reasons. She turned me down.”

  “Because she had plans for this big career of hers?”

  “No, Dad. She turned me down before she even knew she was going away to school. She turned me down, knowing that I was her easiest and fastest way out of Orchard Hill. She took a chance on being trapped there forever, in a place where people disdained her and wouldn’t forgive her or let her be anything but a ruined girl. She said no to me because she wanted what was best for both of us.”

  “Well,” he mused. “Well, well.”

  I let him turn that over in his mind a minute, watching his face as he went deep in thought, the way he did when he was trying to reason out a particularly thorny problem. A robin landed on the path in front of us, tilting its head this way and that before it picked up a stick and flew off into a nearby tree.

  “I had no idea,” he murmured.

  “Please don’t make me choose between my only parent and my only soul mate.”

  He sat there, looking out over the chilly spring day. The redbuds and forsythia were just beginning to bud under the warmth of new sunshine. Finally, he spoke.

  “If you and Miss Quinlan will allow me, I would be honored to conduct the marriage service.”

  My throat closed up so tight it hurt to swallow. This was his leap of faith—in me, in Lizzie, in God’s plan for me, whatever it might be.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Yes.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward, as if to stand up.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “You should start calling her by her first name.”

  “Lizzie?”

  “She has a beautiful given name, a Biblical name—Elizabeth.” It rolled off my tongue in a spellbinding cadence, like a prayer.

  Dad nodded. “From the Hebrew. It means ‘God’s promise.’”

  “It does, at that,” I answered, smiling.

  We each sat there a while longer, letting the sun warm our bones and listening to the bird song.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret, Dad.”

  “What’s that?”

  Leaning toward him, I whispered, “The church committee ladies say you’re a catch too.”

  “They do not!”

  “Yessir, they do—I’ve overheard them.”

  Dad grinned and pushed at my shoulder. “You shouldn’t kid an old man like that, young whippersnapper!” He stood, shaking his head while he indulged in a soft chuckle, and started walking back toward the church.

  I laughed out loud and followed along behind him.

  Chapter 26

  I ambled up the beach, water splashing around my ankles as I watched the sand swirl, a kaleidoscope of patterns wherever I stepped. The late afternoon sun blazed across the water, but it was not nearly as blinding as the sight of Lizzie, sunbathing in a very appealing two-piece bathing suit.

  It was the last day of our honeymoon. My father had given us a long weekend on the Carolina coast as a wedding present. It would have been nice to take a longer trip, but a weekend was all the time we could spare. Lizzie would start her new job as a nurse midwife at the Tri-County Health Department in two weeks, and soon after that I would start my last year of medical school.

  After much prayer and thought, Dad had suggested that we marry in the little church in Orchard Hill, which I thought was a grand idea. Lizzie wasn’t sure about it, but I wanted to prove to her, and to everyone else there, that she had risen from the ashes of their toxic rumormongering. I wanted them all to know that forgiveness and joy lay on the other side of transgression—at least for people who strove to overcome it—and Lizzie Quinlan Davenport was the shining example. She had rebuilt her life; she was strong; and she was loved. Oh yes, almost beyond the limits of the human heart, she was loved.

  In the end, the pull of having her family and Mrs. Gardener in attendance was enough to convince her. I’ll never forget how lovely she looked as I stood beside my father and Richard at the front of Orchard Hill’s rustic sanctuary. She glided toward me in that candlelight satin dress, her pretty calves peeping out from beneath the hem, a shoulder-length veil covering her dark curls, and joy radiating from her face like rays from the sun. Mrs. G had told Lizzie she should wear a white dress if she wanted, no matter what anyone might say, but my precious wife-to-be looked at me with a shy smile and said, “No, white is a cold color. I want to wear candlelight, because Billy Ray says there’s a light inside me that’s mine to share with whomever I wish. And I want to show everyone that I choose to share it with him.”

  So here we were, on the last day of our wedding trip, lounging on the beach. My wife (how I loved calling her that!) eased back, tilting her face to the sky and trailing her fingers in the sand. I settled beside her, soaking her in: the satisfied hint of a smile, the windblown curls, soft, creamy skin along the hourglass curve of her waist, the well-formed muscles of her legs. Powerful little things, those legs, as I’d discovered in the past couple of days. Strong, when they wrapped around my hips as I made love to her. Soft, as they smoothed down the back of my calves, while I held her against me and lost my soul in the little death of sexual completion.

  I had read about the act, of course, but the experience itself was life altering, like the Earth turned upside down. I now lived in a different world from the one I’d inhabited during my bachelor days. I was going to enjoy being a married man, and it seemed I had a talent for it too. At least Lizzie said I did.

  Somehow, some way, we had managed to wait until the marriage vows to consummate our union. It hadn’t been easy, but the agreement we had made after that night in my apartment actually brought us much closer. Even though Lizzie assured me that she was only trying to care for and comfort me, I could hardly reconcile my behavior that night with what I’d been taught. To her credit, she accepted my convictions and what they meant to me, and as she promised, she let me call the shots about our intimacies from then on. All the way through the rest of our courtship and engagement, even on our wedding night, I led the way or stopped the train. Now that we were married in truth, it was a joy to let go of that need to rein us in. The first time was a blur of clothes and breath and heat—and over in a matter of minutes, I remembered with a laugh. But it didn’t take me long to get the knack of slowing things down and prolonging the agonizing joy of lovemaking. If I thought the soft looks she gave me when I smiled at her were ego boosting—well, that was nothing compared to the conceited pleasure I felt when some subtle change in the stroke of my fingers made her cry out and beg me not to stop. It aroused me just to imagine her in my mind’s eye and hear the faded echo of her voice inside my head.

  So much so that when we headed back to our everyday lives, as we were planning to do Monday morning, I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to concentrate on working all those long hours. Now that I was married, all I could think about was the next time I might have her soft and warm a
nd writhing underneath me, or on top of me, for that matter.

  I couldn’t believe my good fortune; Elizabeth Quinlan was mine and I was hers. So many things could have derailed our love along the way: if I hadn’t talked to her that morning so long ago in the graveyard; if she hadn’t agreed to let me befriend her after the laundromat night; if we had let bitterness and sorrow win out over the joy of seeing each other again at the Glenwood Community Center. And Marlene’s nasty trick of taking Lizzie’s address out of my book when I moved from Orchard Hill? Well, even that had served a purpose in that it gave us time—to miss each other, to learn our trades, to become ourselves—selves worth giving to the other person.

  “Lizzie”—I continued my train of thought out loud—“when did you first begin to love me?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I know now that you love me and have for some time, but how did you ever start to see me—not as the preacher’s son but as a man.” My voice roughened with suggestive overtones. “As a lover.”

  She smiled a secret smile, one I saw only when she looked at me. “I’m not sure I can say. It was more like I discovered a feeling that was already there.”

  “You fought my feelings for you for a long time, but I just kept after you anyway. Now, be honest—did you love me for pursuing you so ardently?”

  “For your bravery in the face of everyone’s disapproval, I did. And for your loyalty to a friend.”

  “You may as well say I was stubborn, for that was part of it.”

  She laughed. “You always were a soft touch for lost causes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A lost cause—I could have been one before you came along.”

  “You were never lost, Elizabeth.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” She shrugged, digging her toes into the sand. “You know the lyrics to the old hymn as well as you know your own name. ‘I once was lost, but now am found.’”

  I started to reply, but she interrupted me, a thoughtful look on her face. I’d learned quickly to just hush and listen when she had that look, because it usually signaled some unique idea was about to come out of her mouth.

  “You know, I prefer to think of myself as ‘found,’ rather than ‘saved’—as the reverend might call it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because ‘saved’ implies that all the hard work and the challenges are over. Being ‘found’ means that the journey has just begun, and the joys and hard knocks are all unseen, hidden around bends in the road. That seems more like real life, don’t you think?”

  We were quiet for a minute, but then it was my turn to be thoughtful.

  “The fact is you were remarkably courageous. You didn’t know that much good of me. I could have been just another Neanderthal in gentleman’s clothing. You took a chance on me.”

  “You? Not good? There’s so much good in you, it’s overwhelming at times!” Her eyes were shiny, although I wasn’t sure if it was from tears or from the brightness of the sun. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known, Billy Ray.” Her voice caught, just at the end.

  “Thank you, my love. I feel the same about you.”

  “And there are a million little reasons I love you now: you’re good, and you’re smart, and you care about people—really care about them—and you’re handsome, and you have that killer smile. But mostly, Billy Ray, I want to be with you because something inside you made me light up here.” She touched her heart. “And here”—she touched her temple with one finger and her tone turned mischievous—“and other places too.”

  “Lizzie,” I said, embarrassed, but amused at the same time.

  She leaned forward and put her arms around my neck. “I adore you. And now, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.”

  She looked at me for half a minute, and then, she answered my original question.

  “So, when did I begin to love you?”

  I smiled and leaned over to place a kiss on her mouth.

  “It must have been that day you and the reverend came out to help my daddy fix our barn. You hit your thumb with the hammer and had the tip of it in your mouth to soothe it.”

  “I remember.”

  “I wondered if I would be able to lead you around on a string like I did all the Orchard Hill boys. I hardly knew you, and you being from out of town made you even more of a challenge. I sauntered over and gave you my most provocative smile, rubbing your thumb to try and stir you up. But something happened when I looked up into your eyes.”

  “What was it?”

  “I saw my future. It just took me a long time to have enough faith to believe it could come true.”

  I stared at her, captivated and speechless by the light and beauty that was my beloved wife.

  “I love you, Billy Ray Davenport.”

  “And I love you, Elizabeth Quinlan Davenport.”

  She took my face in her hands and kissed me, as if to promise me a lifetime of that love. Then she drew back and got to her feet, tugging me by the hand. “Come on.”

  “Where to?”

  “For a swim.”

  I followed her into the water, until we were in about waist deep, playing and splashing in the waves.

  “Here comes a big one!” I shouted over the sound of the surf.

  “Don’t let it knock you down! Dive right through.” She looked over her shoulder with a come-hither smile and through the wave she went.

  I was right behind her.

  Epilogue

  October 2017

  From time to time, the young people comment on how admirable we are, a couple who weathered the twentieth century’s major cultural upheavals with our marriage still intact. We’ve been married now for fifty-five years, clinging to each other during the days of ever-climbing divorce rates. When asked, I say that I don’t have any secret to a successful marriage, at least not one that played well with the Seventies’ Me Generation, the Eighties’ Yuppie Crowd, or today’s cynical Millennials.

  At any rate, people are more inclined to listen when Lizzie tells the story. They call her life a treatise on women’s changing roles in the workplace and in the home, but my views always come off as old-fashioned. I’m an outdated relic from the 1950s.

  In my opinion, Elizabeth is no modern women’s crusader—she’s too busy living out her dreams, even to this day. Our life together has been a thousand little journeys, just as Mrs. Gardener predicted: medical residency, babies, and starting the family health center when we relocated to the Carolina coast. By the time our fourth and last son came along, we were well settled into what my father called our “Bohemian lifestyle.”

  It wasn’t the life Dad envisioned for his only son, but my aunt Catherine reminded him that Davenport men were always set on choosing their own paths, and I was only the latest example of that. She told Lizzie and me how my grandfather, a shrewd businessman, hadn’t been too happy with Dad’s decision to be a minister. My father forged his own road, however, and in the end, he realized he had to let me do the same.

  They made a peace, of sorts, my father and my wife. He never did understand how our marriage could possibly work, but when we descended on Aunt Catherine’s house with his grandsons, he wryly commented that it must be working at least on the “be fruitful and multiply” front. The boys adored him and he them, and that went a long way with Lizzie. Over time, my only surviving parent and my only soul mate found a measure of faith in each other.

  From the outside, I’m sure it looks like Dr. Elizabeth Davenport is a pioneer among women, leading by her carefree example. In some ways, I suppose that’s true. Lizzie always embraced change, and our lives have never been dull, or ordinary. But believing our path was all brilliance and easy adventure discounts the tough choices we had to make along the way. After I finished my medical training, I was offered a prestigious position in Philadelphia: big hospital, a thriving practice, a house in the suburbs. Then we got the call that changed our lives forever. Lizzie received an offer to serve a
working class and indigent population as a nurse midwife on the Southern coast. We could have lived a more traditional life up North, but there just weren’t the same opportunities for my wife there, and we had both fallen in love with the Carolinas on our honeymoon.

  We gave up financial advantages to stay in the Southeast, but the advantages we gained were priceless to us: warm climate, relaxed living, family relatively close by, and the knowledge that our work really mattered.

  People insist I believe in women’s rights because I contributed to—even encouraged—my wife’s achievements. In the next breath, they tease me about tossing besotted looks her way and turning the tale of a momentous cultural shift into just another sappy love story.

  There is nothing sappy about it, however. I’m a simple man who loves his wife. Sure, we relocated to the Carolina coast because of that job offer, and there were all sorts of adjustments to make when she decided she needed to get her medical degree to grow our family practice. But Lizzie made countless concessions, too, every day of our married life.

  I may not know much about the Sexual Revolution or Women’s Lib, as they called it, but I do know my wife like the back of my own hand. She always marched to the beat of her own drum—and it was an exotic, intoxicating rhythm of life that enticed me to stay in step beside her through every song and cadence, every silence and storm. Our thousand journeys intertwined into something strong, something worthy—something that was made beautiful in His time.

  I wish the same for you.

  About the Author

  Karen M Cox is an award-winning author of novels accented with romance and history.

  Karen was born in Everett WA, which was the result of coming into the world as the daughter of a United States Air Force Officer. She had a nomadic childhood, with stints in North Dakota, Tennessee, and New York before finally settling in her family’s home state of Kentucky at the age of eleven. She now lives with her husband in a quiet little town where she works as a pediatric speech-language pathologist, encourages her children, and spoils her granddaughter.