Higher Hope

by Robert Whitlow

  Now, perhaps the option to run away was real. Hadn’t Mama said it was time for me to leave? I had a summer job and was on the verge of a self-sufficient career. Independence lay within my grasp. It was time to change the way I related to my parents, to end their dominance. I walked over to the poplar tree and glanced up. The branches of the ancient tree stretched upward in a leafy plea toward the darkening sky. I bowed my head and prayed, but no answer came. My heart felt numb. The threesome inside the house was still silhouetted in the window. I pulled off a piece of bark and broke it in two. Hope for happiness of any kind in my future appeared dim. Running away prob-ably had as much chance of success now as it did when I was eight.

  The front door opened, and Zach came outside. The lights went out in the front room. Zach walked over and put his hand on the tree near mine. I dropped my hand to my side.

  “When you left the house you proved my point,” he said.

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  “Are you afraid of the truth?”

  I turned toward him, my face set. “Is that the way you talk to someone who’s hurting?”

  “I thought you wanted me to be honest.”

  “Look, I don’t have the energy for another fight right now. Not with you”—I gestured toward the house—“and not with them. I’ve spent my entire life defending myself and my family. I’ve tried to see it as an opportunity to let my light shine, but often it’s been a burden. I need a break from the stress. And I’m not interested in trading pres-sure from my parents for pressure from you. I need everyone to leave me alone, to let me be who I am.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “But isn’t that where you’re heading? That was the whole point of the conversation in the house. You’re separating yourself from me and my family.”

  “Don’t blow it up bigger than it is. I don’t think I should go to your church in the morning because I don’t want to embarrass your family.”

  “But it’s not just about tomorrow. Be realistic. I could try to break away from this place, but even if I want to it’s not going to happen. And as long as I’m connected to the people living in that house, you can’t get close to me without getting close to them. Church, home, beliefs: they’re all wrapped up together. Even when we’re in Savannah, the way I’ve been raised is the greatest influence in my life.” I pulled another piece of bark from the tree.

  Zach stepped closer. “I felt the energy between us when I held your hand during the prayer.”

  I was about to break another piece of bark in two but stopped.

  “You did?”

  “I’m not dense. It sure felt a lot better than when Neptune Poseidon speared my hand.”

  Zach reached out and put his hand underneath my chin. I drew back. His hand stayed with me.

  “Please,” he said. “This is all I’m going to do. I want to help hold your chin up when it starts to droop. I want to encourage you, not drag you down. I can’t do that unless we’re together.”

  The breath left my body at his last words. I wanted desperately to see his eyes more clearly. But in the dark, everything was shapes and shadows.

  “And I’m sure not going to church in the morning is the right decision,” he said. “Don’t make it bigger than it is.”

  I wasn’t convinced. Looking toward the house, I saw a fuzzy out-line of the twins’ faces in the window of the second-story hallway.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said. “Old houses have curious eyes.”

  MAMA AND DADDY had gone to their bedroom and shut the door.

  A closed door meant they were not to be disturbed. I said good night to Zach and trudged up the stairs. Ellie and Emma, wearing their pajamas, were sitting cross-legged on the rug in the center of our bedroom. I kicked off my shoes.

  “Did you squeeze his hand at the end of the blessing?” Ellie asked.

  “She couldn’t,” Emma interrupted. “That’s the hand he hurt at the pond.”

  “I’m not thinking about his hand right now.”

  “It’s so different from Daddy’s hand or Roscoe Vick’s hand,” Ellie continued.

  The twins had a knack for redirecting my focus. Distancing myself from them was hard to imagine.

  “When have you been holding Roscoe Vick’s hand?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Kilgore puts the prayer requests in the center of the table, and we hold hands while she prays,” Ellie said. “Roscoe always finds a way to stand next to me. His hand is kind of slippery, like he didn’t get all the soap off before coming to church.”

  “Emma, does he ever hold your hand?”

  “I wouldn’t let him.” She sniffed.

  “Can he tell you apart?”

  “I always move to the other side of the room when it’s prayer time,” Emma said.

  I slid my legs straight out in front of me.

  “Ellie, I don’t want you holding Zach’s hand anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t need the competition.”

  Both girls laughed.

  “And were you spying on us when we were in the front yard?”

  “Not spying,” Ellie said. “Just making sure you were okay.”

  Emma lowered her voice. “Tammy Lynn, I thought Zach was about to kiss you. When he put his hand on your face, I thought I would faint. What was he saying? Have you decided to let a boy kiss you before your wedding?”

  “It was a private conversation, and he wasn’t trying to kiss me. He just wanted to encourage me.”

  “He could encourage me anytime he wants,” Ellie sighed. “I wanted to pull his ponytail so bad at the supper table that I had trouble keeping my mind on my food.”

  “People are going to be talking about his hair at church to­morrow,” Emma said. “It’s going to be a problem.”

  “If anyone says anything to me, I’m going to show them a picture of Jesus in my Bible,” Ellie said. “His hair was a lot longer than Zach’s.”

  “He’s not going.”

  “What?” both girls exclaimed.

  I explained in simple terms, without my previous emotion, the conversation in the front room. I carefully avoided any criticism of Mama and Daddy.

  “How did you feel?” Ellie asked when I finished. “If I heard that it would make me think he didn’t like me.”

  My little sister’s insight startled me. More than Emma, her personality mirrored mine.

  “That’s why Zach came outside to talk to me. I didn’t try to change his mind, and Mama and Daddy agreed with him. Things like this have to go forward slowly. Remember, they haven’t agreed to let me court him.”

  “But you want to, don’t you?” Ellie asked.

  I hesitated. “Yes, if for no other reason than to keep him away from you.” I pushed her onto her back.

  After brushing our teeth, we returned to the rug and played Scrabble. Emma won when she used a q and a z to spell quartz in a row that included a triple-score block. After a while, I realized I’d relaxed.

  When the game was over, we lay on the rug with our pillows under our heads and played a game we’d invented called “Imagination.”

  One of us would describe a place she’d been or read about in a book. Another would inhabit the place with a few interesting people, usually including a few from Powell Station who had as little business living in our imaginary world as Dorothy in Oz. The third person began a story with everyone taking turns to add twists and turns.

  I set the scene as Oscar Callahan’s farm and described it in great detail. Emma included the lawyer, Zach, and me in the opening scene. Ellie began the story and dropped in Roscoe Vick, now grown-up and working as an attorney for Mr. Callahan. Ellie’s plot was a conflict between Zach and Roscoe for my affection. Romantic comedy was a new genre for us. Within a few minutes the three of us were laughing so hard my side hurt, and my heart felt better.

  Sometimes it was nice not having to be an adult.

  10

  IT WAS A HOT, CLOUDLESS NIGHT. THE SMALL AI
R CONDITIONER in the window labored to convert the humid air of the Georgia coast into a cool breeze. Sister Dabney rolled over in bed and reached across to touch her husband’s shoulder. Even sleepy contact can have meaning for couples who have persevered in unity beyond the thrill of youth to maturity forged in shared experience. But Sister Dabney’s right arm fell with a thud against the thin sheets. The callous emptiness of the moment brought her awake with a slight moan.

  He was gone. After almost forty years of marriage. Not just for a night, but for over three years. And with a woman Sister Dabney had pulled from the pit of despair. Betrayal heaped upon infidelity.

  Sister Dabney pulled a tissue from a box on the nightstand and wiped more perspiration from her forehead. It was hot; however, the night sweats were fueled more by the black fire of abandonment that burned in her heart than the heat of the night. Unseen tormentors stoked the flames, spirits of accusation she could rebuke when awake but that crept back later to shoot their arrows into her defenseless dreams.

  “You lie,” she muttered.

  The rumblings ceased, but she knew they were there, crouching out of sight.

  Sister Dabney rolled onto her back. All her life, she’d told the truth—to those who would listen and those who wouldn’t. She’d seen so many secrets of people’s hearts laid bare she’d grown tired of looking. There was nothing new under the sun. But the deception in her own home caught her unaware. That blindness had shaken her to the core.

  She got out of bed. The floorboards popped and protested as her full weight rested on them. Sister Dabney didn’t own a bathroom scale or need one to tell her what anyone could see. She left the bed-room and walked down a short hallway to the kitchen at the rear of the house. She opened the refrigerator door. She wasn’t hungry, but food at any hour brought comfort.

  There was a loud bang at the front door. She stopped, not sure if the sound was actual or imagined. Another bang followed. She walked toward the living room. Freedom from fear was one gift that hadn’t been stolen from her. She’d laid hands on people with infectious dis-eases and looked into the eyes of demoniacs. If death at the end of a robber’s gun barrel waited for her, it would be a welcome martyrdom. She peered through the spy hole.

  It was one of the boys who had stopped in front of her house. He had a baseball bat in his hand. He lifted the bat and struck the door. Anger rose in her. After tormenting her with words, the boy had returned to assault her. She flipped on the porch light and flung open the door, prepared to deliver a proper rebuke that would send him scurrying away. The boy held up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. His shirt was torn and hanging off his back. He lowered his hand. One eye was swollen partially shut. Leaning against the steps was his bicycle.

  “He came back, just like you said,” the boy panted, fear and panic in his eyes.

  “What happened?”

  “He beat me up; then I hit him in the head with the bat and ran out of the house.”

  “Did you knock him out?”

  “No.”

  “Is anyone still at the house?”

  “My little sister and my auntie. They’ve locked the door to the big bedroom. He says he’s going to burn down the house because my auntie won’t tell him where my mama is staying.”

  “Come inside,” Sister Dabney said, looking past the boy’s shoulder toward the street. “I’ll call 911.”

  The boy handed her the bat as he entered the house. There were more bruises on his back.

  “You’ll be safe here.”

  SUNDAY MORNING I rolled over and watched Emma and Ellie sleep in adolescent innocence. Every inch of the bedroom was familiar to me, down to the slight cracks in the wood floor caused by the settling of the house.

  The twins didn’t need to get up for a few more minutes. While I watched them sleep, I prayed their hearts would awaken to romantic love in God’s perfect time. Prayer can be a long-term investment.

  I slipped out of bed, threw on an old cotton dress, and tiptoed barefoot down the stairs with a pair of old sandals in my hand. I could hear the water running in the bathroom next to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. They would be in the kitchen shortly. The door to the sewing room was closed. Picturing Zach lying in bed with his eyes closed and his head resting on the pillow, I shivered slightly in imaginary intimacy and pushed the scene from my mind.

  I went into the kitchen. We didn’t do unnecessary work on the Lord’s Day. The coffeepot was ready to go; all I had to do was press the button. I grabbed the blue egg bucket. Taking care of our animals was a seven-day-a-week responsibility. I slipped on my sandals and walked across the dew-covered yard. The wet grass tickled the ends of my toes. I knew the scientific explanation for dew, but I still considered its early-morning appearance during a hot Georgia summer a mannalike miracle. I collected six eggs and returned to the house. Mama and Daddy were sitting at the table with their coffee. I put the eggs in the sink.

  “I’ll finish in the bathroom, then get the twins going,” I said as I walked past them.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” Daddy said.

  “Just a minute, Tammy Lynn,” Mama said.

  I stopped at the door leading toward the hallway.

  “I’ll rinse the eggs off before we leave for church,” I said.

  “Will you join us?” she asked.

  “You know I don’t drink coffee.”

  “That’s okay,” Daddy said.

  I came over to the table.

  “I’ll slide in next to your daddy,” Mama said, moving to the other side of the table. “That way we can both see you.”

  “Is this a good time to apologize for how I acted last night?” I asked.

  “It’s always a good time to confess your sins,” Mama said.

  I’d confessed my sins to Mama and Daddy innumerable times. Keeping short accounts was essential to a healthy spiritual life. Forgiveness was freely granted once they determined my repentance was genuine. I folded my hands and put them on the table.

  “I’m sorry that I got upset and walked out of the house last night.”

  “And slammed the door,” Mama added.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What else?” she asked.

  This type of spiritual cross-examination, although embarrassing, effectively uncovered the root causes of rebellion.

  “I dishonored both of you by not allowing you to function as my parents in the way God intends. I’m supposed to submit to you cheerfully until I marry and start my own family. Even then, the commandment to honor you is a lifelong obligation.”

  They didn’t speak.

  “And I didn’t set a good example for Zach,” I continued. “He’s watching, and we have an opportunity to influence him toward the truth. I acted out of my sinful nature and gave in to the flesh when I should have submitted to God’s patience and peace.”

  I took a deep breath, glad to have everything out in the open.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “That’s a lot better than I could do,” Daddy said, rubbing his chin, “but it’s not the main reason we wanted to talk to you.”

  “But why else would you want to—?” I began in surprise, then stopped.

  “Tammy Lynn, do you still want our permission to court Zach?”

  Daddy asked.

  I paused for a second to collect myself. “Even though he doesn’t want to go to church with us?”

  Mama looked at Daddy, who nodded. She spoke.

  “That decision proved more about his understanding of our beliefs and ways than pretending to agree with us when he doesn’t,” she said. “He’s the product of his family, just like you are ours. Your daddy and I aren’t out of touch with reality. There may not be a man in our church for you to marry, which means you’ll need to look elsewhere. Last night we saw something more important about Zach than the length of his hair. He has respect for our beliefs and consideration for our family. That’s rare among outsiders. If you’re going to court someone who didn’t grow up in Powell
Station and go to our church, that kind of attitude has to be present for us to allow a relationship to develop.”

  “Like Melissa Freiberger?” I asked, referring to a young woman in the church who had a good marriage to an outsider.

  “And remember, permission to court isn’t consent to marriage.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So, you have our blessing to get to know him better,” Mama concluded.

  I felt like pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  “What potential do you see in him?” I asked, trying to uncover more of their thinking.

  Daddy smiled. “The same as you.”

  I looked into my soul and came up empty. “Could you help me out?”

  “A man after God’s own heart.”

  “Yes, but his conduct—”

  “Needs improvement. That’s where the honesty comes in,” Mama said.

  “It took me awhile to come around,” Daddy said, putting his hand on Mama’s shoulder.

  “But Zach may not want to adopt our ways and beliefs.”

  “Neither did Melissa’s husband, but he’s a good man who loves God,” Daddy said.

  “How this is going to turn out isn’t clear to us,” Mama continued, “but we know it’s a new opportunity for all of us to exercise our faith.”

  Daddy took a sip of coffee. “We’ve placed your future in God’s hands. His grace is sufficient. I think you’re the greatest daughter in the world.”