Falling for Grace

by Robert Farrell Smith

  “I don’t suppose anyone here has a cellular phone I could use?” Roger asked.

  “Is that the fancy kind without the round dial?”

  “No, actually it’s the one that you can carry with you and use from anywhere,” Roger smiled.

  “Nope, none of those. Although I bet the stake president in Virgil’s Find has one. He’s real progressive,” Ricky stated. “I can try and get it for you if you’d like.”

  “I’d really appreciate it,” Roger said.

  “Consider it almost done.” President Heck stood. “Anything else?”

  “Actually, there is,” Roger remembered. “You know, it won’t be too much longer until I can go home. And, well, I was hoping to do a little fishing on the Girth before I leave.”

  “You get your legs back, and you’re on.” President Heck clapped. Then he left Roger alone in the spare bedroom of Sister Watson’s home.

  Roger sat himself up and sighed. His strength was coming back slowly. He looked over at the small nightstand and saw the blue paperback Book of Mormon that Toby had given him. He picked it up and thumbed through it. Toby had mentioned that he had highlighted a few of his favorite passages. Roger could find only two markings in the whole book. The first one was First Nephi, chapter 13, verse 22.

  And I said unto him: I know not.

  Roger wondered for a couple of minutes about what had possessed Toby to mark that certain scripture. He finally concluded that it must be some sort of personal motto. The second and only other marked verse was Helaman, chapter 4, verse 15.

  And it came to pass that they did repent, and inasmuch as they did repent they did begin to prosper.

  Roger touched the word prosper upon the page. He smiled, thinking about how wise Toby Carver really was.

  39

  A Normal Blood Flow

  December 15th

  By the time I woke up, the sky was turning dusky and my body was stiff. I pulled myself up and looked around for Noah. I couldn’t see him right off, and his car appeared to be gone. I walked to the farmhouse and tried the door—it was locked. I picked up a huge rock lying near the mat and heaved it through the front window. The sound of falling glass almost made me feel as if I were having fun. I knocked out the remaining shards and stepped through.

  No Noah.

  I looked around for his phone, but couldn’t find it. His whole house appeared in disarray. Drawers were pulled open and papers were thrown about as if Noah had been in a hurry to leave. I figured he must have packed up and gotten out while he still could. Most likely he had taken his phone as well. I decided that instead of just waiting around and taking the chance that someone would come find me, I should start hiking home. I noticed a crumpled piece of clothing that had been crammed back behind the couch and left behind. I picked it up and shook it out.

  It was a sweater.

  I slipped it on and found a towel to tape around my shoeless foot. Once improperly prepared, I set off. By the time I walked out of the Dintmore Hills, it was pitch dark. I thought back to when Grace and I had done this same thing just a couple weeks back. I longed to have her with me. I was just not the high-caliber company that she was. I called my home from the same gas station that Grace and I had used before. My mother answered and sounded so relieved to hear my voice that I was suddenly glad to have been lost for a while. She promised to get Grace and hurry over to pick me up.

  When they arrived, both of them fawned and fussed over me like I was a two-thousand-dollar hairdo after an afternoon in the wind. My mother had discovered me missing shortly after Leonard had dragged me out of my house. She called the police, but it wasn’t their policy to get involved until more time had elapsed. So, my mother and Grace had done nothing but sit around and worry for the last twenty hours. Mom had even become so overwhelmed by everything that she had asked Doran and the elders to give her a blessing.

  I filled them in on everything that had happened as we drove home. Both of them were absolutely blown away by how wrong they had been about Noah. Grace apologized repeatedly. She couldn’t believe that her instincts had failed her. I watched her eyes gloss over as she realized how wrong she had been. It was a moving moment. She kissed me on the hand, promising there would be more once I cleaned up.

  It was nice to be alive.

  40

  Setting Things Right

  December 16th

  The day before the end of the world was a day like any other. The sky hovered, clear and open, the ground was dry, and the sun shone like a mother’s face at a child’s first recital.

  At around noon I called Scott McLaughlin and warned him about lighting any candles over at the warehouse. He asked me why, so I told him the entire story. He was speechless. I made him promise to stay away from the warehouse until the police could have a look at it. He thanked me, still a little unsure of what to think. Then I called the police and recited the story again. I thought that they would congratulate me for making it out, for stopping Noah and revealing him to be what he really was. Instead, they insisted I come down to the station immediately so that they could question me in person.

  When I got there, they asked me every possible question about Noah. I looked at pictures, filled out forms, and gave descriptions.

  “About yay high and wearing a sweater,” I said.

  On the way home, I decided to drive over to Leonard’s to make sure he was still okay and find out what had happened to him.

  I pulled up to the front of the Bio-Doom and parked. He had his bay window curtain open and was inside doing exercises. I got out of my car and stepped up to the window. The second he recognized me, he became extremely animated, waving me to the side of the single-wide as if I were a winning horse coming down the final stretch. I slipped around back and crawled under the skirting and up into his kitchen. Leonard was waiting.

  “Where have you been?” he said with excitement.

  “That’s what I was wondering about you,” I responded. “The last time I saw you, you were knocked out against a pole.”

  “That’s right,” Leonard gleamed, acting as if we had both just recalled a thrilling memory. “Boy, what a night, huh?”

  “So, where did you go?” I asked, frustrated.

  “Well, when I came to, you weren’t there. So I went down to the mall to finish up my Christmas shopping.”

  “You went shopping?” I asked in disbelief. “You’re serious?”

  “They’re having some great sales.” Leonard clapped his hands. “Look at this,” he said, pulling a pair of snowshoes out from behind a pile of canned olives. “Got these babies at forty percent off. And how about this,” he beamed, walking up to the wall and pointing to a small framed plaque. It was one of those common biblical parchments with your name and its meaning written out in calligraphy. It had the name “Leonard” written in big letters and the definition below it read: “Reorder.”

  “I think knowing what your name means really builds the old self-esteem, you know? Mine’s not bad, is it?” He elbowed me. “Reorder. I’m sure it has something to do with the reordering of the Melchizedek Priesthood.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

  “So you didn’t even wonder what had happened to Noah and me?” I asked, bringing him back to the conversation at hand.

  “I figured you would work things out.”

  “The last you saw he was pointing a gun at me,” I huffed.

  “So, is he all right?” Leonard asked.

  “The gun was pointing at me.”

  “Trust, you’re repeating yourself,” Leonard said, acting like a second grade teacher.

  “We both almost died,” I argued.

  “I guess we’ve got a lot to be thankful for.”

  “You could have at least called the police and sent them out to find us.”

  “And jeopardize my dome life?”

  “This is amazing.”

  “So where’s Noah?” he asked.

  “Who knows?” I blurted out. “He took
off when I slipped into a state of exhaustion. The police are looking for him now.”

  Leonard looked at me with renewed interest. “I should have signed him up for pre-billed legal while I had the chance. Could have saved him a bundle in law fees.”

  “You’re selling law consultations?” I asked. “What happened to the waterless car soap?”

  “Turns out people enjoy using water,” Leonard said sadly. “But that’s in the past. Now I’m part of a huge team of important lawyers.”

  I didn’t want to know any more. I went back down through the hole in the linoleum and outside, leaving Leonard to sell to himself.

  Late that afternoon, Grace and I snuck off together and headed down toward Southdale River. We climbed up under one of the covered bridges and spread out a blanket on the steep slope beneath it. We pulled out the few items we had brought along to eat.

  “You know, this could be our last day on earth,” I said coyly.

  “Well, I guess that makes it no different than any other day,” she replied.

  I lay down on the blanket and listened to the river rushing below. Water flopped down its course like a clumsy adolescent snake. I looked up at the bridge above us as a car rolled across.

  “So, I guess I was right about Noah,” I said, not confident that I had yet milked it for all it was worth.

  “Let’s not talk about him,” Grace replied, her green eyes deep and dark in the light of the afternoon.

  “All right,” I agreed. “Let’s talk about tomorrow.”

  “What about it?” Grace asked.

  “Well, it’s the seventeenth,” I reminded her.

  “Did you bring me here to this secluded spot to talk about unimportant things like the end of the world?” Grace smiled. “Or was there something more pressing on your mind?”

  “Well, now that you mention it.”

  “I didn’t realize I had mentioned anything.” Grace shifted in her cross-legged position, bringing her knees up next to the side of my chest. She leaned over so that her long hair dangled above my face. I could smell the ends of it teasing me. Her lovely mouth smiled in delight over the feelings she knew she was inducing.

  “Do you still love me?” she asked.

  “More than ever,” I whispered.

  Grace bent over farther and softly touched her pink lips to mine. My toes exploded like a string of firecrackers, each one setting off the next. And my fingers all detached and rolled helplessly down the river bank. I was in awe of what was happening. Visions of my childhood and every day I had lived since seemed to be rushing toward me like some great wind.

  It was a hard feeling to describe, but similar to when I was seven years old and our family owned a huge Labrador retriever. I used to go out into the backyard and call for her, not knowing exactly where she was. The moment I hollered her name, she would appear, running as fast as she could and hurling her weight toward me. It used to scare me, and yet thrill me too, to see her heading straight toward me. Each time I had to steel myself against the urge to run, standing my ground and waiting for the inevitable. The fear would build until the moment when she would bowl me over, covering me with her paws and licking my face.

  That was the feeling I had now. Every part of my life was speeding toward me at breakneck speed. I looked myself straight in the eye as it approached, falling on me like hail, stinging me all over, and reminding me I was alive.

  I opened my eyes to see Grace looking down at me. She pulled back her hair with her left hand while touching my face with her right.

  “Will you marry me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  I moved up onto my elbows and kissed her. I could feel her warm breath and cool skin as she kissed me back. Her hair surrounded me like light. She pushed me nearer to the ground and then stopped to smile a knowing smile at me.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  41

  Oh Buoy

  December 17th

  By the time I got out of bed in the morning, it had already been raining for four straight hours. I looked through the kitchen window at the now-flooded streets and sidewalks. I wondered if I shouldn’t start shoveling sand bags. The rain was thick and heavy, drops slapping against the window like overripe plums.

  “Can you believe it?” Margaret asked me as she came down for breakfast.

  “Amazing,” I smiled.

  “Noah Taylor should have built us an ark,” Abel joked.

  “Noah Taylor should never have come,” Margaret added.

  “So, Trust,” Abel asked with a mouth full of cereal. “When are you and Grace going to get hitched?”

  I had come home the day before and told my family the good news. Everyone was excited. Even my mother seemed mildly pleased. Mom was doing better. The blessing the elders had given her a few days back had seemed to lift her spirits. She still worried night and day about my dad and touched base with the police regularly, but we all seemed to sense that whatever happened would be for the best.

  “We’re thinking of this spring,” I answered Abel.

  “I think spring is the best time to get married,” Margaret said, pulling out a cereal bowl from the cabinet and taking a seat at the table.

  My mother came into the kitchen looking like she had just seen a naked ghost. Her hair was a mess, and she appeared emotionally disoriented. It looked like she had had another bad night. She walked over to the table and sat down.

  “Are you all right, Mom?” Abel asked.

  “Your father,” she said. “He called.”

  “Daddy called?” Margaret asked with excitement. “What did he say? When is he coming home?” My sister gushed, barely able to contain herself.

  “He sounded so different,” was all my mother said.

  “Good different, or bad different?” I asked nervously.

  “He couldn’t talk long.” She shook her head and started to cry. “He said he’d be home soon . . . and that he loved me.”

  Margaret burst out bawling, tears dropping into the bowl of cereal she had just poured—her shredded wheat getting soggy before any milk even touched it. Abel wiped his mouth with his sleeve. From my seat it looked like he had just rubbed on the world’s biggest smile.

  I called Grace and told her the news. She ran over as fast as she could. When she came into the kitchen, my mother hugged her even though she was now wet.

  My father was coming home.

  My mother was hugging Grace!

  We all ate breakfast talking like we had just received free tickets to the celestial kingdom in the mail. My mom went over and over the few words my father had said to her. He said he had been hurt, and that he was fine. He told her he couldn’t talk long because it wasn’t his phone, but that he would be coming home as soon as he possibly could. And then he told her that he loved her more than anything in the whole world.

  I had never seen my mother so happy. It made me more proud of my father than I had ever been.

  I think we would have all stayed indoors, basking in our state of bliss, if it had not been for the fact that shortly after eleven o’clock, water began building up against our house and leaking through the door. Mom called over to Wendy’s to see if she was doing okay with all the rain. As soon as my mother got the question out, the phones went dead. Two minutes later, Wendy was knocking on our door, begging to come in. Abel opened the door and water rushed in like loose mercury, sloshing across the floor and into every corner of the front room. I expected it to be cold on my feet, but the high temperatures had kept the rain warm. It took both Abel and me to get the door closed after Wendy came in.

  “What should we do?” Wendy asked, wearing a white silk pajama top and fishing waders. “Should we make some of those sandbag things or something?”

  I would have answered her, but the electricity suddenly went out, distracting us all from her question. I could see the flood level rising against our large front window as rain continued to dump down. It was too late for sandbags. Everyone ran
around the house collecting things and moving them up to higher ground where they’d be safer. We all made some lame jokes about how it looked like Noah Taylor was right about the end of the world after all. But by twelve o’clock no one was laughing. Our front window gave out first, shattering inward, allowing a huge deluge of water to push into our home. Luckily, Mom had had the foresight to gather us together far from the windows before it got to that point. We climbed up on the kitchen table and chairs.

  By 12:30 Margaret was genuinely scared, and Abel was asking my mom things like, “If someone stole a baseball mitt from a friend, and he didn’t get a chance to return it before he died, would he go to heaven?”

  Mom would have answered with a stern lecture, except I think she was too busy worrying about what to do next. She was a determined woman—determined to still be around when my father came home. He had said that he loved her.

  We all moved up into the second story as the water climbed the steps at an amazing rate. Grace and I sat on the top step watching it rise toward our feet as everyone else huddled in the master bedroom looking out the window for some sign of relief.

  “Can you believe this?” I said, more in awe than in anger. “I keep thinking that we should do something besides just sit here.”

  “I’ve never seen so much water,” Grace replied. “What happens if it doesn’t stop?”

  “I suppose we get really wet,” I answered, trying to keep things light.

  “Your house is ruined,” Grace said sorrowfully.

  “I’m sure my parents have flood insurance.” I wheewed, thinking about how nice it sounded to say “my parents” with such confidence for a change.

  The water was six steps away from us.

  “Should we move up?” Grace asked.

  I would have replied, but it was suddenly silent. I was a little spooked by the quiet until I realized it meant the pounding rain had stopped, at least for now.