Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison Pittman

  “Child, child,” Maureen said, patting comfort onto Gloria’s back. “Men can say truly awful things in the face of grief. They feel like sadness ain’t enough. They got to be angry at something, too, and they’ll just turn on whatever’s closest.”

  Gloria disengaged herself from Maureen’s embrace and sat down at the table. “He blames me,” she said, staring at the wrinkled fingers she clutched in her lap.

  “He blames himself.”

  “He doesn’t need me anymore, Maureen. He doesn’t want me. I have a feeling he’s going to send me away. Or send me … here.”

  Maureen propped her hands on her hips and assumed a posture of indignation. “Now what’s wrong with here, might I ask?”

  Gloria looked up and smiled at her friend. “Nothing. It’s lovely. But I hoped to be here together. As a family. I don’t think I could go back to being the woman stashed away at the back of the property.”

  “Nonsense,” Maureen said. “Besides, my first mind is to set John William up here. Get him out of my barn. What must people think of me?”

  Gloria tucked a stray curl back under the kerchief on her head. “I can’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

  “I want you, child. I’ve grown so fond of you.”

  “But he doesn’t.”

  “He does. I know it.”

  “You didn’t see the way he looked at me yesterday.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ve seen the way he’s looked at you every other day. Just give him some time.”

  John William scooped up the last of the grain in the wide shallow bowl and tossed it up into the air. The breeze caught it midair and blew the chaff away, the grain making soft little ticks as it fell back into the bowl. He repeated the process again and again until the grains were clean enough to suit him, then he poured them into the grain sack propped against the wall. He took the pitchfork from Phil, used it to pitch down more of the wheat piled high in his wagon, picked up a sheaf, loosened its bundling, and spread the stalks on the tarp, repeating the process until the canvas was once again covered.

  He held the flail out to Big Phil and offered to trade jobs, but Phil declined.

  “I don’t have the right muscles for that job,” Phil said, running his hands across his ample belly. “You’re the strong one.”

  “Trust me, my friend, this flesh is weak.”

  “All the more reason to have a wedding.” Phil picked up a piece of straw, placed it between his teeth, and leaned against the barn wall.

  John William merely scowled and attacked the grain. “You know,” he said, speaking between blows, “I do care for her.”

  “Of course you do, son. That’s why you need to make an honest woman out of her.”

  “It’ll take more than marryin’ her to do that.”

  “You do your part here,” Phil said, “and let God take care of the rest.”

  “She has a past, and she’s havin’ a hard time puttin’ it behind her.”

  The leather thong joining the two sticks was threatening to come loose, and John William stopped to tighten the knot.

  “How about you?” Phil said.

  “I try not to let it bother me, but sometimes—”

  “What I meant was your past. You got yourself quite a story, don’t you?”

  John William paused in his task and turned his better ear toward Phil. “What did you say?”

  “I saw you fight in Saint Louis,” Phil said, as calmly as if he were mentioning having seen him in the feed store last Tuesday. “Back in ’59.”

  John William felt his very breath slammed out of him, as if Big Phil had taken the flail and struck it square on his spine. He turned away and tried to absorb himself in repairing the flail.

  “Beautiful match. Think you took him down in seven rounds. Long enough to make it worth watching, not so long to make it a bloodbath. You were like some sort of an artist in that ring.”

  “If you’re callin’ me an artist, you need to see more paintin’s.” John William waited for Phil to join him in his nervous chuckle, but the older man was looking at him through narrowed eyes that seemed far from laughter.

  “After that match,” Phil went on, “they offered twenty dollars to the man who would go just three rounds in the ring with you. Remember?”

  He did.

  “We was all standing around, thinking that you had to be pretty tired out, and if you could have heard us all talking, wanting more than anything to get in that ring and take down Killer MacGregan. You recall what happened next?”

  He didn’t.

  “Young kid came up. Couldn’t have been more than twenty. Probably pretty drunk, too, from the looks of it. But strong. Been bragging all day about pulling stumps up bare-handed. Said he was going to use that twenty dollars to buy a ring for his girl.”

  John William’s memory came clearer with each detail, and when Phil once again asked if he remembered what happened, he had an answer.

  “I dropped him with three punches.”

  “Kid didn’t know what hit him.” The tone of admiration was gone. “And the funny thing was that the same guys who was wanting to see you drop, cheered just as hard when that kid hit the canvas. Lust is lust, I guess.”

  “I guess so,” John William said quietly.

  “Know what I remember next?” Phil stood up and began to take steps toward John William. “I was at Boyd’s Saloon—the missus never liked me drinking, but I never found much in the Bible to say a man couldn’t toss back a few with his friends—and they brought you in. A crowd of men—and quite a few, er, ladies—brought you up to the bar like you was some kind of a hero. Some fancy fellow was with you—”

  “My manager.”

  “—and he said ‘A round of drinks on the Killer!’ And we all started cheering again, never mind that he was buying drinks with our money lost betting against you.”

  “Shoulda known not to bet against me.” John William offered a feeble smile, then turned to raise the newly repaired flail high and resume threshing the wheat. When he tried to bring it down, however, he could not. Big Phil stood behind him, his hand gripping the handle. John William released his own grip, and Phil held on to the stick, holding it close to John William’s face in a manner that, had Phil not shown himself to be a friend, could have been seen as a threat.

  “I was standing,” Phil said, “right at your elbow when you lifted that drink. You had money pouring out of your pockets. And blood crusted in your knuckles.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this when I first met you here?”

  “Because,” Phil said, taking a few steps back, “you didn’t introduce yourself to me as Killer MacGregan. I looked at you, your family, and decided it was something you’d put behind you. You seemed happy—more than I can say about you when I saw you drinking that night.”

  “Why are you tellin’ me all of this now?”

  “Let me ask you a question. What would it take to get you back in that ring?”

  The memory of what he used to do—what he used to be—filled him with such distaste that he hearkened back to the taste of his own blood in his mouth and was overcome with the desire to spit it out, which he did, causing Phil to take yet another step backward.

  “I could never go back,” he said, staring at his boots. “I made a promise to myself. To God. I paid my price for what I did. For the men I hurt. Killed.”

  “Maybe so,” Phil said, holding the flail out to John William, “but you got to remember that you didn’t kill that little girl of yours. And neither did Gloria. You don’t have to pay any price for that.”

  John William looked into Big Phil’s bright blue eyes and realized he’d never seen such wisdom and compassion in a man.

  “Now I don’t claim to know the details of Gloria’s past,” Phil continued, “but I can make a pretty good guess at it. And don’t you think she’s made a few promises of her own?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose she has.”

  “Sending her away’d be like putting yoursel
f back in that ring,” Phil said, picking up the pitchfork and preparing to sift the straw on the canvas. “And it won’t bring your baby girl back.”

  Gloria threw out the last of the wash water and dropped the soiled rags inside.

  “Neat as a pin, now, isn’t it?” Maureen’s cheerful voice hadn’t lost its spirit or cadence despite the long afternoon’s work.

  “It’s perfect.” Gloria set down the bucket and, with her hands pressed to the small of her back, stretched back.

  The handcart Maureen had brought from the house held a wealth of treasures beyond the cleaning supplies, including a bright blue cloth for the table.

  “When John William goes to Centerville for the milling, he can look for some matching fabric to make cushions for the benches,” Maureen said as she lofted the tablecloth over the slab of wood. From her own home she donated a matching butter dish, creamer, and sugar bowl to sit in the middle of the table.

  The shelves above the little workspace held the few dishes Gloria and John William had in their wagon. The frying pan hung on a hook in the wall; the cooking pot stood ready in the fireplace.

  “And of course,” Maureen said, “you can borrow from me anything that you need.”

  Crisp, starched white curtains hung at the newly clean window, and the narrow shelf below it housed a pretty collection of glass jars.

  “For herbs,” she’d said. “The light here is perfect for them.”

  Gloria had simply followed behind her, running her fingers over each item.

  “I think I’ll have you take the rocking chair from the parlor—you have so much more need of it than I do,” Maureen said, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room.

  Then she walked into the little bedroom at the back. “I still have the old ticking for this bed.” Her voice carried from the room. “Hopefully by tomorrow John William will have threshed enough to have some good, fresh straw to stuff it with. Ed never did like sleeping on ropes—always wanted a firm foundation to sleep on—so you’ll need plenty of cushioning because that slab of wood is woefully uncomfortable.” Her head appeared from behind the wall just long enough to treat Gloria to a wink. “But I guess you already know that.”

  “Maureen, please,” Gloria said. She’d been tapping the broom against the open doorway to shake off the last of the dirt and gave a resounding smack as the woman’s cheerful chatter went beyond the point of bearing. “How can you talk like that after Kate …”

  “Oh, now dear,” Maureen said, leaning against the dividing wall, “you and John William shared Kate’s life. And you shared her death. But your life—yours and his together—it isn’t over.”

  “I don’t know that we ever had a life together. Not like you and Ed had, anyway. You started together with nothing. You built this place together. But John and I …”

  The fatigue of the day’s labor took its toll and Gloria sank onto the bench at the table.

  “You and John what?” Maureen asked.

  “Do you know what I am? I’m King David’s woman. Bathsheba. Bringing the great man down to sin.”

  “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t anything … completely improper. After all, I believe John William to be a man of great restraint.”

  “Of course you do,” Gloria said, her voice full of disgust.

  “Now wait a minute,” Maureen said, walking into the room and sitting on the bench opposite Gloria. “Are you telling me that he tried to force—”

  “Nothing like that. He would never, never force himself. In fact, when he first touched me, I was perfectly willing … but after a while, well, it just seemed … wrong.”

  “Ah.”

  “It was just awkward and … humiliating. And it’s the reason God took Kate away.”

  Maureen took Gloria’s hand in her own tiny one. “Now child, is that what you really believe?”

  “It’s what John believes.”

  “You know he’s out of his head right now.”

  “You know what I wish?” Gloria said, surveying the room. “I wish the same thing could happen to me as what we did to this little house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was just so easy. A few hours’ work, some soap and water, and just like you said—spankin’ new.” She adopted Maureen’s characteristic singing tone. “Fresh as a daisy.”

  Maureen laughed at the imitation.

  “I wish there was just some way to do that to me. To my life. Because that’s why I couldn’t stand for him to touch me. I just felt … dirty. And I know that’s what he—”

  “Now, Gloria, darling—”

  “He—and you—always talking about God and forgiveness. Is that what happens? Is that how it feels?”

  “Yes, child, it is.”

  “How? How do you know?”

  “Just think about King David. He committed a great sin, arranging the death of a woman’s husband so that he could have her as his own. Even though he was God’s own, he was not protected from sin.”

  “God’s own,” Gloria said, whispering.

  “Yes. And because he did have a heart for God, he recognized that what he had done was terrible, and he cried out for God’s forgiveness. Wait here, I have one more thing for you.”

  Maureen got up from the table and left the cabin, returning within minutes with a package wrapped in clean white paper.

  “I was going to save this as a wedding gift,” she said, “but I think we need it now. Open it.”

  Gloria took the package and untied the pretty blue ribbon wrapped around it. Carefully—savoring the rare occasion of opening a gift—she unfolded the paper to reveal the present within. A Bible.

  “Every home needs God’s Word,” Maureen said.

  “John has a Bible.”

  “You need your own.”

  “I can’t read,” Gloria said, handing the Bible over to Maureen.

  “You’ll learn. For now, just listen.”

  “Are you going to read the same story Reverend Fuller read at the funeral?”

  “Not quite.”

  Gloria watched with envy as Maureen flitted through the gilt-edged pages. She leaned forward, breathing in the smell of a new book, preparing herself to understand the words that were often so confusing.

  “Here it is,” Maureen said. “Psalm 51. This is what David wrote just after that great sin of his. ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’ ”

  “Transgressions?”

  “Sins,” Maureen said, looking straight into Gloria’s eyes. “All those mistakes we’ve made. Now, he goes on, ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.’ See? Just like you were saying. He’s asking God to wash it all away.”

  “Show me,” Gloria said, suddenly greedy to see the words for herself.

  “Of course, dear.” Maureen turned the Bible toward Gloria, her finger leading her eyes to the place on the page where she had been reading. “Here.”

  Gloria’s eyes raked the page, the print largely meaningless. But the odd moments spent looking over John William’s shoulder brought a few words to clarity, and she struggled to bring them to life.

  “Ag—in—st thee on—lee have I s—sin—sind …”

  “ ‘Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,’ ” Maureen said, sending Gloria a proud smile. “That means that yes, we have all sinned. But it’s God and God alone that we sin against. You see? Not against each other. Not against our children. I know your heart is badly broken now, my dear, and there’s nothing we can say to make any of that hurt go away. Not really. Only God can do that for you.”

  Gloria slid the book across the table to her friend.

  “Read it to me,” she said. “All of it.”

  “All right.” Maureen began reading again at the beginning of the psalm.

  Much of it, still, was lost to Gloria’s comprehension. She remembered the night of Danny’s birth, and how the rush of blood in her ear
s blocked so many of the words Sadie spoke, but bits and pieces of the ancient writing of a sin-ridden king fell upon her heart.

  “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me …”

  With every waking breath. In every dream.

  “In sin did my mother conceive me …”

  Mother. What if you had a chance to hear these words? How would your life have been different? And mine?

  “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow …”

  White. Pure. Virgin. Can it be?

  “Create in me a clean heart, O God …”

  Because now, I feel I have no heart at all.

  “Cast me not away from thy presence …”

  So many others have thrown me away. Left me alone. If I become Yours, will You keep me?

  “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it …”

  I would. I would give anything.

  “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit …”

  Broken.

  “A broken and a contrite heart …”

  Broken.

  “O God, thou wilt not despise …”

  How could You not despise me? When I so despise myself.

  “Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.”

  Maureen stopped reading, letting the final phrase hang in the air. So many thoughts and questions fought against each other in Gloria’s mind, but she couldn’t share them now. They were too new. Too raw. But the last words of the Scripture begged an answer.

  “Bullock?”

  “It’s an animal. A bull used as a sacrifice to God.”

  “But he just said that God wants no sacrifice.”

  Maureen smiled warmly. “You have a quick mind, Gloria. Yes, God requires only that we offer the sacrifice of our hearts, ourselves. But King David lived in a time when God still required a blood sacrifice—the killing of an animal. But when Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died on the cross, He became the final sacrifice. No man would ever again need to shed blood in order to seek forgiveness from God.”

  “His Son.”

  “You know the pain of losing a child, Gloria. Imagine if the only way to save the life of someone was to take away the life of your son. Sweet little Danny. Imagine how much God must love you that He did that for you.”