The Scent of Lilacs

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Jocie still wasn’t so sure about this stepmother idea, but from the look on her father’s face, he was getting surer by the minute. Jocie looked around for Paulette’s car but didn’t see it. She would pick this Sunday to miss.

  Silence fell over the churchyard as the folks still outside the church shifted their eyes between the preacher and his family. Tabitha moved closer to Aunt Love and whispered, “Can I just stay out here in the car? They look like they’re going to eat me alive.”

  “It will be all right. I’ll be right beside you, and your father won’t be far away.” Aunt Love took hold of Tabitha’s arm and moved her gently toward the steps.

  “I haven’t been to church since I was Jocie’s age. Not even at Easter. I won’t know what to do.”

  “Church hasn’t changed that much,” Aunt Love assured her.

  “Yeah, it’s easy,” Jocie said. “Just smile and nod when people talk to you, bow your head when somebody’s praying, don’t talk when the Sunday school teacher’s reading the lesson, and sing when everybody else sings.”

  “Sing?” Tabitha croaked. “I can’t sing.”

  “Nobody else here can either. Wait till you hear. So it’ll be okay,” Jocie said, then added with a grin as Leigh and her father walked up, “Except Leigh. She can sing. Maybe you can get her to do a special, Dad.”

  Leigh grabbed her neck as panic flashed through her eyes, but then she laughed again. “Are you trying to make trouble, Jocie? Tell you what, we’ll make it a duet. The two of us. I’ll let you pick the song.”

  “How about ‘Hound Dog’?” Jocie suggested.

  Leigh twisted her mouth to keep from smiling as Jocie’s father gave Jocie his stern church look. “No ‘Hound Dog,’ even in the churchyard.”

  “It might make them quit staring at Tabitha and Leigh and start staring at me. I’m used to it, so it wouldn’t bother me. But if you don’t want me to sing, I could do cartwheels or something.”

  “Just behave, okay?” her father said.

  Jocie sighed as they climbed the concrete steps. “Just trying to help.”

  “If you want to help, go be nice to somebody,” her father suggested. “Say, Ronnie Martin.”

  Leigh grabbed Jocie’s arm before she got too far away and whispered to her, “You can be nice to me. If I get much more nervous, I may be the one doing cartwheels.”

  Mrs. McDermott came toward them carrying little Murray, who was reaching toward Jocie. “Here, Jocie. He’s crying for you already.”

  Jocie took the baby and swung him in a little circle while her father said, “Good morning, Dorothy. I’m sure you know my friend Leigh.” When Mrs. McDermott smiled and nodded, he went on. “I guess Leigh knows everybody, working at the courthouse the way she does. And this is my daughter Tabitha.”

  “It’s so good to have you here with us this morning. Both of you.” Mrs. McDermott said. She gave Leigh a knowing look and then settled her eyes on Tabitha. “My heavenly days, dear. You look just like your mother did when she was about your age. I used to ride the school bus with your mother. She was already in high school when I started school, but I remember how pretty she was. And you’re every bit as pretty.”

  “Thank you,” Tabitha murmured.

  “I suppose you’re finding things a lot different here than in California,” Mrs. McDermott said. “But I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing your father preach. We just love Brother David here at Mt. Pleasant and, of course, all his family.”

  She paused for Tabitha to say something, but Tabitha just kept smiling while at the same time looking as if she might have to throw up any second. She moved a step closer to Aunt Love.

  Mrs. McDermott took pity on her and turned to Aunt Love. “And how are you this morning, Miss Love?”

  Aunt Love looked the same as on any other of a hundred Sundays. Her navy dress was neatly pressed, with a few white cat hairs clinging to it here and there. Her gray hair was coiled tightly in the bun at the back of her head as always. It was as if the day when they’d buried the baby’s bones had never happened. Nothing had changed. Except for the red hat perched on her head. Jocie didn’t even know Aunt Love owned a red hat. Maybe she had forgotten which colors were which. Or maybe she was turning somersaults in her own way.

  Aunt Love smiled at Mrs. McDermott and said, “I’m well, Dorothy. And how are you?”

  “Fine. Except I’m sick to death of green beans. I’ve been picking and canning all week. I’ll bring you some to take home this evening.”

  “That would be kind of you,” Aunt Love said as Jocie held back a groan. At least it wasn’t cabbage.

  Mrs. McDermott looked at Aunt Love’s hat. “Is that a new hat, Miss Love? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear it before.”

  “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion,” Aunt Love said.

  “And what occasion is this? It’s not your birthday. That’s in December, isn’t it?” Mrs. McDermott said.

  “Some special days don’t have titles,” Aunt Love said. “The Lord just tells you to rejoice and why not with a red hat if you’ve a mind to.”

  Jocie looked over Murray’s head at Aunt Love. Maybe she had been too quick to decide Aunt Love was the same as any other Sunday. Mrs. McDermott kept smiling as she said, “Well, it’s a lovely red hat.”

  Several other women drifted over to their group to welcome Tabitha and Leigh. Tabitha kept her smile going, but she looked nervous. Jocie asked her if she wanted to hold Murray, but that seemed to scare her even more. The sound of Jessica Sanderson playing a hymn drifted out the open front door.

  “Sounds like it’s time for Sunday school assembly,” Mrs. McDermott said as she reached for Murray.

  Jocie gave him up reluctantly. She’d just as soon stay outside with the baby instead of having to go try to be nice to Ronnie Martin. Some things were just too hard to do week after week.

  She gave her father a sympathetic look as Ogden Martin waylaid him before they got to the door. “Brother David, I want to talk to you.”

  “Of course, Ogden. But Sunday school is about to start now.”

  “We can miss a bit of Sunday school. This won’t take but a minute.” Ogden didn’t even seem to notice Tabitha or Leigh as he pulled David aside.

  Jocie hung back to listen just enough to be sure it didn’t have anything to do with her. The man was upset about something that had gone awry for Mrs. Martin during Bible school. Jocie caught up with Leigh as she went in the front door with Tabitha and Aunt Love.

  “Do you think this can count as a date?” Leigh whispered as they went in the church.

  “I don’t know. It might have to be night church,” Jocie said.

  “I could come back tonight, and we could practice on that duet. Maybe make it a trio with your Dad.”

  “If so, we’ll have to change songs. No ‘Hound Dog’ for sure.”

  “It didn’t sound as if it was one of your father’s favorites, but Elvis isn’t the only guy out there making records. I’ve been thinking about getting Tennessee Ernie Ford’s ‘Sixteen Tons.’ That surely means we’re making progress, don’t you think?”

  “He knows you’re a girl now,” Jocie said.

  Leigh blushed. “Now if I can just get him to think of me as a woman.”

  Tabitha came back to get Leigh. “Aunt Love says I can’t go in her Sunday school class. That I have to go to the young women’s class. Will you stay with me? These people are scaring me to death.”

  “They do sort of look as if they don’t know which one of us to go after first,” Leigh said.

  “Well, at least you’re not expecting.”

  “Expecting? No way. It’d have to be another virgin birth.” Leigh’s eyes widened. “But you?”

  “No virgin birth,” Tabitha said.

  “Oh.” Pink flooded Leigh’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not sorry about you expecting. That’s wonderful, I suppose, isn’t it? I’m just . . . I just don’t know what to say.” Leigh fanned herself with her hand.
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  “Oh, jeez, don’t faint on me. I shouldn’t have spilled the beans to you right here in the middle of church. No telling how many people were eavesdropping, but I figured you’d already noticed the way my stomach’s sticking out.” Tabitha looked around. Most of the other people had already headed off to their Sunday school classes.

  Leigh took a peek at Tabitha’s midsection. “I hadn’t looked, I guess. How far along?”

  “Due the first of October.”

  “You’re not very big for that.”

  “Been throwing up nonstop for months,” Tabitha said.

  “I’d probably want to eat nonstop and get big as a cow,” Leigh said.

  “I feel like a cow already,” Tabitha said.

  The women in the senior adult women’s class that met in the choir area at the front of the sanctuary were gazing curiously back at Jocie, Tabitha, and Leigh. The only one not paying the least bit of attention to them was Aunt Love, who normally wouldn’t have let Jocie miss one second of Sunday school. Through the door, Jocie could see Ogden Martin still bending her father’s ear. Her father didn’t look happy. If their discussion broke up and he came in and caught them dillydallying in the vestibule, he might be even more upset. And he’d probably blame Jocie, because he couldn’t very well get upset with Tabitha on her first day at church or Leigh the first time he’d invited her to come.

  “Look, guys, we’d better go to Sunday school before Miss McMurtry sends a search party after me. Besides, we don’t want to upset Dad. He might forget his sermon, and everything’s crazy enough already without that happening.” Jocie felt strange being the responsible one. “Come on, I’ll show you to your Sunday school room.”

  Outside, David was trying hard to hold on to his temper as he listened to Ogden Martin’s complaints. The man had no intention of ever being happy. Something would always be wrong. David wondered if he’d always been this way or if it was just because he was so unhappy with David as pastor. David started to interrupt Ogden’s litany of the problems with Bible school and just ask the man straight out what his problem with him was, but he didn’t really want to spend rest of the Sunday school hour listening.

  Instead he wanted to be inside to help Tabitha and Leigh, especially Tabitha, not feel so on display. Leigh might color up, but she’d just laugh about it. That was one of the things he was beginning to like the most about Leigh—how she could find a reason to laugh. She’d said it was because everybody expected plump people to be jolly, but David knew plenty of people who were plump and sour. Besides, she wasn’t all that plump. Not Miss America shapely like Adrienne had been, but it was the shape of the heart inside that was the most important.

  Of course, she was still so young. Half the people in the church would be counting up the years between them while he preached today. He probably shouldn’t have invited her, but he’d had no way of knowing this would be the Sunday Tabitha would decide to make her first appearance at church. Or that they’d discover a baby in Aunt Love’s past and she’d discover a red hat in her closet. He hoped that was a sign that she was surrendering some of the sadness of her past.

  He’d asked her if she wanted to talk to him about it, but she’d said she’d already talked about it to Wes and Jocie, and now that she’d let the story out, she needed time to get some things straight in her head before she talked about it again. Then she’d said, “Let the child tell you about it. Some of the things I told her might have better gone unspoken, but I’ve always been too honest. I suppose that’s a strange thing to say, what with nobody knowing about my baby and all, but I never lied about it. I just didn’t tell it. Still, Jocelyn is so young. I shouldn’t have burdened her with my misery.”

  “Bad things happen, Aunt Love. She knows that. Has known it since she was a little kid and Adrienne left.”

  “I know, David, but you’re strong and good. I told her about another kind of father. Just let her talk to you so my misery won’t dim her joy in life.”

  “I thought you wanted her to be a bit less joyful on occasion.”

  “Less boisterous perhaps. More respectful at times. But never less joyful. In fact, I’m going to start praying for joy in my own heart. And I’d covet your prayers for the same.”

  Maybe more joy was what he needed to pray for Ogden Martin, or more patience for himself.

  “Are you even listening to me, Preacher?” Ogden said.

  “Of course I’m listening, Brother Ogden, and I’m sorry if you’re not happy with the way Bible school went. Still, it seemed to me the children enjoyed themselves and learned some good things, many of them from Mrs. Martin. She did a great job teaching the juniors the Bible books. Of course, there were a few problems, but then aren’t there always a few problems?”

  David tried to look as if he cared about the problems Ogden had been talking about. Miss Sadie had forgotten the sugar again, one of the classes had spent more money than the others on craft supplies, and somebody had threatened to ship the youngest Martin, Paul, into outer space if he didn’t behave. His father claimed the boy was almost afraid to get out of the car at church anymore.

  David had cringed until after Ogden placed the blame on one of the younger Sunday school teachers. At least it hadn’t been Jocie. He was sort of ashamed of himself for thinking it might have been her. Jocie had been a model Bible school worker, helping out with the little ones in the nursery. She had even managed to continue being nice to Ronnie Martin even though he went out of his way to pick on her.

  David supposed he could have complained about that to Ogden, but David had bigger problems to worry about than a couple of kids working out a way to get along for a few hours every week in church. Such as whether he’d be back at square one trying to get a church, any church, to let him preach once he told the Mt. Pleasant deacons about Tabitha. He figured he might as well get it over with. Half the women would notice her condition this morning anyway.

  When he told Ogden he wanted to have a special deacons’ meeting that night after services, the man smiled for the first time all morning. David didn’t know if it was because Ogden thought he was taking his complaints that seriously or if the deacon was hoping David had called the meeting to resign.

  As he followed the other man into the church, David glanced at his watch. Still a half hour before worship service. He had time to find a quiet place to look over his Scripture and pray and prepare himself to deliver God’s message to the people at Mt. Pleasant. His people. At least for one more Sunday.

  The Lord had led him to the passage about forgiveness in the Sermon on the Mount. Now he wondered if he should search for a new Scripture. Ogden Martin would be sure to think he was directing his words at him. But then everybody needed forgiveness. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” He hadn’t planned to use that line out of the Lord’s Prayer, but now it seemed right. Perhaps he’d have the church stand and repeat the prayer together. Before that, David himself needed to pray for forgiveness for his impatience with Ogden.

  David looked down at his people from the pulpit. The pews were fuller than the first Sunday he’d preached at Mt. Pleasant. That could just be because it was summer and the early hay had been cut and the crops had been laid by. Or it could be the work he’d been doing in the church field. Most of the faces looking toward him as he again thanked the Bible school workers and made the announcements were smiling.

  Of course, Ogden Martin wasn’t smiling as he sat in the second pew on the left with three other deacons waiting to take up the offering after the song service. Even the offerings had been better the last few weeks. They’d taken care of the Bible school expenses, with some money left over to bank for a rainy day. Matt McDermott and Jim Sanderson, sitting with Ogden, looked a little worried when David announced the special deacons’ meeting. David was glad they weren’t going to Matt McDermott’s house for Sunday dinner. He’d be too tempted to ask his advice before the meeting.

  David’s eyes drifted back to his women sitting a couple of rows
behind the deacons. His women. Was he ready to include Leigh in his women? The thought didn’t make sweat pop out on his forehead anymore. Just when he’d about decided he had a gift for being single the way Paul said in the Bible, the Lord had shoved Leigh into his path. The fact was, he liked her, had even spent some minutes wondering if he’d forgotten how to kiss a woman. He felt as awkward as a sixteen-year-old thinking about it. And now wasn’t the best time to think about it, with the offering hymn winding down through the last verse. The deacons were moving up to the front to pick up the offering plates, and he was thinking about kissing a woman twelve years younger than he was. Still, she wasn’t young enough to be his daughter. Quite.

  After Ogden Martin spoke the offertory prayer, David sat down in the chair on the podium behind the pulpit to wait while the men passed the plates and Jessica played “ I Come to the Garden Alone.” At least no wasps were flying around the sanctuary to distract attention from the message. Of course, it wasn’t the people who were distracted this morning; it was the preacher.

  And maybe his family. Tabitha still looked scared as she sat close to Aunt Love. She’d left the hymnbook open on her lap as if trying to cover up the evidence. He’d thought she was going to crawl under the pew and hide when he’d introduced her from the pulpit at the beginning of the service, but he had to do it. The people expected it. Adrienne used to ask him if he had to do everything the people expected. She said it was the unexpected that jolted people awake. She was good at the unexpected. Even better at the unacceptable. Thank heavens that although Tabitha looked like Adrienne she wasn’t like her. The way she loved her unborn baby proved that well enough.

  Aunt Love reached over and patted Tabitha’s arm. No wonder Aunt Love had been so kind to Tabitha. She’d gone through some of the same thing. Talk about the unexpected. He had never heard the first hint of that story in his family. Surely his mother hadn’t known. But then perhaps she had just kept the secret. There were other secrets kept in the family almost as well. Secrets so secret that sometimes David wondered if they were true or if Adrienne had just whispered them into his mind as some kind of cruel joke.