Dearest Dorothy, Help! I've Lost Myself!

by Charlene Baumbich

  “You are a fast worker, Earl. Let me think now.” She untied the curly ribbon from the bag of cookies and offered one to Earl. He declined by shaking his head. He still had his hand on the doorknob since closing it, waiting to be sent out again. Dorothy grabbed a cookie and polished the whole thing off. She selected another one—the one she noticed had the most chocolate chips in it—then used it to point at Earl. “How about you get my big clippers out of the little shed and cut down my peony bushes back near the alley. Do you know what peonies are?”

  Earl’s eyes darted to his mother. “They’re the pink and white ones by our sidewalk, right?” May Belle nodded. “Yes. I know,” he assured Dorothy.

  “Then I reckon you’re on your next assignment!” In a flash he was gone, screen door banging behind him. Dorothy walked over and closed the big door. “Wish he could handle the assignment I have later today.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Can’t talk about it. Just keep praying.”

  Dorothy had phoned Pastor Delbert just before she’d invited Earl and May Belle over. She’d asked if he might be available for a meeting after lunch. “Yes. I have some errands to run; how about I drop by for a few minutes around one-thirty.”

  “This is something that will definitely take longer than a few minutes,” she’d said. “Maybe a couple hours. Might you have more time later in the day?”

  “What’s this regarding, Dorothy? Can we wait until after church tomorrow?”

  “Let’s just say it’s related to my favorite topic lately: forgiveness. And let’s say I could wait until tomorrow, but I’ve already waited forty-seven years, which is plenty long enough.”

  “I must say I’m intrigued. How about two-thirty?”

  “We’ll be here.”

  “We?”

  “It’s a surprise.” Boy, is it going to be a surprise.

  When Pastor Delbert pulled onto Vine Street, he saw Dorothy was right: Katie Durbin was the last person he expected, and everybody in town recognized her cashmere beige Lexus 430 SUV that was parked out front.

  “Howdy do, Pastor Delbert,” Dorothy said, greeting him at the front door and quickly ushering him in to close the door behind them, keeping the blustering winds outside. They weren’t cold winds—and her heart was racing plenty fast enough to keep her warm, even if they had been—but whatever winds they were, they needed to be kept at bay, just in case they were of the winds-of-change variety. There’d been quite enough of that going around.

  “Howdy do to you too!” His eyes scanned the living room, but he saw nobody else. “Isn’t that Katie Durbin’s SUV outside?”

  “It is! It is. Come right on in; she and her son are waiting in the kitchen for us. I thought the kitchen table would be a nice cozy place for us to chat. What all have you been up to today?” she asked over her shoulder as they moved toward the kitchen.

  “I had to stop by Wal-Mart, then Richardson’s Drugs, then Doc’s.”

  “Doc’s? Everything okay with you?” She’d stopped just short of the kitchen to ask.

  “Fine and dandy. I was just dropping off our family history for the Centennial Plus Thirty booklet. I’ve been working on it for several days.”

  Dorothy’s breath caught in her throat, as did Katie’s and Josh’s. Here they were about to introduce him to an entire family history he knew nothing about.

  When Pastor entered the kitchen, Josh stood and shook his hand, as did his mother. As soon as they were seated, Dorothy jumped back up, retrieved another placemat from a drawer and set it before him; she usually only kept three on the table. “What can I get you to drink, Pastor Delbert?”

  He looked at the three iced teas already served and thought they looked pretty good. While Dorothy was getting his drink, Josh and Katie were intently staring at him: his nose, his eyes, chin, ears, the top of his head. Katie’s face looked half puzzled, half frightened; her son’s expression was more one of wonder. Pastor decided he must look a sight from the wind. He raked his hands through his hair and straightened his glasses, then gave his mouth and chin a swipe with his hand, making sure he didn’t have crumbs stuck on them—something his wife was always having to point out.

  “Pastor Delbert, would you mind if I open with prayer?” Dorothy asked as she seated herself. He looked puzzled; he was usually the one being asked to pray, but he was never one to decline an offer of prayer.

  “Lord, here we are, but I reckon you already know that since you see us plain as day. You already know everything, and have forgiven not only us, but those who are not at this table with us. You have forgiven us and loved us, right up until this moment, and I know You’re not going to stop showing us the way now. God, may what we have to say be shared not by our might or power, but by Your Spirit. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Josh said, then Pastor, who was now a little unnerved.

  “Katie, I’ve known Delbert here since he was a mischievous little squirt of a boy. Would you mind if I start?”

  “No,” Katie said, continuing to study his face. Pastor hadn’t heard Dorothy refer to him without the pastor part of his name since he’d become the pastor. It flashed through his mind that it felt good to be reminded that he, too, was still a child of God, while at the same time being a shepherd.

  “Delbert . . . Do you mind if I just call you Delbert for this meeting? I think it will be better for all of us—for you—to remember that you are first a child of God, then a pastor.”

  It was as though she had read his mind! “Of course not, Dorothy!”

  “Delbert, we have something to tell you today that is going to be hard to believe, but it is true. Living witnesses are sitting at this table to prove it.” And so for the third time, Dorothy told the story. Not until she was solidly into it did she realize it was a little less painful this go-around, now that it had been exposed to the light for a while. She had already repeated it twice, which helped, and Katie and Josh now flanked her, lending strength in numbers. Although it was by no means easy, she hadn’t been quite as emotionally batted around by the telling. Where two or more are gathered . . . , she thought.

  Katie jumped in and out to talk about her mother, her life with her mother, a mother who had raised her with dignity and care, but especially with faith—even though that topic still felt awkward to her. Since Katie had lived with the story for the past several days—turned it over in her mind, reread the letters, even somewhat self-consciously prayed about it—she felt calmer than she might have imagined.

  Same as he’d done at the farm when first learning the news, Josh enthusiastically stepped into the telling now and again, which at worst felt momentarily out of place to everyone at the table, especially Delbert. He’d had no time to process things yet. But at best, Josh’s youthful and wholehearted acceptance almost felt to Delbert like a life-rope, thrown by God to keep him from drowning in this truth that was piercing his soul like a thunderous calamity of deceit. How could this be, Dad? How could you have let this happen ? And me, only a child myself when you did this!

  When they’d all come to the end of their words and emotional reserves, Dorothy closed by imploring Delbert to remember what she herself had clung to in the midst of her storm. “Delbert, now is the time to remember what you know. Do not rely on your emotions; rely on God. A very wise pastor told me just last Sunday that if we cannot forgive on our own, we need to trust the Almighty to work that work in us. Somehow I just know that wise pastor saw that pure-gold act of faith modeled by his own father, who knew what it meant to not only extend forgiveness, but to receive it, and from none other than that same God Almighty.”

  “Doc, Pastor Delbert. I apologize for the late hour of this call. You haven’t turned my family’s history in for the centennial booklet yet, have you?”

  “No. We don’t have another meeting until Tuesday.”

  “Good. I’ll be right by to pick it up.”

  “I can bring it to church tomorrow. No need to go out of your way.”

  “Yes, there is.�
�� But he didn’t explain. For now, he just needed to hold all the pieces.

  Delbert was awake nearly all night, replaying the whole afternoon’s conversation in his mind, trying to remember his own young experiences with his father back when all of this had taken place. He remembered his father’s terrible crying after his mother died. Fast-forward. He remembered his father’s impassioned sermons about extending and receiving forgiveness, impassioned to the point of his father’s own tears. Fast-forward. He remembered . . . his father used to call on Tess Walker about once a month, up until his death! Obviously, Dorothy knew nothing of this. Once he began studying for the pastorate himself, he figured that since Tessa Martha Walker was not a church attendee, his dad was simply bringing God’s love straight to the house of a self-isolated woman most in town just chalked up as crazy.

  What transpired, Dad? Did you talk to her about Clarice? Learn about your daughter? Did you speak to her of God, maybe even help her mend her fences with Him?

  Oh, God, only You will ever know now, and that will have to be enough for me. Please, make it enough for me.

  And then he remembered that he now had a . . . half-sister, and, as Josh had called it, one-half of a full-blooded nephew.

  He ushered Sunday morning’s dawn into the world with a rain shower of tears that spilled onto the desk in his home study, onto the pages of the family history he’d so proudly written. Would his tears water those words until they grew a new chapter, or would they simply evaporate, along with all else he had known to be true?

  MEET YOUR TOWN: Partonville, settled 130 years ago by the Walter Parton family, including Walter and his wife, Beatrice, and Walter’s brother Seth.

  QUESTION: Why did they decide to settle here? ANSWER: Recorded in ink, in a bound, leather journal bearing his initials, and in beautiful cursive handwriting, Walter wrote, “When I saw the rich black earth, I knew we could raise plenty of staples to sustain us. When I asked Beatrice, my newly betrothed, what she thought, she said, ‘Walter, my heart tells me we’re home.’”

  TIDBIT: Beatrice died giving birth to her stillborn twins, but to this day, we give thanks for Beatrice Parton’s perceptive heart that ultimately paved the way to help us all find our homes here in Partonville.

  The last time Katie had set foot in a church after her mother died was when Delbert had conducted her Aunt Tess’s funeral services. Now, though, for the first time since, she had the desire to worship. She had a longing, almost a felt need, to be with other faith-filled people. She’d also never heard Delbert preach, and she wanted to study him, watch him, know him. He was the closest link to her father, and she didn’t want to lose another opportunity, like she had with Aunt Tess, to stay connected to her roots. When she arose, she knocked on Josh’s door and told him to start dressing. “It’s Sunday and we’re going to church.”

  Dorothy, May Belle, Earl, Katie and Josh were lined up in a pew next to one another, right behind Gladys. Pastor Delbert, however, was not only absent from church; he was not even in town. When a layperson from Yorkville made the announcements, they included that Pastor Delbert was taking a little time off and that he’d be back in his office on Tuesday.

  When they came to the last Amen, although Katie had somewhat enjoyed the service, she was, of course, disappointed Delbert hadn’t preached. But moreover, she felt wounded, wondering if he might have been shunning her. Shades of Dorothy’s comments about a town’s judgments danced in her head. On the way out, she spent several focused minutes in front of Delbert Senior’s portrait, grieving her loss at having never met him, and fretting that her closest link to him might be trying to shut her out. Dad. Dad . . . She stared into his eyes, wishing she could press her face against his portrait and try to imagine the warmth of his skin, what his scent might have been. . . .

  Dorothy was worried. What was going on in Pastor’s head? His heart? His spirit? To where had he run? And just look at Katie’s face. Lord, just do something!

  Delbert, child of God and son of Delbert Senior, sat at a desk in a small, stark room—twin bed, chair, desk, sink and no decorations aside from a small wooden cross above the bed—at a Catholic retreat center in Hethrow. When he’d gathered his notes to preach this morning, he realized there was just no way he could overcome his own emotional mess and stand before anybody, so he made his first phone call to a layman, his second to a retreat center, and then he gathered his family’s history—clinging to it as Katie had to her letters—a notebook and his Bible.

  Throughout his years of friendship with Father O’Sullivan (they met once a month, just to spend time with somebody else who “got” what they did), they’d often talked about finding more time for their own personal reflection. On several occasions, Father O’Sullivan had encouraged him to consider a trip to the center. “Always does me a world of good!” he’d say, plump red cheeks bulging up near his eyes as he’d smile. “When I make it a priority on my calendar, I go. Twenty-four hours with just God and me and the Word and I feel like a new man! And you don’t have to be Catholic to use the facilities, you know. They even let in the most unlikely candidates,” he’d say. “I’ve heard tell they even allow Methodists!” Then he’d throw his head back and laugh, as though he’d never said that exact same thing a half dozen times before. “Really,” he’d add with a sobered voice, “you ought to try it some time.”

  Little had Delbert ever imagined he’d actually find himself here one day. But where was he to go? Like the story of Jacob and the angel in Genesis, he was determined to wrestle with his new truths until they blessed him—and he hoped that was before Tuesday at noon when he had to be back in his office.

  22

  It was a fiasco of epic proportions. On a Richter scale of one-to-ten, this was nothing short of a seven-point-nine for early-morning Partonville travelers whose lives had come to a complete halt. Shock and dismay, confusion and mayhem ruled. Not since The Tank had bitten the back of a garbage truck and caused a commotion had the square been tied in such a knot. Some thought trickster aliens had possessed their town in the middle of the night; others who were more sensible remembered having read about their mayor’s ridiculous idea to change the direction of traffic. They all assumed someone had stopped her or that she had finally come to her senses.

  Wrong!

  No amount of nay-saying or absolute refusal to go along with her idea—not even by dedicated and outspoken committee members who assumed they had dissuaded her—had knocked sense into that determined woman’s head. Acting Mayor Gladys McKern had, in the pre-dawn hours of this Monday morning, changed the direction of the one-way arrows leading onto the square. (Everybody knew she couldn’t have literally done it herself. For years folks would speculate as to who might have been daft enough to conspire with her, but nobody ever admitted to it.)

  Early on in the day, most longtime residents hadn’t even noticed the new signs, so used to traveling in their own set ways were they. They had proceeded onto the square, turned right, parked in front of Harry’s for breakfast or journeyed on around the square to peel off in the direction of their destination. Those who did notice, and who always played by the rules, first slammed on their brakes, shook their heads in confusion, and, if nobody was in front of them to suggest otherwise, shrugged their shoulders and turned to the left. By a miracle, some of them never met a single other car while passing through. But more often than not, they would see a car coming straight toward them, its driver wildly honking and trying to signal them that they were going the wrong way on a one-way, causing them to wonder if they had hallucinated the arrow change. And just forget about it if they had followed the new rules and were trying to park on the square, since all diagonal parking lines slanted the opposite direction from which Gladys was trying to route traffic, something their dear mayor hadn’t thought about. Cars were parked every which way.

  By rush hour (kind of an oxymoron in Partonville), traffic had come to a halt. Drivers yelled at themselves and out their windows, and the cacophony of blowing horns
was all but deafening.

  The worst part for Gladys was that she had, as usual, arrived at Harry’s the minute Lester opened (6:00 A.M.) to witness, firsthand, Partonville’s glorious surprise step into the future. By 6:45, nobody was being served since Lester, Harold and Arthur were all outside trying to help Mac undo what was quickly becoming not only the Partonville Press’s next headline, but that of the Daily Courier as well. The fact the Courier’s photographer couldn’t reach the square was the only thing that kept the humiliation from being even worse than it was.

  “Where in tar-nation is that woman!” Arthur yelped to anyone who would listen as he exited her office. It seemed she had plumb disappeared. “Maybe those folks thinkin’ aliens done messed with us in the middle of the night were right, and hopefully they took Gladys with ’em when they left afore I find her!”

  The only consolation, Gladys thought as she headed out of town—at least until she had the courage to return after dark that night—was that she’d been so excited about this vision-gone-bad for so long, she hadn’t waited until the grand weekend to unleash it.

  Katie was upstairs moving the last few things around in the Chaos Room, which was at long last almost completely organized. In fact, she’d taken to calling it the spare room, resolving to leave chaos behind. It had become clear the treadmill wasn’t going to fit, so she’d decided to instead purchase a little television and DVD player, stock up on a few new and varied DVD exercise routines, bring up her hand weights, roll out her Pilates mat and call it a day. While she’d been in Hethrow making her purchases, she’d also checked out a couple of health clubs, deciding to wait and see how accommodating her tiny spare-room-home-gym felt after a couple of weeks before making any decisions.

  Her cordless phone rang just as she was surveying the fruits of her labors. “Katie?”