Earthly Vows

by Patricia Hickman

  Anita did cook the chicken-fried steak, but left the rest of the meal to her domestic help. The meal stretched into the afternoon, until the black cook, who had cleared away the noonday dishes, was back setting places again. Fern told her not to set service for them, but not even Fern could stop Anita, who told her cook, “Sandra, I’ll help out. We can make sandwiches out of the leftovers.”

  Anita wanted Fern to see her new radio. “The music sounds so alive, you’d swear the drummer was here in the living room.”

  Henry and Walton got up and headed for the porch out back. Henry stepped back inside. “I’m going for my sweater. You need a sweater, Reverend?”

  Jeb took that to mean he was expecting him out on the porch. “I’ve got a jacket,” he said. Walton stared up at him through the screen.

  The Baers’ backyard was a good two acres back. White wicker furniture was left scattered across the porch, exactly as the last partiers had left things. The porch ran nearly the width of the house. Jeb sat two chairs away, to leave space for Henry and to put some distance between him and Walton. Sandra filled his cup again, struck a match, then lit the candles on the table right in front of Jeb; she went inside complaining it was too cold for the porch.

  “I envy you, Reverend,” said Walton.

  Jeb didn’t know what to expect, so he sipped his coffee.

  “You got what you need, don’t you? Seem content in your work, helping people.”

  “Senators help people, don’t they?” Fern wasn’t within earshot, so he didn’t temper his tone. He didn’t feel much like talking to the man.

  Walton finally looked at him. “We might, if we didn’t have to spend so much time helping ourselves. First you think you have to get in office so you can make a difference. Then once you’re in office, you got to do the things it takes to stay in office.”

  Jeb put his hand near the candle and felt the heat.

  “The public never stops needing, this I know. The more time I spend fighting all of these government wars, the less my wife sees of me.”

  Jeb closed his eyes. The man needed to talk, it seemed.

  “I’d like to know if you, as a minister, ever think a man can find contentment.”

  Senator Baer was asking him for counsel. Jeb let out a sigh, and then realized Walton was waiting for an answer. “If by contentment, you mean will you ever get to the end of your work; no, I don’t.”

  “Now why is that?”

  “Work is, well, work, and it’s always there. Will be, even after we die. But you have to get to the end of something, that I know.”

  “What else is there to get to the end of ?”

  “Yourself,” said Jeb.

  “You getting philosophical on me now, Preacher?” Walton’s face was pale, his eyes pensive. Not once had he taken his eyes from Jeb. He was leaning forward, his hands clasped somberly in his lap.

  He didn’t want to help Walton, he wanted him to leave and go home to his wife. But he looked as though he had lost his way and Jeb knew that lost place and the end of it. “You think you know what you want when you’re a young man. You can name it and it has work attached to it, so you see that as your purpose,” said Jeb. “Then other things attach to you, like people. But you don’t mind, because it seems to come with the territory.” Walton had a blank look about him, so Jeb filled in the blank. “Women.”

  “Oh, that, I get that. They’re needy.”

  “Like us.”

  Walton nodded, a weak attempt to affirm.

  “Then we start to lose sight of one or the other, either what we thought was our purpose or else our family. We don’t juggle as well as women,” said Jeb.

  “That’s the honest truth.”

  “The truth is, if there’s nothing left but the people who’ve decided for some insane reason to love us, then that is when we know that we’ve gotten to the end of ourselves.” Jeb sipped some of Sandra’s coffee. “So in spite of what we lose, we still have a mysterious satisfaction because of who we’ve held near.”

  “And if we’ve kept all else, but lose the one we love?”

  He seemed to be getting the idea. Still, for a man who went to law school, he was a little slow on the uptake. Jeb wondered what was keeping Henry.

  Anita’s radio was blaring so loud, Walton got up and shut the house door. Instead of taking his chair, he stood his carcass in front of Jeb. “There’s a chance I may have lost my way,” he said.

  This was one for Gracie, not him, for crying out loud! If he stared long enough at the candle burning next to his coffee, maybe Walton would take his chair. But he kept standing, looking down at him, a big dumb kid. “I know the feeling,” said Jeb. “Have a seat, Senator.”

  “Walt is fine.”

  Jeb pushed aside the candle and the coffee. “Anna is sick, Walt. But she’s still here.”

  “Fern said that.”

  She hadn’t told him that. “There’s no perfect love, except God’s love.”

  “What makes Him so special?”

  Walt was being serious, not making light, Jeb told himself. “He doesn’t change like us. So we have to work at love, and, as men, it drives us nuts because we think we have a grip on it, and then the landscape changes.”

  “God changes the landscape?”

  “And life, life changes.” He did believe God was that involved, but as to how much theology Walt could soak up, he didn’t know. “The fact is, as Fern said, Anna is still here. There are things about her, all women actually, I mean, that take a long time to find out. We have to go after knowing those puzzling things with the same zeal we did when we were young and chasing after work. And it seems to be in the cards that they won’t tell us everything at once. You wish they would.”

  “But they don’t. Now why is that?”

  “Trust.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “We have to earn their trust. When they open up, you know, give us a bit of themselves that we hadn’t known before, then they wait.”

  “What are they waiting for?”

  “To see how we react.”

  “There’s a problem. I don’t know the right questions to ask.”

  “I know. I know.”

  18

  FERN WORKED ONE MORE DAY AT THE school in Ardmore. The Blooms insisted she move on in and she was too worried sick about Angel to teach, she said. Jeb took Monday afternoon off and helped her move some of her clothes into Sybil’s guest room. The rest of her belongings she wanted moved into the parsonage. There were some linens Abigail bought, she said, for their wedding. But no need to leave good linens in Ardmore.

  Jeb kept saying, “Of course” and “Why not?”

  The hall closet was empty, so she folded and snapped linens until she filled the shelves with towels and sheets. She made a list of things they would need, like an ironing board. He used the bed. It seemed fine. But he had also hung the picture of Jesus in the hall and she took it back down, promising to find a good place for it.

  The picture of Jesus could go. What he wanted was the sound of her rattling around the parsonage, her bare feet next to his, small blond strands of hair left in the bathroom sink.

  There was another box she opened. It was full of small cloth bears. They made a row across the fireplace mantel, some arms crossed in front, or looking down.

  “I’m trying to decide where all my bookcases will go,” she said. Those she left at Abigail’s. She invited him to the sofa, to help her plan the room. “You’ve put your study desk in a dark corner.”

  He saw the small nook as the perfect fit for the desk, as though one had been made for the other.

  “You want your desk near the window.” Light, of course, he hadn’t thought of, no more than the ironing board. Her hand was soft, but for the small calluses on the inside of her thumb and forefinger, her golfing calluses. He liked running his fingers over even the calluses.

  “We have to talk, you know,” she said. That was the way it was, when things were changing. She had those thin
gs that she had to say, like he told Walton. He knew not to say anything, so he sat back, waiting.

  “Willie and Ida May,” she said.

  He waited a bit more.

  “They can’t run around all day like wild kittens, Jeb. Why aren’t they in school?”

  He had forgotten. “School here?”

  She sighed.

  “They can’t live with Claudia. You want them here with us, Fern?”

  “You’re the one that has been trying to get rid of the Welbys, not me.”

  “For you.”

  She removed her hand from his, clasping and unclasping her fingers. “I’ve never asked for that.”

  He tried to remember. If he was wrong, she’d tell him. Back at the bus depot, when Angel was put on the bus with Claudia, wasn’t she relieved? There was the time when he was going to take Angel to live with her mother in Little Rock. “You’ve never …”

  She shook her head. “I’ve known since I first laid eyes on you.”

  Even he had not known. “How did you know?”

  “Women know.”

  Of course it was like what he was telling Walton. Fern had not been asked. “I want Angel home,” he said. “Do you?”

  “I’ve been crying my eyes out since she left.”

  He took her hand again. “I think the bookcases need to go against that wall in the hall. They’ll be between the living room and the bedroom, nice and easy to get to,” he said.

  “I like to read in the bedroom. It’s quieter.”

  “Bookcases in the bedroom then. Ironing board in the closet. Picture of Jesus out in the storage shed,” he said.

  The sun was taking forever to come up. A couple of cars had pulled in, guests checking in early. She unstuck the window shade darkening the room. Nash was still sleeping, not even flickering a lash. Breakfast was going to be served, what with the arrival of more guests. She couldn’t leave him, though, not until she was certain he was going to keep drawing another breath. He moaned softly.

  She took the chair next to him, bending over him, and then saying his name.

  “I hurt,” he said.

  “I did the best I could, Nash. You need a doctor.”

  “Not going to happen, sweet cakes.” He couldn’t get up.

  He was going to have to stay in the bed for days, she thought. There was the bullet on the nightstand, red like a trophy, but a hole in his side. “I’ll go down and buy a breakfast, bring it back up.”

  “Don’t leave. I’m not myself.”

  “What happened? I want you to tell me.”

  He made a hissing noise, grimacing. “I called Uncle Bill yesterday morning.” She knew that. Mrs. Pierce told her.

  “He was hot on busting into a bank up the road, called it a pushover. It was Sunday. I kept telling him that … that we didn’t know enough about it. It was in a quiet part of town, like everything around here, all of these bumpkins. What do they know? Nothing, they just let things be taken and they’re sleeping and letting it happen.”

  “Was there a guard?”

  “A yokel. Couldn’t hold his gun right. We had the loot in Charley’s car. Piece of cake, it was so easy that I could have done it in my sleep. We’re climbing in the car and out runs this guy, he thinks he’s a cowboy. He takes aim. I see Charley pulling out his revolver, like he’s going to blow him away. ‘No!’ I think I screamed. I can’t remember. I’m so thirsty. The guy’s gun goes off. The last thing I see is this surprised look, like he can’t believe he hit me. Charley runs around and fires on the guy. I can’t see too good. If the guy got away, I couldn’t tell you. But Charley pitches me into the car. His car is hot, we hear sirens. He has to drop me off, we have to separate. I’m blood, he says, and he don’t want me in jail, doesn’t want my father to know what he’s gotten me into.”

  Angel said, “That bag. Is that the money?”

  Nash laughed. “He knew the heat was on him. Wanted me to stash it. We could hide out here for weeks with the loot in that bag.”

  She made him roll on his side, to have another look at the bandage. It was blood soaked, like the one she changed at four o’clock. “What if we get you out of here, not now, but tonight. We drive far away, find some country doctor.”

  Nash closed his eyes. “Better look out. You’re starting to think like a gangster’s wife.”

  She applied a fresh bandage. He closed his eyes and took it, not complaining or saying anything. “Can I know something?” she asked.

  “Anything, just don’t touch me again with Mrs. Pierce’s antiseptic.”

  “Was I another Guan-yin to you?”

  “You mean, was I going to sack you, leave you?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “It’s sappy, but I’m not in my right mind. I never knew about love, so I was afraid that when it hit me, I’d miss it. When I met you, even back in that hayseed town where you rooked me out of a soda, I felt something different. Maybe I wanted to see if you were the one.”

  She had not noticed his eyes until now or the way his small finger crooked when he waved his hand. He was telling her the truth. “I’m getting you to a doctor.”

  Mr. Pierce knocked at the door. She had not taken him the bill or tried to pay it. She opened the door a crack to apologize. “Morning, Mr. Pierce. I was about to come down and pay you.”

  “The wife, she wants to know if you want breakfast.”

  “Two, and I’ll bring them up to the room if that’s all right.”

  “She’ll go for that, what with your husband’s situation,” he said. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  Nash came up onto his elbows. “I’m glad to say I’ve known you, sweet cakes.”

  “I’ll be right back with breakfast. You stay in bed.” She was backing out of the room and he watched her go, the smile back and his eyes dark and blue.

  The guests must have stayed downstairs for breakfast. Two of the doors were standing open, the linens taken off. Mrs. Pierce hadn’t made it upstairs to change out the rooms. There was a skylight over the staircase and sunlight poured straight down through the glass. The staircase was white, washed in the overhead light. She would open the shades and let Nash see out, that the day was nice and not so cold as last night. Reaching the bottom step, she remembered that she was supposed to pay Mr. Pierce for the room and, of course, ask to stay another day or two. She turned to go back up the stairs and would have, but a man standing at the bottom of the stairs, she thought waiting for Mrs. Pierce to make eggs, said her name. She wasn’t sure, so she waited until he said it again. “Angel Welby?”

  Nash said she ought to watch her back, to not give out names, but this man knew it. Her heel lifted, taking the step backward.

  “Mrs. Pierce has your breakfast ready. I’m starved myself,” he said. “I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

  He walked Angel to the dining room, even had a chair waiting for her. There were no other guests in the dining room, and as she looked around for Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, she could not find them. “I was supposed to pay for the room,” she said.

  “Mrs. Pierce left our breakfast here. You look hungry. Have you eaten?”

  She asked his name. He was more interested in the plate of eggs and sat down and commenced eating. She sat across from him. Since her belly was hurting, she thought it best to eat too. “Are you a cop?” she asked.

  “Your daddy said you was a smart girl.”

  He startled her. “You know my daddy?”

  His cup was empty. He tapped it against the tabletop and then went searching until he found Mrs. Pierce’s coffeepot. She had left it on the sill of the kitchen pass-through. “He’s been looking for you.”

  It was hard to believe after all this time. Even Claudia didn’t know where he was. “Where is he?”

  “Oklahoma City.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It was your daddy who helped. I don’t think he meant to be so much help. Knew more than he gave himself credit. I’d say he’s got a lot o
f humility. Loves you.”

  He was talking too fast and none of it was making any sense. “You talking about my father, Lemuel Welby?” She hadn’t said his name in three or four years.

  “Jeb Nubey.”

  “Did you find him? I mean, I lost him and Ida May.” A tear trickled down her face. “Miss Coulter, did you find her? I been sick with worry, no place to go back to.”

  The front door opened. A cop dressed in blues poked his head into the dining room. “We can’t hold them off any longer, Deputy. You going to get this girl out, or aren’t you?”

  “Girl’s got to eat,” he said. He offered Angel his hand. “I’m Deputy Abner Faulk. I promised Reverend Nubey I’d find you and bring you back.”

  “You can’t let them take Nash, Deputy. He’s not bad.”

  “I got a bank guard in the hospital says otherwise.”

  “Nash keeps his gun in the trunk. He doesn’t load it, because he never wanted to use it.”

  “He’s upstairs, I take it,” he said.

  “Can I go to him, be the one to tell him? He’s in the bed and he needs a doctor.”

  “I promised to take you out of here and that’s what I have to do,” he said. “The whole FBI’s out there, Angel, and you don’t want none of that.”

  She stared up the stairwell as the deputy walked her out of the house. She told the cop on the porch, “He isn’t armed. He’s in the bed, shot in the side. He can’t hurt anyone.” She was led out to Faulk’s car, parked under the upstairs window.

  “I’m going to see about Anna,” said Fern. “Willie, you and Ida May can go ahead and take your bed linens upstairs.”

  Ida May kissed Fern for the gift of the linens. Willie took an apple out of the fruit bowl left behind by the churchwomen. “I hope your friend gets better, Miss Fern,” he said. He chased Ida May up the stairs.

  “If you have to go,” said Jeb, “I want to go with you.”

  “I’ll be fine. Better you stay with the kids and get them in bed early.”

  Anna had been well the night before. Jeb wanted to coax her into staying. “Stay and let’s make the first fire in that old fireplace,” he said.