“Who’s ‘us’?” she said. Again, the theological significance of the topic stayed below Gladys’s awareness, like a low layer of fog that didn’t hinder her visibility. She pickup up instead on the stray pronoun that didn’t make sense to her.
“My father and I, of course,” he said, entirely unperturbed by the idle question. He knew about Gladys’s habit of picking at what people said. She wasn’t offering substantial opposition, just keeping her hand in the conversation.
“Your father?” she said, pulling a plastic produce bag open, to insert the tomato which she had selected. But she stopped her shopping for a moment, caught off guard by the conversation she had been absent-mindedly boosting. “Oh, your FATHER,” she said. This time her voice rose a bit and a woman on the opposite side of the display of tomatoes looked up to see if Gladys was speaking to her.
Jesus cleared his throat and Gladys kept her head down, trying to disappear from the searching gaze of her fellow shopper. Jesus spoke without voice once again.
“Yes,” he said, “my father, who art in Heaven.”
Gladys slipped into a repressed giggle, her head down and her shoulders undulating slightly. She found Jesus’s playful reference expansively funny. It kept her laughing on and off for the rest of the shopping trip.
As they reached the car, and Jesus did a clever job of helping Gladys to shift the groceries into the back seat, so that only a very careful observer would have noticed the slight-of-hand, she thought of what he said about healing Valerie.
“So, you don’t do the healing thing anymore, huh?”
Jesus finished moving the last bag and followed Gladys to the corral for the carts. “Oh, I didn’t say that I don’t do it anymore. I just don’t do it as a visible person on the earth anymore. I still heal, of course. But my hands are now your hands.”
Gladys glanced at him again, this furtive focus becoming an impulsive habit now. “Are you telling me riddles?”
Her cart clanked against its fellows, but Gladys didn’t force it to nest with the ones in front of it, leaving that for stronger arms and legs. She lowered her cane to the ground and began her slow return to the car.
“No riddles,” Jesus said. “But I know you haven’t been thinking about my healing much lately, which is why it sounds strange to you.”
“When did I ever think about healing at all?” Gladys said, again picking out a scrap of what she heard from Jesus.
“Back in high school, you had a big argument with Artie Muller, when he told you his grandmother had been healed of shingles.”
Gladys stopped dead still. She hadn’t thought about Artie Muller in fifty years, or more. Before Harry, Artie was her most steady boyfriend. But he attended a little church on the edge of Fairbury, Nebraska, where she went to high school. That church would eventually become a more mainstream congregation, and now resided within the city limits. But, back in those days, during the Korean war, that little church had a shabby reputation among the more staid houses of worship, such as the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Catholics. That argument about Artie’s grandmother getting healed had been one of the reasons he broke up with Gladys. Though she couldn’t remember what, Gladys knew she had said something cruel about Artie’s church.
When she recalled that inglorious part of her argument with Artie, she looked at Jesus. But he didn’t pipe in to remind her exactly what she had said, as he had helped with other memories. It was just as well, she didn’t want to remember those stabbing words.
Restarting her steady tread toward the car, Gladys said, “I wanted healing to be true back then, so I could stay with Artie and just tell everyone else jump in a lake. I wanted it to be true, but I just couldn’t believe it.”
Jesus nodded, but said nothing. After helping Gladys into the car, he walked around to his side and passed through the car door again, to spare a couple getting into their van in front of Gladys’s car. Once again, Gladys didn’t notice his magical means of entry. She was focused on getting the key in the ignition, even as she continued muttering about Artie Muller. When she did cast an eye in Jesus’s direction, on her way to checking her mirrors, it occurred to her that something had been odd about the way he got to his seat, but she couldn’t think of what it was. In recent years, she had surrendered trying to remember or comprehend everything that happened around her, content to simply make it through the next moment.
“So, what were you saying about Valerie’s hands?” Gladys said, slowly pulling out of her parking place and turning toward the road.
“I said I’d like to relieve her of her pain, but I need someone else to cooperate.”
“Why’s that?” Gladys was doing more than just bumping the conversation this time. Her recollection of her fight with Artie Muller had awakened a need for an answer on this topic, any answer.
“My father and I want you all to get a chance to get in on the glory of our kingdom. I left many years ago, but gave my spirit to help you to do the same things I was doing down here before I left.”
“‘You,’ as in people, or ‘you’ as in me?” So far, this didn’t seem like the answer she was looking for, but the puzzles Jesus kept setting out before her woke that same urge that inspired her to finish the crossword in the paper each day.
“Both,” Jesus said. “You, personally, as one of my people.”
Something about that idea slowed Gladys’s driving even more, which prompted the man in the pickup behind her on Main Street to honk his horn. She surged forward, almost to the speed limit, and lost track of where her mind had been headed, even as she refocused on where her car was headed.
Jesus helped with this latter effort by prompting her to turn on Grant Street, toward her house.
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” she said. “You’re pretty handy to have around.”
“I enjoy it. Having your attention is all I really want from you.”
“From me?”
Jesus chuckled. “Yes, you, and people in general. But I’m making a special effort for you just now.”
“Including going shopping,” Gladys said.
“Yes, including going shopping.
Chapter 7
LAUGHTER
Jesus helped Gladys move her groceries from her car on the driveway into her kitchen, just as if he were Harry, or one of the kids. Apparently, he knew that none of the neighbors were watching the invisible conveyor of groceries. Gladys was impressed with how many bags he could carry at once. He laughed and said something about moving a mountain that she didn’t quite comprehend.
In the kitchen, Jesus helped put things away, chatting with Gladys about the grocery store and about Valerie and other friends that she frequently saw there. They carried some laundry up the stairs after that and straightened up the house as they talked. He helped her talk through deciding whether to get another cat, since her old tabby had passed the previous fall.
“I just don’t wanna leave the poor thing all alone when I keel over,” Gladys said, as she folded laundry and Jesus sat next to her bed watching.
“Are you planning on keeling over soon?” Jesus said.
Gladys aimed a suspicious eye at him and said, “Well, you should know better than me.”
“I was asking about your plans,” Jesus said.
“As if it’s up to me when I get up outta here.”
“You can give up on living. That shortens a life,” Jesus said.
Gladys could think of a few people, especially ones that lost their spouses, who seemed to give up living and passed soon thereafter.
“I’m not giving up yet,” Gladys said, declaring it to herself as much as to Jesus.
“But the pain in your hips and knees makes you less than happy with life as it is now,” Jesus said.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that. So what about that healing we were talking about?”
As the dog next door started a barking medley, ranging from alert to frantic, back to alert, they both looked to the front door, where the mailbox hung. Earl, t
he postal carrier, was on time as usual, only a few houses away, judging by the barking from next door.
“Earl could help,” Jesus said.
“Help what?”
“Heal your hips.”
Gladys stared.
“Remember, I said I need someone to cooperate with me. If you get Earl to help, I can heal your hips before lunch.”
“How’s he gonna help?” Gladys stopped folding and noted the timber of Macky’s barking next door.
“Meet him at the door, and I’ll show you what to say,” Jesus said, standing up.
Gladys watched him head out of the bedroom and back to the living room. She shuffled after him uncertainly. From the barking, she could tell that Earl was definitely next door. Mackey, the scottie and beagle mix, was at peak volume, sounding like he would burst a vocal cord any second. Jesus stood by the door as Gladys approached it slowly. She wondered if he would open the door for her, not sure how much he was willing to do to make something happen.
“You have to open the door,” Jesus said, apparently responding to her speculations.
Nodding slightly, her lips pursed and her eyebrows raised, Gladys opened the door. She would do that on normal days, if she was near the door when Earl approached, glad to greet the friendly mail carrier. She had been greeting his ruddy face on the porch since long before Harry died.
Gladys pulled the door open, even as Earl walked up the drive, sorting mail as he walked. Jesus spoke from behind the door.
“Just greet him as usual, and tell him about your hip pain when he asks how you’re doing.”
It all sounded natural enough, so far. Earl reached for the storm door, so Gladys didn’t have to throw her fragile weight against it. About fifty years old, wearing a navy blue stocking cap, his bushy gray sideburns st00d out from his mottled cheeks, he wore a half-gray and half white mustache under his red nose. Earl looked at Gladys over reading glasses.
“How ya doin’ today, Gladys?”
Gladys held her hand out for the mail and hesitated in her answer. Finally, she found her voice.
“Oh, I don’t like to complain, ya know, but my hips are hurtin’ me a lot these days.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Earl said, genuine sympathy in his voice. He stood still on the porch, accustomed to talking a minute with Gladys if she was at the door. He knew she was alone and was happy to give her a brief point of contact any given day.
Jesus instructed Gladys. “Ask if he has plans for Easter.”
“You have plans for the holiday?” Gladys said, still on safe territory.
“Oh, we’re gonna go up and see Kyle at Marquette, where he’s goin’ to school, ya know. Just goin’ out to eat and spend some time together. He’s got classes and tests and such, so we thought we’d make it easy on him and go up there instead of him comin’ home.” Earl adjusted his hat backward a half inch, out of habit. “What about you? Ya gonna see the kids?”
“Don’t know for sure. It may just be me and goin’ to church is all,” Gladys said. She was wondering where the opening was for her awkward request, one that she hadn’t even fully formed in her mind.
“Yeah? Do they have a big celebration over at the Bible Church for Easter?”
“Sure, special music and children doing a play or something.”
“That sounds nice.” He hesitated. “Okay. Well, I should be movin’ on,” Earl said.
“Now is when you can ask him if he wouldn’t mind praying for your sore hips,” Jesus said.
But Gladys double clutched and stalled, like her old ‘55 Chevy on a steep hill. “Uh, well, okay. You have a good day, then,” she said.
Gladys closed the door and faced Jesus. He just smiled at her as if nothing had happened, no look of disapproval or disappointment, just the same grin. She felt the need to apologize nevertheless.
“I couldn’t do it. It just seems too strange a thing to ask somebody.”
Jesus nodded. “Yes, it’ll be a stretch for you, Gladdy. But I think you can do it, with some effort.”
“What makes you think Earl would agree to help?” Gladys said, turning to take a seat in the recliner.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Jesus said, “but he does pray, and he does care about your pain. I think he might just do it because he doesn’t want to refuse you.”
“That doesn’t seem very inspirational.”
“It doesn’t require violins and a camera with soft focus,” Jesus said, his grin turning to a smirk briefly, as he sat down on the couch.
“I’m not clear on why you can’t do it yourself,” Gladys said. “We pray for healing at church all the time.”
“Does that work?” Jesus’s question didn’t sound like a challenge, but more like he didn’t know the answer. Gladys didn’t pause to consider whether that could be the case.
“Well, I think it helps a little.” Gladys had never actually considered efficacy an important measure for all those prayers for doctors’ wisdom and successful surgeries.
Jesus didn’t say anything, leaving Gladys to suggest lunch.
After they finished their cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches, with fresh lettuce from the store, alongside some red grapes, they cleaned up the kitchen and then headed back to the laundry in Gladys’s bedroom. As they walked through the living room, they could hear a muffled voice making sound effect noises outside. The booming and crashing seemed leisurely and not bound to realism.
“Andy could heal you, with my help,” Jesus said.
He was referring to the nineteen-year-old boy who lived across the street. Though his body was nineteen, his mind was not even nine. Andy was the source of the bang and bash sounds coming from the end of the driveway. Gladys paused to look through the sheer curtain of her living room window, the drapes pulled back and the blinds up. Andy was wearing a green overcoat, unzipped, a yellow Green Bay Packers stocking cap and big rubber boots. He rode his stingray bike, a retro model like the one her son Bill rode when he was a boy. As she looked, Andy was at the bottom of her driveway, looking straight at her. At first, this startled Gladys, but then she realized that the midday light would have made the living room too dark for him to see her.
“He might like some of those cookies Danny refused to take with him,” Jesus said. As usual, Gladys had baked two kinds of dessert beside the pie she served with lunch. Danny took all of it except half the batch of peanut butter cookies.
“I’m gonna get fat, Grandma,” he had said, protesting good-naturedly.
Gladys liked Andy a lot, and she did want to get rid of those peanut butter cookies. They were too tempting to her and she had to stay away from such things, to keep her insulin levels healthy. She turned back toward the front door, rounding the end table next to the recliner.
Andy stopped picking his nose and quickly turned and retreated from Gladys’s driveway, when he heard the front door open. Gladys looked back at Jesus.
“Isn’t this dishonest?”
Jesus shook his head. “Not if you ask him to do you a favor, and mention that you have some peanut butter cookies you need someone to eat for you. There’s nothing dishonest in that. You’re not asking him to shingle the house.”
Gladys looked outside again. Andy was circling in the street. She pushed the storm door open.
“Hi, Andy. How ya doin?” she said, shouting just loud enough that her voice didn’t crack or sound shrill.
“Okay, Mrs. Hight. I didn’t mean to be on your driveway.” Andy’s voice was low and manly but his tone child-like, his phrases each ending on a down note.
“Oh, I don’t care about that. I’m not trying to drive my car out, so it doesn’t matter.”
She could see Andy hold his head higher and could tell she had relieved him of some guilt.
“You wanna come have some cookies? I can’t eat ‘em and they’re just made this weekend.”
Andy turned one last time and headed up the driveway, two powerful pumps of the pedals bumping him up onto the drive and then half-way to where Gl
adys had parked her car.
“Why can’t you eat ‘em?” Andy said, fiddling with his kickstand. His father, Mr. Shelton, had taught him not to just drop his bike on the ground the way other kids did. Mr. Shelton had moved out eight years ago, but Andy still saw him most weekends, and still respected his father’s rules.
“Oh, when you get old and can’t exercise so much, it’s not good to eat sweets,” Gladys said, letting go of the storm door when Andy reached it with his brown cotton-gloved hand.
“Why did you make ‘em then?” Andy was good at common-sense questions.
“I made them for my grandson, but he didn’t want all of ‘em.” Gladys explained this matter-of-factly. She was used to Andy’s probing questions.
Andy stopped just inside the door. “Is somebody else here?” he said, looking around the house, as if he heard someone other than Gladys.
Gladys looked sharply at Jesus, wondering how Andy could know he was there. Jesus answered her unspoken question.
“He can’t see me or hear me as you can. But he can sense that I’m more present here than usual.”
This odd phrasing of the current arrangement left Gladys speechless, she tried to make a mental note of needing an explanation to that one later. Currently, she owed Andy an answer. “Just you and me and Jesus,” she said.
Andy, standing next to the dining room table expectantly, nodded as if that was enough of an answer for him, but he continued to look around curiously. Gladys decided to just ignore his hesitant, blinking glances around the room and get to work on the cookies. She had planned to put them in the freezer, but hadn’t gotten around to that yet.
“Would you like some milk with your cookies?” She motioned for Andy to follow her to the kitchen.
“Milk please,” Andy said. “You’re walking slower than normal, Mrs. Hight. Are you okay?”
Since Andy’s grandmother died two years ago, just two years after Harry died, Andy had been more concerned about Gladys’s health, asking frequently if she was feeling okay.
“I’m gonna survive, Andy. But I do have really sore hips these days.” She realized that she hadn’t taken her pain meds in all the strangeness of having Jesus in plain sight.
Hearing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 2) Page 6
