Carefully, I pulled my favorite photo of Mom out of my suitcase and placed it on my dresser. She was pictured in front of Hope Center in her heavy black coat, a winter sun glinting highlights in her hair. I lingered over the picture, smiling back at her smile, touching the filigreed gold frame. Even though I still missed her terribly, it warmed me to know that she watched me from heaven and that, most assuredly, she was proud of me—proud that I’d earned my own way through college and proud that I would continue in her footsteps, giving of my time and energy to others at the very Center she’d so loved.
A wave of sadness washed over me without warning, and tears sprang to my eyes. It still happened once in a while, the pain of missing her rising afresh, sometimes when I least expected it. I padded across the carpet and sank onto my bed, falling back to stare at the ceiling. Melancholy was the last thing I’d expected upon returning home. Evidently, I was more tired than I’d realized. Tears rolled out the corners of my eyes and down the sides of my face, wetting both ears. I let them come, not bothering to wipe them away. Soon, I knew, the sadness would pass, and I could go on about my business. I hadn’t had time to cry in months; now, after all the hubbub of preparing to graduate, my body was simply letting down, that was all.
My nose began to clog. I breathed in deeply, exhaling through my mouth. The scene was familiar—lying in this room upon my mother’s old double bed and blue spread, crying. How often had I done that the first year I moved to Bradleyville? How far I’d come since then! Things had finally begun to improve for me after “The Dream.”
I shifted my position on the bed, folding my hands across my stomach. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could still relive that dream, feel the very aura of it, even though it had been more than seven years ago. It had been so real and so breathtaking in significance that it had shaken me from my grief-obsessed existence, redefining my life.
April 11: that was the night of my dream. It had been ten months since my mother’s death. I still couldn’t seem to grasp hold of myself. It was as if I were drifting—a lone, lost boat on a rocky sea. My conversation earlier that year with Pastor Frasier still haunted me. Even though I knew he was wrong and even though I found it hard to forgive him his words, something about them plagued me—a small, disconcerting voice whispering within me. I was losing weight, yet did not care to eat; was tired, yet nightmares of my mother’s death still nipped at the heels of sleep. Then in April, I dreamed of her. I dreamed I was sitting in church, listening to Pastor Frasier preach. Suddenly, the sanctuary disappeared, and I was alone on the pew in the middle of a vast, daisy-strewn field. The night was warm and moonlit, a hint of breeze lifting a strand of my hair. I felt light, trembling with anticipation for I knew not what. And then in the distance I saw my mother moving toward me. She seemed to float more than walk, although I sensed her legs gliding under her robe of palest blue. Moonlight spilled upon the filmy fabric that billowed out from her, and her very skin gleamed pearl-white. She was beautiful beyond words.
“Mom!” I cried, leaping to my feet and running to meet her. Grass and knolls moved beneath my feet, yet her image grew no closer. “Mom!” I cried again, straining for her, stretching out my arms as I ran until I thought they would pull from their sockets.
“No, Jessie!” she called. “It’s all right.”
Her voice, just as I remembered it, drifted over me with chiffon lightness, the color of sunrise. An ancient knowledge seemed to ride on her breath, which was translucently visible in the moonlight. It slowed my running feet, that knowledge, weighting me with a tingling as it settled over my head and shoulders.
“You’re an angel,” I said softly, knowing she would hear.
“Yes,” she replied. “Your guardian angel. I watch over you.”
I gazed at her, dumbstruck by the misty effluvium of awareness flowing between us. I remember raising my hand and watching it strand itself silkily through my fingers. “What should I do?” I asked lamely, feeling so basely human.
“Follow in my footsteps.” The words glimmered through my hearing.
A whisper of disquiet trailed through my head. “What if someone says I’m wrong?”
She smiled, and her lips shone, sending darts of light that hit me in the chest. My knees weakened at the sensation, my throat tightening with love for her. “I’ve shown you the truth; you need not heed others.” Her first words rolled straight toward me, but the last undulated, weakening in sound.
“No, wait!” I shouted, even as she began to shimmer, her image breaking up to reveal patches of night sky behind her. “Waaaait!” I screamed in desperation.
Her final expression streamed with compassion and love. “I’m watching over you,” she uttered, her robes rising to enfold her until her image melted and was gone.
I reached out for her and felt the weight of my arm, the incredible force required to lift it. It fell heavily, and bedcovers smoothed against my skin. My eyes blinked open in a darkened room, confusion filling my mind. My heart was beating hard enough to raise the blanket; my limbs trembled. When I realized I’d had a dream and understood its life-changing significance, my brain scrambled to recapture every image, every nuance. I could forget nothing, overlook nothing. Hardly daring to breathe, I relived the dream again and again, reveling in its beauty, feeling a lightheartedness that I had not known could exist. The judgmental words of Pastor Frasier crumbled away, and my soul seemed to rise in freedom. My mother was right. I knew she was right! Not even death had stopped her from calming my doubts. For as surely as I lived, she had appeared to me in that dream. It had been too captivating, too real, not to be so.
I did not sleep the rest of that night.
The next morning, a Saturday, I arose early, excited to tell my aunt and uncle what had happened. I related it all as we sat in the living room, tripping over words vastly unworthy of capturing the frothing essence of the dream. Neither uttered a sound until I was through. I took a hurried breath as I awaited their response, assuming their joy for me.
“Oh, my, no,” Aunt Eva blurted from the couch, bringing a freckled hand to her cheek. “God’s Truth lies only in Jesus. Satan has deceived you, chil’.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “What?”
Uncle Frank spread his fingers over her hand, warning her to keep quiet. Their eyes met and held.
“What do you mean, Aunt Eva?” I could feel the heat rising to my face, my breath becoming shallow and rapid amid the anger. I’d never argued with her before; even in my lowest moments of frustration and loss I’d simply retreated to my room. But this was too much. How could she possibly call this wonderful vision of my mother something from Satan?
Uncle Frank’s hand remained firmly on top of hers. I knew she was dying to answer me; I could practically see the words spilling out of her mouth. But she held her tongue.
“The dream you had,” Uncle Frank said slowly, “it was wonderful for you because you saw your mother, whom you’ve missed so much. We understand that, Jessie. I know if I or your aunt had dreamed a seein’ Henry after he died, we’d feel the same way. So we don’t want to take that away from you. Our … concern is over what your mama said to you. I don’t know anything ‘bout interpretin’ dreams, but I do think it’s significant that you were first in church, listenin’ to the pastor. I know your conversation with him has weighed heavy on your heart these past three months. I know that’s been difficult for you, Jessie, but Eva and I believe that weight is from the Lord. He’s been tryin’ to talk to you.”
“If he’s been trying to talk to me, he did it through my mom last night,” I interrupted. “He must have sent her to me.” I searched his face, pleading for agreement.
Uncle Frank glanced at the carpet, his face drawn. I could tell he was struggling with an answer that he knew I did not want to hear. A sudden urge to get up and walk away spun through me. I would not let them spoil my dream for me, I would not. Just as suddenly, the urge to leave was replaced by the desire to make them understand. My moth
er’s appearing to me was so important that I knew it would change my life. Already, I felt quickened, instilled with an energy I hadn’t experienced for months. For the first time since my mother’s death, I felt I had a purpose, even though I wasn’t yet sure exactly what form it would take. I sensed my mother’s words had set me in the proper direction, and now I was to take them to heart, use them to chart my course. The difference between this new feeling inside me and the aimlessness I had felt just twenty-four hours ago was immense. My aunt and uncle had worked so hard to help me find my footing. They needed to see that now I’d discovered it.
“Jessie,” Uncle Frank replied, “please hear me. I won’t tell you that your mama’s words—and your entire dream—wasn’t sent by God. I will ask you this crucial question. If you believed that the message you heard in that dream—even though it came from your mama—was opposite of what God would tell you, would you still want to heed it?”
I was nonplused. “But I know it’s not, so—”
“All right, Jessie, but that’s not what I’m askin’ you. So just set that belief aside for a minute. What I’m really askin’ you is, if your mama and God told you very different things, who would you follow?”
No answer arose in my mind, for I couldn’t imagine it.
“Honey, can’t you see—” Aunt Eva burst.
“Wait a minute now, Eva,” my uncle shushed her. She pressed her lips together, agitation spilling off her shoulders.
“Jessie, let’s leave it at this. We’re glad for you that this dream has helped you feel better. You know we want you to go on with your life and be happy. And I know that deep inside, you long to know God. He has placed that desire within you. So I offer you a challenge. If you really want to know him and know how your mama’s words fit with his direction for your life, read the Bible. That’s the book that tells you all about him. I mean read it cover-to-cover. That’s the only way you can see the whole picture—how God made the world, how man fell into sin, and how God provided a way of redemption through his Son. Read the Bible and ask God to open your eyes to its truths. Then, Jessie, test the words you heard in your dream against what the Bible says. If those words lead you to do what God commands through his Word, then you can know they are from him. But if they do not,” Uncle Frank paused, “then you should not heed them, no matter what the source.” He regarded me with a sad little smile, and I saw the depth of his love for me in his eyes. “Can you understand this?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Will you do it?”
“I’ll try,” I said tightly.
He rose from the couch to hug me. “Good.”
“But I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?” My throat hurt; I was afraid I would start to cry. “I mean, I know you both love me, and I know what your beliefs are, and, well, when you don’t agree with me about this, it’s hard for me. Because this is the best thing that’s happened to me for almost a year, and it hurts not to have you understand.”
“We do understand it, Jessie; we do,” Uncle Frank responded. “And we will let you be. Just … read the Bible, like you promised. And we won’t talk about it anymore.” His mouth curved the slightest bit. “But you can’t stop us from prayin’.”
Somehow, I’d managed my own hint of a smile. “I don’t think ten tons of horses could stop you from that.”
Since that day, my aunt and uncle had not mentioned my dream directly, yet many times Aunt Eva’s mouth had opened only to be snapped shut. The two were quite free with talking about Jesus Christ in their lives and living in the center of his will, but they didn’t preach at me. After a while I was able to kid them lightly about my faith, reminding them that at least I went to church every Sunday, and Lord knew, I heard enough preaching there from Pastor Frasier. As for my end of the deal, I hadn’t been quite as faithful. I started to read through the Bible with the best of intentions, really I did. But the laws in Leviticus were so boring, and then I couldn’t understand God’s supposed judgment through all the wars. So much bloodshed. It offended my pacifist beliefs. So I skipped to the New Testament and read about Jesus and how much he talked about helping the poor and doing what was right. He’d even told one man who’d asked him how to get to heaven to sell all he had and give it to the poor. That sounded relevant to me. Other things that I didn’t understand, I simply discarded as well. All in all, I didn’t find anything that told me my mother’s command to follow in her footsteps had been wrong. Seemed to me I was living a good life, and that’s all I needed to do. As for Aunt Eva’s talk about “giving my life to Christ,” well, that was her way to God. I respected that for her, but didn’t want it pushed upon me. At any rate, after reading the four Gospels, I figured I’d read enough and quit.
Blinking away the memories, I slowly arose from the bed. I’d wasted enough time and still had unpacking to do. Thank goodness Aunt Eva, who was usually so chatty whenever I first arrived home, was enough in a dither over the sawmill situation to leave me alone. She and Uncle Frank had said they were going to retire to their room early to pray for Thomas’s meeting with Blair Riddum, which he hoped would occur tomorrow, on Saturday. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to say my own little prayer to my guardian angel. If Thomas could put an end to this problem quickly, I’d enjoy the restful two months in Bradleyville that I so needed.
chapter 7
The following morning, across town, two middle-aged women stood in a sweltering kitchen, canning green beans. Tackling the task together made the hot work more enjoyable, and the opportunity to gossip was just too good to pass up.
“You hear Jessie Callum’s back in town? Got here yesterday.”
“Eva must be happy.”
“Sorta sad too. ‘Cause once she leaves again, it’ll be for good.” The woman stood at her sink, expertly popping beans as her eyes wandered occasionally over the rolling farmland out the window. In the distance, formidable and smoky blue, rose the Appalachians.
“I like Jessie. So dainty and sweet.”
“And one strong girl, after all she’s been through.” The woman glanced at her neighbor, who was carefully placing canning jars and lids into boiling water with a long pair of tongs, face shiny over the heat. Steam wafted from the stove and hung like a damp, hot cloud, making both women sweat. “She got that job she wanted, you know. Plus she’s bound and determined to volunteer in that poorhouse where her mama worked her fingers to the bone. Least that’s what Eva tol’ me.”
“Well, Jessie’s always wanted to go back to Cincinnati, anyway.”
“I know. I suppose we should be happy for her; she’s come a long way. I do feel sorry for Eva and Frank though. Havin’ to see her leave Bradleyville for good, an’ all.”
Her friend laughed. “If I know Eva, she’s schemin’ already to keep that girl in town.”
chapter 8
Aunt Eva stuck her head around my bedroom door. “Well, Jessie, it’s time for some visitin’, what do ya say?”
I straightened up from making my bed. “Good grief, I only got here last night.”
“And this is Saturday,” she responded. “Everybody’s home from work. People know you’re here. They’ll be expectin’ to see you.”
“Oh, brother.” Under Aunt Eva’s persistence, I knew claiming fatigue would get me nowhere. But I really didn’t want to see anyone just yet. Thomas had managed to schedule a meeting with Blair Riddum that morning, and according to Aunt Eva, who’d probably been on the phone since dawn, the town was holding its collective breath. It felt as though a cloud of doom had descended. I did not relish the thought of conversations about the sawmill problems.
“Don’t you want to wait by the phone to hear what happens?” I asked.
“Oh, heavens, no!” My aunt fluttered a hand in the air. “Sittin’ around and waitin’ will drive me plumb crazy. Look at your uncle—he rode into Albertsville with a neighbor, sayin’ he had to go to the big hardware store. Pshaw. He doesn’t need anything he can’t get right here in town; he’s just
full a worry and had to find somethin’ to do.”
“He didn’t look all that worried.”
She plopped onto my bed with a sigh. “You don’t know your uncle as well’s I do. He always looks calm, but he’s worried, all right.” Automatically, she leaned aside to fluff up my pillow. “And so am I, which is why I got to keep busy too.” The pillow still wasn’t quite right, so she punched it twice with her fist as she continued. “That’s why I thought you and I could go see some folks.”
A vague irritation washed over me. “Who do you want to visit?”
Her face brightened, the pillow forgotten. I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head as she geared up for my social re-entrance into Bradleyville society. “Let’s see. You must drop in on Estelle Matthews. Little Celia’s dyin’ to see you again; it’s been since Easter. And you haven’t seen baby Kevin yet. ‘Course,” she tapped her cheek, “that requires takin’ a present, so we’ll have to stop by the dime store.”
What a natural she was, I thought. Undeniably in line with social etiquette. But I knew her too well. Time it right, she knew, and we’d hit the Matthews’s house just about when Thomas arrived home from his meeting. She’d be the first to hear. The Matthews’s was the last house I wanted to be in that morning.
“And you know who else?” she continued. “You need to get over to the Hardings’ and see Lee’s sister, Connie; you remember her. Poor thing—not six weeks from her due date and without a husband. I’d say she’s well rid a any man who’d run off with a neighbor girl, but she still pines for him. She’s what, two years younger than you? I’m sure she could use a friend.”
Cast a Road Before Me Page 4
