Just Shy of Harmony

by Philip Gulley

  “Dale, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re not having marriage problems. We’re getting along fine.”

  Dale reached across the table and laid his hand on Asa’s shoulder.

  “Now, Asa, I know this is hard for you, but you can be honest with me. How about me and the missus come visit you sometime? Maybe we can share some Scripture and put Satan on the run.”

  “I tell you, Jessie and me are doing fine.”

  “All right, if you say so. But I just want you to know that if you need someone to talk with, I’m here for you.”

  “I’ll remember that. I appreciate your concern.”

  How sad, Dale thought. He can’t see what is perfectly clear to everyone else in town. Poor guy.

  Asa didn’t feel much like eating after that. He pushed his eggs around the plate and drank a little coffee, then excused himself.

  “See you tonight at church,” he told Dale, then paid his bill and left.

  Asa went home and told Jessie what had happened. She was so upset she wanted to cry. “I can’t believe they would think that of us,” she said. “After all these years, for them to think that about us. How could they? To heck with them. I’m going to the Catholic church tonight. That’ll show ’em.”

  “Now, now, don’t get all worked up,” Asa said. “They didn’t mean anything by it. Besides, if I go to the Quaker church and you go to the Catholic church, they’ll really start talking then.”

  She finally settled down, but it took a while. Asa was glad he had work to do outside.

  The Good Friday service began at seven that evening. Sam got there with his family around six-thirty, turned on the lights, and got the coffee going.

  The Harmony Friends Good Friday service is always a brief one. They meet for a half hour to contemplate the Crucifixion, then retire to the basement for cookies and coffee. “Why get all worked up?” is their philosophy. “We know things turn out okay in the end.”

  Roger came with Sam and Barbara and the boys. He’s not a big one for the church—never went in for God in a big way—but he likes cookies. He stood next to Sam as people entered the meetinghouse. He saw Deena Morrison walking down the sidewalk with the three Fleming kids. “Say, who’s that?” he asked Sam.

  “Deena Morrison. But since you’re not interested in women, I won’t bother to introduce you.”

  “You didn’t tell me she had kids. I like kids.”

  “Those aren’t hers. Those are the Fleming kids. Their mom’s the one in the hospital with leukemia. Deena’s been caring for them.”

  “That’s awful good of her.”

  “I told you she was remarkable.”

  Deena and the Fleming kids climbed the steps. “Hi, Sam,” Deena called out.

  “Hi, Deena. Deena, this is my brother, Roger. Roger, this is Deena.”

  Deena smiled at Roger.

  Oh, she was beautiful. She was so…so…robust. She was no Tiffany, that was for sure.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” he asked.

  She laughed.

  Oh, her laugh was a joy.

  “No, I’m not a vegetarian. Why do you want to know?”

  Dumb, dumb, dumb, Roger said to himself. Roger Gardner, you are a moron.

  “Oh, no special reason. I was just curious. Say, it’s kind of crowded in our pew. Do you mind if I sit with you? Maybe I could help you with the kids. I really like kids.”

  Lord, please let her say yes, Roger prayed. Suddenly, Roger Gardner believed in prayer as never before.

  Deena smiled. “Sure, you can sit with us.”

  Roger’s insides shuddered. Thank you, Lord. I’m your man from here on out.

  Roger and Deena sat in the Wilbur Matthews pew, just behind Fern Hampton. The Fleming children sat between them.

  Roger was glad his mother had made him change clothes before coming to church. He’d come downstairs wearing black, his favorite color. A black polyester shirt with black pants and black shoes. He was thinking of growing his hair long enough to wear a ponytail.

  His father had looked up from his easy chair. “For cryin’ out loud,” Charlie Gardner had snorted.

  For Christmas, a few months before, Roger’s mother had bought him a new outfit from the Penney’s catalog—khaki pants, a blue shirt, a navy blazer, and a reversible belt. “Didn’t you like what we bought you for Christmas?” she asked. She sounded hurt.

  “I thought I should dress more somberly since it’s Good Friday.”

  “Let’s not focus on the negative,” his mother said brightly. “Remember, He rose again. Now why don’t you slip back upstairs and put on that nice little outfit we got you for Christmas?”

  Now Roger was glad she’d made him change. Eating all those vegetables with Tiffany had slimmed him down. He looked successful in his navy blazer, like an investment banker.

  He smiled down the row at Deena.

  She smiled back.

  His insides shuddered.

  Then the phone rang in Sam’s office. Sam was busy making his way up front for the start of worship. Roger eased out of the pew and made his way to Sam’s office. He picked up the phone on the fifth ring.

  “Hello, this is Harmony Friends Meeting. Can I help you?”

  “Uh…who’s this?” The voice sounded defeated.

  “This is Roger Gardner. I’m the pastor’s brother. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Is Sam there?”

  “Yes, but he’s kind of busy right now. Can I take a message?”

  “Please tell him Wayne called and needs to talk with him. Tell him something’s happened.”

  “Will do,” Roger said. He walked out of the office. Sam was seated up front behind the pulpit. Bea Majors had begun the organ prelude. It would have to wait.

  Roger walked back to the Wilbur Matthews pew and slid in next to Kate Fleming. He hadn’t really noticed her before. She looked worried for such a small child. He studied the children closer. They all looked that way. Preoccupied and weighed down.

  The phone rang again from Sam’s office. Dale Hinshaw was standing near the back of the meetinghouse, overseeing the ushers. He slipped into Sam’s office to answer it.

  Bea Majors went on with her prelude.

  Dale stepped out of the office, looking pale. He walked toward the front, oblivious to everyone around him. He stopped midway down the aisle.

  Sam looked up from his chair. “What is it, Dale?”

  Bea stopped playing the organ and turned to stare at Dale.

  “That phone call.” Dale swallowed hard. His chin trembled. “There’s been a death.”

  All across the meeting room, people stiffened in their pews. Deena reached over and drew the Fleming kids to her.

  Dale let out a sob. “It’s my chickens. They’re all dead. That was the missus on the phone. She stayed home to watch them, and she says they just keeled over dead.”

  “Thank God,” Sam said.

  “Thank God? Thank God? How can you say that?”

  “Dale, I’m sorry about your chickens. But can this keep until after church is over?”

  Bea Majors spoke up from the organ. “Sam, would you like me to play something in memory of Dale’s chickens? Maybe something from the light classics.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  This place hasn’t changed much, Roger thought.

  “It’s like we’re cursed,” Dale said. “First Sally got sick. Then Asa and Jessie are having marriage problems. Now my chickens are dead.”

  “Asa and I are not having marriage problems,” Jessie insisted from the eighth pew.

  How sad, everyone thought. She can’t see what is perfectly clear to everyone else in town. Poor Jessie.

  After the service they all trouped downstairs for cookies and coffee. People clustered around Dale, consoling him.

  “It was a fine ministry while it lasted,” Miriam Hodge told him. “There’s no telling how many lives it changed.”

  “I’d like to think that somewhere
right now a little pagan boy or girl is cracking open an egg and finding the Lord,” Dale said.

  Asa patted him on the back. “You know, Dale, if Good Friday teaches us anything, it’s that something good can come from something bad.”

  “I’m bearing that in mind.”

  Roger slipped up to Sam. “Hey, brother, you got a phone call from some guy named Wayne. He wants you to call him. He said something’s happened.”

  Sam looked stricken. “When did he call?”

  “Just before church started. I didn’t want to bother you with it then.”

  Sam set down his coffee and cookie and hurried upstairs to his office. As he ran up the stairs, he prayed, Lord, don’t let it be that. Please don’t let it be that.

  He stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He paused to pray again, then dialed the hospital number. “I’d like the room of Sally Fleming,” he told the hospital operator.

  “I’ll transfer you.”

  He listened as the phone rang once, then again and again. Finally, someone picked it up. “Yeah.” The voice was choked and weary and sounded far away.

  “Wayne. Is that you? This is Sam. What’s happened?”

  “Oh, Sam, she’s…she’s…”

  Sam heard crying, then a click, and the line went dead. He sat at his desk for a moment, thinking, his heart racing. Then he walked to the door and opened it. Roger and Barbara and the boys were standing in the entryway.

  “What’s going on, honey?” Barbara asked.

  “I’m not sure. Wayne could barely talk. I think maybe I ought to head up to the city to see him.”

  “I’ll go with you.” She turned to Roger. “Rog, can you take the boys home and get them to bed?”

  “You bet.”

  Their car was parked outside at the curb. Barbara said, “It’s been a long day for you. Why don’t you let me drive, and you get some shut-eye? Something tells me you’re going to need the rest.”

  They talked for twenty minutes until the hum of the highway lulled Sam to sleep. Barbara drove on toward the city, an occasional truck hurtling past in the opposite direction. Across the fields she could see the lights of farmhouses.

  She tried to imagine herself in Sally’s place. Lying in a hospital bed, away from her children, bad sick, maybe even dead by now.

  Lord, she prayed, if you’ve ever had a mind to heal someone, let it be Sally and let it be now.

  Twenty-five

  A Reason to Hope

  What a year this has been, Sam thought as he sat in the meetinghouse on Easter morning.

  He and Barbara had spent Friday night and a good bit of Saturday at the hospital, sitting with Wayne and Sally. Sam hadn’t had time to write a sermon so he had Frank the secretary remove the word “sermon” from the bulletin and put in the word “meditation.” The difference between a sermon and a meditation being about fifteen minutes.

  The meetinghouse was full. The men were wearing ties, and the women had orchids pinned to their dresses. Bea Majors played the prelude, and they sang the first hymn, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” Sam could hear Miriam Hodge singing the “Alleluia” part, her soprano voice rising above the others and hanging in the pitched corners of the old meeting room.

  Then they sat in Quaker silence, contemplating the mystery of the Resurrection. Sam tried to remember how many Easter mornings he’d spent in the meetinghouse. Thirty-nine years minus the twelve years he had pastored in the next state over equaled twenty-seven Easters at Harmony Friends Meeting.

  Twenty-seven Easter mornings in this very room, he marveled. The most memorable service was in 1976, when the elders of the meeting got it in their heads that the youth of the church should put on an Easter sunrise service. It had been Sam’s job to say “Behold, the Son has risen,” then raise the window blind just as the sun cleared Kivett’s Five and Dime and shone into the meeting room. He’d practiced raising and lowering the blind the day before. A sharp tug downward on the string, holding onto the blind as it recoiled.

  But on Easter morning, when Sam announced “Behold, the Son has risen,” he tugged the string a little too hard, the bracket holding the blind came loose from the wall, and the blind fell, conking Mrs. Dale Hinshaw squarely on the head. Fortunately Mrs. Dale Hinshaw used a lot of hair spray, so the blind took a bounce and hit the floor.

  The next year the elders went back to having Pastor Taylor conduct the Easter service.

  After ten minutes of silence, Sam rose to give his meditation. He talked about the Resurrection—how, when things seemed hopeless and the disciples were despairing, Jesus was raised to life, thereby giving us reason to hope.

  He didn’t speak long, maybe five minutes. Truth doesn’t need elaboration or embellishment; it can stand on its own two legs. All the adornment in the world doesn’t make the truth any more true. So Sam kept it short.

  Then, under the watchful gaze of Dale Hinshaw, the ushers took the offering and Opal Majors sang “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,” which she does every Easter. Her sister, Bea, accompanies her on the piano but plays too fast. By the third verse, Opal is gasping for air and missing many of the notes. But they let Opal sing anyway because they haven’t found a way to stop her, and because they believe no situation is hopeless, not even Opal’s singing.

  They followed along in their hymnals as she sang:

  I know that my Redeemer liveth

  And on the Earth again shall stand.

  I know eternal life He giveth,

  That grace and power are in His hand.

  Opal finished the song and took her seat.

  There was more Quaker silence. Too much silence, some of the people thought.

  The children squirmed in the pews, anxious for church to be finished so they could search for Easter eggs. Harvey and Eunice Muldock sat on the left side, five pews back, praying. Eunice prayed that her ham loaf would turn out all right. Harvey prayed that it wouldn’t so they could eat at the restaurant in Cartersburg. For the past thirty-eight Easters, Eunice had made ham loaf for Easter because Harvey had lied on their first Easter and told her it was delicious, when it was all he could do to choke it down.

  Harvey believes the ham loaf is God’s punishment for his lie.

  Sam sat behind the pulpit dwelling on Wayne and Sally. He and Barbara had expected to find Sally dead the night of Good Friday, but she had hung on and had even been able to talk with Sam and Barbara a few minutes Saturday afternoon. Sally was just well enough to keep them hoping, but not so well that they could rest easy.

  Sam could think of little else Easter morning. Indeed, he was so preoccupied that he almost missed the voice. Occasionally in the past, Sam had had the distinct impression that God was speaking to him. He didn’t talk about it for fear people would think he was like certain television preachers whom God seemed to speak to every three minutes and fifteen seconds. But every now and then a still, small voice would press upon his mind so vigorously that it could not be dismissed, and this Easter morning was such a time.

  I will give you a miracle, came the voice, so real it seemed the speaker was in the meeting room.

  Sam looked up to see who was talking, but everyone had their heads bowed.

  I will give you a miracle, the voice repeated.

  Then, so as to be perfectly clear, the voice came once more. I will give you a miracle.

  Sam wasn’t sure what to do. What do you say when God has promised you a miracle? He looked at the bulletin in his hand. Frank the secretary had bought a book of religious quotes at a garage sale and had taken to putting quotes on the front cover. This week there was a quote from the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart:

  If the only prayer you ever prayed was “thank you,” that would be sufficient.

  That struck Sam as a fitting response.

  Thank you, Lord, he prayed. Thank you for becoming real to me again. Thank you for being with Wayne and Sally. Thank you for the miracle. I don’t know what it will be, but thank you just the same.
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br />   He paused and raised his head. From where he sat he could just see the top of Dale Hinshaw’s head. And, uh, thank you for Dale, I guess.

  He felt noble, thanking God for Dale and halfway meaning it.

  Then the Frieda Hampton Memorial Clock chimed eleven-thirty, and Easter worship was over.

  Sam rose from his chair and walked to the back of the meetinghouse, where he shook hands and wished people a Happy Easter. Everyone thanked him for his meditation, even Dale Hinshaw.

  “Sometimes it’s the short messages that do the most good,” Dale said. “At least that’s the way I felt about my Scripture eggs.”

  Sam was in a charitable mood. “We’ll sure miss your Scripture eggs.”

  “Well, I tell you, Sam, I’ve been praying on that. Remember how the Lord killed off the Canaanites to open up the Promised Land? Maybe that’s what happened with my chickens. Maybe God killed them off so’s I could have my promised land. Maybe the Lord had something bigger in mind for me all along. Maybe He never even wanted me to do the Scripture eggs in the first place.”

  “Others probably wondered the very same thing.”

  “I can’t wait to see what He has in mind for me to do.”

  “I can barely stand it myself,” Sam said.

  They walked outside together. It was a beautiful Easter morning. The daffodils outside the meetinghouse door blazed with yellow, like miniature suns settled to the earth.

  I will give you a miracle, Sam remembered.

  A wild surge of hope pressed through him.

  A miracle! He could scarcely wait.

  Twenty-six

  The Hour of Truth

  Bea Majors woke up the Wednesday after Easter and took her cat Wiffles for a walk around the block. Wiffles had been obstructed lately, and Bea hoped a walk would get things moving in the right direction. That was her theory, anyway. She was too embarrassed to talk with the veterinarian about it. She’d thought of writing the Reverend Johnny LaCosta and asking him to pray for Wiffles, but decided against it. She’d already written him three letters about Sally Fleming and didn’t want to appear greedy for a healing.