“Well?” Tom asked as the old man thoughtfully chewed and swallowed.
“As good or better than the ones your father made. He always liked to use a bit of almond extract in the pancake batter.”
“I found it in the cupboard. I’ve watched him make pancakes many times.”
“That’s good.” Elias smiled. “Keep doing what you saw your father do.”
______
Tom was enjoying the short commute from Elias’s house to the center of Bethel. Unlike Atlanta, none of the drivers he encountered on the road were struggling with coffee-deprived road rage.
The office was quiet. He checked the answering machine and retrieved a call from Bernice that she was going to spend another day at home recuperating. Instead of immediately getting to work, Tom thought about Elias’s comment at breakfast. What would John Crane do if he arrived early at the office and didn’t have to rush off to a court hearing? Tom knew the answer. His father would chat with Bernice for a few minutes, then go into his office and close the door. And commit the day’s activities to God.
When he visited the law office as a boy, Tom would sit wide-eyed as his father bowed his head and talked to God. A child who sees an adult pray other than before a meal or in church remembers it. John Crane’s prayers from behind his desk always contained a request that he represent his clients with skill and integrity. Tom remembered the specific words: skill and integrity. Wondering if they might be from a Bible verse, Tom pulled a well-worn Bible from the bookcase and located a concordance in the back. He looked up the word skill and found nothing that seemed right. He then checked the word integrity and scored a hit. He turned to Psalm 78:72, a passage about King David and the people of Israel. John Crane had underlined the verse with a red pen and drawn a blue star in the margin.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
Tom read the verse silently a couple of times. It was quiet in the room, but the stillness wasn’t stagnant. He looked up from the Bible for a moment, then softly read the verse out loud. As he spoke, the meaning of each word reverberated in a place inside him that Tom didn’t know existed. He read the verse again, and the sensation increased. Tom had studied great books and listened to eloquent speeches, but nothing he’d ever read or heard was more majestic and profound than a single verse of Scripture coming from his own mouth.
“What is going on?” he asked.
The answer to his simple question came to his mind before he had a chance to imagine one. And it didn’t come from his intellect. It came from a place not visible to the eye, in a voice that didn’t need sound waves to communicate. He intuitively knew what was happening to him.
God was speaking to him.
Tom sat up straight in the chair. He’d always thought conversation with the Almighty would follow a great debate in which God proved his existence by superior logic. No, God’s voice proceeded from his presence. Human theories, arguments, opinions, and ideas shrank to insignificance. The awareness of God’s reality shot through Tom like a lightning bolt. And if God was real, the most important thing in life was to know him. Tom was stunned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing how proud and arrogant and independent he’d been.
Humility opened the door of his heart wider. He read the verse again, not with curious neutrality, but as a thirsty man drinks a cup of cold water: “So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.” God’s description of David wasn’t limited to an ancient king in a faraway land. The words on the page were for today. Tom suddenly understood why his father prayed as he did. A dormant seed awakened. Desire rose up in him. Tom hesitated. Reason demanded he slow down and let his understanding catch up.
“No,” he said emphatically. “I want this to be true about me.”
Taking out a legal pad, Tom began to write down everything he was thinking and experiencing. Using the concordance, he flipped through the Bible. The relevance of the words in the book wasn’t limited to a single verse in Psalms. He found wisdom and insight wherever he turned. When he finally took a break, he looked up from the notes scribbled on the pages and remembered Judge Caldwell’s words from the day before.
Tom was beginning to share his father’s faith.
He spent the rest of the morning exploring the new world in the ancient book. The phone didn’t ring; no senior partner interrupted his thoughts. The room was as isolated as a monastery cell. He read several chapters in the book of John, who boldly claimed Jesus was the Son of God, the Light of the World, the Savior of mankind, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For the first time in Tom’s existence, the claims made perfect beautiful sense.
He kept reading. Turning to Paul’s letters, he read verses he would have considered offensive and arbitrary twenty-four hours earlier. Now they revealed the goodness of God. Amazed at the change in his perspective, Tom discovered an answer in 1 Corinthians 2:14: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” That was it. He’d been a natural man. He was becoming a spiritual one. He marked the spot with a sticky note and closed the Bible.
It was lunchtime. Tom had spent the entire morning reading the Bible, making notes, and writing down his thoughts. He was hungry. Going outside, he blinked his eyes in the bright sunlight. He inhaled the fresh air. Walking up the hill to Main Street, he greeted several people he didn’t know as he passed by on the sidewalk.
Inside the restaurant, Alex Giles was scurrying around seating customers. Tom saw a solitary stool available at the end of the counter. He moved toward it.
“Hello there,” a female voice behind him said.
Tom turned around. It was Rose Addington. She was standing beside a group of four waiting for a table.
“Are you by yourself?” she asked.
“Yeah. And you?”
“Yes, I was in town for a bit and decided to drop in for an authentic American meal.”
“This is the perfect place. Enjoy your lunch.”
Tom turned away in time to see someone sit down on the counter stool he had his eye on. He faced Rose. She was wearing dark slacks and a light-blue top. Her wavy auburn hair looked like she’d only brushed it once or twice before leaving the house. To ignore her would be rude. He cleared his throat.
“Would you like to join me?” he asked.
“I wasn’t meaning to intrude.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Tom motioned to Alex Giles and held up two fingers. The owner pointed to a table wedged into a spot against the rear wall of the diner. Tom followed Rose. There were two menus on the table. Before they had a chance to look them over, a waitress appeared.
“Ready?” she asked with a harried glance over her shoulder.
Tom gestured across the table toward Rose. “I think she needs more time before—”
“No, I’ve eaten here several times,” Rose replied crisply. “I’ll have dark-meat fried chicken, collard greens, stewed okra with tomatoes, and sweet tea, please.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “Uh, hamburger steak with onion gravy, candied yams, broccoli casserole, and sweet tea,” he said.
The waitress scurried off toward the kitchen.
“You like collard greens?” Tom asked.
Rose picked up a small bottle of vinegar seasoned with hot peppers that was on their table next to a napkin dispenser.
“Adding a dash of this is what makes the dish.”
Tom suspected Rose wasn’t the type of woman to complain if the accommodations weren’t four-star quality.
“I guess you have to eat different kinds of food as you travel in your work,” he said.
“And learn not to ask too many questions about what’s put before you. I often pray that what goes in my mouth will stay in my stomach.”
The waitress brought their tea. There was a lemon
wedge stuck on the rim of each glass. Rose squeezed the juice into the tea.
“The lemon custom struck me as strange,” she said, dropping the rind into the glass. “Brew the tea with sugar to make it sweet, then add lemon to make it sour.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Tell me about your adoption work,” Tom said.
While they waited for the meal, Tom learned that Rose had worked the past five years facilitating adoptions from Eastern Europe, mostly from Bosnia and Serbia.
“Ethnic cleansing orphaned thousands of children without any close relatives who could take them in. But it’s not just finding the children homes. It’s also getting help for the trauma they’ve gone through. Some of these children have seen horrible things. However, there are sad stories with happy endings.”
Rose then told him about a ten-year-old boy whose leg had to be amputated after he was injured when a land mine exploded. He’d recently been adopted by a Swedish family whose little girl had lost a leg to bone cancer.
“Instead of shutting themselves off, the family opened their hearts to receive another child in need. They understood the boy’s loss better than anyone else could.”
The waitress brought their food. When Tom saw the collard greens on Rose’s plate, he thought about Clarice. She would have never let her fork touch collard greens.
“Do you want to say grace?” Rose asked. “It’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed seeing folk do here in the States. It’s rare to see someone praying in a public house at home.”
“You go ahead.” Tom motioned with his fork.
Rose bowed her head and closed her eyes.
“Lord, thank you for this food and that this restaurant received a sanitation grade of ‘A.’ ” She opened her eyes. “That should take care of it.”
Rose reached for the vinegar and dribbled it on the collard greens. Tom ate a bite of meat, then stuck his fork in the broccoli casserole.
“Were you put out that I asked you to pray?” she asked.
“No. I’ve been praying and reading the Bible all morning.”
The words were out of Tom’s mouth before he could pull them back. Rose raised her eyebrows.
“The differences between lawyers in America and in Britain are greater than I thought,” she said.
“It wasn’t my usual morning.”
“Are you saying you had an encounter with the Lord this morning?”
It was a moment of decision. Tom could dodge the question or tell the truth.
“For the first time in my life.”
Rose’s face beamed. “I could see something different in you when we were standing at the doorway. And I thought to myself, I may be wrong, but I wager he’s had a sweet time with Jesus before he came to work today. That’s one reason I invited myself to join you, although I had no idea it was such a momentous day.” She leaned forward. “Don’t worry. I won’t pry. A touch from heaven like that is so personal a stranger like me doesn’t have the right to look in on it.”
Rose’s enthusiasm made him feel safe.
“I don’t mind talking about it, but I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to do it justice. It was an amazing time.”
“I’d love to hear anything you’d like to share.”
Tom glanced around the restaurant before answering. Rose waited with an expectant look on her face. Tom cleared his throat and quoted the verse from Psalm 78. As he described what happened, tears formed in Rose’s eyes.
“Is this upsetting you?” Tom asked.
“No,” she said as she wiped her eyes with a paper napkin. “It’s so wonderful. There are people who have been sitting in churches their whole lives without knowing the goodness of the Lord like that.”
As he talked, Tom discovered that telling Rose didn’t dilute the experience. It had the opposite effect, increasing his confidence that something profound had occurred.
Rose dabbed her eyes again. “This is better than a mess of collard greens.”
Tom laughed.
“All the good bits poured into you by your father, uncle, and others are starting to come together and make sense,” Rose said.
“You sound like Judge Caldwell.”
Tom felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Charlie Williams.
“Glad I caught the two of you together,” the DA said. “What’s the update on your father’s representation of Mr. Addington?”
Tom glanced at Rose. “I don’t have anything to report,” he replied.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
The DA rubbed his jaw. “If we were in front of the judge, I’d argue that answer was unresponsive to the question.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
Williams patted Tom on the back. “Keep digging. There must be something in the old files that will shed light on it. And you might want to check the ethical rules on whether the attorney-client privilege survives the death of both client and lawyer. Give me a call.”
Williams left. Rose followed the DA across the restaurant with her eyes.
“What’s he trying to do?” she asked, leaning forward. “Why does he keep pestering us with these questions?”
There was nothing but innocence on her face.
“You don’t have any idea?” he asked.
“How could I?”
Tom swallowed a bite of food before answering. “Was your father having any financial difficulties?”
“No. Papa had no debts. The house is paid for, and he left my mother with enough money to take care of herself for the rest of her life.”
“Why is there such an elaborate security system at your house?”
“Papa was a philatelist.”
Tom was about to eat a bite of broccoli casserole. He almost dropped his fork. “A stamp collector?”
“Yes, mostly nineteenth-century British Empire. There are several very rare specimens in his collection. Mum thought he should keep the most valuable stamps in a lockbox at the bank, but he said there was no use having the stamps if he couldn’t enjoy looking at them. The reason I came to town this morning was to rent a box to hold the best of the lot until we can arrange a sale in London next year.”
Rose’s explanation for the expensive security system at the Addington residence made sense as a way to protect a valuable stamp collection, but it did nothing to explain away Arthur Pelham’s negative reaction to her father’s job performance. And if Harold Addington misappropriated funds from Pelham Financial, Arthur would want to be discrete about an investigation to avoid shaking investor confidence in the firm’s security measures. Tom had witnessed that scenario before. Investment advisers charged with safeguarding customers’ resources hated admitting a breach of trust, even if the embezzlement of funds was committed by a rogue employee. Rose interrupted his thoughts.
“Was your father having financial troubles?” she asked.
“He owed money for back taxes,” Tom said defensively, “but that didn’t have any connection to your father.”
Rose pressed her lips together.
“And if Charlie Williams had any concrete evidence, he wouldn’t be talking to us,” Tom added.
“Evidence of what?”
Tom instantly regretted his slipup. “Williams is the district attorney for this circuit,” he said slowly. “He’s only interested in a situation if there is the possibility a crime occurred.”
“Crime? That’s crazy.”
Tom shrugged. He didn’t want to continue the conversation. Rose seemed pensive. They finished the meal in silence.
“It was an honor hearing how the Lord touched your heart,” Rose said with a sigh. “I’m sorry the government barrister interrupted our conversation and dragged us from heaven down to earth.” She leaned forward and spoke emphatically. “Don’t let him or anyone make you doubt what happened to you this morning. I know the sound of truth, and it rang clear from your heart.”
They walked together to the cash register.
“Let me buy y
our lunch,” Tom said, holding out his hand for her ticket.
“No, you blessed me much more than the price of a meal.”
Tom liked Rose Addington. It was a terrible shame what lay ahead in her future. Charlie Williams wasn’t interested in philately. Larceny was more his area of expertise.
chapter
TWELVE
Tom glanced through his notes from the morning. Rose Addington was right. The thoughts and prayers he’d written still stirred his heart. He stared for a moment at the stack of boxes in the corner of the room. The prospect of an entire afternoon reviewing old legal files now seemed incredibly boring. He winced. Hopefully, the morning’s events hadn’t rendered him so spiritually minded that he was incapable of the practice of law.
Opening the middle drawer of the desk, he saw a small envelope that contained the key to the safe-deposit box his father rented at a local bank. Tom didn’t have any valuable nineteenth-century British Empire stamps to safeguard, but as executor of his father’s estate, he needed to inventory the contents of the box. A walk to the bank would also provide an excuse to ignore the boxes crouched in the corner.
The Bethel Commercial Bank & Trust, a hundred-year-old institution, was controlled by a local board of directors who had rebuffed all takeover attempts by out-of-town megabanks. The bank’s name was engraved in granite across the front of the building.
Tom stepped into the marble-floored lobby. As a boy, Tom loved going to the bank because it had the coldest air-conditioning in town and a never-ending supply of lollipops beside the tellers. The vault was set into the wall beyond the last teller station. An older gentleman sat at a small desk near the massive metal door.
“Hey, Mr. Howell, how are you doing today?” Tom said when he reached the man’s workstation.
“Can’t complain, Tom,” Howell responded, straightening his tie. “What can I do for you?”
Tom handed him the numbered key.
“I need to open the safe-deposit box. My name should be on the card.”
The older man flipped open an index card box and thumbed through it. The bank had made the leap into online banking; however, there were still vestiges of the old ways that hadn’t been modernized.
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