by Rhett DeVane
Five elongated vertical windows cast morning light into the room, giving it an ethereal glow. Two of the windows closest to the pulpit had been recently replaced with stained glass panels in brilliant hues of purple, green, blue, and gold.
Reverend Jackson’s pulpit was centered beneath a crudely carved depiction of Christ on the cross. Directly behind, three rows of wooden benches awaited the choir. Though the church lacked the trappings of the high-end, richly-appointed Baptist sanctuaries Karen had infrequently visited in Atlanta, the ambience was one of peace and reverence. Immediately, she got the impression that the people filing in the open door behind her entered with the sole purpose of worship, not to see and be seen.
“Now, y’all make yourselves feel at home. I’ll go look out for Mr. Joe and see if I can coax Elvina inside before my husband closes the doors.”
“This is a pretty little church,” Evelyn commented. “They’ve put in the new windows since Joe and I came for Grandma Maizie’s funeral. They raised the money doing all sorts of things—bake sales, car washes, and fish suppers. Joe donated several apple pies for one of their functions last year.”
Joe slid into place beside his wife. “Sorry it took me so long. I ran into a fellow who was a psych aide up at the hospital when I was working in the unit. He retired a couple of years before I did.”
The organist began to play softly, and the remnants of the congregation still outside on the front lawn filtered in and found seating. Though the room was newly air-conditioned, the press of bodies created heat, and hand-held fans fluttered to provide relief. Suddenly, the organist hit a sole note and the members of the Morningside AME choir paraded into the room clapping and singing in unison as they moved toward the front.
Elvina Houston scampered in the choir’s wake and squeezed between Lucille and Evelyn. “I reckon I ought to pay more attention.”
“Either that, or you just might have to join the choir, since they come in at the very last moment before Thurston does,” Lucille said with a wink.
Elvina sniffed and picked up a church hymnal.
The Honorable Reverend Thurston Jackson broke his usual tradition of entering through a side door close to the pulpit and strode down the right hand aisle immediately behind the choir. He stopped to shake hands and pat backs along the way, a broad smile playing across his face.
“Look at him, will you? Near to seventy years old and still prancing down the aisles like he’s a young man,” Lucille said.
“Filled with the spirit,” Elvina stated emphatically, “It puts a wiggle-bug up his pants.”
Lucille regarded the elderly woman with a puzzled nod. “If you say so, Miz ’Vina.”
After the congregation stood for the opening musical call to worship, the Reverend invited them to close their eyes and enter a place of peace. He delivered a heart-felt opening prayer that summoned up more than a handful of “amen’s.” “Good Easter Morning to all of you!” he called out.
Nods and answers of good morning echoed from the assembly.
“What a glorious day of reconciliation God has given unto us!”
Karen grinned. The preacher’s voice was rich and full with the ability to call forth laughter or tears. She leaned slightly in her seat to gain a better viewpoint.
“Welcome, welcome, to all visitors. We see you, and we’ll be sure to speak to you while you are here with us! We are blessed with your presence and God,” he paused and allowed his eyes to roam dramatically across the sea of faces, “God has powerful lessons for all of us today!”
The Reverend descended from his elevated spot behind the wooden pulpit and walked amongst the seated parishioners. “I . . . I am just the messenger,” he said, his voice, just a whisper. “God is speaking to you through me.”
He whirled around and mounted the stairs and motioned for the choir to stand. The music that ensued left Karen dumbstruck, glued to her seat in the pool of sweat forming beneath her dress. One tall portly woman took the lead, her strong soprano voice echoing in waves through the cramped room. The choir swayed and hummed, breaking into accompanying song.
Soon the entire congregation was standing, clapping and singing out. Voices, young and old, joined in. Lucille grabbed Evelyn and Joe by the hand and urged them to unite with the group. Elvina rose and started to jump in place. Finally, Karen allowed herself to participate. The old song wound around and around, growing louder, building as more and more voices blended in. When it seemed as if the roof would surely fly off toward the heavens, the Reverend signaled. The volume lowered gradually, until just a low hum was audible. A tide of “amen’s” and “praise Jesus’s” rippled though the room.
Following the announcements of church business and special calls for prayer for community members facing grave illness and hardship, Chiquetta Jones rose and walked to the corner of the choir nook. Without musical accompaniment, she sang all four verses of “Amazing Grace.” There were few dry eyes in the congregation when her angelic voice ceased. Reverend Jackson called for the weekly offering. All around her, Karen heard the rustle of bills and change as people delved into pockets and purses for monetary donations.
After the prayer over the offering plates, the congregation settled in for the Reverend’s main message. A few coughs scattered around the room. Someone quieted a crying infant. The sound of creaking pews calmed as the church leader opened a worn Bible and cleared his throat.
Karen felt as if Thurston Jackson had looked straight into her heart when he spoke.
“How many of us are in need of reconciliation today?”
“Macaroni and cheese. I could eat my weight in the stuff. Leigh, my wife, makes it almost as good as my mama used to. Not any of that prefab boxed crap. No sir-ee. Mama’s was made with whole milk, butter, and real cheese. She’d put it all together and bake it with bread crumbs on top. It would be all hot and bubbly and the cheese would hang in thin strings from the serving spoon when I dished up a big clump.”
Bobby Davis
Chapter Fifteen
Bobby Davis gathered the chipped blue remains of a half-eaten Easter egg. “Here’s the one we’re missing.” He waved toward the cluster of basket-toting children. “Looks like Spackle had a go at this one.”
Hattie’s mixed-breed mutt wagged his tail. Pieces of cooked egg white clung to his lower lip. Elvis rose up on his hind legs and danced around the large dog’s head attempting to lick the dregs of the pilfered holiday treat.
“Gah! Elvis, don’t eat that!” Jake propped his hands on his hips. “Eggs give you such atrocious breath!”
“Not to mention the gas that follows later on,” Jon added. He scooped the Pomeranian into his arms. The small dog snarled. “Cut the attitude, mister. There’ll be no more eggs for you today!”
“Just look at the stains on his little suit.” Jake swatted at the soil and dried grass clinging to the lapel. “I hope it comes out. Evelyn will die a thousand deaths if she sees this.”
“That’s why they make spot remover, Jake,” Hattie said. “Good thing you never had children. They live to eat, breathe, and wear dirt.”
Bobby placed several eggs into his son’s basket, then leaned over to kiss his wife. “I think I’ll go on down and feed the fish. Want to come, Hattie?”
“Sure. Holston, you okay with Sarah?”
Her husband held the toddler securely in one arm. “We’re just having a ball hunting eggs. You two go on.”
“Want to take the ATV?” Bobby asked.
Hattie shook her head. “Let’s walk. After that huge dinner, I can use the exercise.”
The five-acre field behind the farmhouse rippled in long harrowed rows awaiting the appearance of the first tender blades of field corn. A one-lane dirt road led to the edge of a thick hardwood forest.
“I love this time of year.” Hattie picked a strand of tall grass and chewed one end. “Everything’s so dang green. Almost hurts your eyes to look.”
They ambled in comfortable silence for a quarter of a mile before rea
ching a screened gazebo atop a small hill. A series of wooden steps with landings at three levels led down to the edge of a one-acre fish pond.
Bobby used a length of lead pipe to bang loudly on the side of an oil drum turned feed container. The vibration served as a call to lunch for the catfish. He scooped a coffee can of commercial floating food pellets and flung them high into the air. As soon as the feed landed in a wide arc on the surface, the water churned with hungry fish. Hattie and Bobby watched the feeding frenzy. In less than five minutes, every morsel had disappeared and the calm returned.
Hattie smiled. “Still amazes me to watch that, even after all these years.”
Bobby nodded. “Want to sit a spell before we head back?”
They climbed back to the gazebo and settled into oak rocking chairs.
“I didn’t see Evelyn’s brood in church today,” Bobby commented.
“They all went with Elvina to the Morningside AME Easter service.”
Bobby laughed. “Bet that was a sight—Evelyn in a black church.”
“She’s not bigoted, Bobby. She’s actually pretty cool. She just doesn’t like to feel she’s intruding on anyone.”
The faint scent of honeysuckle drifted in the air. Hattie closed her eyes and lifted her nose to catch the sweet aroma.
“Leigh and I are thinking about having another baby. She tell you?”
“No, not yet. We haven’t had a lot of time to talk with all that’s going on with Karen.” She reached over and grabbed his hand. “I think that’s fantastic, Bobby.”
“How is Karen?”
Hattie shrugged. “Hanging in there. She’s scared, naturally. I think it’ll be better when she’s past the surgery.”
“Leigh and I were talking about that last night. Why don’t we keep Sarah so you and Holston can go over and sit with Joe and Evelyn at the hospital?”
“You sure?”
“You’re closer to Evelyn than I am, Hattie. I think it would make her feel good knowing you were there. Leigh and I can visit a day or two after Karen’s past the worst, when she feels more up to company.”
“Won’t you both be at work?”
“We put in for leave time. Family comes first.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing—my brother, the work-till-he-drops king!”
Bobby ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I’m staring at sixty, here in no time a’tall, Hattie. All this with Karen has made me do some serious soul searching.”
“About . . . ”
“Retiring.”
“But you love your work, Bobby.”
“I do. The world’s changed a lot since I went into law enforcement. Years back, I was chasing poachers or checking hunting permits. These days, I come into close contact with drug runners and all manner of unsavory types who’d rather shoot me than look at me. Now that I have a young son—I just want to be able to see him grow up, spend some time with his daddy.”
“A child changes your viewpoint. I’ll cotton to that.”
Bobby stared across the pond for a moment. “I’ve decided to put in for the deferred retirement program with the state. That’ll give me a piece of time before I have to go out.”
“Do what you have to do, Bro. Who am I to quibble? I only work, at most, fifteen hours a week doing massage therapy. But I’m happy. I’ve been able to slow my life down and enjoy it more. When I lived in Tallahassee, it seemed New Year’s came every other month. It’s so easy to grow old fast when you don’t take the time to live every day. Certainly, having cancer taught me that.”
“My drinking robbed me of my thirties and most of my forties. It’s almost like I woke up, and here I was fifty.”
“But aren’t you glad for where you are now?”
Bobby grinned. Deep creases formed in the tanned skin around his blue eyes. “I wouldn’t trade the life I have for ten pots of gold.”
“Mashed potatoes: The one thing Mama didn’t try to fix with one of her strange add-ins. Not real mashed potatoes—the boxed kind, from those dry flakes. I had never tasted real mashed potatoes until after Linda and I were married. Hers have the lumps and everything. The ones Mama made were always the same consistency—like paste. But with a generous clump of butter and some salt and pepper, they were edible. You would’ve had to have been there to understand how good they tasted.”
Byron Fletcher
Chapter Sixteen
Though Interstate 10 provided a fast-paced, direct connection between the airport in Tallahassee and his home town, Byron Fletcher opted for State Highway 90. He guided the cramped subcompact rental car into the westbound side and eased into the scant flow of local traffic. The first eighteen-mile stretch of the four-lane route passed through the Quincy town square before narrowing to a two-lane country road. Byron glimpsed the small communities of Gretna and Mt. Pleasant, followed by clusters of modest wood framed houses and expanses of pasture and farm land. Three miles east of Chattahoochee, the terrain changed to gently rolling hills forested with tall pines and hardwoods.
He flipped the switches to lower the windows and breathed deeply. The blended scents of cow and pig manure, rich loamy soil, and the pollen of hundreds of budding plants and trees tickled his nose. His professional meanderings had bounced his small family across the North and finally to Ohio, but Byron still associated home with the muggy, bug-infested, Deep South.
“You’re nothing but a swamp rat by birth,” his wife Linda often reminded him. “You’d sit and chat with a demure belle underneath a flowering magnolia tree sipping a mint julep if you had half a chance.”
Do Southerners actually drink mint juleps? he pondered. One day, he would have to try one.
Byron’s thoughts jumped to the last time he visited home for Grandmama Piddie’s Purt-Damn-Near-A-Hundred Birthday Party. How he and Linda had laughed over the invitation! At first, he and his wife had wondered if they could attend. Both boys were tied up with science camp. In the end, the pull of home and family won out when Linda insisted he be there. He smiled, remembering his grandmother’s daisy-studded beehive hairdo and the matching pale yellow linen outfit. He shook his head. No wonder he and Karen had turned out the way they had. It was genetic.
Piddie’s party was his last opportunity to visit with the beloved matriarch and the first time in twenty years to associate with his only sibling. Karen attended, strictly in a professional capacity. Intent on filming an award-winning documentary on aging in America, his estranged sister had kept a careful distance. Byron had studied her from across the crowded community hall at the First Baptist Church. She was a stunningly beautiful woman: stately, graceful, her long blonde hair swinging softly with the slightest movement. She had greeted him, as she had the rest of the family, with a courteous nod. A faint, fleeting glimmer of recognition flickered behind the carefully constructed mask.
“Just like the Prodigal Son in the Bible,” he said aloud. “Here am I, the dutiful son who toiled in the fields, watching over the flock, and here comes the long-lost sibling who left for parts unknown. But she comes home, and we greet her with open arms, throw a fancy robe on her back, and kill a fatted calf for a feast. It’s a little difficult for me not to be judgmental here.”
The Chattahoochee city limit sign appeared, followed by a thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit warning. Clumps of budding crape myrtle trees stood by the bird sanctuary plaque. He stopped at the first of the town’s two signal lights, then decided to cruise the main drag for old times’ sake. Three blocks down, he spotted the Borrowed Thyme Bakery and Eatery sign and whipped the car into a parallel parking spot.
The jangle of a small brass bell announced his entrance. Joe Fletcher glanced up from the hot grill behind the counter. “Son!” He expertly flipped two blueberry pancakes before stepping from behind the workstation, quickly wiping his hands on the edge of a white chef’s apron.
“Dad!” Byron grasped his father’s offered hand.
The older man pulled his son into a tight embrace and slapped him s
harply on the back. “When’d you get into town?”
“Just now. Still have the coffee on?”
Joe pointed to the self-serve aluminum urns. “Just finished brewing. Help yourself. Let me finish up these hotcakes before they burn.”
“You hungry?” Joe asked. He removed the pancakes to a carry-out container and added small covered cups of flavored syrup and fresh butter. “I’m just finishing breakfast, but I could whip most anything up for you. Want some French toast, or maybe an omelet? Oh, I know, I have some banana nut muffins. I could warm one up for you.”
“Got any catheads?” Byron grinned. The term drove his poor Yankee wife knee-slapping crazy.
“You kidding?” His father reached into a covered container. “I’d get run out of this town on a rail if I sold out of Piddie’s biscuits.”
Joe placed two biscuits onto a pan and slid them into a warming oven. “You want honey with them?”
“Tupelo?” Byron’s mouth watered.
“Naturally. Some of the tourists ask for orange blossom or wildflower, but anyone who has a clue at all knows tupelo’s the best. One taste will usually change their minds.” He pointed to a stack of amber glass containers at the end of the counter. “Jack Pope keeps me stocked up. I sell at least three or four pints a week, more during the winter when the snowbirds migrate south.”
Joe sat the warmed biscuits in front of his son and refilled his coffee cup. “You been by the house yet?”
Byron shook his head. He bit into the buttery honey-coated biscuit and moaned. “Man, I miss this.”
“I gave Linda the recipe last time you were home. Can’t she make you a batch every now and then?”
Byron rolled his eyes. “She refuses to bring lard into our house.”
