by Joe Derkacht
“Your son’s statues really are wonderful,” Hermione said, her eyes following Carl’s progress across the yard.
“They are a real inspiration to a lot of people,” Stella replied. “’Course, there are those people who stop by once in a while to ask how much we charge for a burial plot.”
Hermione turned in her direction, eyes growing larger.
“It’s okay to laugh,” Stella said. “We do live right next to the church, and if you think about it, the place does look a bit like a cemetery or one of those monument places.”
“People are stupid,” Hermione said, with a derisive snort. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that people are stupid, and mean, and cruel.”
“That may be. But when people come and ask me that question, it allows me to ask them if they know where they’re headed when they die.”
Hermione pursed her lips. Instead of commenting, she looked at the plate in her hand, heaped with food, and realized she was hungry. She delicately bit into one of Stella’s secret recipe drumsticks.
“Do you know where you’re going when you die, Hermione?” Stella asked.
“Some people say it’s hell for sure,” she answered after swallowing. “I s’pose they’re right, the way I live.”
“I don’t want you to go to hell, and I know Jesus doesn’t want you to go there either, dear.”
A tear trickled down Hermione’s cheek. Her legs seemed about to buckle. To cover her weakness she went and sat down on the top porch step. Plate in her lap, she dabbed at the corners of both eyes with her napkin. Stella sat down beside her and patted her on the knee.
“Why you cryin’, child?” Ioletta called out, standing at the foot of the stairs.
“I-I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just that ever since I arrived here, such beautiful things have been happenin’ to me. First there was your friend Carl Rames helpin’ me with my car, and then there was seein’ Stella Jo’s son’s beautiful statues. And when I bit into this whiskey-flavored chicken--it was like tastin’ a piece of heaven!”
Ioletta stared, looking from Hermione to Stella and back to Hermione again. Surely, she wasn’t hearing right, was she?
“And then she said the name of Jesus to me. It about broke my heart, Aunt Letta. The only time I hear that name anymore is in a curse, or when some John is about to--I-I’m too ashamed to even tell you, Aunt Letta. Do you think I’m bound for hell like everybody else?”
“Well I-I--” Ioletta stuttered, at a loss for words. Could all of this have happened in the ten minutes since her niece had walked through Stella Jo’s gate? Most times it seemed like God moved as slow as molasses in December, other times God ran so far in advance of her that it made her head spin. And to think she had felt reluctant to even come and speak with her niece!
“Child, it seems to me the decision is yours,” she answered, tears running down her own cheeks. “You know you been livin’ wrong, but Jesus is willin’ to forgive--to that I can personally testify. The question is, are you willing to change your ways?”
“To pray for forgiveness and the strength to change your ways,” Stella added, giving her another comforting pat on the knee.
There was a new burst of tears from Hermione. She pulled her glasses off and wept freely into one hand.
“All I ever wanted was for someone to love me and treat me right,” she sobbed. “You know, like one of them knights in shining armor. Is that so much to ax for?”
“There’s ways and then there’s ways,” Ioletta said, compressing her lips in a frown. When Hermione’s only answer was further tears, she said, “I don’t understand how you took up hookin’. Your Momma didn’t raise you like that, and you couldn’t of thought they was no knights in shining armor.”
“Now is not the time for haranguing the poor girl, Ioletta,” Stella chided her. “The Lord can do His work in her heart without our criticizing.”
“But she’s right, Miss Stella,” Hermione answered, not letting up with her tears. “She’s right, every word of it.”
“You just go ahead and cry, honey,” Stella told her. “The work of repentance can take many a tear.”
Bursting out with a fresh wave of tears, Hermione cried nearly ten minutes more, until all Stella’s guests, children and adults alike, had fallen completely silent and began to stare in alarm.
“It’s all right,” Stella said quietly, her voice carrying across the yard. “They’re good tears, folks.”
The crowd drifted back to their eating and talking, the children to laughing.
“I think it’s time we prayed, Hermione. Don’t you think so, Ioletta?”
“Is that repentin’?” Hermione asked softly.
“A change of heart and mind,” Stella said. “We’ll all pray together, the three of us, asking Jesus into our hearts and thanking him for his forgiveness.”
Hermione nodded her head that she was ready. So they prayed, Ioletta and Stella helping her with the words, and the Lord doing his part in cleansing and saving. Afterwards, the three of them wiped the tears from their eyes and decided to rejoin the picnic. On the way, as they walked past Angel’s statues, Hermione expressed how she so looked forward to meeting Stella’s son.
“Oh Lord!” Stella cried, stopping in her tracks.
“What’s the matter now?” Ioletta demanded in alarm.
“Where’s Angel? I haven’t seen him in hours!”
“The last I saw him, he was sleepin’ on that ol’ chair of Leonard’s.”
Stella turned back to the house, for all intents and purposes completely forgetting the other two women. Hermione stared after her curiously.
“The heat’s difficult on the boy,” Ioletta remarked. “I don’t know if she could forgive herself if something happened to him and she wasn’t watchin’ after him like she should.”
“He can’t be a boy anymore, Aunt Letta.”
“Oh, he’ll always be her boy, no matter how old he is,” she said. She reached out and took Hermione by the hand. “Jus’ like you’ll always be my sister’s baby--and my little girl.”
“That was a long time ago,” Hermione said, thinking maybe it really wasn’t so long ago after all. Since praying with her aunt and Stella Jo, she felt as lighthearted and innocent as she had in childhood, like she had suddenly and unexpectedly discovered that underneath the ever-hardening crust of life, the soul of a child was breaking through to the light of day.
#
Long after everyone else had gone, taking blankets with them and the refuse accumulated from picnicking, Stella, Ioletta, Hermione, and Angel remained seated under the willow.
“Whatever happened to that son of yours?” Hermione asked Ioletta.
“Lamarr, your cousin?”
“That would be him, Lamarr being your only son, and you my mother’s sister,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. “Is he still handsome as ever?”
She frowned anxiously. “Lamarr? If he ain’t been shot up over there in Korea.”
“I don’t think we’re fighting in Korea any more, Aunt Letta.”
“Thank God,” she said. “He had hisself shot in that Vietnam war--though he don’t talk about it none.”
Hermione grinned. “Maybe it was in a place people don’t like to talk about, like--well, never mind. Has he found himself a sweetheart, or is he like me, unlucky in love?”
“Last I heard,” Stella said, smiling mischievously, “he was unlucky in love right here under this old willow tree of mine.”
“Lamarr and that girl?” Ioletta asked, with furrowed brow.
“The way you told it, Ioletta, that’s what it sounded like to me.”
“What girl?” Hermione demanded.
“The Odoms girl!” Ioletta shouted, abruptly clapping one hand over her mouth. Looking guiltily around to make sure no one else could hear, she whispered, “You should have seen him, lovesick over a skinny white girl.”
“Ioletta!” St
ella scolded her.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true and I don’t like it.”
“She’s not skinny, Hermione,” Stella said. “She has a very nice shape, and from what I know she’s a fine Christian girl, and very bright, too, a college girl, no less.”
“But not likely to marry our Lamarr,” Hermione said, grinning at her aunt.
“Child, he was a sight to behold,” Ioletta told her niece. “You woulda thought the cat got his tongue. We were all sittin’ here together, pickanickin’, and he couldn’t hardly say a word to the girl--and her enjoying every minute of it, I’m sure.”
“In defense of Lamarr--” Stella began.
“The boy was moonin’ over the girl,” Ioletta said. “And her in one of those flimsy sundresses. He hardly ate a thing, and she ate like a bird.”
“She must really be pretty,” Hermione commented.
“In defense of Lamarr, we shouldn’t be gossiping about him,” Stella said.
“In defense of Lamarr!” Ioletta exclaimed, shaking her head.
“In defense of your cousin, Hermione dear,” Stella repeated, “I am sure he was quite weary. Maybe you heard how he saved Angel and me from certain death?”
At Hermione’s nod, she said, “Bright and early the next morning Lamarr was here to repair everything--”
“I stayed here with Angel, while she was in the hospital,” Ioletta interjected.
“The excitement was a bit much for me,” Stella explained quickly, fanning herself with a napkin and glancing over at her son.
“I should say!” Ioletta exclaimed, fanning herself, too. “That boy would have killed you all, if Lamarr hadn’t come to the rescue.”
“That was the boy I was visiting when I met you the other day at the jail, Hermione,” Stella said.
“Really!” Her eyes seemed to grow larger behind her glasses. She glanced over at Angel, and back at Stella, who no longer smiled. “You know, I wasn’t looking real close, but that boy at the jail reminds me of your Angel.”
Stella’s gaze seemed focused on something across the street. A car drove slowly by, windows down, its occupants admiring Hermione’s Buick Le Sabre. Ioletta glanced at Hermione, then looked away.
“But what was that girl doin’ here, pickanicking with you and Lamarr, Aunt Letta?” She asked, hoping the change of subject would lighten the moment. Besides, the story of Lamarr and the Odoms girl didn’t seem nearly finished.
“Oh, she is a sweet girl, really, when it comes down to it,” Ioletta remarked warmly, remembering how she had greeted her at the gate that day. “I called her to see if she and her mother would join us for lunch, since her father was here helpin’ Lamarr with repairs.”
“Really.”
“Really,” she said, nodding, “and him in a suit and tie, with his gun! I don’t think the man ever goes outside without his gun.”
“His gun?” Hermione asked, eyebrows arched in surprise.
“Yes, his gun, girl!”
“Captain Odoms is an officer of the law,” Stella said.
“Oh, that Odoms--old bloody bones himself!” Hermione laughed. “And he was sittin’ here, eating with you all, Aunt Letta?”
“That’s right, the man hisself, Chance Odoms.”
“Well that would explain a lot, don’t you think?”
“About what, child?” She asked.
Hermione looked from her aunt to Stella. Stella quaked with subdued laughter. Hermione could barely contain herself.
“Captain Odoms and his gun--and Lamarr feelin’ a bit uncomfortable!” She exclaimed, finally bursting out in laughter.
Ioletta eyed her niece and Stella as they laughed and hooted together. Even Angel, sitting a few feet away, joined in.
“Shame on you, makin’ fun of your aunt,” Ioletta said. “And you too, Stella Jo McIlhenny, me bein’ your bestest friend and all.”
“You don’t find it the least bit funny?” Hermione said, wiping tears from both eyes, the laughter subsiding for a moment.
“I surely do not,” she replied, primly turning her gaze in feigned offense toward the street. “And it’s not ladylike at all, either one of you, jiggling all over like that when you laugh--I should call you the Jello twins.”
Stella and Hermione stared at one another, then burst out in laughter again. This time, Ioletta joined in the laughter, too. When the laughter and jiggling subsided, all three wiped tears from their eyes.
“Jello twins!” Stella hiccupped, the glee almost too much for her.
“What is that sound?” Hermione asked.
“Hiccuppin’?” Ioletta asked. “She’s like that when she’s overstimulated an’ all, according to the doctor.”
“No, no, not that,” Hermione insisted, glancing around, straining her ears at the invisible and squinting behind her thick glasses. To Ioletta’s alarm, she heaved herself to her feet and urgently tilted her head first one direction and then another.
“Don’t you hear it, Aunt Lett?” She demanded again. “It’s almost heavenly.”
Ioletta listened carefully, in the meanwhile patting Stella on one arm in hopes of calming her down.
“Do ya mean the hummin’?” She asked, her face brightening.
“It’s Angel,” Stella managed between hiccups.
“Why yes, I guess it is!” Hermione said, realizing all at once that the sound emanated from in his direction.
“Oh, he always be doin’ that, child,” Ioletta added. “He does it more often than not.”
She didn’t mention she sometimes found the constant humming grated on her nerves. There were times when he hummed the same tune for hours on end, like he was a stuck record. Somehow it didn’t seem right to complain, though, when mostly his music came straight out of what he’d heard in church. Besides, it was hard to argue with makin’ a joyful noise unto the Lord, when the Book commanded it.
To Ioletta’s surprise, fresh tears sprang from Hermione’s eyes.
“It’s so beautiful!” She said, pulling off her glasses and wiping tears on her forearm.
Ioletta strained her ears to listen to what her niece was hearing. Traffic had picked up on Flowers Ave., with the time moving on toward 7 p.m. and people headed to church. Angel was humming Amazing Grace, but not like most people would. Maybe what Ioletta needed was to listen to him from a fresh perspective, because she suddenly realized Hermione was right about Angel’s humming. It was beautiful and heavenly and wonderful all-rolled-into-one, the kind of thing that puts a hush on one’s soul, makes you realize there are stages in the universe that no ordinary human can aspire to, where there may be no marquee or bright lights, but where only the truly pure in heart may come and present their devotion before God. The sound nearly broke her heart.
As Angel’s humming continued unabated, Hermione tentatively cleared her throat, took up the tune, and began singing in accompaniment. One usually thinks of the musician playing in accompaniment to the vocalist, but in this case the reverse would be appropriate.
Hermione’s voice was at first shaky and certainly rusty, but as she went on, her voice rising in praise, it grew stronger and stronger and the rust fell right off, until she soared with Angel’s music. To her amazement, the words came easily, as though she had been singing them only yesterday. People on the street, whether walking to evening services or driving by with the windows open, slowed to listen. It was obvious she had a gift, one which she had not lost even if she had laid it aside for these past few years in the pursuit of sin. Soon, Ioletta enthusiastically joined in, her voice not nearly as pretty but full of conviction. And then Stella added her voice, singing sweetly along with them, following their lead, her face beaming at the world around her.
Tears washed Hermione’s cheeks. As the rust in her voice had fallen away, it also seemed as though the crust of sin in her life had cracked, broken apart, and was being washed away by cleansing waters.
“Aunt Letta,” she said, “it’s time for church. Do you t
hink they would allow me in to testify, or do you think they would rather stone me?”
“Oh, child!” She said, barely able to keep her heart from leaping into her throat. “We’ll go and we’ll find out, won’t we? And Stella Jo and Angel can come right along.”
That’s how, one summer’s night, Stella and Angel went to Rev. Champion’s church with Ioletta Brown and testified of the prodigal daughter’s repentance and how she had finally returned to her Heavenly Father’s loving arms. For Hermione it proved to be more than just a return; it also signaled the beginning of ministry to other women who had lost their way. Not least of all, the choir, along with the rest of the church at Alliance Baptist, was happy to have another magnificent voice to lead them in singing God’s praises.
****
Chapter 14
The offices of the Calneh Bus Lines Co., Inc., were the same as always on Monday, which is to say like every other weekday, except that things were a little neater. The janitors had been in, vacuumed and mopped the linoleum floors, emptied the wastebaskets and ash trays, and as usual neglected to wash the grimy windows. Likewise, the gals Stella worked with or saw around the office were the same as always, except that Mondays were a trifle more haggard. Considering it was the first day of the work week and them being human, they whined more than usual, especially since the heat and humidity were a replay of Sunday, and the office’s rumored air conditioning never seemed to reach as far as their desks. In contrast Reginald Snodgrass, Head Paymaster, really was his usual self; no kinder, no meaner, just the same old, dependable, punctilious boss Stella had known these past dozen or so years since quitting the school district and beginning work for the Calneh Bus Lines Co., Inc. Whether Monday or Friday he was the same, which everyone appreciated. They certainly didn’t want anybody flighty and irresponsible or vindictive as their Head Paymaster.
But to Stella, the whole world seemed different. It was as if she had awakened to a new universe, where endless possibilities lay before her. Life was wonderful. She was walking on cloud nine. Her heart overflowed. She wore rose-colored glasses. She--well, you know, and besides, the point is that the glory of Sunday had flooded over into her Monday. There was nothing like seeing the kind of change she’d witnessed in Hermione Tharpewood, the joy and gratitude in the woman’s eyes, and celebrating with her and Ioletta and everyone at Alliance Baptist till late in the evening. The Book says that angels in heaven rejoice over the repentance of one sinner, but she doubted even angels could have been happier.
