Toby was born during Kirk’s second year at Bible College, trailing Anne’s infant daughter, Lynette, by eleven months. An adorable replica of Kirk, our son’s shock of blonde hair Mohawked for the first six months. He was, like Krissie, affable and resilient. Kirk’s resistance to having a ‘Kirk Junior’ in the family stemmed from his movie star name. Its frivolity embarrassed him. He’d always liked the sound of “Toby” and so the name took.

We were so caught up in family and school and church that we seldom saw our old friends. Kirk heard Moose had joined the Air Force and was stationed in Japan. Occasionally, Callie wrote me a brief letter, telling me too little of what transpired in her life. It was sad, the wide gulf now separating all of us.

Grandma Whitman once said I was as readable “as a red bird in a snow storm.” So were Toby and Krissie, to the point that I knew what they were about in any given situation.

Heather’s genetic pool consisted heavily of her father’s legacy. Like Kirk’s, her face registered little of her true feelings as she grew older.

Early on, Toby and Krissie formed an alliance to breach Heather’s stealthy manipulative maneuvers. It was, I kept telling myself, an innate leadership thing built into my oldest child. Overheard now in play-likes was a subtle shift in roles, Heather still being “Mama,” while Toby – but a toddler, unable to follow Heather’s directions – became “Baby,” content to be hoisted from point to point by a huffing puffing petite Krissie, whose role shifted from Daddy to maid to whatever fit Heather’s whim of the moment.

I heard the front door open and shut. I dried off my hands at the sink just as footsteps approached the kitchen.

“Trish! What are you doing here this time of day? Didn’t you go to school?”

Then I noticed her swollen, red eyes. She’d lost the last fifteen pounds rather quickly and looked marvelously thin. Today, she looked haggard. “Honey,” I gathered her in my arms as she dissolved into tears. “What’s wrong? Come on, let’s sit down.”

I led her to the den couch and settled her, then lowered myself beside her. It was long moments before she could speak. “I-I couldn’t get to the bus stop this morning a-and—The sobs renewed, stronger this time.

“Hey, take your time, honey. I’ll get you some tea, okay?” The ritual gave her time to collect herself and by the time I set her iced beverage before her, she was able to talk.

“For some reason, I couldn’t get it together this morning – one of those anxiety spells, I suppose. Anyway, I wanted to catch the bus so badly, I took that shortcut across the field and my feet sunk into mud. All the way to my ankles. But I kept running anyway. I saw the bus sitting at the stop and was only about a fourth of a block away and so out of breath I thought I’d faint. Well,” she paused to take a drink of tea, “that smart aleck Tommy Jones pulled off and left me. I know he saw me.”

Poor Trish. “That was snotty,” I snapped, like a true sister.

“Yeah. Anyway, when I got back home, I slipped off my shoes on the back porch and was trying to clean the mud off my ankles when Anne came into the bathroom.” She swallowed back sudden tears and my heart filled with dread.

“What happened?” I asked gently.

“Anne’s eyes got really – big? And she asked, ‘what are you doing here?’ And I said, ‘I missed my bus. I just can’t seem to do anything right this morning’ and,” she rolled her watery eyes, “I started crying. Next thing I knew it, she lit into me – slapped me twice across the face.”

I turned icy with shock. Anne? “Why?”

Trish gave me this sad little smile, kind of a pitying one. “I wish I knew, Sis.”

“Okay,” I said, standing. “You’re not going back. Not until something drastic changes things.”

Trish arose, too. “I’m glad you said that,” she declared in a voice I’d never heard her use before, “because I’d already decided not to go back. Can I stay with you, Sis?”

I embraced her and rocked her back and forth standing there in my den.

“My home is your home, Trish. It’s time you got away from whatever ails Anne.”

To say Daddy was angry would be grossly misleading. He was furious.

When Trish refused to go home with him, he left in a huff. An hour later, my phone rang.

It was Daddy. “Trish knows it’s wrong for her to tear up our home like this, Neecy. And it’s wrong for you to condone it.”

I usually didn’t argue with Daddy but this was too much. “Do you want to hear what ‘wrong’ is, Daddy? I’ll tell you.” I proceded to share the things Trish had tearfully divulged over time. The last thing was an incident I’d repressed until after Trish moved in and reminded me of it.

“Remember that big gold-framed wall mirror Anne bought when you two married? It hung over the mantle. Well, Trish climbed up there to get a little hair ribbon she’d put there, hoping that by placing it there, it wouldn’t be moved and get lost. She used the same chair, a platform rocker, that she’d used before to reach the mantle, only this time, when she reached for the ribbon, the chair moved suddenly, throwing her forward, into the base of the mirror. I happened to be standing nearby and saw the mirror break loose and begin to fall. I dashed to get to Trish before the thing crashed over her head, killing or cutting her to ribbons. I whammed the frame and knocked it to the side as Trish hovered there, arms over her head, terrified as that darn thing hit the floor and crashed into a million pieces.”

“She began to cry and Anne rushed from the kitchen to see what had happened. I told Anne the mirror had nearly fell on Trish, but Anne just looked at that blasted pile of glass and turned on Trish. Know what she said, Dad? She said, ‘Just look what you’ve done to my mirror!’ and stalked away, disgusted.”

Daddy had grown deathly quiet. “I’m sorry, Daddy. You know I love you and Anne. She’s been great to me since Cole was born. He sort of bonded us, you could say. I don’t know what it is with her about Trish. But I can’t let you blame Trish for what’s happened. Trish has never hurt a fly and she doesn’t deserve all this. Do you – ”

“What are you doing – ” Daddy’s angry voice rang out, cutting me off. “Wait a minute, Neecy,” he said disgustedly, “Anne’s on the war path. She’s been on the other phone, listening in on our conversation. I’ll get back with you.” The line went dead.

I looked at the receiver in my hand for long moments, then quietly laid it down.

Oh, well, whatever happened, I’d followed my heart.

And despite an almost certain estrangement from Anne, I felt peace.

My sister lived with us the last half of her senior year at Chapowee High. How we enjoyed each other! I’d gone over to Dad’s house right after Trish moved out, to get her clothes and Anne didn’t come to the door, though I knew she was there.

“Why did Anne act like she wasn’t home?” I asked Dad later when I called him at the barber shop. “I have no quarrel with her. I’d hoped we could go on as always.”

“She’s ashamed,” he said bluntly. “Anne knows she’s not treated Trish right. But I don’t think it really hit her how bad it was till she heard you telling me all of it on the phone.”

“I hate that I was the bearer of such but seems it couldn’t be helped. Tell Anne to please not avoid me. She just needs to square things with Trish, is all.”

“Yeah.” Daddy sounded sad. I knew how hard it had been for him to let Trish out of the tense situation but for once, he’d put her feelings ahead of his own.

“Are you going to drive with us when we take Trish to Spartanburg Methodist? She wants to check it out for the fall semester. She’s graduating in a month, you know.”

“Can’t believe my baby’s graduating high school,” he muttered, as forlorn as I’d ever heard him.

“Well, she is. You with us?”

“Yep. Count me in.”

We’d just finished supper that evening when Daddy walked in. “Have a seat, Daddy,” I said. “There’s still some steak and potatoes left.”

“Naw,” he said, “I came to get Trish.”

Trish’s face fell and she gaped at Daddy as though he’d lost his senses. “I don’t want to go back there, Daddy.” Spunky, I thought, feeling warmed by it. It’s about time.

“Trish,” Daddy said imploringly, “meet us half way. Anne promised she’d treat you better. She really is ashamed, Trish. It’s hard for her to say it, but I know her. She is. And when she promises something, she comes across. She’s changed. Won’t miss a Sunday church service, even if I don’t go.” I had to believe Dad because usually, he relayed the worst about Anne.

Trish looked at me, uncertain, wary. “It’s your call, Trish,” I said, though I’d miss her like crazy. I knew she missed being with baby Lynette, Dale and Cole. We’d gone over on weekends to visit. At first, Anne had disappeared to the bedroom. Gradually, however, she’d begun to linger with us, quiet as a morgue, but there. I’d persisted in treating her as usual and most of the awkwardness between us had diminished.

“Come on, Trish,” Daddy gently coaxed. “Let’s go home.”

Trish seemed to sorta wilt. Just for a heartbeat. Then she squared her shoulders and went to get her things. Within thirty minutes, she was gone. The girls watched her and Daddy leave, their noses pressed to the front screen door. Toby climbed on the sofa and peeked through the blinds. When all three seemed ready to burst into tears, I cried, “Hey! She only lives a couple of blocks away.”

That thought bolstered me as well. As did the fact that Anne seemed to be changing and the certainty that Trish had emerged from this entire situation a much stronger, more selfconfident person.

Realistically, I knew my sister and stepmother had much to work out between them. But this was a start.

It finally happened. Kirk donned the frock.

In his third year of Bible College, Kirk accepted an interim pastorate at a tiny church in upstate South Carolina, whose former pastor had resigned. And while the country setting offered us a down-home, folksy welcome, the old timers weren’t so ready for change.

“He’s a good man, Pastor Hanson. We shore hated to see ‘im go.” Mr. Branson pumped Kirk’s hand on the sun-washed steps following our second week of services at Possum Creek Methodist Church. “Course he didn’t have no choice, with his bad health and all. Good man.”

Kirk’s wheat hair inclined and a broad smile broke over his features. “I’m certain he is.” College had polished Kirk’s vocabulary and manner. Though fiercely loyal to his roots, Kirk was smart enough to use his new ammunition well. Diplomacy fit him nicely.

I stood at his side, face stiff from smiling. We’d risen at five a.m. to allow me time to feed, bathe and dress the children, then drive the hour and twenty minutes to the remote Oconee County spot on the map.

For once, I was glad Kirk liked my fresh-scrubbed look because primping time had melted to brief moments before we’d rushed out the door this morning, only to dash back in to retrieve Toby’s forgotten socks. Krissie, excited about gussying up in a new dress, had overlooked them when tying his shoes. She was always scurrying to help me during cramped times. Heather helped with bigger things, cleaning the table and fetching dishes to the sink. Even Toby dusted furniture, picked up clothes and deposited them in the laundry hamper.

Kirk silently meditated as he drove to church while I swiveled to remind Krissie it was Toby’s time and right to roost in the hump-center. We’d traded our red Volkswagen for a newer, more efficient navy blue model. She quietly complied but soon had Toby tattling, “Kwiss-ee touch me.” Few were the times Krissie resorted to such tactics of revenge and they remained mild and inoffensive. Still – my stomach knotted tighter.

“Krissie, please do not touch Toby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied softly, her enormous blue kitten’s eyes wounded and frustrated. Relinquishing one’s territory to another is never easy.

Someday, I thought, I wanted something without a humped floor. I touched my stomach and pressed the tender spot beneath my ribs. I’d played down the stomach thing to Kirk, who spent most of his time settled back in the old beige naugahyde La-Z-Boy, socked feet raised half-mast, partially blocking sight of the moment’s required book spread across his lap. I deposited heaped plates of food on the table next to him and later, steaming cups of coffee to ward off drooping lids.

The kids and I improvised, so as not to disturb Kirk’s studies. We moved the television into the kitchen or bedroom and piled up on the bed to watch children’s specials or an old forties’ movie I loved so much. Many’s the night I scooped each slumbering child in turn and gently carried them to their own beds.

The rest of the nightly ritual remained fixed. I’d nudge Kirk awake and he’d daze a weaving trail to our bed, shedding clothes along the way, then collapse between clean sheets until dawn’s early light when the entire process began anew.

Sex? We simply shifted that into the wee hours, when Kirk usually awakened first and with those marvelous hands and lips, transcended me slowly from a languorous tingling to agonizing climatic pleasure.

“Kirk should help you on Sunday mornings,” Babs, my neighbor insisted.

“No, I can’t ask Kirk to help with the children. He’s bonetired from rising so early, meeting classes and the hours he puts in at the barber shop. Not counting the long evenings of study. No, I can’t ask that of him.”

“But, Janeece, he’s your husband. I mean – at least on Sunday mornings when you get so hassled, he should help you. You said yourself it takes you till mid-week to unwind after the Sabbath morning war of – ”

“I know.” I gazed at her, seeing the logic and simplicity of her rendering. “I know, Babs. It sounds good in theory.” I chuckled and shook my head. “But what about his time to meditate? He needs that time Sunday mornings to draw strength from God and study his sermon notes. Anyway, we have to leave early to get to Possum Creek for the ten o’clock service – he’s already deprived of that early solitude.”

Babs, wiry as a crane, peered at me from beneath her frizzed, oak-rust hair. She’d been my Mama’s best friend from schooldays and that sentiment extended to me. Then she laughed a smoky, cigarette-coarse laugh. “You’re somethin’ else, Neecy. The Maker knew what He was doin’ when he called Kirk. Not many wives could handle it.”

I’d felt strangely embarrassed by her intended compliment.

“Aww, come on Neecy, you’re a basket case while Kirk sails along undaunted in his pursuit of his calling.”

“That’s not fair.” I didn’t fare well when others criticized Kirk.

“So when is life fair? Love goes two ways. There’s got to be a compromise somewhere in your great heroic epic.”

I marveled at Babs’ erudite use of the king’s language, a product of her compulsive reading, not only novels and biographies but anything she could get her nicotine-stained fingers on. We were, on that level, kindred-spirits. She wasn’t much on church going but I was convinced my daily prayers for her would soon accomplish a big turnaround.

I gazed into Babs’ unwavering resolve and forced my tired lips to smile. “There is no solution for the time being. Kirk has to finish school. At the same time, he has the pressure of the interim pastorship at Possum Creek. He’s got all he can handle.”

Today, I stood beside Kirk as he greeted the last of the departing parishioners.

“Good morning, Mrs. McKonna. You’re looking well.”

“Hmmph.” The pigeon-round chest swelled as the elderly woman’s cynical, bespeckled eyes raked Kirk. “Why shouldn’t I look well? I’m perfectly well and at peace with life. Except that I do miss Pastor Hanson. One of the most mature men I’ve ever known. Sure added a lot here at Possum Creek.” She sniffed soundly and with a curt nod of white, nape-bunned head, indicated the exchange over, then hobbled away without so much as a “howdy-do” to me.

I realized my teeth were clamped like a vise and turned in time to catch the amused expression on Kirk’s face, the I know one, before he turned to enter the church to exchange black robe for suit coat. He knew how rudeness chafed me, especially the rejection kind, and was always curious to see how I would handle it, wondering if my mercy-forgiveness index would persevere.

I think, subconsciously, he sort of hoped I’d lose my temper, just a little bit. That would justify his lapses. It was this very human aspect of Kirk that flavored him even more appealing to me, because had he been perfect in every way, he’d not have been attainable in 1959.

Actually, since Kirk’s calling, his biting criticism of folk or situations had ebbed with a daily, steady honing away of his former edge – even when I got on his nerves with mundane bothers. Mundane comprised anything outside his scope of work and studies. He already neatly catalogued his priorities: God, Ministry, family. I saw nothing wrong with that, after all God had called him and I needed to be resilient and willing to free him for whatever his role required.

“Mama!” Toby bounded around the corner of the old white sanctuary, shirttail flapping loose from his creased pants. At two, his little face was as excitedly transparent as Krissie’s. “Come look!” Black scuffed shoes pivoted and kicked huffs of dirt as he dashed back in the direction from whence he came.

I’d grown accustomed to Toby’s discoveries that ranged from caterpillars that squirted green stuff when accidentally stepped on to buffalo shapes in puffy white clouds. This time, he took me to a copse of trees, some twenty-five feet behind the old church. Heather and Krissie had their heads poked in the crude door of the makeshift structure.

“It stinks.” Krissie pinched her nostrils shut.

“Course it does, silly.” Heather looked down her freckled nose. “It’s a toilet.”

Toby gazed up at me, bustling with curiosity. “Wh-what i-id it, Mama?” His stammer surfaced in direct proportion to his emotions.

“An outhouse, Toby,” I carefully explained, “where you – use the bathroom.”

Krissie, head still inside the door, pealed, “Can I use the bathroom, Mama?”

“May I? Yes, you may.” I laughed. Good grief. An outdoor privy in this day and age? I’d noticed the absence of a bathroom in the ancient country parish last Sunday and we’d stopped en route home at a service station to use the restroom.

Heather’s smirk drew me to the door, where, inside, Krissie looked bewildered. “How do I use it, Mama?”

“Step back.” I ordered the other two outside, then joined Krissie inside the small chamber. A how-to was in order.

Krissie’s wonder faded by the moment as dark, fetid reality surrounded her.

“Pull your pants down and – hop up on this step, then up on the platform,” I instructed and helped my daughter accomplish the undignified squat. She giggled as her bladder emptied with nary a drop hitting the toilet seat’s round wooden border.

“This is fun.” Krissie’s blue eyes danced with merriment.

“Hummmph.” Heather’s disgust palpitated through the rough wooden door.

“I wanna do it!” screeched Toby, “I wanna do it, too!”

While assisting Toby as creatively as possible, I heard Heather outside muttering, “It’s just a dumb ol’ toilet, Krissie.”

“If it’s so dumb,” Krissie giggled, “How come you gon’ use it?”

“You’re so dumb, Krissie. I’m gon’ use it cause I really need to go to the bathroom. Not like you and Toby – just cause you’re silly and never saw one.”

I shook my head while tucking Toby’s shirttail in his pants again as Krissie waged vainly for the last word. “Well – you never saw one, either.”

“I”ve seen hunerds of ‘em.”

A short silence, then a curious, “Where?”

I rolled my eyes and made my way from the shaded thicket. Kirk was locking the double front doors when I rounded the corner while Toby dashed off to gaze up into a tree at some mystical rustle of limbs and leaves. Soon, we were driving home. It was a tiring trek, the morning round-trip, then back for the evening service, which gave Kirk little time to rest up in the afternoon before yet another sermon.

Anne had taken it upon herself to have us over every Sabbath now, knowing our early departure didn’t allow me cooking time. So I did what I could on Saturdays, things I could refrigerate, and took them over for the Sunday meal. But I wasn’t thinking about the cheesecake, fresh sliced peaches marinating in syrup, nor the potato salad as we rode in silence, the children tired from early rising.

I reflected on the past two weeks of impressions. Words... phrases. He was the best pastor this neck ‘o the woods ever saw. Such a noble and sacrificing man...Never be another’n like’im. Oh, Lord, bless our young Pastor Crenshaw. He’s just a young man, after all, and inexperienced – he’s got a lot to learn. Help him, dear Lord. I’d flinched on that one, but Kirk had laughed it all off.

“Penny for your thoughts.” He said, glancing at me.

“Oh,” I tried to smile, failed and gave up. “Just thinking about how insensitive church folk can be sometimes.”

He was silent for long moments. “I don’t think they mean to be.”

I shrugged, distinctly shamed. “I know. But they are, nevertheless.”

“How?”

“Well, they’re nice in most ways except – ”

“Mama-aaa!” Toby wailed in my ear.

I whirled about. “What is it, Toby?” My goodness, I sounded like a shrew.

“Kwissie push me.”

“I did not.” I caught her in her scuttle from the hump-attack spot. I frowned disapproval as she settled into the far corner.

“Krissie, you know better.”

“Sorry, Mama,” she murmured.

“Tell Toby you’re sorry.”

“Sorry, Toby,” murmured Krissie with sagging conviction as her brother’s mien turned smug.

I turned back to face the front when Kirk prodded me, “What were you going to say, Janeece? You were saying ‘except – ’”

I’d lost my fizz to share. Only I’d opened a keg of grubs for Kirk to explore. “Oh...it’s just the way they compare you with Pastor Hanson.” I didn’t have to say the obvious: in uncomplimentary ways.

He laughed. A hearty belly laugh.

I peered at him, a bit aggravated. “I don’t see anything funny about it.” Kirk could be so out-of-left-field when I least expected it. Exploding when I laughed at him but sliding into denial when the flock behaved poorly.

“Mamaaa!” Toby wailed in my ear again, swiveling my torso to about-face.

What is it this time, Toby?” I fairly shrieked and my son recoiled in fear, making me feel like a witch with whiskers.

“Kwissie p-pinch me.” His lower lip jutted out below tearflooded eyes.

Krissie sat primly in her appointed corner, eyes downcast. “Krissie, did you pinch Toby?”

Silence lengthened. “Well, did you?”

The long lashes lifted to expose limpid, sky-blue lagoons of vulnerability. “He made a face at me, Mama,” she murmured in near-whisper.

“Did not,” countered Toby, his face mutinous.

“You did,” Krissie’s small voice raised a notch in desperation and her gaze darted back and forth from her brother to me, gauging his denial’s credibility-impact. “You know you did, Toby. You stuck your tongue out at me.”

Toby glared at her, vised to his perch with the aggression of a gladiator.

My stomach throbbed. “Krissie,” I said wearily, “you know to ignore facial expressions. That means a spanking.” I turned to face the front again, wondering if her sentence was just. After all, Krissie was only six years old herself. Ignore the deliberate insult of a tongue poking at her? Especially when it belonged to a little person who had – through birth order – dethroned her from her hump?

I wondered if I required too much of my good-natured little girl, who still couldn’t see well out the car window while en route. Her lack of guile rendered her defenseless, detectable, while Heather could maneuver a mock war in complete secrecy.

I felt Toby tug slightly at my sleeve. “Yes, Toby?”

“You n-not gon’ pank Kwissie, are you?” Blue pools of compassion turned to peer at watery-eyed, downcast Krissie, huddled in her corner.

I sighed. As usual, Toby’s tender heart overrode any disagreement between him and his sibling. I tried to look stern. “Do you think Krissie deserves a spanking for pinching you?”

His towhead swung from side to side, bumping my shoulder. “I-it din’t hurt,” he insisted. “I-I don’ want Kwissie get a‘panking.”

“Are you sorry you pinched Toby, Krissie?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Krissie snuffled with sincere remorse, then a choked, “I’m sorry, Toby.”

“All right. I don’t feel you need a spanking since you’ve obviously learned your lesson.”

Kirk wheeled into our little parking space and the children spilled from the car to change into play clothes. Kirk reached out and gently seized my arm as I turned to emerge.

His gaze began soberly, “I know how you feel, honey,” he murmured, then, in the depths of Atlantic-green, a small pinpoint of light began to grow and grow until it filled his eyes with such warmth that I felt myself blush. “I know my Neecy like the back of my hand. But believe me, there’s no cause to be concerned about the folks at Possum Creek.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How can you say that when all they’ve done is eulogize the former pastor in your first two weeks of pastorship? Not, ‘what a wonderful sermon, Pastor Crenshaw,” but ‘Pastor Hanson was the best preacher ever was.’ I don’t appreciate their lack of-of manners.”

“Listen, Sweetheart,” his tone was gentle, “don’t you know that if they loved that aging, ailing man with such devotion, they’ll eventually grow to love me – us – the same way?”

I doubted that, but I didn’t have the heart to squash Kirk’s faith.

“Pastor Hanson didn’t earn their love overnight.” He slid from the car seat and leaned his head back down to look me in the eye. “It took some time. Just as it will with me. But the capacity to love is there. Don’t ever forget that.”

The new Kirk, I realized in that moment, was a guy I really liked. It was a great feeling to have him encouraging me to be patient. Mymymy, how times were changing.

I hung onto that thought during the following months. Months during which Babs, my mama’s old pal, contacted and lost her battle with pneumonia – but not before Kirk rushed to her sickbed to pray the sinner’s prayer with her. Grandma Whitman died suddenly of heart failure, followed by an already ailing Grandpa Whitman by five months. Daddy was heartbroken and I did all I could to console him, sitting with him, holding his hand through the long nights of both Grandma’s and then Grandpa’s wakes. My father’s need stirred my heart. There was, in his loss, a desperation that smote and shifted me into a nurturing role toward Daddy that would forever after endure.

In those first weeks at Possum Creek, Mrs. McKonna missed few chances to exhort Pastor Hanson. Bewildered, I prayed and soul-searched to come to terms with something beyond my scope of experience.

No longer could I simply walk away from unpleasantness. So I commenced developing my preacher’s-wife smile, vintage Mona Lisa, that covered awkward situations and inappropriate responses and though it did not always disarm the perpetrator of effrontery, it masked my discomfort.

I wondered, at times, what they really were – my feelings. They were definitely changing. Slowly, I was beginning to look past issues and see faces, to feel the hard callused hands that gripped mine in greeting Sunday after Sunday. Nuances crept into uncultured salutations, flavoring them, altering my first impressions.

My stomach ailments eased up.

Brown paper pokes began to sprout in the vestibule after services, bearing anything from a scratch-made chocolate cake to fresh eggs, garden-picked vegetables in season, and later, in winter months, potatoes and yams, onions, canned succotash, home-made jellies and jams and even sides of cured ham.

Two months into Kirk’s pastorship, I learned a valuable lesson: looks can deceive. A disgruntled looking Mrs. McKonna paused on the church steps and looked past my husband to peer through small wire specks at me, taking long moments for her huffing breath to catch up to her stillness. I grew tense waiting for something to happen.

“Say,” she said, “I know it’s hard goin’ home to cook every Sunday after driving so far.”

“Well, I – ” The astute black eyes peered unblinking into my flustered, flushed face – made so by the fact that up until today, I’d been like a fly on the ceiling to her, ignored.

Unexpectedly, the old crinkled face softened. “Ah, I know how it is. You don’t have to tell me how it runs you ragged with young’uns this age. Had three o’my own, don’cha know?” The black eyes instantly disappeared into the folds of her smiling face.

I gaped for a long moment, astonished, then flashed my preacher’s wife smile.

“Anyway,” a veined plump hand reached out to gently touch my arm, “I’d be pleased to have you and your family over to lunch next Sunday after church. That is, if this preacher here don’t have any objections.” She peered sternly at him.

Kirk grinned, a Howdy-Doody version. “No, Ma’am. No objections a’tall.”

A deep chuckle shook the woman’s ample frame. “Good. I’ll be expectin’ you.”

I watched her waddle away and then looked up into the clear sky beyond the evergreen range. Wonders never cease.

The Sabbath lunches became a weekly thing, saving our family three hours round-trip on the road since Ma McKonna insisted we lay over at her house for the evening service. Ma, as she mandated we call her, discovered she and Krissie shared an affinity for cats, gave Heather scores of books she’d had since her girlhood and doted on Toby, who would climb onto her lap in a blink and snuggle against her plump softness to doze on lazy Sunday afternoons.

I grew to love her old house – pure country rusticity that smelled quaintly of wood smoke, floor wax and baked goodies – whose arms embraced you at the front door with welcome and acceptance. On warm days, Ma McKonna would raise all the windows and we’d enjoy the potpourri of heather and honeysuckle in soft, cooling breezes.

After wonderfully filling, tasty meals, we’d wash dishes, a sweet conversational time during which I learned of her loneliness as a widow with an empty nest.

Sometimes, Kirk took the kids over to play at the church’s little playground – one he’d initiated, then rolled up his sleeves and built – while he studied and prayed there in one of the Sunday School rooms. He paced as he prayed and the solitary church setting helped free his mind of clutter.

During one intimate evening, Kirk divulged, “The reason I don’t go around my family is – it pulls me down.” We sat at our kitchen table drinking coffee after putting the kids to bed. “I know that sounds terrible but – it’s true.” He shrugged with a dismal helplessness dulling his sea mist eyes.

“And there I thought I was marrying into this big wonderful family and we’d live together happily ever after.” I hoped it would come off as teasing, knowing it never did. Not for me. Kirk took everything I said seriously, still does. Yet when he vents, he insists he’s teasing and when I don’t believe him, says, “you just don’t have a sense of humor, Neecy.”

I long ago realized I couldn’t beat Kirk in verbal sparring.

I couldn’t squash down the disappointment that Kirk chose to exile himself from his family because by doing so, he denied me access to them. Me, who bonds so easily and so completely, who wants to take every new friend home and take care of them. How much more I cared for his family right from the beginning. After we married, he always had excuses not to socialize, mainly ‘no time’ with work and schooling and now, the ministry.

Tonight, I got the truth. What I’d suspected for some time now. He held himself aloof because, pure and simple, he wanted to. Oh, there were reasons – the unhappy childhood memories – but the bottom line was he wanted to be free of them. In particular, from the bad memories they triggered. A part of me understood and sympathized. The other part warred against the fact of Kirk’s ability to isolate himself so decisively and succinctly.

It disturbed my calm waters.

Those two years at Possum Creek sped by, banking up sundry memories that jolt and ebb and flow till this day. Of Mr. Branson getting so confused with the new-fangled Daylight Savings Time that he arrived at church two hours early, hopping mad at the government for telling him what to do and with Kirk for messing him up good by going along with it.

Kirk handled him with sterling diplomacy, agreeing with him wholeheartedly before leading him into a perception that began to adjust him to the notion of progress. Of Toby, perceiving my love of pretty roses, presenting me with a bouquet he’d picked, during prayer, from the back of Mrs. Davis’s bowed Sunday-go-meeting hat. Of the time when Kirk, just before service, went to fill communion cups for the scheduled ritual, finding the grape juice bottle empty – depleted by Krissie and Toby during one of their rainy-indoor playtimes. Of our first death, sweet Uncle Huey Dodge, a deaf man who’d relied on the kindness of a church family for home and hearth, who’d out-given everybody in love. Our first wedding – Jeannie Morgan and Clarence Jenkins doing vows in the packed out sanctuary and later, receiving guests in Ma McKonna’s cleared out sitting room, surrounded by folding tables straining with homemade reception goodies and centerpieced with vibrant blossom’s from Ma’s own little backyard garden.

By the end of that first year, sentiments toward the present pastor did an abrupt upswing. The Christmas program, directed by the pastor’s wife, crowned those first months with a rare mixture of solemn pageantry and not so solemn asides. Ten-year-old Luke Turner, during his first solo, It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, burst into stage-fright tears and bawled the entire song, never missing a word. Bessie Tillman, between scurrying scene changes, tripped and fell into the manger scene, upending Mary, Baby Jesus and the three Wise-Men all in one sweep and sending Jake Lester’s pet pig Baby-face squealing down the aisle, her lamb’s wool costume headpiece a’flapping, setting off Tom Turner’s donkey Hoss, who kicked up a ruckus before relieving his nervous bladder right there before the world and splattering Krissie’s beautiful white angel costume I’d stayed up nights creating. Toby, one of the little shepherds, tried his best to catch Baby-face, but the pig moved faster than sound, displacing legs, feet and anything in his escape path. Then, suddenly, I saw the porky lamb barreling toward me and without thinking, tackled her with what grace I could muster – absolutely none – and with the help of the Three Kings of Orient, who’d been halfway down the center aisle when the first prop crashed, we wrapped Baby-Face in Baby-Jesus’ blanket and delivered her to her red-faced, sweating master.

That the cast and congregation wordlessly set everything aright and proceeded to consummate a befitting dramatization of the Holy Night said something I could not give voice to and shall forever remain a wonder to me.

My clan met at our house that Yule season. We all pushed back thoughts that our time of living within walking distance of each other was drawing to a close. Soon, with Kirk’s graduation and ordination, my family would relocate, a fact I’d begun to accept. And to my astonishment, even Chuck and his wife Teresa and their two-year old daughter Patrice AKA Poogie, showed up the day before Christmas Eve, bunking in our kids’ room while we threw down early gift sleeping bags for the smaller kids and let out the folding sofa for Heather, who disdained the little ones’ exuberance at “camping out” near the small open fireplace.

Chuck launched in to some Andy Griffith monologues for the kids. Within minutes, they were laughing and acting the fool with him. I was astonished at this upbeat comedic side to my brother. Before long, all three of my kids encircled him on the floor where he held court, plastered as close to him as possible.

On Christmas Eve, MawMaw, Papa, Uncle Gabe and Jean arrived for the day. My Johnny Mathis Christmas album played I’ll Be Home for Christmas on the stereo, Kirk’s gift to me the year before. They bore presents that joined the others under the tree and, at least for a few hours, Daddy and my grandparents stumbled upon an unspoken truce. Whether it was the Yuletide spirit or sentimentality, I didn’t rationalize their fragile affability. Late that afternoon, Callie, on a holiday visit with her folks, dropped by to say hello.

“You look wonderful, Callie.” I pulled her into my bedroom, the only place offering any measure of privacy, where we hugged and hugged, laughing and on the verge of tears.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I gushed, gaping at her in amazement. She’d had her dark hair cropped in a tousled Audrey Hepburn-chicness. “You’re prettier than ever. And just look at how thin you are.” I gazed woefully down at my abdomen, rounded from three childbirths, and then at her concave stomach and stuck my tongue out at her.

Callie preened dramatically. “Well, honey chile, Ah jus’ can’t help it.”

Giggling like silly adolescents, we plopped down on the bed for a quick catch up chat. “How’s Rog?” I asked, so excited to be talking to her I could hardly sit still.

“Rog and I are divorced,” Callie said, examining her Holiday-Red nails, shrugging, then looking me straight in the eye. “For three years now.”

“Thr – ” I blinked at the suddenness of the idea but mostly what hit me was that she’d not felt moved to share with me an item so massive. Something inside me diminished in that second, a thing so keenly emotional it was physical. It changed the way things stood between Callie and me.

The thing that stung was that I had not stepped back. Callie had.

Would the pattern remain so for life?

We joined the family where Callie dazzled for a few more brief moments before leaving.

“Why, Trish,” hands on hips, Callie surveyed her from head to toe, “You look great. How on Earth did you lose all that weight?”

Trish dead-panned, “Simple, Cal. It’s called starvation.” They hugged hugely, laughing and complimenting one another. I was glad for the intermezzo separating me from Callie, distancing me from the pitiful truth of our deep friendship. I watched my sister with a new appreciation of family. At nineteen, Trish had blossomed into a real beauty with her silken tumble of chestnut hair and eyes the color of stormy blue skies. She’d also developed a sweet self-deprecating wit at which I marveled, considering it was my least attribute. I could write amusing anecdotes till the swallows return to Capistrano but wit did not, nor does it now, glide smoothly over my tongue.

After Callie left, we migrated to the kitchen for sandwiches of leftover baked ham and enormous slices of Papa’s Icebox Fruitcake he’d brought along to share. MawMaw settled her bulk in the chair facing Chuck across my dinette table, to which I’d added both leaves for more space.

Daddy loomed uncertainly in the doorway while everybody else bustled about making themselves at home. He and Chuck hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other during the day so the tension from him was thick enough to slice. Uneasiness rippled through me and I rushed past him to get another chair. “Here, Daddy, take a load off.” I was relieved when he stiffly complied.

Kirk, absolutely rapt with Yule cheer, kissed me soundly – one that promised more later – and tucked our Polaroid camera under his arm. “We’re smack outta film, Neecy. The kids and I are gonna try and find a drug store open and buy some. You okay without me for a while?”

“Sure,” I grinned and watched them exit and pile into the car

“Why doncha go with us, Uncle Chuck?” Toby yelled, fairly bouncing because Santa poised ready-to-go on the evening horizon.

“See ya when you get back, buddyroe,” Chuck winked at him.

I thrilled at the love Kirk showed the children, always a hands-on Dad, taking them with him on his numerous treks if at all possible, glorying in the liveliness that tired me so from day to day.

“Neecy,” Anne appeared at my elbow as I sliced more ham, “where’re your apple pies?”

“Oh my – ” I shook my head. “I forgot them. They’re on top of the refrigerator, wrapped in foil.” In a blink, she had them on the counter and sliced into equal portions.

Trish got busy pouring coffee and seeing everybody had cream and sugar. I was passing out the pie when I saw MawMaw’s lips quiver and her chin wobble. My hand shook when I sat hers before her, knowing she would not touch it because of the empty space vacated by Dad at the table.

“Daddy?” I called out, an edge of hysteria in my voice. “Your pie’s ready.”

Anne slipped from the kitchen and I could hear her low voice, then Daddy’s from the other room. Trish tried to make conversation to cover what I knew transpired. “MawMaw,” she said with forced cheer, “I’m attending Spartanburg Methodist College this year.”

MawMaw looked up at her with watery eyes so full of pain it took my breath. “You are?” she managed to croak.

“Um hm,” Trish courageously continued. “That’s where Kirk’s going. It’s close enough for me to come home on weekends sometimes.”

“And she’s a cheerleader, too,” I threw in, proud beyond words of Trish’s accomplishments.

“That’s good,” MawMaw barely articulated past lips trembling so violently they threatened to obliterate her lined face. My stomach knotted tighter and I saw, from the corner of my eye, Gabe rise and leave the kitchen, followed by Jean.

Trish prattled on while I went into my bedroom to check on Anne’s progress with Daddy. Anne sat on the bed facing Daddy, who was as deeply planted in my little platform rocker as an ancient oak and whose nostrils flared in regal effrontery.

“Leave me alone, Anne,” he stated in his most authoritative back off and defiantly plopped my latest Good Housekeeping magazine onto the highly waxed pine floor.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this, Joe Whitman,” Anne practically hissed at him, which only added fuel to the fire burning in Daddy’s blue-gray, glaring orbs.

I didn’t know until she brushed against my elbow that MawMaw had entered the room and even as I frantically seized her elbow to pivot and aim her back to the kitchen, she began to speak the words that changed the cold war to all-out war.

“I’m gonna leave, Joe,” she said with great difficulty, barely making herself heard and Dad, already incensed by Anne’s audacity as he called it, glared at his former mother-in-law with not one whit of compassion. I couldn’t see how anybody could see MawMaw cry and not feel something. Only thing I saw in Daddy’s eyes was contempt.

“Don’t leave, MawMaw.” I heard the desperation in my voice and felt Daddy’s hackles rise even more. “Please,” I pleaded, knowing all along Daddy considered it the ultimate insult.

“Stay, Maude,” Anne rose and approached MawMaw, who already moved her head from side to side.

“I can’t,” MawMaw choked, her chin caving, “I can’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

“But MawMaw – this is my house.” I tried to take her clenched, cold little fingers in mine – and though she let me, she wasn’t truly there, barely heard my fervent declaration, “You know you’re welcome in my home.”

“I know you want me, Neecy,” she gave my fingers one lame squeeze, never looking at me. Lord, I wasn’t even there as far as she was concerned. The old familiar helplessness snaked through me as the drama spun on, leaving me standing beside the road.

“It’s Joe,” Anne turned to glare at Daddy. “Why can’t you behave yourself, Joe?”

Daddy sprang to his feet and toed off with his wife. “Why can’t you just shut up?”

MawMaw, perhaps a tad more armed with Anne in her corner, pulled her hand from mine and addressed Daddy, “You don’t want to be around me and Dan, do you, Joe? You just as well admit it, Joe.” Her little chin, lifted ever so slightly, only looked more pathetic to me in its grief-dance.

Daddy’s fierce gaze ricocheted from Anne to MawMaw and my breath caught in my throat. No no no, don’t, Daddy! I felt the tidal wave coming, words shattering and irrevocably crashing upon those I loved.

Daddy’s eyes narrowed in defiance. “Yeah, you got that right, Maude.” The coldness in his voice slapped me up the side of my head. “I don’t want to be around you.”

“Joe!” Anne’s reprimand was sharp, succinct. “That’s just plain mean.”

“She asked,” Daddy reminded her.

“Daddy!” “Joe – ” Anne and I protested in unison.

“Leave ‘im alone,” Chuck bellowed from the doorway. “Maude started the whole thing long time ago. Couldn’t keep her danged mouth shut.”

MawMaw’s shock, at hearing her grandson calling her by her name – the ultimate insult – shattered the atmosphere. She turned and staggered from the room, her rotund little figure desolate and slow moving in its determination to escape.

“MawMaw!” I trailed her but had to step aside as Papa, his sweet clown’s face sober and pale as death, helped her into her worn brown winter coat. I gathered her quivering form into my arms, hearing Anne and Daddy at it again and wept with her, knowing this would put a pall on all her memories of being in my home at Christmas. I turned to hug Gabe and Jean and little Sherry just awakening from her nap.

“Keep your chin up,” Gabe whispered in my ear as we embraced.

I stared into my uncle’s kind face and saw my own pain mirrored there. I slowly nodded and dashed to gather presents I’d painstakingly wrapped for each of them and pressed them into their hands.

“Bye, MawMaw,” I called as they drove off. I went back inside and saw the gifts they’d placed for us under the tree and seeing one for Daddy from MawMaw, burst into fresh tears wondering why there could be no peace.

Chuck sauntered into the living room, watching me with detachment. It lashed out at me, his indifference.

“How could you treat her that way?” It flew out of my mouth and I suddenly didn’t care.

Chuck looked at me. “How could you take sides with her?”

“Sides?” I narrowed my gaze at him. “Sides? What is it with you?” He was a stranger to me, this brother of mine. “Calling her Maude. You crushed her, Chuck.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned indolently into the doorjamb, but his nostrils, so like Daddy’s, flared. “What about Daddy? Maude tried to poison his kids against him and for that, I have no use for her.”

The words splashed like ice water in my face. I blinked and fought to catch a deep breath. What had happened to my family? Anne and Daddy emerged from the bedroom, still exchanging heated words. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t even sit in the kitchen, Joe. It wouldn’t’ve hurt you to come off it and try to be nice for one day.”

He glowered at her. “Well, believe it. If I can’t sit where I danged well please, I’ll go home.” Which he proceeded to do by slamming out the front door, but not before pinning me with his you’ve jumped camp again glare. I knew Dad was as ticked off as he’d ever been because I’d heard him cuss underneath his breath, which he hadn’t done for a long spell. I felt fresh tears cropping up and swallowed them back. Anne looked at me with helpless fury. Then her gaze softened.

“I’m sorry, Neecy,” she said gently touching my arm. She shot Chuck a disappointed look but said nothing, and I knew in that moment, she feared my brother’s wrath as much as I did.

“Not your fault,” I croaked, watching her trail Daddy, swiped my eyes and returned to the kitchen where Trish huddled in a chair, pale and silent as a little mouse hiding from a tomcat.

“Sorry, Sis,” she said in her soft voice. “Wish I could have done more to prevent all that.”

“Nobody could.” I sat down heavily opposite her, looking over the uneaten apple pie and fruitcake and brimming cups of tepid coffee. “I don’t understand,” I whispered, tears instantly puddling again. “Why does there have to be so much hatred?”

Trish was silent for long moments as tears riveted pathways down my cheeks. Then I noticed her eyes, though sympathetic, were dry. “You’re lucky,” I said.

She looked a bit surprised at my flat statement. Then clarity dawned. “It’s not that I don’t love MawMaw and Papa,” she said gently. “It’s just that they haven’t been around for the past few years. They just – didn’t come around. I hardly know them.”

“I wonder why.” Sarcasm fit me poorly, but I was tired of hurting and felt a little anger was in order. “I’ve heard Daddy telling you they don’t care about you. They do, Trish.”

She smiled a sad little smile. “I’m sure they do – in their own way. It’s just that – they’ve not been there for me, you know?”

I did. With sudden, startling clarity. If they’d wanted to badly enough, they’d have waded through hell to get to us. We gazed at each other, my sister and I, years older than our life spans, understanding too much too soon of flawed human nature.

“So long, Sis.” Chuck appeared in the doorway, did a flippant little fingers to brow salute, his overnight bag in tow. Behind him, Teresa slipped out the front door with a small suitcase. Little Poogie trailed behind, wiping sleepiness from her eyes.

“But Chuck, I thought you were staying till tomorrow – that we’d celebrate together – ”

“Nah.” He gazed toward the open door as if in deep thought, already miles away.

“Why?” I asked, shaken anew at his slight, and slight it was because he knew how excited I’d been when he’d called to say they were coming. He knew.

He scratched his head and looked levelly at me. “Cause I don’t like the way you did Dad.”

“The w – ” My mouth dropped open. “I don’t believe I’m hearing right. After all you’ve put Daddy through and – ”

“Look, Sis,” his palm addressed me in an I-don’t-wantto-talk-about-this gesture. “Just because you and Kirk are sorta – ” his fingers butterflied hatefully, “uppity now he’s a preacher an’ all, you’re all at once a do-gooder, a know-it-all. Dad’s not done right by me, but Maude was way outta line back there when she slandered him about the way he treated Mama.”

“But Chuck, she’s your – ”

“Hey. I’m outta here.”

“What about forgiveness, Chuck?” I threw at him, stalking him to the front door. “About family? What about wiping the slate clean? You know, starting all over? With MawMaw and Daddy – you need to straighten up things. There is a – ”

He whirled in the open door, nostrils aflare. “What for? Just to get sliced up again? Hey! Leopards don’t change spots.” His gaze narrowed fiercely. “By the way, Sis, don’t preach at me.”

The door banged behind him, leaving me limp and numb and disbelieving. The thing I’d dreaded most had happened. I watched his car spit gravel on the way out and nearly sideswipe our little VW as Kirk and the kids returned. I still stood there, staring at the space into which Chuck’s car had disappeared, when Kirk followed the kids across the porch with an Eckerd’s bag of film tucked under his arm.

“Uncle Chuck’s gone,” Krissie mumbled miserably, shuffling her feet, looking over her shoulder at the same space I mulled.

“Where was Chuck headed in such an all-fired hurry?” Kirk asked, then gazed around inside the house, brow furrowed. “Where is everybody?” He popped open our camera and began to load film, not in the least deterred from celebrating the Yule season with his family as I slid down into a kitchen chair . I looked bleakly at Trish, who sipped coffee and played with an uneaten piece of apple pie.

“Where’s Uncle Chuck?” Toby was stricken that the loveable funnyman had disappeared.

“Gone,” I said flatly.

He turned and something in his eyes told me he knew what the drama had cost me, even though I fought like the devil trying to hide it. “What happened?” he asked.

I told him, as unemotionally as possible. “Chuck always was a blockhead,” I finished dismally, raised my eyebrows at Trish, willing her to save the day with a witty rejoinder.

For once, Trish was fresh out.

“And every time anybody called him ‘Toby,’ he’d pop back ‘I not Toby. I Sup-er-man.’” I laughed and glanced at Kirk, who drove in silence, barely sparing a smile at my little yarn.

Silence stretched out into a flat-line, aligning with the car engine’s hum. Lordy, I was hungry for adult conversation. For intimacy. I sighed and watched the countryside flow past, motion turning golds, reds and earthtones to heather. Trish was babysitting the kids to give Kirk and me a rare evening out. I devoted myself to protecting his time, to not intruding.

So why, I wondered, my gaze straying to Kirk’s set profile, why didn’t he talk to me when he wasn’t immersed in duty? Like now? “Kirk...,” I began.

“I know.”

He did? A dissonant chord struck inside me. If he did, then why – ?

“Honey,” he hesitated, seeming to grapple. “Look – I’m in school all week, listening to fascinating lectures, talking to interesting people. People who really have something to say. And then I come home and all you have to talk about is – ” He shrugged, looking uneasy.

“About the kids,” I finished his sentence lamely. A pain, deep, deep inside me stirred and then churned. I’d forgotten how blunt Kirk could be. How brutal. Oh, not intentionally and not often, but when the i’s were dotted and all the t’s crossed, it came out that way.

I tightly laced my fingers together and took a deep, steadying breath, telling myself that what Kirk said was, at times, true – You’re too sensitive, Neecy – that the same sort of things that bounced off him attacked me like a vicious flesh-eating virus, working from the inside out.

Kirk’s bored with me. Since he’d begun college nearly four years ago, his horizon had broadened beyond hearth and home. Has he outgrown me? The thought flashed like a camera’s shutter, freezing me inside. I typed and edited his term papers and English assignments so I knew how much knowledge he’d assimilated, leaving me behind, intellectually, in a cloud of dust.

“It’s true,” I said in a remarkably even voice, “I really don’t have any...outside interests. Staying home with the children, I’m rather limited in my contacts.” I hoped the sarcasm and incredible pain didn’t come through and was relieved when I felt him relax.

As usual, I’d left the house in a hurry and didn’t take time to check my appearance. I pulled out my compact and after applying lipstick with my trembling hands, I watched my husband from beneath lowered lashes. His expression was so selfpossessed it angered me.

Why? I couldn’t accuse Kirk of arrogance. That wasn’t it. Rather, the poor farm boy had evolved into an assured, educated man who wouldn’t allow anything between himself and success. His conversation, what little he showered on me, sizzled with resolutions for the future.

I’d always admired his zeal and determination, hadn’t I? Even when I felt sometimes like an onlooker, an inconsequential thing batted about like a wad of paper in the path of a tornado. Why did his stony profile now set off some alarm deep inside me?

Maybe, I pondered, because that infrequent, ruthless expression transforms his familiar features into the impenetrable mask of a stranger. One I feared.

I latched my unseeing focus on the road and, as usual, blamed my wounded attitude on stinking thinking. Kirk was determined to change his life. I recalled the alcoholic-hell from whence he came and decreed myself glad for him. And, most importantly, I knew Kirk loved me, reassured me daily that he did.

But I knew. I feared that the cold stranger might emerge, the man hidden inside him, the callous, brutal one capable of – God only knew what.

“...days talking with interesting people. People who really have something to say.”

In a heartbeat, a slow, burning resolution began to build in me, underlined with my perfectionist’s strength of will. Yes, by now, Kirk’s psychology savvy had designated me to that compulsive clump of humanity who must oversee life’s details while Kirk’s segment supervises the big picture. At least, we complement each other, I now consoled myself.

College: I will go to college. Some way. It wasn’t altogether a matter of pride prodding me. It was, I recognized with a curious sadness, a thing of survival.

Survival. I must survive. And suddenly, desperately, I realized I didn’t even know what.

Kirk’s final year at Spartanburg Methodist crested the horizon that following autumn. Trish enrolled there as a sophomore. My witty, beautiful sister found herself surrounded by male admirers and for the second year, made the cheerleading squad. I studied piano on campus once a week, driving in with Kirk and visiting with Trish in the dorm between her classes. I was as proud of her svelte figure as she but more proud of her inner beauty that – freed from Daddy and Anne’s quarrelsome atmosphere – burst through like sunshine.

Kirk’s father died suddenly of a heart attack that fall. His passing barely caused a ripple in Kirk’s activities. A sad testimony for a Dad to leave, I thought. Could have been so different.

Kirk fully supported my notion of college, as well as further music studies. With the shortage of pianists in church settings, we agreed that I should at least qualify as stand-in musician. But my fulltime college studies would have to wait until after his graduation.

Lizzie Freeman, Possum Creek’s pianist, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Beyond our grief lay the need to fill her non-paying position because nothing kills a church service like a labored a cappella hymn. Actually, Lizzie couldn’t have read a note of music on a boxcar, but what she lacked in technique she made up for in enthusiasm. Never mind that she was hard of hearing, played too loud and every song sounded the same, you got entertained just watching Lizzie’s fingers flying all over that keyboard with her gray tendrils springing free of hairpins, looking like she was at a party all the time. We missed her plucky spirit dreadfully.

“You can do it,” Kirk insisted when I panicked at playing for congregational singing. “Actually, Neecy, you’re the only one in the church who can read music.” Of which I was well aware. I was also aware nobody else had Lizzie’s gift of playing by ear or her audacity to try. Now, for the very first time, I esteemed Lizzie’s spunk.

I groaned. “I’ll try, honey. Accompanying a congregation isn’t like sitting at the piano at home, you know, so don’t expect too much.”

The following Sunday, nervous as Ma McKonna’s neurotic cat, I took the vacant piano bench and commenced to play before service began. Hands shaking, I made it through Abide With Me, in memory of Lizzie, What A Friend We Have in Jesus and Rock of Ages – all simply because I’d played them so often I could almost do them without music. Surprisingly, the congregationals proved easier. I felt less on display and more a team member as Jake Lester led singing in his slightly off-key way that, months earlier, nearly made my perfectionist-ear curl in on itself. Lately, I’d determined to hear less dissonance and more devotion. Today, I adored the man’s booming caterwauling – augmented by emotion – because it covered up my fumbles and misses.

Everybody loved me and thought I was right up there with Liberace. I knew better. By now, Heather, eight, already played in piano recitals, much more talented than I ever hoped to be, soaking up instruction like a thirsty sponge and mastering pieces after two or three brief sittings. Even so, I was more advanced than she at that stage and was stuck on the piano bench for the duration of Kirk’s pastorate.

Spring was in the air, inspiring Kirk to leave the church’s double doors open that Sunday morning. Sunshine spilled over the small foyer and up the crimson aisle, ushering in a bouquet of wildflowers fragrance that hung lazily over the drowsy flock.

At eleven-ten, Kirk entered the pulpit. From the piano bench, I saw Ma’s dog Sugar, a big golden Retriever, sitting on his haunches in the doorway, his tongue lolling happily out the side of his mouth. Sug was the lovingest dog on God’s Earth but usually got only as far as the steps in reaching his goal: to get inside the church.

Today, Sugar faced no obstacles. Softly playing the offertory hymn, How Great Thou Art, I couldn’t watch his progress for fear of missing a note and the building falling in on me. On the last chord, I glimpsed Sug, prostrate, at the end of Jake Lester’s pew, Jake’s dangling fingers lazily stroking golden fur.

Kirk arose from his pastoral seat and approached the pulpit, not having yet spotted the visitor. “Shall we stand for prayer?” Everyone arose and he began to pray. I peeked at Sug, now strolling ecstatically down the aisle, stumbling over his big clumsy feet, gazing adoringly at all the people who weekly greeted and petted him outside. “And Father, we thank thee for all – ”

Kirk’s prayer stretched long and Sug ventured onto the lower tier prefacing the pulpit, in full view of the flock, sat on his haunches, tongue lolling happily and then, as if inspired, rolled over on his back, legs in the air, as in surrender.

“Amen. You may be seated. The sermon today is taken from the Book of Matthew.”

Laughter began to ripple through the flock, drowning out the riffling of turning pages. Kirk’s brow knitted in confusion.

“Psst.” I got his attention from the front pew and nodded toward our canine interloper.

“Ahhh,” Kirk’s composure slid a notch amid the rising rumble of laughter. “Brothers Jake and Leroy, would you assist me in removing our friend from the pulpit?”

The three men commenced to pick up Sug, who mysteriously evolved into jointless mush, slithering from their grasps into a lifeless golden mound on the carpet. It took two more men and changing their tactics to gently drag Sug’s dead weight down the aisle to remove his bulk from the worship service. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church by the time Kirk returned, flushed and sweating, to deliver his message.

Kirk vows, to this day, that the solemnity to deliver that sermon was the most difficult he ever achieved.

“Trish! You here?” I stuck my head in the dorm room, a messy chamber except for Trish’s corner, where she studied, denimed legs pretzeled, on her small bed. She bounded up to hug me and then Anne, who’d gotten Ruthie, her sister, to baby sit Dale, and had driven down with us to visit Trish.

“I’ve missed you, Trish.” Anne’s spontaneous declaration warmed me and I thought how the separation had worked wonders with their relationship. It transported them from Daddy’s censor to freedom, an ingredient that works magic.

Another thing that worked magic was Anne’s spiritual conversion, right after Trish returned home. Daddy’s came a few miserable weeks later, after which he threw away his Chesterfields, stopped his cussing and never looked back.

Folks speak of miracles mostly in physical terms. To me, the greatest miracle of all is a life changed by the supernatural power of the Almighty.

The visit that day took us all over campus, where Trish showed us off to friends. During lunch in the cafeteria, we met a guy named Gene, with whom Trish batted quips and whose Alfalfa-twig and outrageous wit seemed to intrigue my not-easily-impressed sis. Like Kirk, he was a ministerial student. I liked him instantly and suspected I would see Gene Tucker again.

Back in the dorm room, we began our goodbyes, hugging like no tomorrow, when Anne took both Trish’s hands in hers, looked her in the eye and said, “Trish, I’ve prayed much about – what I’m about to say.” She took a deep steadying breath, her sky-blue eyes stricken. “I wish I could go back and do things different with you. I wish I’d seen your needs like I do now – it took knowing Jesus to open my eyes to truth,” her voice cracked, but she steadied herself and continued. “And I’m so, so sorry. I hope you – and Neecy – can find it in your hearts to forgive me. If I could, I’d go back and undo it all. But I can’t.” Enormous grief labored her words. “It wasn’t intentional – I’ve always loved you, Trish. I’m so ashamed to admit this – but I was jealous because your Daddy was so protective over you. He made me feel sorta – Idon’t know…like he didn’t trust me to do right by you. Then I got mad. It wasn’t you. I loved you, Trish. I just didn’t know how to show.…” She swallowed several times. “When you cried, it scared me because I didn’t know how to – .” Her composure dissolved into silent weeping.

Trish flung her arms around Anne, unable to say a word and they hugged like two clinging to a buoy in a raging sea.

Tears of wonder filled my eyes and when they finally stepped away from each other, wiping away tears, I stepped up to my stepmother and hugged her fiercely, knowing the courage of her gesture. The humility. The love behind it.

And my faith in humanity took an abrupt upward swing.

“What’s she wearing?” Krissie whispered as I took my front-pew seat between her and Toby after playing the offertory hymn And Can it Be.

“It’s an African native costume.” I referred to the colorful clothing worn by our visiting messenger from Sierra Leone, who now stood before the congregation to speak. Her presentation was as colorful as her garb, drawing her audience from quiet little Possum Creek to lush tropical jungles and faraway villages, where she served as a medical missionary. Her stories of exotic illnesses and miraculous interventions drew rapt attention. At the end of the service, when Kirk appealed for the customary love offering, Krissie finally stirred.

After the closing prayer, as everyone milled around, she looked at me. “Mama, I want to be a missionary.”

“Oh?” Her countenance had never been more solemn.

“Mm hm.” She nodded decisively and raced off to speak to the lady doctor, who took inordinate interest in Krissie’s newfound focus.

Toby’s fingers slipped inside mine. “Mama?”

I looked down into huge blue pools of excitement. “Yes, Toby?”

“I wanna be a mish-nair, too.”

I suppressed a grin. “You do?”

Later, en route home, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “What is it, Toby?”

He poked his head between the seats, cupped small hands around my ear and whispered, “What’s a mish-nair?”

“Pastor’s college graduation’s just a month away,” Ma McKonna pronounced in her abrupt way. My hand paused on the plate I was about to scrape following our delicious lunch of Ma’s chicken and dumplings. I decided not to mention Kirk’s appointment with denominational officials the next Thursday. I vigorously tackled the soiled plate as if to scrape away a niggling suspicion playing on my mind: a change is about to take place.

“Ahh, Ma,” I said, stretching my arm across her rounded shoulders as she washed a plate at the sink, “what would I do without you?”

She chuckled, blushing with pleasure. “Oh, Law, you’d make out.”

Drying the plate, I wondered in that lovely moment when honeysuckle breezes wafted through the open window how I could leave Possum Creek and its salt of the earth folk. I closed my eyes. No. God wouldn’t do that to me, just when I’d learned to love them as my own.

God wouldn’t do that to me.

June sunlight washed the dinner-on-the-grounds celebration of Pastor Crenshaw’s college graduation. It was also a farewell feast. Jake Lester and Zeb Branson had built long wooden tables to stretch out beneath a cove of shady elms flanking the front lawn. White sheets served as table cloths and that they smelled faintly of moth balls did nothing to inhibit the flock’s appetite.

“Nobody cooks like country women,” Kirk decreed as soon as he said the blessing and turned the kids loose to fill their plates from mountains of fried chicken, potato salad, fluffy biscuits, cornbread, vegetables, cakes and pastries that challenged any county fair exhibition, and to wash it all down, vats of iced tea and lemonade.

Later, while Kirk and Archie Wells got a game of baseball going for the boys, Agnes Beech and I gathered the girls for tamer games of Farmer-In-The-Dell and London Bridge. Other ladies joined in once things got going and I realized I hadn’t seen Heather since lunch.

I pulled Krissie aside. “Where’s Heather?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll go find her.” Her patent leather shoes kicked up huffs of dust as she disappeared around the corner of the church.

I turned back to the activities and began to sing, “London Bridge is falling down...”

Moments later, I felt a tug at my sleeve. Krissie guided my head down, cupped her small hands and whispered into my ear. “Oh dear.” I groaned. “Are you sure?”

Eyes wide, Krissie nodded vigorously.

“Agnes, will you take charge, please?” I followed Krissie around back to the leaning, weathered outhouse. Inside I found Heather, in tears.

“It’ll be all right, honey. Come on,” I coaxed gently. “Nobody will know. You can sit with Ma McKonna. I’ll tell everybody you’re not feeling well.”

Heather snorted weakly. “That’s certainly true.”

“Then,” I stretched forth my hand, “come with me.”

Heather stepped forward and hesitantly took my hand and I knew how difficult it was for my little independent nine-year-old to trust her destiny to me. She took a few steps alongside me, then spotted Krissie standing in the clearing, watching us anxiously.

Heather’s heels dug in. “Nuh uh. I can’t, Mama.”

“Oh Heather....”

My heart wrenched when tears tumbled from her lower lids and streaked a path down over her pale freckles and she croaked, “Krissie might tell. Or the wind might blow – ”

I gathered her in my arms. “Honey...Krissie won’t tell. And if you sit quietly, no one will be the wiser.”

Krissie approached, oozing with sympathy. “Come on, Heather,” she pleaded, blue eyes pools of compassion. “I’ll sit with you.”

For once, Heather linked fingers when Krissie offered hers, and hand-in-hand, they settled down near Ma McKonna. Reassured, I returned to the game activities and was soon absorbed into the squeals and excitement of recreation.

Near the end of the afternoon, I noticed Krissie playing with the little Wells girl. “Where’s Heather?” I asked. Krissie took my hand to tug me to privacy.

“She’s in the car,” my little woman-child whispered, who had in her fourth year, cried after me for a solid week when I dropped her and Heather off at kindergarten classes. I fretted until Miss Peggy assured me Krissie was adjusting ‘just fine.’ Now, at seven, she seemed willing to take the weight of the world on her small shoulders. Mymymy, how I could read her.

“Has she been there all this time?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Uh huh. I tried to get her to stay. But you know Heather.” From anybody else, it would have sounded barbed. From Krissie, it was utterly guileless.

“Yes.” I smiled at her. “I know Heather.”

I found Heather huddled in her corner of the VW’s backseat, climbed in front and turned to her. “Was this necessary, honey? I mean – isolating yourself?”

Heather looked up from her gloom with horrified eyes. “Mama, I’d just die if anybody ever finds out I lost my panties in that old toilet hole.”

“How did it happen?” I asked, determined to remain solemn.

Heather rolled her eyes, her favorite mannerism these days. “They fell off when I climbed up on the crazy seat. Right down in that stupid hole.” Her small round face looked so tragic my heart sailed straight to her. “Crazy ol’ toilet,” she grumbled and dropped her head.

I reached between the seats and took her limp hand in mine. “I’m sorry your day was spoiled, darling.”

Heather shuffled and mumbled, “That’s okay.”

“No. It was a bad break for you. Now, I’ll go try to hurry Daddy up and we’ll get you home soon. Okay?” The bowed chestnut head nodded.

When I returned to the churchyard, Kirk was addressing the silent flock.

“...this past year and a half has been one of the most enriching periods of our lives, mine and Neecy’s. You’ve been more than a family to us. You’ve taken in a green, unlearned Bible student and embraced him as Pastor. You’ll never know how much this means to me – how it’s boosted me to keep on keeping on.” He looked around till his eyes met mine, then gestured me to his side, where one arm circled my waist. “As you know, we’ll be leaving here in a few days. Where? We aren’t yet certain. It will be hard – the separation from you folks. But this one thing I know.” His voice softened to husky silk. “With this woman at my side, I can make it. She’s God’s gift to me – a dream wife for the past four years.” He gazed into my eyes, as solemn as I’d ever seen him. “I could never, ever have done it without her.”

Unexpectedly, he lowered his head and kissed me on the lips. A gasp rippled through the teary-eyed gathering and then a spatter of applause that erupted into a thunderous ovation of hoots and hollers: Yeaahh, Neecy! And so it went until, blushing, I looked around see Krissie applauding and yelling to the top of her lungs, the little red face split by a gap-toothed grin. Toby stood beside her, dirty as a ragamuffin from Indian wrestling the Oglesby boy, gaping slack-jawed from Krissie to me, trying to figure out what in blazes was going on.

Heather! “Come on, Kirk,” I whispered urgently, tugging him along with me.

“What’s your hurry?” He glanced over his shoulder at the flock, who now stood like puzzled statues, watching us as we trudged to our little VW, Krissie and Toby trailing behind.

“Sorry, honey,” I stopped, turned to peer at the precious faces and blew them a kiss. “I love ya’ll!” I called, waving, and experienced the warm, warm kick of reciprocation when grins, blown kisses and loving yells erupted.

“Everything okay, Neecy?” Kirk took hold of my hand, his gaze trying to read my body language when I gazed back over my shoulder at my little girl huddled in her corner of the car.

Irritation and hysterics battled. Everything okay? he asks. Changes...kid’s heartaches...separations...my world tilted again.

I looked at him then and my head rolled back in laughter. “Is it ever?”

At his bewildered expression, I threaded my arm through his and tugged him toward the car. “C’mon, honey, let’s get this show on the road. Tomorrow’s another day.”