Earthly Vows (21 page)

She got the cat off the porch and set the milk inside, dropping the pail down into Mrs. Abercrombie’s sink. There was the
smell of lye. The woman made her soap and cleaned the hard surfaces so much that Claudia said that everything in Mrs. Abercrombie’s
house was wearing away.

Schoolkids laughed outside. Four walked past from down the lane, two big and two small, carrying books in belts slung over
their shoulders. Every morning, they walked past the picket fence. Angel set the latch to keep the cat out, ran out and down
Mrs. Abercrombie’s steps, yelling to make the oldest girl look her way. Angel offered her name. “I’m Angel.”

The girl’s hair was in a halo of curls too old for her face. She walked, putting on lipstick. She asked Angel, “What you need?”

“I just moved in with family,” said Angel. She pointed to Mrs. Abercrombie’s house. No use pointing out the shack out back.
“Where do you go to school?”

“Mount Holly, up a piece,” said the girl. “What’s your age?”

“Seventeen. I’m nearly done. You got a teacher you like?” asked Angel.

The girl cajoled, “Ain’t nobody likes teachers.”

Angel asked her name.

“Loretta.”

John called out for Angel from out back of Mrs. Abercrombie’s house.

“We got to go,” said the girl.

A truck rumbled toward them. Claudia came dragging Thorne, buttoning up her work shirt. “Where you been? I can’t get dressed
and watch ’ese two at once. Here’s my ride already. Thanks for nothing.” She yanked the cigarette from her mouth. “You got
to stop worrying about Abercrombie’s milk cow. What’s she doing anyway, paying you on the side or something? I don’t want
to know. Although, if you have extra, I could use it for the dinner wagon. They got these tamales for a dime apiece. You got
money or don’t you?”

Angel stretched out her arms to Thorne, who jumped and grabbed hold of Angel’s neck.

“John’s standing out on the porch in his drawer tail. Best get back to him before he catches his death.”

“We need milk, some beans. You need me to write it down?” asked Angel.

The truck slowed and stopped. One of the men whistled at Claudia as she climbed up into the truckbed. Angel handed her the
two bits. “Milk and beans. Don’t forget.”

Thorne laid her head on Angel’s shoulder. “Let’s go back to bed, Aunt Angel.”

The truck pulled away. The schoolchildren ran out of the road and climbed over a pasture fence. The entire bunch of them turned
down the road marked as Mt. Holly. That oldest was not going to appreciate what was taught that day, she thought.

Claudia squeezed in between two men holding to the rails. A laborer was making her laugh already. Angel took Thorne’s hand.
“Tell Momma good-bye,” she said. Claudia forgot to look back.

In the first week of October, Gracie arrived on the parsonage doorstep, his three offspring in tow. The oldest girl, Emily,
was eighteen, never prettier. Her hair was trimmed short, all the rage back in Cincinnati. Ida May kept holding Emily’s hand,
touching her fingertips. She was taken with the older girl. The first order of business, Jeb decided, was to return Ida May
to Angel. Willie took Philip out back. Ida May asked Emily to do up her braids. Emily and Agatha took Ida May out to a chair
seated under the trees.

“Gracie, it’s you. Hard to believe it,” said Jeb. He was hard-pressed to find a place for him to sit. Crates were stacked
in the parlor, for the churchmen would come by later to load his belongings into his truck.

“How about the front porch?” asked Gracie. “I’ve missed it.”

Jeb let him lead the way. Gracie lost half of his weight getting well. His stomach was flatter and his face looked lean, pink,
his eyes clear and lucid. He left Nazareth straight from the hospital after a two-week stint that nearly killed him. Gracie
rocked briskly and carried on about the Cincinnati doctors, how they goaded and prodded. “I believe I got well to spite them,”
he said. His brother Geoffrey had done well for himself and looked out for all of them. “The girls were happy to see their
cousins. They’ll write one another, I imagine, keep in touch. It’s good we went back, Jeb.”

“Your letter surprised me,” said Jeb.

“I hope you didn’t feel pushed away from the litter, so to speak. My old college friend Jon Flauvert and I had been corresponding.
When he heard I was feeling my oats again, he wanted to put my name in the hat for that city church. I thought about it a
good five minutes. But I’m an old warhorse. Best to stable me out in the country where I’ll do less harm. That’s when I thought
of you. Not many men would rebound like you did, from jail to the pulpit. But how would it be, I thought, if you finally got
a new start where you weren’t always trying to prove yourself?” He stopped his rocker. “I wasn’t manipulating you, though.”

“Of course not.” Jeb grinned.

“Fern’s got to be happy,” said Gracie.

Jeb nodded.

“She was always too smart for Nazareth. Only woman I ever knew who read Pascal for recreation. Girl like her will keep you
on your toes.”

Jeb had not yet seen her this morning. She packed and crated for the last three weeks, selling off her furniture to the churchwomen.
This morning she was saying goodbye to her students. “She had her reservations. I can’t lie,” said Jeb.

“I remember when she came to this town. She showed up at church in bright blue, wearing one of those hats she wears. Drove
the women crazy with worry. She was too pretty. But smart, as I said. Wasn’t long until she was making friends. Had one of
the women make her up a few plain dresses. The women took to her after that.”

“I must say, when she goes home, she dresses for Fern, no one else.” All glitter and high heels, he thought, but she deserved
a few secrets.

“She was a surprise, how a woman with her culture would tolerate the petty jealousies of a small town. It says a lot about
her character.”

Jeb remembered her standing out on the rooftop garden over Oklahoma City, the lavender beads on that dress. That sorry Walton
could not take his eyes off her.

“I didn’t cause trouble between the two of you, did I?” asked Gracie.

“Not a bit. Geoffrey and Dolly helping you move?”

“Not this go-round. He hired a man with a truck. Should arrive sometime tonight.”

“Will and Freda have arranged to have your things moved in after they get us all moved out. I’m going to miss him.” Freda
kept cooking for Jeb and the kids until he made her stop. “They’re good people. Stuck by me when no one else would.”

“I’ve missed him myself. Now have I counted wrong, or are you shy a child? Where’s your oldest charge, Angel?”

“Oklahoma. She finally found her sister.”

“I’ll bet she’s grateful.”

“I’m going to go and check in on her. Ida May’s pining for her. I sent her a letter telling her that we’re on our way. She
has no idea, none at all.”

“I can see God putting this all together,” said Gracie.

“That’s what I told Fern.” Jeb was pleased Gracie agreed with him.

Fern pulled into the dirt circle behind Gracie’s car. She lit up at the sight of Gracie. “I don’t have room in my car for
one more thing. We’ll have to tie Willie and Ida May to the hood. You are a sight for sore eyes, Reverend Gracie,” she gushed.

Gracie pushed up out of the rocker. Fern met him on the porch. She hugged his neck twice and kept saying, “You look better
than all of us.” Her eyes were moist.

“I know it was hard saying good-bye,” Jeb said to her. “She means a lot to the students.”

“Don’t I know it. I imagined the town lynching me upon my arrival. Not only are they losing a minister, but a star schoolteacher.”

“Lynch you? Never,” said Fern. “The whole town is excited to have you back in the pulpit. I’ll have to warn you a couple of
widows have set their caps.”

Gracie looked good. Jeb couldn’t take his eyes off him. He had taken him in like a stray and taught him how to love. Then
along came a first-rate pulpit post and Gracie passed it off to him. “I’ll never be able to repay you for all you’ve done.”

“Too early for swan songs, Jeb. You and your fine lady have to take me into town for one of those chocolate malteds. Fidel’s,
right? Ever since you got me my first one, I’ve thought about nothing else since.”

“We’d best take two cars then. We’ll have to take the kids,” said Fern. She escorted Gracie out to his car.

Jeb whistled for Willie. The kids assembled out front and Fern lined them all out as she always did. She would make a fine
minister’s wife.

Mrs. Abercrombie said she wanted all of the handkerchiefs washed, dried out on the grass, and ironed. Angel was to scrub six
in one tub and she would wash another half dozen in the other. The lye made them clean, the grass took out stains.

Angel swiped each one with the bar soap, scrubbed the fabric against the washboard, and then plunged them into the tub of
water. One stained as red as the lipstick she wore that morning was stubborn as blood to get out. When she examined it, Mrs.
Abercrombie cut her eyes away. Angel swiped it a second time and scrubbed it doubly hard against the washboard. “Any mail
come for me?” she asked.

“You asked me that yesterday,” said Mrs. Abercrombie, a little edgier than she said it the day before.

Jeb had been so busy, she thought, what with getting married soon. Fern would be changing the furniture around. They had not
had a second to think about a letter. Still, Jeb knew her address, knew that Claudia would spend every penny on food or cigarettes,
leaving nothing behind to post a letter.

“Can’t you phone your family?”

Mrs. Abercrombie knew Claudia had no phone. Angel plunged another handkerchief into the lye water. Jeb had not written, though,
and that was saying that he was glad to be shed of her. It was Fern that was at the end of it all, but she mostly blamed Jeb.
He would have to be blind not to notice that Claudia could not hold her own. He was going to stop it, she thought, that morning
before the bus came. He had the look she waited for, troubled. He took her aside. That was when her heart leaped clear into
her throat. That was when she expected him to tell her that he wouldn’t let her leave. He gave her money instead. Claudia
could not hold her own. What was in his mind? She would never be able to take in Willie and Ida May. Now she was trapped in
Norman, not going to school, watching Claudia throw herself at Edwin Abercrombie.

“You can use my telephone, girl. One call, not more than a minute. You’ve earned enough for a telephone call.”

Angel stared at her, her hands soaking in the lye water.

“You got a telephone number or don’t you?”

“I do, ma’am,” said Angel. “I’ll go and fetch it.” She told John and Thorne to play nice on Mrs. Abercrombie’s back porch.
The number was in her pocketbook, Fern’s number on one side, Nash’s on the other. Things were not well, she would tell Miss
Coulter. Jeb needed to come for her. But what was Fern expecting, for her to be adult about Claudia? To make herself useful.
Even Fern agreed, though, that she ought to be in school. That was what she would say first, spill that one out and see what
Fern said. Only Fern would be at school and not home.

Mrs. Abercrombie wrung out a handkerchief, spread it out on the grass.

“I got the number,” said Angel.

“You know how to place a call, girl?” she asked.

“I do, ma’am. I’ll only take a minute. Save those handkerchiefs out and I’ll finish them as you want, ma’am.” Angel took the
number inside. Jeb mentioned Will Honeysack. Will and Freda worked every day at the store. Fern had not written down that
number, but she almost knew it. Angel picked up the receiver and said to the operator, “I need to speak to Will Honeysack
in Nazareth, Arkansas, at Honeysack’s General Store. His number begins two, four, three, and can you get me the rest?”

The operator said she would give it a try. She returned, having found the number, and made the connection for Angel. The phone
rang once, twice, a third and a fourth. Finally a young man answered, “Honeysack’s General!”

Angel asked him his name. He was Alfred, a boy who graduated last year from Stanton School. “I need Will or Freda,” said Angel.