Reinventing Leona (3 page)
As for rescuing Momma from a raging river, Maddie had yet to witness the need for such a heroic action. In truth, it was a well-known fact that most everybody in Mt. Hope believed Leona Harper walked on water. Maddie thought she’d seen her do it one time at the beach, but turns out Momma had found footing on a hidden sandbar.
Ratcheting up the heavy rolltop, Maddie cringed at the familiar squeak. She gathered the stack of blank residency applications, then jammed them into a worn backpack. How had Daddy ever gotten Momma’s head beneath the surface of the baptismal waters?
He must have tranquilized her. The woman would rather take her chances with the devil than submit to a dunking.
Forcing the latch on the door of the secret cubby, Maddie found the tattered Bible her mother said she would want someday. Hands trembling, she opened the cover and read the words her father had written in his firm scrawl:
May the Word of the Lord always be
a lamp unto your feet, Princess.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Maddie slid the satin ribbon over the tissue-thin pages. While her father’s exhortation took her aback, she was not surprised her mother had marked this particular passage, the twentieth chapter of Exodus.
Daddy believed in living the commandments, but Momma made sure that
disobey and die
had been encoded into her children’s DNA. To behave outside the boundaries of the preacher’s wife’s tidy little box demanded a round of punishment more memorable than Leona Harper’s savory chicken pot pie. Taking a moment, Maddie looked over the rules God chiseled in stone.
Thou shalt not do this.
Thou shalt not do that. Blah, blah, blah.
Maddie couldn’t help feeling sorry for the children of Israel living under the weight of the law. She closed her daddy’s Bible and stuck it in on top of the residency forms. She zipped her backpack.
Maybe the save-Momma commandment was another one of her mother’s leadings of the Spirit. She had to admit Momma had the sixth sense of a psychic when she accurately predicted Deacon Hornbuckle’s disappearance with his blonde secretary.
I bet Momma knew Daddy would drop dead.
Shame that such wicked thoughts were disturbing her brain waves washed over Maddie.
Despite any celestial forewarning, Momma would be scared to death. What would the woman do? How would she support herself? Leona Harper had been a preacher’s wife for thirty years, having never worked a day outside the home since giving birth to David, the golden child. The last time Momma put her hands on an office keyboard, WordPerfect meant no misspellings and Word was what offended members had with Daddy when they pulled him aside in the foyer after a toe-stomping sermon.
The reason for her years of intense childhood training became crystal clear and jerked Maddie’s head with a start. In her typical plan-ahead fashion, Momma had foreseen the possibility of this day and reared her children accordingly. She would expect her children to come home the same way she expected them to rescue her if the family car plunged through a guardrail. David and Maddie were Momma’s catastrophic-event insurance policy.
Visions of her own plans disappearing below the churning surface of this tragedy flashed through Maddie’s mind. Bile rose in her throat. How could she become a doctor if she dropped everything and dove in after Momma? How could her parents do this to her? No—how could God do this to her?
Digging the point of the pen into the scratch pad on the kitchen counter, Maddie scribbled a note for Katie Beth to call her cell when she got home. She hoisted the backpack to her shoulder, yanked the handle of the wheeled carry-on bag, then slammed the apartment door behind her.
A sleety mix glazed the streets of Nashville. Maddie pulled her jacket hood over her head and waited for the taxi to the airport. She scrolled to the med school number. The message she left on a secretary’s voice mail claimed a family emergency.
Next, she scrolled to her boyfriend’s number. Maddie hesitated before pushing Send. Maybe she should wait, call Justin after it was too late for him to insist on coming. Finding the right time to introduce the aspiring country-western singer was . . . dicey. Choosing this moment to spring the announcement that she planned to move in with him when her current lease expired was . . . suicidal. Snow had better survival odds in the eternal lake of fire.
Tears streamed down Maddie’s cheeks. She brushed them away. This wasn’t her father’s fault. Unlike Momma, the good pastor never expected someone to jump in and rescue him. Maddie’s breath hitched in her chest. Without Daddy, who would quiet the storm of her exasperating mother in cahoots with a rule-chiseling God?
Surrounded by a circle of stunned church members, Leona sank onto the threadbare couch in the parsonage living room. A plate of food appeared under her nose, but she shook her head and waved it away. Behind her, she could hear the quiet rumblings of concern rippling through the multitude as if turning down potluck fare ranked near blasphemy.
Let them think what they want.
Maybe if she had made a sign years ago that said, “Don’t feed the preacher,” J.D.’s arteries would not have been clogged by the abundance of cholesterol-laden casseroles that appeared every time two or more Christians gathered in one spot.
Roxie broke through the disquieted throng, her face a billboard of concern. “Girlfriend, the Storys are here.”
Leona eyed the Mason jar Roxie held far out in front of her as if the pickled contents were radioactive. In her mind, she popped up from the worn furniture and tended to the horde of unexpected guests. But after a quick glance at her clasped hands lying in her lap, Leona realized her sluggish body was not cooperating with her good intentions. With a concerted effort, she hauled herself to the edge of the couch. “We’re gonna need more chairs.”
“You stay put. I know where these go. I’ll send someone to the church for a few folding chairs.” Stiff-armed, Roxie marched the quart of homegrown baby gherkins to the kitchen, and Leona allowed her upper body to fall back against the green and gold plaid upholstery.
“Yoo-hoo.” Nola Gay Story pressed through the crowd, reminding Leona of a desperate World War II bomber plane looking for Hiroshima. The elderly woman gave her a pitying look, then offered a veined hand. “Sister and I are so sorry about the passing of Brother Harper.”
“Thank you.” Why was she thanking people? Shouldn’t they be thanking her for sacrificing her husband for the good of the cause? She released Nola’s calloused hand, shirking her too-little, too-late benevolence.
Etta May Story, Nola’s twin and constant wingman, wiggled in close, her bare leg a glaring testimony to the failure of knee-highs to restrain excessive varicose veins. “Sister and I never figured J.D. Harper to be the dramatic type, but he certainly went home with a glorious flair.”
Nola Gay turned to Etta May. “That we could all meet our Maker with the words of the Lord upon our lips. Almost makes you wish women could preach, doesn’t it, Sister?” Her jowls jiggled agreement.
Leona diverted her eyes. The swaying motion gave her a touch of seasickness. Erecting her body position adjusted her sightline, but now her focus lighted on identical feathered lips moving in unison, but emitting a garbled sound. Her mind drifted back eighteen years to the day the Harper U-Haul arrived at the two-story yellow brick parsonage. Leona had expected a shady wraparound porch, an anxious welcoming committee, and a tall glass of lemonade. What she got: a flat, crusty yard with a fire ant mound the size of a small child and two blue-haired bookends waving the first place ribbon the last pastor’s wife won for her pickled peaches.
“Do you can, dear?” Nola Gay had asked as she charged down the sidewalk.
“No,” Leona reluctantly admitted, ashamed she was making such a poor first impression on what must surely be two of the charter members of their new congregation.
“For crisp pickles, you must pick the short, chunkier cucumbers.” Etta May pointed to the dark green specimens stuffed inside a glass jar.
“But not bloated, Sister,” Nola Gay clarified.
Etta May nodded agreement. “Pick an overripe cucumber, and you will have mushy pickles for certain.”
A sudden whiff of apple cider and cloves, the Storys’ trademark fragrance, acted as smelling salts, reviving Leona from her catatonic disconnect. How quickly the last eighteen years had passed. Where had the time gone?
Life was short. Way . . . too . . . short.
She remembered thinking these very thoughts the day she took her oldest to college and again two years later when she dropped off her youngest. Children growing up is a transition a person knows will come, a pain that can be prepared for. But becoming a widow before the closing prayer had never crossed her mind. Not ever.
Blinking back tears, Leona dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue as the matching weathered faces hovering over her came into focus.
Etta May’s stout finger poked Leona’s shoulder. “Aren’t the children coming home?”
Leona bristled, her mind rifling through acceptable Christlike retorts.
Get ye behind me, Satan
came to mind, but she didn’t trust her tone in the delivery. So she nodded.
“Sister, that Brewer woman told you at the door that David and Maddie were on their way.” Nola Gay leaned in close, her breath smelling of denture cream. She dropped her voice. “Do you think it wise to fraternize with an Episcopalian?”
Clenching her teeth against her coiled tongue, Leona shrugged. Cucumber beetles had better survival odds in the old girls’ garden than she had of adjusting their conviction on who would or would not populate heaven. She took a deep breath, rearranging her irritation into a forced smile. “Nola Gay, why don’t you and Etta May help yourselves to the Coca-Cola cake Bette Bob brought over? I know how you both love chocolate. I think the ladies have set up the food in the dining room.”
“Always thinking of others.” Etta May’s blue-tinged head bobbed in pleased admiration.
Simultaneously the sisters dusted Leona’s shoulders, linked arms, then shuffled through the congested living room. “Bette Bob, where’s that chocolate?”
Slumping on the couch like the limp dishrag she was, Leona chided herself. Why hadn’t she told those two busybodies what they could do with their opinion of her best friend’s salvation, and their infuriating implication that the preacher’s children were anything less than perfect?
J.D. always said, “Leona, the day will come when you will have to choose between being a perpetual doormat or standing up for yourself.”
Leona felt her insides tumble together and sink. She never expected today would be the day.
Only one woman could part a crowded living room as if she were Moses holding a staff over the Red Sea. But wiggling into panty hose with wet legs would be easier than picturing Roberta Worthington hobnobbing with God’s chosen.
“Mother?” Freeing herself from Roxie’s protective grip, Leona rose from the couch. “How’d you get here so fast?”
“This dusty spot in the road is only a two-hour drive from the city, Leona. If you came home more often you’d—”
“Bertie.” Roxie flew to Leona’s side, russet hairs atop her head standing at attention like the ruff of a riled guard dog. “Nice to see you again. Can I take your coat? Get you something to drink?”
Fire flared in her mother’s eyes, and Leona doubted if there was enough sweet tea in all of Mt. Hope to douse the flame licking those beady pupils.
“Mother, I’m sure you remember some of the folks from the church.” Leona started the introductions with the wide-eyed Maxine parked on the far end of the couch, working her way around the room. As she neared the Storys, her mother held up a flattened hand.
“I’m an agnostic, Leona, not an Alzheimer’s invalid. What I remember is that I never liked any of these country do-gooders.”
Despite their congregation’s uncanny ability to try the limits of brotherly love, Leona cringed at her own mother’s blatant rejection of God and the extended family that came with knowing him. Years of praying had affected no thaw in her mother’s hardened heart.
Roxie cut through the tension, clamping an arm around Roberta’s shoulder. “How about I help Bertie find a cup of coffee and a few kind words?” She flashed her don’t-mess-with-me smile, the one she reserved for crotchety old geezers who complained about the scourge of foreign cars upon the American automobile industry while frequenting her auto parts store.
Raising a perfectly penciled-in brow, Leona’s mother steadied her aim on Roxie. “A cup of coffee would be nice.”
Releasing her grip, Roxie mumbled something Leona guessed was better not repeated. She stomped off to the kitchen, where Leona suspected her next-door neighbor would regroup, then return with a vengeance. Squirming under her mother’s sizing gaze, Leona prayed that Roxie would not dally. She hoped that petition got better results than her pleas to change her mother.
Concentrating on each Italian-leathered tip of her gloved fingers, Leona’s mother seemed to relish the mental stress her restrained quiet added to the room’s general discomfort. “After my driver deposited me here, I sent him to the airport to get the children.” She extracted a manicured hand from the cashmere lining, then repeated the yanking process on the other hand.
“Mother, I wish you had asked me before you made poor Melvin drive back to the city. Cotton has gone to fetch Maddie. And David plans to take a taxi because his flight is getting in so late.” Leona pinched the throbbing place between her eyes. Any moment she expected the pain to explode into a full-fledged migraine.
“Well, as usual, you have everything under control. Obviously, you don’t need your mother.” She paired the gloves and dropped them into her oversized Gucci handbag.
“That’s not true.” Leona put her arms around her stiffened mother and gave her a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re here. Really I am.” Surely the Lord would forgive this tiny fib considering the dire circumstances.
Her mother took a small step back. “It’s just that I hate to think of my granddaughter climbing into that rattletrap vehicle your church janitor calls a truck. But you’ve always allowed Madison more freedom than I would have.”