Suncatchers (65 page)

“He's probably just nervous about all the firecrackers,” Willard said.

“Well, I'm going to give him a little sliver of cake,” Eldeen said, getting up. “Hormel's a funny dog—I don't know if you know it or not, Perry, but he just has the biggest fit over anything
sweet
.” She cut a small slice of cake and put it on a paper napkin. “This'll let him know we haven't forgot him.”

“Be careful on the steps, Mama,” Jewel said.

“I will. I will,” Eldeen said, taking her gray cape off the coat peg behind the door. “I never have fallen yet.” Perry watched her leave. He felt the rush of cold air as she opened and closed the kitchen door, heard her slowly stumping down the steps, calling eagerly to Hormel, her voice pitched in the high register normally reserved for talking to babies. “I hear you, Hormel, you sweet little thing. Here comes old Eldeen with some dessert for her favorite little pooch.”

Perry felt a sudden urge to go after her, to talk to her alone, to tell her about all the things he had learned from her, about the voice on the radio reading from Isaiah, about reading the same passage to Dinah last week, about the beautiful sunrise he and Dinah had watched together early this morning before he left Rockford, about the poem he had quoted to her, the one that started, “I'll tell you how the sun rose / A ribbon at a time.” Eldeen would like that. She appreciated Emily Dickinson.

Willard was looking at him, smiling expectantly.

“Sorry, did you say something?” Perry said.

“I said you'll have to come back to Derby in the spring so we can go fishing again and try out all the tips in the book you gave me.”

“Oh, right—the book,” Perry said. “I had forgotten. I hope you didn't have it already.”

“No, not at all.” Willard shook his head. “You'd think since I like both books and fish so much that I'd at least have seen it, but I hadn't. It's really interesting. I was reading the chapter on the striped bass just this afternoon.” Perry couldn't imagine reading a book about fish on the day before your wedding, but then he didn't have the slightest recollection of how he had spent the day before his own wedding. He had probably done something every bit as incomprehensible. What were appropriate prewedding activities anyway?

“Well, since we're talking about Christmas presents, Joe Leonard has something to show you,” Jewel said as she refilled Perry's cup of coffee. “Mama didn't already tell you, did she?” she said to Perry.

“I don't think so,” Perry said. Of course, Eldeen had told him so much as he was unloading the car that he couldn't be sure. Joe Leonard grinned and left the table. He came back into the kitchen a minute later carrying his tuba case. Upon closer look, however, Perry realized it was a different case. The green tape around the handle was missing, and the latches on this one were bright silver.

Joe Leonard laid the case on its side and slowly raised the lid. Inside, against a deep blue plush lining, lay a shiny new tuba. Joe Leonard lifted it out and brought it over to Perry, his eyes sparkling with pride.

Perry pushed his chair back and gingerly took the instrument. It felt cold and solid. He looked back up at Joe Leonard. “This is really yours?” he asked, and the boy nodded.

“Willard gave it to me for Christmas,” he said.

“Well, not totally,” Willard said. “Jewel got a special price on it from this place over in Greenville.”

“Pecknel Music Company,” Jewel said. “They give discounts to music teachers.”

“And Joe Leonard already had over three hundred dollars saved toward it,” Willard continued. “Sometime last year I had started putting back money for a piano for my apartment, but then when Jewel and I got engaged and we decided I'd move in over here, I knew we didn't need another piano, so I just switched my plans to a different musical instrument. So, you see, I didn't exactly buy it for him. We all pitched in together.”

“Well, he bought most of it,” Joe Leonard said. “And Mr. Beatty drove over to Greenville and helped Mama pick it out,” he told Perry.

“And Mr. Beatty came to church last Sunday to hear Joe Leonard play a solo on it,” Jewel said. She looked at Joe Leonard and smiled. “And I believe he played better than he's ever played before. It was so quiet when he finished that I almost wished we could have just sat there for a while thinking about the words to that song.”

“Play us some of it, Joe Leonard,” Willard said. Joe Leonard looked embarrassed, but he took the tuba from Perry and put in the mouthpiece. Perry recognized the tune at once. It was another favorite song at the Church of the Open Door. The words came swiftly to his mind as if he had known them all his life: “I hear the Savior say, ‘Thy strength indeed is small, Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all.'”

Joe Leonard had just begun the chorus—“Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe”—when it occurred to Perry that Eldeen should be back inside by now. He glanced toward the kitchen door, but there was no sign of her. “Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.” It was a simple hymn, one Perry had liked the first time he had heard it almost a year ago. He still remembered the names printed under the title—Elvina M. Hall and John T. Grape. He remembered wondering which had come first, the words or the music. Had Elvina sent the poem to John to set to music, or had John written out the melody first and asked Elvina to write words for it? Had the two even known each other?

“I like it,” Perry said. “I like it a lot. The tuba and the song both.”

“I've always loved that song,” Jewel said.

Perry looked over to the kitchen door again. There was no sound from outside except the occasional crackling of fireworks. What was taking Eldeen so long? He wished she would come back inside. He had so much he wanted to tell her. He wanted to let her know about another praise she could mention in prayer meeting next week—the thing she had been praying for ever since he had come to Derby. He wanted to tell her that it was her poem that had spurred him to action. He wanted to see her face when he told her about the decision he had made alone in his car in the dark hours of Christmas morning.

Joe Leonard stooped down to set his tuba back inside the case. Jewel stood to gather the empty cake saucers, and Willard got up to run a sink of hot water. Perry stood and stretched, then walked over to the door and pulled back the green-checked curtain. The porch light shone on the empty concrete steps, the slender black handrail, the station wagon in the driveway, the back fence gate.

It was the gate that sent a chill of alarm through Perry. It was open, flattened back against the fence, the dark backyard gaping ominously behind it. There was no sign of Eldeen or Hormel.

At the exact moment that Perry reached for the doorknob and turned it, a car horn blared, followed immediately by the sounds of screeching tires and crunching metal.

The other three turned to look out the kitchen door, which Perry had now opened. Jewel set the saucers down with a clatter and crossed her hands under her neck. “That was close by,” she whispered.

In the few seconds it took Perry to get out the door and down the steps to the driveway, his mind was flooded with horrible thoughts. What if something had happened to Eldeen? When was he ever going to learn not to put things off, to go ahead and speak his mind when the opportunity first arose? Why hadn't he obeyed the impulse to go with her when she went out to feed Hormel?

Time seemed to stop as he ran out to the street. Surely God wouldn't do this to him. Surely this wasn't what he was going to have to face as a Christian—unpredictable tragedies and lost chances.
Please let her be all right
, he prayed.

The accident had happened in front of the St. Johns' house. A teenaged boy was standing beside the open door of a Ford Mustang looking dazed as he surveyed the sight before him. The front end of his Mustang was buried in the side of Tim St. John's old Dodge van that was parked at the curb. “My dad's gonna kill me,” he kept saying to no one in particular.

One of the DePalma girls came flying out of her house and ran toward him calling, “My word, Stevie! What happened?” Perry heard loud music coming from the DePalmas' house and saw several more teenagers crowding through the front door to get outside. “Hey, Baker, what's up?” one of them shouted. The St. Johns' door opened, and the porch light snapped on.

Perry was taking all of this in, though at the moment none of it seemed to matter in the least to him. The teenaged boy's misery seemed like such a trifle right now. All the inconvenience of car repairs and insurance companies meant nothing. He was in the middle of the cul-de-sac now, but he couldn't see Eldeen anywhere.

“My dad's gonna kill me,” the boy said again. Tim St. John, wearing a bathrobe, was brandishing a flashlight as he walked toward the curb.

And then he saw her. She stepped out from the other side of the St. Johns' van, and Perry could see that she was holding Hormel in her arms. Her voice rose above all the others, and at the sound of it Perry felt a wave of great joy wash over him. Eldeen was alive and well. He lifted his eyes to the midnight sky and said, “Thank you” right out loud. He was aware of Willard, Jewel, and Joe Leonard standing beside him now.

“ . . . and he just scooted out the gate and then shot lickety-split out in front of this poor feller's car!” Eldeen was saying. “Oh, Hormel, you naughty dog, just looka here at the mischief you've done caused.” She stroked the dog's head, then gave him a couple of light taps on his rear as token punishment. Hormel seemed oblivious. He was looking around bright-eyed at all the excitement and panting slightly.

“‘Course, you know you
was
going too fast along here, don't you, honey?” Eldeen said to the boy. “This here's a dead end, don't you know? You might of hit that van anyways without any provocation from Hormel, but I sure do feel bad that he dashed out in front of you thataway. I'll be glad to talk to your daddy and explain what all happened and try to soothe him down.”

“It wouldn't help,” the boy said, shaking his head. “Nothing will.”

Eldeen stepped closer to the boy and patted his arm. “It's gonna be all right, honey. Don't you fret. They'll fix up your car and Mr. St. John's van like they was brand-spanking-new. We can tell your daddy that.”

“He's gonna kill me,” the boy said, looking at his car. “This was my Christmas present. It's only a week old.”

“Oh, well, now that sure is a misfortune,” Eldeen said. “I sure do hate that.” Jewel had gone to stand beside her by now and had her hand on Eldeen's back.

Tim St. John spoke up. “I guess we'd better get the police out here to file an accident report.” He motioned toward his front door. “You can come inside and call your folks,” he told the boy.

Perry walked forward briskly and took Eldeen's elbow. “Here, let's go home,” he said. “You don't need to be standing out here in the cold like this.”

She smiled sadly at him. Her cape had somehow gotten twisted sideways, and her hair stuck up on top like the ragged plumage of a homely bird. “But I might need to give my testimony to the policeman,” she said.

Perry didn't have the slightest doubt that she'd give more than one testimony to the police. “Well, Tim will tell them where to find you,” he said. “Let's get you back inside.” Together, he and Jewel turned her gently toward home, the clasps on her black boots tinkling faintly with each step she took.

“I've got something important to tell all of you,” Perry said.

“Well, now, I wonder what that can be,” Eldeen said, brightening. “You hear that, Hormel? Perry's got something big to tell us! Oh, I
do
love a surprise—if it's a happy one, that is. I'm not too fond of the other kind!”

“You'll like this one,” Perry said.

The night was pitch dark except for the glowing crescent of moon and the distant sparkle of fireworks. But the sun would come up in the east, Perry told himself as they walked toward Jewel's house. The sun would come up and shine through all the windows, and color would spill out over the new year.

Reading Group Questions

A reading group is a great way for book lovers to share their reading experiences and enhance their enjoyment and understanding of a book. To learn more about reading groups, please visit Bethany House Publisher's Web site at:
www.bethanyhouse.com

————

1. Perry Warren admits to living the life of an observer. Does this make him better at his job of being a sociologist? What complications in his faltering personal life arise from this personality trait? Does this view of himself as observer change as the book progresses?
   
2. Marriage problems are at the heart of Perry's move to Derby, and at one point he wants desperately to warn a young couple of the “sad truth about marriage.” What is that “sad truth” he thinks he understands? Is it “truth”? What do the flashbacks about his interactions with Dinah reveal about their marriage? What are the most important lessons he learns from Brother Hawthorne about the
   real
   truth regarding marriage?
   
3. Perry is a man of contradictions. His wife complains about his lack of spontaneity, yet in relation to his sister, he sees himself as the carefree child. Organization, particularly when it comes to his book, is a difficult thing for him. What is so complicated for him about it? How does the “divine orchestration” of everyday events by God oppose everything he believes about the way the world operates?
   
4. Eldeen is a larger-than-life character. In her presence Jewel, Joe Leonard, and Perry all appear small and quiet. Is this just her personality, or is it something that she has learned or acquired over the years? Is there any point in the story where she is
   too
   overwhelming?
   
5. The book is quartered into four sections, each titled with a kind of light—candlelight, firelight, starlight, and sunlight. How does the progression of section titles correlate with Perry's time in Derby? Do you think any of the characters appear as though they might “burn out,” as Perry wondered?
   
6. On his evening walk through his neighborhood, Perry begins thinking about “dividing lines and starting points.” Later, he tries to think back through his time at Derby but isn't able to organize his thoughts coherently enough. What do you think was the “starting point” of Perry's conversion? Or the dividing line that changed his thinking on his role as a husband? What was the dividing line in Jewel's life? Is Perry's philosophy correct in that there is one particular moment where things begin to change in a person's life?
   
7. Perry arrives in Derby with preconceptions about the people and the culture he will explore. In what ways do the town and the people meet those notions? How do they defy them? Is it acceptable for a researcher to have preconceptions about his subject? How do generic terms such as “fundamentalism” feed predetermined viewpoints of people like Perry's agent, Cal? What preconceptions exist today about Christians and, within Christianity, about the secular world? How can these be broken down?
   
8. One of Perry's quirks is the fear that he will suddenly open his mouth and say something ridiculous or that he will suddenly do something insane. What, in particular, is he worried about? How must being around Eldeen affect this fear? What happens the few times he does burst out (e.g., the auction)?
   
9. There is a constant play between brokenness and wholeness. From the first scene where Perry watches Jewel sweep, many things are categorized as “broken” or “fixed.” How are Jewel and Perry alike in this sense? How is Perry used to “fix” so many things when so much else around him remains shattered? Besides his marriage, what else could he be referring to in his prayer for God to “fix this thing”? What still remains broken at the end of the book?
   
10. Jewel catches on much earlier than the others to Perry's intentions in Derby. Why doesn't she confront him face-to-face? How would you characterize her interactions with other characters in the book? Are they all affected by the secret she'd held for so long? What is problematic with the question she asks herself before she speaks, and what is useful in the question (i.e., “Are these the last words I want to say to a person?”)?
    
11. The snow globe becomes a central image in the book. Explain its significance to Perry and the subtle way it changes in meaning throughout the book. Who “shakes” Perry's world the most? Does fixing the snow globe really imply a fixed life—or is there more to life than living in a sealed and secure world?
    
12. Two things Perry wants to witness in Derby are a wedding and a funeral. He sees the wedding but throughout the book seems to be preoccupied with death. Is this a natural preoccupation for a middle-aged man, or is it indicative of something deeper? Dissect Perry's conversation with Cal at the end of the book. How has his attitude toward death changed? How has Cal's changed?
    
13. Joe Leonard speaks the least of any main character in the book. His words often leave a lasting impression on Perry though. What is the significance of Joe Leonard seeing Perry as a “big brother”? Does that relationship really exist? How does Joe Leonard answer Cal's demand for Perry to use the children of the church as a barometer?
    
14. Jerry remembers Dinah saying at one point, “The supreme irony of it all is that Perry Warren, the sociologist, the writer, the famous reporter of human behavior, has no clue about what's underneath a relationship.” Is this a fair assessment by his wife? What lessons does he learn at Derby? Do you think he learns more about himself or more about other people? What is the true goal of any sociologic study?
    
15. At a number of points throughout the story, Perry gives interesting, and sometimes unflattering, descriptions of himself. “Chief Field Mouse” is the name given him by Levi Hawthorne. How does this name differ with the self-description he gives during the Monopoly game? Which is closer to how he actually acts? How can he be an observer of the present when he's constantly rummaging through old memories?
    
16. The title of the book is
    Suncatchers
    . With whom do the tiny objects correlate most closely? If you were to make a suncatcher for each character, what object would they be? Why is this the title of the book?