The Lutheran Ladies' Circle: Plucking One String (23 page)

THE SKY SHONE like a furnace light in the west, leaving the group at the bottom of the hill sitting in the shadows. The pastor was speaking, but Vera didn’t hear a word. She stared at the top of the ridge where the sun’s last rays bathed a tall green cedar in light. The fingers protruding from the cast on her left arm felt cold. There was a chill here, not because they were committing a body to the earth, but because the vale was bordered by a row of thick-limbed elms casting ever-darkening shadows across the mourners.

Vera stood. Cradling the sling on her arm, she left the graveside funeral, taking a short asphalt path to the ridge of a hill. Several people caught each other’s eyes, nodding and whispering, “She’s been through so much.” The old-school folks made a point of not seeing her walk away. The rules were unstated, yet understood depending on the decade you were born. Older mourners had been trained that throwing up was the only reason to parade out of a service. Fainting or dying could be done in-seat as long as it didn’t distract from the speaker. Younger funeral-goers held a different frame of mind. They came and went, especially during prayers, as though pausing to personally talk to God was a commercial break in the service.

Vera felt their gaze and shook off their stares. If her mother had been around, she would’ve thumped the top of Vera’s ear and hissed, “You get back to that funeral right now. What will people think? ” Her mother had had rules. There’d been rules about everything. They could think what they wanted. For the first time in 60 years she refused to censure herself for selfish thoughts.

At the top of the hill she gazed across the skies. Towering white clouds sculpted by high-altitude winds resembled steeds romping across the horizon. Patchy shadows appeared and disappeared on the ground in front of her as the thunder-ponies rolled eastward. A white mausoleum gleamed in the slant of early evening sunlight. A small creek splashed along the fence line separating the manicured grounds from wild weeds and bushy scrub oak. She sat on a granite bench, her back to the ceremony, her eyes to the sky, enjoying the sun’s heat across her shoulders.

She gave herself permission to cry. Nothing happened. It wasn’t grief that had led her away. It was the need to sit in the light, to be still, and to listen, a gift from being trapped in a bathtub in the blackness. A rebellious tickle flitted in her stomach. Lately, she’d begun disobeying a lifetime of shoulds, have tos, and what other people thought. She’d begun questioning those rules. Clothes couldn’t be too flamboyant—a pastor’s family isn’t a bunch of showy peacocks. Houses couldn’t be too fancy—they’ll think his salary is too high. No bad language, edgy movies, or suspect friends—always set an example. When Vera was young, she’d argued that many of Jesus’s buddies wouldn’t have made the “approved” list. That had earned her a month of laundry duties. “Simple and moderate in all things” had been drummed into her, or she’d be an embarrassment to her grandfather, her father, and her husband.

They were all dead now. Jim had inconsiderately left her stranded. He’d abandoned her with who she was when she was with him—half of a pair. She didn’t recognize that person.

When he’d died, people had looked at her with eyes of concern, telling her how strong she was, but what choice was there? Keep going the way she always had, or fold in on herself. No one had told her—until Gus had relayed the message—there was a third option.

Perhaps others had said it before, but not until she’d been pinned down, still and listening, was she ready to hear. She could keep going, but in a new way, discover who she was, what she liked, how she fit now that everything had changed. It seemed like a daunting task, requiring energy she didn’t have.

She’d tied her identity to a perishable role, and when all of it went away, she’d felt lost. A nobody standing in a world where everyone else was connected. Kay had been right; her God
had
been too small. Years of being a preacher’s kid had hammered her with too much humility to want to be a peacock, but as the pastor’s wife and the head hen for 30 years, she’d enjoyed a little bright plumage—a false sense of control. Now she had to learn to let go. Trust like the sparrows.

The eternal question reared its head. How? Staying busy hadn’t worked out too well. She needed to find answers, to hold up the individual shards of her life, inspecting them like a jeweler assayed gems. No doubt some of her finer pieces would turn out to be sandstone. Resculpting was coming. She wished Jim were here to help on this journey, to look at who she was, what she’d done. But he wasn’t.

Sunlight shimmered on the water. She inhaled the fragrant scent of the kingly cedar near the mausoleum. Wind chimes tinkled in its limbs. Behind her, the whine of an electric cart whirred up the path and pulled to a stop. Soft whispers and the
thunk
of the brake being set floated to her ears. Finally Kay’s voice quietly called, “Feel like company?” Without turning, Vera raised a hand, beckoning with her fingers.

“I’ve never been to a service like that,” Kay said as she walked to the bench and sat down. “I didn’t know your neighbor was an internationally-known ornithologist. They did a warbler’s tribute to him.”

“That’s why the funeral was outdoors and so late in the day.” A sad, tender smile crossed Vera’s face. “They wanted to hear the birds’ evening songs.”

“They made a racket like a symphony of flutophones.” Aunt Ula used the back of her hand to tap Vera’s thigh, signaling her to scoot over and share the bench. “Why did Kay pick me up from the hospital instead of you? What were you doing? You couldn’t have been organizing this picaroon-fest; you wouldn’t have hiked off.”

A crosshatch of stitches trailed above the old woman’s eye and a bruise, yellowing at the edges, mottled her face from her hairline to below her ear. She’d been in the hospital getting “poked with every procedure since bloodletting. They even had me pee on a stick,” she’d claimed. After a two-day stay, which she’d wangled into three, she’d been released, mad as a Lutheran goose because Vera had stayed only one day with her broken wing.

“I was selling the Olds,” Vera said. “It was still in what was left of the garage, sporting dents, but it started. I got rid of it.”

“Why? Dents give it character. My Subaru looked like a hammered tin can by the time they made me stop driving.”

“Because I want a blue Mini Cooper, and we’ve always bought cars as big as party pontoons so we could haul parishioners to meetings and kids to events.”

No one replied. The wind chimes
tinked
in the tree as the layers of meaning in Vera’s words soaked in. Aunt Ula gently touched her bruised cheek checking for pain. “You should’ve gotten an electric car,” she said quietly.

“Probably. But I’m not sure I’d have a spot to recharge it in the future.”

“Why? Kay told me we didn’t have to stay in a hotel. We could kindly berth with her until we got on our feet. Aren’t you rebuilding?”

“I don’t know. At first I was devastated. There were so many memories in that home. But with each passing day, I also remember how that house was trying to betray me to every repairman in the phone book. The tornado finished it off before I did. I don’t have anything left to furnish a home. I’ve been downsized. My purse and photo albums have been lost; I wish I had those, but I can get by without the rest. I’ve been thinking—maybe we’ll move into a retirement center.”

Kay leaned forward, looking at Vera. “I promised Aunt Ula I’d help if there were an opportunity. You’re both welcome to stay for as long as you need, and the truth is I’m being selfish. My boys have moved in with their dad. The walls are echoing. Every room feels too big. I’d appreciate the company.”

“This’ll be a hoot that’ll last about a day before you cart us to a hotel.” Aunt Ula squinted one eye and jerked her thumb at Vera. “Do you know how hard she is to get along with?”

“I want to travel,” Vera blurted out. “Jim worked almost every Sunday and holiday. We never went far when we did get away.”

“Who are you? I thought I was the one who got hit in the head.” Aunt Ula’s eyes sparked blue, and her mouth quirked into a smile. “Listen, don’t worry about me. It’s time for you to be alone. The healing starts when you cry and grieve. You can’t do that with people looking over your shoulder. Do something for you. Maybe it’d help if you’d dabble in a few clarinet lessons.”

“How about if we take it week by week, and the music lessons…” She tried to give a
caw
as a warning signal. Her voice cracked. She’d meant it to be humorous, but it stilled the conversation.

In the vale below them, a cemetery worker casually peeked around a tree. Seeing no mourners in the immediate area, he rubbed his smoke against the trunk, pocketed the butt, then prepped the site. He waved to another worker who drove a tractor with a front end loader and began pushing dirt into the open cavity. The women glanced at the noise.

“I need to talk to you.” Aunt Ula slid a sideways peek at her niece then looked away.

“I’ll leave you two,” Kay said, getting to her feet.

“No, stay.” Aunt Ula waved her back down. “You’ll hear much worse in the upcoming weeks, I’m sure.” Kay sat. The whine of the tractor engine stretched out for minutes before Aunt Ula spoke, her head bowed. “Do you think I killed Gus?”

Vera patted the old woman’s leg. “No. I don’t. I’ve thought about that night. No. He died of a heart attack.”

“But if I hadn’t gone over there, he could’ve lounged in the tub by himself. He’d have been stretched out, calm and relaxed, instead of trying to push his way out and impress us.”

“You can’t be sure of that. If we’d stayed at our house or he hadn’t let us in, we’d be dead. He’d finished his last job on this side of resurrection and he was done. I’m sure it was something he didn’t even consider important. I think each of us have tasks we’re created to do. We’ll be at the right place at the right time to say or do something that will make a difference in someone’s life, and we probably won’t even be aware of it. It was time for him to go.”

“What was the task? Saving our lives?”

She shrugged. “Or maybe it was the message reminding me who’s really in control. Or perhaps his death made an impact on one of those college boys who’ll create tornado-resistant houses in the future. We can’t see the design for weaving our lives together. We’ll never know.”

The tractor had left. Stillness settled over the cemetery. Aunt Ula pulled at the hem of her jacket. “I still think it’s our fault. He was lying between us. He hadn’t been with even one woman in years…much less two. He probably got so aroused, his ticker couldn’t take it.”

Vera smiled, raising her eyebrows twice as she stood. “Then he went out happy.”

Kay snorted.

Aunt Ula stared.

“I’m going to his tribute dinner. I suggested our church would do it for his family and they accepted. Do you feel well enough to go?” Vera asked. “Lorena organized it.”

A smile lilted through Kay’s voice. “After the service, Lorena began herding everyone to the church. I thought I’d have to run over her to drive up here. All she needs is a megaphone and a sharp stick to complete her ascension to queen bee.”

“I hope she enjoys the post. I’m retiring from running the hive. I’m moving to a different adventure.”

“Good. Let’s go,” Aunt Ula said as she got into the golf cart. “Because I’m starved for cake, and I want to see if LoWena hauled out those black flower vases for table decorations. You want a ride, Vera? The cemetery director got one look at me, thought
lawsuit
, and offered us this nifty conveyance. I may’ve helped his opinion and anchored the deal by acting like I was a little crippled.”

Vera waved them on and began walking. The cart passed her. She heard Aunt Ula suggesting side trips and watched the old woman intermittently tug the steering wheel, veering Kay off course. Snippets of their conversation floated back as they weaved down the hillside. “At least I got rid of that piano,” “I don’t think you can take credit for that…”

As Vera passed the grave, she saw a few sparrows hopping between sprays of flowers and scratching the dirt clods. She paused and gave a whistle. The birds ignored her. She didn’t know their song. There were more notes to learn than the one string she’d plucked most of her life. She stepped closer and waved her fingers, playing an imaginary chord. The birds took flight.

She stared at the grave. One part of her journey had ended. The next was beginning. A sudden thought brightened her face. She hadn’t been left alone.

This wasn’t the trip she would’ve planned, and they weren’t the companions she would’ve chosen, but she’d been gifted with travel-mates for the next part of the journey. Challenging women, seasoned by life, thrown together through different circumstances, helping one another walk into only God knew what.

She gazed at the golf cart wheeling on and off the path. Beyond them, the last of the sunlight bladed the horizon. Above, sparrows sang and swooped through the sky.

She began walking, a smile curling the corner of her mouth. The world turned just fine without any help from the Manager of the Universe—Retired.

***

THE SEEDS FOR this story were planted when a bitty girl. I’d hide under the quilting frame whenever the cantankerous German women gathered to gab and sew. Years, longer legs, and straight stitches finally allowed me a chair at the frame.; I learned more about “how things really worked” from them than all the bucks I paid for college degrees.

My thanks to those ladies for teaching me a spiritual woman can be strong-spined, open-minded, and most of all—intelligent

To the Chrysalis Writers for gladly sharing their inside tips and including me in the school of support-ology.

I appreciate the line-by-line inspection of Kelly Wigmore and Enna Grahmer. I owe you a new set of eyeballs. To Lisa Nowak, who held my hand or kicked my backside, depending what was needed at the time.

A note of apology to the gang at Zion Lutheran and the town of Stillwater as a whole, which shares a geographic location but bears no resemblance to the environs of this novel. (But thanks for the memories.)