Rising Above Shepherdsville Read online

  Their words prickled like thorns. Stuck in my craw but good. But I understood how people could get the wrong impression.

  “Crazy.” Webster’s definition: “having flaws or cracks; shaky or rickety; unsound.”

  C-r-a-z-y l-i-k-e y-o-u-r m-a-m-a.

  • • •

  Ray told me you were baking cookies, of all things.

  The morning after he accidentally ripped the screen door off Shirleen’s house, he made me eggs for breakfast. He didn’t say a word about taking me to Shepherdsville. I figured he’d forgotten what he’d said: “I’ll be staying with Shirleen from now on. I’m driving you to Bernie’s farm tomorrow, first thing.”

  He stood at the stove, red-eyed, staring at the pan in front of him. His voice was gravelly, as if he were coughing up pebbles.

  “Listen, I know you’ve got questions, Dulcie.”

  Well, Mama, he had that right.

  He broke eggs, poured in the milk.

  I sat at the dinette booth and looked out at the court. The flagpole out front rose to the sky, surrounded at the base by drooping petunias that hadn’t been watered in days. All the trailers sat grouped in a circle, giving the impression they were eavesdropping on Ray’s every word.

  He whipped the eggs into a froth with a fork.

  “She’d had a hard time of it when I met her. You know that.”

  He told me the story of how he met you, Mama, how he’d seen you at the Starliner, balancing burgers and fries like an acrobat in the circus. “She was something else, your mama.” When Ray found out we were living at the YWCA and that you were paying most of your paycheck to a babysitter for me, he brought you to his mama’s house. He told me how he and Shirleen took us in, cared for you and me, like we were family. Later, when he’d bought the trailer at Lilac Court for us to live in, you’d kept on paying him rent. “She insisted on that. Didn’t want to be dependent on nobody.” Ray’s voice got soft. “But now, things gotta change, girl. I’m sorry. I gotta do what’s right by you. Your mama never meant . . .” His words trailed off.

  Swirling some butter around in the pan, Ray poured in the eggs, then leaned on the counter.

  I picked at my thumbnail. There was a rip there, and I dug at it.

  Ray cleared his throat.

  “It was an accident, Dulce. She was making cookies, is all. She probably wanted to surprise you. A congratulations for doing well at the spelling bee. She knew you’d win, don’t ya see? She believed in you, ya know.”

  Ray’s eyes never left the eggs, not one glance my way. He seemed to be telling himself, not me.

  I wanted to ask, “Well, if she was baking cookies, what kind were they, Ray? Chocolate chip? Oatmeal? And how come a woman who never so much as baked a cake a day in her life, all of a sudden got it into her head to whip up a batch of baked goods, like she was Betty Crocker?”

  “She turned the oven on, probably to preheat it—most likely didn’t even know that the pilot light wasn’t lit. Hardly used the thing, as it was.”

  I leaned back and put my feet up under me. I wrapped my arms and legs like I was ready to cannonball into the lake.

  I could hear the scrape-scrape of a fork against the pan as Ray piled the eggs onto a plate.

  “It was an accident, is all. You know she’d been tired, working so many shifts. She just laid down to get some shut-eye before work. She only meant to nap.”

  I tried to imagine what he was saying, Mama. I thought of you lying down, curled up on the couch, the old crocheted afghan over you, breathing, and then—not.

  In my mind’s eye I watched myself tell Mrs. Whitehouse to turn the car around, take me home, I wasn’t going to the spelling bee, listening to the voice inside telling me, Something’s wrong, something’s wrong. But I didn’t do that, Mama. If I had just listened to myself—opened my mouth—then I could have saved you. I would have pulled the blanket off, opened the windows, slapped your face and shouted, Mama, Mama, loud enough for you to hear and come back to me.

  “It was just an accident,” Ray said again, putting the eggs in front of me.

  I left the eggs on the table and walked out the door, making sure it slammed. That was when he started packing my things.

  He could say it all he wanted. But he had it all wrong.

  It was my fault. I was the one who left you alone.

  3

  c-e-l-e-s-t-i-a-l

  celestial (adj.)

  of the heavens; of the sky; divine

  The church bell clanged in the distance—Reverend Love pulling the long cord by the front doors, calling us in to Bible study. No matter how much I wanted to stay put right where I was, Mama, I knew I’d best get back before somebody figured out I was missing. Reverend Love would be sure to call Aunt Bernie, who would be madder than a wet hen in a bucket.

  I made my way back through the clearing. The swans ignored me; they were clustered together near the center of the pond, busy preening. The lowering sun made it hard for me to see as I wandered back to the church through the trees. I climbed back over the fence and scurried to the rear of the building like a jackrabbit. My shoes squelched, soggy from the spongy earth near the pond, my knees were muddy, and my dress hem was in tatters.

  Winded, I rounded the corner to the picnic area. The Bible that Aunt Bernie had given me was right where I’d left it.

  Reverend Love appeared in front of me, causing me to nearly jump out of my knee socks. He leaned his head sideways, his glasses filmy with the heat, observing me with a look that I couldn’t say was good or bad. He squinted at me and cupped his eyes against the fading sun, searching the trees beyond.

  “Dulcie, there you are. I wondered what had become of you.”

  His eyes crinkled under his shaggy brows. “Come on out of there, so I don’t have to explain to Bernice how you got chiggers down your socks.” He stepped toward me, reaching out his hands like Jesus in the picture on the wall above Aunt Bernie’s television set.

  Reverend Love loped his way nearer, his long rubbery limbs not cooperating with the rest of his body. He was basketball-player-tall and young enough to sprout pimples from time to time. There was a faint scar across his right cheek that made him look fierce, when he didn’t look downright bewildered. Aunt Bernie said he was wet behind the ears but meant well. She told me the congregation was still settling in with him—fresh out of divinity college with newfangled ideas about how to run a church.

  On Sundays people would stand around in clumps, their arms crossed, whispering about the sermon, clucking like chickens. I’d overheard folks gossiping that Reverend Love had been in jail for robbing a gas station before he was a preacher. Aunt Bernie said people talked nonsense. She let me know right off she thought that Reverend Love was a bright star in a dark world. She hung on his every word as if he could unhook the moon and bring it right down to earth.

  He seemed harmless to me, more like a pretend preacher than the imposing type I imagined the Lord would set forth in the world to keep the peace and save the sinners. Reverend Love certainly couldn’t control that wild pack down in the church basement on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

  So I doubted he felt threatened by a girl who never said a word to him. Reverend Love inspected me further, his expression as unreadable as the Sphinx in Egypt, surveying the condition of my dress and my dirty knees. He shifted his head sideways and nodded out to the woods beyond the church cemetery.

  “I’ve been told there’s a swan’s nest back in there somewhere.” The corner of his mouth rose the slightest bit. “But I don’t think anyone ever goes there.”

  Quiet for a moment, he pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose, avoiding asking directly where I’d been—though clearly, he had an inkling. “Probably best to keep that a secret between you and me.”

  His eyes met mine, and I nodded. He considered the sky then, his face softening. He didn’t act particularly eager to get to Bible study either. “One of the poets, I forget which, said that swans ferry souls to heaven.
”

  Despite the warm evening, a chill danced up my arms. The strange miracle of the swan leading me to a secret place that no one knew about—except Reverend Love and me—crackled, electric and unspoken between us. We stood by the patchy field as the sky deepened into a darker blue.

  He lowered his head as if he meant to pray right there. “Some things remain hidden until they are meant to be seen.”

  The field suddenly seemed to buzz alive with sound, the night bugs and cicadas gearing up for the night ahead, making such a ruckus, my ears rang.

  “Do you ever read poetry?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I had no way to tell him, Mama, how we used to read Robert Frost poems and Shakespeare sonnets aloud at night.

  Reverend Love looked at his shoes and put his hands in his pockets. “When I was younger and had time on my hands, I read poetry every day.” I wondered if he was referring to his supposed stint in the slammer.

  He looked into the distance, his gaze faraway. “I read once that cicadas are the souls of dead poets, and the sounds they make are lamentations for all the words they meant to write. Lost poetry waiting to be heard . . .” He trailed off, lost in his thoughts.

  My eyes felt hot. The song of the coming night was louder and more insistent. Something about the way Reverend Love spoke made me consider the words I’d wanted for myself. Words from you, Mama, that I never got.

  After you were gone, Mama, I tore the trailer apart looking for some word from you—a note, anything. I looked in every cabinet, pulled out drawers, tossed cushions off the couch—nothing, not one word. I wanted to believe you’d just gone to the store, or were at work, that I’d find something written down, some explanation.

  Dulcie, went to the laundromat. Do your homework. Mac and cheese in the cupboard. Big love, Mama.

  But you packed up all the words and took them with you and left only longing in their place—a permanent knot in my throat that wouldn’t come undone. As I stood next to Reverend Love, the dark field spread out before us, I imagined I could sing along with those heat bugs, join in their humming choir of longing.

  Reverend Love smacked at a mosquito. A tiny dot of blood spotted his white shirt sleeve. Whether it was the stain on his shirt or the passing of the mosquito, something appeared to sadden him.

  Reverend Love took in a long breath, pulling air deep into his lungs. He seemed as reluctant as I was to leave the deepening sky and the possibility of the heavens. He motioned toward the open door of the church. “We’d best get inside, before we become a feast.”

  I picked up my Bible from the picnic table and followed him.

  At the porch he touched my shoulder, his hand alighting there as if it were a small, steady bird. “Let’s have faith that it will go better tonight, shall we? Keep your chin up.”

  I think he was trying to steel himself as much as give me a pep talk, Mama. Then he led me inside to face the stares and whispers.

  As we walked past the sanctuary, the last of the day’s light broke into a prism of color through the one stained-glass window above the pulpit. The choir stood gathered around the organ, their voices lifting the air, giving it weight.

  In their midst, front and center, a radiant woman led the others in the singing of the hymn. I’d never seen her, or in fact any person like her, in Shepherdsville before. She commanded my attention with her voice and manner, as if she, too, were a vision that had appeared right there in the sanctuary. Her silver hair surrounded her head like a halo, and the church lights threw gold on her brown skin. Her arms reached up to the sky as she sang out. Her voice, powerful and majestic, reached right in and took ahold of my heart.

  Come home, come home;

  ye who are weary, come home;

  earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,

  calling, O sinner, come home!

  The organ hummed, soft and low. The choir ended their practice on a high sweet note. As I followed Reverend Love down the rickety stairs to the chair basement meeting room, I held the vision of the swan to me like a prayer, Mama, my heart whispering what my voice could not. Come back. Come back for me.

  4

  r-i-g-h-t-e-o-u-s

  righteous (adj.)

  morally right; fair and just

  Oh, Mama, how I hated that church basement meeting room. It steamed hotter than the devil’s own breath. Trapped air and the smell of sweaty armpits mingled, with nowhere to go. The overhead fluorescent bulbs hummed, highlighting the scuffed linoleum and dingy walls. Green metal chairs were corralled in a circle, waiting for us to sit. The church kitchen at the far end of the room reeked of stale coffee and yeasty donuts.

  My stomach fluttered as if a nest of birds had been let loose inside me, Mama. I’d survived Bible study enough times to know what was in store and the main culprits who would make misery for me.

  Loretta Swinson, Leann Shank, and their crowd of infidels stood circled around the bench at the piano, mercilessly thumping out a tinny rendition of “Heart and Soul,” painful to the ears.

  Aunt Bernie often pointed out that the Swinsons were the wealthiest family in Shepherdsville and that they lined the church coffers accordingly. As rich people, they were justifiably snooty, but their daughter, Loretta, had perfected the craft. Her nose was upturned so high, you could count her nostril hairs.

  Her friend Leann Shank wore her curly hair pulled so tight in a ponytail, I swear it cut off the circulation to her brain. She followed Loretta around like a caboose and did Loretta’s heartless bidding. Missy Spangler, Susie Wickert, and the other girls were equally mindless in their adoration of Loretta. They moved as a pack, mean as garbage hounds.

  Jason Burdine, Matt Jensen, Lerman Henckle, and the other boys whooped it up, tossing balled-up bits of newspaper into a metal wastebasket, converting half the room into a makeshift basketball court. They pitched four-letter words according to their failure or success rate.

  “Sheet, Burdine, that sucked.”

  “Sum-beach, Jensen. You suck.”

  Matt Jensen sported muscles from pitching hay and had a big old crush on Loretta—a pitiful affliction that made him look like a sick puppy. He spent most of his time trying to get her attention.

  And Jason, well, he was as mean as his daddy.

  Otis Burdine thought nothing of whupping Jason upside the head outside the Lord’s house on a Sunday. “Did you hear what I said, boy? I don’t want nothing out of your mouth, or I will burn your backside.”

  Every Sunday the Burdines left their old hunting dog, Marlow, tied up next to their pickup truck in the parking lot. The back window of their old rusty Ford sported two or three hunting rifles on a gun rack, just in case they felt the need to pick off one of God’s creatures on the way home from church, I expect.

  When Reverend Love wasn’t looking, Jason’s particular specialty was flicking boogers or the occasional spitball at my face.

  Mama, they were a righteous bunch, all right. They not only acted justified in refusing to accept me into their fold, they seemed free of any guilt in their determination to run poor Reverend Love right out of town.

  The usual snickers greeted me when I entered the room. Hand-covered mouths whispered farm town gossip, and unkind eyes stared into mine, saying, You aren’t like us. My silence seemed to rile them worse than if I had given them a piece of my mind.

  Reverend Love clapped his hands for everyone’s attention.

  “Let’s get started, y’all.” Reverend Love’s Kentucky drawl seemed slower in the basement. No one paid him any mind; he commanded as much attention with that bunch as a common housefly.

  He clapped his hands again, his voice wavering.

  “Come on, y’all. Join hands.”

  I stood in the circle, the swan’s flight above the church having lifted my heart, making me hopeful that the evening would go according to Reverend Love’s plan.

  “Let us pray,” he said.

  My right hand was encased in Jason’s sweaty mitt, my left hand clamped in Loretta’s
cold bony grip.

  Reverend Love lowered his head.

  “Dear Lord, we ask you to help us tonight as we study your Good Book. Enable us to embrace your word and one another. Let us do unto one another as we would have done to us. Let us look into our hearts and forgive one another our transgressions. . . .”

  Reverend Love let out a big poof of air.

  “And we need rain, Lord. It’s hot. A drop or two would be most appreciated. In your name we pray. Amen.”

  When we were done with the prayer, Jason and Loretta dropped my hands like they were burning coals of fire.

  Reverend Love adjusted his glasses. Little beads of sweat peppered his forehead. The jerky motion of the nearby fan didn’t cool us a whit. He mopped his face with a hanky from his pocket.

  “Tonight I want to talk about sin.”

  He looked at Jason. “Jason, what is sin?”

  Jason looked at his feet and mumbled something.

  “Speak up, Jason.”

  Jason slumped lower in his chair. “I don’t know. Breaking the law.”

  Matt threw his hand up, his eyes on Loretta. “Fornication is a sin.”

  With the mention of the f-word, the room erupted. One of the other farm boys, Carl, called out, “Thinking about it is a sin too, Jensen.”

  There was all manner of hoots and knee slapping.

  Reverend Love’s face went red. “Pipe down, y’all. Come on, now.”

  Missy Spangler rocked in her seat, back and forth, thinking so hard, her eyes screwed up. She burst out, “Ooh. Ooh, Reverend Love. I know. Is it . . . ? Um . . .”

  We waited for the end of time while she searched through the empty spaces of her mind.

  Reverend Love decided to have pity on us. “Breaking a commandment?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say,” Missy said, and beamed with pride.

  Reverend Love gave her a weak smile. He looked around at all of us. “Other ideas about sin?”