Coldwater Revival: A Novel (20 page)

My heart went out to the little boy, Tate, working to help his mother when he should have been attending school and playing with other children. Everyone in my family worked hard, no doubt about it, but survival had never depended upon any of us children the way it had for Tate.

“Ma started drinking a couple of years after Pa left. After that, she couldn’t hold down a job for long. She’d spend our money on liquor and smokes. Even with my contribution, there was never enough in the money pot to pay for food and clothes … and rent.” Tate’s nostrils flared, and once again, his head shook from side to side. I read disgust and anger in the way he pursed his lips and clenched his jaw.

Papa had warned us about liquor, or the demon’s brew, as he called it. We weren’t allowed to even consider imbibing strong drink because of the ruination it had dealt so many of our people. Papa claimed the Irish had a propensity for drunkenness. ’Twas the way of it in Ireland, he said, but he’d not be the one to start it up in our new homeland. And that was that. Even Elo obeyed Papa’s command.

Tate was quiet. I thought he was through talking. He stretched his long legs to the foot of the dune, and looked up at the sky. I followed his gaze, noting a darkening in the clouds, a tightness in their gathering, as though they had amassed for an assault. I moved not a muscle as Tate sucked in deep breath and released it on a bumpy sigh. He cupped a hand over his mouth and coughed into it, clearing his throat.

“Then she got into some really bad stuff. She’d send me out of the house on bitter cold nights while she entertained one roughneck after another. Many a night I had to huddle in some stink-hole of an alleyway while she … I don’t know what I’m thinking, talking to you this way. It’s too sordid a tale for the likes of your ears, Emma. Just trust me when I say it was a hard, hard time for me. If I’d had the sense God gave a turkey, I’d have hightailed it out of there and never looked back. But I couldn’t leave her. She was still my ma and I loved her, no matter what. Wasn’t long after that she got sick. We didn’t have money for a doctor, so we never knew for sure, but I believe she got tuberculosis. Probably got it from one of her …
friends
. She got weaker and weaker … coughed all the time.”

I reached out my hand and stroked Tate’s arm. “What happened to you … then?”

He turned his head, his eyes penetrating the depths of mine. There could not have been a lovelier sight than the joyous look that emerged on Tate’s face in those brief moments. A most exquisite sensation rippled up my spine as his countenance softened, beauty sparking the dark look that had earlier inhabited his eyes. Beneath the sleeves of my jacket, I sensed a ruffling of arm hair; gooseflesh popping up until every hair on my body answered the call to rise up and stand at attention.

“That’s the only good part to my story. You see, these two widows from the Methodist church heard about Ma … how sick she was. A woman Ma used to work for called it to their attention. Anyway, they started coming around, doing things for us, like washing our clothes, bathing Ma and changing her bed … bringing us food. At first, I wouldn’t touch a thing they brought. I was furious they had witnessed our poverty … furious that they felt sorry for us. I cursed them, told them to leave us alone. Told them I could take care of Ma. Can you imagine a ten-year-old guttersnipe of a boy trying to run off a couple of pillars of the church?” Tate chuckled as though his memories had conjured up a barrelful of fondness.

My spine stiffened like a ramrod at mention of the Methodist church. Tate rambled further, each word spitting a blast of Nordic air across my heart. The miseries of winter settled over my being like a thick coating of ice. Still—I chose to quiet my heart and hear Tate to the end, though I knew his tale would twist my insides like the dough Mama shaped into pretzels.

“There wasn’t a thing they wouldn’t do for Ma. They loved her, you see. And they loved me. I sold the hand-me-downs they passed my way, and sneered at their kindness. Made fun of them to my street friends, and even mocked them to their faces.” Tate lifted his hands, curling his fingers toward his face. “I used these hands to make obscene gestures at them. Called them fat toads and laughed at their portliness. Did every wicked, evil thing I could think of to run them off, though they’d done nothing but make life easier for Ma and me. Know how they repaid my meanness? By praying for me … and for Ma.”

Though I had neither attained great wisdom nor inherited the keenness of a seer, I could have told Tate that was what the ladies would do. It’s what my mama did when people needed help. She baked food, cleaned filthy houses, tended sick babies, sewed clothes for children … and she prayed for them. Too bad my heart wasn’t set on Jehovah God, as Mama’s was. Perhaps the conclusion of Tate’s story would not have upset me as it did. But I knew what was coming, so I began building a wall of defiance between Tate and myself. The more Tate talked, the higher my wall grew, and with its completion came an unyielding hardness in the mortar around my heart.

“They took care of us for almost a year, and when Ma died they took care of that, too. Saw that she had a proper Christian burial, because somewhere along the way, between the kindness and the prayers, Ma gave her heart to Jesus. Mrs. Deardson and Mrs. K came right out and told Ma that God’s Son was her only hope, and she’d better do something about him before it was too late. I listened from the hallway—unwilling to show myself, but unable to resist a good story. As they talked about Jesus, I came to believe every word they said. It wasn’t just the stories that sold me on the truth; it was their willingness to help a couple of filthy, penniless people like Ma and me. To me, that was true love.

“Things finally started making sense to me. For the first time in a long time, I felt loved. One day, right there behind Ma’s bedroom wall, I gave my heart to Jesus too. After Ma died, Mrs. K took me under her wing, gave me a place to live … a place to come home to at night. She caught me up on my lessons and read me so many stories that I fell in love with books and reading, and just about anything that would teach me more about the world. I live with her still, you know. I try to repay her kindness by fetching her groceries and keeping up the yard. She told me how lonely she was before I came to live with her, so maybe God was helping both of us through that really rough time.

“One of the best things about living with Mrs. K is that I have full use of her library. My bedroom shelves are packed with hundreds of books—mine for the reading anytime I want. It’s like God replaced all the years I couldn’t go to school by giving me every book I’d ever want to read.”

“I knew you were a reader, Tate. That’s something we have in common.”

“Emma—”

Despite my noblest intention to hear Tate out, I lurched for my crutch and rose to my feet, rocking unsteadily on the slope of sinking sand. My mind plowed for an excuse to leave. “I’d better be going. Oh … I almost forgot the cake I brought you.” Slipping my hand into my pocket, I rescued the parcel with care, though by its feel the packet contained mostly sweet crumbles. Tate nodded his thanks, our hands touching as I handed him the bundle. I started to turn, but Tate’s words stopped me cold.

“Have you tried talking to God, Emma? He can help you with your troubles, you know.” Tate smiled as his words tapered off, but it seemed a sad smile, as though he knew something of what I was going through. As though he knew what my answer would be.

I stared at the sea, barely able to breathe for the anger that seethed within me. I knew Tate was sincere, but his message teemed with fraudulent misstatements and counterfeit claims I considered odious. Hateful words sprang to my mouth. I could no more stop their rampage than I could call forth Micah from the dead. “Yes, Tate. I tried talking to your God … pleading with your God. At one time, I loved and trusted him with every bit of my being.” I sobbed. My teeth ground together as words broke loose and hissed from my throat like steam from a teakettle. “Then I found out the truth: It’s a pure waste of time to put your faith in someone who’ll let you down. You may have found favor with God, Tate, but I didn’t, and there’s plenty more people just like me. Faith and love—it’s all a lot of tommyrot.”

With stiff, awkward steps I hurried from the dune, my heart slamming with rage. Feeling as downcast as the day I arrived at Granny’s house, I mingled anger and sadness together, stewing up a batch of forbidden words I’d learned from Elo. I spewed them into the salty, windswept air, untroubled by who might hear them. Tate had kidnapped my peace with the sweet mockery of faith. And the thief of broken promises had stolen away my brief spell of contentment. Tate could talk about his God until stars fell from the sky. But I knew the cold reality of it all: The evidence of God’s love lay buried on a knoll in Coldwater.

As I trudged the distance to Granny’s house, I couldn’t banish Tate’s vision from my thoughts. My last glimpse of him was unnerving; his mouth gaping like a hingeless oven door, the look in his eyes proof enough that my virulent outburst had shocked his sensibilities. The one person I’d claimed as friend most likely hated me now. Well, good riddance, I thought. In the heat of passion, I was glad to be free of Tate’s presence. But as my emotions cooled, I trembled at all I had said and done. Sane enough to understand such moments of anger and rebellion faded with time, I wondered why I’d lambasted Tate the way I had. What would I do if I lost the only friend I had?

Twenty-seven

For three days I cloistered myself in Granny’s house, marking time in the nest of my bedroom. Often my eyes grew soupy, spilling over with yearnings to hear Tate’s voice. I missed his stories about working on the docks, and his seafaring tales, chronicling distant times and faraway places. They quickened my pulse as Papa’s yarns did. But pigheaded pride wouldn’t allow me to seek him out, for he had committed the unpardonable—spoken to me of a loving, merciful God.

Tate thought his words true, but I recognized a fallacy in his considerations. When I pleaded for God to protect and spare my little brothers, I received nothing but misery and heart-clattering pain. Grabbing hold of God’s beneficence was as futile as trying to lure a frightened rabbit from his hole. Someday, Tate would learn that God’s mercy didn’t extend itself to everyone. And when he did, he’d understand what I already knew: The bumpy road of life was a lonely path to travel when you no longer walked it with your Creator.

Curling myself into a shrivel of self-pity, I spent hours reviewing ways the Lord had let me down. Each day I delayed my sojourn to the sea, I grew more resentful of Tate and Granny’s faith. What was wrong with them? I wondered. Didn’t they recognize God’s abandonment for what it was? Hadn’t Granny noticed God’s absence the day she pleaded for the lives of her children? There were thousands, perhaps millions of angels in heaven. Surely, Almighty God could have charged one of them to keep an eye on her family. And what about the Falin boys? Where was God when I begged him to spare my little brothers? He knew how rambunctious and careless the twins could be.

I tried blocking Tate’s words from my mind, but even the walls conspired against me, whispering from the four corners of my room.
Have you tried talking to God, Emma? He can help you …
The last thing I wanted was to hole up in my room and fan the coals of my resentment to life. But that’s exactly what I did.

But after three days of smoldering, I asked myself this question: Who was I hurting by staying cooped up in Granny’s house? The answer—only me, for Granny seemed to enjoy having me underfoot, and the boy by the sea … why, he probably hadn’t even realized I’d gone missing.

I returned to the beach that afternoon, wondering if even a widow’s mite of my comradeship with Tate was salvageable. For my part, we could resume our friendship …
if
Tate threw off his preacher’s garb and didn’t harp on God again.

Keeping my vow to Micah, I knelt in the sand and shoveled grit from his tin. Today’s offering was the unmarred sand dollar with its perfect belly star. If only I could place it in Micah’s hand and tell him about the animal that once lived in this shell. ’Twas then that one of Granny’s feisty sayings came to mind:
If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.

I hummed a song as I refilled the hole. It was a song about bright sunbeams and love. The twins used to sing this melody. They’d chirp it out like a couple of mockingbirds at daybreak, their dueling voices fetching laughter to my heart. But now the memory summoned only heartache. I ceased humming when the lyrics registered on my mind:
I’ll be a sunbeam for Jesus, to shine for him each day; in every way try to please him, at home, at school, at play.
As I pictured Micah and Caleb, singing their hearts out to Jesus, bitterness flooded my heart like the surge tide that decimated Granny’s family. I thought my heart had toughened up a bit, but the only thing it had toughened up against was God.

“Hey, Tadpole. Where’ve you been hiding? You been sick, or something?”

Tate’s silhouette towered on a nearby dune. The sky behind him flared like a prairie fire, but he was just a dark shadow in a bright burst of sunlight.

“What’re you doing? Digging for buried treasure?”

Not a hint of retribution or anger tinged Tate’s voice. Perhaps he’d forgiven my harsh words of three days earlier. Perhaps he’d forgotten them.

I shook my head and hurried to fill the hole.
This is our secret, Micah. Yours and mine. It’s nobody else’s business.

After jamming a stick in the sand, I turned with quickness and walked away from the dunes. Away from the tribute I had created for my brother’s eyes alone.

I sighed with contentment when Tate’s distinctive height and familiar form overshadowed me. He entwined our fingers together as naturally as two doves in a coo of love. I wondered if he felt the recklessness of my heart as it pumped through my veins.

“I’ve been worried about you, Emma. Thought maybe you weren’t coming back.”

I glanced up, seeing nothing in Tate’s eyes but concern. “Yeah … well, I’m fine. Just didn’t feel like coming to the beach. That’s all.” My voice sounded untried and breathless, but I knew it was just mystified by all the raw sensations bumping around my heart.

“I think I know why you didn’t feel like coming back. We—didn’t exactly part on friendly terms the other day. I really upset you, didn’t I?” As Tate tilted his head down and stared into my eyes, I spied a glint of mischief in his. His grin broadened as he tightened his grip and piloted me away from the beach.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” I asked, none too politely. I jerked free of his grasp and hurried toward the sea.

“Are you up to some walking?” Tate shouted at my retreating back. I turned, curiosity halting my tirade. He stood as though carved in stone, nothing astir on his trim body but a batch of loose curls. His broad-legged stance reminded me of a sure-minded hawker at the county fair, sizing up a gullible patsy. I read a dare in his posture and an attitude in his stare. Was my assumption correct? Did Tate think me incapable of enduring long, strenuous walks? If so, he surely misunderstood the gallantry with which we cripples valued our pride—to the point of out-and-out lying when our capabilities came into question.

“And what makes you think I might not be?” My words shot out like silver bullets. As I charged off in the direction to which Tate had been aiming, I squared my shoulders and uptilted my chin to a lofty altitude. The crutch pinched my underarm, but I held my grimace in check, for we’d barely begun our trek. I’d been off the crutch for three days, and I ached from the little bit of walking I’d already done today, but Tate didn’t need to know that. Plowing on, I vowed not a whisper of complaint would flow from my lips to his ears.

We opened the wide double doors and proceeded to the center of the old church: Saint Joseph’s Church, a high-pinnacled house of worship built by German immigrants in 1859. I’d obtained that bit of information from a plaque near the outside entrance. The church was empty but for Tate and me.

Is this what we walked miles and miles to see?

“Have a seat,” Tate said, pointing to a high-backed pew. “Let’s rest a while.” He gazed at the church’s interior, his eyes filling with glints of what appeared to be architectural delight. I waddled to a wooden bench, polished to a high sheen. There were twenty or so pews on either side of the aisle, standing as tall and straight as a company of foot soldiers at attention. The pews were dark, like the black loam on our farm when it’s ready for the plow.

“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Incredulity dripped from my words like sarcasm from Elo’s lips.

“It’s just a place to rest, Emma. I’m not gonna try to ram God down your throat, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Tate shook his head in disgust, it seemed, and angled his head upward to gaze at the high-pitched ceiling.

My legs were beyond tired, having exceeded the point of exhaustion during the last half hour of our journey. I leaned my crutch against the front pew and sank to the one behind it. The bench dwarfed me. I craned my neck and head, straining to see over the front pew. As my gaze wandered the sanctuary, it paused on an ornately carved podium and two thronelike chairs atop the dais. Then my eyes roamed to rooftop windows and to a kneeling bench of intricate design. Quiet serenity abode within these walls. I’d sensed it when we stepped from the vestibule into the great room. Now it seemed the walls attempted to transfer that serenity onto me. ’Twas a hopeless cause. Tranquility and I had been strangers far too long: since the winds of death swooped into my world, scattering my lifetime of peace as though it were a sack of confetti.

A cloth-draped table on the altar held a silver chalice and a candlestick at each end. A repository of lighted candles stood to the right of the altar, flames wavering though stillness hung on the air. These prayer candles provided points of light in a room otherwise shrouded by late-afternoon shadows. Scents of burning wicks and melting wax filled my nostrils, dragging into memory a picture of Micah’s coffin on our parlor table.

I had stood guard over his casket that night—the longest night of my life—while candles burned at both ends of the burial box. Somehow, the hours passed, my nightmarish ordeal articulating itself in a stream of sobs and noisy bawling. At times, the pain had been too much, and I’d passed into a world of dark oblivion. Only then had the handprint of peace left its mark on my heart. As I held my brother one last time, wax pillars melted to nubs, extinguishing most of the light in the room. Just as Micah’s death snuffed the brightness from my life.

Why did you bring me here, Tate?
A cloudburst of pain rained down on me, flooding my eyes. No hope of squelching the flow this time. The dike had sprung a leak and nothing could hold back the deluge. I laid my head on the pew seat, out of Tate’s view, and wept. I’d been practicing the art of crying in silence since the day of Micah’s burial. It came in handy now. With my nose stuffed against burnished wood that smelled of beeswax and turpentine, I swallowed my tears and sobbed in silence. The pew carried the same scent as the benches in Christ’s Chapel—back home in Coldwater.

As the torrent rolled on relentlessly, with no regard for my shame, I wondered why—at this time and in this place—had my emotions gone haywire? Granny would probably blame the outburst on my monthlies, but their time had come and gone in peaceable fashion and could not be held accountable.

“Emma, what’s wrong? Why are you crying, girl?” Tate knelt by the pew, stroking my hair with his dockworker hands. I stole a glance. Through my watery view I observed his dark eyes, narrowing with concern, his lips shifting in wordless motion. As Tate’s face drew close to mine, I held the ridiculous fear he was going to kiss me. Instead, he reached out a gentle hand and rounded up my stray wisps of hair, corralling their wildness behind my ears.

I supposed Tate had captured the gist of his mother’s wisdom, taking to heart her words about sharing pain and dividing it in half. As he smoothed my hair into place, I knew his goal was to absorb as much of my pain as he could. I felt certain he would remain with me for the duration, whether I wished him to or not. Could I share with him the dark ugliness of my brother’s death? I thought not, so I snatched the hem of my skirt and with unladylike comportment dried my eyes with it.

“We’re not leaving this church till you tell me what’s going on.” Tate hefted himself from a kneeling position and sat beside me on the pew, the lines on his face hardening like cooled paraffin. “And don’t think you’re going to just up and run away this time.” A dimple burrowed into his right cheek. I knew it was the closest thing to a smile I would see until I obeyed his command and unloaded my story.

It seemed he waited forever as I gained my composure, sniffles dying down, only to restart like an incurable case of hiccups.

“There was … an accident. My brothers got hurt, and … one of them died.”

Tate wrapped his arm around my shoulder, drawing me to him, rocking our joined bodies to a rhythm far slower than my heartbeat. “I’m sorry, Emma. No wonder your heart is broken. I’ve never had a brother or a sister, but I can imagine the pain of losing one.” Tate’s grip was tenacious, but a comfort to my aching spirit, for it seemed he might squeeze the pain right out of me.

“How old was your brother?”

I hesitated before answering. Revealing Micah’s age meant sharing the entire story, for surely Tate’s next words would question how such a young child had died. I wished to share my burden with him, but was I prepared to reveal my guilt, also? I longed to be released from the solitary prison of pain I’d inhabited these last three months, but dare I risk telling Tate the unabridged truth?

“It happened last August. August twenty-fifth.” I squirmed on the bench, telling myself I could make it through the tough parts if I just kept talking. “Caleb and Micah … my brothers … fell into a well. A stupid old well someone dug up probably fifty or sixty years ago. Micah—he … he was already dead when we got him above ground. I couldn’t save him. It was too late. We thought Caleb had died, too, but he was alive, just barely. He’s bad off, Tate. Real bad. I’m afraid he’s going to die.” Tears welled again, washing Tate’s face from my view. I whispered to his shadow, “I don’t think I can go on if Caleb dies too.” I reached for my skirt hem, but Tate had already retrieved a handkerchief from his jean pocket. I blew my nose, soiling another piece of Tate’s clothing. I had developed a bad habit of dirtying up his clothes, one way or another.