Someone to Trust (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Megan dialed the number on the piece of paper in her hand.

“Why did I let Cindy talk me into this?” she wondered aloud as the phone rang. She’d let Cindy talk her into joining other young women from Grace Community Fellowship in giving of their time to some of the older women who were either widowed, had no children, or their children lived too far away to be able to visit them on Mother’s Day. The names of all of these special ladies had been placed in a basket and drawn out by the eager volunteers. Mrs. Nettie Mae Reeves was the name Megan chose. Now Megan was giving her a call to discuss an agreeable time for them to get together.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Reeves?” Megan asked.

“Yes,” the older woman answered.

“Mrs. Reeves this is Megan McCormick and—”

“Yes, dear, you’re the young lady who’s going to be my daughter for the day.” Megan smiled at the apparent delight in her voice. After a brief conversation, they agreed on Tuesday afternoon and the older woman suggested Megan come to her home for lunch.

“I love to cook and entertain,” she explained, with a smile in her voice. “I don’t get enough opportunity to do so.”

She declined Megan’s offer to contribute to the meal. “Oh no, my dear, you just bring yourself; I’ll take care of the rest.”

The woman’s soft Appalachian drawl still rang in Megan’s mind as she drove down the winding gravel road. Being shy, she was never at ease when meeting new people and made the attempt now to still the nervousness she was feeling in her stomach. Still, in spite of the butterflies, it felt good to be doing something for someone else. She reminded herself of this and how sweet the woman seemed on the phone, as she turned the last bend and headed past the two stone pillars marking the entrance to the Reeves property.

Mrs. Reeves lived with her husband in a cozy cottage in the valley. The information on the slip handed to Megan said she was sixty-two years old and both of her sons lived several states away. This year, neither of them was going to be able to see their mother for Mother’s Day.

Megan put the SUV into park in front of the white lap-sided house with green shutters and a green metal roof. Tucked in the lush green valley with a meandering brook behind it, it looked like a cottage from a fairy-tale.

As Megan stepped onto the front porch complete with two rockers and a porch swing, she heard the tinkling sound of wind chimes. She paused for a moment to listen to the melody created by the wind and chimes; she loved the sound.

As Megan tapped lightly on the screen door, she could see into the cottage because the front door had been left open. The inviting smell of fresh baked bread wafted out to Megan’s nose, teasing her taste buds. A woman came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron, and opened the screen door for Megan.

“You must be Megan.”

“Yes, I am, and you’re Mrs. Reeves?”

“I sure am, love, come on in.” The smile on the woman’s face truly couldn’t have been any wider or more welcoming.

Megan returned the older woman’s smile as she entered a great room filled with comfortable overstuffed furniture, accented with many thick pillows and a couple of throws. Two of the overstuffed chairs faced a fireplace made from river rock, creating an inviting room that was tastefully decorated and beckoned guests to sit down and stay a while. When Megan looked down, she discovered the floor of the cottage was made of different sized round stones as well. Scattered across the stone floor, to add warmth in the winter, were several heavy woven rugs.

Mrs. Reeves noticed her looking at the stone floor. “It really adds to the cottage affect but it gets very cold in the winter time.”

“I’m sure it does, but it is very lovely and compliments the décor perfectly.”

“Thank you. I’ve set everything up for us in the sunroom.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Good. Then follow me on back.” Mrs. Reeves turned to lead Megan to the sunroom, which was just beyond the kitchen, but after only two steps, she paused and turned back to Megan.

“Thank you, my dear, for coming over today. I can tell already that you’re as lovely on the inside as you are on the outside.”

“It is truly my pleasure, Mrs. Reeves.”

“Oh now, none of that Mrs. Reeves mumbo jumbo. To all of my friends, I am simply known as Nettie, and I’d like to think, that before the day is done, you and I will be fast friends.” With that, she turned and led Megan to the sunroom.

Her prediction was true. It didn’t take long for Megan to feel completely at ease with her hostess, and over lunch, they were chatting like old friends. As usual, Megan was careful about sharing personal information, but she enjoyed talking about her work and life in the mountains. She also found she was greatly interested in learning more about Nettie Mae Reeves.

Megan studied Nettie as they ate the delicious meal. She was fascinated by her gentility and grace, not to mention the peaceful contentment she read on her face.

Megan had seen her at church many times, but would never have guessed her age. In fact, she could hardly believe it now, although that information had been provided on the slip of paper extracted from the basket.

Nettie was still trim and fit, carrying herself with the confidence and ease of someone, who in spite of her sixty- two years, was still very active. She was quite lovely, with medium brown hair that curled softly around her face. Her skin held the warm honey glow of someone who enjoys being outdoors, and the only evidence she had been touched by time was a few gray hairs and small lines around her eyes and brows.

Her blue eyes still sparkled with vitality, while at the same time still holding within their depths, youthful exuberance and age-old wisdom gained only through life’s experience.

Megan helped clean up the lunch dishes and soon they were moving their conversation outdoors, where Nettie proudly showed Megan her flower garden. “I enjoy the damp soil between my fingers. There’s something about gardening that I find very therapeutic.”

“I’ve heard that it can be.”

“I do a lot of talking to the good Lord when I’m working out here in my flower beds,” Nettie admitted.

This brought a smile to Megan’s face. “Creating what you do out here is a real gift. I’m afraid I kill almost every live plant I come in contact with and have no green thumb at all.”

“I just broke off some of my ivy plant and put it into a smaller pot. I’ll send it home with you. It’s a good hardy plant and a good place for you to start,” Nettie declared in a non-rebuttal tone.

“Okay, as long as you promise not to be mad when I kill it,” Megan said, only half-joking.

“You just do what I tell you with it; it will be fine, you’ll see.”

The two women found their way to a wooden bench resting beneath a huge oak tree.

“What an amazing granddaddy of an oak.” Megan marveled at the size and beauty of the tree.

Nettie smiled. “Granddaddy is right; it’s probably well over a hundred years old.” The two new friends sat down beneath the grand old tree, enjoying the shade its large moss-covered limbs offered.

Over the course of the afternoon, Megan’s respect for her new friend deepened as Nettie shared memories of a past filled with her fair share of heartache and disappointment.

Nettie was from a poor family who lived in a rural county in Georgia; she was born a sharecropper’s daughter. The family moved a lot, traveling from Southern Georgia to Central Florida and back.

“We went wherever there was work. Times were hard and so was life for a sharecropping family. My life was a repeat of long days filled with back breaking labor, working in the fields alongside my father, mother and brother, on land that belonged to someone else,” Nettie described.

As Nettie spoke in quiet tones, it was easy for Megan to picture a younger Nettie, lean from hard work and not enough food.

“My brother and I grew up knowing what it was to work long hours in the hot sun and go to bed hungry.” Nettie spoke in a matter of fact tone, without any bitterness or attempt to gain sympathy from her listener.

“It’s just the way life was then. When I was oh…fourteen or so, we’d gotten the crops all in from the fields and my brother and I were waiting for my father to come back from town. He had the money for our share of the work but he never came home with it.” She paused as if she was unfolding it in her mind again. “He never came home at all.”

Megan could not suppress a small gasp. How was it she drew the name of someone who had a similar experience to her own? True, Megan knew nothing of being hungry or the type of hard work Nettie had experienced but she knew what it was for a father to never come home.
She knew how desertion felt
.

“He had a problem with alcohol so he rarely was thinking coherently. I guess it got the better of him that trip as he took all our money and left. He left my mother, brother and me in the middle of nowhere without even a simple good-bye.”

“What did you do?” Megan asked, unable to help her curiosity.

“We stayed there as long as we could. We ate what food was left in the house and then…we waited.”

Megan could only guess what they were waiting for.

Nettie had a faraway look on her face, as if she were in that little sharecropper shack in rural Georgia instead of outside her cozy cottage.

“You ran out of food…?” Megan surmised and Nettie nodded. “And your father?”

“He didn’t come back.” Nettie finished for her. “Finally, some of my mother’s relatives came for us but that meant dividing us up, sending each of us to live in a different home. Soon after, my mother died and I was shuffled from one relative to another.”

Megan could only imagine how misplaced Nettie must have felt and her eyes filled with tears. Nettie reached over, placed a slightly calloused hand over hers, and said, “It’s all right, my dear. It has all worked out. After all that, I met a Christian young man, who I fell madly in love with. I came to know his Lord and Savior as my own. I gave my heart to both of them and we’ve been married forty-five years. God had a plan for my life. Though my earthly father left me, I discovered my Heavenly Father had not…and never would.”

“I don’t understand. You don’t seem to be bitter at all about what he did to you. You don’t appear to hate your father…”

“I’m not saying I’ve never struggled with those emotions and would be less than human if I hadn’t. But, the same forgiveness that Christ offered to me, He in turn helped me to offer to my father.”

“How?” Megan asked, nonplussed.

“God helped me to put aside my father’s desertion and forgive him. He enabled me to demonstrate that forgiveness by allowing him to move in with my family and me, in the later years of his life, when he needed it. I took care of him until he passed away.”

Megan was speechless. She couldn’t believe Nettie could do such a selfless deed, that she could repay her father’s desertion with so much kindness. It all seemed to be too much.
Words escaped her.

After several hours of chatting, Megan realized how low the sun had become and how quickly the hours had passed. To say the afternoon was enlightening would be an understatement. She learned that everything is not always what it seemed. Though Nettie was the picture of peace and tranquility, hers was not a life untouched by tragedy or hardship. She had a lot to think about on the drive home.