Behind the Altar: Behind the Love Trilogy (5 page)

Leah remembered her early
childhood as one long kaleidoscope of fun. She spent much of her time on the
beach and wore a golden brown tan all year round. Redington Shores near St.
Pete Beach was a quiet place to live. Both her parents were around in those
days, and they lived in a trailer park three blocks from the beach. Her dad
worked in a bike shop, and her mother flitted from one job to another. Lots of
friends with kids her age provided Leah with playmates while her parents
partied with the other adults. Nothing much seemed out of place in those days,
and she knew without a doubt, her mom and dad loved her more than they loved
one another.

By the time Leah
started school, the trouble had started. Sometimes they forgot to pick her up
from school, and a teacher or a custodian would find her sitting on the swings.
They’d call around until they found either her mother or father. At night, Leah
spent more and more time in her room with a pillow over her head so she didn’t
hear the awful things her parents said to one another. One night the police
came, and they took her father away in handcuffs. When Leah saw all the
flashing lights of the police car outside her bedroom window, she pulled off
the pillow and ran into the small front yard where she cried for her father
until the taillights on the cruiser turned the corner.

When he came home, the
fights continued until one day her father wasn’t there. Her mother wouldn’t say
where he went.

“He loves you, little
girl,” her mother said. “He’ll be back when he can.”

Soon Leah stopped
asking, and she never found out what happened to him. After he left, things
calmed down at the trailer, but her mother no longer worked. She lay on the
couch all day, and Leah learned to make spaghetti and macaroni and cheese, none
of which her mother ate. A few friends still checked in on them and helped Leah
with chores, even taking her to the grocery store. One day when Leah asked for
some money to buy groceries, her mother told her there wasn’t any money.

Things only worsened
after that, although one of the remaining friends saw to it that her mother
went down and applied for food stamps. Since her mother wasn’t sick, there was
no other assistance. The trailer park manager let them slide on the rent for
almost a year, probably because of Leah. But eventually he had no choice but to
kick them out.

As Leah continued to
sit in the pew after Susie left, she remembered what it felt like the first day
they were on the streets. A friend let them stay with her for a few months, but
when the friend got a new boyfriend, the stoned mother and the sweet kid became
expendable.

“I can’t let anyone
else suffer like we did,” Leah said as she prayed. “Mother, please help me find
the way to continue to help those folks down at the river. They’re good people
just like you; they’ve just lost their path right now. Let me find a way like
Geraldine helped me. Some of them helped me after you died; it’s my turn to
take care of them.”

“What are you doing
in here?” Geraldine asked from the back of the sanctuary. “I just came from the
parsonage, and there isn’t any dinner started. You know tonight is prayer
group, and we need to eat by 6:30.”

Leah lifted her head
and turned around to see Geraldine walking up the aisle toward her.

“I’m sorry,
Geraldine,” Leah said. “I needed to pray and ask God for guidance. I’ll heat up
some of the leftovers from last night and make a salad. Dinner will be ready in
half an hour.”

“You know we don’t
like leftovers, so don’t let this happen again.” She clicked by Leah, crossed
over behind the pulpit, and entered the hallway where her office was.

When did Geraldine go
from her savior to her warden, Leah wondered as she stood and headed down the aisle
and out the door. She walked across the asphalt parking lot in front of the
church to the sidewalk that led up to the brick ranch-style house with the
broad wide front porch. The house may have been only one story, but its floor
plan included more than 3,500 feet of living space, more than enough for the
three of them.

After a dinner of
leftover lasagna, Leah cleared the dishes from the dining room table. Jacob and
Geraldine continued to sit, waiting for Leah to bring them coffee and dessert.
When she brought back two plates of chocolate cake, she cleared her throat and
said she had something she wanted to discuss with them.

“Where’s the coffee?”
Jacob asked.

“Almost done, I’ll be
right back,” Leah said.

She brought a carafe
of coffee with cream and sugar into the dining room where Geraldine sat licking
her lips.

“Good cake,” she
said. “When did you find time to bake this?”

“I did it yesterday
for today’s lunch. I never got a chance to serve it,” Leah said. “That’s what I
want to talk to you both about.”

“About cake?” Jacob
said as he grinned. His mother laughed at his joke.

“I want to talk about
Soup’s On,” Leah said ignoring the amusement passing between the two. “You both
know how important the kitchen is to me and why.”

“Sometimes you have
to give up your dreams in the face of reality,” Jacob said. “Right now Soup’s
On is off.” He stopped to grin at his joke. “God is telling you it’s time to
start planning our wedding.”

“God is telling me I
need to continue Soup’s On,” Leah said.

“It’s impossible,” Geraldine
said. “Jacob’s right. It’s time you got onto the real business of your life.
First, I want to take you to Tampa to buy new clothes more fitting for the
minister’s wife. We can shop for your wedding dress as well.”

“I don’t need new
clothes,” Leah said. “I’m fine with everything I have now. But that’s not what
I want to discuss this evening.”

Jacob and Geraldine
continued to eat their cake and drink their coffee. Leah cleared her throat.

“I’m going to open
Soup’s On in a different location with funding from the community,” Leah said.

Jacob put down his
fork and stared at her. Geraldine continued to sip her coffee while she watched
her son.

“What do you mean?”
Jacob asked.

“I’m looking for a
location to open the kitchen,” she said. “And I have an idea for that.”

“Where could you
possibly find a place that would allow you to feed the homeless?” Geraldine
asked.

“Right here on the
acreage that backs up to the river,” Leah said. “That old storage barn is just
sitting there not being used. With a little renovation, it would make a fine
location for Soup’s On.”

No one said a word.
Geraldine took the last bite of her cake as if she hadn’t heard. She scraped
the last of the chocolate frosting from the plate.

Jacob sipped his
coffee before looking to his mother. “What do you think, Mother? Could Leah use
the old barn?”

“Absolutely not,”
Geraldine said as she brought a cloth napkin to her mouth to wipe the bits of
chocolate frosting from her lips. “I’ve been thinking about having the thing
torn down. I don’t want those people camping on the river to get any ideas
about using it. Now I have even more reason to destroy it.”

“Why are you so
against those ‘people’?” Leah asked. “They’re good folks who’ve hit bad times.
We need to help them just like you helped me.”

“I’m sick to death of
folks like them taking advantage of the system and of good folks like us who’ve
worked hard to earn every cent of what we have,” Geraldine said. “You were
different. You were a kid put in circumstances beyond your control. If it had
been your mother, with a needle hanging out of her arm, and a hand extended for
help, I’d have left her on the street. She had a choice, and she chose wrong.
God punishes those who squander what this world offers us.”

Leah sat quiet for a
minute. She stared at Geraldine. Then she turned to Jacob who she was sure
would stand up to her mother and tell her she was all wrong. Geraldine had it
all wrong, and Leah never realized it until that very moment.

“Jacob, do you agree
with your mother?” Leah asked.

“I think she makes a
valid point,” Jacob said. “God helps those who ask, and some people don’t ask
or even make an attempt to help themselves. If they prayed more, they’d have
more.”

“The majority of
those folks I serve meals to served our country,” Leah said. “When they came
back as broken men and women, there was no place for them to go and no jobs
they could do because of the trauma they’d endured. They made a choice to fight
for us, and now you want to punish them.”

“It’s not my job to
punish them,” Geraldine said. “God is handling that part. I don’t believe it
when you say there was nothing for them when they returned from the Middle
East. The VA is available to help all of them.”

“Maybe for physical
issues, but not for the mental side,” Leah said. “Most of them are suffering
from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which the VA has been lax in treating.”

“That’s because it’s
a made up disease so folks can take advantage of the system,” Geraldine said.
“Look at my father and my husband. Both of them served in wars, and both of
them came home just fine.”

“I can’t argue with
your logic,” Leah said. “So you’re telling me the barn is off limits for me to
use.”

“That’s right. I
won’t allow it,” Geraldine said. “And furthermore, Jacob and I forbid you to
continue pursuing this idea of opening the kitchen in another location. It
doesn’t fit with your status as his future wife.”

“Jacob, is that how
you feel?” Leah asked as a hard pit grew in her stomach.

“I think Mother makes
a valid point,” Jacob said. “I’d prefer it if you’d drop the idea.”

“I see,” Leah said as
she stood up from the table. “I didn’t realize you felt this way; perhaps that’s
why you didn’t fight harder for Soup’s On with the board.”

“I’d like it if you’d
start planning our wedding,” Jacob said. “Then afterwards, we can talk about
how we can help others.”

Leah spent a restless
night, tossing and turning. She felt trapped by both Jacob and Geraldine. And
now, they’d practically forbidden her from doing the thing that kept her going each
day. She needed to sleep because the day ahead would be a busy one. First, she would
go down to the river and talk to the folks there. She’d somehow assure them she
hadn’t abandoned them. Then she’d see if Susie had any more ideas.

It was difficult to process
everything that happened during one day of her life, including meeting and
kissing Dean. His kiss reminded her of what was lacking in the relationship
with Jacob. There was no passion, and not just because they’d—or rather
Jacob—decided to wait before becoming intimate until after the wedding. Jacob
said that would make it more sacred. However, intimacy and passion didn’t have
to include the actual sexual act, Leah realized. Her experiences with the
opposite sex involved a few kisses from boys on the beach, but she’d never
allowed that to go any further. She was certain they wouldn’t have understood
her living arrangements. Those kisses were exciting because the feelings were
so new. When she finally got the job at the mall, her boss had tried to kiss
her once in the back room, but she’d managed to get away from him. Fortunately,
Geraldine walked up to her counter soon afterwards.

When Jacob and she
kissed, she knew there wasn’t any passion. She decided that Jacob kept those
kisses chaste so they didn’t become too aroused before they were married. After
kissing Dean, she knew the difference. There wasn’t any passion between Jacob
and her. She rolled over onto her back, and closed her eyes. She tried to
imagine that it was Jacob she was kissing in the back lot of the church as he
sat on a Harley. Dean’s eyes appeared in her head. She drifted off to an uneasy
sleep.

The next morning, she
headed down to the river on the golf cart kept in the garage behind the
parsonage. A rich landowner from Miami had donated the grounds for the church
and parsonage, with ownership held by the Sunshine Church Board. The land
adjoining it—the farm—had belonged to Big Jim’s family for more than one
hundred years. Leah headed out into the field overgrown with wildflowers and palmetto
bushes. She drove toward the wooded area beyond the fields that once grew crops
that flourished in central Florida:  cabbage, potatoes, and onions. Geraldine
told her Big Jim farmed it right up until Dean died, but that she should never
mention it because it upset Big Jim to talk about it. Another lie, she thought
as she looked around at the fallow fields. When she reached the woods, the
coolness from the shade of the live oaks and slash pines offered her a respite
from the hot and humid day already forming even at eight o’clock, and turned
her mind from the Davis family to her own family of friends.

“Good morning, Bud,”
she said when she came upon a young man sitting against the trunk of a pine
tree. “What are you doing this morning?”

“Looking for
something to eat,” he said. He wore a camo vest unbuttoned, revealing burns on
his chest that looked like red rope braided together from shoulder to abdomen.
His khaki pants were greasy and muddy.

Leah made a note to
get him some new pants and to show him how to wash his clothes in the river.

“I think the
blackberries are ripe enough to pick over on the other side of the field,” she
said. “Maybe you should check over there.”

He nodded at her, and
Leah continued on her way to find Joshua, one of the leaders of this small band
of disowned warriors. She found him with the others on the banks of the river,
fishing.

“Good morning,
everyone,” Leah said after she parked the golf cart and walked over to join
them. “Catching anything?”

“Not much luck this
morning,” Joshua said. “But we had a good dinner last night.”

“I brought you a few
things,” she said. “The potato salad and cole slaw should probably be eaten
first thing, although I did bring you a cooler. There’s chocolate cake, too.”

Joshua and a few
others helped her unload the food, and they began opening containers and
helping themselves.

“You know they’ve
closed Soup’s On at the church,” Leah said. “I can’t get them to budge on that,
but I am not going to abandon you. I didn’t have anything to do with the
closing.”

“We all know that,
Leah,” Joshua said.

“I’ll still be
available to take you to your appointments at the VA, and I’ll make every
effort to get food down here to you when I can. I’m going to look for others in
the community to help me. And I’m starting this morning to look for a new place
to house Soup’s On. I want to make it even better—a place to give you shelter
when needed and maybe a recreation room.”

“You’re an angel,”
said one of the women standing around the golf cart eating the cold salads.
“It’s too bad your church isn’t the same way.”

“Carol, I wish I
could change their minds,” Leah said. “But some of them are a bit misguided in
what they consider charity. I’m going to leave them to their ways and find my
own way to help you.”

After Leah left them
with promises to keep them posted on the progress of Soup’s On, she went back
to the church compound and put the golf cart away. She decided she needed to
walk into town rather than drive. Despite the heat, she needed time alone to
think about how she was going to accomplish what she’d told Joshua she’d do.
Jacob and Geraldine made their feelings abundantly clear last night, so she
knew if she continued down this path, Jacob could possibly call off the
wedding, and Geraldine could definitely kick her out of the parsonage, making
her homeless once again.

For the first time
since Geraldine found her, the thought of being out of that house didn’t bother
her at all. In fact, ending her relationship with both of them didn’t feel
wrong. It felt like freedom.