Blue Moon Bay (14 page)

I thought of my father's funeral. I'd overheard Blaine Underhill's stepmother and my aunt Esther whispering about the fact that my mother hadn't made me wear a dress. Aunt Esther had snorted irritably, then pointed out that my mother was impossible to deal with and if it weren't for the fact that there was no way we could continue to live at the farm with my mother completely dysfunctional in her grief, Aunt Esther would never have allowed us to move into the gardener's cottage at Harmony Shores.

Now, glancing across the room, I saw Blaine's stepmother eyeing me coolly from the Underhill pew.

I wanted to get up and leave before the choir even made it to the choir loft.

You don't drown by falling in the water;

You drown by staying there.

—Edwin Louis Cole
(Left by Jim, teaching grandkids to swim.)

T
he sermon wasn't bad, actually. Reverend Hay was a low-key sort of guy, and being newly engaged, he spoke from the heart when he talked about love and the nature of it. “In modern culture, we tend to think of love as something soft, frilly, and lacy, like the edging on a valentine,” he said, smiling at his future bride in the front row. “And love is beautiful like that, intricate in the ways it changes you, grows you, makes you want to be more than you were before. Love sees in you the best possible version of yourself, and makes you believe it. . . .” I tuned out for a moment, only vaguely conscious of the sermon continuing. I caught myself looking across the room, watching the blonde watch Blaine. She flashed smiles and eye-commentary at him as the sermon went on.

I studied his responses, cataloging them without really meaning to. He laughed when she made cross-eyes at him during some reference to teenagers bouncing in and out of love at the drop of a hat. He returned a couple of smiles, and she winked at him. I still couldn't decide who she was, but her face was familiar—undoubtedly from high school. She flashed a couple glances my way, thinking the same thing about me, I supposed. Each time, I pretended to be studying the colored glass in the windows behind her head.

Farther down the Underhill pew, Mama B swiveled a narrow glance over her shoulder, and caught the blonde flirting with Blaine. Mama B's silent message to the blonde seemed clear enough.
Mind your business.

Hmm . . .

The blonde turned her attention to the sermon again, and I did, as well.

“ . . . and so much of that is true about love. It's the best feeling in the world. It's glorious, but Hollywood teaches us that love is weak and fickle, that evil doesn't have a very tough time overtaking it. If you watch enough movies, you'll end up believing that sooner or later all love is doomed to fail, that a broken, wicked, sinful, hate-filled world is just more than love can stand up against. That when a marriage fails, we shouldn't be surprised. That when a family falls apart, or a neighbor hates a neighbor, or a kid bullies another kid in school, or a church body divides into factions, we should accept that as part of life, because the world is imperfect—so imperfect, in fact, that it's more than love can combat. But what we don't realize—what the writers of the Bible knew that we've lost track of—is that love is the very essence of God, and God is powerful. In fact, He is all-powerful.”

Pausing to let the point sink in, Reverend Hay moved from behind the pulpit, stood at the edge of the steps and held up his long, thin hands. “Brothers and sisters, don't let anyone convince you that love isn't strong enough to combat temptation or hate or prejudice or past hurts or misunderstandings or drugs or alcohol or culture clashes or self-loathing or any other form of evil that may afflict your life or the lives of those around you. Love doesn't need us to protect it from those things. Love
is
our protection. Great, big, crazy, extravagant, confident love, like the love God has for every one of us. Love that accepts us just as we are.

“If we only love people who are exactly like us, why, we're really just loving ourselves, aren't we?” He paused, gathering murmurs from the audience and a disinterested look or two from the casserole ladies. I glanced sideways at my mother and my brother, thought about all the ways I'd been frustrated with them over the years, all the decisions I'd criticized. Was I really just pointing at the mirror and saying,
If you'll be more like me, I'll love you more?

A thorn poked somewhere inside me as Reverend Hay went on, the audience now hanging on his hook, ready to be reeled in. “But when we put on that great, big, godly love and go out into the world, we're ready to do battle with evil, with prejudice . . . yes, and sometimes even with ourselves. Sometimes the armor of love is heavy. Sometimes it's cumbersome, uncomfortable, and unwieldy. Sometimes it'll make you sweat, or keep you from having the knee-jerk reaction that'd be satisfying in the moment but would leave blood on the battlefield.

“Divine love is the key to churches that cleave together, to marriages that last and families that overcome, to friendships that forgive insult, and hands that reach out to those who are different from us. We've got to love each other more than we love our own reflections in the mirror. When we can do that, love is both a sword and a shield. No matter where we go, or what kind of battle we're facing, it's all the armor we need.”

Reverend Hay moved to the head of the aisle then, and the pianist played an invitation song. A man and wife came forward to join the church—retirees, from the look of it. Reverend Hay introduced them to the members.

As the service wound down, my attention moved to a survey of the exits and who was sitting near them. I tried to gauge the quickest path out, the one that would allow me to vacate the premises without being stopped by curious church ladies, trying to ferret out information on our family's plans and my mother's reasons for suddenly taking up residence in Moses Lake. If the ladies' drop-by visit to Uncle Herbert's house the other day hadn't clued me in to the fact that we were the current topic of small-town speculation, the plethora of whispers and glances in church would have.

I felt like I was suffocating on a combination of the curiosity in the air and random memories of my dad. He was everywhere in this building, frozen in time. During our visits to Moses Lake, we'd come to church for Christmas pageants, Easter egg hunts, potluck suppers, a wedding or two. Every time we entered this place, people gathered around my dad as if he were visiting royalty, and I could see how much he missed Moses Lake. I always wondered if he resented my mother for putting him in a tug-of-war between his hometown and her.

Just as Reverend Hay was about to end the service, a little boy popped out of his seat and walked the aisle, loudly declaring that he wanted to be baptized. I thought about my dad. The day I was baptized along with a group of friends in our mega-church back home, he'd told me the story about getting up and walking down the aisle all by himself here in this little church. Now, looking at that little boy, I saw Dad. I wondered if, up in heaven, he was looking down and remembering. My dad, I realized now, showed us the kind of love Reverend Hay was talking about. He accepted people the way they were, even my mother, even when her inconsistencies caused him embarrassment, or inconvenience, or pain. If only I had inherited that trait from him, along with his hair and eye color. I wanted to be less like the casserole ladies and more like my dad; I just didn't know where to start.

When everyone stood up to go forward and hug and congratulate the newest members of the church, I whispered to Uncle Charley that I was going to walk home, and I ducked through an exit door into the parking lot. The air outside was brisk, but it felt good. Moses Lake glistening in the midday sun brought memories of my dad, and the thoughts were good thoughts, not painful spears with which I tormented myself. I felt as if my father were walking the path through the woods beside me, glad to see me in the place that he loved.

How would he feel about the land sale? Would he be pleased to know that something was happening that would provide jobs and much-needed income for Moses Lake, or would he be unhappy that the farmland would be developed? I wished I knew.

The family was already back at Harmony Shores by the time I made it there on foot. As we gathered food to take to Ruth's house, I began mentally preparing to start up a discussion in the car, where I would have a captive audience. While I understood this strange, nostalgic idea of Moses Lake as the idyllic family homeplace, in which Mom and Clay would happily settle while seeing the older generation through their senior years, I still knew it was impractical. Mom would never survive without her university dinners, her meditation classes, and the throng of graduate students, smitten by her knowledge of everything from Chaucer to Pope. And Clay couldn't even look after his poor dog properly. Case in point, I'd found the dog dishes empty on the back deck when I arrived at Harmony House after my walk through the woods. Roger was on his hind legs, trying to claw the lid off a metal trash can filled with dog food. I scooped out a helping and put it in the bowl, and Roger ate as if he hadn't seen kibble in a week. No wonder he'd felt the need to commandeer my FedEx package. If he got hungry enough, at least he could use my iPhone to call for a pizza. A twenty-seven-year-old man who couldn't feed his own dog regularly had no business taking on the care of two old men and a restaurant.

I rehearsed the conversation, making plans as to how I would gently hammer the point home while we were driving to Gnadenfeld. Somehow, I would figure out a way to do it as my dad would have—without being hard-edged and critical. When he gave advice, you knew he meant it for your own good, even if you didn't want to hear it. I would channel Dad's wisdom, be calm, yet determined. Businesslike.

Unfortunately, before I knew what was happening, Mom and the uncs had filled the backseat of the funeral sedan with secondhand casseroles. They took off while I was in the bathroom, leaving Clay and Roger waiting for me on the porch.

“Guess you're in the second wave,” Clay informed me, seeming cheerful enough about the idea of making the thirty-minute drive to Gnadenfeld with me riding shotgun.

I squinted down the driveway, my feelings oddly bruised. “They just took off without me?” It's pretty bad when you get ditched by people who don't mind riding to a birthday party in a car with
Funeral Procession
written on it. I had the old high-school feeling for a moment. Was I really that unpleasant to have around, or were they trying to avoid the in-transit conversation I'd been carefully planning? “I can't believe they just took off and left me here alone.”
How rude.

“What are we, chopped liver?” Clay and Roger sent smiles my way in unison—two shaggy blondes seeming completely oblivious to any undercurrents in the day. It really is true that people resemble their dogs—or vice-versa.

“Of course not.”
But I can't reason with you, and you know it.

Clay bounded to his feet on the top step and jumped down the other three in one carefree hop. He hadn't gotten the nickname Tigger for nothing. He could have earned a college scholarship in pole-vaulting, but he was just as apt to ditch high-school track practice as to show up. “I'll go get our ride.” He jogged off toward the back of the house, and Roger scrambled from the porch to follow.

I waited, wondering what cars were left back there. I hoped we weren't taking the hearse. As far as I could tell, Mom didn't even have a rental car, which meant that Clay must have picked her up at the airport. Did Clay even own a car? He'd sold the last one Mom bought him to finance his flight with the earthquake relief project.

I heard a rumbling and chugging out back that didn't sound like the hearse or Uncle Charley's pickup, so Clay did have a ride of some sort. Moving down the steps and along the front walk, I tried to catch a glimpse of whatever was headed my way. It sounded like a cross between a motorcycle and a street sweeper.

A white Toyota pickup with a crooked front fender rolled into view, the blinker cover broken on one side, an orange light bulb bobbing like a loose tooth. Something was letting out a dull squeal with each rotation of the wheels, and the entire truck listed to the left. Roger had taken up residence in the passenger seat, his head hanging jauntily out the window as the vehicle drifted to a stop. A string of doggie drool dripped from his mouth onto the door, sliding downward over some sort of badly-decayed decals that remained in bits and pieces all over the vehicle. Bugs, I decided, on further inspection. The truck was covered with partial decals of red-and-black bugs. Moving closer, I read the shadow of decal letters that had long since disintegrated or been removed under the passenger-side window.
Ladybug Pest Control.

“This is it!” Clay announced cheerfully, not the least bit embarrassed to be piloting a vehicle that looked like it had driven through a swarm of locust and collected body parts. “Hop in!”

I couldn't help it—I laughed. I knew Clay wouldn't care. One thing about my little brother. His ego was all his own. No one else held sway over it. I envied that about him. I always had.

On the other hand, I wondered at the odds of the ancient Toyota making it twenty-five miles down the road to Gnadenfeld.

“C'mon,” Clay said. “She runs better than she looks.”

“That's not saying much,” I quipped, and my brother smirked at me as I studied the truck. The engine sounded a little like the old crank-start Oliver tractor that Uncle Charley had always lovingly referred to as Betty. Come to think of it, I wondered what had happened to Betty when the family farm was cleaned out for sale. The massive estate auction out there had been scheduled for right after Christmas, as I recalled. Hopefully, Betty had gone to a good home.