Good Heavens (7 page)

“I instituted Group,” she was saying, “to create an informal atmosphere among peers, which is a device that works well. Until they verbalize their feelings, I cannot diagnose and remedy their problems. You have certainly truncated the process, Esmeralda, and such interference will not be tolerated.”

Where I come from, younger people respect older people like me. Imagine her dressing me down like that. I had to bite my tongue. Of course, I'm not the kind that stays speechless for long. “Ursula, if these girls—”

“Ladies,” she snapped. Her stringy body was twitching with nerves, and she was going to town on another paper clip.

Ladies?
I thought.
Ladies don't wear tattoos and do such things as I'm hearing here
. But I didn't say what I was thinking.

I could stay quiet in ten languages if only I knowed ten. I did put in my two cents' worth, though. “Well, if these ladies have low self-esteem, in most cases it's their own fault. If I had done the things Linda done, I'd be ashamed to show my face.”

“That's hardly the point. I would appreciate it if you would leave analysis to me. I have my master's in psychology and am well qualified to assess and rectify whatever we have here.”

“I'm sure you can, Ursula, and I don't mean to get in your way. It's just that I don't think there's much good comes out of wallowing around in the muck and mire of a miserable past when we could be looking to the future—you know, looking to what Jesus can do for us.”

“That is a simplistic view. My heart's desire is to see these ladies come to know the Lord, but it is absolutely necessary to assiduously address the insidious circumstances that have entrapped them. Once we resolve the problems that led them into addictions, then we can lead them to Christ. My practice is based on biblical principles, Esmeralda. I know what I'm doing!”

She had reached the boiling point, so I didn't say anything, just waited for her to cool down. We sat in silence. Finally she said, “Well, what's your report?”

I told her all the creditors were willing to give us ten days more, and I asked her if any money had come in. “Not a thing.” She started scanning the receipt ledger.
“We can depend on getting fifty dollars from a church in Rock Hill, but they are irregular in sending it. . . . Dr. Elsie sends us a hundred dollars a month, but it must have slipped her mind now that she's in Vermont taking care of her terminally ill sister. . . . There is a Mrs. Hirsch whose daughter was helped at Priscilla Home. The daughter lived a Christian life for a year or two after leaving here, but then she was killed in an automobile accident. Her mother used to send us ten dollars a month from her social security check, but she hasn't sent us anything in several months.”

“The widow's mite,” I remarked.

She closed the book. “Just how many widow's mites will it take?”

“I don't know,” I said, and even though I wasn't sure what God had in mind, I told her, “but I believe God can make a way out of no way.”

“Don't you think I believe that, too?”

“Of course, you do, Ursula. And you believe in putting feet to our prayers. So do I. I passed a flea market in town, and I got to thinking we might find things here to sell down there.”

“There's not much left. The former housemother went through everything and sold it to the thrift store.”

“That piano—does anybody play it?”

“No. Lenora Barrineau played piano in nightclubs, but she won't play here. That piano is in very bad condition.”

“Then we don't need it?”

“Not in its present condition.”

“Then what would you think of placing an ad in the Rockville paper and offering it for sale?”

“We might as well. An ad will cost every penny of what we have in the account, so we should ask at least a hundred dollars for it.”

“Let's ask five hundred. We can always come down.”

Ursula leaned her elbows on the desk with her face in her hands and sighed. “Esmeralda, there will be no end to this financial burden. Even if we were to get all these bills paid, we'll always be up against money problems.”

“So you're saying we ought to plan ahead?”

“Plan ahead? With what?”

“First off, we have got to look for ways to economize—turning off lights, not running the washing machine or dishwasher unless they're filled. Trying to make fewer trips into town, that kind of stuff. And you know that level ground next to the road? That patch catches morning sun, and I think we can make a garden there—grow our own vegetables.”

“That ground has never been plowed.”

“I know, but we should be able to find somebody who has a tractor who'll plow it for us.”

“And what will you pay him with?”

“I don't know. We'll just have to take one step at a time.”

The phone was ringing; she answered it and then covered the speaker with her hand. “It's Mr. Elmwood.”

I left to give them privacy and went to my room.

4

I have never been one to wear my feelings on my elbows, but Ursula correcting me in front of the women got to me. Every day she found something I said that didn't set well with her. If it wasn't a verb out of place, it was a dangling participle, whatever that was. Ursula could write a book about dangling participles.

After I had closed the door to my room and was getting ready for bed, I could hear Ursula talking on the phone to Elmwood. I'm not one to eavesdrop, but I did hear her say something about somebody “grating on her nerves.” That had to be me. That hurt. I'd had many a disagreement with people, but nobody before ever said anything like that about me. At least not that I could hear. And it cut me to the quick. That woman made me feel so stupid, so foolish, I couldn't stand it.

Even after I was in bed, she was still talking to Roger Elmwood. Then in a few minutes she was knocking on my door. “Esmeralda, Mr. Elmwood wants to talk to you.”

“Just a minute,” I said and got up. Throwing on my robe, I went in the office. Ursula had left and shut the door behind her.

I picked up the phone. “Roger?”

He jumped right in with what he had to say. “Esmeralda, there are a few things I need to talk to you about. You understand that as president of the board of directors I'm responsible to see that things run smoothly up there. There's a chain of command you may not be aware of, but you need to respect it. I know you mean well, but the Priscilla Home financial situation is best handled by the director and the board, not by you, the resident manager. Miss Ursula told you I authorized a bank loan to cover all the bills and enough to tide you over until there's a response to the prayer letter. Out of the goodness of her heart she went along with your asking our creditors for extensions; however, the board has always handled our shortfall professionally, by a bank loan.”

As if that wasn't enough, he was not through. “Now this other thing, this business of your spending your own money to buy groceries disturbs me more than anything. Esmeralda, the board did not hire you to play God up there.”

My blood pressure shot straight through the roof. “Roger Elmwood, I was led to believe that this is a faith ministry, and in my book, faith means trusting the Lord to provide. As for my spending my own money, let me remind you that before Jesus fed the multitudes he had the disciples bring him what they had. That's all I was doing—just giving the Lord my loaves and fishes.”

Before he could say one word, I set him straight about
Ursula. “And as for me getting on Ursula's nerves, I'd like to go on record as saying that she gets on my nerves, too!”

He cleared his throat. “You listen to me, Esmeralda, it's up to you to make this thing work. If you two can't get along, one of you will have to go. I must warn you that the board is not only satisfied with Miss Ursula, we feel fortunate to have a director with a master's degree.”

I felt like spitting in his eye! “Mr. Elmwood, the Lord brought me here, and it's here I'll be until the Lord tells me it's time to go!”

“I see,” he said. “Oh yes, Mabel says to tell you hello.”

“Have you finished?”

“Yes, I've finished.”

“Then I'm hanging up,” I said and slammed down the receiver.
The nerve of that big bag of wind!
I was so mad I could have spit gumdrops.

There was no use trying to sleep, so I sat in my chair and fumed. I was so hurt and so mad I couldn't help it; tears just spilled over. Splurgeon said, “Words often wound more than swords,” and that's the truth if ever I heard it. You wouldn't believe the thoughts that went through my mind. I felt like packing up and leaving—getting out of the house before anybody else got up. Ursula was nothing but a snake in the grass—there was no way I could put up with that high-handed, know-it-all, walking dictionary! She couldn't speak a sentence but what she used them jawbreakers nobody could understand. She called herself a Christian, but there wasn't a woman in
the house who would want to be a Christian if Ursula was the only example they ever saw.

Dr. Elsie has been on the board longer than Roger Elmwood, and she'd not stand for him dressing me down the way he did. I would have called her right then and there if she was not way up yonder in Vermont taking care of her sick sister.

It was about 3:00 in the morning before I wore myself out and figured I better get a grip before I had to face Ursula and the women at breakfast. I got out my old King James and opened it. If ever I needed a word from the Lord it was then and there.

My Bible was so full of stuff, and it was so marked up and falling apart, I had to handle it carefully. The way I found things in it was funny. I had a hard time remembering chapters and verses—references, you know—but I could remember what side of the page it was on and even where it was at, top or bottom. Most of the time I remembered the book a verse was in but not always. Still, I could usually find what I was looking for, and if I couldn't I had a concordance in back.

Like I said, I needed some word to help me get through the coming day, but I couldn't think of anything right off the bat, so I opened to the Psalms, which always seemed to say something to my soul. As I was thumbing through, there was this one page where the corner was torn and I was wondering if I shouldn't scotch tape it back together. That's not always a good idea, of course. Other pages I had mended that way didn't work too good. The tape
got yellow and made the pages pucker. Smoothing out that corner, I saw verses I had underlined some time or other, so I read them. “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.”

Good heavens, wasn't that exactly what I needed? “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age,” he said. For a little while I just sat there, letting that balm in Gilead soothe my wounded soul. It cooled me down, I tell you, and I had to ask the Lord to forgive me for being so mad, for saying them things—well, maybe not just saying them but feeling the way I did. I wanted to promise the Lord that I'd love Ursula, but the wounds were too raw to make a promise like that.

I read on for a while and then climbed back in bed. I wasn't feeling very good about myself, about not having enough love to go around, none for Ursula and precious little for the women in the home. If I wanted any sleep at all, I had to get my mind off it.

As I repeated them verses to myself, something struck me funny and I had to smile. It was that last line about being “fat and flourishing.” I was willing to claim the part about bringing forth fruit in old age, but as for the “fat and flourishing” part, that was something I could do without! I wished I could tell Beatrice that one—she'd get a kick out of it.