Homefires (12 page)

“I’ve got something to tell you. Something terribly important to me – to us.”

My ears, my senses lurched.

“I – I hardly know how to say it.” His broad shoulders shrugged, heightening the suspense.

“What, honey?” I touched his arm, growing alarmed.

He darted me a look I’d never seen before. “I’ve received the High Calling on my life,” he softly declared and turned his attention back to the road.

I stared at him for long moments while confusion, like an angry waterfall, rolled over me, then blurted, “The
what
?”

“The call. To the ministry.”

“Oh.” My lips remained in Cheerio position as I stared at his set profile, his “mind made up” stamp already in place. And for a moment, his blurred silhouette was vintage Abraham Lincoln. The unexpectedness, the
blow
of his words made him seem a stranger. I struggled to dispel my befuddlement by facing the front and concentrating on what day it was.
Sunday
….

“Wh-when – ” I whispered, cleared my throat and tried again. “When did this happen?”

I gazed at him again and saw one corner of his lip curl up. He looked incredibly serene, as lucid as I was addled. “I’ve felt it for awhile now. It was just this morning, at church, that I knew for certain. As I prayed.” His brow, between green eyes, wrinkled. “I hope you’re happy about this, Janeece.”

I shifted my numb body until he vanished from my perimeter, until all I saw was the expanse of rolling hillside passing. Yet I could not escape the appeal in his statement – I felt it with every bone, every atom that comprised
me.

My vocal chords refused to give the words he yearned to hear.

Dear Lord
. He
had received the High Calling. Where did I fit? Why hadn’t Kirk prepared me, at least given me a small
hint that my –
our
lives were about to do an abrupt left flank? No – an atomic rearranging.

With rising dread, I envisioned the fish-bowl milieu of the Cheshire family...and that of Pastor Hart’s family before them.
Scrutiny
. The very idea rained terror on me. All my struggles to keep
me
tucked away from prying,
pitying,
interference and hatred, only to now watch my privacy dangled over a keg of nitroglycerine.

Privacy.
I gulped back hysteria. My self-exile was a luxury to be short-lived, like a wickedly sweet milk chocolate bar in the dimpled hands of Krissie.

Dread, thick and heavy as lava fell over me.
This is crazy.
I took a deep breath, trying to get a grip. The High Calling – nothing could be more wonderful. Could it? More honorable. Then why wasn’t I feeling wonderful about it? Why this crazy sense of splitting off from my husband, of being set adrift while he sailed ahead like a highborn porpoise?

Into his sunset. Not mine.
His
. And what could be more incredible than Kirk, the howling loner, thrusting himself into humanity? Would he still be Kirk?
My
Kirk?

For, complex as it was at times, I’d found my place at his side

The passing landscape blurred as the enormity of it all hit me again. My peaceful little world was about to somersault. God only knew how it would land. And I couldn’t do doodlysquat about it. Who could argue with the
High Calling
and
Whither Thou Goest I Will Go?

Was it only yesterday things were certain?
Safe?

Kirk – why didn’t you prepare me for this?
A vague sense of betrayal swelled within me. While he was the Loner, I was the Dug-in Kid who loved the day-to-day tranquil
flow
of life. Didn’t he fathom at all what this trail blazing would cost me?

“Of course,” Kirk’s sudden lapse into speech, as though I’d gushed an enthusiastic,
I’m elated, darling!
startled me. “I’ll have to enroll into Spartanburg Methodist College right away. I’ll work at the barber shop part time and go to school in the evenings and – ”

I listened as plans tumbled from him like popcorn and realized the seed had taken root long before now. If only he’d
enlightened me, it would have made all the difference in the way I now felt.

But that was not Kirk’s way.

Strong. Silent. Closemouthed.

Not so now. “It’s such an honor, Neecy,” he paused for breath and shook his sun-streaked wheat hair that waved more with age, “I’m overwhelmed by it all. Y’know? Why
me
? An old country boy who can barely spell.”

I swung my gaze to the road ahead, still unable to speak. I, too, was overwhelmed, but not with awe.
Mrs. Kirk Crenshaw
, after six years,
fit. Preacher’s wife
was a whole new frontier. I honestly didn’t know if I had it in me.

In that moment of cataclysmic, timeless suspension, my mind leaped backward to high school days when Kirk teased that he’d captured me before any other males got to me, grinning that foolish grin, one I’d grown to love because it revealed a side to Kirk Crenshaw reserved for only
me.
And his character smote me anew, the kind that dictated integrity, honesty and kindness. It was what snared me in the very beginning. It had to do with the direct openness of the sea-green eyes. And the level-headedness. The wisdom of when to laugh and when to be serious.

“...and I need to talk with Pastor Cheshire right away. He can notify the District Superintendent.” Kirk efficiently steered the Volkswagen into our drive. We piled out of the car, the girls dashing to their room to change into play clothes before Anne, Daddy, Trish and the boys arrived. It would be a few minutes because they, too, switched to comfortable attire and Anne gathered her fill-in dishes, usually as many as I’d prepared.

Has he noticed?
I wondered as I quickly slid into cool jeans and a pullover. But Kirk silently shed his suit, donned jeans, abstractedly slid his wallet into his back pocket and vanished. While I took the roast from the warm oven, I overheard Kirk on the bedroom phone, talking with Pastor. My insides tail-spinned into a bottomless ocean. No time to discuss – I turned from the thought and, with shaking fingers, pulled potato salad from the refrigerator to join steaming garden peas on the table.

The door slammed and small feet tripped swiftly to my side. “Dale!” I swept my little brother up into my arms to plant
a kiss on his puckered-up lips and feel his arms squeeze my neck until my eyes bulged. “I wuv you, Tweetie Pie.”

“I wuv you, too, Neecy.” His hoarse little belly laugh was like a warm brook washing over me and I felt soppy as usual that my carrot-topped lil’ brother adored me. I set him down and he toddled off to play with the girls.

“Oomph!” Cole’s arms tackled me affectionately around the waist. “Hey there, pal,” I leaned to nuzzle his neck, now at my chest level. Where had the years gone? “You might be eight but you’re still – ” I paused, smiling at him.

“ – your baby,” he finished for me, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey, Neecy!” Trish swooshed in the door, planted a soft kiss on my cheek and hugged me soundly. “Mmm, food smells good.” Trish, now in high school, had managed to lose twenty pounds after several start and stop failures with the calorie diet. She needed to lose at least fifteen more. I gave her pep talks all along, telling her to hang in there.

Her beautiful facial bone structure was beginning to protrude through diminishing flesh. Trish is the real beauty of the family.

“Sure does,” Anne chimed in, sliding her brown ‘n serve rolls into my preheated oven.

“Say,” Kirk appeared, “I’ve got to test this.” He nabbed a spoonful of Anne’s bubbling hot macaroni-cheese pie, cheddar stringing a trail from bowl to mouth, and with facial contortions to protect his tongue, managed to ingest it. “Lordy,” he proclaimed,” that’s good enough to make you want to slap your granny, Anne.”

He snatched a slice of cantaloupe and I cuffed him playfully on the shoulder, a mere tap. “Stay outta that. Else we won’t have enough.” I tried to keep the edge from my voice, hoping he wouldn’t take offense since he was in such a good mood.

“It’ll be okay, Neecy,” he rejoined playfully and stuffed half of it into his mouth, darting his hungry gaze about in search of something else to pilfer. I was relieved my little reprimand bounced off him this time. Kirk equated generosity – mine – as a test of love and any infraction upset our delicate balance.

Kirk found it intolerable that I concerned myself with everybody else getting his or her fair share of a delicacy. I found
it just as intolerable that he
not concern
himself. I suppose being from a large family, in which survival-of-the-fittest rules, makes one that way. Kirk was, I often told him, probably the little pig at the head of the trough, unaware of the other little pigs that got there too late. It was ingrained in him.

And yet, he was, and is, in every other way the most generous person I know.

Within moments, glasses of iced tea frosted beside my best cornflower dishes while we took seats at the table.

“Let us pray,” Kirk said and all around the table, we joined hands. “Father, thank you for this food of which we are about to partake. And thanks, too, for making your will known to me. I thank you for the High Call on my life. Amen.”

I felt that jerk in my plexus region again as a frozen silence struck the family.
We look like a Norman Rockwell painting,
was my inane thought. Dad spoke first, “When?”, then Anne, “You don’t mean it, Kirk. Really?”, then Trish, flashing her dimples, “I can’t believe it – my brother-in-law – a
preacher!”
Then everybody was talking and laughing and rushing to embrace Kirk, who took it all with a little boy grin on his face. Heather and Krissie raced, Heather nudging and winning the ‘first hug’ spot and even insisting Cole and little Dale hug Kirk before Krissie. I sat glued to my chair, emotions gyrating, but managed a wide smile when his eyes searched out mine.

Instinct took over and the actor in me rose to the occasion. I could find no button to push and stop the building dread whose litany played over and over in my head;
Things are going to change...to change...to change.
I operated on automatic, giving such a convincing performance of support that nobody seemed to notice I had nothing to say.

The visit that day stretched interminably long. I needed to be alone and when Anne hugged me goodbye, she looked me in the eye and said, “You’ll make a great preacher’s wife, Neecy.”

“Thanks,” I replied and smiled as though it were the sweetest compliment in the world.

After they left, I escaped to my bedroom. Kirk had gone for a walk, no doubt to enjoy his new status, one already fitting him like a soft elastic suit that breathed and caressed.

I kicked off my shoes and stretched out on our white chenille bedspread, hearing the girls in their room’s big climb-in
closet, enlarged by their Daddy, doing a
play-like
scenario of church. Heather was the song leader, of course, with Krissie sitting on the bench, actually a twelve-inch-high shoe shelf stretching along each side of the closet floor. When they pushed back the hanging clothing to one side,
presto,
they had a sanctuary... or house...or
whatever
.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, to let my mind go.
Lord, help me.
Several deep breaths later, I felt the tension begin to loosen and I uncurled my fingers and pictured an enormous vat of Jell-O, sitting beside a still lagoon, where a soft breeze wafted over my skin, cooling and soothing.

Rationale kicked in. I handled the facts. Tradition and religion dictated that a man dislocate the universe, if necessary, to follow the High Call – a wife or children never being mentioned in the variables. Only thing I’d ever heard was that a man forsake all to take the gospel to the world. And woe unto that wife who dared to interfere or come between her husband and the Hand of the Almighty.

My eyes popped open. I, Janeece Crenshaw, walked on shaky, Holy ground. Was I questioning God’s will? I closed my eyes again and searched my heart the only way I knew how. Honestly. No. I did not question the purpose of Kirk’s decision. It wasn’t that.

So what
was
bothering me?

I sat up in bed, having seen the mountain. I needed it moved.

First, however, I had to know what the mountain
was.
The front screen door slammed and I saw Kirk walk by the bedroom to the kitchen. He looked so darned noble, already different.
Why can’t I switch channels as easily?
I gazed out the window, through drapes stirred mildly by a breeze. Our friends across the street, the Nelsons, sat on their porch, fanning and rocking. I would soon leave all this – my roots. That fact stared me baldly in the face.

“
Pwaise de Lord,”
pealed Krissie as Heather’s sermon warmed up.
“How-de-youu-ah!”

And in that moment, I felt a warm, warm presence and slowly, like a jammed door screaking open, something inside me
shifted. And certainty flooded me that I could, when the time came, cope with whatever faced us.

Deep down where it counted, I was happy for Kirk and tickled by his sense of fulfillment already so apparent. And I knew that, even if I could, I wouldn’t lift a finger to change things back to the way they were yesterday.

“Oh Vic-to-ryyy, in Je-sus,” chorused my daughters’ voices from the closet’s church, “my Sav-iorrr, for-eh-ber...He
punched
me, to Vic-to-ryyyyyy – ”

I clapped my hand over my mouth and laughter spilled through my fingers.

Moments later, as humor ebbed, it came to me what this was all about. For the first time, I had to sort out things without Kirk. This time, I must come to grips without involving him. It was a new role: protector.

The bedroom door opened, Kirk stood there and I saw it in his hesitancy, his guarded eyes.
He’d noticed.