Homefires (45 page)

At two a.m. the jangling woke me. Kirk stirred beside me as I groped in the dark for the phone. “Yes?” I croaked.

“Neece? I need to speak to Kirk!”

“Roxie?” I cracked one eye, then closed it against the lingering headache. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Moose – he’s gone. I’m worried to death.”

Kirk raised up on his elbow in the dark. “What is it?”

I handed him the phone and grappled for the headache medication on the bedside table.

As the conversation proceeded, alarm set in. I gathered Roxie had not seen Moose since early Sunday morning when he’d gone to buy a paper at the corner Seven-Eleven.

“No,” Kirk said quietly – too quietly. I gauged his emotional turmoil. A solid ten. “No, Moose doesn’t do things like this, Roxie. Look – ” He glanced at the quartz bedside clock. “Try to lie down and rest a bit. There’s got to be an explanation.”

I could hear Roxie’s frantic voice rising and falling in sync with my wildly throbbing heart and head pain.

“Yeah, Roxie. I’ll call you back.”

Kirk slid from bed and pulled on his robe. “Try to rest, Janeece. Probably something simple like Moose getting a wild hair and going upstate to visit Pearl, his stepma. He’s had a lot on him lately.” He leaned to kiss the top of my head. “Let me take care of all this. No use in us both losing a night’s sleep. Head still hurting?” I nodded and he kissed me again, this time on the lips. “Rest.”

I did doze off after the medicine kicked in. When I opened my eyes again, the sun was up and Kirk’s indention next to me empty. I glanced around and saw his robe carelessly tossed over the foot of the bed and his shoes missing from their space. Apprehension sliced through me and I sprang to my feet. I rushed down the hall to the kids’ rooms, then to the kitchen, where empty silence told me they’d already gone to school. I heaved a heavy sigh and fought guilt. Heather was now the official school chauffeur. I felt badly that I’d slept through everything.

Least my headache’s gone
. Never mind the drug hangover. It beat pain. I dropped onto the sofa and propped my bare feet on the coffee table.

The front door opened softly, then closed. Kirk stopped when he saw me. “You okay, honey? Headache gone?”

“Yeah. Moose show up yet?” He would, I felt certain. Moose was too danged in love with Roxie to simply disappear.

“No.” Kirk sat down in the easy chair facing me. His eyes were so sad it took my breath. “I don’t think he will, Neecy.”

My pulse skipped into syncopation. “Why?”

He gazed long and hard at me, as if weighing something. “All those talks we had, he confided some things to me that – well, leads me to believe he wanted out.”

“Out?”

“Of here. Everything.” Kirk shrugged, a jerky, tense movement.

“What—“

“Please…honey,” he rolled his neck as though it were in a noose. “No questions. That’s all I feel free to share.”

The following days blurred with near lethal potions of panic, Roxie’s hysteria, phone calls from upstate, phone calls
to
upstate, church folk dropping by to commiserate – Moose was quite popular with his big doofus grin – speculations, tears and Roxie’s constant
needs.

To us, church folk were
family
and when something happened to one of them, Kirk and I felt the impact as forcefully as genetic kin. In Moose’s case, lifelong ties intensified that bond.

I tried to understand Roxie’s desperation. What I didn’t always understand was her clinging to my husband like a newborn monkey to its mother. But I smushed my reaction and prayed extra hard that Moose would turn up and it would all go away.

Besides, Kirk needed me as he had at no other time. With Krissie’s death, we’d reached out to one another, almost exclusively, save our other children. This time, Roxie’s anguish inserted itself between us, emotionally and physically. I kept telling myself she had no one else upon which to lean.

Callie’s view was less charitable. “Listen Neecy – she chooses
not
to be comforted by us mere females.” She sat on the edge of the sofa, hands clenched together between her denimed knees. Despite tousled hair and makeup-less face, she maintained the Gardner glamour and mystique. She slashed me a dark gaze, then threw up her hands. “
Okay, okay.
So I’m heartless.” She sat back, savagely crossed her legs and hugged her ribcage.

We gazed at each other, leashed together by history and memories....

I snuffled loudly and met Cal’s gaze head-on. “He’ll be back.”

“Is that faith or presumption?” Her testy rejoinder didn’t fool me for a second. Her chocolate eyes shimmered.

“Neither. It’s hope.”

Her lips trembled. “I know.”

Kirk slammed in the front door and abruptly braked when he saw us sitting there pale and teary eyed. The starch left him and he plopped into the nearest easy chair. I noticed his fingers
trembled as he steepled them to lips set in a brooding face. Anger was beginning to replace the stunned countenance.

It wouldn’t be Kirk if it didn’t.

“The police think finding his car in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a bad omen.” His words came out staccato and spiked. “Say that direction wasn’t where Moose would have gone.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “He’d have gone upstate or – somewhere familiar.”

“I still think he just took a hike,” Kirk insisted bleakly.

That evening, Cal stayed over for supper. We needed each other and she needed us, the Crenshaws. Halfway through the meal, the doorbell pealed, then again and again, nonstop.

“I’ll get it.” Heather rushed to the front foyer.

“He’s not coming back!” Roxie burst into the parsonage, weeping and clutching a letter.

We jumped to our feet while Toby ogled the hysterical female.

“Roxie – ” I hurried to calm her, but she sidestepped me and threw herself into Kirk’s awkward arms. He gazed frantically at me over her head, as in ‘do something.’

I shrugged helplessly. Short of prying her loose with a crowbar, I had no plan of action.

“Please, Roxie,” I laid my hand on her arm and attempted to pull her into an embrace. No go. She merely dug in deeper.

“Let me help you,” I coaxed and shot Callie an SOS look. She came over and half-heartedly did the pry attempt, but we ended up wilted together, frantic about Moose.

Roxie’s auburn head turned from side to side. “M-Moose is
gone.
” She tilted her head and gazed up into Kirk’s astonished features. Tears dripped off her chin and I felt the first tug of pity.

And fear. “What do you mean – he’s gone?”

Kirk forcefully pried her away and held her at arm’s length. “W – what’s going on, Roxie?” His brow furrowed and his eyes blazed. She began to bawl again and he gently shook her by the shoulders. “Tell me,” his voice softened. “Tell me what happened.”

Together, we took Roxie to the sofa and settled her shaking body there as she wept and howled. “H-he
said
he’d ‘
worked
things out.’
Do you think he would actually – ”One hand covered her red lips while the other shoved the crinkled paper at Kirk.

I quickly grabbed some tissues and pressed them into her hands. I watched the blood drain from Kirk’s face until his lips looked blue.

“Kirk!” I cried. “For Heaven’s sake – what’s it say?”

Only the eyes moved in his zombie pale face. “It’s a private letter to Roxie.”

“Then why – ” I stopped. I was going to ask why she let him see it and nobody else.

But I knew. Pastoral privilege. Pastoral confidence.

He cleared his throat, patted Roxie’s shoulder and settled himself in his La-Z-Boy, a safe distance away.

Distance. That summed him up perfectly. He was in another land, deliberating. If brains had sound, the clamor of his would have drowned the revving of jets. As it was, I sensed his frustration. Not by his facial expression, that was gone. Not by his eyes. Those were flat. I can’t explain it. I just somehow knew he faced agonizing decisions.

It’s perhaps good I didn’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I could have prevented some of what happened next. Maybe not. I’ll never know. Because I said nothing that day.

I trusted Kirk to do the right thing.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“What’s wrong, Anne?” I gripped the phone, unaccustomed to the tension in my stepmother’s voice.

“I just got a call from Teresa. Chuck’s in bad shape. Seems his dialysis’s not helping him as it should and – complications are setting in.” The last phrase quivered across the wires.

My big brother swam before my eyes. I blinked back tears. “I’m going to be with him.”

“Me, too.” I heard her relief. Anne and I linked tighter and tighter as years sped by.

“I’m glad they’ve moved into the Greenville area,” Anne said. “We can be with him more. Do you think Kirk and the kids will come with you?”

“Not Kirk. The world would stop if he didn’t occupy that pulpit Sunday. Anyway, everybody’s been down since Moose left. Bet he doesn’t realize how much everyone loves him. So Kirk’s needed here, especially now.” I failed to quip
especially by Roxie.
Anyway, I felt guilty thinking that way.

I quickly scanned pros and cons of Heather and Toby making the trip.

“They’re out of school and both goofy over their fun-loving Uncle Chuck. Heather can get Dixie to fill in for her at the piano.”

“How about the choir – ”

“I’ll just dispense with choir specials in the face of this family emergency. Charlie Tessner can do a fair job of getting the congregation started on key.” I chuckled. “They’ll appreciate me all the more when I get back.”

Anne laughed. “Don’t you
know
it?”

Abruptly, humor took flight. “I’ll call you when we leave,” I said.

Heather and Toby packed in record time. Kirk helped us pile luggage into our family Chevrolet sedan trunk.

It was when I turned to hug him that I felt it again. I gazed deeply into green depths. Searching. I found nothing. The shutters were in place. Why? Only when Kirk was troubled did
they close. I hugged him again and felt his strong arms tighten around me. His kiss was Kirk. I relaxed.

“You okay?” I asked quietly. Kirk’s initial anger over Moose’s disappearance had – with weeks passing and no leads – leveled into what I read as resignation.

“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked Kirk.

“Probably.” Kirk looked away and shrugged limply. “I hope so, honey.”

So did I. So did Cal. “Hard to believe,” she insisted, “that Moose would voluntarily leave his
sweet thang.
”

Roxie, too, seemed to accept Moose’s absence. Her gauntness convinced me she’d truly loved Moose. Callie wasn’t as sold on it but at least gave Sweet Thang the benefit of a doubt.

Now, gazing into Kirk’s face, I had a sense of us standing on a bubble that could at any minute go
splatttt
and send us tumbling into an abyss. Raw fear struck a chord somewhere deep in me. I quickly attributed my angst to our long running trauma with Moose.

And Kirk’s features daily set in marble. I repeated, “You okay?”

My husband’s lips spread slowly into a smile that twinkled his eyes. “Sure I am.” Immediately, the smile fell from a face momentarily unguarded. Dark circles beneath tired eyes revealed worry and strain. “Give Chuck my love and tell him I’m praying for him.”

“I will.” One more tight hug and I climbed in the car.

My last glimpse of him in the rearview mirror was him standing hands in pockets, gazing unseeing into the distance.

My brother’s deteriorated appearance kicked me hard. It jerked me around till I was dizzy and crazy.

Oxygen tubes hooked to his straight, perfect nose, above usually firm Fabian lips. But today, near comatose lethargy made them hang slack. His stillness screamed and cursed at me. The reality of suffering took a momentary stranglehold on my faith in God’s mercy