Orchard of Hope (36 page)

Her father said, “And sit wherever he or she wants to?”

“Well, it looks like they can now. At least at the Grill. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t have always been that way, but people being people, it isn’t always that easy.”

“No, not easy at all. Are the windows up there okay?” Jocie’s father asked. “And Brother Boyer’s church? You haven’t gotten any other calls?”

“I came by the Grill. As far as I could tell, everything looked okay. And I’ll go by the church when I leave here. But surely they wouldn’t bother a church.”

“Tell that to those people down there in Birmingham. The families of those little girls.”

“But we aren’t Birmingham, David. We’ve never had that kind of trouble in our town, “ the chief said. “We need to keep a level head here. It’s just a broken window.”

“This time.” Jocie’s father looked from Chief Simmons toward the plastic over the window flapping in the wind.

Jocie didn’t like the way her father said those words. Did he think whoever threw the rock would be back with more rocks? More hate? She suddenly remembered what Ronnie Martin had told her earlier that day. She moved closer to her father’s side and touched his arm to get his attention.

“Not now, Jocie,” her father said.

“But it’s probably something Chief Simmons will want to know too.” Jocie rushed on, not waiting for her father’s permission. “Somebody at school told me I should warn Noah and his family to be on the lookout. That something bad might be going to happen.”

“Did they give you any details?” Chief Simmons asked. “What or when or anything?”

“No, he just said he’d been hearing things.”

“Well, that’s not much help,” the chief said. “I’ve been hearing things. Of course, where the Hearndons live out in the county is out of my jurisdiction anyway. But I’ll pass it along to the sheriff so he can keep an eye out about that.”

“This is in your jurisdiction,” Jocie’s father said. “The West End Church is in your jurisdiction.”

“And I’m going to investigate and drive up there through the West End to be sure everything is peaceful. You don’t have to tell me how to do my job, David.”

“Sorry, Randy.” Jocie’s father shook his head a little. “I wasn’t meaning to do that.”

“That’s all right. I understand.” Chief Simmons put his hand on Jocie’s father’s shoulder. “It’s been a long day. But the truth of the matter is we aren’t ever going to find whoever threw that rock. You know that and I know that. The best we can hope to do is make them think we might so that they won’t throw another one.”

“You’re probably right,” Jocie’s father said.

“Of course I am,” Chief Simmons said. “You let me know if you have any more trouble.”

Jocie and her father watched Chief Simmons go out the door. Wes hobbled up behind them. “You get past writing out parking tickets, the chief’s done in over his head,” Wes said.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on him. He’s probably right. We’ll never know who threw that rock,” Jocie’s father said.

“We might not want to know,” Wes said.

37

The
Banner
got folded that night, but Leigh wasn’t quite sure how. Things were all turned upside down after the rock came through the window. Wes was pale and drawn from being up on his leg too long. Zella jumped at the slightest noise. Noah hardly said two words except to ask David to drive him home after they were through. He couldn’t very well ride his bike all those miles home with that evil lurking out there somewhere in the dark.

Even Jocie was silent as they folded the papers. Leigh wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Jocie without something to say for so long. But then again maybe that was because David was so grim. He hardly managed a smile even when he told Leigh good night, but she knew it didn’t have anything to do with her. It was whatever had been written on that paper.

He wouldn’t talk about it. Not even several days later when they went to the high school football game on Friday night. He said he didn’t want to talk about any of it. He said that was all anybody in town had wanted to talk about all week, and that was true enough. Leigh heard it every day at the courthouse. Who did what? Why whoever did what? And the most asked question, what were they going to do next? Everybody had their opinion, but nobody had any answers.

But David said he wanted to give his mind a rest, and then he smiled at her. Leigh was ready to talk about anything he wanted to—or not talk about anything he didn’t want to—as long as he kept smiling at her like that. He gave his camera to Jocie and let her run along the sidelines to get the pictures they needed for the
Banner
.

“She’s better at taking pictures than I am anyway,” he said.

“I don’t know about better, but she does seem to be having fun,” Leigh said after they found a seat up in the bleachers.

As Jocie made her way out to the field with the camera, kids kept yelling at her and striking poses. Jocie turned the camera toward them and focused in.

“She’ll run out of film before the second quarter,” Leigh said.

“She’s not really taking all those pictures. She’s just pretending so they’ll leave her alone.”

“Gee, I should have carried around a camera when I was in high school. It looks like an instant ticket to popularity.” “I’m glad you didn’t,” David said.

“Why?”

“Because then you might have taken a picture of some guy and one thing would have led to another and you’d be married now with three kids.”

“Three kids?” Leigh’s cheeks warmed and her heart started beating faster.

“Well, two at least.”

“So what would be so bad about that?”

David reached over and took her hand. “Then I’d still be a lonesome old man who might have completely forgotten how good a regular old peanut butter sandwich could be.”

Leigh leaned closer to David and didn’t even think about all the people around them who would be seeing them holding hands. It was as if they were the only two people on the bleachers. “You know, we’ve never really had that peanut butter sandwich picnic. We just keep talking about it.”

“How about tomorrow night? If it doesn’t rain. And from the looks of the weather maps, we’re not even going to get any thunder or lightning for a while. I’d thought about us maybe going to the lake, but the way Tabitha’s been feeling, I’d better stay closer to home.”

So they went on their picnic. She made the peanut butter sandwiches. David brought grapes and lemonade. They didn’t go anywhere special, just carried a blanket out into the old apple orchard behind his house since he had to stay close in case Tabitha’s baby decided to come early.

The sun was going down by the time they got the picnic spread out, but it was still hot. Leigh’s face was moist with perspiration and her hair was going frizzy. She should have borrowed some of Zella’s armor hair spray. The fruit flies and bees that had been buzzing around the faulty apples on the ground came over to check out the new feast in the area. Then before they’d taken two bites of their peanut butter sandwiches, mosquitoes started humming in their ears. To add to the country ambiance, now and again a whiff of the neighbor’s cow pasture drifted over to them.

“Maybe a picnic wasn’t such a good idea,” David said as he swatted at a mosquito on his arm.

“Or the peanut butter sandwiches,” Leigh said. “I think my mouth is going to stick together. I should have put some jelly on them.”

“Maybe lemonade will help,” David said as he poured her some out of the thermos.

She took a drink and tried to wiggle around to find a more comfortable spot on the hard ground under the blanket. David looked as uncomfortable as she was, sitting on the ground. Leigh put down her peanut butter sandwich and laughed. “You think maybe we’re too old for picnics?”

“Maybe not too old, just too sensible.” David waved his hand around his face. “Every mosquito in the county must be swarming us.”

“Zella’s going to be really disappointed.”

“Just tell her we went and let her imagine the rest. You can leave out the mosquitoes and fruit flies and the pungent country odor.” David stood up and reached down a hand to help Leigh up. “Come on. Let’s walk a little. At least then we’ll be a moving target for the mosquitoes.”

“Okay. We’ll take the food back to the house and share it with everybody later. Maybe Aunt Love can hunt us up some blackberry jam for the sandwiches.”

So maybe it wasn’t the picnic Leigh had imagined or that Zella read about in her romance novels, but it was still perfect. Absolutely, completely perfect. Even after they gathered up their things and went back inside to sit around the kitchen table and peel off the tops of the sandwiches to add Aunt Love’s blackberry jam, it was still perfect. She felt at home in David’s kitchen with David’s family. She felt at home with David.

By the time they folded papers again on Tuesday, the window in the newspaper office had been fixed. David hadn’t found anybody to paint the
Hollyhill Banner
name back on it, but just having the window in was a relief after a week of listening to the plastic flop in and out with every breath of air. That noise had worn on all their nerves, especially Zella’s. She was constantly rearranging the papers on her desk and patting down her hair.

Finally on Monday, David had asked her if anything was bothering her.

“No, of course not,” she’d said as she grabbed a tissue to dab the end of her nose. “Well then, of course, this with the window. And my arm.” She held up her arm where the long scratch was still an angry red. “And then Ralph and his son putting the window in this morning. They must both be deaf the way they kept yelling at one another. I mean, that would surely bother anybody. Keep them from being able to concentrate on their work. Not that I haven’t been doing my work. Of course I’ve been doing my work. I always do my work. I sold three ads this morning.”

“I know, Zella. I wouldn’t be able to get by without you. I just thought maybe there was something you wanted to talk about. Something in particular that was bothering you. Jocie and Noah haven’t been giving you a hard time, have they? Or Wes?”

Zella looked down quickly at her desk and straightened her piles of papers. “No, of course not. Not at all. I’m so relieved that Wesley is able to be back to help you. To help us all. And I’m not a bit worried about anything he says. Not a bit.”

“Good,” David said. “But just remember I’m ready to listen if you do have a complaint or a problem.”

“Problem? What kind of problem could I have? I mean, other than my roses drying up and that’s a problem everybody in Holly County is having right now. But if I did have a problem I couldn’t handle myself, why, of course, you’d be the first person I’d tell. Especially about anything here at the office.”

So she hadn’t told him what was bothering her, but something was. Still, the whole town was jumpy. Nobody wanted to talk about the storm hanging over their heads that had nothing to do with the rain they needed, but it was there. They talked about how hot it was and how ponds were drying up all over the county. They talked about how the football team had actually won a game on Friday night. They skirted around it when they talked about the coach starting three of the black boys who’d played at the black high school over in Grundy the year before. They came closer to admitting that storm clouds hung over Hollyhill when they talked about the
Banner
’s window getting fixed or about Mary Jo going toe to toe with Grover Flinn and serving Myra Hearndon and the Reverend and Mrs. Boyer a soft drink at the counter in the Grill.

They hadn’t wanted to look the problem in the face at Mt. Pleasant on Sunday either, although it was harder to ignore with Myra’s beautiful voice ringing out from the pews as they sang the morning hymns. Jocie and Miss Sally had sat in the pew behind Myra and kept Eli and Elise entertained. Cassidy sat with them too, the first time she’d gotten away from her mother’s side at church. Miss Sally kept putting her arm around Cassidy or touching her hand, even as she held on to Eli in her lap, to be sure Cassidy knew she wasn’t forgotten. David doubted if Miss Sally heard a word of his sermon, but he didn’t care about that. He’d never seen Miss Sally looking so happy.

She told David after church that it was as if the Lord had answered a prayer she’d never even thought to offer up for some years now, and given her a family of children to love. “You know, I’ve loved a pile of children who have grown up here in this church, but I’ve never had children reaching for my heart like these three little ones. They’re a gift straight from the Lord. I know they are. And their mother too. I know she’s not my daughter, could never be my daughter, but sometimes it feels like she is.”

“The Lord blesses us in ways we don’t always expect,” David said.

“That’s true.” Miss Sally’s smile faded away as she looked out the door toward the members who had already filed out of the church and were talking out in the yard. “But I’m afraid some of the people here at Mt. Pleasant aren’t seeing Myra and the children as the blessings they are.”

“They’ll come around. They just need a little time.”

“Attendance is down. The offering is down,” Miss Sally said as she held up the envelope of money she’d gathered up out of the offering plates.