The Homecoming of Samuel Lake (26 page)

Willadee’s mouth went dry. Somewhere inside herself, she had known this conversation was coming. Sometime. Had known that it would come, and where it might go.

“I
am
always on your side,” she insisted.

“Sure didn’t feel like it,” he said bitterly, “that night at the supper table when all that business came out about Noble and Toy. As far as I could see, there wasn’t a soul in the world on my side that night.”

“I’ve apologized for that. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” She wanted to scream the words.

Samuel went on, as though she hadn’t spoken. Everything he’d been holding back was coming out all at once.

“There I’d been, going along, like a big, dumb ox, with everybody in the family knowing what was happening and working together to hide it from me. Do you have any idea how foolish that made me feel?”

“I said I’m sorry.” She wasn’t just sorry. She was beginning to feel afraid.

“And what do you think you were teaching the kids during all that?
If the old man won’t like it, just don’t let him know?
” (He had never referred to himself as the “old man” before.)
“If the truth hurts, who needs it?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, crying now.

They’d reached Calla’s, and Samuel turned in to the drive. They could see the kids back by the barnyard, feeding something to Lady through the fence. Samuel sat there for a minute, staring first at the children and then at Calla’s sign.
MOSES.

“I used to love that saying about how a Moses will never lie,” he said. “But I tell you the truth, Willadee, it almost makes me sick to hear it now. And do you know why? Because what it really says is that a Moses will not lie, but they don’t necessarily tell the truth.”

Chapter 33

They’d never had a fight before. They’d never even had a real argument. Ever since the day they met, they’d been reveling in each other—rolling along without rules or restrictions, expecting only the best of each other, and believing nothing less. Willadee had looked at other marriages, the bad ones and even the good ones, and felt sorry for all those people, because they just didn’t know—they just had no idea—what love could be like when it was this right.

Now it wasn’t right at all anymore, and she didn’t see how it ever could be again.

Samuel didn’t even go into the house. He just went out to the barn and started fooling around with John’s old tractor, trying to get it running. Willadee went in and threw some supper together and hollered for everybody to come eat, then hustled into Never Closes and shut the door, so nobody would see the shape she was in.

Calla didn’t have to see her daughter’s face to know something was wrong. She could sense it, and she lay in bed that night worrying and wondering. When she couldn’t stand the uneasiness anymore, she got up and went into the bar for the second time in her life. Willadee was washing glasses at the sink, and there wasn’t a soul in the place.

“I don’t know why we make such a religion of keeping this place open all night,” Calla said. “It’s crazy to stay open after all the customers are gone.”

Willadee said, “Yes, well, Toy tried closing early that once, and look what happened to him.”

Calla laughed. That wasn’t funny, but it was.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she said.

“Trickery and deception, Mama,” Willadee said wearily. “Trickery and deception.”

“Bernice,” Calla guessed immediately. “What’s she up to now?”

“Oh, she’s up to plenty,” Willadee told her. “But it’s not her trickery and deception I was talking about.”

Later on, after Willadee had filled her in on the situation, Calla said, “Well, if you think you’ve done something wrong, make it right and be done with it.”

“What if Samuel won’t let me?”

“Good Lord, Willadee. Samuel can’t keep you from making something right. Just don’t make the mistake I made with John, by waiting too long. And as for Bernice—you’re smarter than she is. Outthink her.”

Willadee put the last glass in the rack and drained the soapy water out of the sink.

“I may be smarter than she is, Mama, but she gets more sleep. She’s thinking circles around me.”

Calla took the wet dishrag and wiped down the bar. She was feeling suddenly energized.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “No matter how much damage you think Bernice has done, you’ve got her beat, hands down. But if you ask me, it’s high time you fix that heifer’s wagon.”

“I don’t know
how
to fix that heifer’s wagon,” Willadee wailed.

And Calla said, “Well, I do.”

Willadee closed the bar right on schedule, and made breakfast, and got the kids off to school. Then she took a bath and went in search of her husband. She found him out behind the barn, chopping down the elderberry thicket that had grown up through the brush hog equipment.

“I want to thank you for everything you said to me yesterday,” she told him right off. Anything else would have just been words wasted.

Samuel quit chopping, sank the ax head into the earth, and leaned against the handle. He didn’t smile, but at least he was listening.

“You were right,” Willadee continued. “Not for believing Bernice, but this isn’t about Bernice. This is about how wrong I’ve been. The sad part is that I would have never realized any of it, if you hadn’t pointed it out to me.”

She was standing a little apart from him, not daring to take anything for granted. Not about to move in close or reach out to him, for fear he might pull away and a dark wall would spring up between them.

“Is this Moses Honesty,” he asked her, after what seemed like forever. “Or Just Plain Honesty? Because I don’t want to stand here swallowing something that might have to come back up later.”

“Plain honesty,” she said. “The only kind you’ll get from me from now on.” Then she added, “You may not always like it, but you’ll get it.”

Samuel nodded once, accepting that.

“And know this, Samuel Lake,” she said, fiercely. “I am always on your side. Maybe you don’t believe me right now, and maybe there have been ways I didn’t show it. Like setting a bad example for the kids. Teaching them it was all right to put things by you. But I wasn’t looking at it as right or wrong. I was looking at it as necessary. I’ll talk to them, and explain how dishonest I was. How unkind we all were. And I’ll tell them we’re going to do things differently from now on.”

Samuel nodded again.

Then he said, “I still intend for Bernice to sing at the revival. Will you be all right with that? With her singing?”

“I reckon I’ll be as all right with that as you are about me working in Never Closes.”

Samuel grinned, reluctantly. “Did you really tell her you’d drag her off the stage and pull her bald-headed?”

Willadee threw her head back and laughed out loud. “I told her I’d do it. But it wasn’t the stage I was figuring I’d have to drag her off of.”

The dinner for Samuel was a surprise, and the kids helped to make it. Not a one of them had ever cooked anything before, not so much as a piece of toast, but Willadee taught them the fine art of making meat loaf and mashed potatoes. While she was at it, she kept her promise to Samuel.

When she was done explaining the difference between Moses Honesty and Just Plain Honesty, and how the best thing was to keep the truth out in the open and let the chips fall where they may, the younger kids had turned into penitents.

“We broke his heart,” Bienville said, contritely.

“We did,” Willadee told him. “But there’s a way to mend it.” Then she told them about how she had apologized to their daddy and how much better she’d felt ever since. There were some other things that had happened upstairs, after they’d made up, that had also made her feel better, and they had done Samuel a world of good, too, but that wasn’t news they could use.

Swan said, “Maybe we should make him a poster that says we’re sorry and we’ll do better.” She had learned in Bible School one summer how to make finger paints out of cornstarch and water and food coloring, and she figured Grandma Calla would let them have a big piece of the white paper she used to wrap meat for her customers.

Blade said he’d help with the poster, but first he was going to pick the daddy some flowers. The only flowers left outside at this time of year were mums, but blooms were blooms. That child remembered full well how much those other flowers had lifted the uncle’s spirits a while back, and anything that worked on an uncle ought to work on a daddy.

Noble couldn’t see that he needed to make any amends. “I don’t feel all that good about the sneaking around,” he said. “But what choice did I have?”

Willadee didn’t have an answer for that. She was awfully glad that all this being Just Plain Honest was starting after Noble had been taught to defend himself.

“Maybe you could at least tell him how you feel,” she suggested.

“Then he’d just preach to me.”

“So what?” Willadee said. “You were brave enough to face those Emerson boys. You can stand up to a little preaching. This is not about you and your daddy seeing eye to eye, it’s about you letting him know that you care about him.”

Calla took her supper to her room that night. Said she’d been needing some time to herself. Sid was staying at the hospital with Toy, so Bernice was spending the night with Nicey. It was the first time Samuel and Willadee had had a meal alone with the children in months.

Samuel marveled over the kids’ cooking, and he absolutely loved his flowers, and the poster was just to his liking. The things the kids said meant the most, though. Noble went last, and his apology wasn’t an apology at all, but it brought tears to Samuel’s eyes.

“I love you” was what the boy said.

The kids hadn’t seen Uncle Toy since the shooting, and it was wearing on them. It was Samuel who decided on Saturday morning that the sight of a few tubes wouldn’t be nearly so hard on them as whatever they were seeing in their heads.

“Now, he’s still looking pretty weak,” he explained to them as he and Willadee shepherded them along the corridor of the hospital. “But don’t let that scare you. He’ll be good as new after a while, but it’ll take some time for him to get his strength back.”

“Are you sure he’ll know who we are?” Bienville asked. He’d heard about people who had almost died not recognizing their families when they saw them.

“Sure, he’ll know who you are,” Samuel told him. “And there’s no one on earth he’d rather see than the four of you.”

Samuel might have been ground down by life of late, but there was nothing small about the man. He was proud to be sharing the gift of his children.

Bernice had been told that they were coming, so she was somewhere else when they got there, and they had Toy all to themselves.

“Now, this is the best medicine I’ve had yet,” Toy said. His voice was raspy and uneven.

Though they were thrilled to be with their uncle, the children were stricken by how weak he seemed. He was the strongest man they knew—or he had been. Now his usually ruddy complexion had a grayish tinge, and he no longer looked larger than life, especially since he wasn’t wearing his artificial leg. They could see the outline of the stump though his covers, could see where that part of Toy Moses ended well before it was supposed to.

“Where’s your leg?” Blade asked.

Noble and Bienville winced. Swan poked Blade in the ribs.

Toy didn’t bat an eye. “I think they stuck it over there in the closet. I get to put it on later today and run a footrace.”

Blade made a surprised face and then laughed gleefully. If Toy was kidding around with them, everything must be okay.

Toy said, “Did you know your daddy helped save my life?”

Blade knew it, all right, he’d heard enough about it from everybody, but he didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust his daddy in any way. He dropped his eyes and stepped back from Toy, as if retreating from the question would keep some distance between him and his father. Toy got the message.

“I’ve been talking to the doctors,” he said, “and they told me about a place up in Little Rock where we can get you an eye made that’ll look just as real as your other one. We’ll have to talk about that when I get home.”

Blade was awestruck. “Will I see out of it?” he asked.

Toy shook his head. “No. But it’ll look so pretty all the girls will be chasing you.”

Blade went up on tiptoe and whispered to Toy, “I don’t want girls chasing me. I’m going to marry
Swan.
”

Samuel and Willadee exchanged an amused glance. Noble and Bienville made gagging sounds.

“Stop saying that, pip-squeak,” Swan hissed.

“I can say it if I want to.”

Toy said, “Well, y’all can argue about the engagement later. Right now, I want to be the center of attention.”

He asked each of the kids how things were going at school, and he asked Willadee how Calla was holding up. Then he asked Samuel how the plans were progressing for the tent revival.

“Things seem to be moving in the right direction,” Samuel told him.

“Well, I reckon Columbia County is in for a rumble,” Toy said with a grin. “Sounds to me like God and the devil are about to duke it out.”

Chapter 34

“How long are you intending for this revival to run?” Calla asked Samuel late one afternoon. In the past week, he’d gotten John’s old tractor and the brush hog equipment working and had mowed the Ledbetter cotton field. And just today, some men from the rental company had come out to set up the tent. Calla had been watching from the store window all afternoon and had come across the road as soon as the men were gone, to check out the competition.

“Until God leads me to close it down,” Samuel answered.

Calla pulled her sweater around herself, and crossed her arms in front of her bosom, and stood there looking at the newly mown field, the newly erected tent, the newly painted banner that read just like Samuel had envisioned.
CHOOSE YE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE.
She couldn’t help thinking that if Willadee got to choose whom she was going to serve, some of the regulars in Never Closes would have to find a new place to drink.

Samuel said, “I don’t know how this all sets with you, Calla, but it’s something I’ve got to do.”

Calla said, “Sakes alive, Samuel, I don’t care if you have a revival out here till the saints go marching in. Like as not, we’ll bring each other business.”

The way the revival was going to work without upsetting any of the local pastors was that Samuel would hold services when they didn’t. Monday night, Tuesday night, skip Wednesday night for everybody else’s prayer meeting, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. On Sundays, Samuel and Bernice would visit one of the churches in the community and maybe sing a song or two. The preachers, in turn, would tell their congregations about the revival meeting and urge them all to attend.

Samuel had some flyers printed up with the words
SPIRIT-FILLED REVIVAL
! emblazoned across the top. Under the words, there were pictures. One of Samuel holding an open Bible, one of Bernice holding a microphone, and another of the two of them singing, with their heads close but not too close together.

Samuel and Bernice drove all over the country, mounting flyers on fence posts and in store windows, and handing out more flyers to people he met on the street. Just about everybody he talked to promised they’d come or break a leg trying. A tent revival was a big event, especially with Sam Lake singing and playing five different instruments, and that pretty sister-in-law of his singing harmony. People hadn’t forgotten Samuel and his music.

The revival opened on a Monday night, and the local folk came out in droves. Carloads of people. Truckloads of people. Busloads of people from churches all over the county, and from neighboring counties as well.

Samuel stood in the open welcoming the crowd. “Good to see you.” “Thanks for coming out.” “Are you ready for a blessing?” And the people said, “How do, Preacher.” “Evenin’, Samuel.” “Sure hope you brought your banjer.” Bernice stood right beside him (she had never looked lovelier or more virtuous), and the realization settled over both of them at once that this was really happening. A swell of emotion was building inside Samuel—building so he could hardly contain it. Gratitude. Joy. And a feeling that he hadn’t had in a while. The feeling that he was of value to the world in general. These folks—all these good folks—were coming out because they were hungry for something. Maybe for spiritual renewal, maybe for music, maybe just for a break from their routines. Whatever they had come after, they were going to get a double portion.

The weather was chilly but not downright cold, and the people came only slightly bundled up, with blankets to make pallets for their smaller children. When it was almost time to start the service, Samuel and Bernice went up onto the platform and he checked to make sure the instruments were all tuned just right. The crowd was settling into their seats, most of them talking back and forth, and the sum of the voices was a sort of subdued roar. Samuel spotted the four kids in the front row, sitting two on either side of Calla Moses, who had dressed up for the occasion. He gave them a wink, and they gave him back grins. They looked to be almost as excited as he was.

Bernice sidled up to Samuel and asked, “Do you believe this?”

“I’m beginning to,” he said.

Samuel clicked on the microphone and said “Testing, testing,” and when they heard his voice go booming over the loudspeakers, the tent went quiet in anticipation. He didn’t bother to introduce himself. They all knew who he and Bernice were.

He struck a chord on the guitar, and gave Bernice a nod, and they launched into “I Saw the Light.” Samuel and Bernice, singing into that microphone, voices melding like Heaven come down. Pretty soon feet started tapping, and hands started clapping, and somebody in the congregation hollered,
“Glory!”
Samuel responded by upping the tempo.

Once, when his eyes rambled over the crowd, he could have sworn he saw Ras Ballenger at the back of the tent (
Ras Ballenger, smiling benignly
), but when he looked back, there was no sign of the man. So maybe he’d been wrong.

It was the first time in his life that Samuel had ever been glad to think someone hadn’t shown up for church.

Calla had been right in her prediction that the revival and Never Closes would bring each other business. Not everybody at the service was there because they wanted to be. Some were there because they’d been dragged by dominant spouses. And some of them didn’t stay where those spouses parked them. Henpecked husbands sneaked across to the bar for a few drinks while their wives were caught up in the Spirit. Of course, the tide flowed both ways. Sinners in the bar, who couldn’t help but hear the gospel music, would get to thinking about how they ought to change their miserable ways and would venture across to the tent revival in search of salvation. It was a tug-of-war between God and the devil, with both sides winning a few and losing a few.

The revival was such a success that there was no telling how long it would go on. People talked a little about how it was a shame that Samuel’s wife was working in a honky-tonk while he was over there preaching his heart out, and other people talked about how Samuel wouldn’t be having to put on a tent revival if he hadn’t gotten himself kicked out of the Methodist conference, but they didn’t let Samuel hear them, and he wouldn’t have let it get the best of him if they had. There were souls coming to salvation every night, so this had to be God’s plan in action.

Samuel was a happy man.

Bernice was in her element.

Toy was mending, no thanks to his wife, who couldn’t just hold his hand all the time. How could she hold his hand all the time, when she had so much to do? There was helping Samuel with the services every night, and talking to Samuel after the services about every spiritual thing she could think of, not to mention running all over the country with Samuel during the daytime, printing up more flyers and inviting folks to come out and worship. And then, she had to take care of her own needs sometime, looking perfect every minute can just take hours. Anyway, it wasn’t as if Toy was still in any real danger of dying. Dammit.

Willadee was so tired from being on her feet twelve hours a night, and still trying to keep up with the kids and the house in the daytime, that she was already wondering how long she’d be able to keep up this pace. By the time she made it into bed every morning, Samuel was just getting up to start his day. It was John and Calla, all over again.

Calla Moses helped with the kids and stayed ruffled out like a wet hen, because Bernice didn’t help with diddly.

The kids were kids.

Thanksgiving came and went. All the children were in school programs, and Willadee somehow made it to every one of them except Noble’s, which took place at night. (Calla went in her stead.) Samuel made it to Bienville’s and Blade’s, which were both in the daytime, on the same afternoon, but the rest of the time, he was tending to the Lord’s business. Swan hardly noticed that her daddy wasn’t at her program. He’d been tending to the Lord’s business since before she was born, so she was used to it.

Ras Ballenger showed up at the revival again (Samuel was sure he saw him this time), but he still didn’t cause a speck of trouble. Blade felt his presence, and looked around and saw him, and had nightmares for a week. After that, he started creeping into bed with Samuel every night, and the bad dreams stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

Toy came home from the hospital. Home to Calla’s, not home to his own house. Life would have been lonesome stuck over there by himself while Bernice was out helping Samuel promote the revival. Plus, Willadee and Calla wanted Toy where they could see to him.

Bernice thought the hospital had let him go a little early.

Christmas arrived, and Swan was relieved to discover that the Lake family was no longer prudent. Attendance had fallen off at the revival when it got too cold for most people to stand it, but the offerings had been good up to that point, and Samuel had saved money back. There were presents for everybody.

All the aunts and uncles and cousins came over for Christmas dinner. You could hardly find room to walk through the house, there were so many people, which suited Calla fine. This was her first Christmas without John, and she didn’t want to spend the day missing him. Still, after everybody who didn’t live there had gone home, she went out to the cemetery and stood in the cold beside his grave for the longest time, wishing she could turn back time.

Ras Ballenger showed up, late in the day, bringing presents for Blade. Calla thanked the man again for helping to save Toy, but Blade hid in Bienville’s room until after his daddy was gone and then refused to open the packages.

His nightmares returned.

It got to be January. The crowds were slimmer over at the tent revival, but not slim enough for Samuel to even begin to think about closing it down. With the smaller crowds, the services grew more intimate. Folks gave their testimonies (Bernice gave hers every night, and it touched folks’ hearts, every time), sinners still came forward at the end of every service, and the music just kept getting better and better.

Swan turned twelve, and Noble turned thirteen, both in the same week. Swan asked her mother for a bra and got a camisole instead. Mail order, from the Wish Book. Toy gave Noble the keys to Papa John’s truck, which still wouldn’t run right, since it still needed the motor pulled. Calla made pineapple upside-down cake, which is not the kind of cake you put candles on, so there was nothing to blow out and make wishes on. Nobody missed the candles, because when you’re eating pineapple upside-down cake, there’s nothing much left to wish for.

Toward the end of January, Toy announced at breakfast that, in another couple of days, he’d be ready to go back to work at Never Closes. Willadee was so happy she could have danced on the table. Bernice wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing for him to do; after all, he’d been close enough to death’s door to look inside, and he still didn’t have all his strength back.

What was really bothering her was that, once Toy took over his duties, Willadee would be free to take over hers, which wasn’t the least bit fair. Here Bernice had earned Samuel’s trust and gotten him believing in her, and sometimes when they were singing, their voices melded so sweetly that it was as though the two had become one, and now Willadee was going to ruin everything. Bernice was well aware that a woman who’s in a man’s bed at the same time he is has a diabolical advantage over a woman who’s never managed to get into bed with that man at all, and she could see her chance (or what she believed was her chance) slipping away.

Her plan had always been to finesse the situation so that Samuel thought the whole thing was his idea, but she didn’t have forever, and that’s how long it was taking him. He wasn’t leaving her any choice except to seduce him. If he’d wanted to make the first move, he’d had plenty of chances.

If everything worked out in her favor, she and Samuel would come together in a rapturous fusion that would be the start of a lifetime of happiness. If it all fell apart, life wouldn’t be worth living anymore, so she guessed she’d just have to kill herself.

That night, the service was a particularly emotional one. Bernice was so glad of that, since emotions of the spiritual kind can lead to emotions of another kind like a stream feeding into a river. She and Samuel were both still feeling the glow after the crowd had dispersed.

“I can’t tell you how thankful I am to God for this whole experience,” she told him after they’d finished straightening the chairs and putting things in order. They were at the back of the tent, and Samuel was about to turn off the lights. It seemed like a perfect moment for this conversation, and Bernice thought that tucking in a reference to God had lent just the right touch. “I’ve had more happiness in the last several weeks than I’ve had in the rest of my life put together.”

Samuel smiled and said, “You’ve done more than your share to make this whole thing work, Bernice. I don’t know what I’d have done without you all these weeks.”

She reached over and turned off the lights.

“I don’t know how we’ve done without each other for so long,” she whispered, moving in so close that strategic parts of her body brushed against him. Samuel recoiled instantly and switched the lights back on. He was so horrified, his hands were shaking.

“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.

That set her back a little, but she figured his voice just sounded that way because he was so excited he could barely talk.

“Samuel …,” she sighed.

“Bernice, we need to get back across the road, where we belong. You’ve got a husband waiting, and I’ve got a wife.”

“You feel the same way I do,” she insisted, taking his hands so that she could guide them where she was positive he really wanted them to be. “You know you do.”

Samuel jerked his hands away and just stared at her. “No,” he said. “I do not. And, if you’re feeling anything out of the way, you need to ask the Lord to help you overcome it.”

“Anything out of the way?” Oh, she was indignant now.
“Anything out of the way?”
Her voice was rising, getting shrill around the edges.