The Presence (47 page)

“Won't be but a moment,” Jeremy replied, still avoiding his gaze.

TJ shut the door, turned, and walked up the stairs. He entered the bedroom, found Catherine propped up in bed, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, all four pillows behind her back, the Bible open in her lap.

“Where you been, honey?” she asked.

“There was a little something I needed to finish up,” he replied, walked around, and sat down on the bed beside her. TJ took his wife's hand in both of his, began playing with her wedding ring. He smiled faintly, asked, “You remember the day I slipped this on your finger?”

With her free hand Catherine took off her glasses, said, “Child, what on earth's gotten into you?”

“I was so scared,” TJ said. “I don't believe I've ever been as scared in my whole life.” He looked into her eyes, said, “Marrying you was the best move I've ever made, Catherine.”

Her look softened. She placed her other hand on top of his, murmured, “How you do go on.”

“You're the best wife a man could ask for,” he said. “I just hope I've been worthy of you. I know I've made mistakes, a lot of them, but I've tried to be the best husband I could. I really have.”

She gave him that deep-down chuckle, said, “I do believe I know now what my man is after.”

He shared her smile, said, “All I want is to be here with you. You know I couldn't have done this without you, don't you?”

She inspected his face a long moment, growing steadily more solemn. “Is it what you told me about this morning?”

With a slow movement of his head, TJ nodded once. His eyes never left hers. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Catherine had to swallow before she could reply, “I didn't think the time was coming so quick.”

“It's the Lord's timing, Catherine, not ours,” TJ told her, his voice as soft as his eyes. “There are still the children, honey. It's your choice.”

She gave a heartfelt sigh and set her head back against the pillows. Wrapping her fingers around his, she drew their hands up close to her heart. “I can hardly believe this is real.”

“I love you with all my heart,” TJ said.

She drew him to her with a violent strength. “You're my man,” she said.

With a soft and silent beginning, that quiet, holy Presence filled the room, so gentle, so gradual, that at first it was hard for either to believe that He was truly there.

“Honey!” Catherine held her husband close with excited fingers. “What is it?”

His voice was sure, the words the last he ever spoke.

“The Lord is here,” was all he said.

The light grew beyond the power of human vision, and with it grew a love so total, so complete that there was room for nothing else. All was light. All was love. All was eternal.

****

Jeremy had his hand on the mailbox slot when the blast rocked him. People screamed up and down Connecticut Avenue as windows shattered and cars swerved in their paths. Jeremy leaned on the mailbox for support, his hand still clenched to the letter, and let the sobs wrack his body. He ignored the cries and the running footsteps and the sirens and the people. He stood where he was and bowed his head and cried for what he knew had happened.

When he could, he turned around, the tears streaming down his face, and said to no one in particular, “I believe I'll just deliver this letter in person.”

They made fairly good time, all things considered. The motorcade leaving Washington in the early morning darkness was over a mile long. Jeremy and Nak rode in the first car with Reverend Wilkins and TJ's eldest daughter, who had come up to accompany them home. The lights on the squad cars up ahead continued to blink in through the front window, hurting Jeremy's eyes. The funeral service was to be held at noon, so they left at four in the morning, which was fine with Jeremy. He hadn't slept much the last few days.

For reasons Jeremy could not explain, he had decided to drive rather than fly the bodies home. There was something solemn about the process of driving his friends on their final journey. It just seemed to fit better than putting them in a plane and flying them home. Much better.

The telephone had rung constantly. Although the blast had almost completely destroyed the back of the house, Jeremy insisted on sleeping on the sofa in the living room. He ignored the detectives and the yellow police-warning tape and the curious onlookers. TJ's secretaries brought him sandwiches and words of encouragement.

Two phone calls had stayed with him through it all. The first had come from Congressman John Silverwood. The man had sounded totally shattered, his pain so sharp that it had cut its way through the fog of Jeremy's own grief. I can't talk to TJ anymore, the man had said time and again. I know it's too late for that. Jeremy had struggled for words that might have eased the man's agony. The Lord is here with us, he had said. At that Silverwood had completely broken down. I don't know how to talk to Him either, he had told Jeremy. Over the phone Jeremy prayed for the man's relief from sorrow, feeling the words had been aimed more at himself than at the congressman.

The second call had been from the President of the United States. It had come early in the morning after another sleepless night, and Jeremy had not been able to respond. The man had seemed truly bereaved, but before Jeremy could share in his sorrow, the President promised a full inquiry into the cause of TJ's death. Jeremy had felt himself return to his familiar numbed state as he thanked him and hung up as quickly and politely as possible.

Most of the phone calls were from people who wanted to be a little closer to the center of their grief, who needed details of the funeral service. Jeremy told everyone when and where the service was to be held, when the procession would leave, and suggested that everyone just fly down. But by three-thirty in the morning of their departure for Raleigh, there were over four hundred fifty cars parked as far away as Dupont Circle, all waiting for the motorcade to get underway.

Jeremy was pleased to see Senator Atterly's limousine directly behind the hearse, completely filled with friends from the Community of Hope. The senator spent the entire trip down discussing various ways that he might be of further assistance. His staff filled two more cars farther back in the line.

Almost as soon as the motorcade crossed the North Carolina border, dawn broke upon a cloudless sky. By the time the mourners arrived at the Church of New Zion, the day had turned warm and spring-like. The procession was by then national news, and had been buzzed a dozen times by low-flying television helicopters. It passed through Raleigh as though guided by remote control. Patrol cars guarded every major intersection, and officers replaced stoplights to wave them on through.

The Church of New Zion had done what it could to prepare. There was no way the church could hold the crowd, no way at all. So all the pews had been carried outside and set in careful rows. Behind them were placed all the folding chairs the church could possibly find. At the front was the altar and low stage used for revival meetings, with a space reserved before it for the two coffins.

Thankfully, it had been a mild winter—so mild, in fact, that it had seemed to many as though autumn had simply drifted into an early spring. The dogwoods encircling the churchyard had grown fresh leaves, and now the first blossoms were beginning to appear. In the sparkling spring sunlight it seemed as though the motorcade was pulling up to a brilliant field of green, crowned the entire way around by snow-covered trees.

As pallbearer, Jeremy helped carry the coffins up through the long line of local mourners. There was almost total silence, broken occasionally by the sound of quiet weeping and the sporadic birdsong. Jeremy kept a tightly clenched jaw and willed himself to hold fast to his composure. As soon as the caskets were set in place he fled to the distant perimeter, only to be recruited by a frantic Nak. He was trying to help the police and sort out the press, keeping them to the separate line of chairs set underneath the dogwoods. Jeremy didn't mind lending a hand. It kept his mind occupied. It also gave him a chance to console a teary-eyed Sandra Hastings and send her up into the mourners' section. By the time he had corralled all the photographers and cameramen seeking pictures of the three senators, nine congressmen and two members of the President's Cabinet who dotted the crowd, Jeremy was feeling much more in control.

Jeremy stood between the press section and the main gathering, watching people reaching over the rows to shake hands, seeing many shared hugs, murmurs and tears. He was in no hurry to move. A man in a hurry needed someplace to go.

“You're Jeremy Hughes, aren't you?”

Jeremy turned around, saw an overweight woman with bright red hair and weepy eyes. “Yes, ma'am, that's me.”

“I'm Bella Saunders. I've heard a lot about you.”

Jeremy held out his hand, said, “TJ's talked so much about you I feel as if I've known you all my life. It's a real honor to meet you, Miss Saunders.”

“Call me Bella. Please. Everybody else does.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tattered tissue, said brokenly, “I feel as if my whole world's been shattered.”

“Know just how you feel,” Jeremy replied. “Would you care to sit with me, Bella?”

“If you don't mind sitting next to a fat old woman who's gonna bawl her eyes out.”

“I'd consider it a privilege,” Jeremy replied. “Besides, it'll keep people from payin' too much attention to me. C'mon, I think there's some chairs up front where we're supposed to sit.”

Bella held back. “Oh no, please, not where everybody can see me.”

But Jeremy was very insistent. “Make TJ proud of you, Bella. That's the only thing that's keepin' me goin' right now. Remember all he did for you and make him proud.”

She took a shaky breath, said, “All right, then. Let's do it now before I lose my nerve.”

They walked forward together, heads erect, jaws set into firm lines. They nodded to the people around them, sat down, looked straight ahead.

Jeremy asked her, “Do you want to join them?” He pointed with his chin to where a long line of people toured slowly around the two closed coffins. Some people reached out and touched the lids; others just looked down sadly, many were crying. Bella shook her head in a brief sharp jerk. “Couldn't bear it,” she said.

“Mr. Hughes? May I sit here?” It was a very red-eyed John Nakamishi.

“Why sure, son, set yourself down. You two know each other, don't you?”

“Yessir. Hello, Bella.”

“Hello, Nak.” She said to Jeremy, “After all this, I've just got to find something to do to keep myself going. I've been wracking my brains, but all the ideas I have don't seem very meaningful. I need to do something, though, something to keep it alive.”

Jeremy did not need to ask her what “it” was. “You've got that prayer session, don't you?”

“Sure, Bella,” Nak agreed. “We need you.”

“It's not enough,” she said firmly. “I want to do more. But I can't see myself getting involved with some little church group that gets together twice a week and talks about their kids.”

Jeremy thought it over, asked, “You ever heard of the Community of Hope?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“That's a great idea, Mr. Hughes,” Nak affirmed.

“Looks like it's about time,” Jeremy said, suddenly having difficulty with his voice. “Tell you about it later, Bella.”

Reverend Harbridge approached the podium, looked out over the gathering, said gravely, “There's a big question in everybody's mind about why this had to happen to such a godly couple. Don't know how many people've come up to me, asked how the dear Lord could let this be.”

He reached into his inner coat pocket, came out with a few papers, unfolded them, set them on the podium. With studied slowness he spread them out flat, said, “I believe the best thing to do is to let Brother Case answer that for himself.

“Our dearly departed brother was kind enough to leave precise instructions with our friend Brother Jeremy as to just how we are to proceed today. These were written the evening of their homegoing.”

He stopped, waited, let the words sink in. The crowd gave voice as the import of this message went home.

“We will therefore follow the wishes of Brother Case as closely as we can,” Reverend Harbridge went on. “We will start by singing his and Sister Catherine's favorite hymn, ‘Just As I Am.' Y'all be sure that those who don't know the words have the hymnals.”

There was no organ to guide them, nor was one needed. Voices lifted and rang out in the fresh spring air, mingling with the breeze and the light and the birdsong. Jeremy found himself unable to sing. He stood and listened and recalled the words, and felt their power reach down and touch something deep, very deep inside.

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Jeremy felt a weight lean heavy on his side. He lifted an arm, settled it gently across Bella's trembling shoulder. He did not look down. He could not do so and keep control himself.

Just as I am and waiting not

To rid my soul of one dark blot,

To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

The power of the voices pressed gently against Jeremy's heart, made his head ring like a Sunday-go-to-meeting bell. Nine hundred voices raising hearts and minds in unison, chiming words for two who could not hear them, singing and drawing close and filling the emptiness with song.

Just as I am, though tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt,

Fightings within, and fears without,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Jeremy sought to escape the pressure in his chest by looking beyond the congregation, inspecting the encircling dogwoods. Their white blossoms floated on the breeze like earth-bound clouds. He took a shaky breath, decided he would never be able to hear that hymn again.