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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: Fields Of Gold
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Chapter 14
T
he following week I had an unexpected visitor.
“Miss Glennon?” Pastor Van Dyver tipped his hat respectfully before he set a foot on the porch step, as though he needed my permission to come up to the door.
“Hello, Pastor. It's nice to see you again,” I opened the screen door and reached out to take his hat. “Please, come inside. Can I make you a glass of tea?”
“No, thank you. Water would be nice, though.” He sat down at the kitchen table, took a clean white handkerchief from his coat pocket, and carefully mopped his brow. It was terribly hot that day, and when I brought his glass of water he drained it in one gulp. Thank you,” he said. “I just wanted to come by and see your mother. I was concerned about her after the service. Is she at home?”
“She's asleep. I was hoping that in a few days she would perk up a bit, but she seems to be about the same. It's like she's in a world of her own, somewhere off with Papa.”
“Ah,” he sympathized, “I have seen this before in couples whose love for each other runs very deeply. After so many years together they seem to truly become one, and when one of them passes on, the one remaining is unable to go on alone. They become less than half of themselves somehow. It is very tragic and at the same time, very touching.”
Again, I was struck by how plainly he spoke. For all his careful phrasing and clear enunciation, he was so very so frank—indelicate even—in speaking about what he knew and saw, that it was shocking in a way. I might have found it upsetting, if I hadn't already been thinking the same thing myself.
In Dillon, people didn't speak of death or illness or sorrow bluntly. People in Dillon weren't sick, they were “under the weather.” They didn't die, they “passed on” or, if they were Baptists, they “went home.” It was all very careful and polite and unnatural. I found Paul's direct approach something of a relief. It gave me permission to voice my own worries.
“I was thinking about that just now, Pastor, wondering if she is going to get better in time or if she will always be this way. What do you think?”
He tipped his head to one side and thought for a moment. “If she were alone, with no children,” he reasoned, “I would say she might never recover from losing your father, but she loves you and Morgan. It has been less than two weeks since your father's death. She has so many reasons to become involved in life again. She needs time.”
We left it at that. I took comfort in his words because I knew he meant what he said. I could tell it was not in him to tell me something just because I wanted to hear it, and, besides, he made sense. Mama did have so much to live for. We still needed her.
“Thank you.” I smiled. “I hope you are right.”
He glanced furtively at his wristwatch as though he had remembered something more important and was anxious to leave. I felt suddenly embarrassed for taking up his time. “Well, I won't keep you any longer.” I said, starting to rise from my chair. “I'm sure you have so many other things you must be doing this morning. When Mama wakes up I'll tell her you called. She'll be sorry to have missed you.” I stood up stiffly and busied myself picking up the empty water glasses.
The young minister looked surprised and stammered an apology, “Oh, forgive me, Miss Glennon. You must have so many things to do. I didn't mean to keep you from them. I'll come back another time.” I detected the barest pink blush of embarrassment on his cheeks. Somehow I had misread him, and now he thought I wanted him to leave. It was my turn to apologize.
“No, Pastor,” I started clumsily, “I don't have anything to do! Nothing important, I mean. You can stay. I just saw you looking at your watch and felt like a fool sitting here taking up your time when you really came to talk to Mama, but you can stay if you want to.” I silently cursed myself again for my awkwardness. “I mean, I'm enjoying talking with you. Please, I'd like you to stay longer, if you can.”
His face broke into a grin, and he laughed a short, rumbling laugh. I realized it was the first time anyone had laughed in our house since Papa died. “Miss Glennon, please forgive me. Glancing at my watch is a bad habit of mine. I don't even realize I'm doing it. Someone gave me this as a gift when I came to America. Whenever I look at it I calculate what time it is in Holland and wonder what everyone is doing there. I must think of a way to stop myself.” He smiled genuinely.
“If I'm not keeping you from your work,” he continued, “I'd like to stay longer and talk with you. I did come to see your mother, but I wanted to see you as well. I had hoped we could talk and perhaps become friends. You see”—he looked at me earnestly—“I feel so much like an outsider, so
foreign
, and not just because of my accent.”
I nodded encouragement, and he went on. “I have lived in America for five years now, but never have I felt so out of place as I do in this little town. Of all the people I have met since I came, I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, you seemed most like myself.” I thought I saw him glance in the direction of my twisted leg, and I pulled it more closely under my skirt. “As though you don't quite belong, either. Perhaps you can help me understand these people a little better.”
“Well, I don't know about that,” I said wryly. “I've lived here all my life, and I don't know that I understand them now any better than I ever did. If you want to be accepted by the town, being seen spending much time with me won't help your cause much.” Despite their recent sympathy and acceptance of my new role as head of the Glennon family, filling the space left by Papa and abdicated by Mama, I still felt bitter toward the nice women of Dillon. I had cut through their sea of accusing stares and wakes of whispering for too many years to believe they'd forgiven and forgotten my past sins. No, it wouldn't do a new pastor any good at all to be seen with me.
“Oh yes,” he said, nodding seriously, “your boy, Morgan. I wanted to ask you about him. Who is his father? Does he ever see him? I also wanted to ask about your leg. Were you born with it this way, or did you injure yourself?”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn't believe he was asking me these things. I had admired his candor, but to ask such personal questions of someone he had just met! People who had known me all my life would never have asked me such things. They'd have talked about them, certainly, speculated, and asked the neighbors what they thought and then heard the story third-hand, but to come right out and ask, “So, who fathered your bastard son and why are you a cripple?” These were not things you said to someone's face. Not in Dillon. The young minister was right. He was not going to fit in here.
“Pastor, you don't just ask questions like that! Not of someone you barely know. Besides,” I murmured, embarrassed, “you probably have already heard all kinds of stories about me.”
“No,” he said simply. “And even if I had, I wouldn't have paid attention. Gossip is not only sinful, it's usually inaccurate. What people say about themselves is so much more interesting.”
“But, Pastor,” I protested.
“Look here.” He frowned impatiently. “I want to get to know you, not what others whisper about you, but what you believe about yourself. I need a friend here, and from what I can see, so do you. Now, how are we to be friends if I can't ask you questions? Unless I am mistaken and you don't need a friend.” He looked at me quizzically and waited for my answer. I could not help but grin at his abrupt manner and indelicately logical reasoning.
“No, you're not mistaken,” I said. “I'd like to have you as a friend, Pastor, it's just that—”
“Good!” he said, beaming. His face, which, like his body, was long and angular, every part of him so loosely hung together that he might have been strung on wire like a puppet, seemed to grow fuller and softer when he smiled. He had a way of looking at people square on, as though there was something fascinating written in the depths of their eyes. I had been wrong in my first assessment, I realized; he was handsome, even more so when he smiled.
“Now, is there some way we can get around this ‘pastor' business? It makes me feel very ancient. Why don't you call me Paul, and I can call you ... ? What is your first name, Miss Glennon?”
“Everyone calls me Eva, but my given name is Evangeline.”
“Evangeline,” he mulled it over it carefully. “No, that doesn't seem right on you. Too stylized. Evangeline is the person I see before me, but clouded by a dream, unfocused. Eva suits you better. Like Eve, the first woman. She mothered the world; she was strong and adventurous.”
“But what good did that do her?” I said. “That adventurous streak got her thrown out of the garden.”
“That's why your name is even better,” he said with a nod. “Eva, a distillation of that first Eve, more refined by time and experience. Though in the end, I think you will prove wiser.” His eyes twinkled, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
“There now,” he said with satisfaction. “I've made you laugh. Surely that clinches the deal. We'll be friends, yes?” He extended his hand, and I shook it.
“We'll be friends,” I said, and I meant it, but even as I took his hand I thought,
But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you everything about myself.
“As a friend, Paul”—his name stuck a bit uncomfortably in my throat at first—“my advice is to remember where you are. Here time is measured in seasons, not minutes. We plant seeds and water them and wait. If enough time passes and conditions are perfect, things grow. When the time is right and if the sun is hot enough, they ripen—not before and sometimes not at all. That's the way things are. All right?”
“All right.” Paul smiled as he accepted the bargain. “I see. Now, we can talk, but nothing too personal... .” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, searching his mind for a topic. “I know! How about the weather? Do you think it looks good for the harvest?”
He looked so pleased with himself, I couldn't help but laugh again. “Oh no! Anything but that! You'll forgive me for saying so, Paul, but you're fitting into Dillon a little too well.
“Let's talk about something more interesting,” I said, pointing to his wristwatch. “Tell me about that. Who gave it to you?”
 
The watch was a gift from his brother, Nils. Their mother died in childbirth when Paul was four and Nils was nine. Their infant sister survived their mother by only a week. Paul's father, who was not in good health himself, was often overwhelmed by the demands of raising his motherless boys, but he never remarried. When Nils was away at university and Paul was only fifteen, their father succumbed to diabetes. The two boys had always been close, but after their father's death Nils became even more important to Paul as he took on the role of parent and provider to his younger brother. As Paul spoke, his love for Nils shone on his face.
“My father was also a minister, a poor one, and left no estate. We didn't even own the house we lived in. Father's sister said I should come live with her, but Nils wouldn't hear of it. He left the university and came home to take a job as a painter. One of the members of my father's old congregation gave us a place to live at a very cheap rent. Nils's plan was that he would go back to university when I did, but there wasn't enough money for two students in the family. He insisted I go first, and he said he would finish his education later.”
“And did he?”
“Well, yes and no. By the time I got my degree, I already knew I wanted to go on to the seminary, but I said nothing to Nils, knowing that if I did he would insist on supporting me until I entered the pastorate. Instead, I went home to begin looking for a job. Nils had begun helping at a school for retarded children in his free time, and just about the time I returned he was offered a full-time teaching position.
“I tried to talk him out of accepting, saying that he finally had a chance to go back to school and he should take it. I wanted to repay him for caring for me all those years, but when I told him so he just brushed me aside. ‘I
am
back in school,' he said. Then he leaned over and whispered, as though letting me in on a secret, ‘Only it's so much better now because I get to draw on the chalkboard and no one can stop me!'”
Paul was so animated as he imitated his brother's mischievous confession that I couldn't help but laugh.
“Nils loves what he does,” Paul continued proudly. “You should see how the children respond to him. When he takes his class on outings to the park, people stare at his students and pull their own children away, as though retardation were something catching. Nils doesn't see any of that.”
“He sounds like Papa,” I recalled.
“To Nils, every child in his class is a genius. When one of them learns to button his coat or write his name, he picks them up on his shoulders and carries them around the room, whooping as though they had just discovered a cure for polio. He truly loves them. My brother is a good man. I miss him very much.”
“It must have been so hard for you to leave him,” I said. “Why did you come to America? Why not just stay in Holland?”

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