Just Shy of Harmony (12 page)

N
ew Year’s Day was two weeks past, and most of the people in Harmony had already forgotten their resolutions. Except Sam Gardner, who had resolved to believe in God as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t have to listen to the elders preach any more than was necessary.

Harvey Muldock had given one good sermon on how autumn is the season of dying, but that spring brings new life and thus is God’s encouragement for us to remain faithful in the face of death. Now that the church had learned of Sally Fleming’s leukemia, Harvey’s words seemed eerily prophetic.

The second Sunday of January, Harvey preached about how tired the disciples must have been walking on the road to Emmaus. He talked about what a blessing the automobile was and how, speaking of automobiles, Harvey Muldock Plymouth was gearing up for its annual tax sale.

Sam fidgeted in the fifth pew. The preaching was growing worse. The elders were starting their third
round of sermons. It was Sam’s theory that most folks had at least one good sermon in them and, if pressed, could possibly come up with two. But to hope someone might deliver three good sermons in a row was stretching it. Sam was trying to determine which was better: a bad sermon by someone who believed in God or a good sermon by someone who didn’t.

Fern Hampton had given two sermons about Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians. In the first sermon she told how in the old days the Choctaw Indians didn’t need shoes because they were one with nature. “But then we came along and they adopted our customs, one of which was wearing shoes. Now I figure since we got them started wearing shoes, the least we can do is shod them.”

The ladies of the Friendly Women’s Circle nodded their heads in solemn agreement.

Fern’s second sermon was based on the premise that if you give an Indian a pair of shoes he will have shoes for a year, but if you teach an Indian to make shoes he will have shoes for a lifetime. She wants the Circle to travel to Oklahoma and teach the Choctaws how to make their own shoes.

Miriam Hodge has been the only ray of sunshine amidst this theological drizzle. On the Sundays she preaches, all the rows are filled. She’s not a yeller. She doesn’t even stand at the pulpit. She stands in the aisle near the first row of pews and speaks from her heart. One Sunday she revealed how she’d been mad at God for not giving Ellis and her any children. People aren’t accustomed to this kind of openness. It intrigues them. Except for Dale Hinshaw, who chastised Miriam for
being angry with God. But the rest of the people are captivated with her candor. When Dale speaks they think about their pot roast cooking in the oven, but when Miriam speaks they think about their walk with the Lord.

She’s been especially helpful to Wayne and Sally Fleming. She goes to the trailer on Wednesday evenings to pray with Sally. Then, on the Sunday before Sally was to begin her treatment, in the quiet after the Harvey Muldock automobile sermon, Miriam had the church pray for the Flemings.

She’d read in the book of James about elders anointing the sick with oil. They’d never done that at Harmony Friends Meeting before, so Miriam reasoned it was a good time to start. She went to the Coffee Cup and borrowed a bottle of olive oil from Frank Toricelli, who’s been using it on Italian Night.

She didn’t tell the other elders, for fear it would launch a three-hour debate on the healing properties of olive oil versus those of corn oil. After Harvey spoke, Miriam rose up from the fourth row and invited the elders to gather around Sally. For once, they didn’t hesitate or look at one another to see who would go first. They just stood up, walked over to Sally, and put their hands on her head, while Miriam dabbed olive oil on Sally’s forehead and prayed for her.

Sally sat there, scarcely moving, not sure what to do. She’d heard of miraculous healings before. She’d seen people talk about it on TV. The people had always felt warm and tingly. She didn’t feel that way, though
it was nice to be the object of prayer. She’s never had this much love directed her way.

When she was a little girl and her mother died, there had been a flurry of concern for her. But after a time people moved on to other cares. She would come home from school to their silent house and lock the door. It was frightening to be so little and by herself, so she’d pretend her mother was alive and in the house with her, taking a nap in the back bedroom. Sometimes Sally would talk to her. Around six o’clock her father would pull up at the broken curb from his job at the factory. Sally would heat up TV dinners in the oven, and they’d sit in front of the television and watch the news. He’d fall asleep on the couch and she’d cover him with a blanket. Then she’d clean the kitchen, do her homework, and go to bed.

She wasn’t really raised; she just kind of grew up.

It troubles her to no end that that might happen to her children.

She talked about it with Miriam one Wednesday night in early January after prayer. Wayne was at work, and the kids were in bed. Miriam and Sally were seated on the worn couch.

Miriam had asked Sally, “What can I do for you?”

“Just pray for me.”

“Of course I’ll pray for you. But is there something else I can do for you?”

Sally began to cry. “If something happens to me, can you make sure my kids are taken care of? Wayne’ll have his hands full.”

“If anything happens to you, Ellis and I will make
sure your children are well cared for. You have my word.”

Miriam thinks maybe this is God’s reason for not giving her and Ellis children of their own—so they can care for other people’s kids. They call it their “ministry of availability.” They took in Amanda, Ellis’s niece, the year before. It’s been such a joy to have Amanda in their lives. Except they worry that Ellis’s no-good brother, Ralph, will sneak back and steal her away, so they’ve hired the lawyer Owen Stout to begin adoption proceedings. They drive Amanda to and from school and lock their doors at night, just in case. They’d never locked their doors before, on account of Ellis’s parents lost the key in 1957. Now, Ellis has put a new lock on the door. It troubles him, having to guard against his own flesh and blood.

T
he Monday Wayne and Sally went to have tests run at the hospital in the city, Miriam went with them. Ellis stayed home to care for Amanda, and Deena Morrison took the Fleming kids to her house.

The tires are bad on Wayne’s truck, so Miriam drove them in hers. She arrived at their trailer a little after seven in the morning. Deena pulled up behind her to take the kids to school. Sally kissed her kids good-bye.

“Will you be home tonight, Mommy?” Katie asked.

“I’m not sure, honey. It depends on what all they have to do. But I promise I’ll be home soon. Before you know it.”

“Will you be all better then?” asked Adam.

“You bet,” Sally said, but to herself she prayed, Oh, dear Lord, please let me live. Please heal me. Let me see my children grow.

They finished their good-byes, then Miriam, Wayne, and Sally climbed into the truck and drove east toward the city. The traffic was light. It was an overcast winter morning. The weatherman on Channel 5 had predicted snow later that day. It took two hours to reach the hospital. Miriam dropped Wayne and Sally off at the front door, then went to look for a parking space.

Wayne and Sally sat on a bench inside the door. It felt good to sit. Sally’s been so tired lately. Her appetite has dropped off, and she’s been losing weight.

Miriam came through the door. They read the directory on the wall and made their way to the doctor’s office. They were right on time for their appointment. Miriam sat in the waiting room while Wayne and Sally talked with the doctor.

They’d met the doctor when they’d come for tests the month before, a Dr. Kinnan. He looked impossibly young to be a doctor, which didn’t boost Wayne’s confidence.

“Come in. Sit down,” the doctor said. “Good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Wayne said, helping Sally to a chair.

Dr. Kinnan looked at Sally. “How are you feeling?”

“I think I’m doing okay.”

“She’s been awfully tired,” Wayne said.

“Is that right?”

“Yes,” Sally said. “Here in the past month or so. I’ve also not been eating much. I feel full all the time.”

“Sally, I need you to sit here on the edge of the table,” the doctor instructed.

He probed her stomach and frowned.

“Sally, the reason you feel full is because your spleen is enlarged. This verifies the tests we’ve been running. It appears your leukemia is advancing. You have what is known as chronic myelogenous leukemia. Fortunately, it is treatable. Though I’d be a lot more hopeful if you had come to us when it was first diagnosed.”

No one spoke for a while. Wayne reached over and took Sally’s hand.

“But we’re not throwing in the towel yet,” the doctor said. “We’ll just need to be a bit more aggressive in our approach.”

He paused.

“We’ve been having some success with interferon therapy. Unfortunately for you, it seems to work best in the early stages. It’s my opinion that your best chance to beat this is through a bone-marrow transplant.”

“What’s that?” Wayne asked. “How does that work?”

“Simply put, Sally’s bone marrow is making too many white blood cells. So what we’ll need to do is kill off Sally’s bone marrow with chemotherapy and radiation and replace it with new bone marrow from a suitable donor. But before you make that decision, you need to know three things. Number one, a bone-marrow transplant is a very drastic treatment, and you’re going to be very sick. You might even die. You need to be aware of that. Number two, we might not be able to
find a suitable donor who matches your tissue type. Do you have any brothers or sisters?

“No,” Sally said. “I’m an only child.”

“What about your mother and father?”

“My mother died when I was five. I suppose I could ask my father.”

“You’ll need to do that very soon, Sally. We’ll need to see if he’s a match, and we need to do it soon. I’d like to start your treatment as soon as possible.”

“What’s the third thing you needed to tell us?” Wayne said.

“Despite our success with bone-marrow transplants, many insurance companies still consider it an experimental treatment and won’t pay for it. If that’s the case with you, you’ll need to be able to pay the hospital up front.”

“How much would the hospital need?” Wayne asked.

“Around a hundred thousand dollars.”

Wayne and Sally didn’t speak for several moments.

“It looks like I’m going to die then,” Sally said. “There’s no way we can come up with that kind of money.”

“There’ll be other costs, of course, but that’s what the hospital will need before admitting you as a patient,” Dr. Kinnan explained.

“It might as well be a million dollars,” Wayne said.

“Let’s not give up yet,” the doctor said. “Check with your insurance. You might be surprised.”

He stood from his chair, shook hands with Wayne, then turned to Sally.

“I know I’ve painted a pretty grim picture. But actually, if we get on this now, your odds are even. Fifty
percent of the folks who have bone-marrow transplants are alive eight years later. And the odds are inching up all the time. The fact that you’re so young is in your favor too. We’re going to hope for the best. Okay?”

He patted Sally’s arm.

“Thank you,” she said, sniffing.

“The nurse is going to come in now and give you information about bone-marrow transplants. She’ll also give you some pamphlets to give to your father. Let’s be praying he’s a match.”

Wayne moved next to Sally and put his arm around her.

Dr. Kinnan continued, “We can’t afford to wait to see what the insurance company will do. We need to be ready. Time is precious. Right now we’re going to extract a small amount of your bone marrow to type it. They’re all ready for you down in oncology.”

“Then what’ll happen?” Sally asked.

“Then you can go home and sleep in your own bed tonight. Remember, though, you need to have your father get in touch with me as soon as possible.”

“I’ll call him just as soon as I get home.”

I
t was a quiet drive back to Harmony later that day. They stopped for supper outside the city, then drove toward home. The clouds were stacked up in the north, and it was beginning to snow. Fat, wet flakes.

“I wish it was spring,” Sally said, breaking the silence. “I wish it was spring and the flowers were blooming and I knew everything was gonna be okay.”

Miriam almost told Sally not to worry, that she’d be fine. But she didn’t because she wasn’t sure. She
wasn’t sure how this healing business worked. You anoint someone with oil and have the elders pray, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Instead, she reached over and laid her hand on Sally’s knee and said, “Well, Sally, whether things work out or not, you are loved.”

Outside the truck, the snow was falling faster. The windshield was clouding over. Miriam turned up the heater and shifted down a gear.

Wayne commented on the snow, then fell silent.

The only sound was the thump of the tires on the road joints.

“I tell you one thing,” Sally said after a while. “Life sure has a way of making a person pray.”

“N
o,” Sam yelled from his bed. “You can’t make me go to church.”

“Hey, buster, if I have to go and listen to Dale Hinshaw preach, you do too,” Barbara yelled back from downstairs. “Now get your carcass out of bed and get down here. Breakfast is ready.”

Sam groaned, threw back the covers, and plodded downstairs. Barbara and the boys were seated at the table. They stared at him.

“You look terrible, Daddy,” Levi said.

“I don’t feel well. In fact, I think I’m too sick to go to church. Yes, that’s it. I’m sick.”

“You’re not sick, and you’re not staying home. You’re going to church and suffering with the rest of us,” Barbara said.

Sam sighed. He’d been doing a lot of sighing lately.

The Thursday before, at the January elders meeting, he had suggested they invite other persons in the church to preach. “Variety is the spice of life,” he’d said.

“Sorry, Sam, but I don’t agree. What folks need now is preaching straight from the Word. It’s bad enough with you not believing in God. We can’t risk someone else standing up there misleading folks,” Dale Hinshaw said. “Tell you what, don’t give the preaching another thought. I’ll preach every Sunday from here on out until Sam comes to his senses.”

The elders were speechless at the prospect of Dale in the pulpit every Sunday. They hesitated a little too long.

“Well, then, that settles it. I’ll start this Sunday.”

He preached on his Scripture egg project, how the Lord was using it to correct those in error.

He’d sent a custom Scripture egg to the pope several weeks before. Matthew 23:9: Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. He’d hard-boiled the egg so it wouldn’t break in the mail. Then he’d wrapped it in newspaper, put it in a box, and mailed it off. He’s been watching the news ever since for an announcement from the pope.

He wasn’t sure how it would happen, but he thought the pope might simply step out on his balcony and, when the people waved and called him Holy Father, would smile and say, “You can call me Johnny.”

But so far it hadn’t happened. The Scripture is so indisputable Dale was certain the pope would heed it, but he suspected the priest in charge of the mailroom had kept the egg from the pope. Dale conjectured about it during his sermon.

“They probably just let the pope see the nice letters the old ladies send. That’s how error continues. The one guy with the power to change things never hears the criticisms.”

He went on to encourage the congregation to be open to criticism, then revealed that he had more Scripture eggs to distribute to certain church members in need of correction. After his sermon, he walked down into the congregation and gave an egg to Miriam Hodge, an egg to Sam, and one to Jessie and Asa Peacock.

“Don’t let Satan close your ears to reproof,” he cautioned them.

T
hat was the third Sunday in January and people were losing their patience. They wanted Sam back in the pulpit.

The week before, Miriam Hodge had stopped him after church and pointed out that nowhere in Scripture does it explicitly state that Quaker pastors must believe in God in order to preach.

“Read your Bible,” she told him. “You’ll not find the word Quaker in there. I’ve checked.”

The truth is, Sam’s heart is being stirred. He mentioned during the elders meeting that he was able to pray again. “I can’t quite explain it. I find myself praying more and more. It’s been a real blessing.”

He asked the elders, “Can we adjust my workload? Sixty hours a week is too much. I think that’s what broke me.”

When he first came there, the church had given him a list of shut-ins to visit every month. People too tired and sickly to come to church. But those same people felt good enough to visit the Coffee Cup and go on bus trips to the casino in Illinois. Sam told the elders he
wasn’t going to visit the tired anymore. He said, “These people get out more than I do. I’m the one who’s tired. They should visit me.”

He figures not visiting the tired will save ten hours a week.

He also doesn’t understand why he has to attend every committee meeting. “I didn’t go to seminary to help the trustees decide whether the meetinghouse needs painting,” he groused to the elders.

The meetinghouse needs to be painted, but Dale Hinshaw won’t agree to have it done unless they use paint from Canada that has lead in it. Dale thinks the paint companies bribed Congress to remove lead from paint so it wouldn’t last as long and people would buy more paint.

Not going to meetings will save Sam another ten hours a week.

“I grew discouraged because the things I was doing weren’t all that important. If I could just minister to hurting people, it might help my faith,” he explained to the elders.

So he’s been helping people. He assisted the Friendly Women’s Circle with the “Help Sally Fleming!” bake sale. To no one’s surprise, Wayne Fleming’s insurance doesn’t pay for bone-marrow transplants—so the Friendly Women have been hard at work raising a hundred thousand dollars.

Since plans to build the church gymnasium were on hold, Sam was a bit mystified why the church couldn’t just give the Flemings the money they needed. The church still had the Peacocks’ three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar tithe, after all. He was going to say
something about it, but changed his mind after talking with his wife.

She said, “You’ve been complaining that they never do anything. Now they’re trying to do something. Let ’em do it.”

So Sam kept quiet.

The Friendly Women taped pictures of Sally and Wayne and the kids on mayonnaise jars, which they’ve put all over town next to cash registers. A Friendly Woman is stationed at each jar. She frowns at people until they drop in their change.

T
he “Help Sally Fleming!” bake sale was held on Saturday morning at the bank. The ladies worked all week baking cookies and pies. They met in the meetinghouse basement and made noodles to sell. They rolled out the noodles and Sam cut them, using the sacred noodle cutter, which is stored in a locked cabinet over the sink along with the sacred rolling pin. Fern Hampton’s mother had purchased three rolling pins, two meat-tenderizing mallets, and three noodle cutters at Kivett’s Five and Dime in 1964, the year of the first annual Chicken Noodle Dinner. They’re down to one of each, the sacred remnants from that celebrated year. Time has sanctified them. Fern washes and dries them and returns these priceless icons to their plywood vault. She carries the key to the cabinet on a chain around her neck.

Early Saturday morning, they loaded the baked goods in Fern’s Impala and drove to the bank. Vernley Stout unlocked the door and let them in. They arranged
the cookies, pies, and noodles on folding tables flanking the door. To get in the bank you had to pass the Friendly Women. It was an ecclesiastical shakedown.

The farmers drive into town to do their trading. They drop their wives off at the Kroger, then stop in at Kyle Weathers’s barbershop to get their hair cut. From there they go to the Co-op on the south edge of town next to the lumberyard. Then they meet their wives back at the Kroger and walk across the street to the bank to pay down their farm loans.

Fern didn’t even ask them if they wanted to buy something. She blocked their path, pointed to the pies, and said, “What would you like to buy this morning?”

The farmers complained to Vernley Stout, and he came over to tell Fern she shouldn’t harass people.

She glared at him. “So, Vernley Stout, have you always opposed the work of the Lord or is this something new?”

She said it in a loud voice. The Friendly Women looked at Vernley, frowning.

Vernley slunk back to his office and closed the door behind him.

Sam was the cashier. Farmers would count out wrinkled dollar bills into his hand. He’d hand them their change just as Opal Majors, holding a mayonnaise jar, appeared at their elbows and declared, “Your change might be the difference between life or death.”

It was amazing how many people donated their change. Sam was thinking of having the Friendly Women’s Circle collect the offering at church.

It was such an encouragement to Sam to see the church ministering to someone. It spurred his faith. At
the start of the sale, as the ladies unloaded the pies from Fern’s car, he’d offered to say a prayer.

They looked at him, startled.

“Sure, Sam. That would be fine,” Miriam Hodge said.

He thanked God for meaningful work and asked Him to bless the Friendly Women as they ministered to Wayne and Sally and the kids.

When Sam finished praying, Fern said, “Well, if you can pray, I don’t see why you can’t preach.”

“Maybe before too long,” Sam promised.

S
am believes he might be ready to go back in the pulpit. The Lord has been leading him again, just like in the old days. He thinks God might be girding his loins for Sally Fleming’s struggle.

He told Barbara, “In times of trial, doubt is a luxury. Sally can’t afford my theological crisis. I need to get on the stick.”

Since the first of the year, Sam’s been waking up at six o’clock, showering and eating breakfast, then walking to the meetinghouse. He sits in the fifth row for an hour. He prays for Sally and for sick people everywhere. Some mornings he reads his Bible, but mostly he just sits quietly, waiting for God to speak to him.

“Here I am, Lord,” he says. “Tell me what you would have me do today. I’m your man.”

A little before eight, he hears Frank the secretary swing open the door and step into the meetinghouse. At five after, he smells the coffee brewing. He rises up
out of the pew and goes to Frank’s office to drink coffee and visit.

They used to begin their day with Frank telling Sam his schedule for the day, but now Sam won’t let him. He believes God is telling him to be flexible, to be free to respond to divine prompting. He’s told Frank to clear his schedule.

“If anyone calls wanting me to do something, tell them I’ll pray about it,” Sam instructed him.

“Well, that’s one way to lose your job, I suppose,” Frank said.

T
he next Sunday Dale preached his sermon about the pope. Miriam Hodge stayed after church to talk with Sam.

“You seem to be doing better,” she said. “Or am I imagining things?”

“I am doing better. I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel at rest. I’m slowing down and waiting to see what the Lord wants to do with me.”

Miriam smiled. “That sounds peaceful.”

“I tell you one thing, it seems a whole lot smarter than trying to impress the Lord with my busyness.”

Miriam paused, then spoke from memory. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Sam chuckled. “I remember when I was in seminary and had to take a class in Greek. I’ve forgotten most of it except for that one verse. Matthew 11:28. The word they used there for ‘rest’ also means ‘re
freshed.’ I think that’s the word for how I feel: refreshed.”

“I’m glad for you, Sam. And the timing couldn’t be better. Quite frankly, I don’t think I can take another one of Dale’s sermons.”

Sam laughed. “Did you open the egg he gave you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What’d it say?”

“He quoted the verse from Paul telling women to be silent in church.”

Sam chuckled. “You know, Miriam, I bet Paul would never have written that if he’d known you.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

What a gifted servant of the Lord, Sam marveled to himself. Lord, thank you for pouring out your Spirit on your people.

“Who’s going to tell Dale his preaching days are over?” Sam asked.

“Well, seeing as how women should be silent in church, I think maybe you should tell him.”

“I’ll have Frank the secretary tell him. He’s been to war. He’s accustomed to conflict.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Miriam said.

They walked outside together. Miriam climbed into the truck with Ellis and Amanda. Sam and his family walked toward home. It was a beautiful winter day. They could smell the woodsmoke curling out of the chimneys.

“Hey, Daddy, could you please pretty please take us sledding at the park?” Levi asked.

“Sure. We’ll go right after Sunday dinner.”

“I hope I don’t hurt my hubcap like I did last time,” Addison said.

“Honey, it’s not your hubcap. It’s your kneecap. And I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Barbara said.

“I hope so. There’s nothing worse than a hurt hubcap.”

Barbara turned to Sam. “What did the Scripture egg say that Dale gave you?”

“I don’t know. I threw it away. I didn’t want to hear his criticism.”

Barbara laughed and took his arm. “Sam Gardner, you’re getting more like the pope every day.”