Cecil is sitting in his Chevy outside Aura’s church, both wrists balanced atop the steering wheel, twirling a box of Marlboros between his thumb and middle finger in the way you might measure dice.
The windows are rolled down. It was getting to be a pleasant afternoon. Peaceful, quiet, one of those lazy natural lulls you kept expecting to be broken by the distant gong of a church bell or the bark of some stray dog. But it was Tuesday, not a Sunday, and the dogcatcher must be earning his paycheck because the only thing to be heard is the bumble and churn of the ever-turning world: meadowlarks twirpelling, horseflies droning, breezes huffing through the wind tunnel of his truck’s cab.
Earlier, inside, he’d rolled around the sanctuary watching the guys work. Baby brother couldn’t make it today, but Ben sent three crackerjack contractors who could obviously handle this gig blindfolded. The preacher called last week wondering if Cecil could come, supposedly to supervise the installation but Cecil gets the impression Nate just wants him here to witness the window in its rightful environment. When he slipped back out to the pickup for a catnap Cecil found the Marlboros, still in the cellophane, stuffed behind the driver’s seat. Some rainy-day stash squirrelled away by his old pack-a-day self.
He begins to understand why Nate asked him here when Aura’s car pulls into the parking lot. She slows to a stop on Cecil’s side of the truck, ratchets the parking brake into place and sits there staring at him, her face a puzzle of emotions too private for Cecil to parse.
Cecil tries to smile but it doesn’t quite come off and so he just waves.
Aura leans over to roll down the passenger-side window, her car still idling.
“Need a light?”
“Oh no. I smoked the last cigarette of my life on Sunday after lunch.”
“So that’s just for the new car smell then.”
“Honest to God. I haven’t had a craving since.”
“Good for you. You seem a little less gray around the edges.”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I heard about your brother.”
“You heard that.”
“I’ve been trying to find you a while now, called the service and . . .”
“I know.”
“. . . so then your preacher let it slip when I came here hunting you. I think he thought I already knew.”
Aura’s eyes go slack. She kills the engine and says, “Pastor Nate watches out for me.”
“It’s good somebody does.”
“He called last night, said he had a surprise. I thought it had something to do with the trial.”
“I’m so sorry about that, Aura. About your little brother. I’m sorry about everything else, too. I wanted to speak with you a minute, if you’d let me, about . . .”
“What’s the surprise?”
“Let’s go inside and I’ll show you.”
Cecil pulls his rig from the cab and inchworms down into the seat, taking the Marlboros along with. But then pushing up that impossible switchback alongside the church, hoping to hell she’s in tow but too afraid to peek over his shoulder and see, a back tire snags on the ramp’s lower rail and here he is stranded all over again.
“Want some help?” Aura is wearing his white Stetson and trying not to smile.
“Please.”
She takes the cowboy hat—Cecil had forgotten all about the Stetson—and places it on his head. His rear tire is wedged under one of the ramp’s horizontal railings, the rubber really jammed in there tight, so she kneels to tug at the axle until the rig rolls free. He starts pushing up the ramp again. But Aura says let her help, she can push him, and he’s already feeling puny anyway, so Cecil allows it. There is a trash basket just inside the church vestibule and as Aura pops him over the threshold Cecil hooks the pack of cigarettes at the bin.
The box flies wide and caroms off the wall.
She walks over to complete the shot for him.
“Nice assist.”
“I see you haven’t been practicing.”
They hear pastor Nate approaching, that deep rich voice imploring.
“Aura Jefferson, don’t you step one more foot into this church! Cecil, you stop that lady from going any further, now, we’re not quite ready for the two of you.”
“You had better take that hat off,” Aura says. “Nate won’t like it inside.”
Cecil does, putting the Stetson in his lap. Looking for someplace else to put his eyes.
They can hear the preacher inside the sanctuary, pleading with Ben’s workers, cajoling, telling them come down and take a little coffee break.
“I’ve got a hot pot of coffee in the kitchen here. Our guests of honor have arrived and we want this to be just perfect as can be. So get down off that tower why don’t you and sit a spell? . . . There we are. Thank you. Thank you kindly, this won’t take long, I appreciate your efforts. You’re doing a bang-up job . . . coffee’s in here. Just make yourselves at home.”
When all the hubbub is complete pastor Nate jogs into the vestibule to greet them. He’s wearing jeans and sneakers and a white T-shirt and smiling like a simpleton, breathless as an asthmatic but beckoning now.
“Come in, Aura. Come in and see it. Cecil.”
They follow the preacher into the sanctuary. The workers have erected a scaffolding just under the window, tools and power saws and paint buckets and drop cloths spread haphazardly about the chancel, but the stained glass is finally sitting in its frame above the pulpit, bathing the sanctuary in blues and oranges and reds and greens, a sieve for the springtime sunlight. The window is shaped like an octagon, a smidge over four feet across, and it depicts a simple pastoral setting bordered by a patchwork tapestry or quilt woven with every exotic color and texture of glass Cecil could lay hands on. An oversized sun is rising up above the rolling prairielands, looks to be autumn, with a few clouds advancing in along the yellowing horizon and a flock of birds, Cecil likes to think they’re geese, ascending crossways before the orange sunrise, stringing up into clear blue sky.
“You said something once about flying,” Cecil explains. “I was hurt and you were working on my shoulder and you said pretend you’re in flight.”
The colors shift like liquid along the walls of the sanctuary.
“You built this?” Aura asks.
Cecil nods.
“Is that a curtain along the side?”
“I imagine it like this,” Cecil explains. “We’ve gathered here to watch a play or a performance. We’ve been waiting awhile, here in the pews, listening to the sniffles and the coughs and the maybe creaking of the church, waiting for the players to appear. And now someone has suddenly pulled the curtain aside and it’s time to get started.”
Aura tilts her head to one side.
“And is that a, that sun, it could also be a . . . is that right? A basketball?”
“If you want it to be.”
“I don’t see that,” Nate says, also tilting his head. “That looks just like a sunset to me.”
“It’s a sunrise,” Aura says.
“It’s one of those things you have to decide for yourself,” Cecil says.
The men watch Aura, her face rainbowed with light. Waiting.
No time like now.
“Aura, I’m sorry about saying what I did,” Cecil starts. “I know I’ve hurt your feelings. It’s the last thing I wanted. I . . .”
“Later.” Aura rests her hand on Cecil’s bad shoulder. “Right now I need to feel something pretty in my life. Let’s just look. We’ll do this later, Cecil. I promise.”
Pastor Nate claps both palms together and bounces from toe to toe.
“You’ve nailed it, Aura. This window, it isn’t something you see, now is it? This window is something that has to be felt. The whole place feels different in this light. Don’t you think?”
Aura is nodding.
Pastor Nate steps around behind Cecil’s rig, leans down to hug him up fiercely from behind.
“Careful, Nate,” Aura says.
“Can you feel the difference, Mr. Porter?” Nate is saying. “Can you feel it?”
Cecil shuts his eyes. The colors are dancing across his closed eyelids.
“I can,” he says. “I can feel it.”