2

Lindsey Hinshaw was ending her first month as the Director of Communications for Harmony Friends Meeting and had made a thorough wreck of things, posting the wrong times for church meetings in the bulletin and neglecting to tell Sam of hospitalizations and near deaths phoned in to the office. Asa Peacock had almost died of a heart attack and had lain in the hospital in Cartersburg for three days before Lindsey had said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, Jessie Peacock called the day before yesterday to tell you Asa was in the hospital and they don’t think he’ll make it.”

Sam had immediately left for the hospital, where he had found the Peacocks visiting with the hospital chaplain, a Methodist, who at that very moment was inviting them to participate in a heart attack support group at his church.

“That sounds nice,” Asa was saying as Sam entered the room. “A fella needs spiritual support at a time like this and Lord knows my own church hasn’t stepped up to the plate.”

Sam sat with Asa and Jessie most of the afternoon, listening to the details of Asa’s heart attack and angioplasty, wincing at all the right places, warming them up.

“I just hate that you were going through this by yourselves,” Sam said. “I wish I had known. From now on, call me direct on my cell phone.”

“We couldn’t figure out why no one from the meeting was coming to see us,” Jessie said, her chin quivering.

“Just a failure to communicate on our part,” said Sam. He was using the words failure and communicate and communication as often as possible, not wanting to mention Lindsey’s name outright, but hoping they figured it out just the same.

“It appears we have some work to do on managing our communication,” he said.

After a few hours of hand-holding, Asa and Jessie had forgotten all about the Methodists and were safely returned to the welcoming bosom of Harmony Friends Meeting. Miriam and Ellis Hodge had dropped by with a casserole, the Friendly Women had sent flowers, and Dale Hinshaw had stopped by to remind them of his heart difficulties and how it had been a wake-up call, causing him to grow closer to the Lord.

Asa hadn’t been thinking of the Lord. He had been thinking of his hay needing cutting. Ellis told him not to worry, that he’d round up some folks and get right on it, at which point Asa broke down and cried.

Dale, under the mistaken impression Asa was repenting, was ecstatic. “Yes, yes, just cry that sin out and let the Lord make you a new man,” he said, patting Asa’s hand.

Sam excused himself, and drove home in a cheerful frame of mind. Asa and Jessie were back in the fold, their hay would be mowed, and for the next hour or two Dale Hinshaw would be in another town, twenty miles away.

Ellis was as good as his word. That very afternoon he gathered a handful of farmers and began working over the Peacocks’ hay field. Five tractors following one another in a staggered line, cutting hay, the dust rising about them in a swirl of grace.