36

THANK goodness Ida Bell came quick, or I might’ve lost my nerve hunched down in the back of her car with my brand new puppy. What but an act of grace could make a person do such a fool thing?

“All right, now, Sweetie-G,” Ida Bell said, “You gone ride up here with me this time. Don’t be getting all high and mighty, though. I just needs a little company today is all. You gone need to get around in the kennel like all the rest from now on.” Ida Bell’d never done that before, least not to my knowledge. This act of grace was in somebody’s hands besides my own.

The engine turned, and the windows squeaked as Ida Bell rolled them down to cool the car. We headed down the driveway, and then the turn onto Daisy Street made me steady myself. It felt like we drove straight forever and a day, so I couldn’t resist the urge to look and see where we were. I lifted the blanket from my eyes a teeny bit and peeked up out the window. We weren’t any farther than Whet Whetstone’s! Ida Bell sniffed and it dawned on me that she was letting some of them tears loose that she said a person ought to just let fall and not stop up till the dam breaks. I wanted to shout out to her, I’m here, Ida Bell, and will be forever, but I didn’t. Sugar Bell and me, we just kept quiet.

Ida Bell drove slow down all of Daisy Street. I knew she was drinking up memories from the dewy air. We passed Harper’s.

Were Mother and Daddy looking for me yet?

Close to CK’s Drugstore, Ida Bell tuned the radio to 1460 AM. The Blind Boys of Alabama stretched out “Deep River,” one of my daddy’s favorites. They began in a singing whisper,

Dee-ee-e-eep ri-ver

and then began to swell,

My home is over Jordan

By the end of “Jordan,” they were back to quiet. On the next “Dee-ee-e-eep,” the Blind Boys broke into a shattering of harmony that sounded more like a choir than it did five little old men singing. The bass singer reached low, I mean real way down low like he was showing how far and deep Earth was from heaven. They sang on,

ri-ver, Lord

The “Lord” note was hung on to from now to eternity, and then they finished the stanza with,

I want to cross over into campground

again breaking into a thousand harmonies at the end. Daddy would’ve loved how the Blind Boys held onto “Lord,” making the Lord the point of it all. He always heard music in a more sacred way than others on account he felt the meanings clearer, deeper. If he was in here with me, he’d sing right along with the Blind Boys, or maybe just close his eyes and feel the Spirit. Momma’d tap her hand on the seat the way she always did at church when the music was especially pretty, and then she’d say, “Listen to that, Peamite…just listen.” The Blind Boys still stretched, and my heart could no longer keep time with their easy pace. Before I knew it, I shouted out loud, “Ida Bell, wait a minute!”

Ida Bell hit the brakes. She pulled into the parking lot at CK’s Drugstore, got out of the front, unlocked the kennel, and scooped me into her arms like she did when I was a baby. She didn’t ask why I was curled up in the kennel, but just acted like I did that all the time. Ida Bell carried me, Sugar Bell, and Sweetie-G to the rocking chairs on the drugstore porch. By the time we got there, my face was coated in snot and tears and sweat. My momma would not have wanted to see me at that moment, sitting here in front of God and everybody else, one soppy, sloppy mess.

“Why do I have to move just because Momma and Daddy say so? Nobody even asked me! Nobody cares what I think but you, Ida Bell, and you’re not coming,” I said, my voice raising like the red on a thermometer. Then I got an idea I hadn’t thought of before, “I know, you come, too! That’d be perfect!”

“Sweet Gracie-girl, now, you know I got children and grandchildren to look after. I gots to stay put,” she whispered into my ear while holding me tighter. Ida Bell’s rivery eyes looked deeper into me than I believe anyone had ever looked before. I buried my eyes in Sugar Bell’s puppy ears, unable to hold in my emotions and Ida Bell’s, too. “Honey child, listen real good. And when I get done saying what I gots to say, you listen some more to the quiet that comes after the words. Now, you remember how we took Sugar Bell and Sweetie-G from that box and brought them home?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, still not able to put my eyes on hers.

“Well, now, they was about to leave all the family they’d ever known, but they wasn’t paying that no nevermind. We picked them up, and they nearly wagged their little tails clean off, mm-hmm. I always thought that animals got lots to teach folks about how worrying makes us stop living; now, I know that’s true. Honey child, you got all you need right here, and you got all you need up that road,” she said and threw her arms around me one last, tight time.

But she didn’t let go. “Gracie-girl, we got us some good quiet out on this here porch. Let’s listen to it for a while instead of our busy heads and see don’t we feel better,” Ida Bell said. “Let’s listen to sounds at your feet, in your hands, walking close by. Let’s listen to sounds way up in the heavens, sounds stuck in the thick air, sounds too far away to hear. Any sound will do, it’s the listening that’s important, not what you hear.”

She held on to me for I-don’t-know how long. Listening. Folks came and went from the drugstore, but Ida Bell didn’t talk to them like usual. She was with me, and that was it.

I let my mind go still to hear the quiet between all the words and after the words and too far away for words like Ida Bell said. It took me a few tries, but once the jabbering in my head stopped telling me everything wrong about moving away from Ida Bell, I began to hear other sounds. A mockingbird from the top of a tree, Sugar Bell gnawing on cane, the wind winding its way up and around Daisy Street. Calm covered me over, like I rode on that wind up above my worries.

Ida Bell was right: I did have all I needed right here. I didn’t quite buy the part about having all I needed up the road, but I did trust Ida Bell. I decided to borrow her faith, since I couldn’t quite find my own. Maybe that’s some of what Daddy meant in his sermon on faith. Maybe having faith in God sometimes meant trusting in people who love you, especially when your own trust got washed away somehow. Still, I reckon I could have stayed right there in those squeezy arms of Ida Bell’s for the rest of my life.

Ida Bell drove me back home, and as we neared the house, she hollered out to Daddy, her fingers crossed behind her back, “Gracie-girl was a sweetie pie to help me with some last-minute things. Y’all have a good ride, now. Be seeing you soon!”

Ida Bell held my hands, her eyes dancing, and needing to say something. “When you get on up that road to your new house, you look for me, cause I’ll be there, you gone see. You see a big ol’ shady oak, and there I is. Drop some peanuts in your soda pop, and there I is again. You won’t believe how much you gone see me! Now, call me right when you get there, you hear?”

“I sure will, Ida Bell. I love you.”

“Oh, I love you, too, Gracie. I love you, too.” I took in her rosy scent, her warm color, and the glow of her eyes the way a person takes in a long breath of fresh air before heading under water. Ida Bell turned me loose, and I ran toward Daddy. Seemed like I hadn’t seen him for a good, long while. We hugged, and I wiped away tears.

“What’s this all about?” he asked.

“Just happy to see you is all. This here’s Sugar Bell. Ain’t she a beauty?”

“She is right pretty! Look at those big feet she’s got to grow into. Ruby-Dee’ll look after her just fine.” Daddy gave Sugar Bell a rub down her back.

“Where’s Momma?” I asked.

“She went inside to make sure the piano’s all ready for the movers. Wanted to see that the fall board was locked up so the keys don’t get damaged on the drive. Want to go see about her?”

“Sure, Daddy. Be right back.”

As my feet hit the driveway, one after the other, that night came back to me when I ran home from Whet’s after getting my verse from the Good Book. Same as that night, each step I took closer to Momma said a different word, “find … grace … to … help … in … time … of … need.” Why didn’t my act of grace turn out like it was supposed to? “Find … grace … to … help … in … time … of … need.” Why’d I go get a silly old verse in the first place? “Find … grace … to … help … in … time … of … need. Find…”

“Grace?” Daddy called, but something about the way he said my name right as I was about to think it in my verse made me stop. Grace. Grace! I was Grace. Maybe the grace in the verse was meant to have a capital G, and maybe it meant…me?

“Gra-aaace?” he called again.

“Yes, sir?”

“Could you get your momma a little water on your way in? She got right hot out here working in this heat.”

“Sure will, Daddy.” I walked on inside. “It is Well with My Soul” flowed from the piano and filled up that empty house, and I knew right off that it was Momma’s hymn-playing. I got a cup from a stack of paper ones left in the kitchen and ran water in it for Momma, then got back to thinking on that verse with the capital G. Find Grace to help in time of need. That meant something entirely different from find grace to help in time of need.Instead of finding an act of grace to help myself, I was the Grace, and was supposed to help somebody else in their time of need. Ida Bell always said that when I was feeling down, the best thing to do was help out somebody else. But who needed help? My help?