| |
Tamar dropped down into the only padded armchair in the room. “Thank God for this cushion. My back is killing me.”
Clyde entered the room carrying wood.
I did a little dance. “We’re not going to freeze.”
Stress lines filled Clyde’s face. “There’s not much that’s good for a fire. We only have about ten pieces.”
“What about all that wood stacked up in the corner out there?” My confusion came through in my tone.
Tamar filled in the blank for me. “It’s pine. It burns in minutes. They probably use it to start the fire – to get the other wood burning.”
I shifted my gaze back to the pile. “So, all that wood stacked up over there is useless?”
I saw Clyde’s Adam’s apple bob up and down before he answered. “Unfortunately.”
Stating the obvious, I said, “This heater isn’t doing much.”
“Once we close the door, the heat it provides will warm the room up a little,” he said. “It’ll take some time, but it and a slow fire will take the chill off.”
“Why does it keep shutting off? It’s like as soon as it gets hot it stops working.”
“It’s old, but it’s better than nothing,” Clyde said. “I’m going to get the rest of the wood so we can close the door.”
I stood. “I’ll help.”
Clyde held up a hand. “I’m good.”
He stepped out the room.
“What happened?” Tamar asked.
I shrugged. “We’re exes.”
“I know, but he seems more down.”
I shook my head. “Maybe he’s worried. This is a hot mess – or a cold mess.”
Tamar grunted and tossed her coat on the chair next to her.
“Girl, you need to keep that on.”
“Take off yours too. It’s true about your body getting used to it if you sit inside with it on. You may need it later.”
I hated to shed my coat, but I figured she knew better than I did.
Clyde reentered with the wood. He tossed a few pieces in the fireplace and took a few pieces of the pine. After using the flashlight on his phone to look up the chimney, he said, “I’ve opened the damper, so we won’t kill ourselves.” He removed matches from his pocket and held them up for us to see. “Thanks to the pastor.”
Tamar and I both waited with anticipation as he lit a few of the matches and held it under the wood. It caught and began to burn. He stood and we applauded.
Clyde sunk into a chair. He’d been moving since we got here.
“Do you want some water?” I asked.
“Water would be good.” He peeled off his coat.
I left, grabbed one of the six bottled waters from the refrigerator and gave it to him. Our hands touched and his were icy. Clyde always had cold hands. He’d teased me many times by placing them on my arm or neck or lower back.
“Your hands are freezing!”
“I’m trying to warm them up on you.”
Giggling, I pushed him away. “I don’t want you warming them up at my expense.”
“You should be glad to have me. What’s that saying? ‘Cold hands, warm heart.’”
“Cold hands,” I whispered.
Clyde responded to my nostalgia with his eyes, but not his words. “The fire will take care of that.”
Tamar broke up the moment. “How long will the wood last?”
“We should probably have enough for a good stretch if we burn it slow.”
“And then all we’ll have is this heater?” Dread filled my tone.
“Kim, I know you’re from Louisiana, but you’ve got to stop focusing on the cold.” Tamar raised her feet to the chair in front of her.
I looked out the window at the end of the room. The snow was coming down even heavier than it was before. I knew Tamar was right, but I was scared. The last thing I wanted to do was die from freezing. That was so not the way any Black southerner wanted to go. “I’ll try.”
No one spoke for a few minutes and then Clyde said, “So, I guess your father’s church is a mega facility compared to this one.”
Tamar shifted in her chair. “This is a tiny town. It might have four hundred people and half of those are children. If there’s another church in the area that would only be about fifty adult members. Maybe less on any given Sunday.”
“No wonder they can’t pay their bills.”
Tamar and I both looked at him with interest.
“There’s a past due bill on the pastor’s desk. That’s why there’s no heat.”
We nodded.
I looked at my watch. It was 5:30 pm. We were expected by 4:00. “I’m sure by now Stephen and your father have alerted the police that we’re missing. How much area are they going to have to cover?”
“Missing for an hour and a half in the snow is not going to get the police involved,” Clyde said.
“Clyde’s right, but the fact that no one can reach our phones will help. My father is close to the sheriff in our county, so he has someone he can call to get a search started,” Tamar said, “And to answer your question, Kim, there are a lot of roads and not much manpower.”
Clyde stood. “I think I need to try to do something here. We have no idea how long it might take this weather to lift.”
I stood with him. “Do something like what?”
“Try to find help.”
“On foot?”
He chuckled. “Well, I don’t have a sleigh.”
He’d freeze out there. “You can’t be serious. It’s pouring snow. There was nothing on the road we were on.”
“There are people here. This church is proof of that.”
“But you can’t go out in the blizzard looking for them.”
He removed the matches from his pocket and put them on the mantel. “We don’t have much wood. That heater is on its last leg. I can’t trust that we won’t all freeze to death if no one finds us.”
The thought of him leaving and wandering around in the snow scared me so badly my heart was pounding. I turned to Tamar. “Tell him this is crazy.”
Tamar nodded. “I agree. I think you should at least wait until the snow stops. Right now, we have what we need.”
Clyde scratched the side of his face, the way he always did when he was thinking. “I disagree. Someone has to live within a mile or so of this building. I can make it that far.”
I opened my mouth to express my opinion again. Clyde raised a hand to cut me off. “Waiting isn’t a good idea. We won’t even have firewood overnight.”
Tamar stood. She rubbed her belly a few times and shook her head. “You can’t go.”
Clyde pleaded with her with his eyes. “I promise not to go too far.”
“No, I mean, you actually can’t. I need you,” she said. “My water broke.”
Clyde and I looked down at the puddle around her feet and then back up at each other.
***
TAMAR’S CONTRACTIONS progressed from annoying to painful before I could wrap my mind around the fact that I was going to have to play midwife.
Active labor was happening. She grunted as Clyde and I helped her down to the floor. She rested on the cushion we took from the pastor’s chair in the pulpit. We wrapped it in a trash bag and covered it with a sweater. Fortunately, there were a few throw pillows on the couch in the other classroom, so we covered those and propped them on a bag of clothes marked goodwill and made a large pillow for her back.
“I watched someone deliver a baby once,” I said. “Have I ever told you that?”
Tamar groaned and pushed the words out on a strangled breath. “No.”
“It was during Hurricane Katrina. I was a teenager. We were in a shelter. A woman went into labor. I watched a nurse from the Red Cross deliver the baby.”
“I didn’t know you were in a shelter.”
“It was a horrible experience.” I raised my eyes to Clyde’s. I hadn’t shared the story with him either. “I don’t talk about it.”
Tamar groaned through the contraction.
I wiped the perspiration from her forehead. “So, you see, I’m a labor whisperer.”
Tamar let out a pained laugh. “I hope so.”
“You’re going to be okay, kiddo. I’ve got you.”
“Whose got you?” Clyde asked. He was sweating more than Tamar.
I reached for a choir robe from the stack I’d sent Clyde to get, rolled it up and stuck it under her lower back.
“God’s got me, Clyde. He’s got all of us.”
He nodded and dropped down on the floor with me.
