Chapter Twenty-One

Sunday I woke up with a headache and stayed in bed till early afternoon.

After Maria made her ridiculous declaration, I had refused to discuss it. Dodd Cunningham? Not in a million years. If he had any interest in me at all, it was only as a missionary project. But JohnScott would know what I should do. He may have changed in the past six weeks, but he still represented my tether to sanity.

Slipping into a pair of worn sweats, I shuffled to the kitchen and grabbed the cordless phone, but it was dead. Apparently Momma had forgotten to pay the bill again.

She was banging around in her bedroom, getting ready for a late shift, and I called to her. “Could you drop me at Uncle Ansel and Aunt Velma’s?”

A dresser drawer slammed. “You could’ve asked a little earlier.”

Ansel and Velma lived less than ten minutes away, but Momma had a point. She wouldn’t make it on time. “Sorry.”

“What good is an apology, Ruth Ann? It won’t get me to work on time.” She hurried into the kitchen, where she smeared peanut butter on a slice of white bread. The smell reminded me I hadn’t eaten, but I didn’t want to take the time. “Can’t JohnScott pick you up?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know. The phone’s out.”

She picked up the phone, listened, then punched it off. “Shoot. I forgot.”

I replaced the lid on the peanut butter and tossed it in the cabinet while Momma reached for her purse and sweater.

We didn’t speak during the short drive. Instead, Momma tuned the radio to her favorite country-and-western station, and I speculated about how to tell JohnScott the preacher might have feelings for me. This was impossible. I wished my cousin weren’t such good friends with Dodd, because he would have a better perspective if he weren’t.

I glanced at Momma. She never listened to my problems, but I knew how she would react to Maria’s news. It wouldn’t be pleasant.

I shuddered.

“What? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, Momma.”

“You in some kind of trouble?”

Her usual question. “I’m not pregnant.”

“Don’t get sassy with me, Ruth Ann.”

I sighed. “Just drop me at the end of the drive.”

“I was planning on it.” She stopped the car just long enough for me to get out, then did a three-point turn and headed back to town.

I stood knee-deep in johnsongrass near my aunt and uncle’s mailbox and watched the hatchback sputter away. Why couldn’t God help her be happy when I needed her so badly?

“Love you, too,” I mumbled.

Ansel and Velma lived on a small farm a few miles outside of town. The older, ranch-style home, set back from the road a hundred yards, had been filled to bursting when all my cousins lived there, but I had always considered it a cozy safe haven.

JohnScott’s double-wide lay fifty yards past the house, but I had a feeling he’d be at Ansel and Velma’s. Normally, he ate Sunday lunch with his parents and then lay around talking to Ansel about livestock all afternoon.

As I tramped up the gravel drive, Ansel’s old blue heeler came trotting around the end of the house, silently wagging his tail. “Hey, Rowdy.” I scratched behind his ears, and then let myself in the front door instead of going around back, where we usually parked. I hadn’t been in through the front door in years. Nobody had, yet it remained unlocked.

The house felt abnormally still.

My family wouldn’t have seen my approach because only the dining room had windows facing the front yard, and that room went unused except for Thanksgiving Day. I expected Velma to be in the kitchen, so I stepped through the living room, but before I could call to her, I heard a voice.

Dodd’s voice.

My chest tightened with a strange mix of hope and terror, but then I realized the sound came from the back porch, and I’d only heard him through the open windows. Creeping to the corner of the room, I glimpsed Dodd sitting at the old wooden picnic table with JohnScott and Grady. Rowdy was just settling down at JohnScott’s feet.

What in the world? I scanned the living room, searching for Velma even though I could feel the emptiness. Ansel’s two-toned Silverado could be seen out back with the El Camino, but the absence of Velma’s car made me wonder if my aunt and uncle had made a trip to Lubbock. They might not be home for hours.

I hovered behind the recliner, searching my mind for a possible solution, prepared to bolt to the back bedroom, if necessary. Common sense told me I was overreacting, but the knot of anxiety between my shoulder blades insisted otherwise. I didn’t want to talk to them. Not like this, but eventually they would come in the house and find me. And I’d look like a fool.

I sneaked a look out the window again while JohnScott was speaking in his slow drawl, “… need to wait until I get my life right, don’t I? I’m not a very good person on the inside.”

Grady shook his head. “Coach Pickett, no matter how long you wait, you’ll never be good enough. That’s the point.”

JohnScott leaned his elbows on the table. “How can He love me with all I have in my past?”

For crying out loud, they were talking about Jesus stuff. I knew the Debate Club discussed the Bible, but why on earth would JohnScott have them over to the house?

The preacher shrugged. “His love is bigger than your sin.”

My cousin let tears fall down his cheeks unashamedly, but his fists clenched on the table. “I don’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive me.” His voice broke.

Dodd leaned toward him. “Your mother?”

JohnScott ran his fingers through his hair. Whatever was wrong, I hurt for him and wished the Cunninghams would leave.

I dug my fingertips into the velour headrest of the recliner as JohnScott slid his arms into his lap, defeated. “Not Mom.” He met Dodd’s gaze. “Ruthie.”

Understanding hit me with all the force of a softball sailing over home plate, and I pressed my palms against my heart, almost feeling the pain of impact. JohnScott wasn’t just talking about Jesus or the Bible. He was talking about the church. I paced across the room and back again.

He held his head in his hands, but if I knew my cousin, any minute he’d chuckle and say, “Naw, not for me.”

He lifted his head. “I guess there’s no reason to wait.”

“There’s no hurry, Coach Pickett.”

“No, I’m ready.” JohnScott wiped his cheeks. “Do we have to go to the church building, or can we do it here?”

“Water is water.” Dodd scoped the yard. “What do you have in mind?”

JohnScott swung his legs over the splintery bench of the picnic table. “We’ve got a holding tank across the way over there.”

Dodd and Grady asked in unison, “What’s a holding tank?”

“You guys are such city boys.” JohnScott laughed. “Big, round cement basin full of well water, like an above-ground pool.”

“Slime?” Dodd stepped off the porch.

“And maybe a few goldfish.”

As they moved out of sight, I stumbled down the hall to the back bedroom, where I lifted the curtain at the window overlooking the side pasture.

JohnScott and Dodd kicked off their shoes, then sat on the side of the holding tank and swung their legs over and stood in the thigh-deep water. Dodd gripped JohnScott’s shoulder, and my cousin nodded. When the preacher dunked him under, the block of ice between my shoulder blades melted into a slushy pool of emptiness, and I closed my eyes.

Why did he think this would hurt me? I didn’t care.

I fingered the rubbery lining of the curtain before letting it fall back into place, and then I wandered down the hall and waited in the entryway with my back pressed against the wall and my palm gripping the doorknob. When I heard them in the mudroom, I slipped out the front door as they came in the back. They would never know I had been there. I would see to that.

Trudging down the highway on my way back to town, I hugged myself not only to ward off the brisk fall wind but also to fill the loneliness in my heart.