Orchard of Hope (27 page)

28

Jocie was up early on Monday even though there was no school. It was Labor Day. A holiday. Jocie had never quite figured out why people got off work on Labor Day. It seemed to be the one day all year a person should have to work.

Wes told her she could labor for him since he was moving out of their living room and back into his apartment. He’d gone back to the Lexington doctor the week before and had a new lighter cast with no rods sticking out to worry about.

“You should’ve seen my poor old scrawny leg when they cut that old cast off it. I was almost glad when they slapped more plaster on the shriveled-up thing so I couldn’t see it no more,” Wes had told her Sunday afternoon as they sat on the porch and watched the clouds piling up in the west, teasing them with the idea of rain. Once or twice they even caught a whiff of the scent of rain in the air.

Zeb kept his nose on Jocie’s knee. The dog didn’t like storms, but the rumbling clouds only flashed a little lightning before drifting on to tease somebody over in the next county. Or perhaps the clouds watered the earth there. One of Aunt Love’s oft-quoted verses was about how it rained on the just and the unjust, which Jocie’s father said meant that the Lord let it rain on everybody.

“What’d the doctor say about you trimming a few inches off the cast yourself?” Jocie asked Wes as she rubbed Zeb’s ears.

“Said it saved considerable wear and tear on his saw blade. Said he might start handing out pocketknives with all his casts,” Wes said.

“Oh, he did not.” Jocie laughed.

“And how would you know? I don’t recall you being anywhere in the room when he was sawing on me.”

Jocie’s father had let her stay home even though Wes didn’t really need a baby-sitter anymore, but it was the Martins’ time to have the preacher over for Sunday dinner. Her father said she could wait till next time the Martins’ turn came up to go along. He said that would give her some time to work on forgiving and then forgetting what Ronnie Martin had done, so obviously she hadn’t fooled her father all that much with her pretend-like forgiving act at the big church apology scene.

She told her father she would work on the forgiving bit, but she didn’t see how she could forget. Ever. Of course, her father took that opportunity to remind her of how the Lord forgave and forgot sins and to suggest she spend some time praying about what the Lord would want her to do. So Jocie supposed she’d have to start saying a forgiving heart prayer.

Still, Jocie was glad enough to stay home with Wes even if she had missed seeing Noah and his little sister and the twins who had shown up for church Sunday morning. She didn’t miss sitting across a dinner table from Ronnie Martin.

It might have been hard to keep him invisible at that close range. It was bad enough at school. It seemed as if he was always hanging around every time she and Paulette were at their lockers. Paulette and Jocie had been excited when they found out their lockers were side by side so they got to meet between classes and talk about what was going on while they got their books. They didn’t have but a couple of classes together, which was probably just as well. Paulette was still acting funny whenever Jocie talked to Charissa, who was in all Jocie’s classes.

Jocie didn’t know what Paulette’s problem was. Charissa was great fun. They’d been eating lunch together, and even though they’d only been going to school a couple of weeks, already it was as if she and Charissa had known each other for years. Charissa said it was because of the preachers’ kids thing, that nobody who wasn’t a preacher’s kid could really understand. Jocie had written that down in her journal under her section on Charissa.

It had felt funny being at the house on Sunday. The afternoon hours had seemed to linger like a visitor who got up to leave, then stretched and sat back down to stay a little longer. She and Wes went through a whole pitcher of lemonade as they whiled away the time on the porch, talking and reading. When she told Wes how her father thought she needed to work on having a forgiving heart, Wes laid his new science fiction novel facedown on the porch floor while he helped her look up some forgiveness verses in the Bible. They found more about how the Lord had forgiven them than about how they should forgive one another, but then they came across Ephesians 4:32.

Jocie leaned over to read the verse aloud out of the Bible Wes had open in his lap. “‘And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.’ Do you think it would help if I memorized that and said it over in my head every time I saw Ronnie Martin instead of pretending he was on Neptune or somewhere?” she asked Wes.

“It might. It seems a powerful verse.”

“Yeah, I think I remember Daddy preaching on it or one like it sometime or other.” She looked at Wes who was tracing the verse on the page as if he was memorizing it by touch. Then she looked at his leg in the cast propped up on a stool in front of the rocking chair. “But have you forgiven him? I mean, we wouldn’t have been out in that tornado if it hadn’t been for Ronnie Martin and what he said.”

“But they were just words, Jo. Mean words, but words.” Wes looked over at her. “He didn’t make you run away and not talk to your daddy about what he said.”

Jocie hung her head. “I know. It was my fault. Your leg getting hurt and everything.”

“The tornado wasn’t your fault.” Wes reached over and touched her cheek. “Look at me, Jo. Do you know who the hardest person in the world is to forgive?”

She looked up at him and asked, “Who?”

“Your very own self.”

Tears jumped up into her eyes. “But I feel so guilty. You almost died, Wes. I almost caused you to die.”

“That ain’t true. The tree falling on me almost caused me to die.”

“But—”

“No buts about it. And I didn’t die. I’m right here, and even if there was some reason for you to feel bad about my leg getting banged up, I’d forgive you for it. And your daddy would forgive you for it. And the Lord would forgive you for it.” Wes tapped his finger on the Bible again. “It says so right here.”

“Do you really forgive me, Wes?” Jocie tried to blink back her tears, but a couple of them slid out and down her cheeks. “I mean, you can’t ride your motorcycle or anything.”

“I don’t have no reason to forgive you, Jo, but if I did, I would.” He reached over and touched her face. “In a Jupiter heartbeat.” He pulled his hand back, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, and handed it to Jocie.

“Is that fast?” Jocie asked as she wiped away her tears.

“That’s so fast no mere earth doctor can even hear it,” Wes said. “So get that journal of yours out and write this down on one of the pages so you won’t be forgetting it. ‘If Wes ever needs to forgive me, he’ll do it in a Jupiter heartbeat.’ You got that? You give me the pen, and I’ll write it out for you if you need me to.”

Jocie smiled. “No, I think I’ve got it.” She gave Wes a hug and then did just what he said. She wrote the words down in her journal along with a lot more words since sometimes, once she got started writing in her journal, her pen didn’t seem to have brakes.

While she was writing, Wes kept leafing through the Bible.

“Here’s one I’ll bet you’ve heard Lovella quote out of Psalms,” he said after a while. “‘For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.’”

“Yeah, Aunt Love likes that one,” Jocie agreed without looking up from her journal.

“What’s not to like? Even I can see that’s a good one. ‘Ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy.’”

“All you’ve got to do is ask,” Jocie said, still without looking up.

“That’s what your daddy tells me.”

Something about his voice made Jocie stop writing and look at Wes. Suddenly it was as if her senses were heightened. She felt a whisper of breeze against her sweaty skin. She heard a bee out in the yard searching for pollen, along with the sound of Wes fingering the tissue-thin pages of the Bible. Her eyes separated out every unruly gray eyebrow sticking up above the reading glasses he wore.

As long as she could remember she’d been asking Wes to take the Lord and going to church seriously, and now it sounded like he was. She was almost afraid to say anything for fear she might scare away the moment, but at the same time, she couldn’t stay quiet. “Are you thinking about asking?”

“The idea’s crossed my mind,” Wes said.

“Then why don’t you?” Jocie held her breath as she waited for his answer.

“I don’t know,” Wes admitted. “I guess it’s just hard for an old Jupiterian like me to believe in that plenteous mercy.”

“You mean, you don’t think the Lord can forgive you?”

“He’d have a lot to forgive.”

Jocie frowned a little and pointed at the Bible. “But don’t you think that’s what ‘plenteous’ means? That there’s a lot of mercy out there for the asking.”

“That’s how it sounds.” Wes looked back at the words in the Bible.

“That’s how it is,” Jocie said.

Wes looked up at her. “And you know this yourself? You aren’t just saying what you’ve heard your daddy say?”

“He says it, but even if he didn’t, I’d know it.”

“Why’s that?”

Jocie hesitated a minute before she answered. “I don’t know. Maybe because of what happened at Clay’s Creek Church. You know, the lilacs and you and Dad showing up when I needed you and everything. And I hadn’t done what I should have done that day, but the Lord helped me anyway. When I prayed, he answered.”

“You do seem to be having a good return on your prayers this summer, Jo. The dog prayer. The sister prayer. The leg-healing prayer. Even the doctors are changing their tune a little and saying I might actually walk again without crutches after all.”

“I knew you would. What do Earth doctors know about Jupiter bones anyway?”

“And you weren’t praying about it?” Wes looked at her with lifted eyebrows.

“Well, yeah, but I always pray for you. And could be I was praying a little harder than usual since you got hurt.”

“I’m not sure I’m that good at praying or walking down church aisles.”

“Daddy says you don’t have to be in a church to ask the Lord to save you, that you can do that anywhere.”

“The book’s pretty clear on that,” Wes said, lifting the Bible a little out of his lap. “The Lord’s all over, everywhere. But there’s somewhere in here that says it ain’t enough to just be private about it, that you have to step forward and do some aisle walking.”

Jocie put her hand on his arm. “Aisle walking isn’t all that hard. And if you decide you need to do some of it, I’ll walk on one side of you and the Lord will walk on the other side.”

“I might just hold you to that, Jo, if I ever do decide to do that aisle walking. But you know what happened the last time I got close to a church. It just blew clear away to Jupiter or beyond.”

“Not all of it.” Jocie smiled. “Folks are still bringing in pieces. Mr. Armstrong brought in one of the collection plates last Tuesday. He spotted it up in a tree somewhere. Bent a little, but it would still hold money. Daddy took a picture of him holding it. Mr. Armstrong says the people out at the church are going to make a special display case when they build their new church to hold some of the stuff people have been finding.”

“Sounds like front-page news to me.” Wes shut the Bible and leaned back in his rocking chair.

“There might not be room this week. We’ll probably have the front page full of pictures of Sidewalk Days. We might even get some shots of the square dancing in the streets Monday night for the top fold.”

“Dancing in the streets. Sounds like quite the event,” Wes said. “I’ll watch it from my upstairs window.”

“So you really are moving out on us?”

“Ain’t nothing against none of you. Could be I’ll even miss you.”

“Could be?” Jocie leaned over to stare into his face.

“Could be. I might even miss old Harlan or Zebedee or whatever you call him.” Wes smiled at Jocie and reached over to run his hand down Zeb’s back. The dog turned to grin at Wes. “He’s a fine dog. But sometimes a man needs some time alone to think things through in the proper way.”

“You mean, like asking for this plenteous mercy?”

“That’s one of the things.”

Suddenly Jocie felt like crying. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I ain’t going back to Jupiter or nothing, Jo. I’m just going home. And I’ll be able to go down to the pressroom and keep old Betsy Lou happy and get ink under my fingernails again.” Wes looked down at his hands. “It just ain’t right having clean fingernails.”

So Monday morning after breakfast, Jocie helped Wes pack up his books and clothes so they could ride in with her father. Even though it was a holiday, they were working on this week’s issue of the
Banner
so their subscribers could get their papers on Wednesday the same as always. With every book she put in the box, she felt more like crying.

Even Aunt Love looked a little teary-eyed as she quoted a verse or two out of Psalms, and of course Tabitha had tears running down her cheeks while she watched Wes and Jocie. But that was pretty common the last couple of weeks. Tabitha claimed she wasn’t all that unhappy. Miserable and hot and more than ready for the baby to get here, but that wasn’t why she was crying. She said everything else about her was swollen so she supposed her tear glands were too and that maybe they had to spill over to keep her eyes from exploding. But this morning as she watched Wes packing up to move out, she had a sad look to go along with the tears.

Wes was the only one of them smiling. He was hopping around on his crutches and doing his best to tease them into smiling back at him. “You’d think somebody had died around here. Come on, girls. It’s just the opposite. I’m coming back to life again.” He did a little shuffle step on his crutches. “Bet you didn’t think I could still dance.”

“I never knew you could dance to begin with,” Jocie said. “And I haven’t seen anything yet to make me change my mind.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you recognize the Jupiterian shuffle when you see it?” Wes laughed. “Maybe I’ll teach that step to you at your birthday party next week.”

“I can’t wait. Leigh’s chocolate cake and your dance lessons. Plus new tubes for my bicycle tires. Dad promised.” Jocie looked over at Wes and smiled. “What more could a girl want?”