Embrace Me (8 page)

Over on my nightstand a small loaf of bread soaks up the warmth from the lamp, a milky dotted-glass affair. Blessed bread from the rectory. Father Brian sent it home with me. He asked if I had food and I told him about my current diet.

I said my farewells to the Hopewells and drove for several hours to the Trail. In the dark I pitched my tent, climbed into my sleeping bag, lit a cigarette, and downed a thermos of coffee laced with whisky. Not used to much alcohol, I slept until long after dawn.

Happy Thanksgiving, Drew.

When I awoke, I thought about calling my father, wishing him a Happy Thanksgiving, and telling him about
The Port of Peace Hour
. Small potatoes, that show. He'd think that, even though his words would be, “I see.”

You might be tempted to think I'm feeling sorry for myself about having Mr. Freeze for a father. I'm not. I dislike the man. I didn't want to talk about it earlier, Father Brian. I don't want his love or his approval anymore. These days, if he approved of me, I know I'd be doing something desperately wrong. At one time I would have sold my soul to have succeeded in a way that would impress Charles Parrish. Maybe selling one's soul is what it really takes to gain the approval of people like that. Let God be the judge on that one. Not you, Father. Not me.

I remember that morning on the mountainside, looking out over a hazy vista of the Shenandoah River. A few tendrils of smoke strung their way up into the atmosphere from down below. I read a book about church growth that weekend and outlined a plan to bring in congregants from other churches because I knew we weren't the type of church to make converts. Since my people couldn't procreate that fast, we relied on the whole grass-is-greener mentality. Sure, we'd tried to institute Friendship Evangelism but only a few people showed up for the first meeting. I only wanted to buy more pews and fill them. And having done that, do it all some more, bump out walls, build more buildings. If I'd had a better motive maybe—providing a place of healing for those who'd been in abusive churches, reaching out to those in need—I might have some excuse. But I didn't care why they came, I just wanted more of them.

Covetousness? Yes, I guess it was.

We needed to break ground on an activities building, I realized. That would open up even greater opportunities for our congregation to recreate and fellowship.

At least Ed Phelps was into discipleship and I let him have free rein. People needed to know that as soon as their lives calmed down and they stopped running their kids around to play dates and every kind of lesson in the world, they could always do the work of the gospel. But before they came to that conclusion, I needed money, and they had loads of it sitting alongside piles of guilt. It was the perfect combination.

I realized politics was one of the keys as well. A surefire way, judging from some of the big-time ministries, to build up a following. I'd start showing up at political functions, form a committee for Christian legislation at church, take the bull by the horns.

And I did just that. It was almost as effective as the coffee bar.

You see, people like being frightened in large groups. It legitimizes the fear.

The phone rings. After the eighth ring I pick it up.

“Drew?”

“Yes, this is Drew.”

“The Lord is calling you.”

My first thought,
He is? On this phone?

“Who is this?”

That voice. Come on, Drew, think.

“I'm praying for you. You are at a crossroads.”

The line goes dead.

FOUR

VALENTINE: 2008

I
lift Lella up from underneath her arms and place her in the stroller for one of our midnight walks. Lella hates wheel-chairs. “They make me feel so vulnerable and loosey-goosey.”

The stroller hugs her more securely and—just in case somebody comes upon us on our walk—makes for less stares. Thank-fy, the only people who see us are usually blinded by the bottle. She looks like a child with her feet tucked up beneath her. Lella always asks me to wrap her up in several blankets, her sweet face peering out, eyes bright and hopeful.

Of course
born
without arms and legs, Lella hasn't experienced life any differently.

“I don't know what I'd have done without you tonight, Val.”

“I'm sorry I didn't hear you call sooner.”

“You're my angel.”

Lella got sick earlier and threw up on herself. I feel so sorry for her when that happens. She has a delicate stomach, and sometimes Blaze lives up to her name when she cooks.

“So where are we walking tonight?” I buckle the seatbelt over her waist.

“How about over to the newer section of town? I've heard about Elysian Heights Church's new education building. Rick says it even has a swimming pool and exercise room!”

“All right.” I grab the handle and begin to push. “I don't trust that church though, Lella. I saw right through all the feel-good stuff and the politics, even though my mother swore by the ministry after that pastor went on the air with that clown of a woman by his side. She got scarier and scarier looking every second. Those two should have taken a lesson from
The Port of Peace Hour
and Charmaine Hopewell—there's a woman who knows how to do TV. I admire her, that's for sure.”

“Oh, me too! Charmaine's a dandy, isn't she? I can't believe you've never introduced us.”

“I just see her out on my dock, Lell. I don't have the heart to ask her back to the house.”

Sometimes I head out to Lake Coventry in the middle of the night and sit on the same dock each time. I don't know who owns the house, but I've come to think of the dock as mine.

We navigate Mount Oak, first walking by Love's Rib Room. “Do you like ribs, Lella?”

“Oh my, yes.”

“I'll get Rick to get you some.”

Maybe I can't chew the meat, but I can sure lick the sauce off my fingers after holding them up to Lella's mouth.

“I'd love to go swimming sometime.” Lella's words puff in the chilly darkness, backlit by a haloed streetlight. “My mom and dad used to take me when I was a little child. They'd hold their hands underneath me and let me float, right there atop the water. It felt just delightful. Maybe that church would let us come in late some night.”

“I doubt it. Rules are rules are rules at places like that. They'd have to go through three committees and ask somebody to stay up late and it would just be too much trouble.”

“Valentine, I wish you'd allow yourself a little belief in humanity.”

“Lell, if we were all like you, that might actually be a possibility.”

“Now that surely isn't true.”

Next we cross the town square. The moon hovers still and bursting over the silent grass.

“Walking in sunshine is so overrated, isn't it, Lell?”

Lella laughs.

The bandstand rests in the intersection of four pathways diagonally crisscrossing the park. Lella hums “Seventy-six Trombones.”

I roll my gripped hands on the stroller handle. “I always think of that song when I see a bandstand too.”

“Would you like to watch a movie when we get home?”

“Sure. Rick brought
Meet Me in St. Louis
from the library.”

We pass Java Jane's.

“I remember the days I'd go into coffee shops thinking I'd always be going into coffee shops, sitting down and sipping a hot drink. Even as a teenager I liked the stuff.” I point into the coffee shop window, the large pane of glass surrounded by pink twinkle lights. “Isn't it odd, Lella, how the mundane is so spectacular for us?”

“And conversely, how the spectacular—us oddities, the glittery circus life—has become so mundane?”

“Right.”

She turns her head and tries to look at me. “You'll never feel at home among us, Valentine, will you?”

“I don't know how I can. You were born the way you are. Others make themselves the way they are. My situation leaves me in a peculiar place.” At least for Roland's shows. I think of Mary Anne Bevans, an old-time freak who got elephantitis as an adult. That happened to a lot of people back in the day.

“Surely we're your friends. And when a person starts to live for their friends, the people they love, and not worry quite so much about the people who laugh or look away in disgust, they find a home.” She cranes her neck, trying to look back at me. “Is it all still an embarrassment?”

I stop the stroller and kneel down next to my friend. “Yes. But I wish it wasn't.”

“I'm sorry. It's something you'll have to come to grips with eventually. We all do.”

“I try not to think about it.”

“Do you ever just sit and think, Valentine?”

“Not really. I get angry if I do.”

“I sit and think all the time.”

Yes, Lella, sweet Lella, I know.

She laughs her musical laugh. “I suppose you might think it's because I have nothing else to do! But . . . I've come to a lot of conclusions in the silence.”

“Like what?” I stand up and we continue walking along the sidewalk.

“Well, mostly that the silence isn't so bad after all. I know you feel sorry for me, Valentine, but it isn't so bad. And when it's not silent, you're there, and the others are too. I go from one sweetness to the next, and maybe that's better than having arms and legs.”

I round the corner by Love's Rib Room. “What about Mindy and Bindy? They're not exactly sweet.”

“Oh dear me, no! I can't stand those two.”

We window shop on our midnight walks. As we loiter in front of one of those trendy new paper stores, lots of dots and lines and pinks and greens and friendly flowers splashed across the surfaces, a light snow begins to fall on my scarves and Lella's blankets.

“You look like a Russian peasant in the snow, Valentine. How lovely.”

“I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment.”

“The Russians have the best fairy tales.”

“So there we have it.”

“Precisely.”

Twenty minutes later we stand before the edifice of Elysian Heights Family Ministry Center, lots of blondish brick, large, single-paned windows in black metal frames and nothing to let you know it isn't a school or, say, a social services building, except the word
Ministry
in plain brown letters near the door. Cabbage-like perennials dot the gardens.

“Maybe we can ask them about the swimming, Lell. You want me to get Blaze to find out?”

“Only if you'll swim with me.”

“Oh, Lell. Nice try. Let's walk over to Clearview Street. They have the prettiest little houses.”

“Like ours someday?”

“Hopefully.”