Cleaning up the Mess--a story (iii)

“She said it was something about you cleaning up Norma’s mess, Mae–you cleaning up your sister’s house without asking, and ever since that you two sisters–in the blood, too, not only in Christ–real, honest-to-God sisters–haven’t even spoken to each other,” he says. “Now I’m trying to figure out how the two of you do devotions at night, knowing that you never talk–that’s what I’m trying to figure out. You tell me, how do you talk to God?”

That young preacher was about to become a lightning rod and I didn’t know if he was grounded yet. Carol shoves me an elbow. She scared witless.

“Norma,” the preacher said, “how can you pray?”

You just know it–his pulse is racing because it irritates him, talking to a couple of store manikins. And then he says the one that broke the dike, something I’m thinking he shouldn’t have said.

“Mae,” he says, “I can’t believe the Lord listens to your prayers.”

That was enough to unstop Norma’s tongue. “What do you know?” she says. That was the first line either of them spoke. “What do you know about my sister and her prayers?” she says. “What do you know about what she’s suffered already in life–losing a husband and a boy? What do you know about her? What do you know about what she asks of the Lord, and what do you think you know about Him listening or not?”

“I know your sin sits between you and the throne like some black cloud,” he says, and Carol’s got a hold of my arm, tugging. He sounded steamed. He really did. He sounded wound up tight. “I know you used foul language in that house,” he said. “I know you said words that would have made your mother’s blood curdle.”

“Don’t bring Mother into this,” Mae says finally. “You didn’t know her.”

“I’d like to tell her the words you screamed at your sister,” the pastor said to Norma. “I’d like to run them past her to see if she approved.”

“How dare you?” Mae says. “How dare you talk like that to my sister?” And then, “Let’s get out of here, Norma,” Mae says, the quiet one, and just like that we hear the chairs moan when the two of them–neither of them lightweights–get to their feet.

“Get in there,” Carol says, and I figure this time she’s right. If the two of them had stormed out of that study, I don’t know that we’d have seen them again for a half dozen years–either that or they’d have taken the preacher’s hide right there in the mess in his study.

“Go on,” Carol said, so all six of us took off through the Sunday School room door and chugged up the hallway like the Light Brigade, then broke in the study.

I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to say, so the first thing that jumped into my mind is what you always say, I guess. “Surprise,” I said, and so did everybody else, as if it was a birthday, and maybe it was.

Mae and Norma were standing at the door, mouths gaping, eyes full moons, Norma with her hand stuck in Mae’s elbow, both of them flat out flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of all the angels, all their friends.

Maybe ten seconds of sheer silence passed, and finally my Carol says, “We love you.”

For the life of me, I don’t know where she pulled that from, but then all of us started into it like a chorus, catching like a yawn–one starts and it gets to be a thing. It’s Fanny with “we love you,” and then Ann and Marlys and Eunice–women first; and then Rolly says it and Fritz and me too. Even the men spouting off about love.

Norma and Mae just stand there blinking, then Norma looks down and sees her hand in the crook of her sister’s elbow, and they turn to each other where they see mirror images of their own stunned faces. Norma pulls her hand out and puts it on Mae’s shoulder, then lets it creep around her neck, and Mae turns a face a little so she can put her cheek on her sister’s shoulder, and they hug. And that was it. Three years of silence over.

But what’s three years anyway, we figured. Jacob worked seven for Leah then got snookered and started the whole deal over.

Anyway, I turned and looked at that peach-faced preacher, barely old enough to drive. He didn’t look mad one bit. Hadn’t even stood up from the chair, was sitting there with his hands out in front of him, folded, a wiry smile across his face, wily as a fox. Nodding. That’s what he was doing–nodding.

I said to Carol later on, after the cake and things–I said to Carol, “I think the guy is going to make somebody a good preacher someday.”

“As long as we do our part,” she said.

By the time we left, you can bet all those books were on his shelves.

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