found me a job at the library downtown. He helped me get a little apartment in Overtown. Most importantly, he helped me get my brother away from my father. Brought him down to Miami and then paid for him to go to college up at Tuskegee when he finished high school. Harrison is now an accountant up in Boston.
Elwyn said to her: When I was a kid, I think I remember he used to sit with you and Brother Morrisohn and Beverly.
Beverly never sat with us. She absolutely refused.
I was too young. I remember it wrong.
Yes, you do. You were too young … you are too young. You are a child.
I didn’t mean to make you … mad, Sister Morrisohn.
I am mad. I am nutso.
I need Thee, O I need Thee, he heard his mother singing to Sister Miron’s accompaniment. It sounded good—it would sound better if Ginny would ease up on the bass.
Sister Morrisohn said, I fell in love with Buford immediately. How could I not? He was such a good man. Intelligent. Handsome too. Though nothing happened between us while Mother Glovine was alive. Buford wouldn’t allow it. But she was gravely ill. We married a month after she passed. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that’s what started the gossip. But we were in love. What did they expect us to do? This caused the rift between me and Beverly, my loving stepdaughter, who is actually older than me, ha-ha-ha. She’s become a real problem for me with Buford’s inheritance. There were vicious rumors about me tricking a senile old man into marriage to get his money. Your grandmother, Elwyn, I’m sorry to inform you, was chief among my accusers. But I loved Glovine … Mother Glovine. She was a mother to me … Our love overcame it all. I had found what I wanted in Buford, a man who would love me in spite of my past. A man who would not abuse me. A man who looked at me every day and said, I am so glad I met you. My life is complete.
She continued through sobs, Isn’t that what we all want? Not once while I was with Buford did I ever think of any other man. Not once while I was with him did he ever remind me of my past.
Elwyn said, Sister Morrisohn, don’t cry.
I loved him at first sight. And you remind me of him so much! It’s just that our situation—our ages, I don’t know what I feel for you or why. With him it was easy. I felt so old when he died. I thought I’d just hide up on a shelf for the rest of my life and gather dust. That day when you came over, you made me feel beautiful again. You made me feel young again. I didn’t fear you or hate you as I had other men, because I knew you were good. I had watched you grow up … You’re still growing up. You’re still a child. Oh God.
Sister Morrisohn, he said, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 4:30 sharp are best for me.
Yes. You’re so sweet to … teach me the piano three times a week. And I won’t take money from you.
You must take the money. Piano lessons don’t come cheap.
I will not take money from you. You must, or they will know.
But it’s weird.
We’re weird. We have weird love, me and you. Me and you. It sounds so … yeah, weird.
But so right. So … weird.
I wish you were here right now so I could kiss you, my darling. I want to kiss you all night. I want to wake up in your arms. Do you mind that I said that?
I don’t mind.
Outside his room was quiet. He wondered if Deacon and Sister Miron had left. It was rude not to have gone out and greeted them, especially since they planned on naming their son after him. He would make it up to them. He would apologize and say something flattering about Ginny’s—Sister Miron’s—heavy-left-hand music. He was, after all, the model Christian son.
Sister Morrisohn said, I bet when I told you I wanted to kiss you, you blushed.
Elwyn said, Maybe it would be safer if we didn’t call each other so often. We’ll see each other on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
You don’t understand how unpredictable this thing can be. Sometimes only your lover’s voice will do.
I’m blushing now, I think.
I wish you were here so I could kiss you. I’m definitely blushing, Sister Morrisohn.
I wish you were here so I could make love to you, my darling.
Long after her lover had hung up, she kept the phone to her ear like an embrace.
When she pulled away, finally, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a drink. The music from her record player in the living room switched from Tammy Wynette to Chester Harbaugh and His OldTime Fiddle Band to the Louvin Brothers to Jim Reeves. She kept time nodding her head. She liked old-time country music, the kind she had grown up listening to back home in North Carolina. In her father’s house. She liked the heartbreak songs, because she was a heartbreak girl. She liked the twanging and the whining in the music as a complement to the clever, sometimes depressing lyrics. She was a girl who was often depressed. Well, she used to be, but not anymore. Things, she told herself, were going to change. She opened the cabinet and took out the bottle. The wine was the good kind, a little tart with a sharp bouquet. She had kept the bottle hidden from Buford, who like all of the Faithful had disapproved of strong drink. But the Faithful are too strict in their rules concerning alcohol, Sister Morrisohn thought to herself. The Faithful are too strict about many things. Wine is good for the spirit, the Bible says so. Noah invented wine. Jesus turned water into wine. The Faithful are a bunch of tight a**es. She put the wine to her lips. Her spirit soared. There is warmth in the wine. There is warmth in him too. Her mind had gone back to Elwyn. There is warmth even in his voice, she said out loud.
She’d always had a problem finding warmth.
After her mother died, she had sought refuge from the cold fury in her father’s house. She was most unsuccessful in that endeavor. Now that your mother is in the ground, don’t act like you don’t know what we’re doing.
Now he didn’t have to waste all that energy beating her to get her pants down. There was no one to protect her now that her mother was dead. She got pregnant by him again. This time the baby died, thank God. And after that, she grew stronger. When he tried to put his arm around her, she had the knife. He was laughing at her, calling her skinny red ugly. She stabbed him, trying to dig out his ribs. Sent him to the hospital at death’s door. But still laughing: skinny red ugly, and got spirit just like your momma, ha-ha-ha.
She grew into a beautiful woman and had no shortage of men. Though some of them were kind, they never gave a thought to her needs. She hated them, she loathed them, she was dead scared of them—they all hit harder than her father, and they all hit, even the kind ones. Then Buford came. He offered to protect her for no reason other than she needed protecting. This was a different kind of love.
Christian love, he called it, which she thought she knew about because he was not the first married preacher who had fancied her. But Buford’s love was about loving your neighbor as yourself.
Who is my neighbor, Daddyo?
Anyone in need.
You don’t even know me, Daddyo.
I know that you are in need.
You’re just like the rest of them—what you want from me is between my legs.
I have a wife, thank you, and I’m quite happy with her.
That’s what you say now. That’s what you say until you get me alone and show your wild side.
I’m a wealthy man, I don’t need to cruise the jails to find women to sleep with, little girl. I’m Holy Ghost filled. I’m washed in the blood of the lamb. The only high I get is on Jesus. The only wild side I got is I’m on fire for the Lord.
Is that right? That is right.
We’ll see about that, Daddyo.
She smiled, remembering being with him