“That’s news to me!” said Lou.
“You’re always the last to hear, Mayor!” said Hope, looking at him with a mischievous grin.
Georgia appeared at the door.
“I’m going to need some help from some of you!” she said. “Wendell, come along now! Liz, it’s good to see you! Come and make yourself useful!”
Soon they came back with a rolling examination table laden with food that Georgia had prepared.
“This is the menu for our city dinner this evening after the parade!” she said. “We’re going to try it out on you, Lou, and if it isn’t poisoned, I’ll serve it to everybody else!”
“Georgia, you’re too kind,” he deadpanned. “But, I’m not sure I can eat this. I’ve got tests tomorrow.”
“No, not tomorrow,” said the attending nurse. “We will be observing you through tomorrow. The doctor will determine what tests you need after that. If you can eat in moderation, you can go ahead. I’ve gotten permission from Doc Bailey.”
Susanna came into the room and embraced Hope.
Father Callaghan appeared at the door. With a mocking flair of giving a blessing, he said, “Best greetings and blessings all around!”
“If you want to get Frank to make a pastoral visit, just have some food around. He can smell it for miles!” said Lou.
Father smiled good-naturedly. “Always good to see you too, Mayor!”
“I can’t believe you are all here!” exclaimed Lou. “Who is left down at the parade?”
“Oh, the crowds are amazingly large,” said Susanna. “Biggest we’ve ever seen. Word on the street is that news of our unusual parade has made it to Portland, Salem, and Eugene news media and some are streaming it on their websites.”
“I wonder who managed that?” asked Lou.
“I think you are a strong suspect!”
“A good leader has to get on board with the people, Frank!” said Lou.
As they ate a delicious meal of lasagna and garlic bread, the parade began.
Susanna stood in Lou’s room thinking her own thoughts. Why was this parade such a big deal, anyway? It had turned the whole town upside down and inside out. It was just a parade. The town always was a little crazy arranging it and carrying it out each year. But, this was different. There was a new kind of investment altogether. People seemed determined to make changes and to do what they had to do to make them work! In a short time, a relationship had formed between Safety Harbor and the Unsettlement. Perfect strangers rubbed shoulders with each other. Hospitality was offered. People ate together, even danced together, and now they were participating together in this new concept of a parade.
This was, in fact, Joe’s Parade! It was only because of him and for him that all of this was taking place. It was a shock that he was gone, doubly so because he had disappeared so abruptly. Joe gave them a sense of direction for the community. He didn’t seek an office or a position of importance in the city or try to be important. All he did was offer hospitality in his diner, cook meals, flip burgers, and share a few words of conversation. That was it.
Yet, there wasn’t a person Susanna knew whose life Joe hadn’t influenced. It was as if he had always been there. Now, they couldn’t imagine their lives without him. She knew that the good people of Safety Harbor were carrying out all of this effort on the parade because they wanted it to be a tribute to him and what he had done for the town.
Barriers that Susanna thought would take years, even decades, to break down had come down overnight. Mayor Lou and the unofficial mayors of the Unsettlement, Rock and Magdalena, had nothing in common up to this point. Both sides had distrusted one another, each side suspecting the other of seeking to destroy the values of the other.
Tomorrow, the parade would be over and then the real work of getting back to their everyday lives would be the challenge. Meanwhile, there was much yet to come, Susanna suspected, and many miracles. She didn’t know why she thought that. She just did.
Her eyes teared up and a lump came to her throat as all at once she missed Nick more than ever. She could almost feel his hand on her leg now. She flashed back to the rush she felt the first time he had done that when they had first started going out together. The early crackling excitement of attraction had matured into a more peaceful, deep, and settled, but no less exciting, love. She could almost feel him at her side now.
Unconsciously, her hand reached out for him but instead found its way to Father Callaghan’s cassock. Embarrassed, she pulled her hand back quickly. If Father had noticed, he failed to mention it.
By now, the parade had reached the KSHO camera parked in front of the De-light-full Book Store and Coffee Shop.
“They’re pretty good!” said Father, as he watched the Unsettlement Dixie Land Band.
“You always were a diplomat, Father,” said Hope.
“He looks pretty full of lasagna to me!” said Lou.
Ever good-natured about his corpulence, Father responded by asking for another helping.
Chapter 25
The parade had made its way from the school parking lot, down Maple, out onto Main Street, and was well on its way toward the city park, which was its destination. The crowds had grown thicker. Stores, restaurants, and bars strained to meet the demands for water, soft drinks, and beer.
Everyone knows how a parade should look, so who would have expected that a parade would be led off by some pretty rough-around-the-edges twenty-something musicians playing what was supposed to pass for bluegrass? Who could have even considered that a band of persons with disabilities would lead off behind them, clanging their tambourines and playing their sticks and recorders? Who could have envisioned that blind children would be waving from a bus at a crowd they could not see? It was remarkable.
Fifteen minutes into the parade, Nate wondered why things had come to a sudden stop. What he could not see along with many others in the second half of the parade line-up was that the bus had stopped in front of the De-Light-Full Book Store and Coffee Shop. The students from the School for the Blind wanted to be out with the crowd so that they could experience the parade and the staff had relented.
Each held the hand of another, as they got off the bus. With some assistance, they formed six rows of five in order to walk within the parade corridor. They proceeded somewhat tentatively at first.
A loud cheer broke out from the crowd as the students began the second half of the parade on the street among the people. Gradually, they picked up a beat from the Rhythmatics. Some began to kick their legs in the air. Another roar and rousing applause came from the crowd.
From the hospital room, could be heard loud cheers and hand claps as they watched this phenomenon on KSHO. Such commotion brought three nurses into the room.
“What is happening in here?” asked Ruth Edgefield-Martin, Lou’s attending nurse. “I thought I told you that quiet and rest was in order for you, Mayor Lou!”
Then she turned and saw the spectacle unfolding in front of all of them on the television screen.
“Oh my!” she said. “There’s my angel, Little Therese. See those little feet moving?”
“And that smile,” said Father Callaghan. “That’s a million dollars right there!”
“Oh, it’s worth much more than that, Father!” she said.
A tear made its way down Father’s cheek as he thought of how much this parade showed us how we could be, if only we were willing. Even the hardest of hearts had to be impressed. Even the most cynical among them had to be moved. And so, he was.
Chapter 26
The