The Scent of Lilacs Read online

  “I don’t remember my mother cooking, but surely she did. I mean, Daddy was preaching then too. People were bound to be giving him beans and stuff.”

  “If they did, your Mama Mae was probably the one who cooked it for you. Your mother, she wasn’t Mrs. Sally Housewife, but she was a looker. Prettiest woman I ever saw, and I’ve seen my share, drifting around the country in a spaceship.”

  “Do I look like her?”

  Wes gave her face a close look. “Can’t say as I think you do.”

  “But I don’t look like Daddy either.”

  “No,” Wes said. “But sometimes it’s good to just look like yourself.”

  “Tabitha looked like Mama, didn’t she?”

  “She did. Same coloring. Same eyes. She was at that twixt-and-tween age when I knew her, but she showed promise of being real pretty.”

  “Not something you’d say about me,” Jocie said. Her face was too long, her eyes too big, her mouth too wide.

  “That’s true. Pretty don’t suit you. It’s too common. You’re going to be a stunner—one of those girls who breaks all the boys’ hearts.”

  “And that’s going to happen any day now, I guess.” Jocie grinned. “Why, next fall when school starts, I’ll have to take Zeb with me to keep the boys away.”

  “I expect they’ll make a special rule about guard dogs just for you, and old Harlan here will get to go to Earth school and store up all kinds of interesting information to take back to Jupiter. Maybe that’s what Jackson Jupiter had in mind when he made him into a dog.”

  “You’re crazy, Wes.”

  “I think the word is Jupiterian.” He finished off the bottle of pop and blew into the top to make an odd tune.

  “I’ll be a Jupiterian before that ever happens. I’m not even sure I’d want it to happen.” Jocie shuddered at the thought of any of the boys at school trying to kiss her. “You think there’s something wrong with me feeling like that?”

  “Naw. You’ll change your mind in a few years.”

  “Tabitha had boyfriends before she left. One of them gave her a big red heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day. The box is still in the closet at home.”

  “So?”

  “Well, Dad says she was my age when they left, but when I think about her, it seems like she was older. I remember her looking grown-up, if you know what I mean. And me, I don’t think I’m ever going to need a bra.” Jocie’s face went a little pink. “I guess I shouldn’t talk about bras to you. Aunt Love would have a calf.”

  “She might, and truth is, I ain’t no expert on the subject of female underwear, which is another argument for a stepmother.”

  “But Leigh Jacobson?” When Jocie thought about it, she had been running into the woman a lot lately. And she had been overly friendly, asking how Jocie was doing and asking after her father. Jocie was sort of used to that from church folks, who were always being nice to her to make points with the preacher. But Leigh Jacobson went to the First Baptist Church in town. Jocie’s father never got invited to fill the pulpit there. “Daddy’s not interested, is he?”

  “Oh, you know your dad. He’s either got his head up in the clouds or down in the Scripture. Half the time he don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Was that why he didn’t know my mother was going to leave him? He said he didn’t know she was leaving till she was gone.”

  “Sometimes people don’t want to know things. It was pretty plain that your mama wasn’t happy in Hollyhill, had never been happy in Hollyhill.”

  “But Dad says she was born here.”

  “That don’t mean she had to like it here.”

  “No, I guess not,” Jocie said. “Dad says we can have a birthday party for Tabitha even if she isn’t here. I’m going to make a chocolate cake, and we’ll have ice cream. You want to come?”

  “Free food. I’ll be there. Are you sending out invites?”

  “Maybe. I would send one to Tabitha for sure, but we don’t have an address right now. Dad thinks they’re still in California, but the last letter to Tabitha came back.”

  “California. Now there’s a state.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Our spaceship landed there a few times. The people never notice you’re Jupiterian there, because they’re all crazier than your average run-of-the-mill outer-space guy. And from the stuff that’s been coming along the news lines, it’s crazier now than it was then, what with all this free love and peace stuff.” Wes held up his hand with his fingers parted in a V.

  “Peace is good.”

  “That’s a fact, but oft as not hard to come by.” Wes stared down at his empty pop bottle.

  Jocie took a sip of her cola. She hated it when Wes got that sad look on his face. She wanted to get up and hug him or something, but when she’d asked her father about it once, he’d said everybody had their demons from the past to deal with and that Wes had his share and she should just wait out his sad times and not bother him about it.

  After what seemed like a half hour but probably was only a couple of minutes, Jocie touched Zeb’s head, and the dog raised up and put his nose on her knee. “Anyway, about the party—who knows? The Lord answered my dog prayer. Maybe he’ll answer my sister prayer.”

  Wes looked up at Jocie. “Did you ever once imagine anything that looked like that dog there when you were sending up your dog prayers?”

  “No, but I like him now that he’s here.”

  “That’s good. But what I’m trying to tell you is that if Tabitha were to suddenly appear out of the blue, she wouldn’t be the sister you remember. A lot of years have passed since then.”

  “I know that. But it would still be good, wouldn’t it? I mean, it would make Daddy happy and maybe scare off that Leigh Jacobson if Dad had two daughters.”

  “Double trouble for sure.” Wes stood up and peered out the window. “Come on, kiddo. It’s done got too dark for you to ride that old bike home. I’ll give you a lift. You can come to work with your dad Monday and get your bike.”

  “What about Zeb?”

  “He can ride too.”

  They sandwiched the dog between them, and he sat still as a stone when Wes revved up the motor and shook awake the sleepy streets of Hollyhill. Jocie loved the way her hair whipped back away from her face as they raced down the road with nothing but the wind and the roar of the motorcycle in her ears. Jocie waved at the people they passed. Some waved back. Others just frowned at this disturbance of the town’s peace and quiet. Wes was always saying that if people didn’t love her daddy so much, they would have run him out of town years ago.

  Jocie could think of several Hollyhillers she’d rather run out of town. Mayor Palmor for one. He was always smiling, always shaking hands for votes, even if the election had just ended. Of course, he never paid much attention to Jocie, seeing as how she was too young to vote. Sometimes he didn’t notice her at all. Jocie didn’t care. That gave her the chance to do some eavesdropping, pick up all kinds of tidbits to pass on to her father. He hardly ever printed any of them. Said he couldn’t publish stories on a hearsay basis. He needed stories with facts to back them up, not town gossips. Wes wasn’t so worried about facts. He always laughed at the stories Jocie brought in and said maybe he’d add some of them to his Hollyhill Book of the Strange.

  Maybe she could talk her father into starting a News of the Strange column. This, a dog riding a motorcycle, could be the lead story. Zebedee lifted his head and began barking at the trees rushing past them. His joyous barks would have hurt their ears if the motorcycle hadn’t already been deafening them.

  Jocie started laughing. She just had a feeling this was going to be her strangest and best summer ever.

  David hadn’t let himself think about being nervous. He had prayed and studied his Scripture. He knew the Bible story frontward and backward. He’d gotten up early to watch the sun come up as he tried to put himself in the crowd that trailed after Jesus hungrier for his words than for food that day so long
ago. He had soaked his shoes in the early morning dew of the neighbor’s cow pasture while his hunger pangs reminded him he hadn’t had breakfast. He’d sat on a rock at the edge of the field and thought about sharing a little boy’s lunch of two fish and five loaves with thousands of other hungry people and then seeing the baskets of leftovers after he was too full to eat more. He had his points all lined up in his head and listed one, two, three on the lined notepaper stuck in his Bible. And he’d been sure he was ready to deliver the best sermon of his life.

  He wasn’t a great preacher. He could take a person one-on-one through any story in the Bible and help them see the truths laid out there. He could pray with anyone who had a need and help them find comfort in the Lord. He could write a good sermon with all his points and life lessons drawn out clear and simple, but he struggled with his delivery.

  He practiced in the woods. He practiced in front of a mirror. He practiced in his car driving to take this or that picture for the newspaper. He had even practiced that morning to Jocie’s ugly stray dog, who had sat in front of him in the pasture and listened politely. But practice didn’t always make perfect.

  Here he was gripping the edges of the pulpit, looking out at pews loaded with Mt. Pleasant faithful while his much-practiced sermon gathered in a hard knot just below his heart. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to cough it up.

  David amened Deacon Jackson’s mumbled offertory prayer, and the congregation settled back into the pews, putting up their hymn books and digging in their pockets and purses for money to drop into the offering plates. David tried not to think about his sermon moments away and instead looked at the families. As usual, little Bobby Whitehead was giving his mother fits in the next to back row. She’d already tried Cheerios and a coloring book, but the Cheerios had rolled in four directions under the pews, and Bobby was chewing on the red crayon. She had the three-year-old’s shoulder in a vise grip and was whispering intently in his ear. He was doing his best to wriggle free. She’d be lucky to hear a line of Scripture.

  The McDermotts with their three children were on the fourth pew, smiling and ready to look favorably on whatever he said. Aunt Love, in her customary black hat and dress, sat in the pew in front of them, looking sternly expectant as always. Jocie was sitting alone in the second pew from the back even though three other girls near her age sat together about midway on the other side of the church. David wished she was sitting in the middle of the other girls, trying to keep from giggling as the offering plates were being passed.

  But no, Jocie was a loner. Her best friend in the world was Wes, who was nearly five times her age. Of course, she had friends at school but none she invited home for the weekend. That’s the kind of friend she needed. One she could hook pinkies and share secrets with. One she could be silly with. Wes said she needed a stepmother.

  David tried not to think about that. Not with the sermon to deliver in a few minutes. But his eyes drifted to Leigh Jacobson, who had slipped in the back door during the opening hymn and settled in the back pew. She wasn’t a member of Mt. Pleasant. She went to the First Baptist Church in town, but she’d said last week she might come listen to him preach sometime. He wished she’d picked some other morning. Any other morning.

  It was beginning to look as if Wes was right about Leigh. Even Aunt Love had noticed, telling David that girl had her hat set for him, when they’d run into Leigh at the grocery store last week. David hadn’t decided whether to be pleased or panicked.

  Leigh was pleasant enough, but she didn’t set his blood to boiling the way Adrienne had the first time he’d laid eyes on her at his father’s funeral. Of course, his submarine had just come in for maintenance when he got word of his father’s heart attack and was given leave to go home for the funeral. After months at the bottom of the sea, the sight of any female started the blood to pumping.

  But it had been more than that. He’d seen Adrienne at the funeral home, and she’d invited him to her house the next day. He’d found her in the backyard in a red swimsuit working on her tan. She’d asked him if he believed in love at first sight, and when he’d said yes, she’d challenged him to marry her—not later after they got to know one another, but that very day.

  He’d just seen his father’s body lowered into the ground. His mother was grieving. His older brothers and sister and their families had come in from Ohio and Texas for the funeral. He hadn’t seen them for over two years, had laid eyes on a couple of their grandchildren for the first time the day before. He and his brothers and sister had never been very close. They’d all been grown before he’d come along and surprised his parents when his mother was forty-three and his father fifty. Still, they were family, and he had obligations. Adrienne had smiled and said now or never. She hadn’t even wanted him to call his mother, but he had done that at least. They had driven south across the state border, found a justice of the peace, and drove back the next day. His brothers and their families were gone. His sister, Esther, was still there, a frown fixed between her eyes every time she looked at David. The frown grew even deeper when she looked at Adrienne. But his mother had smiled and welcomed Adrienne into her house and heart when David had to catch the plane back to his submarine. David thought she was glad of an excuse not to go to Texas with Esther.

  Of course, nobody had known then that Tabitha was already on the way. God’s plan, his mother would write him later. He hadn’t been so sure then, but that was before God had put his hand on his shoulder and called him to preach. That had come later in the bowels of the submarine with the ominous blips of the radar signaling death coming. Adrienne had never wanted him to preach, had refused to believe his call was real.

  David watched the deacons coming back down the aisle to set the offering plates on the altar table. He spotted some fives and a ten sticking up through the ones. At least they’d have enough to pay him the full amount for today’s sermon even if they didn’t vote him in. That was good. His car needed tires. The last two Sundays he’d preached, they’d given him only half pay, since the church was having some financial problems. Aunt Love told him to preach on tithing, but he told her the Lord hadn’t laid that message on his heart. Thank goodness. He doubted any preacher anywhere had ever been called to a church after preaching on tithing.

  David spread his hands flat on the pages of his Bible and shut his eyes as if he could absorb the words and the message God wanted him to deliver. Jessica Sanderson hit the last notes of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and stood up to go back to her seat two rows back. The wives of the men who had taken up the collection were scooting over to make room for them in the pews, and that sudden expectant silence fell over the church, almost as if the people had sucked in their breath in unison and were afraid to breathe out again as they waited for God’s message to come through him.

  The silence stretched. David’s throat tightened up, threatened to close off completely. He thought that was why preachers told jokes—to get past that first moment, but he was singularly untalented at telling funny stories. Of course, as long as he kept his eyes closed and his head bowed, the people would think he was praying instead of panicking.

  And he was praying. Desperately. Help me, Lord, to say something to help these people. He paused and waited for some words to come. His mind was still blank. He could almost feel the Lord out there with the congregation, waiting. A few people began stirring in their seats as the wait stretched out too long. His prayer got more desperate. Help me to say anything!

  There was a loud cough in the back of the church. He knew even before he looked up that it was Jocie. She was making her wide-mouth-and-eyes face, and he couldn’t keep from smiling. The first line about a little boy with a lunch of five loaves and two fishes popped into his mind. He pushed it out of his mouth, and as always, the Lord took over and did the rest.

  Jocie watched the people in front of her and tried to judge how her father was doing. Most of the people seemed to be listening, except a couple of toddlers who were banging their
hands on the pew backs and making eyes at the people behind them. Her father wouldn’t be worried about that. He liked babies in the church, even if they did draw attention away from the sermon sometimes. He was always saying that God could deliver a better sermon through the love of a baby than any he could ever think up.

  The little boy and his lunch had been a good choice. Her father was telling the story so that all the church was trailing along with the little boy. Jocie wished Wes was there to hear her father, but as usual he hadn’t shown up. Leigh Jacobson had. Wes must be right about her. Thank goodness she hadn’t seen Jocie and scooted in beside her. Jocie would have rather sat by Aunt Love and let her pinch her arm if she noticed Jocie’s eyes getting the least bit droopy.

  She tried to keep her mind on Andrew bringing the boy and his lunch to Jesus, but Zeb pushed the Bible story right out of her head. She’d left him stretched out happily on the front porch, but what would happen when they were gone all day and into the night? He might drift off to another house in search of some leftover biscuits. But God wouldn’t answer her dog prayer and then let the answer disappear after just one day. Zeb would be there.

  She’d told her Sunday school class about the Lord answering her prayer and sending Zeb. She figured since the Lord had been good enough to answer her prayer, she ought to give him credit. A couple of boys had snickered, but Miss McMurtry had silenced them with a look as she’d said, “That’s a wonderful story, Jocie, and a good lesson for us all. God wants us to pray about everything—the big and little things.” And then she’d passed out some chewing gum before she told the Sunday school story about Jesus healing a blind man. The one where he made mud and smeared it on the man’s eyes. It always seemed funny to think about Jesus spitting and making mud like any ordinary person instead of commanding down a splash of rainwater to make the mud.

  Jocie scooted over a few inches until she could see the watch on Mr. Snyder’s arm stretched out on the pew in front of her. Five minutes till twelve. She wondered if she should make the slit throat signal so her dad would know to stop. No matter how well you were preaching, the folks wanted to be home in time to take the roast out of the oven. She hoped there was a roast in Mrs. McDermott’s oven and not just a kettle of cabbage on top of the stove. Maybe she could even beg a bone or two for Zeb. The McDermotts had dogs, but they probably got bones all the time.