He pauses to take another sip of water. “Paul says, ‘If a man knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?’ My own wife knows my thoughts on this matter and dresses appropriately. Proverbs 31. ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is far above rubies.’ ”
Several eyes turn toward Mrs. McKinney, whose head is bowed now, her face red with embarrassment at being praised and made the center of their attention.
“As a child obeys its father, so does a virtuous wife obey her husband. Whatsoever I ask of her, she will do, whether or not she sees the wisdom of it. Why I could spit in this glass of water and ask her to drink it and she would obey.”
Then, to the teenage pianist’s horror, the preacher spits into the water and holds the glass out to his wife. “Come, Marian.”
From her seat on the piano bench, the girl sees Mrs. McKinney’s eyes widen. There is a stricken look on her plain face and she shakes her head in bewilderment as if she cannot understand his words.
“Marian?”
Tears well up in the woman’s eyes when she realizes that he is serious. “Please, husband, no,” she whispers. “Don’t make me do this.”
Implacably, he continues to hold out the glass. “A husband does not make his wife do anything,” he says. “He lets his wishes be known and she submits graciously of her own free will as God has commanded.”
The congregation sits in utter silence, holding its breath.
Slowly, Marian McKinney comes to her feet. Tears stream down her cheeks and her face crumples with the effort not to break into sobs. Each step to the altar seems an effort of will. At last, she takes the glass and raises it to her lips, and the girl sees her gag. Then, with eyes clenched tightly shut, she forces herself to drink.
As she stumbles back to her place on the front pew, Mr. McKinney beams. “This is my beloved wife in whom I am well pleased. Let us pray.”
His words roll out over the congregation and in their name, he thanks the Lord for the gift of blood that cleanses whiter than snow and for the promise of eternal life to those who love Him and honor Him and keep His commandments.
When everyone stands for the singing of the final hymn, the pianist suddenly realizes that her mother is no longer in the church.
CHAPTER 1
. . . this is life, and there is no theory for it . . .
—Fiddledeedee, by Shelby Stephenson
NINE DAYS LATER
Tuesday morning’s light mist lay over the field of young tobacco. It softened the air and turned the tall pines beyond into gray shadows of themselves. The recently turned earth gave off an honest aroma that was sweet to the old man who stood motionless to take it all in. Another year, another spring. Here in late April, the plants were only knee-high with no hint of the pink blossoms to come, their leaves still small and crisp and deep green. Everything fresh and young.
Everything but me, the old man told himself.
One of two dogs beside him nudged his hand with a muzzle that had, in the past year, become almost as white as his master’s hair. The man looked down with a rueful smile. “Yeah and you, too, poor ol’ Blue.”
He scratched the dog’s soft-as-velvet ears, then the three of them ambled slowly on down the lane that circled the perimeter of this field. Cool early mornings used to mean the beginning of another day of hard sweaty work—fields to plow, animals to tend, the hundred and one backbreaking chores that make up a farmer’s daily life.
Back at the house, Sue and Essie would be fixing breakfast, rousting the boys out of bed, asking the older ones to fill the woodbox and feed the chickens, sending the younger ones off to school . . .
The whole farm would buzz with meaningful work and raucous laughter.
He almost never thought about his first wife, but Annie Ruth had always liked mornings best, too. More times than he could count, she would be up before him. She scorned mirrors and plaited her hair by touch alone into a long thick braid as she looked out their window to watch the first light define the trees and fields beyond.
“Time to get moving,” she would say briskly if he lay in bed too long to watch her.
Now his house was silent and empty every morning until Maidie came over to make breakfast; and even though he only piddled at working this past year or two, he still felt driven to walk the back lanes each day, to see his fields and woods as fresh and new as the dawn of creation, to make sure that everything was well within the borders of his land. Annie Ruth had usually been too busy to come walking, but Sue used to say, “Now don’t you look all the pretty off the morning till I can come, too,” and she would often slip away from the demands of the boys and the house to join him out here.
Together they would pause to enjoy the dogwoods that bloomed among the tall pines, to smell the sweet scent of wild crab apples on the ditchbanks or note that the corn could use a little side-dressing of soda to green it up. Away from the house and the boys, they could talk about the larger issues in their life together, the needs of someone in their extended families, or the help they might could give the proud man who was having a hard time of it. They could discuss what to do about Andrew or Frank and whether a good talking-to would be enough to keep those two out of trouble or if it was going to take a trip to the woodshed to get the point across.
Yet they had all turned out well, he thought, as he ran their faces through his mind, taking stock of his sons as he took stock of his land. The Navy had straightened Frank out; and Sue’s patience and April’s love had straightened Andrew. There were problems with some of the grandchildren, but they would come out right in the end, too. Of this he had no doubt.
A few feet ahead of him, the younger dog suddenly went on alert. He followed the direction of her point and saw a doe emerge from the woods at the far edge of the field. Behind her two young fawns hesitated, half hidden by the grapevines that hung down from the trees. Ladybelle gave an almost inaudible whine and Blue strained to see what had alerted her. Both of them looked back at him, but he gave the hand signal to stay and they obeyed. Nevertheless, the doe had caught his slight movement and she and the fawns melted back into the trees.
As the sun rose behind the pines and began to burn off the mist, he heard the sound of a motor and turned to see a small black truck slowly easing through the sandy ruts. He stood quietly until the truck pulled even with him and the driver cut its engine. The white man behind the wheel appeared to be in his mid-thirties and wore a gray work shirt with the name ENNIS embroidered in red on the breast pocket. His short brown hair had thinned across the crown but he had not yet begun to go gray.
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Kezzie, but Miz Holt said you were out here and might not mind.”
“Not a bit,” Kezzie Knott said politely and waited for the man to identify himself.
“You probably don’t remember me, but I’m James Ennis, Frances Pritchard’s grandson.”
The Pritchard land touched some that he owned over in the next township and Kezzie nodded at that familiar name. “You must be one of Mary’s boys.”
“Yessir.” The younger man got out of the truck and extended his hand.
“What can I do for you, son?”
“It’s about my grandmother, Mr. Kezzie. She’s about to give away more of our land. Grandy might’ve left it in her name, but you know good as me he wanted her to pass it on down to my mother. It’s been in our family over two hundred years and yeah, nobody wants to farm it any more, but it don’t seem right for her to let somebody have for free what the whole family’s sweated and bled for all these years. She says she’s giving it back to the Lord, but it’s not the Lord’s name that’s gonna be on that deed.”