But then hadn’t He helped her all along to win the post?
Hadn’t He started two years ago when it became apparent that Mercy Polk, Mother Mercy she was called, would soon be unable to fulfill her Church Mother duties due to old age and incontinence? At God’s heeding, Celia had secretly campaigned, had made special entreaties to the Pastor’s wife, May, and others of influence on the board. However, the rules of removal had been more stringent than those of Supreme Court justice. Once in office, a Mother simply could not be supplanted. Even after Mother Mercy passed away, her seat had remained empty for six whole months. Four was the usual protocol of respect shown to each Mother. Mother Mercy’s tenure had been such that she had been given two additional months for the congregation’s mourning.
There had been no doubt that Celia would win the election. The competition was weak. Supra Rankin and Mother Mercy’s granddaughter Righteous were lackluster at best. All of Mother Mercy’s heathen grandchildren had been given Holiness names at birth. It hadn’t helped. Praise B., the middle boy, had spent the last five years in Burkeville Federal Corrections for stealing stamps from the post office. Salvation was rumored to be dating secretly Pastor Joshua right under his wife’s nose. The twin girls, Milk and Honey, had each gotten pregnant, out of wedlock, by the same itinerant preacher. Their baby boys, born within two weeks of one another, were both cousins and brothers at the same time. Then that horrible thing had happened to Honey after she left her child, moved down to Beaumont and was said to have gotten mixed up with a lesbian homosexual and a life of drugs. The fruit, thought Celia, never falls far from the tree.
There was also the fact that none of the other nominees for Church Mother had committed Genesis through Nehemiah to memory. Not to mention Psalms, Proverbs and Lamentations. Forget that she knew Matthew through John. Corinthians one and two. And of course Revelation. Who else could say that? Supra Rankin’s tongues were a joke, painted-on things to impress the multitudes. Righteous Polk had only her grandmother’s glory to push her into a nomination. None of them had her following. The women who gathered about her after Bible study to ask questions. Leaning into her every word. Not one had her pious nature. Her humility, the years of missionary work in Kountze County, Beaumont City and Nacogdoches. Who else had traveled to the convention in Hardin County in ’55 or Galveston in ’57? Taken their own child’s money and spread the word from little Liberty Township? Who had put their small church on the map at the ’59 convention in Raleigh by being voted chair of the Preparatory Basket Committee? Who else had had a vision of Jonah and angelic visitations from the twelve Apostles or the gift of prophecy? Certainly not Righteous Polk with her hanging slips and scuffed shoes. Did the woman not a have a mirror to look into before going to church on a Sunday morning?
Who else had not married and remained God’s holy vessel? No. It was His will. It was God’s will that Celia Jennings take her rightful place among all of the other women whose pictures hung on the ladies’ lavatory wall. The lobby was for past preachers, but when the lavatory was moved indoors in 1945, the In-His-Name Liberty Township chapter of the Holiness Church’s Women’s Auxiliary had decorated it with pink and beige rose wallpaper. Hung chintz curtains and two framed pictures of past church mothers over the sink.
Celia thought to go to church alone to claim her prize but stopped. For what would she have said to their questions?
“I hope Brother Jennings isn’t feeling poorly,” Supra Rankin would have said slyly. And what if she had lied, “Yes, he is a bit under the weather today,” then Ephram had shown up? Or walked by the church from his night of sin? Still smelling of — her. That Bell woman. It was unspeakable. The shame she would feel as the assembly discovered the truth, that her child, her good boy, had fallen as surely as Adam fell, as surely as Samson. Fallen like fruit, not far from her tree.
Celia heard the truth as clearly as Gabriel’s trumpet booming above her head. This was the Devil’s work. Who else had a vested interest in the downfall of her church — which was sure to happen if Supra Rankin were elected and used her influence to put more pushy, bossy Rankins on the church board? Who else would tempt him who was closest to her? And who best to do it if not one of the Bells? Those fair-skinned harlots who brought shame and unrest on the community over forty years afore. That blond, blue-eyed Neva Bell, who fornicated with a White man and got herself shot because of it? No matter this one was brown. This Ruby Bell carried the same blood, and that blood carried the same sin. And the sin had risen like a flood to carry her good boy away. She would not allow it! Not now. Not ever.
Ephram was going to church today, and she would become Church Mother.
Celia Jennings rushed into her bedroom, slipped off her house sheath and donned her new blues. She put on her Star-of-Bethlehem brooch, fastened the wig tight on her head, then attached the hat with T-shaped pins. Her shoes — she hadn’t lain them out. She went into her closet and found the patent leather blues. She grabbed her matching purse, the Piggly Wiggly bag with Ephram’s suit, and set out down the road. The same red road Ephram had ventured down not twelve hours before.
The streets and fields were Sunday morning empty, filled with the sound of her feet crunching clay, kicking dust and gravel behind her. She passed Rankin land, the scarecrow waving straw hands in the breeze. The world was in church. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to walk along the low path to stay out of sight. She winced as she passed Bloom’s Juke, still smelling of Saturday night. Then she was back on the main road. Her steps took on a rhythm. A grinding beat. Celia saw the large black bird flutter down on the fence up ahead. Its wings stretched wide as she walked quickly by and it followed her with its oil eyes. It cawed three times, then rose up in flight. Celia walked faster. The beat of patent leather speeding her closer. She reeled past P & K, dark and silent. By the time she passed Rupert’s melon patch and the pathway to Marion Lake she was almost running, the tall pines pushing her along.
When she reached Bell land her breath was deep and sharp. Her knock sounded louder than she expected on the dry rot door. No answer. She knocked again. A face darted in the window then disappeared. She lifted her hand to knock again—
Ephram opened the door.
He looked crumpled. His morning beard growing in, sleep crusting in the corner of his left eye. This wasn’t like her son, who never left the house unshaven, unwashed. He held a wet rag in his hand. His knees were soapy wet and Celia spied a full sudsy bucket over his shoulder, in the kitchen of the filthy house. Had he been—cleaning? And on the Sabbath? The place was a room out of hell. Cob webs and black dirt, layers thick. Dust everywhere. The house reeked of human waste. Celia’s face went numb with disgust and fury.
Between bared teeth she said evenly, “Ephram. You late for Sunday service.”
Ephram looked down at her, his face kind but hardened. “I ain’t going today Celia.”
She heard what sounded like a bedspring in the next room. Celia craned her neck around Ephram and saw that thing sitting on a soiled mattress. Eyes like a swamp lizard. Evil mark on her cheek. Her legs spread out in that foul gray dress she always had on.
Celia lost track of speaking for a moment. Then a noise between a yelp and a cry stabbed up from Celia’s throat. “NO! Ephram, you comin’ with me now.”
Ephram bent his head, scraped at his chin with his hand. “Mama, I’ma stay here for a bit longer.” He tried to put his hand on Celia’s shoulder. She pushed him off.
“Your soul in jeopardy boy.”
“Ceal ain’t nothing in jeopardy — I swear.”