She looked down at her withered, pale leg. The sutures were fresh, the incisions stained orange by antiseptic and already starting to scab over. Patches of long, soft hair grew between the surgical sites. Her other leg, smooth and muscular, only made this one look even more deformed. She felt something in her chest like a sob struggling to escape.
Bliss stroked Bronwyn’s hair and asked the doctor, “How soon until we can head back? I know it’s Saturday, but I’d like to miss as much evening traffic as possible.”
His eyes widened. “Back? Tonight? I really think we should keep her at least overnight, just for observation.” Then he turned to Bronwyn. “Sorry, I don’t mean to talk about you like you’re not here. But you’ve been through a lot, not just today’s surgery, and I’d feel better if we waited.”
“I’ve been observed enough,” Bronwyn said, her tongue still heavy with the dregs of sedation. “I want to be the audience, not the show. I want to go home.”
“She’ll be in an ambulance with an EMT,” Bliss said. “And clearly, whatever she’s doing at home is working.”
The doctor chewed one end of his mustache for a moment. “It’s against my better judgment. But you can’t argue with the results you’ve been getting.” He threw his hands up in a shrug. “Drive safely, ladies. And call me if you need anything.”
The trip home was uneventful; Bronwyn slept most of the way. Bliss hummed all the songs of comfort she knew. When she heard Bronwyn moan once, either in pain or a nightmare, she began to sing a tune originally written as a hymn. For the Tufa, though, its symbolism carried a far different meaning:
It was almost ten o’clock when they passed through Needsville, and twenty minutes later Bliss backed the ambulance up the hill to the Hyatts’ porch. Deacon carried his semiconscious daughter from the stretcher inside to the couch. Bliss undid the cast, exposing the sutures to the air. Bronwyn awoke to find Aiden, hair tousled from sleep, kneeling beside her and staring at her leg.
Aiden said, “Wow.”
“Yes, that’s where the pins went in,” Bliss said. “And came out. Your sister’s been through a lot today.”
“Wow,” he whispered again, and tentatively extended one hand.
“Touch them,” Bronwyn croaked, “and you’ll draw back a nub. I mean it.”
“Leave your sister alone,” Deacon said firmly. “Go get her a glass of tea.”
“Yessir,” Aiden mumbled and shuffled, head down, into the kitchen.
Bliss turned to Deacon and Chloe. “The doctors were pretty surprised. She’s way ahead of schedule. I told them it was all this clean mountain air.”
“Good an explanation as any,” Deacon agreed.
“Thanks for taking care of her,” Chloe said to Bliss. “I’ve been worried all day, and tonight the wind’s been high in the trees.”
Bliss nodded. “I noticed that. Best you stay close to home for now.”
Brownyn closed her eyes and listened for the night wind. It lurked outside among the upper branches, waving them against the stars. It was hard to tell over the pain medication if the wind was dancing, or instead flitting from place to place like something stalking its prey below.
“Not my mom,” Bronwyn whispered.
“What, honey?” Chloe asked. But Bronwyn was asleep again.
14
“Good morning,” Craig Chess said to his congregation.
All seven people, in a sanctuary that could seat three hundred, replied in unison, “Good morning.”
He leaned casually on the pulpit. “I don’t think there’s going to be a mad last-minute rush, so why doesn’t everyone come down front?”
Don Swayback looked at Susie. They rose from the last pew and came down the side aisle, passing through beams of sunlight tinted by the stained glass windows. On the opposite side, a well-dressed family of five left their seat on the next-to-last pew and moved in an orderly line to the front. The two groups took seats at opposite ends of the first pew.
Craig almost laughed. “Thanks. I don’t have to shout this way, at least. I’d like to thank you for coming to my inaugural service, and I hope you’ll tell your friends and family about it as well.” He opened his hymnal. “I think it’s appropriate to begin both this service and my full-time pastoral career with ‘What a Day That Will Be,’ page one hundred forty-two.”
He looked back over his shoulder. Mrs. Gaffney, the elderly pianist he’d recruited, began to play.
Craig’s voice, a well-modulated baritone, was the loudest. His congregation sang softly, none of them risking any public display of enthusiasm. He knew George Landers had sent them from his own church to make sure Craig didn’t face an empty building on his first day. Later, when two hundred-dollar bills showed up in the collection tray, he’d known they originated with George as well. Still, seven people now faced him expectantly, if not exactly enthusiastically, and he owed them a sincere effort.
“I’d like to read from Psalm 111, verses one through ten.” He concluded with, “‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth forever.’” He closed his Bible and added, “Which, as I’m sure you know from looking at the bulletin, leads into today’s sermon, ‘The Beginning of Wisdom.’”
It wasn’t a great sermon; he knew it wouldn’t be. But he also knew it was the right sermon for this day. He told them about his own life, his crisis of faith, and his subsequent certainty that he’d been called to the ministry. He tried to be self-deprecating without being irreverent, and was rewarded by one muffled snicker from Susie Swayback. He was establishing, as much to himself as to them, his viability as a spiritual leader, and as he progressed he grew more certain, more comfortable, more right.
The children fidgeted during his talk, but he held the adults’ attention. When the service ended thirty-five minutes after it began, he moved to the door for the exit meet and greet. He gave each of the three children a silver dollar, telling them they “fell from heaven just that morning.”
After the family left, he shook Don Swayback’s hand. “We met at the Shoney’s the other day, didn’t we?”
“That’s right. This is my wife, Susie.”
“A pleasure to meet you. So, Don, were you ever able to find the road to the Hyatt place?”
“No, I haven’t been back yet. But I intend to.”
“If you want, give me a call and maybe I can ride out there with you. I’ve been meaning to go back out there myself, so surely between the two of us we can find it.”
“We’ll see what my schedule is like,” Don said. “Thanks for the offer.”
As they walked to their car, Susie said quietly, “You still haven’t done that interview?”
“Not yet,” he said testily as he held her door.
She swung her legs into the car and smoothed down her skirt. “I can’t keep working these double shifts, you know. You have to keep your job.”
When Don had closed his own door and buckled his seat belt, he said, “I know that, Susie. I really couldn’t find the road, it wasn’t an excuse.”
“Is it because of that state trooper everyone’s terrified of?”
“Do you want to have to bail me out of jail?”