“Yes, ma’am,” Lashanda grinned. Her hair was braided into a dozen or more pigtails and each was clipped by playful yellow barrettes so that it seemed as if she was wearing a headful of yellow violets to match her yellow T- shirt.
She looked so cute that I had to hug her.
“Hey, dibs on Stan!” called one of my nephews from the volleyball court. “We need a good spike. Get in here!”
Zach’s Emma came by and gathered up Lashanda. “Did you bring your bathing suit? Good! I’ll show you where to change.”
“This is awfully nice of you, Judge,” said Ralph Freeman. His handclasp was firm, his smile warm and friendly.
“It’s Deborah,” I told him.
His smile widened. “Then I’m Ralph.”
“Actually, it’s good you could come with all that’s been happening. Have you found a place to hold services yet?”
“Well, Mount Olive offered to let us use their sanctuary after their second service, but now they’re scrambling, too. For the time being, our board of deacons has come up with an old-fashioned revival tent. We’re going to pitch it on our new site.”
“That’s right. I heard that Balm of Gilead was selling its land to Shop-Mark, but I didn’t know you were that close to breaking ground on a new church.”
Freeman gave a rueful laugh. “Talk about the Lord working in mysterious ways. We thought the land we wanted was out of our range, but when Balm of Gilead burned, the man selling felt so bad about it he came down considerably on his price. And you’d be surprised by the donations we’ve received this week. The story of our loss went all over the country and people are sending their support from as far away as California.”
“And then there’s probably insurance, too?”
“Maybe enough to buy us a new piano,” he conceded. “Which reminds me. Our board’s voted to send you a letter of thanks along with a letter to the Fire Department. It means a lot to our congregation that you saved our pulpit Bible.” He gave me a teasing smile. “And the fans, too, of course.”
I grinned back. “My fifty-cent milk pitchers.”
“Excuse me?”
So I gave him an abbreviated version of Daddy’s tale of old Mrs. Crocker and how determined she’d been to save a worthless piece of china.
He nodded. “That’ll happen.”
As new arrivals bore down upon us, I said, “I hope your wife will be joining us later?”
“No, I’m afraid she doesn’t feel well. She’s subject to migraines and one caught up with her today.”
He wasn’t used to lying and I wondered what the real story was there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to wonder long because I was immediately surrounded by friends and relatives and half the county’s movers and shakers, each needing a hug or a handshake and some words of welcome or, since many of them had been at Mount Olive last Sunday, words of dismay about what had happened in Colleton County.
To my surprise, Wallace Adderly arrived with the Reverend Ligon.
“Hope you don’t mind me crashing, Judge,” he said with easy charm. “I hear your brothers are famous for their barbecue.”
Early forties or not, Adderly had no gray strands in his close-cropped hair. I’d seen pictures of him back in his activist days when he wore his hair in an enormous Afro. Back then he’d been tall and whippet-thin with a feral cast to his features. Now, he was broader of face and figure. Not fat, just matured to his fullest physical potential through prosperity and regular meals.
“Delighted you could come,” I assured him. “I’d have sent you an invitation had I known you were going to still be here.”
“Oh yes,” he said with pointed deliberation. “I’m probably going to be here quite a while yet.”
The pigs started coming off the grills at one o’clock and Isabel and Aunt Sister got their hushpuppy assembly line fired up. By one-thirty, Will and Robert had chopped enough pork to get started.
We didn’t have a podium per se, but my brothers and sisters-in-law and I gathered together near the front tent where Daddy was sitting with Luther and Louise Parker and my cousin John Claude Lee, home from Turkey only yesterday. When Daddy stood up and rang the hand bell, everyone fell silent. Past eighty now, he was still straight and tall and his soft white hair held the mark of the straw Stetson he was holding in his strong hands.
“My family and I welcome you,” he said. “It’s always a pleasure to us to have friends and neighbors join us like this. I ain’t much for making speeches—yeah, Rufus, I hear you back there saying ‘Good’—”
People laughed as Aunt Sister’s husband held up his wrist and tapped his watch.
“—and I ain’t gonna let people who
Loud applause, then Daddy called for everybody to stand and Annie Sue stepped forward to lead the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
She and Louise Parker were probably the only ones who hit “And the rockets’ red glare” dead on, but the rest of us made up in enthusiasm for what we lacked in ability.
