He grinned at her. “Sure thing. If you can climb down there and don’t mind looking like something the cat dragged in, I can take a few hours on the county and help you out. Nice meeting you, Dr. Lee.”
“What was that all about?” Luther watched Jenks as he walked toward the truck.
“Just relocating some endangered plants. You know me. I’m all about the plants.” Her voice reflected the awkwardness of their meeting.
He was gaunt beneath his suit. She was sure she could see every bone. His head was skull-like, dark skin stretched tight across his features. He had been a much heavier man until his recent bout with cancer. “I didn’t know your church was out here. I thought you were still in Rock Hill.”
“We moved here last year. How is my brother?”
“I haven’t seen him in a few days, but I’m sure he’s fine. Always busy.” Peggy wasn’t surprised Luther didn’t know how Darmus was doing. The two brothers had never been particularly close since she’d known them.
The three of them had attended the University of South Carolina at Columbia more than twenty years ago. Peggy was from Charleston. Darmus and Luther were from Blacks-burg, South Carolina. Peggy and Darmus became lifelong friends. Luther avoided them when he could.
“Good. Good.” Luther adopted his pulpit stance, hands pulled behind his back. “He’s an important person now. Head of Feed America. That’s a worthy group. It was started by the Council of Churches, you know.”
“Yes, I’ve heard.” She waved to Pete and the NCDOT supervisor as they started up the bright yellow truck and drove past them.
“I’ll never understand why there isn’t a pastor at the helm,” Luther complained as he did every time they talked. “Darmus is a fine choice. Just fine. But a man of God would have been better.”
“I don’t see how anyone could do it better than Darmus. Feed America is thriving.” Peggy knew the group Darmus had started to help feed the hungry was already in every state and had reached out to several other countries.
Luther and Darmus always had a rivalry problem. They were almost twenty years apart and from a large family. Luther was the baby and Darmus the eldest child. Darmus was charismatic and a popular overachiever. But he waited to go to school until his eight brothers and sisters were through and was almost forty when he started college. That was how he came to be at school at the same time as his much younger brother.
During college Luther lurked on the sidelines and complained about his own lack of popularity without ever appreciating what his brother had done for him by taking care of him when their parents were killed in a car accident. He was as dark and dreary as Darmus was light and sunny.
“I suppose that’s true enough,” Luther half agreed. “But a man of God—”
“Well, I have to go.” Peggy knew she had to get away. She didn’t agree with him but didn’t want to argue, either. Fifteen minutes with Luther was like an hour in purgatory. “I’m pretty busy myself right now with the shop. I’ll tell Darmus I saw you. Bye, Luther.”
“Peggy, I think I might be dying.”
She paused, surprised at what he said and not sure what to answer. Luther very rarely said personal things to her.
“I’m sorry. Has the doctor said something to you?”
“He doesn’t have to. I know what it looks like. I saw it happen to Rebecca. Darmus and I watched her go. There was nothing we could do.”
Rebecca, his older sister, had died from cancer about two years ago, just after Luther found out about his own disease. There were only the three of them left from the family. Her death, when it came, had been a terrible blow to the two brothers.
Peggy wanted to reassure him. But his sallow face and dwindling frame told its own story. The disease had taken its toll on him.
“I know.” Peggy bit her lip, trying to decide what to say to comfort him. With anyone else, it would have been simple. She would have hugged them and found the words of comfort she needed. But with Luther, she wasn’t sure what to do, so she tried to be respectful and careful with her words. “You’re a man of faith. You’ve got God on your side.”
“Faith!” Luther spat out the word like it was bitter fruit on his tongue. “What good is
“I don’t know. But you’ve given counsel and solace to hundreds of people in your time as a minister. Surely, you know the answers better than I do.”
“I know the answers.” He started walking toward his car, his thin shoulders hunching forward. “There is nothing out there but blackness, Peggy. We are all born of sin and we will all return to the dust of the grave.
Peggy was relieved when he got in his car and left without another word. She knew Rebecca’s death had embittered both brothers. Rebecca had been the oldest sister, and she’d acted as a mother to all the children. Watching her die had been horrible for her brothers.
But Luther’s new attitude stunned Peggy. His cancer had taken away his belief in God, which had sustained him through his sister’s death. Without that it seemed there was nothing left for him.
She understood that terrible darkness. Her husband, John Lee, had been killed two years before when he’d been called to a routine domestic violence case. There was no warning, no premonition of disaster. He kissed her good-bye, left the house like he did a thousand other times, and two hours later, his partner knocked on her door to tell her John was dead.
Peggy hadn’t been sure she would ever be able to crawl out of that black hole. Nothing could fill it in the days and weeks after John died. But finally, light began to creep into her world. She began to feel the warmth of the sun on her face and hear the cries of the songbirds in the morning. She was still alive. John was dead, but she had to live on without him.
