“An’ you’d be right.” Josiah had smiled. “An’ you there talkin’ like you’re gettin’ stupid. I can’t fool you.”
“No, sir.” Delroy had felt mixed up. He wasn’t quite happy with his success because he didn’t know what it meant. “I still don’t know how you learned to believe in the Lord.”
“I know that, Son. That’s what I’m tellin’ you. When the time comes, the Lord’ll make a miracle for you. Something that only you an’ Him will know ever happened. Maybe you’ll be stubborn about it, because when you get down to it, most folks are. An’ maybe you’ll be blessed enough that the Lord won’t have to take time outta His day to come pound it into your head. Now, mind you, He will do that ‘cause He loves you an’ He knows some folks just need a powerful lot of convincin’ ‘cause they’s stubborn.”
“What kind of miracle will He make for me?”
“Don’t know. Miracles come in all sizes. Some big, some small. Sometimes you won’t even see ‘em till you’re well past ‘em an’ happen to look back one day ‘cause you know you up an’ missed somethin’ in your hurry.”
“And then you’ll know, Daddy?”
Laughing, Josiah had grabbed his son in a bear hug. “’Course you won’t know. Ain’t you been listenin’? You see your miracle, you still won’t know. If you see somethin’ that there ain’t no explanation for, why you’ll know an’ it won’t be faith no more at all now, will it? It would just be something you know. No faith there in that, Son.”
“No, sir. I guess that’s not likely.”
“Knowin’ ain’t the same as believin’. Never was supposed to be. It’ll be up to you to believe because you choose to. You got to learn to trust in the Lord, that’s all.”
Delroy had thought about that for a while, long enough to watch his daddy miss getting a fish. “Believing seems like a lot of hard work.”
“Well, Son, it is. But it’s kind of like goin’ up a long, tall hill. Once you get to the top an’ actually do believe, why the way just gets easier. ‘Course, that don’t mean there ain’t gonna be some rough spots along the way. Always gonna be rough spots. I never knew a time without them myself. That’s what keeps you strong in your belief.”
“Seems like the easiest way for me to believe is for you to make me. Just tell me to.”
“I have told you that, haven’t I?”
Delroy had raised his narrow shoulders and dropped them.
“Yeah, Daddy. I guess you have.”
“Well, then, an’ it ain’t workin’ for you, is it? Otherwise we wouldn’t be havin’ this here conversation instead of fishin’, would we?”
“No, sir.”
“Belief’s a personal thing, Son. Anybody you ask about it, why they got a different story for how it come upon them. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Men get together an’ talk about belief an’ witness about the power of it, women too, but belief’s about the most personal thing there is in all the world. Even after you get it, you’ll find it’s a hard thing to hold on to sometimes ‘cause you’re so busy tryin’ to find other things to shore it up so you don’t have to worry about makin’ a fool out of yourself for simply trustin’ in the Lord. That’s why so many people hang on to superstitions an’ such. ‘I ain’t blessed by the hand of God,’ they say; ‘I just got lucky today.’”
“Like Mr. Childers and the pocketknife his grandpa gave him?” Roy Childers had raised cotton, and everytime the weather got too dry or too wet, folks saw him around town constantly rubbing the old pocketknife his grandfather had given him, summoning up the good fortune his grandfather had told him was in the knife.
“Yeah,” Josiah had answered. “Exactly like Mr. Childers. I seen a lot of things durin’ my time in this world, an’ mostly I seen a lot of scared people makin’ excuses to themselves why they should believe in the Lord. Now that there, that’s too much work. Especially when all they gotta do is just let go an’ believe. That’s all you’ll ever have to do, Son: just believe in the Lord God Almighty an’ He will keep you in His grace when things turn bad, an’ He will give you direction when you feel lost.”
Thunder startled Delroy from his reverie. He watched rain spatter the large stone that shouldn’t have been in his son’s grave. Mud dissolved and ran off the stone, leaving the smooth white surface behind. For the moment, his doubts and fears and feeling of betrayal dissolved as well. Peace settled over him, something he thought he’d never again feel.
Shaken, Delroy knelt while using the shovel for support and touched the stone to make sure it was real. There’s no way this should be here. No way at all. And no way you should be here doing this blasphemous thing you’ve set before yourself, Delroy Harte. You got to get up out of this hole. Stop now before you dig yourself any deeper.
The problem was that he couldn’t make himself step away when he was so close. At least, not immediately. He’d traveled so far, and the answer to so many of the questions he’d had for such a long time lay within his grasp. He stood, frozen, feeling the rain bead up on his skin and run under his clothing, chilling him to the bone. Believing, trusting, after everything he’d been through, was so hard.
But the rock remained where it shouldn’t have been, as if guarding his son’s final resting place.
Daddy, did you find believing easy day after day? I wish I could talk to you now. We never talked about this. You just always seemed so strong, and you always brought out the best in everybody around you.
Delroy took a long, shuddering breath and released his grip on the shovel. For now,
