Annie Jones - Marrying Minister Right

Doing so would mean that, at some point, she’d have to go back to that town to deal with the cottages in person. She shut her eyes. Would it really be so bad? She needed to check on her father and could easily let him know what she had done. He might not be happy with her acting on his behalf, but he hadn’t been feeling well for some time. Nothing had been done with those cottages for so long, he would likely be glad to pass their responsibility on to her.

“Heather, will you help us out if you can?” Michael finally asked outright.

“Is he talking to you?” Mary Kate’s eyes grew wide.

“Yes.” He was talking to her. As an old friend. As a man of God. Perhaps even as a nudge from God. “Mary Kate, make the call and tell Michael Garrison they can use the cottages. I’ll get it cleared through my father.”

“What if he asks to speak to you?” Mary Kate had already picked up the handset, her hand hovering above the keypad on the phone.

“He had his chance to speak to me ten years ago and he kept quiet,” she said softly.

“What? You really want me to tell him that?”

Heather blinked and came back to the present. “No. No, of course not. Tell him…” She looked out at her car next to Mary Kate’s in the dark and otherwise empty parking lot. “Tell him I have a lot of personal and work-related issues colliding right now, but I will come to High Plains as soon as I can, to do whatever I can.”

“When?” Mary Kate wanted to know.

Heather rubbed her eyes. They felt as though she had been in a sandstorm, tired, burning, as if they could use a good cry. She exhaled. Crying didn’t accomplish anything. Action did. “Just tell him I’ll be in High Plains when the dust settles. He’ll understand.”

With that she dug her cell phone from her bag to call her father, only then seeing multiple missed calls all from the same unknown number.

“Michael?” she whispered. Her pulse thumped in her temples and her hand shook as she punched in the code to retrieve the first message. But it wasn’t Michael.

“Ms. Waters, this is Galichia Heart Hospital. Your father was brought in a half hour ago. He’s been asking us to get in touch with you. Please get back to us as soon as you can.”

Dust. The Holy Bible tells us God created human life out of dust and that in time we would all return to it.

Almost a full month after the tornado had ripped through his town, Michael Garrison felt as if everything he owned, wore or ate was still covered with the stuff. Whole neighborhoods now seemed like little more than dump heaps and sandlots. In so many places the storm had stripped away not only grass and trees but also much of the topsoil. Some of the old-timers likened it to a small-scale dust bowl.

His scuffed and battered tennis shoes kicked particles from the church’s maroon-colored carpet even as he pushed the vacuum cleaner back and forth. The aging machine whirred loudly, practically wheezing and gasping for breath.

“Hang in there just a little longer, baby. We can’t afford a new broom right now, much less a vacuum.” He dragged it back across a spot he’d gone over…and over…and over before. “If you stay with me until we’ve got some sense of normalcy around here again…”

The engine sputtered.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He kicked the off switch at the base of the old-fashioned upright to turn the thing off. “Normalcy may be asking for way too much these days.”

“You’re talking to the vacuum cleaner now?” His niece, dressed in a lavender shirt and overalls, her light brown hair in braids, poked her head in the door. At just five foot one and wearing the deceptively sweet and modest outfit that she had complained about all morning, she looked even younger than her fourteen years.

Michael squeezed his eyes shut and raised his head to call back to her, “Talking to inanimate objects gives me practice for talking to people who never listen. Like my niece, whom I asked to go to the store to get us sodas about three minutes ago.”

“I’m going, I’m going, all right? I just—”

“Whatever they have will be fine.” He cut her off before she could launch into another list of excuses why she shouldn’t have to go out in the heat. “Or if you want to stay here, you can vacuum and I’ll go get us something cold to drink.”

“Vacuum? With that antique?” She crinkled up her nose. “My mom never makes me do that stuff. I don’t even know how. Besides, I think that thing is actually making the carpet dirtier.”

“Don’t you listen to her, old girl.” He patted the bulging cloth bag on the old upright and was rewarded with a cloud of ultrafine powdery dust.

Avery laughed.

He liked hearing her laugh. She’d had a hard year and didn’t laugh nearly as much as he thought a kid her age should. So he played up the scene for her enjoyment, waving his hands, pretending to stagger around unable to see, coughing.

More girlish laughter.

Spinning around, he grinned to himself. Sunlight streamed in around him. The play of shadows and light against one another made a spotlight in which specks and dots sparkled.

“I’ll be back when the dust settles.” The message Heather Waters had sent echoed in his thoughts again, as it had many times in the last four weeks.

He watched the residue drip and drift and glitter in the sunbeam for a moment. He gritted his teeth to stave off the pangs of unresolved emotions twisting in his gut. If Heather held true to her word, he might never see her again.

Hadn’t he resigned himself to that fate ten years ago? He had kept his thoughts and feelings to himself, wanting only her happiness, when the only girl he had ever really loved wanted to marry John Parker. And then when that girl had fled from this church, hurt and humiliated by John leaving her at the altar, he had let her go because it was best for her and, in the long run, for him.

Now he had to do that again. He had too much work to do, too many people counting on him to allow himself the luxury of being distracted by something that could never be.

“Okay, how about I go for sodas and you do something else to pitch in around here?” He wasn’t letting the girl slip free of taking some responsibility for basic chores.

“I said I’d get the sodas.” She gave a huff.

Michael tugged free the hem of the well-worn multicolored T-shirt he had pulled from the pile of donated clothes. He’d tried to make sure Avery had clean laundry, but neglected to do the same for himself. He wiped his brow, then took a moment to look over the sanctuary.

It was a simple design. High, wooden ceilings with sturdy support beams arching upward. The style, he’d always been told, was meant to mimic the inside of a boat to remind them always that they were to be fishers of men.

He studied the long, tall, stained-glass windows, glowing in shades of red, blue, yellow and purple. Years ago their insurance company had required them to be encased in protective safety glass. That and the sturdy boat-bottom design had protected the sanctuary from all but cosmetic damage.

But not from dust and dirt and even trash that still blew through the streets and gathered like fallen leaves in corners and along curbs all over town.

“And I will get the sodas, if you want me to or whatever, but…” Avery launched into yet another excuse for her not having done as she was asked.

“No.” Michael sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “I’ll go. Why don’t you—”

“Why don’t you tell me why you didn’t go when I asked, Avery?” She spoke in a low voice, a booming imitation of him with one thumb hooked in the strap of her overalls.

In the next moment, she turned her shoulders, folded her hands in front of her and spoke in a soft, sweet voice. “I’m trying, Uncle Michael. Why won’t you listen to me?”