Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver Page A

little grandbaby Haylee!”
    A long silence ensued, with many congratulating themselves, no doubt, on being less impulsive than the besotted grandmother. Some ruckus was also going on outside the doors, in the entry hall. Women shouting, barely audible, definitely not congenial.
    Bobby covered the awkward moment, congratulating the gushing grandmother and putting her at ease. “Blessed are the little children,” he said, “and it’s a beautiful thing that you hold your little Haylee first in your heart. I want everyone here to covenant with Sister Rachel and proclaim her a beacon. I want you to tell it.”
    They told it. “Blessed be, Sister Rachel.” The crowd was starting to warm. Dellarobia had rarely paid much attention to the shining of the beacons. But it was touching. An old man with a narrow chest in a big white shirt pulled himself to his feet. “Our daughter Jill has done got over the cancer and her hair grew back pretty. I praise the Lord for Jill’s pretty yellow hair.”
    Dellarobia found herself joining in the blessing of Sister Jill’s hair, feeling a startled gratitude she actually feared might lead to tears. There was no knowing what people held dear, it was one surprise after another as they called out the beautiful things: a new porch deck on a trailer home with a view of the sunset. The wedding of a disabled cousin. A pure white calf. Suddenly Cub was on his feet beside her, speaking up. Dellarobia felt unsteadied by his loud voice, almost singing. A beautiful thing like a heavenly host had come on their mountain, he said, and it was butterflies. “You all just can’t imagine, it’s like a world all to itself. I wish you all would come and partake of it.”
    “Brother Turnbow, I thank you for that invitation,” Bobby said. “Truly I have to say it sounds like a miracle, what you’re telling us.”
    “Praise the Lord,” a few agreed, tepidly, in the same way people said, “Have a nice day,” when they didn’t care if you did. They seemed less convinced than Bobby that a miracle had transpired on the Turnbow property.
    Cub went a little defensive. “You’d have to see it to understand,” he said. “My dad and mother can tell you. It’s like nothing you ever saw. And she foretold of it, is the thing. My wife here foretold of it.” He pulled Dellarobia to her feet, to her profound dismay. “My wife had like a vision or something. She said we all needed to open up our eyes and have a look before we started logging up there. She had this feeling something real major was going to happen on our property.”
    Dellarobia wasn’t sure how public Bear wanted to go with the logging plan, and wondered if he was catching this now in Men’s Fellowship, or just reading Field and Stream . The outburst was so unexpected, she was losing her footing. Bobby stood perfectly still, studying the family with his wide-set eyes. His gaze settled on Hester. “Sister Turnbow, tell me it’s so,” he said gently. “That your family has been blessed.”
    Dellarobia had never seen Hester so subdued. She would not want to disappoint Bobby. “It’s true,” she said in a soft growl, needing to clear her throat. “My daughter-in-law was the one that told us. I guess she foretold of it.”
    Dellarobia felt queasy. Cub gripped her around the shoulders hard, as if she might otherwise slide to the floor, which wasn’t out of the question. His conviction floored her, and once again she wondered if he could be making a cruel joke to punish her. But these were guilty thoughts, the falsehoods of a poorly directed mind, as Bobby said, luring her from the truth. Cub was as trusting as a child, incapable of cruelty in church or anywhere else. And if that alone did not a marriage make, it still was worth something.
    Escalating voices interrupted Cub’s moment. Crystal and Brenda, it had to be, having it out in the hallway outside the sanctuary. “Don’t you talk to my boys thataway!” one of them cried, and the