Just Shy of Harmony by Philip Gulley

the tune without the words, and never stops at all.’”
    “That’s beautiful. What’s it mean?”
    “I’m not exactly certain. But I think it means that hope keeps singing its song. And even if we can’t always hear it, it’s still being sung.”
    Sam thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I suppose that’s precisely what it means.”

Eleven
Jessie and Asa Come to Terms
    A sa and Jessie Peacock hadn’t realized being rich could be such a tribulation. They’d been wealthy only a month and a half and were already tired.
    Vernley Stout from the bank had met with them to plan their investments. “The trick,” Vernley explained, “is to let your money work for you.”
    Jessie was a little put out with Vernley. When they had opened their savings account twenty years ago, the bank had given them a free toaster, which was now on the blink. She had thought of buying a toaster, but had decided against it. “Let’s wait and see what the bank will do,” she’d told Asa.
    She kept waiting for Vernley to say something about a new toaster, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d talked about mutual funds and annuities and other complexities Jessie and Asa didn’t understand.
    She began to drop hints to Vernley about wanting a new toaster.
    “I sure could use a new toaster,” she remarked one day in his office. “Ours is worn out. I heard the bankover in Cartersburg is giving a toaster away with every new account. And not a piddly two-slot toaster either. A four-slotter with a built-in bagel slicer.”
    But Vernley never took the hint.
     
    J essie wasn’t accustomed to having all this money. She’d walk down the small-appliance aisle at Kivett’s Five and Dime, studying the toasters. Reading the prices, she’d shake her head.
    Maybe I can pick one up at a garage sale somewhere, she’d think.
    It was the little things that threw her. Deciding to give her church three hundred and fifty thousand dollars came automatically. But spending thirty dollars on a toaster had preoccupied her for weeks.
    She thought the money would ease her life, though that hadn’t happened. She had been getting irate letters from an antigambling organization, the Network Against Gambling (NAG). When she’d first refused the lottery money, they’d written a story about her in the NAG newsletter. She had been the NAG poster child. But now that she’d accepted the money, the members of NAG were turning on her.
    One day Clarence the mailman brought a letter from a woman up north near Fort Wayne. Jessie sat at her kitchen table and read it.
    Your decision to refuse the money gave me such hope. I’d just become a Christian and your testimony was an inspiration to me, to think there were people like you out there in the world. When you changed your mindand took the money after all, I was devastated. I now wonder if I should even be a Christian. I just thought you should know.
    I’ve caused a little one to stumble. Lord, forgive me, Jessie prayed.
    She showed the letter to Asa.
    “Well, all I can say is she must not have had much of a faith to start with,” he said. “A person like that, they have a head cold and it causes them to question the Lord. Don’t worry about it, Jessie—it’s not your fault.”
    But she did worry about it. The newspaper from the city had carried a story about NAG falling on hard times. The president of NAG laid it right at Jessie’s feet.
    “Basically, we’re out of money. When you can’t even persuade Christians not to gamble, you’re sunk. The donations have dried up. We’re twelve thousand dollars in the hole. We’ll probably have to close our doors, and then, mark my words, there’ll be casinos and organized crime and harlots prowling our streets. You watch and see.”
    Lord, what have I done? I cared only for my own comfort. I sold out. Lord, forgive me, Jessie prayed.
    There’d been no consoling her. It had been the worst month and a half of her life. She called the state