to kill in a white summer suit with pale blue shirt and tie. Everyone, including Justin, had tried to talk Jeffrey out of attending since he never met the man and knew few people in Riverville, but he’d insisted that our fight was his fight, and as a guest of the family, he must be there to support us.
We sat next to each other, one long row of Blanchards in a pew near the back. Not one of us bowed our head, only looked straight forward, meeting every shocked stare from a judgmental congregant who thought we had no business being there. We gave back smiles to those who smiled, and nodded. Though we were a row of impenitent penitents, I had the awful feeling of being a stranger in my hometown.
Back at the ranch we’d all agreed that though Miss Amelia might be gossiped about, we were going to show faith and solidarity by staying at her side throughout the whole thing. No going off to talk to friends, which made Jeffrey throw back his head and laugh. “Since I have no friends in your quaint little town, I’ll be the first to pledge my allegiance to your poor grandmother.”
We hadn’t exactly cringed, but there’d been strained smiles and, later, whispered wishes he’d go back to New York.
Justin still had his cowboy hat clamped to his head so I nudged him with my elbow. He was out in the groves with other men so much of the time I couldn’t help but wonder if Justin was going wild, like one of the hogs down by the river.
“Sorry,” he muttered, just then realizing he was sitting in a church. He snatched the hat from his head.
I looked at the backs of people’s heads—all people I knew. I didn’t go to church here, hadn’t gone anywhere in a while, but I’d brought Miss Amelia to services many Sundays and picked her up afterward for a dinner at the Ninnie Baird Hotel, where Mrs. Baird’s breads and pies were still served at tables lined along the wide front porch. It was one of our rituals, like our Friday nights at The Squirrel.
I did like Pastor Albertson, the old pastor, who left the year before with not even a going-away party thrown for him. One day there. The next just gone. People wondered, I remembered. Some, I heard, were a little hurt and a bit angry with the man.
And I had liked Pastor Jenkins when Miss Amelia introduced us on the front steps of the church. He was one of those earnest men who mostly took a single, straight-arrow path through life, the kind of good man who could make me start examining the way I lived, looking for deficiencies, which was another good reason to stay away from church.
And I liked what Miss Amelia told me about the new man’s preaching style—no wildly stomping around with a mike stuck in his ear, thundering fire and brimstone out over the people. “Good man,” Miss Amelia said often from the moment the pastor and his wife and sister-in-law came to town. “Knows his Bible and doesn’t act like the rest of us don’t know a damn thing.”
The service began as soon as we were settled. Elder Perkins, a tall man with a large belly, adjusted his lapel mike and looked out over the crowd. Tyler Perkins had eyes buried in folds, like an old cowboy, except he’d never ridden the range, that I knew of, nor ever rode a horse. Above a collar straining at the top button, his face was going bright pink. On his head a shock of surprising and unruly bright red hair rose straight up.
Elder Perkins smiled down at his wife, Joslyn, president of the Women’s Church Committee, then out at the congregation.
First we sang a doleful hymn, then we prayed, then came a resounding sermon about the evils rampant upon the earth—which I tuned out on—and then a couple more songs from the choir with Finula Prentiss in good voice, especially on her deep and rolling “Ah—mens.”
When Deacon Hawley Harvey got up to give the eulogy, the congregation, as one, settled way back in our seats, knowing the way to the cemetery was going to be a long and tortuous one.
Hawley Harvey was
We sat next to each other, one long row of Blanchards in a pew near the back. Not one of us bowed our head, only looked straight forward, meeting every shocked stare from a judgmental congregant who thought we had no business being there. We gave back smiles to those who smiled, and nodded. Though we were a row of impenitent penitents, I had the awful feeling of being a stranger in my hometown.
Back at the ranch we’d all agreed that though Miss Amelia might be gossiped about, we were going to show faith and solidarity by staying at her side throughout the whole thing. No going off to talk to friends, which made Jeffrey throw back his head and laugh. “Since I have no friends in your quaint little town, I’ll be the first to pledge my allegiance to your poor grandmother.”
We hadn’t exactly cringed, but there’d been strained smiles and, later, whispered wishes he’d go back to New York.
Justin still had his cowboy hat clamped to his head so I nudged him with my elbow. He was out in the groves with other men so much of the time I couldn’t help but wonder if Justin was going wild, like one of the hogs down by the river.
“Sorry,” he muttered, just then realizing he was sitting in a church. He snatched the hat from his head.
I looked at the backs of people’s heads—all people I knew. I didn’t go to church here, hadn’t gone anywhere in a while, but I’d brought Miss Amelia to services many Sundays and picked her up afterward for a dinner at the Ninnie Baird Hotel, where Mrs. Baird’s breads and pies were still served at tables lined along the wide front porch. It was one of our rituals, like our Friday nights at The Squirrel.
I did like Pastor Albertson, the old pastor, who left the year before with not even a going-away party thrown for him. One day there. The next just gone. People wondered, I remembered. Some, I heard, were a little hurt and a bit angry with the man.
And I had liked Pastor Jenkins when Miss Amelia introduced us on the front steps of the church. He was one of those earnest men who mostly took a single, straight-arrow path through life, the kind of good man who could make me start examining the way I lived, looking for deficiencies, which was another good reason to stay away from church.
And I liked what Miss Amelia told me about the new man’s preaching style—no wildly stomping around with a mike stuck in his ear, thundering fire and brimstone out over the people. “Good man,” Miss Amelia said often from the moment the pastor and his wife and sister-in-law came to town. “Knows his Bible and doesn’t act like the rest of us don’t know a damn thing.”
The service began as soon as we were settled. Elder Perkins, a tall man with a large belly, adjusted his lapel mike and looked out over the crowd. Tyler Perkins had eyes buried in folds, like an old cowboy, except he’d never ridden the range, that I knew of, nor ever rode a horse. Above a collar straining at the top button, his face was going bright pink. On his head a shock of surprising and unruly bright red hair rose straight up.
Elder Perkins smiled down at his wife, Joslyn, president of the Women’s Church Committee, then out at the congregation.
First we sang a doleful hymn, then we prayed, then came a resounding sermon about the evils rampant upon the earth—which I tuned out on—and then a couple more songs from the choir with Finula Prentiss in good voice, especially on her deep and rolling “Ah—mens.”
When Deacon Hawley Harvey got up to give the eulogy, the congregation, as one, settled way back in our seats, knowing the way to the cemetery was going to be a long and tortuous one.
Hawley Harvey was
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