CHAPTER 19 #2
“A bunch of things—food, free clothes, sometimes toothbrushes and those little tiny shampoo bottles, whatever the churches collected this week. We hang out, give it to people. Miss Marla, at the school? She’s Rev’s wife, and she helps, and a ton of people from churches all over town.
It’s more of a Dahlia thing than a my-church thing. You could maybe do a story.”
She resisted the initial no, made herself really think about it.
Maybe she could go. Just because she helped out a couple times didn’t mean she actually had to worship there or anything.
It was just, well, being a part of the community.
Something she frankly needed to do more of, anyway, if the Dahlia Weekly was going to resurrect.
Which at the moment seemed could possibly happen.
At least it did this week. In this town, she’d learned things could turn on a dime.
“What time?”
He gave her the details.
After, as they were gathering their belongings to go, she stopped him a moment. “Why, Devon? Why do you do all these nice things for other people? I know plenty of Christians who go to church on Sundays and recite a bunch of Bible verses and call it good. Why do you go to all this extra trouble?”
He shrugged. “It just says so in the Bible.”
She mulled that over, not really understanding.
Devon dug in his backpack, pulled out his thick black worn-leather Bible, and turned to the first page.
Rebecca gazed at the pages, slightly yellowish with age.
It was the kind of book that looked like it’d been really handled.
A brown stain, maybe coffee or soda, was dribbled at the edge, and on the right side, Rebecca could see births, deaths, and marriages written in a neat hand.
On the left, written in bold hand, were more words.
Devon turned the book so she could see. The pages looked delicate, but Devon handled it like it was a tool, not some fragile artifact.
The births and deaths page had a strip of Scotch tape over a large, diagonal tear.
“Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:17,” Rebecca read aloud.
“That was Mama’s favorite scripture.” Devon traced the words with his finger. “She said you can’t earn your way into heaven, but if you really, really believe, then you oughtta want to do some good things to help people. Like Jesus did.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if people actually did that,” she muttered. “Most of the Christians I know spend a lot more time judging instead of doing good stuff in the world.”
“Not your Granny.” Devon’s eyes were wide, and she knew she shouldn’t have said that. He was a kid, for goodness’ sake. Plus, he was right.
“No, definitely not my Granny.” A little stab settled in her chest. “And not you, either, clearly. You know what, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not true.”
“I know some people like that too, Miss Becca. Just ’cause you’re Christian doesn’t make you perfect. It only means you’re going to heaven someday. But the way I see it, you got to do stuff. And even though I’m a kid, I can do a lot.”
“I wish more people felt the way you do, Devon.”
He shrugged, snagged one last fry.
“Most people I know do,” he said. “Most people are pretty good deep down. That’s what Mama always said. You just gotta get to know them.”
◆◆◆
When she got home, Granny had already headed to church for her knitting circle.
The four o’clock burgers meant Rebecca wasn’t hungry, and she wandered the house, restless, though from the day or the talk with Devon, she wasn’t certain.
She didn’t feel like working, and she’d already done her run that morning.
Climbing the stairs to her room, she glanced at the framed Bible verses and pictures on the wall, and her eye fell on a photo from that first summer in Dahlia, when Gramps had taken her fishing and she’d caught her first largemouth bass, a fourteen-inch fish Granny had cooked for supper that night.
That had been a good day, she remembered, one of the first truly happy memories they’d made that summer.
Then she realized exactly how she wanted to spend her evening.
The Wahca River was deserted when she arrived, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
It was her first time fishing in twenty-three years, and she didn’t want anyone to see how rusty she was.
She set her rod and tackle box down, closed her eyes a moment to savor the silence and the scent of loblolly pines and cedars.
A crackle startled her, and she looked up to see a squirrel bound out of a tree, notice her, then scramble back quickly. She grinned at it. Hey, little guy. I won’t hurt you. She didn’t blame him. She’d run, too.
Like Gramps had taught her all those years ago, she found a branch and dug a foot-and-a-half-deep hole in the ground.
She propped the fishing rod in the hole, ratted through the mini tackle box for a red rubber worm, and secured it to the hook.
Then she flipped the reel to release the line, swung her arm back and cast in a decently smooth arc right where she was hoping to land.
Nice. Sometimes, it really was like riding a bike.
She settled the rod back in its little prop hole, dug in her backpack for the thin blanket, and spread it out on the ground.
But forty minutes later, she didn’t have a single nibble on her line. She was bent over, sifting through the tackle box for another fishing lure, when she heard voices behind her.
“Hey Daddy! Isn’t that your friend?” a boy asked.
She looked up to see Josh Jamison and his son JJ, the sandy-haired, freckle-faced mini-Josh, approach.
Their dog nosed behind them, a bright blue collar and tags jangling merrily as he sniffed and pawed at moss and smells galore.
They, too, had fishing rods, and JJ carried a big white bucket. Josh smiled apologetically.
“Mind if we crash your party? I’ll share.” He held up a large Styrofoam container labeled “live bait” and raised his eyebrows in question.
She found herself grinning back at them. “Sure. Nothing’s biting, though.” She motioned to the river, where her line was still drifting somewhere in the depths of freshwater.
“Whaddaya have on it?” JJ peered up at her.
“A red rubber worm. That’s probably my problem.” She shrugged sheepishly.
“Oooh, oooh, Dad, can I put one’a the worms on her hook? Please? Please, can I?” He hopped on one foot, clasped his hands together dramatically, and Josh and Rebecca laughed.
“He’s totally your kid,” she said.
Josh’s smile looked mischievous. “Got that right. Of course, kiddo. As long as Miss Rebecca’s okay with it.”
Rebecca reeled the line in, held out the hook to JJ, and watched as he grabbed a slippery fat worm from the Styrofoam container and expertly guided it onto the hook.
“There!” JJ held it out to her, pride filling his young eyes.
“Thanks, JJ.” She surveyed his work, impressed. “You did a good job.”
JJ put worms on his hook and his dad’s, then they stood in a loose line on the riverbank.
“One, two, three!” Josh said, and they cast sure and true into the water. Rebecca marveled at the pure delight she felt as the line zinged through the air and landed with a satisfying plop into the Wahca.
“We don’t normally come here in the evenings.
It’s so weird that we’re here, that we saw you!
” JJ said, jiggling his rod as he talked.
“We usually come Sundays after church, but this Sunday we gotta go to Aberville and fit me for some soccer cleaves. I start soccer camp Monday.” He puffed out his chest.
“Cleats, buddy. Not cleaves,” Josh said, not unkindly.
“Cleeeeeeeeats,” JJ pronounced, heavy emphasis on the T. “Got it, Dad. At least this time, we get to have some girl help with the shopping.”
Rebecca raised a brow at Josh, and he blushed.
“He means Aunt Lissa,” he offered, and Rebecca clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, my goodness, I forgot about your older sister!” Rebecca remembered how Josh would gripe on and on as a kid about his sister Melissa Jamison, Lissa, who was two years older and so boy-crazy she’d become their private joke.
She was also somewhat of a drill sergeant when she came stomping up to the river, scaring the fish and demanding Josh come home with her this instant for supper or a trip to Grandma’s house or wherever else he had to be right then.
Rebecca had a flash of a pretty, spiral-curled, braces-wearing teen who’d been Josh’s worst enemy.
“You and Lissa survived childhood, huh?” She grinned at her old friend, and he grinned back. Warmth spread through her. It felt good to be here, to be with him again.
“It’s funny how you go from worst enemies to allies like that,” he said, snapped his finger.
“She also keeps me on track with some of the mom things. She’s got four kids of her own, and she teaches third grade to boot.
JJ’s pants get this high over his ankles or his nails get this long and it’s Aunt Lissa to the rescue. ”
“I’m glad you have each other.”
“Me, too.”
“Though she can’t cook much. Not like Dad. He’s the absolute bestest cook in the whole entire universe,” JJ piped up, rubbed his belly with gusto. Choco the lab wandered over, sniffed at them all in turn, then did three spins and settled down for a nap on Rebecca’s blanket.
“Chef Josh? Wow.”
Josh patted JJ’s back with his free hand, the other still gripping the fishing rod. “I wouldn’t say chef, but the crockpot and I are on very intimate terms.”
“Dad says the crockpot is his BFF.” JJ nodded solemnly.
“I’m still in awe.”
JJ gave a shout, and his fishing rod pulled hard. Josh reached over, held it.
“You know what to do,” he told his son as JJ furrowed his brows, clamped down hard on the rod, and slowly, steadily began to turn the reel handle clockwise.
Shortly, an eight-inch freshwater bass began to emerge from the waters, its grayish-green-and-white scales shimmering as it fought hard to survive.