“What? Well you won’t,” I said. “At least you won’t marry him now. You still have school to finish. And your mom and dad—”
“They’re all for it. They love Barry. I can finish school up in Lakeland, and then go to Bible College.”
“But they’ll just let you go like that? You’re so young.”
“Lots of sisters get married young,” she said, as though I should know this, and well I should, having played at many of their weddings. But Peachie didn’t have to go that way. She was virtuous, I was sure. “Don’t worry, Elwyn, Barry can take care of me. He’s a great man of God.”
I had trouble focusing on the road. “This is so sudden.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for four months.”
“Four months! You never told me. We’re best friends. You tell me everything.”
“Everything but this.” Her features softened, and she lowered her eyes. “I didn’t tell you this, Elwyn—because, I guess, I didn’t want you to hold it against me. You’re so perfect, so holy.”
“I’m not that holy. I told you that I deceived my parents in order to take piano lessons.”
“That’s small, Elwyn. Everyone does little things like that,” she said.
“I took piano lessons with Sister McGowan in order to be around Barry.”
I shook my head. “You never told me that. You’re making this all up.”
“Elwyn, you’re so innocent, you wouldn’t understand how these things happen. If I had told you about Barry and me, you’d have held it against me.”
“I’d never hold anything against you.” I said a silent prayer for courage, and the Lord sent me courage. “How can I hold anything against you, Peachie? I love you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But I do. I love you—”
“Elwyn, do you?”
“—and I think you love me too, Peachie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You knew. We both knew.”
“Oh, Elwyn.”
I let go of the gearshift and found her hand. “Don’t go to Lakeland with Barry. Stay here with me. You are the love of my life. You are the only girl I will ever love.”
She squeezed my hand in both of hers for one hope-filled moment. Then she pushed it away.
“Stay, Peachie.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You can,” I said.
Peachie patted her stomach. I had to look twice before I understood. Now it made sense, but impossible sense.
“You and Barry?”
“Four months.”
“But that’s a sin. Fornication. The Bible says—”
“It is better to marry than to burn.”
“But you have defiled your body—the Temple of God.”
“God forgives seventy times seven. Will you forgive just once, Elwyn?”
How could she smile such a cruel smile? She was mocking me. And the church. Where was her shame? I wanted to cry, really cry. My Peachie, whom I had never kissed. Gone. Out of the ark of safety.
“Christ is married to the backslider. Barry and I went before God on our knees. We repented of our sin. But you, Elwyn, will you forgive us?”
“I’m not God. It’s not for me to forgive.”
“It’s important to me. You are my true friend.”
“I’m not God.”
She made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sigh. My Mazda stalled again. I got out, walked around to the front, and popped the hood. I jiggled as Peachie clicked. Oh God, I prayed, give me grace.
I didn’t feel so holy as I waited for the last remnants of the Missionary Society to leave Sister Morrisohn’s house.
My grandmother, of course, was the last to go. She stood on the porch with her heavy arm draped over Sister Morrisohn’s shoulder telling the grieving widow a last important something. As my grandmother talked, she scanned the surroundings. East to west. What was she looking for? Did she think I would make my move with everyone watching? She should have known that I would park down the street behind a neighbor’s overgrown shrubbery where I could see and not be seen.
My grandmother embraced Sister Morrisohn and kissed her goodbye on the cheek. At last, she lumbered down the short steps with the help of Sister McGowan (the mother of Barry!), who often gave her rides now that she was too old to drive. As Sister McGowan’s car pulled off the property, I fired up my engine.
I left my black funeral jacket and tie in the car. I prayed for courage.
I rang her doorbell. “Elwyn. Come in.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sit down. Would you like something to drink? There’s some fruit punch left.”
“Okay.”
I was sucked into the plush red-velvet couch. Mounted on the wall across from me was a large oil painting of them on their wedding day. She was chubbier as a young woman. He looked about the same. She had only been twenty-six the day they married. He had been sixty-two. Beneath the painting was the grand piano he had bid me play every time I visited his house. I remembered that two years prior, the youth choir had performed the Christmas cantata right here in their living room. I had played “O Holy Night,” while Barry, on Christmas break from Bible College, had sung. I had foolishly thought that Peachie’s enthusiastic applause was meant for me.
Sister Morrisohn, still wearing black, returned with a glass of fruit punch and a napkin. I took it from her and she sat down on the couch a few inches away from me. Limb brushed against limb. I drank the better part of my punch in one swallow.
She cupped her stomach. “I don’t know when my appetite will return. I haven’t eaten but a mouthful of food since I woke up and found him. I knew it would come one day, but I still wasn’t ready for it. We’re never ready for it, are we?”
“Well,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. “Well.”
“If it weren’t for the church, I don’t know how I would have made it. Everyone has been so nice to me.”
In a voice that flaked from my throat, I said, “You must have loved him.”
“Yes. I was a very different person when we met. He saved me from myself. He led me to the Lord.”
She was different when he met her. I prayed, Lord forgive me, as I glanced at her doubly pierced ears. What was she like before? Could she be that different person again?
“Before you met him, what kind of sins did you commit?”
“Sins? I don’t think about them anymore.” She raised holy hands. “Praise God, I’m free.”
“Praise God,” I said, raising holy hands, careful not to spill the remainder of my drink. “But are you ever tempted?”
“All are tempted, Elwyn, but only the yielding is sin.” She clapped her hands. “Hallelujah.”
“Hallelujah” died on my lips as my eyes followed her neckline down to the top button of her funeral dress. Bright flesh showed through black lace like a beacon. All the signs were there: her smell, her touch, her plea that I not forget her. Limb