A Rose by the Door Read online

  I didn’t seek Him in sorrow yesterday so why should I seek Him today? The further away I’ve let myself become, the further away He is. Once far away, there can be no going back.

  Five years it had been, and she couldn’t remember how it felt not to be alone. She couldn’t remember how it had felt to have a husband laying beside her in this bed, drawing her close beneath the covers, keeping her toes warm after they’d turned down the heat in the house.

  Then, even though she vowed she couldn’t remember, wouldn’t remember, the memory came. The front yard on moving-in day. Ray sneaking up behind her and crooking his arm around her shoulders.

  “Beatrice?”

  She turned toward her husband, circled her arms around his waist, and pressed her face into the worn cotton of the old khaki shirt. She could feel his ribs and bones and hear the beating of his heart. His arms came around her and they simply stood there in the grass, very close, for anybody who drove by to see.

  “Don’t know why you keep wearing this old shirt.” She straightened the collar of it for him as she spoke. “I bought you that new one for Christmas.”

  “You know why.”

  “You’re stubborn as a goat, Ray. And you aren’t even old enough to be an old goat yet.”

  She’d had his new shirt monogrammed, thinking to make the gift something special. RTB. Raymond Theophilus Bartling.

  “If I wear that shirt in public,” he told her, “somebody’s bound to ask me what the T stands for.”

  “Stubborn as a goat. Won’t wear a perfectly good shirt.”

  “How about you? Out here working on these roses before the furniture’s even been loaded into the house.”

  Ray’s recliner, handed down from his father’s house, still waited beside the front steps. Two rickety lamps, donated by Bea’s Great Uncle Halden, sat looking ridiculous in the middle of the sidewalk. A coat rack stood in the grass, propped against the side of the house. They’d been lucky just to get the two lumpy mattresses and box springs inside before their friends with the truck went home to supper.

  She studied his face, searching for that faraway expression that came sometimes, the expression she’d noticed the day he’d seen the hobo on the train. It always frightened her when the expression came. It whispered of discontent, and she didn’t understand why.

  “We’re going to be happy here, don’t you think, Ray?”

  He turned from her. “Happy?” He stared at the front façade of the house as if the house would give him his answer. “How could we not be happy in a house where pioneer roses have been growing for a hundred and fifty years?”

  Downstairs, the whispering and nestling sounds had stopped. Bea sat up in bed, sipped from the water glass she kept on her nightstand, used a Kleenex to dab at her eyes. She pitched it into the wastepaper basket and reached to turn off her own lamp.

  Her hand faltered on the light switch.

  Bea did not want to turn out the light.

  A terrible longing welled up within her, so compelling and strong that she could not escape its power. Her eyes felt gritty and hot, her chest gone tight with yearning.

  I’m so tired of having nothing to hope for.

  She turned back the covers and knelt at the side of her bed. For a long while, she stared at the stitching on her comforter without lowering her head.

  Downstairs, she knew a mother and child lay together in one place. She pictured them, their arms entangled, their dreams intertwined, their breath moist and soft against one another’s skin.

  “Lord. Please,” Bea pleaded, never even closing her eyes. “Please.”

  How long had it been since anyone had embraced her with assurances? The way a father embraces a child in his arms?

  She couldn’t remember.

  Like the child she pictured downstairs, she yearned for someone to hold her in safety while she slept.

  “All rise,” the bailiff pronounced. “Garden County Justice Court is now in session. The Honorable Judge Solomon Leroy Veeder presiding.”

  The spectators, defendants, and plaintiffs all stood as Solomon Veeder entered the courtroom.

  “You may be seated.”

  They all sat down again.

  Already Gemma’s hindquarters had gone numb. She scrunched first to one side and then to the other. The seat didn’t get any softer, no matter what she tried.

  Alva Torrington leaned over from the bench behind her. “Hope you don’t mind that I showed up in court. You’re my employee. It’s in my best interest to support my employees in times of strain.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Judge Veeder’s known for being fair. You answer his questions straight and you won’t have any cause for worry.”

  It didn’t matter what Alva said; Gemma worried anyway. She couldn’t help worrying when the judge glowered down from his perch and asked, “How come we got so many spectators sitting out there? What’s everybody in Garden County so interested in this afternoon?” She couldn’t help her heart pounding when the judge handed down a decision in favor of Ralph Coney, who had been brought to court by Lana Simms for not fixing the dent on her ATV. She couldn’t help her pulse racing when the judge explained to Mavis Atkinson three times why she should not have cashed the rent check with “paid in full” written on the memo line. “It’s called a conditional offer, Mavis. You cash the check, you agree to the condition. It’s the law. I can’t change the law.”

  Most of all, Gemma felt her stomach wrench when Judge Veeder said, “Next case. State of Nebraska, Plaintiff, versus Gemma Franklin, Defendant. Everyone involved step forward to take the oath, please.”

  Mabel Perkins and several of her associates stormed toward the front of the courtroom. Gemma stood on shaky legs.

  “Go get ’em, girl.” Alva gave her arm a little squeeze.

  “I think I know what sort of person you are. And Solomon will see it, too.”

  Judge Veeder waited until they’d all arrived at their places before he said, “Everybody involved in this case raise your right hand.”

  The ladies standing with Mabel Perkins began to twitter.

  “Your right hand,” Judge Veeder repeated to Gemma, who quickly dropped her left hand and raised her right one instead. “Don’t look so terrified, Miss Franklin,” he said, smiling kindly. “It happens all the time. Someone raises a left hand instead of a right one. Sometimes I raise my left one, too, just to confuse everybody.”

  He raised his left hand now, making everyone in the courtroom laugh, and repeated the oath so fast that Gemma almost didn’t know what she was answering to.

  “Do you solemnly swear the testimony you’re about to give will be nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” Gemma whispered.

  “I do,” Mabel Perkins announced with fortitude.

  Judge Veeder didn’t start the proceedings just yet. He glanced around the courtroom. “Hmmm-mm. I see the hardened coffee drinkers from Alva T’s place lined up along the back row. You all here to offer moral support?”

  Alva answered before the rest of them got the chance. “We are, your honor.”

  “Good for you.” Judge Veeder pursed his lips as if he was impressed before he turned back to the matter at hand. He slid his bifocals the length of his nose and peered down at the Garden County Sheriff’s Department Supplementary Report in front of him. “Miss Franklin, you are charged with criminal entry. How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty, sir,” Gemma whispered.

  The judge took a deep breath and chuffed out his cheeks at her. “Miss Franklin. This session is being taped. Besides, I am an old man with corncobs stuck in my ears. You cannot communicate with nods or whispers. You have to speak up. Now, again, how do you plead?”

  Gemma took one step toward the microphone. She lifted her chin toward Judge Veeder. He sat glaring down at her in his menacing black robe with his hair standing up in gray tufts all over his head like a dandelion gone to seed. Behind his right shoulder stood the flag of the United
States of America. Behind his left shoulder stood the Nebraska State Flag, bearing a silver and gold reproduction of the state seal centered on a field of dark blue.

  “I plead not guilty, sir,” she said, louder.

  “Much better.”

  He tamped the report against his judge’s bench and turned toward the plaintiffs. He scanned Jay Triplett’s report and repeated aloud some of the high points. At approximately 0830 hours. . . reference a subject found sleeping in bed . . . proprietor believed a burglary could be in progress. . . subject admitted to spending night in museum . . . museum displays unharmed but subject to minor disarray.

  “Mabel. It is my understanding that you are pressing these charges because there was damage done in the museum. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Mabel Perkins puffed up like a guinea hen.

  “Will you describe the type of damage done?”

  “Both emotional and physical damage, your honor. My patrons were distraught. My morning was disrupted. A tour group we’d been expecting for two weeks had to go without refreshments because these vagrants ate my sticky buns.”

  Deputy Jay Triplett stepped forward. “They ate the food on my recommendation, Your Honor. This woman and her child were hungry.”

  Judge Veeder leaned farther out over his bench. “Triplett, with all due respect, you are speaking out of turn here. I am questioning Mabel Perkins.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” He stepped backwards. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I want you to focus on only physical damage, Mabel. Provable damage. Do you have pictures of any physical damage to the museum, Mabel? You do understand that yours is the burden of proof here, don’t you?”

  “Well, no. I—” Mabel’s shoulders slumped a bit. “I didn’t take pictures.”

  “Did you have anyone come in and give you an estimate for repairs? Do you have some sort of receipt with a dollar amount?”

  “No, I—” Mabel stared at the floor. “I conducted the repairs myself, Your Honor.”

  “And what sort of repairs did you do?”

  “I . . . Well, I put silverware back where they had rearranged it, Judge Veeder. And I made up the bed.”

  The judge inclined his head vaguely in the direction of Gemma. “Are you from Nebraska, young lady?”

  “I am, sir. I grew up in Omaha.”

  “Then you are well aware that our great state motto is ‘Equality Before The Law.’ Will you tell me why you are pleading not guilty when all of us agree that you spent the night in the Garden County Museum?”

  If Gemma was afraid now, her words and her widespread stance no longer showed it. She gripped the table in front of her and spoke into the microphone at a plucky volume. “I am pleading not guilty to a criminal entry charge, Your Honor. As you’ll read in the report, my daughter and I were locked in the museum by mistake. We never intended to break into the building.” Her mouth stayed open for another beat. Gemma had a great many other things she’d intended to say. She thought better of it, though, and clamped her mouth shut.

  “You haven’t done this again? You’ve found a place to live? You have gainful employment?”

  “I do. I have witnesses to that, your honor. That’s why the coffee drinkers are here.”

  Judge Veeder grinned at the back row of spectators again. “Ah, so that explains the crowd in my court-room.”

  He interlaced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his tall leather chair to ponder. He swiveled the chair to the left in the direction of the Nebraska State Flag. He swiveled it to the right in the direction of the Stars and Stripes. At last the chair came to rest dead center again as he directed Jay Triplett to come forward. “Help me out here, son. It’s finally your turn. Tell me about the way you handled this case. Tell me why you didn’t cuff this woman and cart her in to jail.”

  Gemma clutched the table again, not from fear this time, but from a sense she had of being drawn forward by something beyond herself. No matter how imposing Jay Triplett looked in his uniform, she couldn’t help liking him.

  “The physical damage was minimal, Your Honor. It was the same sort of disarray that would occur in a house because somebody lived there. They’d been locked in for hours. And I could see by the way she made sure that her daughter ate first that she had the child’s interest in mind above her own.”

  “Very good. Thank you, Triplett. You’ve helped a great deal.” With one more sweep of the judge’s hand, Jay Triplett was dismissed. “I always appreciate it when our officers keep a level head about the law. Now, on to a ruling.” He glanced at his clerk, who was madly tip-tapping the keys on her computer keyboard. “Are you getting all of this?”

  “I am, Judge Veeder. Keep talking.”

  “Pay close attention.”

  “I am, Judge Veeder.”

  “I hereby reduce the charge from criminal entry to loitering.”

  Mabel Perkins came up and out of her seat before his decision had a chance to register in anybody else’s brain. “You can’t do that, Solomon. That means we’ll have another hearing.”

  Judge Veeder pushed himself up out of his huge leather chair with two robust, berobed arms. “Who’s running the show here, Mabel? Is it you? Or is it me? You sit down or I’m going to charge you with contempt of court.”

  Mabel sat down.

  He nodded at her. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

  “We will not have another hearing. There’s no reason to delay this process any further. I’ve read the report and I’ve heard the testimony. Therefore I find the defendant guilty of the charge of loitering in violation of statute 6-3-302. Gemma Franklin, approach the bench.” He adjusted his eyeglasses again as she came before him.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I have in my hand two Community Service Assignment Sheets, one for residents of Garden County, one for nonresidents of Garden County. Which of these forms applies to you?”

  Gemma stared at a spot of mud beside her left shoe. Of all the questions Judge Solomon Leroy Veeder had asked her today, this was the first one she wasn’t able to answer. “I don’t believe I am a county resident, sir. I will only be a resident here until my Toyota Corolla is repaired.”

  The judge’s voice could be either as gentle as goose down or as demanding as an impatient king’s. He growled at her and snapped his fingers, “Now we’re talking about repairs again. What sort of repairs? Do you have a chip in the windshield? Need an oil change? What?”

  “I am paying for a rebuilt engine, sir.”

  “Well, that answers that.” He handed her the paper-work specifically meant for county residents. “Gemma Franklin, I sentence you to fifty-four hours of community service. If you fail to appear at any agreed upon time, if you are not cooperative, or if you are in anyway not completely participating, the agency has the option to release you from the program and not to accept further work from you. Your failure to comply with this order may result in the issuance of a bench warrant for your arrest or the loss of the hours you have already worked and a doubling of hours required. No credit is given for partial hours.”

  Gemma stood stock-still. It had all happened so fast. She didn’t know what to say.

  “You will serve your community service . . . ” He began leafing through a different chart, apparently a listing of local agencies that needed volunteers. Abruptly, he dropped the listing in his lap and gave a broad, fixed grin. “Gemma Franklin, you will serve under Mabel Perkins, director, at the Garden County Museum. The museum is located on the corner of—”

  Mabel Perkins leapt from her seat and interrupted the judge one more time. “She knows where the museum is, Solomon. She slept there!”

  “Mabel, stop your cheeseparing. Can’t you see I’m handing down a sentence from up here?”

  “You can’t sentence that girl to do volunteer work for me!”

  “I can. The museum is listed right here and I’m the Justice Court Judge.” He held up the paper and poked it with one crooked
finger. “Here you are. Page two. ‘Needs minors or adults. Uses volunteers frequently. Monday through Friday and weekends in summer months until eight P.M. Type of work available: clipping newspapers, typing, cleaning exhibits, clerical, tour guide, cleaning, snow shoveling, painting, etc.’ Looking at her, I’d say she ought to be above average at performing any of these tasks.”

  “You’re making me carry out her sentence; that’s what you’re doing.”

  Judge Solomon Leroy Veeder ignored Mabel Perkins and kept the procedures in his courtroom moving right along. “You are dismissed. Next case, please. State of Nebraska, Plaintiff, versus Ronald J. Hanrion, Defendant. Everyone involved in this case come forward and take the oath.”

  George Sissel had the astounding job of pastoring Antelope Valley Christian Fellowship, which meant a great manythings more than some folks seemed to think it did. Andy Cleeland was always calling him on sermon-preparation day to see if he wouldn’t rather go bass fishing with the new fish-finder in his boat on Lake Mac. Corwin Kepler came by the office at least once a week in his new truck, to rev the engine in the church parking lot so George could hear it purr. And Pearl Glazener brought him a box of watercolors one afternoon because she felt it was God’s will for her to teach him to paint.

  It was Jim Royal who finally came forth and voiced what George knew everybody in every congregation all over the country was thinking. “Sure would be nice having a job like yours, where you only have to work on Sundays. Heck, George, you just stand up there talking about whatever comes to mind, lead the benediction, go home to a good dinner, then you got the rest of the week to go fishing. Sure would be nice.”

  Pastoring the flock in Ash Hollow took a good deal more time and energy than most people knew. George’s job description included everything from repairing the pinball machine in the youth room to the all-night vigil he kept, trying to identify one particular beaver that insisted on gnawing ash saplings paid for and planted by the Ladies Auxiliary.

  It was he who received the first call when the ancient furnace conked out in the basement. It was he who received the first call when the church’s yearly budget floundered. It was he who received the first call when the choir director came down with the measles and somebody else was needed to take over.