Love Mercy Part 17

She considered Love's words. "Like doing what?"

Love stood up and took her empty breakfast plate to the sink. "You know, help with the dishes, keep your room clean, walk Ace. I have a gardener come once a month to do the yard, and really, there's not much maintenance to this house. You seem to be pretty neat . . ."

She sat up straight. "I am."

"And so am I. So living together shouldn't be very hard. The only thing I do request is that through the holidays you partic.i.p.ate in things, like going out today to your great-grandparents' and helping them decorate their tree."

"Oh, that's fun stuff," she said, picking up her plate. "I don't mind."

"Then I'd say the first thing on your agenda is taking care of this problem with Dale-" Before Love could finish, the phone rang. Was she ever going to finish a conversation with Rett about this Dale?

"A happy Sunday morning to you, Love," Clint said. "I call with glad tidings and good news."

"Great," Love said, watching her granddaughter rinse off the plates and open the dishwasher door. "I could use some good news."

"I contacted Mr. Dale Bailey and, as they say in the legal biz, we cut a deal."

"Oh?"

"Yes, we had a nice conversation with me doing most of the talking about things like how you should treat women, how the law might be interpreted in certain circ.u.mstances, and a few other things that randy young men should consider before jumping into relationships with girls under the age of consent. Offered to pay his hotel bill and meals for the next three days. That gives you time to talk your granddaughter into handing over the stolen goods."

Love swore if Clint had been standing in front of her, she would have given him a bear hug. "That really is good news. I think we're only inches away from that." Rett walked out of the room, and Love lowered her voice. "I know where the banjo is, so if worse comes to worst, I'll give it to him and face my granddaughter's wrath."

"But at least she won't be a jailbird."

"Yes and that's my biggest goal right now. Having some kind of relationship with her might have to take a backseat to that." She gave a big sigh. "Clint, I owe you forever for this. Thank you."

"No problem. Got to watch out for my employees. What're her plans after she gives back the banjo?"

"She'll be here a little while because she just informed me she's broke and needs to find a job."

"I could have her work in the office here. Skye could use someone to help catch up on our filing."

Love contemplated that a moment, then said, "No, I think it would be better if she found one herself. It would be too easy for me to smooth that path for her, and I don't think that's necessarily the best start to our relationship."

"Wise woman. Just let me know if I can do anything else to help."

"You've done so much already. Again, thank you."

"My pleasure. Talk to you soon."

She stared at the phone for a moment, listening to the dial tone. What Clint did truly was above and beyond the call of duty for a boss and a friend. It caused her to remember something that Cy had told her during the months before he died.

"That boss of yours," he'd said. "You listen to him. He's a nice fella. I like him a lot. He's one to consider, Lovebug, when you start looking again."

Her chest grew tight, remembering the silly nickname he gave her early in their relationship. "Don't you dare talk like that, Cyrus Johnson," she'd said. "You act like you're trying to set me up."

He'd given her his familiar lopsided grin. It seemed to reach from ear to ear, covering his face, which seemed wider and rounder with the loss of his thick, bushy hair. "I'll put the judge on the list of possibilities." He winked at her and mimed writing on his palm.

"Eat your banana pudding, you crazy man," Love had replied, laughing through her tears, wondering how in the world she would ever live without him. "Or I swear I'll throw it to the pigs."

TWENTY.

Rett Would you like to come to church with me?" Love asked Rett. Her voice was neutral, but Rett could tell by her eyes that she wanted her to say yes.

"Okay," Rett said, surprising them both.

"We're pretty casual at Baytown Christian," Love said. "You can dress any way you like." She hesitated a moment, then added, "Well, I mean ..."

"No worries, Grandma," Rett said. "I won't wear anything that'll make the front-row ladies call the prayer chain."

An expression of surprise swept over her grandma's face, then she smiled and winked at Rett, acknowledging the truth to what she said. Rett really liked her grandma's smile. She probably thinks she hides what she feels, Rett thought, but she had a face like an open book. Then Rett chided herself and tried to think of something that wasn't a cliche. Like Morro Rock. Her face was as open as Morro Rock, like something you couldn't avoid seeing.

The minute they walked into the small brown and white wooden church-Baytown Christian Fellowship-Rett liked it. There were about seventy-five or eighty people there, most of them old, like her grandma, some even older, like in their seventies or eighties. They were a combination of white people and Hispanics, something that sort of surprised her, though she didn't know why. This was California, after all. There was only one black person, a really old lady wearing a lavender hat with netting and fake flowers. She was playing the wheezy old organ.

The simple lines of the building and the smooth wooden pews reminded her of the little churches throughout the South where the Son Sisters sang when they first started. That was before Mom went all crazy and thought they had the potential to become famous and make tons of money. Those churches never paid them outright but instead took up a "love offering." It was always exciting to watch Mom count it afterward, trying to guess the amount. It was never much and certainly never enough for Mom, but it helped with gas and sometimes a motel. Churches always volunteered housing, staying in someone's den-turned-guest-room or the bedroom left vacant by a child off to college or the military, but Mama preferred a motel, where she said they could let their hair down, which meant she could smoke a cigarette.

Rett and her sisters liked the motels because they usually had pools and c.o.ke machines, though they'd stayed in some pretty weird ones. The funniest was the one in Alabama that looked like little cabins. Faith spilled c.o.ke on the bedsheet, and when they pulled it off to wash, they discovered there was graffiti written with purple felt-tip pen on the mattress: Wanda loves Bobby. They laughed so hard their stomachs ached.

The food was always wonderful at those church gatherings: homemade angel food cakes, maple-cured ham and b.u.t.ter beans, oniony hush puppies, fried chicken and sour cream biscuits the size of compact discs. During the time between Mom's second and third husbands, they struggled for money, but they had fun. Back then, Mom sometimes harmonized along with them on songs, though never in public.

"You babies will be the stars," she'd tell them. "My time has pa.s.sed."

Rett followed her grandma to the third pew on the right and slid in next to her. She liked churches with permanent pews. They felt real, not like you were sitting at a school a.s.sembly like so many modern churches felt like now. She pulled out one of the hymnals and was humming the song on page one, "How Great Thou Art," when a familiar voice called out her name.

"Rett!" Rocky said.

Her head came up, her bottom lip dropping open in surprise. "Uh, hi."

"How wonderful to see you and your abuela on this fine winter morning." He bent over and gave Love a hug, holding out his free hand to Rett.

"Yeah, it's cool," she said, shaking his hand. "I mean, to see you again."

She was surprised, though maybe she shouldn't have been. He'd given her an old church program, and she remembered sticking it in her backpack without a glance. If she had looked at the name of the church, she would have recognized it. But the church sign outside said the pastor's name was Roberto Sanchez, and he'd introduced himself as Rocky. It was kinda spooky when you thought about it, the coincidence of this being her grandma Love's church. There ain't no kind of coincidences on G.o.d's earth, Brother Dwaine would have told her. It's Divine Providence. Maybe he was right.

"Hope you're able to visit us here in Morro Bay a little while," he said, then moved on to greet some old ladies behind them. She hoped that since he didn't make a big deal about meeting her before, he wouldn't make some kind of announcement from the pulpit about her visiting her grandma.

He didn't, so she settled into the pew, thinking she'd just let her mind drift away while waiting for the service to end. But she didn't. First, the special music was pretty awesome with two old guys on a guitar and a fiddle, the old black lady rocking out on the organ and a cute guy in his twenties with spiky black hair who was the real musician. He played a beat-up old Gibson guitar and performed a few unexpected licks that made her lean closer to watch his fingers. He was good, far better than the other musicians, but he was cool about it. He gave them their time, respected their ability and never stopped smiling even when the old fiddler dude fumbled the song's timing and the young guy had to really think fast to recapture his own time and place in the song. They played a combination of old-time hymns and a couple of praise songs that weren't all boring and singsong.

She was glad that Rocky was of the "if you can't say it in a half hour, it probably isn't worth saying" group of ministers. It was a group she thought was way too small. She'd endured her fair share of preachers who made their point the first twenty minutes of their sermon and then spent the next hour and a half repeating it over and over with slightly different words, like "Dueling Banjos" set on perpetual repeat.

"G.o.d often doesn't answer our prayers, at least right off," Rocky stated, once he took the pulpit. "And that really annoys me sometimes."

Rett found herself fascinated by his gravelly Johnny Cash voice, one that sounded like a real person who'd been through tough times. He probably sounded like rocks in a washing machine when he sang.

"Here's some reasons why I think he might do that. We'll be studying this subject in depth through January, but I'll just lay out the facts for you right now, so you can ponder them. Remember, my e-mail is always open to discuss anything I talk about. Or come on down to the barbershop. My coffeepot is always on. Don't be afraid to give me your input. We're all learning together here."

He looked down at his open Bible, where Rett could see the wire rim of a steno notebook. Rocky took notes for his sermons on the same kind of notebook she used to write down song lyrics and melodies.

"Here's what I came up with. One: We don't always understand all the circ.u.mstances about a situation, so what we're asking for might mess up something else in G.o.d's long-term eternal plan for the world. Two: We don't understand G.o.d's higher spiritual purposes, so what we ask for is what will make us feel better. Three: We forget that others have free will and that our Lord won't force someone to do something he or she doesn't want to do. Four: We don't understand that life on earth is not perfect, that Satan does have limited power here and can sometimes mess with our plans (and under four a-just so you don't lose hope-remember it isn't going to be that way forever). Five: We all go through hard times, and unanswered prayers would definitely qualify, but it makes us seek out G.o.d. That, ideally, should result in us having a closer relationship with him. And that is the ultimate goal of all prayer . . . a closer relationship with our Creator."

As he went on to delve a little deeper into the first reason, Rett found her thoughts homing in on number three. Though she'd never admit it out loud to one single person on this earth, she'd continued to pray that the minute Dale saw her, he would realize that she was the one he truly loved. And, deeper inside, she sort of hoped this baby would just disappear. She'd never thought the word miscarriage, not wanting to go that far. And she certainly didn't pray for it, though if she was being honest, wasn't hoping for a baby to disappear kind of the same thing? She didn't want to wrap her mind around that, because that would make her the most horrible, evil person alive. This baby, this physical combination of Dale and Patsy's DNA, didn't actually seem real to her yet. Despite everything, all Rett could think about was the feel of Dale's calloused fingertips on her cheeks, the sweet way her stomach felt when he kissed her.

Before she realized it, Rocky's sermon was over, and the congregation was standing. Where had her brain gone to? Sometimes it freaked her out how she could lose time like that, be in this solitary world of her thoughts and look up and find that minutes and hours had pa.s.sed, leaving only the echo of what had happened around her while she was gone, like the reverberating sound of a train seconds after it was out of sight.

She sang the last song by heart-"Blessed a.s.surance." She was surprised that Rocky closed with such a traditional hymn. His final prayer surprised her even more, because he prayed first in Spanish, then in English.

"El Senor, nosotros les damos gracias para sus bendiciones, le paticionamos para nuestras necesidades, anoramos su guia y nosotros le honoramos su majestad. Usted, nuestro redentor, nuestra piedra, nuestro padre eterno, nuestra esperanza y nuestra salvacion. Nos ofrecemos a usted esta semana y oramos que usted nos ayude a servir a sus personas y usted. En el nombre del santeo hijo, amen.

"Oh, Lord, we thank you for your blessings, we pet.i.tion you for our needs, we yearn for your guidance and honor you for your majesty. You are our redeemer, our rock, our everlasting father, our hope and our salvation. We offer ourselves to you this week and pray that you help us to serve your people and you. In your son, Jesus's holy name, amen."

The Spanish sounded cool. El Senor? She knew from the few Spanish cla.s.ses she was forced to take in high school that el meant "the" and senor was "mister." The Mister? That was so like Mister G.o.d that it freaked her out. She thought she was the only person who called him that.

After the service, as they stood in line to shake Rocky's hand, Love introduced her to so many people that Rett's smiling face started to hurt. She tried to be nice, not wanting to ruin this moment for her grandma, but after the tenth, "Why, you don't look at all like Love," she was ready to haul b.u.t.t for home.

When they finally made it to the front of the line, she saw that Magnolia, the lady who owned the b.u.t.tercream, stood at Rocky's side. She'd forgotten that she was Rocky's wife. Why hadn't she been in the service? Maybe she had been sitting in back. Magnolia hugged Love enthusiastically.

"I got roped into nursery duty today," Magnolia said. "We had three babies and five toddlers. Thank the good Lord I took my Flintstone vitamins this morning."

"We missed your voice," Love said, glancing over at Rett. "Magnolia was a professional singer for years. Her voice would knock your boots off."

Rett nodded, not knowing how to answer.

"Oh, that was a million and a half years ago," Magnolia said, giving Rett a quick up-and-down look. "Rett doesn't want to hear about my days as a lounge singer."

You got that one right, Rett thought, giving Magnolia a small smile.

"We're heading out to the ranch after church to help August and Polly decorate their tree," Love said.

"We're heading out there ourselves after lunch. We're meeting Father Mark at Liddie's in San Celina. A bunch of churches are coordinating Christmas dinner at the homeless shelter this year, trying to maximize our contributions."

"Put me down for a two-hour shift," Love said. "More if you need slots filled."

When they started to discuss the details of the holiday meal, Rett wandered away and sat on the small brick fence that surrounded the church sign. She could see Morro Rock from her perch. It glistened in the bright noon sunlight, looking like someone had sprayed it with carbonated water. She wondered what the rock looked like close up. Was it made of that shiny black rock-what was it called-obsidian? She'd seen an obsidian penholder once on the desk of a church pastor in Louisiana. He'd said it came from lava.

"It's cool you came to our church," a guy's voice said, interrupting Rett's contemplation of Morro Rock. "Was it okay for you?"

She looked up into the smiling face of the guy in the band who played the awesome guitar licks. He looked younger up close than he did from the front of the church, maybe nineteen or twenty at the most. He was tanned the color of almonds and had hazel eyes with gold in the center.

"I'm Zane," he said, holding out his hand. "Zane Gray."

"Oh, man, I'm so sorry," she said, standing up and laughing as she shook his hand.

"Yeah," he said, laughing with her. "My dad's favorite book was Riders of the Purple Sage. Obviously."

"It could have been worse. He could have named you Pearl."

He moved in front of her to shade her face from the sun. "Wow, you know your obscure Zane Grey facts."

She twisted a strand of her hair. "Who would name their son Pearl?"

He laughed again. "So, who are you, anyway?"

"Rett Johnson. I'm Love Johnson's granddaughter."

He nodded. "She's awesome. Her cakes are wicked good." A grin, one that caused his greenish eyes to turn to slits, stretched across his face. "She was my Sunday school teacher when I was fourteen. She always made each of us our favorite cake for our birthday. Mine was banana with caramel frosting. Nice to meet you, Rett. Is that, like, in Butler?"

Even though she'd heard that a million times, he was nice, so she decided to make him feel better about his name by telling him her real name. "I like to be called Rett, but my full name is Loretta Lynn Johnson."

He threw back his head and laughed. Rett stared at his tanned throat, intrigued. She wondered if he sang and what his voice sounded like.

"Sorry back at you," he said. "What was your parents' deal?"

"Mom was a wannabe country singer," she said.

"Dad sold insurance, but he wanted to be a writer," Zane said, nodding. "He died when I was six. My mom and my great-aunt Zoey are veterinarians over in Paso. That's what we call Paso Robles here."

"Got it. That's kinda cool, I mean, your mom and great-aunt both being vets."

He stuck his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans. "I suppose, except it stops with me. I want to be a musician, which, according to my mom, is breaking her heart."

"Ready to go, Rett?" Love called over to her.

"Hey, see you around," he said.

"Sure," she replied.

Love and Rett swung by the house to pick up Ace, who was waiting eagerly by the kitchen door.

"Ace loves his excursions to the ranch," Love said, helping him into the backseat of her car, where she hooked him into a special padded dog car seat built high enough for him to see out the window. "He's like a weekend gentleman rancher. He pretends he knows what to do with a herd of cattle."

"Wow, he's not spoiled or anything," Rett said, turning around in the pa.s.senger seat to scratch him under his white chin. He licked her nose, causing her to giggle.

"Oh, no, not a bit," Love said.

On the drive to the ranch, Love fretted out loud about Polly and August living there alone. "Polly's in denial, I think," she said, as they turned into the long driveway. "I guess I can understand. Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of our face, especially if it's something we don't want to see."

Polly sat on the porch waiting for them, a red mixing bowl in her lap. The minute Ace hit the ground, he darted around the house.

"Where's he going?" Rett asked.