Part 2

Pocketful of Pearls
By Shelley Bates

(Page 2 of 3)

The woman settled on sympathy as being more appropriate to the occasion."Why don't you go out front, dear, and be with your mother. I'll hold the fort and see that everything gets set out."

What if the vagrant came back? He looked like he could tuck away three plates of food and still be hungry, but she had sensed a painful politeness that wouldn't let him ask for more. Dinah didn't want this crowd of clean, well-fed people to know she'd spoken to him. "Touch not the unclean thing," they'd say, and they'd wonder what on earth she was thinking, to let an outsider- someone potentially dangerous-anywhere near the door.

She was a vessel filled with love. Or so said Phinehas, the senior Shepherd over God's flock in the State of Washington. She had grown up in the one true way, whose people gathered in house churches instead of in worldly temples made with hands, and whose Shepherds went out in faith and love, caring for the flock unencumbered by a permanent home, belongings, or salary. But one should demonstrate love by encouraging people to hear the gospel, not by giving them handouts that only made them dependent on charity instead of on God.

"It's okay, thanks," she told the woman who, after all,was just being kind."I know where everything is."And if she had to acknowledge one more expression of sympathy, she wasn't sure she could hang onto her composure.

The woman nodded and laid the plate of sausages on her inner arm, then picked up a platter of vegetables in one hand and dip in the other. As soon as the hem of her black dress flicked out of the kitchen, Dinah opened the door and peered out. The backyard was quiet and utterly dark beyond the circle of familiarity cast by the bare bulb mounted on the wall over the lintel.

"Are you still here?" she asked the dark in a voice that was closer to a whisper than a call.

Something winked near her feet, and she glanced down. The empty water bottle stood on the top step, the fork laid neatly beside it. The latter was as clean as if it had just come out of the dishwasher. Had he wiped it on his shirt?

"Hello?" But no one answered.

"Dinah, is someone out there?" Her mother came in with a couple of empty trays. "The boys aren't parking the cars back there in the dark, are they? They'll never get them out of the mud."

"I was just checking." It wasn't quite a lie. She'd been checking the vagrant's whereabouts, hadn't she? "Mom, you're not supposed to be serving. These people are all here for you."

Her mother looked so fragile that the trays drooped in her hands. Her hair was beginning to come out of its neat bun, and she hadn't bothered to wipe away the tracks of tears on her face. Not tears for her husband's death, which Dinah was perfectly aware was God's will, but tears of gratitude for the kindnesses of others.

"I hope not. They're here for Morton. Out of respect. And don't put the sliced roast beef out yet. Save it for when Phinehas comes."

"Phinehas is coming?"The blood halted in Dinah's veins, and then began to crawl, slowly, pumped by a heart that had momentarily forgotten how to work. "When?"

"He was in Spokane when he called. Missions might be very successful there at the moment, but when he heard of our need, he practically dropped everything. He should be here anytime." Anytime. After two months away from Hamilton Falls, overseeing other congregations, encouraging lost souls to God with his preaching, he would be coming back. Tonight.

Her knees twinged, their usual ache prodded into urgent life, and she grabbed a handful of carrot sticks, crunching into them as though someone were about to take them away from her. She'd thought the waiting bad enough before, when she didn't know when it would end.The waiting was the worst. But suddenly she realized that time could be compressed into short, painful bursts when the end was finite, and the waiting could actually, physically hurt.

PHINEHAS ARRIVED AT seven o'clock, parting the crowd near the front door like Moses at the Red Sea. At the sound of his voice, sonorous and as full of authority as Moses's must have been, Dinah ducked back into the kitchen. The kitchen was women's territory; the closest Phinehas got to it was her father's chair at the head of the dining room table.

Better yet, she thought, as the women who had been washing up the dishes dried their hands and smoothed their hair before going out into the living room to greet the Shepherd of their souls, she could step outside and check again to see if the vagrant had gone.

Copyright © 2005 by Shelley Bates

About the Author

Whether producing search warrants and making undercover phone calls as an admin for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or editing marketing material for the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley, Shelley Bates has found that everyone has a story. Most people have stopped telling her theirs in case she puts them in her books. Shelley holds an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania. Grounds to Believe, her debut novel, won the 2005 RITA Award for Best Inspirational Novel of the Year from the Romance Writers of America. The sequel, Pocketful of Pearls, was a RITA Award finalist the following year. Between books, Shelley enjoys playing the piano and Celtic harp, making period costumes, and spoiling her flock of rescue chickens rotten.