Excerpt from Novel, Traveling Through
Chapter 1
Carlie Geraldson blew air upward out of her mouth, lifting her damp bangs. Why hadn’t she held out for a car with air conditioning? Even if it was only necessary one month out of the year, this was definitely the month. She glanced at the car’s digital clock and noted the minutes since either Emily or Josiah had asked how much more driving there was. They didn’t like riding and were probably hotter than she was.
The last road sign had announced fifty miles to Cincinnati, and their destination was a suburb on its east side. She entertained the fantasy of detouring Cincinnati, and then Brownsville, to keep going to the mountains and then the Atlantic coast, bypassing her assigned goal of arriving at the new parsonage and starting to unpack. She knew as much about the country beyond the Ohio River as she did about the church that Jeff, her husband, would soon be pastoring. She’d been following Jeff, who was driving the rented moving truck, for 300 miles from western Indiana, and had been unable to enjoy the scenery because the back of the truck loomed in front of her, as did the unknown future. But she had agreed to follow instead of lead this time. Perhaps most times she had. It was easier that way.
To their credits, it was now twenty-five minutes since someone in the backseat had made a comment. That was because Emily had nodded off, and Josiah was reading a sports magazine. Suddenly he looked up.
“How close are we, Mom?”
“Less than an hour, I promise.”
He stared out the window. Beads of sweat hung on his forehead, despite the breeze from the open window. She found herself falling into the reverie she always did when she caught furtive looks at her son, as she was doing now in the rear view mirror; but he noticed it and turned back to his magazine.
“What you thinking?”
“Not much.” That attempt failed. She tried again.
“It’s going to be a lot of change for you, I guess?”
“Yeah.”
Was he already becoming the teenager of one-syllable answers? Well, he’d done everything else early; maybe she had that to look forward to also. He was the unpredictable one of her two children.
The green and white sign on the edge of I-74 informed her they had made progress. Thirty miles to Cincinnati, and then a little beyond that.
Esther Lundy valued her Wednesdays off as much as anything else about her job at St. Michael’s Senior Life Care Center. Five days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and sometimes double shifts when her relief didn’t show up, she fed, medicated, charted, and fussed over the twenty-four residents of Wing 4. On Wednesdays she could forget she had ever seen St. Michael’s, sleep a little late, work in her garden, cook her husband Maurice some greens and black-eyed peas, visit a doctor or beautician, volunteer two times a month at Westgate Pregnancy Helps Center, or do whatever she wanted. On Sundays she could attend church, eat dinner with as much of her family as could get together, be back for choir practice at 6:00, and enjoy the evening in front of the TV seven months out of the year and her front porch the other five months.
This Wednesday afternoon in June, Esther was standing in her garden surveying the tomato plants, which had already flowered and were starting to produce green bee-bee sized fruit, and wondering if she should go back in the shed for some Sevin dust. The heat was oppressive already, and she decided this summer was going to be a hot one, and damp.
“Feels like a July day in Statesboro,” she thought, remembering those summers of her childhood in South Georgia when the hot, heavy air felt like a wool blanket suffocating her. She had left behind more than the stifling heat when she came north to Ohio in the fifties. Cincinnati had jobs, for one, and places to live, for another, and you got a little more respect than what you got from those crackers in South Georgia. She had stayed when she met Maurice Lundy.
“My garden will be all over the place with this rain,” she warned herself, but happy over the prospect. Last summer had been dry. She walked past the tomatoes, lettuce, beans, turnip greens. Yes, a good year for the garden.
She heard the squeal of brakes of a big truck or train and lifted her head. “Well. Somebody is moving into the preacher’s house for that church down the road.” In their more than twenty years of living in this house on Stanley Road, she had seen three—now four—families living in the brick rancher that sat across the street. From her accounting, the preachers stayed about six or seven years a piece. Not too long but not too short, she figured. Preachers who stayed too long in churches started acting like they owned the place, in her experience.
She left her garden to walk out front and take a peek at what the new crew looked like. They’d be white, of course. The last preacher had been an older man; their kids were grown. His wife was nice enough, but he had been the most standoffish person she’d ever known, and that probably explained what happened later.
The truck turned out to be a Ryder, the second to the biggest one you could rent. The tags were from—she turned her head and squinted—what was that? Indiana. The preacher had climbed down out of the truck. Well, she guessed he was the preacher, but he looked pretty young and skinny, and wore glasses. Pulling up behind the truck was a car that looked to be four or five years old, one of those Japanese models. A woman was driving, and there were two other heads, in the back seat. The woman got out and went to talk to the man at the back of the Ryder, and then she returned to say something to the two heads.
So, two kids, pretty young, and they look like typical preacher family types. The woman wore one of those ice skater haircuts, and jeans, and a big smocky top as if she was pregnant, but she wasn’t. “I’ll give them a couple of hours before I go visit and take a jar of pickled beets from last year. No, they got kids, I’ll take some jelly.” Something caught Esther’s eye, and she walked a little closer to see the children getting out of the car now. Hmm. The little girl looked to be four. She was bubbly, jumpy, glad to be out of the car and eager to get their mama to open the front door. She had blonde hair pulled up in a fussy ribbon. The boy—now what was this? He was helping his daddy with the locks on the back of the truck, and he looked an awful lot like her son Monroe did at that age.
Carlie Geraldson blew air upward out of her mouth, lifting her damp bangs. Why hadn’t she held out for a car with air conditioning? Even if it was only necessary one month out of the year, this was definitely the month. She glanced at the car’s digital clock and noted the minutes since either Emily or Josiah had asked how much more driving there was. They didn’t like riding and were probably hotter than she was.
The last road sign had announced fifty miles to Cincinnati, and their destination was a suburb on its east side. She entertained the fantasy of detouring Cincinnati, and then Brownsville, to keep going to the mountains and then the Atlantic coast, bypassing her assigned goal of arriving at the new parsonage and starting to unpack. She knew as much about the country beyond the Ohio River as she did about the church that Jeff, her husband, would soon be pastoring. She’d been following Jeff, who was driving the rented moving truck, for 300 miles from western Indiana, and had been unable to enjoy the scenery because the back of the truck loomed in front of her, as did the unknown future. But she had agreed to follow instead of lead this time. Perhaps most times she had. It was easier that way.
To their credits, it was now twenty-five minutes since someone in the backseat had made a comment. That was because Emily had nodded off, and Josiah was reading a sports magazine. Suddenly he looked up.
“How close are we, Mom?”
“Less than an hour, I promise.”
He stared out the window. Beads of sweat hung on his forehead, despite the breeze from the open window. She found herself falling into the reverie she always did when she caught furtive looks at her son, as she was doing now in the rear view mirror; but he noticed it and turned back to his magazine.
“What you thinking?”
“Not much.” That attempt failed. She tried again.
“It’s going to be a lot of change for you, I guess?”
“Yeah.”
Was he already becoming the teenager of one-syllable answers? Well, he’d done everything else early; maybe she had that to look forward to also. He was the unpredictable one of her two children.
The green and white sign on the edge of I-74 informed her they had made progress. Thirty miles to Cincinnati, and then a little beyond that.
Esther Lundy valued her Wednesdays off as much as anything else about her job at St. Michael’s Senior Life Care Center. Five days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and sometimes double shifts when her relief didn’t show up, she fed, medicated, charted, and fussed over the twenty-four residents of Wing 4. On Wednesdays she could forget she had ever seen St. Michael’s, sleep a little late, work in her garden, cook her husband Maurice some greens and black-eyed peas, visit a doctor or beautician, volunteer two times a month at Westgate Pregnancy Helps Center, or do whatever she wanted. On Sundays she could attend church, eat dinner with as much of her family as could get together, be back for choir practice at 6:00, and enjoy the evening in front of the TV seven months out of the year and her front porch the other five months.
This Wednesday afternoon in June, Esther was standing in her garden surveying the tomato plants, which had already flowered and were starting to produce green bee-bee sized fruit, and wondering if she should go back in the shed for some Sevin dust. The heat was oppressive already, and she decided this summer was going to be a hot one, and damp.
“Feels like a July day in Statesboro,” she thought, remembering those summers of her childhood in South Georgia when the hot, heavy air felt like a wool blanket suffocating her. She had left behind more than the stifling heat when she came north to Ohio in the fifties. Cincinnati had jobs, for one, and places to live, for another, and you got a little more respect than what you got from those crackers in South Georgia. She had stayed when she met Maurice Lundy.
“My garden will be all over the place with this rain,” she warned herself, but happy over the prospect. Last summer had been dry. She walked past the tomatoes, lettuce, beans, turnip greens. Yes, a good year for the garden.
She heard the squeal of brakes of a big truck or train and lifted her head. “Well. Somebody is moving into the preacher’s house for that church down the road.” In their more than twenty years of living in this house on Stanley Road, she had seen three—now four—families living in the brick rancher that sat across the street. From her accounting, the preachers stayed about six or seven years a piece. Not too long but not too short, she figured. Preachers who stayed too long in churches started acting like they owned the place, in her experience.
She left her garden to walk out front and take a peek at what the new crew looked like. They’d be white, of course. The last preacher had been an older man; their kids were grown. His wife was nice enough, but he had been the most standoffish person she’d ever known, and that probably explained what happened later.
The truck turned out to be a Ryder, the second to the biggest one you could rent. The tags were from—she turned her head and squinted—what was that? Indiana. The preacher had climbed down out of the truck. Well, she guessed he was the preacher, but he looked pretty young and skinny, and wore glasses. Pulling up behind the truck was a car that looked to be four or five years old, one of those Japanese models. A woman was driving, and there were two other heads, in the back seat. The woman got out and went to talk to the man at the back of the Ryder, and then she returned to say something to the two heads.
So, two kids, pretty young, and they look like typical preacher family types. The woman wore one of those ice skater haircuts, and jeans, and a big smocky top as if she was pregnant, but she wasn’t. “I’ll give them a couple of hours before I go visit and take a jar of pickled beets from last year. No, they got kids, I’ll take some jelly.” Something caught Esther’s eye, and she walked a little closer to see the children getting out of the car now. Hmm. The little girl looked to be four. She was bubbly, jumpy, glad to be out of the car and eager to get their mama to open the front door. She had blonde hair pulled up in a fussy ribbon. The boy—now what was this? He was helping his daddy with the locks on the back of the truck, and he looked an awful lot like her son Monroe did at that age.
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