Fearless Hope by Serena B. Miller

Author:Serena B. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

chapter TWENTY -O NE

A low, slow, humming sound rose through the floorboards of his upstairs bedroom. He paused in the act of tying his necktie and listened. The singing was made up predominately of male voices and reminded him of the otherworldly drone of a bagpipe he had once heard played at a funeral.

He had not worn a suit for months, but when he asked Hope if a white shirt and dark suit would be appropriate, she seemed relieved he’d brought the question up. Her enthusiastic approval made him wonder if she’d been fearful he would show up in jogging shorts and a T-shirt.

He slipped his suit coat on and checked outside the window. The assembly of buggies had grown in the past ten minutes. From his vantage point of the second story, it looked as though the field beside his house was carpeted with black buggy tops. And horses. Lots and lots of glistening, dark-brown horses.

Hope had suggested he wait until services were starting before coming downstairs. There was a prescribed way to enter the room, she explained, a matter of respect. The bishop walked in first, regardless of his age. Then the ministers filed in according to their age, with the oldest going first. The deacon followed. Then the rest of the men came in turn, from the oldest down to the youngest, teenage boys bringing up the rear.

Working an Englisch man into the traditional entering and seating situation, she explained, was going to be a little awkward, especially since he deserved respect for his generosity in allowing them to assemble beneath his roof. Hope wasn’t sure quite what to do, and so they agreed that it would be best for him to simply come down a few seconds after he heard the strains of the first hymn.

He glanced at himself in the mirror and nervously straightened his tie. One thing he did not want to do was embarrass his housekeeper.

Unfortunately, he was also a little worried about staying awake. The writing on his thriller novel had been going unusually well last night, the story finally unraveling in his head, and he hated to stop, so he went on late into the night, afraid that if he did stop, he would never get back into the writer’s zone that was so hard to achieve. It was looking like he might have a book ready to turn in to his publisher by deadline after all. It might not be his best, but it was by far not his worst. The house, the people, Hope, his extracurricular writing at the antiques shop, had somehow, someway, rescued him.

What time had he gone to sleep, anyway, 5 a.m.? All he remembered for sure was that the last thing on his mind when he crawled into bed was that it was Sunday morning. The thought that on this Sunday morning there would be a houseful of guests had been a pleasant one. It occurred to him right before he closed his eyes that he did not enjoy being alone nearly as much as he had always tried to tell himself.

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