This fine life : a novel by Eva Marie Everson

Author:Eva Marie Everson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780800732745
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

19

As it turned out, the grocer was the son of Alma Stoddard, so he knew “’xactly where she lives!”

“You must be the new preacher Mama was telling us about,” he said as he ambled over to the car.

Thayne sat up straight and proud. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I am!” He jutted his arm out the window. “Thayne Scott.”

“Reverend,” the man said as he pumped Thayne’s hand. Then he dipped his face toward the opened window. “Missus.”

“My wife,” Thayne said. “Mariette.”

The man nodded. “Mrs. Scott, nice to meet ya.”

I smiled as broadly as I dared. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Clarence. Clarence Stoddard. You’ll be staying in the little house next to my mama’s.”

“Well,” Thayne said, “I’ll tell you, Mr. Stoddard, if you can point me in the right direction, we’d be more than relieved to get there.”

“You do look a little damp there,” Mr. Stoddard said.

Thayne pinked. “We had a flat.”

Clarence Stoddard nodded as he stuck his bony finger in the same direction our car was headed and said, “You see that street right there going over to the right? Turn there. Head straight down the road. It’s only a block, and it dead-ends into Mama’s driveway. You can’t miss it.” Then he grinned. “And I hope you brought your appetites, ’cause Mama’s been cooking all day long.”

I hadn’t thought of dinner or what we’d do about it, but the notion of eating at a stranger’s table didn’t seem right.

“And one other thing,” Mr. Stoddard said as Thayne shoved the car into gear. “You’ll see the church to your left just before you turn. One end of the street is where you’ll work and the other end is where you’ll live.”

Thayne smiled. “Isn’t that fine?”

Clarence Stoddard grinned back. I noticed he had an upper tooth missing, one next to his front teeth. I turned my gaze toward the windshield.

Two silent minutes later, we were pulling into the packed dirt-and-grass driveway of Alma Stoddard. Hers was a simple box-style house with a tin roof, a screen-and-lattice-wrapped front porch accessed by three gray concrete steps flanked by two overgrown bushes. With the exception of clusters of leafy tree branches sprouting overhead behind the house, the yard was devoid of shrubbery.

“Well, Mrs. Scott,” Thayne said. “Here we are.”

“I wonder where the house is. The one we’ll be living in. I don’t see anything next to the house that looks like a guesthouse.”

“Maybe it’s behind the house,” Thayne said.

About that time the screen door swung open and a bespectacled woman, short, with cottony, white, well-coiffed hair, stepped forward, waving a hand as though it were broken.

Thayne grinned like a boy. “That must be Mrs. Stoddard.”

“Well, I can only hope!”

Thayne got out of the car, then ran around to the passenger side to open the door for me. Hand in hand we walked toward the house and Mrs. Stoddard.

“Oh, I’m so glad you made it!” she said. “I was worried you’d get lost. Lord knows we’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”

When we reached her, she grabbed Thayne in a tight hug and slapped his shoulders as she said, “God bless you.

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