Published July 24, 2020
Chapter 2
By GAIL LOWE
Otis now reaches for the letter opener, the one Fern gave him for Christmas the year before she was diagnosed with cancer. She’d had the silver handle engraved with his initials. OK. Otis Kingston. He has always liked the sound of his name—and his initials—and is grateful his mother and father didn’t stick him with something annoying like Claude or Percy. The opener feels light in his hands; it is weightless, like dandelion fluff.
He opens the bill from Dr. Chase first and let his eyes roam to the bottom of the statement. The balance due after co-pays is $1,265. Fat chance of getting that one paid off anytime soon. The next one is from the company that insures his home. The bottom line shows a $274.85 balance. Maybe he should drop the insurance. At least the house is paid for. He is always careful around fire, and what are the chances a tree will fall, leaving a huge hole in the roof? He doesn’t have any trees on his property, only a stand of firs out back a hundred feet away from the house.
He opens the next envelope and breathes a sigh of relief. This one isn’t a bill but an appeal from the Maine Cancer Foundation. He wishes he could make a donation in Fern’s memory, but there is nothing to be done about it. Not with an empty bank account. He sets aside a bunch of envelopes similar to the charity appeal and opens one from Hopewell General Hospital. After Fern’s insurance from the nursing home kicked in its portion, he has been left with a balance of $9,065. Releasing a long sigh, he then opens the envelope from the Church of the Blinding Light, wondering what the deacons are after this time. Otis is surprised to find that it is a letter from the Pastor himself. It reads:
August 27
Dear Otis,
I am writing to you today because I have not seen you in church lately and you’ve been missed. I’ve tried calling, too, but there has been no answer. People have been asking about you, and I don’t know what to tell them. Would it be possible for me to drop by some morning? I’d like to speak to you in person.
Homecoming Sunday is at the end of September. Maybe that would be a good time for you to start coming to services again.
Prayers your way,
Pastor Stanley Wright
Otis lays the letter on the table, wonders what Pastor Wright has on his mind. When Fern was alive, they were in church every Sunday. They tithed, too. Giving ten percent to the church was something his mother had always done, no matter how little money she had. She had often talked about the widow’s offering, a story told by Jesus. It was his mother’s belief that God would provide, no matter how little money a person had in the bank. He gets up, moves away from the table and reaches for Fern’s Bible lying on the table next to her chair.
He turns to Luke 21:1-4 and reads:
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Otis thinks about his two dollars and forty-nine cents. It is all he has to live on until his unemployment check arrives. He will set it aside, invite Pastor Wright to his home and offer the money while telling the Pastor it is all he has to give. Then, he will remind the good Pastor about the widow’s offering. What can he say in response? Not much, Otis decides. But maybe Pastor Wright won’t ask for money at all. Maybe he just wants a simple visit to say howdy-do.
Otis studies the phone number on the letterhead, picks up the phone and punches in the number. A few moments later, Colleen Johnson answers.
“Church of the Blinding Light. Pastor Wright’s office,” she says cheerfully in a kittenish voice.
“Hello, Colleen. This is Otis Kingston.”
“Oh, hello, Otis. Gosh, we haven’t seen you at church all summer. I hope you haven’t been sick. You must be missing Fern something terrible.”
Otis envisions Colleen sitting at her desk, computer at her side, eyebrows knit together, her dark hair twisted into a knot at the back of her neck. It is likely she has been working on the church newsletter when he called.
“Doing okay. And I’m fit as a fiddle, as the old saying goes,” Otis replies, suddenly remembering the fiddle he hasn’t played since Fern died. He can’t bring himself to pick up the instrument his father once owned. Too many memories.
“We’re all so sorry about Fern,” Colleen says.
Otis feels himself choking up and mumbles a thank you. He clears his throat and asks Colleen how she has been.
She then tells Otis that her eleven-year-old daughter, Katie, broke her arm at summer camp and that the family dog was hit by a car.
“The vet bill was over the top expensive,” Colleen confides. “But pets are like family members. You have to take care of them, too.”
Otis says he agrees, is sorry to hear, then asks if he can speak to Pastor Wright.
“Oh, sure. Just one moment. I’ll put you right through.”
While he waits, he listens to a tape recording of a choir singing “How Great Thou Art” before he hears Pastor Wright’s voice.
“Hello, Otis. You must be calling about my letter.”
“Yes, you’re right. So you’d like to pay a visit?”
“Ay-uh. Actually, I was hoping I could call on you sometime this week.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Any day will do.”
Otis can hear pages turning in the background as Pastor Wright checks his date book. “I have some time tomorrow morning. Shall we say ten o’clock?”
“Ten o’clock, it is. Tomorrow.”
For the rest of the day, Otis putters around the house, trying to see it through Fern’s eyes. He notices that cobwebs have formed in the corners of some of the windows, and dust has accumulated on the coffee table in front of the couch. There are unwashed dishes in the sink and pots and pans on top of the stove that haven’t been put away. He checks the bathroom and sees that the sink and toilet need a good scrubbing, too. He shakes his head. Cleaning the place up will take all morning, and housework isn’t something he relishes doing. But there is nothing else that needs attention, except to figure out how to pay the bills.
After he completes his chores, Otis heats up some tomato soup and eats it with a few saltine crackers. He saves half for supper. He would have the leftover soup with a piece of bread and peanut butter. Tomorrow will be better, he tells himself. The soup kitchen in Bangor always lays out a hearty spread. Rolls and butter. Tossed salad. Fish chowder. Roast beef or pork loin with gravy. Mashed potatoes. Vegetable medley. And there is always a dessert table. Just the thought of all that food puts Otis’s saliva glands to work.
He is tired now and needs his afternoon nap. He’ll do the rest of the housework later. Instead of going to the bedroom he shared with Fern, he goes to the mud room off the kitchen where there is an old cot. He lies down and soon falls asleep. While sleeping, he dreams.
An image of a harbor springs up in his mind. In the harbor a boat is drifting toward the horizon. Otis is standing on a beach, watching as the boat slips below the waterline. The sun soon fades away, too, and then everything is cloaked in darkness. In the next image, Otis sees himself as the boy he once was. He is with his father and they are picking blueberries. Otis trips over a tree root, and every berry in his quart-sized pail goes flying. He hears his father yell at him. He calls Otis a clumsy ox and says he will never amount to anything. A third image brings more sadness to Otis’s mind. This time he dreams Fern is alive. They are walking along a country road when out of nowhere a car speeds by and someone tosses a bag out the window. Otis hears himself crying out for the driver to come back, but he goes around a bend in the road and doesn’t return. When Otis opens the bag, he finds weeds inside. Fern tells him she is disappointed and starts crying. It all seems so real that he wakes with a start. His heart is thumping wildly and he calls Fern’s name, but there is only the sound of a bird chirping somewhere outside.