Kimberly Stuart Read Online Free PDF Page A

man’s aroma overpowered that of the pine branches. He leaned over and rested his hands on his knees, eyes fixed on Stephens and brow furrowed in concentration.
    The sermon concluded and after a brief prayer, I stood and stepped forward as Mavis began the rolling chords of the introduction. One phrase in and I knew I was in remarkably good voice that evening, even for me. People smiled as I sang, a young couple near the front huddled closer to each other and joined hands. Lily even stopped with the Blackberry.
    I finished the first verse and my eyes drifted again to the back of the room. John the Baptist had risen from his seat. But instead of turning to go, as I’d assumed, he walked slowly down the center aisle. His eyes did not waver from mine, even with the rustle and twitter of people on both sides of the aisle as he made his way toward me. My hands became clammy and I began to worry he would just keep on walking right up to the stage, those intense eyes staring at me right before he ate me for breakfast. One of the mayor’s bodyguards stood from his pew and seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of taking out a man whose only crime at this point was ruffling the feathers of convention. I cleared my throat and stood straighter. This man was not going to be the source of my first and only fold during a performance.
    â€œFall on your knees,” I sang with authority.
    The man smiled, looking as if those were exactly the words he’d been waiting for. And right there, in a room full of New York City high rollers, he lowered himself slowly, down to his knees, and bowed his head. The dark, drab gray of his clothing collapsed into a muddy pool of submission, stark in contrast to the colorful and wealthy sea that surrounded him on either side. He lifted his open hands in a small gesture, bringing them to rest in front of him as if he were letting water run through his fingers.
    I caught my breath in the middle of a phrase.
    Fall on your knees.
    I stopped singing.
    Fall on your knees.
    The words rang in my ears, disorienting me until the velvet woman in front cleared her throat loudly. I gathered myself to finish the piece, though only through sheer force of will could I sing any words other than the ones that had brought that man to put his knees to the ground. The song was a command, though I’d never heard it that way. And I had certainly not thought it applied to me. Shepherds, yes. But not me. In a room full of people who were faithful to max out their 401(k)’s, monitor the nanny’s hours, and keep up their appearances in the Hamptons, this man fell on his knees without a care of what they thought of him.
    I finished the piece and stood still at the front of the room. Stephens touched my elbow and I remembered to return to my chair. When I sat down and looked up the center aisle, the man was gone.
    It was not my practice to go looking for signs and wonders. After all, one could find just about anything if one looked hard enough. That Christmas Eve, I had not come to church looking, certainly not for a sign to leave the home I loved to travel to what I thought would be the ends of the earth, no stable in sight.
    But for days afterward, the words and images pestered me. The unusually provocative sermon on humility, the man falling to his knees before a newborn baby king, the disconcerting feeling that a homeless man in Velcro sneakers had a better idea of the whole picture than I did.
    Within four days, I’d called Avi and booked a flight for the unknown.

4

    Tall Corn State
    â€œFolks, we’re about ten minutes from touchdown. Weather in Maplewood is nippy this afternoon. We’re looking at seventeen degrees with winds out of the northwest at twenty miles an hour. Buckle up and get ready to button up!”
    Was it a requirement in pilot training to talk like a game show host? I tossed back the remaining drops of my drink. I clutched the shreds of a Heartland Air cocktail napkin