The Blessed Read Online Free PDF Page B

church building, but they observed the Sabbath with their own worship hour by reading out of the Bible and singing a hymn or two.
    Miss Mona knew how to bring the Lord down and make him real for Lacey. She experienced more worship in one Sunday with Miss Mona than she had in the two dozen Sundays since sitting on the hard pews listening to Preacher Palmer. The fault was in her. She knew that. Since Miss Mona passed on, Lacey seemed resistant to the word of the Lord. As if he’d done her a wrong turn and she didn’t see the need of offering herself up for another round of sorrow.
    As she waited for Preacher Palmer’s next words, she kept her eyes on her apron and swallowed down the sigh that wanted to heave out of her. It appeared that such bouts of trouble came along to seek a body out even when that person was trying to stay small and hidden from the notice of the Lord. And the preacher.
    “True enough,” Preacher Palmer agreed in his pastor voice. “But a church can’t long stand united when that talk is about their leader.”
    She didn’t know what to say to that, because she couldn’t deny the truth in his words. In her mind she was already wondering what she could use to carry off the books Miss Mona had given her over the years and hoping the preacher had another house in mind that might need a hired girl. One that would take her and Rachel, but even as she thought it, she knew there wouldn’t be any such house as that. He’d simply be shed of them both. Soon as he found Lacey a place, he’d carry Rachel down to the city to turn her over to whoever would take the child off his hands.
    Lacey folded the edge of her apron over and then over again. Just the thought of that, of Rachel being given over to strangers, loaded down her heart with so much pain that it seemed to be sinking down into her stomach. How could the Lord take Miss Mona and leave them in such a predicament? Miss Mona had always prayed and done what was right. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe now that Miss Mona was gone, Lacey hadn’t prayed enough. If so, she was willing to make some changes.
    She pushed out her words. “Miss Mona would tell us we need to pray over those who see problems where there aren’t any.”
    “You can rest assured I pray over my people every day. Not an hour goes by that I don’t reach up for the Lord’s hand in guidance. I walk in prayer.” Preacher Palmer’s voice didn’t sound a bit prayerful. Instead he sounded almost angry. “I never had need of Mona telling me to pray.”
    “I wasn’t aiming to say you did,” Lacey said softly. “But I do miss her prayers for me.”
    Preacher Palmer shifted uneasily in the chair across from Lacey, as if her mention of Miss Mona’s prayers smote him. Lacey guessed the grief was even heavier on his heart than it was on Lacey’s after the years the two of them had been together. Longer than Lacey had lived, Miss Mona had told her once.
    Lacey sneaked a look up at him. His face was hard as stone as he stared out toward the door. His nose was long and sharp, and his eyes more gray than blue and just as sharp in a different way. His long legs twitched a little, and she thought he was wishing he could just get up and go do some walking and praying right then. But he stayed in the chair as silence fell over them. The fire popped in the cookstove and the teakettle sang as the water in it began to steam. Lacey hadn’t washed the dishes from their supper yet, and she wished she could get up, pour the water in the pan, and make the dishes rattle as she washed them clean. The silence overtop them was too loud. Especially after she’d invited in Miss Mona’s shadow to sit down with them.
    She stared back down at her apron and waited. Preacher Palmer opened and closed his hands on the table as if his rheumatism might be paining his fingers. She thought of offering to fetch him a hot rag to bring him some comfort, but she didn’t move. Instead as the silence between them