Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [12]
“It’s just the right size, and it will soon be perfect.”
Patricia laughed. “Aren’t you the most precious little thing?”
The Pierces proved industrious, pitching in to unload the trailer in less than thirty minutes. Paul locked the place and handed Thomas the key. “Now let’s get that trailer dropped off; then you follow me to our place. Bet you’re starvin’.”
The Darby Trailer
“Guess your mama works weekends, hey?” Aunt Lois said as Uncle Carl pulled up to the trailer.
“Every day except Monday,” Brady said, eager to get inside and raid her carton for a pack of cigarettes. It had been so long since he’d enjoyed a whole one.
“You want me to come in and straighten the place a little?”
“Nah, it’s all right. Petey and I can do it.”
“I don’t want to clean house,” Peter said, but Brady gave him a look.
“Let me,” Aunt Lois said.
“No, really. We’re good.”
“Take your brother to church tomorrow, hear?”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to!” Peter said.
“We’re going, and that’s that,” Brady said, sliding out of the car.
“Where do you go?” his aunt said.
“That little Baptist church on the other side of the park.”
“Good.”
Brady tried to look as solemn as possible and thanked his aunt and uncle as Peter bounded into the trailer.
“That boy needs you, Brady,” Carl said. “I worry about him.”
“I got his back,” Brady said. “Believe me.”
By the time Brady got inside, Peter had already changed and was playing a video game.
“We don’t really have to clean up this place, do we?”
“’Course not.”
“And we aren’t going to church either, right?”
Brady snorted. “Like that’ll happen.”
Peter paused the game and looked up. “So you lied.”
Brady pulled off the bolo tie and sat. “White lies. Telling people what they want to hear so you don’t hurt their feelings. That’s why you got to not say out loud everything you do and don’t want to do. Just say, ‘Yeah, sure.’ It’s not like they’re gonna check.”
“What if they do?”
“What? Ask us? We just tell ’em some Bible story we learned in Sunday school and say the sermon was boring. What’re they going to do, call the church to see if we were really there?”
Peter shrugged and turned back to the game.
“But you shouldn’t lie, Petey.”
“Except to not hurt people’s feelings?”
“Right.”
Brady found his mother’s stash of smokes—two whole cartons, one still unopened. He hid it outside, under the trailer, and took a pack from the other. Tearing off the cellophane, ripping the tinfoil, tapping the pack against his palm, sliding one out, lighting up—all of it relaxed him.
Petey came from the back. “Let me try one.”
“No.”
“Mom’ll never know.”
“No, but I will. You got to promise me you’ll never smoke.”
“Everybody smokes.”
“Not everybody.”
“Why do you?”
“Got started and can’t stop. Costs money and kills you.”
“Doesn’t cost you money.”
“It will. Now promise me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to a movie and you’re going with me.”
“Yeah!” Peter said.
“We’ve got to hitchhike.”
Oldenburg
“Do you think this is all theirs?” Grace said as Thomas followed the SUV through a gate and down a half-mile drive through acres and acres enclosed by seemingly endless white fences.
The sign above the entryway had read, “Pierce Dairy.”
“Likely. Pretty nice.”
The sprawling house and adjacent garage looked like a hotel. Once inside, Patricia took the pie back from Grace and served them in the dining room. Paul launched into a history of the church, “if you can call it that anymore. Used to have almost 250 people. Less than 100 now, but I guess you know that. We’ve already spread the word you’ll be preaching tomorrow, so we might have a few more. The curious, you know.”
“You want me to preach tomorrow already?”
“Why not? Surely you’ve got a chestnut or two you’re fond of.”
“He does,” Grace said, delicately dabbing her lips. “Thomas, you could preach ‘Down to Joppa,’ the Jonah message.”
“If I can find my notes, I suppose I could,” Thomas said.
Grace laughed. “If you can’t find them, you could preach it by heart. I could preach it by heart!”
Had he really preached that same sermon that many