It’s a nice day for driving. I am on my way to attend a Baptist church in country. There are fourteen members in this church. Eleven of them have white hair.
I arrive. They weren’t kidding when they called this place “small.”
It’s a thirty-five-foot long room with mildewed ceilings, a piano, and rugs over the linoleum floor. I am the second one here this afternoon. The preacher, Brother Will, got here an hour before me to turn on the window-unit air conditioner for service.
This church is part of the rural quiltwork that is America. Simple, plain. This is a place our people gather to sing songs they’ve been singing since the invention of mud.
Hymns about enduring. Melodies about hard times. About believing.
Brother Will is sitting on the front pew, alone. Legs crossed, arm slung over the back. He is staring at the ceiling. The sun is setting through the windows.
He doesn’t hear me come in because he is hard of hearing
at this stage in his life.
We shake hands. He is tranquil. His face is lined with smile marks. His hair is salt and pepper. I sit beside him.
“I knew a woman, once,” he says. “A good woman.”
He is not speaking to me in the preacher-voice of a clergyman. Preachers of my childhood used tones of voice that Harvard professors might use. But this man is not like that. He is talking with me, not above me.
“She was a good woman,” he goes on. “She had two kids, one of them was really sick. Her husband didn’t make much money, worked at the mill.”
The woman took in wash to pay family bills, keep cupboards filled, and pay doctor bills.
“But her husband cheated on her,” says Brother Will. “It was awful. The man left her. She was alone with her…