With some shuffling sounds, people looked around toward the back.
For all like we’re the circus come to town, he borrowed Brian’s analogy and wanted to snatch Jewel and run.
The minister gestured toward the front right pew. “Torin and Jewel Rees, we’ve saved a place for you two.”
Too late to escape. Torin slowly walked up the aisle with Jewel, keeping his face forward, gaze focused on the empty space in the second pew.
The woman next to the place turned.
With a shock, he recognized Ivy. His stomach tightening, Torin awaited her response.What if she doesn’t want us to sit next to her?
Her eyes widened and lips parted in obvious disbelief, then a radiant expression dawned on her face. Tears welled in her eyes.
No tears.He thought the command at her.
Jewel saw Ivy and let go of Torin. “Iv-ee.” She started an ungainly run toward her governess.
Ivy moved into the aisle, crouched, and held out her arms.
Jewel fell into them. “We come ch-ush.”
“Yes, you have, you brave girl.” Ivy wrapped her arms around the child. “Come sit with me.”
For a brief moment, Torin imagined Reverend Abner Maynard frowning at the spectacle they were making and disapproving at how they’d disrupted the service. But when he glanced up with an apologetic look, he saw Reverend Norton beaming beatifically.
Ivy looked up at Torin with the most luminous smile, one that cracked his heart wide open, thawing the iciness he’d carried inside for far too many years.
Everyone in the pew scooted closer and made the space wider to better accommodate them. Ivy sat down next to Cora, pulling Jewel close, and Torin took the place on the end. He nodded at Cora and Brian, then Hank and Elsie on the other side.
The minister made a slight gesture for the piano accompanist to go ahead, and she played the first chords of the hymn.
The congregation stood to sing, and, belatedly, Torin joined in.
Tongue out, his daughter looked up at Ivy and then at him, and he could almost see her wheels turning. He spotted the moment Jewel realized she could sing, too.
He toned down his volume just to listen to Ivy’s sweet voice emphasizing the words for Jewel, and to his daughter singing, often off-key, the words a mishmash, and sometimes a beat behind, and thought he’d never heard anything so harmonious. He leaned forward to look down the row at his brothers and their women and saw their glances at his daughter and their happy smiles. The supportive energy they directed toward them soaked into his skin. As Torin sat there, the tightness in his chest and shaking in his legs gradually eased.
The service rolled on, the rituals so deeply engrained in his memory that he didn’t have to pay much attention. Although, when Reverend Norton stood at the pulpit and began to preach, Torin resolved to listen closely.
After reciting a text from Luke, the minister launched into the sermon. “Throughout the Gospels, we have examples of Jesus choosing to associate with and love the outcasts—those who were different.” Although he looked like a preacher who’d thunder out the words, Reverend Norton spoke in an almost conversational tone, which, oddly, was more compelling. He went on to mention the lepers healed, the prostitute forgiven, the tax collector redeemed, and the Samaritan welcomed.
As the minister worked through each example, Torin felt himself relaxing, or as much as he could relax with Ivy so close he could smell the scent of roses, which definitely made concentrating difficult. But he had the feeling that Reverend Norton preached the sermon to let him know they were welcome into the fold and to remind the congregation to act like Jesus and accept his daughter.
At the conclusion of the sermon, Reverend Norton announced the offering hymn would be “Just As I Am.”
As the offering basket went by, Torin dropped in a silver dollar. Then he guiltily realized he should have put in more money. After all, he hadn’t tithed for years.
Jewel didn’t know this hymn, but she didn’t care. She loudly sang a jumble of words and notes that, in the beginning, bore little resemblance to the real version, but she improved a bit as she caught on to the tune.
Torin hoped the Good Lord was as gratified by his daughter’s “joyful noise” as he was.
Once he looked up and saw Reverend Norton watching her with a smile, and Torin sent up a prayer of gratitude that the man wasn’t offended by his daughter’s lack of perfection.
Halfway through singing the third verse, Torin realized that his actions today had been following the words of the hymn.
Just as I am – though toss’d about,
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
