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57 Christian Ladies M arsha and I share a similar history with her brother. The last time she saw Mike was in 1978. She was pregnant with her second child, whom she would name for her favorite saint. Today her son, Paul, is twenty-five; he never met his uncle. I learned all this when Marsha and I spoke on the phone in December, a few weeks before I left New York for Texas. She told me then that after Paul’s birth, she’d fallen into a tortured run of addiction and crime, ending up in prison twice. Each time she’d held to the belief that Jesus would one day free her from this self-created hell. She read the New Testament over and over until its message was seared on her heart: I Am The Way. There’d be more pain and more backsliding, but eventually her faith would prevail over the familial urge to self-destruct. Released from prison for the last time in 1991, she called her mother, Louise , only to learn that her older sister, Pat, had committed suicide, and her brother Mike had been murdered. Her sister’s death did not surprise her; Pat had a history of harming herself. But the loss of the beloved older brother she never really knew was a vast, unforeseen grief. They’d disappeared from each other’s life, but she always expected to see him again. So many times she’d thought to take Paul and go find him. She never did. After that phone conversation, Louise sent Marsha a video of Blaze singing “If I Could Only Fly,” produced in Austin in ’88. He looked heavy and inert, so different from the lean, energetic man she’d last seen. And for the longest time, that was all she had of him. Then, one day in the late ’90s, a friend called to say that a local songwriter named Ricky Cardwell was going down to Austin to record a tribute CD for Blaze Foley. Marsha called Ricky right away and introduced herself as Blaze’s sister. Ricky cried over the phone. He’d known her brother since 1976, when he was still going by the name Depty Dawg. I 224 Christian Ladies | 225 didn’t recall meeting Ricky then, but his friendship with Dep had endured into the ’80s; he and Blaze Foley had shared gigs in Austin. Ricky couldn’t believe he was talking to Blaze’s sister—didn’t even know Blaze had a sister. That was the beginning of Marsha’s regathering her brother to her life, an act of synchronicity she ascribes to the Lord. In the years since, the Austin music community has showered her with Blaze mementoes. She now owns a little red Airline acoustic guitar he once played, and in a wooden box keeps the many snapshots and whatnots given to her by his friends and fans. Before arriving in Texas, I’d sent her a picture of Depty and me from the tree house days. Now I’m bringing her a letter, signed by Blaze in October of ’76, where he writes: Keep in touch with Marsha and tell her I love her and some day I will help make it easier for her. Marsha and I greet each other shyly. After all, it’s been decades, and even then our contact was brief. At forty-eight, she has settled gracefully into her skin. There’s a gravity about her now, as if weighted by a sorrow she has long accepted. Her likeness to her brother is unchanged: tall frame, sleek hair, chicory-blue eyes, a diamond-sharp energy. She wears blue jeans and a tiedye T-shirt, the word “Redeemed” tattooed in quotes on her ankle. Marsha lives outside Athens in a trailer set in scrub-oak woods along a rutted road. An elegant, screened-in wooden porch spills off the front door, a wedding present from her third husband, Tom. Two dogs greet me as I arrive, as do four cats with no tails, hummingbirds thrumming at feeders, and a star jasmine flowering in the yard. Married for four years, Tom and Marsha appear to be crazy about each other. He’s a robust patriarch in his late sixties with the quiet assurance of a happily married man. Tom’s a clown too; sticking cotton balls up his nose, he waits for me to notice. Both are active in the local Christian community, and keep a...

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