Centerville

Chapter 24

236 Chapter 24 After Jack left the funeral service, the minister sat in the parking lot of Reverend Thomas’s church. The final hymn of the funeral service had been “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and it played on in the minister’s head. Everything felt broken, and he couldn’t imagine being whole again. The interior of his car was hot, and he found himself sweating even though he’d taken off his jacket. He didn’t want to go home. Nancy had argued with him that morning when she’d come into the bedroom and seen him dressing for the funeral. Then realizing how determined he was, she’d said she would go also, and drive them. But he hadn’t wanted her there. “Promise me you won’t stay long,” she’d said before he left the house. The minister knew he shouldn’t worry her, but part of him felt like sitting in his car until nightfall. The hearse was waiting at the door of the church, and Reverend Edwards watched as the coffin was brought to it. Officer Beckley had talked about his grandfather who had believed in the covenant of the rainbow. One rainbow for us, another for them. Was that how they saw it? 237 He watched the gathering of mourners disperse as the back of the hearse was closed up. Someone was wailing and the sound made him shudder. A few minutes later the hearse began to pull away, hesitated, and then drove slowly as the mourners came for their cars and formed a line that stretched to the road with their headlights gleaming. The minister watched them crawl along the drive, and when there were only a few left, he started up his own car. His own church was several miles away. He had driven past it on his way here, but he’d hardly looked at it. Now, as he followed the roads toward Maple Street, he told himself he was finished with the ministry. He would compose a letter to his congregation, announcing his decision. Fifteen minutes later, he was parked next to the church. Above him the clouds were gathering, full of purpose, the way they must have looked when Noah watched for the flood. He thought of the mourners who would just now be arriving at the cemetery. The rain when it fell would drench everything—all those gathered at the burial ground and the ruins of the drugstore. He stepped out of his car and stood in front of his church. A week ago he’d felt nestled in the small town, protected, but now the earth seemed too large to comprehend. The rain was beginning to fall. Within minutes, it came down in such thick sheets that it looked solid. It pounded the ground and coursed down his arms and legs and streamed down his face. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies : thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” He repeated those words from the Psalms in his head, words he had planned to use in the sermon for the memorial service he’d never delivered, but he didn’t feel anything. In the cemetery across town, the coffin was being lowered into the ground. He told himself this, and he thought of the mourners 238 huddled under their umbrellas with their loss. One afternoon, as he lay in the hospital bed, he’d dreamt of Officer Beckley. In the dream, he’d seen the officer lying in a field of fire. The fire had been widespread , and the minister felt as though he’d walked through miles of it before spotting another human being. He’d knelt down, reaching out, intending to help the other man stand, but when he touched the officer, he found the man was made of light. There was no substance, only an image. Above the officer’s head, a white cone emanated. The minister reached out and touched the cone, and the light went straight through him. It was wide and narrow all at once, and full of nothing and the world and grace. He knew the dream wasn’t real, but it felt as real to him as his memory of their conversation. It felt as real to him as the loss of Carlton Greenly and Stella McNeese, and as real as George Fowler’s appearance in...