Page 26 of The Formation of Us
Adam flicked his fingers across the top of her head. “Because we want people to like us.”
Faith exchanged a glance with her aunts, who had altered their old dresses to appear respectful enough for church. They had even donned bonnets, but their usually vivacious faces were pinched with discomfort. Faith suspected it had been years since any of them set foot in a church. She had been herself once, and it was the worst moment of her life. But Adam was right. If they didn’t attend church, they would be ostracized from the community.
It sure seemed like every person in Fredonia was gathered in town this morning. The streets surrounding the Common were lined with carriages and nickering horses. Large families gathered and greeted friends as each made their way inside one of the three churches near the twin parks. Faith eyed the brick buildings with their arched windows and tall spires, and had no idea which church to enter.
“Look, Mama!” Cora pointed. “There’s the sheriff!”
There he was indeed, his tall, broad-shouldered body clothed in a well-cut black suit that enhanced his dark good looks.
Last night he hadn’t shown up for his shoulder treatment. Faith didn’t know if his job had called him away, or if he’d changed his mind about having her restore his shoulder. Whatever his reason for not visiting, she didn’t want to discover the answer in front of his family or his admiring lady friends.
Several young women were twirling their parasols, vying for his attention, but he only nodded pleasantly and strode toward the church. How could he be so unaffected by those pretty women? Even from where she was standing, Faith could see that some of them were lovely. Was the man immune to a woman’s charms?
“It could benefit us to go to the same church the Grayson family attends,” Iris said, her cheeks flushed from all the stares she was receiving. Tansy, Aster, and Dahlia nodded in agreement.
They were right, but Faith waited for the sheriff to enter the church before she led them across the Common and followed him inside.
After being in the bright morning sunshine, she found the interior of the church depressingly dim. The building smelled of musty books and beeswax and a cloying mix of colognes. Why worship God in a dark building when he’d given them this beautiful morning to enjoy? Why not stand in the fresh air beneath the maple trees in the Common to sing praises?
Faith stood at the back of the church, scanning the full pews, wondering where they would sit. Would they be asked to leave if there wasn’t room for them?
“Good morning, Mrs. Wilkins.”
The sheriff’s voice startled her, and she glanced up into his warm brown eyes. A flock of flutter-birds took flight inside her stomach. Her mother had told her when she was a small child that her stomach was a world of its own, complete with sky and sea and tiny flutter-birds that were upset by any nervous shift in the wind; and Faith had believed it for the longest time. Even now she couldn’t shake the appropriate image of birds beating their wings in her stomach, because that was exactly how it felt.
“Good morning, Sheriff Grayson!” Cora said brightly.
Faith laid her fingers over the child’s mouth. “Hush, sweetie.”
“Good morning,” he whispered, then reached up and pulled the cap off Adam’s head, revealing Adam’s new haircut. “No hats in church,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Adam agreed quietly, then tucked his brown cap under his arm.
The sheriff looked less threatening without his gun, but he was too handsome and far more dangerous to her heart in his suit and tie. He gestured with his chin. “My mother is making room in her pew for you ladies.”
Faith looked over a sea of people to where Nancy Grayson waved her glove-encased hand at them. The sheriff escorted them to her pew, but didn’t sit with them. He guided Adam to the back of the church to stand with a large group of men, three of whom shared a remarkable resemblance to the sheriff.
“Those are my sons,” Nancy whispered, stepping aside so Faith could enter the pew.
Faith lifted Cora onto her hip then stepped in behind Iris. As she sat, she nodded to Evelyn and Claire and another woman about their age with hair the color of a burnished chestnut.
“That’s my daughter-in-law Amelia,” Nancy whispered, settling beside Faith. “She married my son Kyle, who’s in back with Duke.”
Faith looked toward the sheriff and the men beside him. There was no doubt those four tall, handsome men were brothers. She turned to greet Amelia, and received a warm smile in return. Amelia was as pretty as Evelyn and Claire, but the three women were as different in looks as each season. Amelia was autumn at its peak color, with her brown eyes and gorgeous hair of reds, golds, and browns. Evelyn’s sable hair was black as a winter night, and her gemstone eyes sparkled like holiday ornaments. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Claire reminded Faith of a summer field of wheat under an endless blue sky.
Nancy Grayson was no season at all. She was mother earth, and this family drew their sustenance from her.
“This is my granddaughter Rebecca.” Nancy slipped her arm around a cute, dark-haired girl about Adam’s age. “She’s Radford and Evelyn’s oldest.”
The girl nodded politely, but a blast from a pipe organ buried her soft greeting. The sound filled the church and vibrated in Faith’s chest. The congregation surged to its feet en masse. Faith and her aunts hurried to follow suit.
Cora put her hands over her ears. “What’s that noise?”
Faith lifted the child onto her hip. “It’s an organ,” she whispered quickly, hoping no one realized Cora didn’t recognize the sound. Faith had only heard it once herself, but she would never forget that powerful blast that had swept the breath from her.
Six weeks ago on a chilly Sunday morning Judge Stone had shown up at the brothel and demanded the deed to the property. Her mother had argued fiercely and tried to push him out of her home, but that had caused her own fall over the second floor railing. Stone had walked out, leaving them to get a doctor, but they hadn’t known any doctors. So Faith and Dahlia had rushed into a church several blocks away, their cries for help buried in the blast of the church organ and impassioned singing. When the song ended and their pleas could be heard, a kind doctor in the congregation had gone to the brothel with them, but the fall had injured her mother’s head too severely, and she died twelve hours later.
Faith had known few acts of kindness from strangers, and she would forever remember the bespectacled doctor and his sincere sorrow that he couldn’t save her mother.
