Chapter 5

Yirmeyah

Early on the church had adopted the practice of having me eat, one Sunday a month, with one of the church's families. I suspect that if I'd been married it never would have happened that way. But I was single, and just a couple of years out of high school, and I didn't turn down the chance to get home cooking once a month. My mother cooked like a farm wife, which of course she was. And that's what I grew up on and loved. McDonald's is all right, and there's a lot you can do with the microwave, and I managed to cook a little here and there without poisoning myself or burning the place down. But a home cook I'm not, and the chance to get good cooking was one I wouldn't ever pass up.

That month was the Morrisons' turn – that week in fact. I let them get home and changed, if they wanted to change, into something more comfortable than church clothes. I went to my apartment, and got out of my suit and into something that better suited me. I put on my jeans, and a blue work shirt, and a pair of running shoes, and grabbed my gimme hat that I'd gotten in Greenville years before. By now the church knew not to expect me in fancy clothes when I wasn't preaching, so I knew the family wouldn't stare at me like I'd just crawled out of the lake.

Or the river, since there aren't any lakes in Albuquerque, unless you count Tingley Beach, which isn't a beach anyway. Back then it wasn't much more than a large mud hole. Anyway, I knew they'd not be surprised when I showed up comfortable.

I knew that Cassie still lived with her parents, while she worked and saved up for later. Somewhere I'd heard she'd had her own place for a little while, but it wasn't anything definite. I didn't know whether she was contemplating marriage. She was 23, three years older than I was, but these days that's young. Daddy tells me that he got married when he was 19, and I know from my studies that Mary may have been just 14 or so when she found herself pregnant with Jesus, and her age at that time wasn't unusual. But these days people generally wait longer, which makes sense because they live longer too.

Well, they usually wait longer to get married. Some of them don't wait even that long to start having sex. But that's another matter. I didn't think Cassie was likely thinking about marriage yet, and I certainly wasn't, not at 20 years old. But I did wonder what she was saving for, since most women that age have moved out already – and stayed moved out.

It wasn't necessarily my business, of course. While a shepherd has to watch his sheep, the kind of nosiness that has led some preachers to nearly pry into the marriage bed is out of the question for me. I couldn't do it if I had to, and I don't think the Bible requires me to. It's my business if one of my people is having sex outside of marriage. But it's not my business what my people do within their marriages, so long as they're both agreeable and it doesn't harm anyone or bring disgrace on God. I'd take notice if a couple were exposing themselves in their backyard with nothing but a low fence between them and the neighbors. But it's not my business if the same couple goes inside.

So I didn't ever ask why Cassie was still at home. Clearly her parents didn't mind, and she was working for her keep. That's what counted. The Bible makes it very clear we must care for the poor and the widows and the orphans, and those who can't care for themselves. But it's equally clear that if someone's not willing to work, he has no claim on the church for support. Cassie wasn't asking for anything from the church, but if she did, I wouldn't have any qualms about giving it because she was working.

Whatever her reasons, she was there with her parents when I drove up. I'd brought my pickup with me from Texas, though it surely was out of place in Albuquerque. It was an old red Chevy I'd bought off my daddy when I went to Bible college, and while it ran well it wasn't pretty. I parked it on the street, since the driveway had Cassie's car and the family's minivan in it. I walked across the lawn and rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Morrison answered the door. Her name was Katherine.

"Come in, come in, Brother Hudson," she said.

I did, taking off my hat. I looked around and found a corner of a little table to put the hat on, behind a framed portrait of the family. I didn't think the hat looked bad, exactly, but next to all the upscale stuff in the house it did look countrified.

"Come in and sit down. Jason will be out in a minute, he's off using the restroom, and Cassie's in the kitchen helping me."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No, no, it's almost done. You're our guest, Brother Hudson."

I've gotten used to people calling me everything but my first name. I can say it without trying, since I've been saying it all my life, and to me it's normal. But it's not normal to anyone else. The people at Hopeful had experimented around for a couple of weeks, and then settled on "Brother Hudson" as the simplest thing to call me. That's what they'd done in Cisco too, that or "Preacher." I kept wanting people to call me by my first name. I'm a country boy after all. But I knew it was useless to ask.