Free Come Sunday Morning by Terry E. Hill Page A
Authors: Terry E. Hill
him. I see how he went chasing after his dreams and left you to struggle through seminary alone.
âI didnât tell you this earlier, but when I spoke to Hezekiah, he accused me ofâ¦Well, I wonât say exactly what he accused me ofâ¦but in essence he said I was in love with you. At first I was shocked and embarrassed. But the more I thought about it the more I knew he was right.â
Samantha showed no reaction.
âI am in love with you,â Sandra continued. âBut, not in the way he meant it. I love you like a sister. He accused me of being a lesbian. Thatâs where his bruised ego caused him to miss the point completely. Heâll be disappointed to learn that Iâm just your average run-of-the-mill heterosexual. But Iâm a woman whoâs blessed enough to have another woman in my life whose friendship, happiness, and well-being are as important to me as my own. If that makes me a lesbian, then fineâ¦call me a dyke and sign me up for the standard-issue blue flannel shirt and Birkenstocks. At least I wonât have to shave my legs anymore.
âI wonât apologize or be ashamed of caring for you and for doing anything in my power to ensure that you have every opportunity to realize your dreams. The same thing youâve always done for me.â
A tear fell from Samanthaâs eye. For moments the two sat in silence.
Samantha turned to her with a smile and said, âSo, does that mean you donât want to sleep with me?â
They laughed out loud together, and Sandra replied, âSorry, girlfriend, but I like dick way too much.â
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Hattie Williams sat down in her favorite floral-print wing-back chair in her living room. She placed a round wicker sewing kit, which had belonged to her mother, on the tea table next to her. Hattie had raised three children in the house. Her husband died four years earlier and she now lived alone. The newest piece of furniture in the entire house was a small ottoman her husband had purchased twenty years earlier so she could elevate her leg and take the pressure off her arthritic knee.
Every other piece of furniture in the house had decades of stories to tell. There was the coffee table, which her youngest son hit his head on when he was four, and to this day he still had the scar. She recalled entertaining her in-laws for the first time on the tufted peach Barker Bros. sofa, which she and her husband had purchased when they first married. They took the bus to the high-end furniture store downtown and paid ten dollars a week to get the mahogany dining-room set and hutch with curved legs and claw feet out of layaway.
A pot of greens simmered on the stove, filling the small house with the smell of smoked neck bones and onions. Hattie turned on a ceramic lamp, which was shaped like a bird standing on one leg and covered with a frilly Victorian lamp shade, to provide the extra light she would need to mend the tear in her favorite housecoat.
As she searched the sewing kit for just the right thread, the image of a man in flight flashed before her.
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It is Pastor Cleaveland. Hattie leans back in the chair with a look of cautious curiosity and watches Hezekiah, wearing a meticulously tailored suit that flaps with each twist of his flailing limbs, as he plummets through the air in the sanctuary at New Testament Cathedral.
Hattie drops the sewing basket in her lap and it tumbles to the floor, spreading bobbins, pins, and needles over the thick green carpet. She gasps and covers her mouth in disbelief. Hezekiah is falling and she cannot save him. Hideous flying gargoyles accompany him as he spirals downward. They dance rhapsodically in the air around him, cheering him on to his final destination below. Their wings flap in delight as Hezekiah tries in vain to find some hint of sympathy in their grotesque faces.
âOh Lord, please donât let him fall,â Hattie cries out loud. âPlease catch him.â But the
âI didnât tell you this earlier, but when I spoke to Hezekiah, he accused me ofâ¦Well, I wonât say exactly what he accused me ofâ¦but in essence he said I was in love with you. At first I was shocked and embarrassed. But the more I thought about it the more I knew he was right.â
Samantha showed no reaction.
âI am in love with you,â Sandra continued. âBut, not in the way he meant it. I love you like a sister. He accused me of being a lesbian. Thatâs where his bruised ego caused him to miss the point completely. Heâll be disappointed to learn that Iâm just your average run-of-the-mill heterosexual. But Iâm a woman whoâs blessed enough to have another woman in my life whose friendship, happiness, and well-being are as important to me as my own. If that makes me a lesbian, then fineâ¦call me a dyke and sign me up for the standard-issue blue flannel shirt and Birkenstocks. At least I wonât have to shave my legs anymore.
âI wonât apologize or be ashamed of caring for you and for doing anything in my power to ensure that you have every opportunity to realize your dreams. The same thing youâve always done for me.â
A tear fell from Samanthaâs eye. For moments the two sat in silence.
Samantha turned to her with a smile and said, âSo, does that mean you donât want to sleep with me?â
They laughed out loud together, and Sandra replied, âSorry, girlfriend, but I like dick way too much.â
Â
Hattie Williams sat down in her favorite floral-print wing-back chair in her living room. She placed a round wicker sewing kit, which had belonged to her mother, on the tea table next to her. Hattie had raised three children in the house. Her husband died four years earlier and she now lived alone. The newest piece of furniture in the entire house was a small ottoman her husband had purchased twenty years earlier so she could elevate her leg and take the pressure off her arthritic knee.
Every other piece of furniture in the house had decades of stories to tell. There was the coffee table, which her youngest son hit his head on when he was four, and to this day he still had the scar. She recalled entertaining her in-laws for the first time on the tufted peach Barker Bros. sofa, which she and her husband had purchased when they first married. They took the bus to the high-end furniture store downtown and paid ten dollars a week to get the mahogany dining-room set and hutch with curved legs and claw feet out of layaway.
A pot of greens simmered on the stove, filling the small house with the smell of smoked neck bones and onions. Hattie turned on a ceramic lamp, which was shaped like a bird standing on one leg and covered with a frilly Victorian lamp shade, to provide the extra light she would need to mend the tear in her favorite housecoat.
As she searched the sewing kit for just the right thread, the image of a man in flight flashed before her.
Â
It is Pastor Cleaveland. Hattie leans back in the chair with a look of cautious curiosity and watches Hezekiah, wearing a meticulously tailored suit that flaps with each twist of his flailing limbs, as he plummets through the air in the sanctuary at New Testament Cathedral.
Hattie drops the sewing basket in her lap and it tumbles to the floor, spreading bobbins, pins, and needles over the thick green carpet. She gasps and covers her mouth in disbelief. Hezekiah is falling and she cannot save him. Hideous flying gargoyles accompany him as he spirals downward. They dance rhapsodically in the air around him, cheering him on to his final destination below. Their wings flap in delight as Hezekiah tries in vain to find some hint of sympathy in their grotesque faces.
âOh Lord, please donât let him fall,â Hattie cries out loud. âPlease catch him.â But the