The Bible I Bought Twice

Micah came up onto my porch on a Thursday afternoon with his shoes untied and his school backpack hanging off one shoulder.

I was snapping green beans into a dishpan. He sat down on the top step and watched my hands.

He was nine years old.

In three days he was going to be baptized at Pine Grove Baptist, the same church where I had been baptized in 1967, in the same tank behind the choir loft.

“Grandma,” he said, “Mom said you forgot my Bible.”

I stopped snapping. A bean stayed half broken between my fingers. “Forgot it?”

“She said you got busy and it slipped your mind. She said it’s fine, because Granny Sherry and Pa Lowell are getting me one.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. I know you’re old and stuff.”

He did not say it to hurt me. That was the worst part.

He said it the way a boy reports the weather, kind and a little sorry for me, and then he reached into the dishpan and started helping with the beans.

I did not forget that Bible. I had not forgotten one thing about it since the second week of August.

I should tell you who I am, because the rest of this makes more sense if you know. My name is Maxine Lathem. I am sixty-six years old.

I cooked lunches at Winston County Elementary for thirty-one years, and I retired on a pension that covers the light bill, the truck insurance, and not much else.

I could not name every child who ever came through my line, but I could come close. I knew who ate the rolls and who hid the peas.

I knew whose mama was in the hospital and who needed an extra scoop and no questions asked.

A woman like that does not forget a boy’s baptism.

Back in August, my son Warren called to tell me Micah had decided to give his life to the Lord. Warren is my only child, and he works doubles at the poultry plant in Double Springs.

He said it in the voice of a man who has been holding good news in his chest for a week.

I sat down on my kitchen floor with the phone in my hand and thanked God out loud, alone in the house. Then I got up and started doing arithmetic.

I wanted to give him a real Bible. Not a paperback off the church rack.

A black leather one with a ribbon marker and his whole name stamped in gold on the front, the kind you carry for forty years and hand down.

The bookstore in Haleyville had one for $72. The gold engraving was another $18.

That made $90, and I had it counted out by the first of October, because I set aside $45 from my check two months running and did without.

I did without a lot of things. I did without my Friday hair appointment and let the gray come in. I did without the good coffee.