The Bible I Bought Twice

Pam looked at Kelsey. Kelsey looked at the floor. Pam reached under the counter and brought out the sack, and there it was, the gold letters catching the fluorescent light.

“You’d buy the same book twice,” Pam said.

“It’s his. It’s got his name.”

She was quiet again. Then she took off her glasses and let them hang.

“The engraving’s already done. I won’t charge you for the gold, because my girl made a mistake, and because I’d rather eat it than sell this book to anyone but him. You pay me $72.”

I did not have $72 in my purse.

I had $31 and a coffee can at home, and the coffee can was the Christmas can, where I put the little extra there is for Micah’s present and the church toy drive.

I drove home and got the can and drove back. I paid Pam in tens and fives and a handful of ones.

Kelsey held the door for me with both hands and could not meet my eyes.

I will say this for Kelsey. She had a little envelope in her apron pocket when I came back through.

It held $20 and a sticky note that said, “For the toy drive, from me.” I took it. She had earned the right to give it.

Christmas was going to be lean that year. I made my peace with that on the drive home.

I had a freezer full of beef from the neighbor and a pantry full of beans, and a widow can eat out of her pantry until the new year if she has to.

I did not call Heidi. I did not call Warren.

I put the Bible in the top drawer of my dresser under my good slip, and I went to bed Friday night knowing I had a Bible and no idea how I was going to put it in his hands.

On Saturday, Micah spent the night at my house.

That had been planned for weeks. Warren and Heidi were driving to the Birmingham airport to pick up her parents, Lowell and Sherry Colburn, who were flying in for the baptism and would stay over.

Micah came to me so he would not be alone.

He arrived at four o’clock with his white shirt on a hanger and his dress pants folded over his arm.

I hung the shirt on the back of the kitchen door where I could keep an eye on it.

We made biscuits.

I stand at the counter with a rolling pin the same way I stood on my feet for thirty-one years, and he stood on a kitchen chair beside me and cut the circles with a jelly jar.

“Grandma, what do I say?” he asked. “Brother Wayne says I have to tell what happened when I decided.”

“What happened when you decided?”

He took a long time. He cut four biscuits.

“I was in the back seat and we drove past the church. And Dad had the radio off. And I just felt really, like, quiet. Like somebody was in the car being nice.”