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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 129 and shunned the straight and narrow path. She said I mustn't blame Mom, though, cause she sent me to Aunt Davina out of love; Mom knew a boy like me, bom into the Lord's covenant, shouldn't come of age in a gentile land. Aunt Davina asked me please apologize to Sharlee, but I refused. Later Sharlee came to me so pious the holy spirit must have been rancid inside her, and forgave me insulting her. The next day Aunt Davina told me she'd prayed up a sweat over me and found me a way to spend afternoons out-of-doors in the service of the Lord's host. Bishop Hearthway, she said, wanted to hire me for a groundskeeper. So that's how I came to spend so much time with the bishop's celestial wife, Sister Hearthway. First thing I noticed about the Bishop's wife was her ivory blonde hair cut short like a helmet framing a pretty face. She was five-and-a-half feet tall with a natural suntan, soft spoken, matronly in demeanor but debutante in carriage, and unfortunately prone to cellulite. But all that's superficial and ends; I have never met another person remotely like Noelle Hearthway. She is unique for grace and warmth throughout the world. Bishop Hearthway's house sat on a half-acre with high fences. The back yard, landscaped in inclining tiers that grew steeper the farther away from the house you went, had the appearance of an outdoor stadium. At the bottom was a lap pool with a concrete sun porch and a small grass lawn. Flower beds scaled the upper tiers studded with big rocks and tall trees. I'd taken hand at some landscaping back home and knew well what to do. It wasn't too hard work taking care of the bishop's yard so long as you stayed on top of it, and some things, like planting flowers, I enjoyed. The grass had to be mowed, |
