WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Thirty-One

Julia McCulloch stored the last of her four unbaked pies in a reserve refrigerator in the back hallway and then retrieved a box of Thanksgiving decorations from an adjoining storage closet. As she placed the "T-giving" box on the dining room table, she saw headlights coming up the driveway. She knew it was Drew. She took off her apron and draped it on the back of a dining room chair, then walked to the foyer to turn on the front porch lights and a post light at the end of the driveway. She opened the front door and waved to him through the closed storm door.

She then walked upstairs and switched on the upstairs hall light, seeing three closed doors to other bedrooms. She knew that the house was now too big for just the two of them, but she would never leave it. She often said that they were going to have to take her out of that house feet first, but that it wasn't going to be like what happened with Mrs. Dean.

When Julia was a little girl in Ohio, an elderly woman who lived three doors up the street from her house had died at home. The widow of a judge, Mrs. Dean had been laid out in the parlor of her home before her interment, per her instructions; however, the only access was a narrow front door. When the time came for her pallbearers to take her from the house to the hearse parked on the street in front, the coffin wouldn't fit through the door. A decision was made to turn the coffin on its side, since that was the way the empty coffin got in the house in the first place. Again turning Mrs. Dean's coffin to the side caused pallbearers to scramble to adjust to the sudden change in weight. They succeeded in not dropping her; however, they had to shake the coffin outside the house to get Mrs. Dean settled again, before sliding her into the hearse. Julia never forgot the loud plop Mrs. Dean made as she shifted suddenly inside her coffin as she crossed the threshold into eternity. That was a story she had only told to Sam and she wouldn't dare share it with her children.

Sam was awake, lying on top of a comforter on the queen bed. He was dressed, with his shoes on the floor. On the wall above the headboard hung a large oil painting of a rainbow that Annie had given them for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Annie knew the story about the rainbow and thought a painting would be the best way to honor its memory.

Sam had his hands behind his head and was thinking that he would be an old man before he knew it and wished that what he knew now was what he had known then, not that it would've made any difference in how things turned out in his life.

He had heard Julia coming up the stairs. As Julia entered their bedroom, Sam smiled when he looked at her. "Good Lord, Julia Lemasters, you sure are a fine-looking woman."

"I haven't been called Julia Lemasters since we went to my college reunion."

"You'll always be twenty-two to me."

Julia couldn't help but smile at Sam's flattery. "It's only in your mind, Sam, and my monthly Social Security check indicates otherwise. Now, you need to get up. Drew's downstairs. He wants to talk with you."

"How do you know? I didn't hear him."

Julia and Sam knew right then when the storm door creaked. "Now I did," said Sam.

They heard the front door open and Drew enter, yelling, "Mom? Dad? Where is everyone?"

"We'll be right there, Drew," she yelled, then turned to her husband. "Did you want Drew to come upstairs?"

"I'm not an invalid. . . yet," Sam answered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and slipping on his shoes.

As Sam tied his shoelaces, the phones in the house rang. Drew yelled upstairs, "Want me to get that?"