WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Eighty-Eight

Julia McCulloch decided to put on a pair of tweed slacks. She would wear her wool skirt tomorrow, the one Sam had picked up from Bonnie Ziegler yesterday. The temperatures were getting chillier at night and the start of winter weather was only days away. She opened her sweater drawer and opted for a plain cardigan to go over her blouse. Normally, she felt she wouldn't be this particular about what she was wearing; however, she was going to church, not something she did with any regularity. Sam was the churchgoer in the family.

Julia decided she would put on an interesting necklace and be done with it; the faux pearls would be for tomorrow along with the wool skirt. Tomorrow was tradition about home, family and country; tonight was tradition too, but a localized version that had even wider repercussions beyond those confines and definitions. It was the ecumenical Thanksgiving church service where Castlebury citizens of all religious practices gathered to pray for God's blessings at one of the local houses of worship. This year it was at St. Simeon's turn to host it. The service was an opportunity to thank the Lord, or whatever one wanted to call one's deity, for whatever one thought needed to be thanked.

Sam was deciding which tie to wear that night. Among citizens who had first suggested such an interfaith prayer service some thirty years ago, he had been asked to read one of the lessons this evening. The service was usually relaxed but also quite serious in its message of unity and commonality. He showed Julia two ties, one with little turkeys on it and another with red and yellow stripes.

"Which one?"

"The stripes. Wear the turkeys tomorrow. The kids will love it."

"I wore it last year."

"The kids will love it again."

"That's true. Lindsay hasn't seen it."

"Not unless she had x-ray vision in Cara's womb."

Sam smiled at Julia's comment. "We should get going," he said, threading the striped tie between collar buttons of a white shirt.

"You might think of a blue shirt tonight. It's less formal. Keep the white one for tomorrow."

"I am the only one who wears a white shirt tomorrow."

"That is because you are the paterfamilias, Sam. The patriarch. You have to look the part. And you do."

"Which then makes you the matriarch."

"Not unless Emma wants to abdicate. She is still firmly enthroned in that role."

"Do I detect. . . ?"

"You detect nothing. I love my sister, but. . ."

"But you also love being in charge in your own home."

"Enough, Sam."

The phones in the house set off a cacophony on both floors. "Speaking of Emma, let's hope that's her calling."

"You know her ring?"

Julia gave him her look, the one where her chin goes down and her eyes go up. She didn't have to say anything further to him. Sam knew he had to cease and desist for now. He threaded his striped tie between the collar buttons of a blue shirt as Julia answered the phone on the bedside table.

"Hello," said Julia. "Yes, this is she." Julia listened as Sam slid shirtsleeves over his arms, buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his gray wool pants. The conversation on the phone went on longer than Sam expected, especially since Julia wasn't saying anything except, "Yes, I heard what you said."

Sam was tying his necktie in front of a mirror when Julia finally said, "Thank you very much" and hung up the phone. "Well, Emma is somewhere and no one seems to be concerned, except me. She got off the cruise ship in the Bahamas and apparently got back on for the last leg back to Miami. They said that they didn't leave Nassau without her. Apparently again, she had wanted to stay in Nassau and offered to absolve the cruise line of any responsibility for her not continuing with the trip back to Florida."

"So, what happened in the Bahamas?"

"Apparently, it is staying in the Bahamas."

"Did Emma stay in the Bahamas?"

"Their passenger manifest said she disembarked in Miami."

"So, she's somewhere between here and there."

"I presume so."

"I told you that she commandeered a vessel and is in the middle of the Gulf Stream right now, trying to get here."

"Sam. . ."

"Maybe we should alert the Coast Guard."

"Sam. . ."

Sam had been politely admonished. He knew to be less dismissive. "She'll contact you somehow. Maybe use semaphores from the deck of the ship. . ."

"Sam. . ."

"You know that she's alive. Maybe she met someone and. . ."

"Sam, I don't like that she hasn't contacted us. This has me very worried." Sitting at her vanity, Julia brushed her hair. "You did mention pirates earlier."

"Do you want to file a missing person report?" he asked. When Julia looked at him in the mirror as he stood behind her, he emphasized, "I'm serious."

"Not yet. It's just not like her to be so irresponsible. Something has happened."

"For all you know, she could still be in Nassau on a beach with a piña colada in one hand and a cabana boy in the other." Sam couldn't resist making the comment.

"Sam!" Julia stopped brushing her hair and got control of herself. "That would never happen," she insisted.

"We know. But we can hope, can't we?" He chuckled as he reached in his closet to extract a blue blazer off a wooden hanger.

Sam saw that Julia was thinking of throwing her hairbrush at him. He spread the blue blazer in front of himself, "Julia, love of my life, you're going to church. . ."

Julia laid the hairbrush on the vanity and began laughing. "But Sam, could you imagine if. . . ?" she wondered blithely. "Emma? Lying on the beach and doing what you said. . . ?"

"I've got to get past the visual of your seventy-something sister in a bikini." Julia reached for her hairbrush, but then burst out laughing. Even in the lightheartedness, Sam wanted to reassure her, "You know she's all right."

"I know, Sam. No one would ever dare mess with her. Especially in a bikini."

Her comment prompted Sam to mumble under his breath, "And no one would ever mess with her sister either, especially with a hairbrush in her hand." He put on his blue blazer.

Julia stood up from the vanity and adjusted her necklace. "I just wish she'd call or something."

"She probably wants to surprise you."

"Enough for now, Sam. We don't want to be late for church."

"You look very nice," Sam said,

As Sam checked a white linen handkerchief in the breast pocket of his blazer, Julia approached him. "As do you, but your tie's crooked."

She adjusted the knot in Sam's tie and gave him a quick kiss. Sam followed Julia out of their bedroom and turned off the overhead light as he exited. Julia started down the stairs to the foyer, saying "We'll probably need overcoats, Sam. It's getting cool once the sun goes down."