Читать книгу Safety Harbor - Chuck Cooper - Страница 16

Stewart lay awake beside his wife who had arrived home half an hour ago. She was sleeping so soundly that he checked to make sure she was still breathing. She was his anchor in these dark and difficult days of his life.

Sleep should come so easily, he thought. Keith’s death had hit him hard. They had become friends after Katye and he had moved to Safety Harbor. It was a strange relationship. Keith was pure blue-collar working class, plain spoken, and with no pretensions. Stewart found him refreshing and welcomed a friendship with someone who had those qualities. He had a mouth on him but Stewart secretly savored that too as he was accustomed to people speaking carefully around him, unnaturally even, and when they did slip in a word of profanity or two, they would immediately say, “Sorry, Reverend.”

They had met at Joe’s when Keith was waiting for Sally to finish her shift. Sally had introduced them and immediately, something deep had connected within each of the men. Stewart’s spirits sank lower as he thought about losing one of the few genuine friendships he had ever had. Sally had called him only a few minutes after she got word of Keith’s death.

“I know he would want you to do the funeral, Stewart,” Sally had said in brief phone call to him earlier in the day. “He wasn’t a religious man and didn’t have much time for what he called ‘religious, holier-than-thou people’.”

“I’ll do it!” he heard himself say. “Of course, Sally. I’ll do it! It’s a gift I can give him.”

A sickening feeling arose from his stomach and became a lump in his throat. He was not empowered to do anything in the church right now. He would have to get permission or go ahead without permission. It never struck him as an option not to do it at all.

He got out of bed and made himself a cup of tea. He sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window. What was that movement? He got up to take a closer look. He thought he saw a shadow under the streetlights. He got up and went out the front door to have a closer look.

A dark figure walked by, a silhouette in the street light. He could have sworn it was Joe. He rushed outside.

“Joe? Joe!”

The figure disappeared into the darkness.