Cherish: a Still, Small Call

By Debby L. Johnston

Like Abraham leaving the land of Ur, Andy Garrett hears a still, small voice and feels compelled to leave his bartending job to embark on an unexpected journey. The strange part is that he doesnt yet know the God who has spoken, and he cant quite explain to friends and family why he is so radically changing his course. How do you explain that even though you dont know what to believe about God, youve upset your whole life to do what you think Hes told you to do?

Author Debby L. Johnstons Cherish: A Still, Small Call is Andy Garretts story. Follow him through a mixed-up childhood to his first job at a Chicago bar, the halls of a small religious college, and finally to Cherish, a little town in the middle of nowhere. At the college, feel his joy when he meets the Lord again this time with a real introduction. And meet Abbey, the lovely woman who seems to understand the call God has placed on him.

Take the journey to Cherish, and youll come to love the Lord, the place, and the people as much as Andy and Abbey do. Smile, cry, and be inspired as the young Garretts embrace and are embraced by the little First Baptist Church. Follow, too, their loving attempts to redeem the past. Every day is filled with learning and love. Who knows? You may find that Cherish the book and Cherish the town change you, too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490884165

Debby L. Johnston

With four Christian books already published (including a novel trilogy and a collection of short stories), Debby L. Johnston makes her first foray into the Christian teen fiction genre with The Onyx Stones: Mystery of the Underground People. A graduate of Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, and a pastor's wife, Debby hopes that young readers will take The Onyx Stones adventure with Cricket and Josh and grow in excitement for Jesus' return!

Book preview

PART ONE: LISTENING

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CHAPTER ONE

SCHOOL (1952)

You would have thought it was the Olympics. Breathless from the effort, Andy braced himself on the swing set.

I told you I could run faster than you! he panted.

Mike protested, Only because I tripped! I could have beaten you. Let’s race again…

But the back door opened, and the call for lunch rang out.

Come on, Mike urged. One more time.

Nuh-uh. My mom said come now.

Like a champion athlete, five-year-old Andy hunkered down. Then, with a studied lead from a pretend block and an imaginary blast from a starter gun, he burst away toward the yellow two-story house, legs pounding like little pistons. Mike scowled and retrieved his scarred softball. With a disgusted sigh, he stomped down the alley. Andy wished he didn’t have to stop to eat, but he was hungry. He would hurry.

There were few fences in the tired old neighborhood on Sharon Avenue. The lack of boundaries meant the backyards were ripe for play by a slew of ruddy-cheeked children. Their clovered kingdom ranged from the shadow of the old dentist’s home on the corner of Grant Street to the abandoned eyesore on Taft. The uneven grassy expanse was constantly trampled by races, Red Rover, and ball games. In the winter the landscape was boot-battered and dotted with snowmen and battle-pocked snow forts.

Andy knew everyone who lived there. Mr. Padgett’s pearlescent pigeons were seldom released to fly, and his wife Daisy baked cookies for children who came to collect fallen feathers or infertile eggs. Mr. and Mrs. Kemple waved from rusty porch rockers as they rustled the pages of the Herndon Reporter or The Chicago Sun Times. Mrs. Sheldon threatened bodily harm if they disturbed her spindly flower beds. And the Rainmakers, McCarthys, Abernathys, and Prosels could all be counted on to report to mothers if children played with matches or abused a wandering cat.

Now, the screen door slammed behind him, and Andy wriggled into his seat at the table. One whiff of the grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup had twisted his tummy into knots. The gray plastic-seated and chrome-legged chair opposite his mother’s sat empty. Dad was still at work, probably opening his lunchbox about now. Mom had sliced his Omar bread and leftover beef from last night’s supper once the children were in bed. Andy hadn’t seen his father leave for work and wouldn’t see him that day until supper. And that suited Andy well; things weren’t always good when his dad was home. Alone with their mother, things were calmer and more predictable.

As Andy quickly chewed, his mother announced brightly, Tomorrow you get to go to school!

He knew school was coming but had pushed the thought farther back in his mind. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested; it was just that he hadn’t yet formed a full picture of what school meant and couldn’t really grasp it. Besides, school was tomorrow. It was still today, which was all that mattered right now.

And you can play on the merry-go-round and the teeter-totter, his sister added.

At that, he smiled.

Two years his elder, Molly had always paved the way, telling him what to expect of something new. Now it was kindergarten.

I’ll be ready to race, too, Andy burbled through his milk.

He already knew his teacher’s name, which door to enter when the bell rang, how to pump the merry-go-round, and that Mike would be in his class. He imagined school as new toys, new children, and new races to run.

Andy had missed Molly’s company when she had started school. They had been inseparable before she had turned five. He was glad that now he would be going to the same school she went to. They would be together again. They belonged together and needed each other in the tough times.

He was sure kindergarten would be fun, but school wasn’t until tomorrow. There were races to finish and balls to catch before this day was spent. After washing down the last cheesy crust of his sandwich, he scooted from his chair. He knew Mike was waiting impatiently for him down the alley.

As he ran to find Mike, he reflected briefly that his friend was dreading school. Mike didn’t like the idea of being indoors so much.

I just want to play outside like we always do, he had said.

Andy thought he understood. He knew that Mike’s mother drank and was always yelling at him to be quiet because she had headaches. Andy had been in their sad, wrinkled old house only a few times. It was neglected and gray, like worn clothes left in a heap. He had seen Mike’s mom slouched in a ratty chair in front of the radio, pouring liquor into a glass and wiping her mouth on a dirty apron. He had never seen Mike’s father, who was in prison for, among other things, punching a policeman who had come to break up a bar fight.

Andy didn’t understand much about drinking. He had seldom seen his parents with alcohol. The only thing he knew was that drinking seemed to make Mike’s mom draw inside of herself, leaving her no time for Mike.

Alcohol seemed to explain Mike’s unhappy family. But if he had been asked, Andy could not have said what it was that gripped his own home. While it wasn’t alcohol that affected the Garretts, there was something – a something that he didn’t understand. It had something to do with his father, but what, exactly, he didn’t know. He just knew that when his parents clashed, his heart pounded and he wanted to escape. When all was well, Andy’s mom was there to smother Molly and him with comfort for skinned knees or bee stings from running barefoot through the clover. When things were wrong, there were frightening storms of words that sometimes left his mother sick. Then it was Molly who sheltered him with hugs and soft words.

There were times when Andy wished his dad was always absent, like Mike’s dad was. Dad was too hard to figure. It was good that Dad spent little time at home to complicate things.

Mike saw Andy coming down the alley and picked up his ball so their game could resume. Their last afternoon before school was uninterrupted, and until it got dark, they were free of the tentacles of trouble.

Night came too soon, as it always did. Mike returned to his blood-shot home and Andy tiptoed in the back door of his own house. He tiptoed, because his father was home.

Thankfully, it was quiet tonight, and the evening passed without incident. Soon his active little body was still, and his sunburned cheek rested on his pillow.

It was only his dreams that made night worthwhile for Andy. That was when he did most of his flying. Waking hour attempts always ended in less-than-satisfactory results, but in the Neverland Technicolor of his dreams, Andy would always rise as smoothly as a breeze, amazing the people below, to land on the roof or in the trees.

Tonight, while circling aloft on a flying merry-go-round, he found that he could spy on a pair of evil black birds. Safe from his perch, he watched their dark feathers fly. The wicked fowl battled each other and swooped to peck at unsuspecting children. Andy was afraid and wanted to pelt the birds with rocks, but the merry-go-round suddenly tipped and…

Molly had shaken him, and the nightmare faded.

Today is kindergarten, she reminded him. He already knew that; he didn’t have to be told again. After all, he wasn’t a baby anymore. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and stumbled first to the bathroom and then to the kitchen.

Hurry and finish your breakfast, Mom urged as he swallowed his milk and spooned his sugared cereal. You don’t want to be late.

After eating, he hurried into new clothes and was grateful when Molly helped to tie his shoes. He could do it himself, but not quickly.

When the shoes were tied, he raced Molly to the door where their mother was waiting.

Have a wonderful day! Mom whispered in his ear with a hug and a kiss.

He shrugged against the kiss but secretly enjoyed the attention. He waved good-bye. Their mother continued to watch from the front door as they walked past the neighboring house to collect Mike.

Repeated knocking on the McShane’s peeling door seemed to go unheeded. It was only after they had knocked perhaps ten times that Mike’s mother finally came to announce glumly, The boy’s sick. He won’t be going today.

Mrs. McShane was still in her rumpled nightgown and already had an amber-filled glass and a long-ashed cigarette in her hand. Andy wondered if Mike really was sick. Mike was never sick.

When she shut the door, the children stood for a moment on the porch trying to adjust to the new situation of going to school without Mike. Finally they accepted that they had no choice but to go on without him. Molly took Andy’s hand and hurried him along.

You’ll have other friends to play with when we get there, she assured him, as if reading his mind.

I know, he responded as if he didn’t need to be told. But he was worried.

They didn’t talk again until the school yard appeared. As they drew close, they could hear children laughing and playing. Andy walked faster. He was ready to play. Both Mike and his sister, Molly, were forgotten the minute he caught sight of the whirling merry-go-round.

He had wanted to ride the big wheel again, to relive the good parts of his dream of the night before. He’d visited the playground often and already knew to wait for the wheel to slow so he could scramble aboard and grip the bar. Then he whirled like the wind with his head upturned toward the sky. It was like flying! He could do this for hours.

And he would have flown there all morning except that the school bell rang. Everyone immediately raced to get in line at one of the building entrances.

Andy panicked. Which door was he supposed to go through? He couldn’t remember. Children were milling about and heading in different directions. What was he supposed to do?

Molly found him frozen in place.

This way, Andy, she assured him.

He followed his sister to a line of other kindergartners, some waiting with parents. He could hear directions being called far in front of them but couldn’t make out exactly what was being said. Then the line began to snake its way inside. Through the clog of students milling about like urgent swarms of bees, Molly’s steady hand pulled him along. She guided him without hesitation to his classroom, gave him a sisterly peck on the cheek, and with a gentle push, moved him through the doorway.

He stood shyly, realizing that she was abandoning him. Just as the teacher’s aide was about to collect the hesitant new boy at the door, he spied the shelf of toys. This was what he had come to school for! He ran happily to the play area and commandeered a yellow dump truck.

This one’s mine, he called out, in case anyone else had thoughts of claiming it.

Now certain that he was all right, Molly retreated and caught up with her friends.

Andy played with the trucks, sat in rapt attention during story time, and then laughed and chased balls with the other children at game time. What fun school was! No wonder Molly liked school. He loved twirling the tops and building a store out of the large cardboard blocks painted to look like bricks. In fact, everything was wonderful until nap time. At nap time they made him lie down, even when he insisted that he was not tired. If the others hadn’t done it, too, he would never have gone to his rug.

When nap time ended, Andy smiled. He assumed that kindergarten was over now. He gathered his empty snack pack and bid everyone good-bye. He had had such a good time and was ready to go home to tell his mother all about it.

See ya’ tomorrow! he called over his shoulder and walked confidently to the door.

His escape, however, was blocked by the teacher’s aide, who simply changed the direction of his steps with a little firm shoulder steering.

This way, my little man, she said.

My little man! Chills shivered down Andy’s spine. That term was used at his house only when he was in trouble, and to hear this virtual stranger say it had stirred terror in him. He trembled, slipped out of her grip, and resumed his course. But again the aide blocked his way.

I’m, I’m going home now, he stuttered, but Miss Fowler had other ideas.

He was afraid and angry to be trapped here. Why wouldn’t they let him go home? Did his mother know they were making him stay here?

When Molly came for him at the end of class, he tried to tell her what they had done, but she didn’t seem to understand. Is this what school was all about? He didn’t like this at all!

The next day, his mother walked the first block with them or he wouldn’t have gone. He wanted to play at home. He didn’t want to spend another day trapped in the school. The minute he entered the classroom, he burst out crying. Molly tried to calm him and stayed until the tears were spent. When she left, he moved stiffly through the rest of the morning, daring anyone to make him participate. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to go home.

The next day was the same – and the day after that. Molly was the only one who could calm him, and the patience of her teachers was growing thin.

How he hated school! He hated the aide. He hated naps. He hated the stupid dump truck. He hated it all. No one really knew what to do.

His mom told herself this would eventually pass. It had to, of course. She colluded with Molly to keep the problem a secret from his father.

Not a word, she admonished, and Molly solemnly nodded.

Andy already knew not to discuss his day with his dad.

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For three days they tried to collect Mike on the way to school, but each morning they were told that Mike wasn’t coming. Finally, after school on Friday, Andy knocked on Mike’s door. There was no answer. Andy thought no one must be home. If so, it was very odd. Mike’s mother never went anywhere except maybe to the liquor store. And if she was gone, she usually left Mike at home.

He knocked one more time. This time he heard stirrings. Someone was coming down the hall, slowly and unevenly. He knew it was Mike’s mother.

When the door opened, Mrs. McShane nearly fell, but she caught herself with an elbow on the frame. Her hair was wild, her eyes red, and her words slurred.

What do you want? she demanded thickly.

He hesitated. Before he could answer, she said, He’s not here. Don’t knock anymore!

She started to close the door, but he hurried; he needed to know more.

Will Mike be-be home tomorrow? he stammered insistently.

She paused, reopened the door a bit, and, looking away, said, He’s not coming back. He’s living with his aunt. Then she staggered back and pushed the door closed.

Andy could hear her crying. Why had Mike gone away? Why was Mike’s mother so sad? He didn’t know what to do.

Finally he turned. He walked home in a daze. Didn’t Mike have to go to school? Who would he play with, now?

Molly had no answers, and neither did his mom when he finally told her what Mrs. McShane had said.

His mother only mused, Well, honey, sometimes people move away. They must have had their reasons.

But later he heard her tell his dad, That drunken sot finally had her kid taken away from her!

Andy shuddered. There were so many things that were out of the control of children.

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Andy vaguely understood that his dad was in competition with other men: for work, for prestige, for life’s bonuses. Because he was so driven, it seemed that his father worked non-stop. And work seemed to make him angry.

I work hard to make sure my family has everything they need. You’ve never gone hungry, he often shouted, like he did tonight. I have! And I’m as good as the next guy – maybe better!

Andy’s mother never let it slide; she glared at him in disgust and retorted that if he was so wonderful he wouldn’t have to keep saying it. Their word battle tore through the house. The argument was so vehement that Andy was afraid. Did they really hate each other? What would happen to him and Molly if they kept fighting and got a divorce? He didn’t really know what divorce meant, but a couple of his friends had no father, or no mother, at home because of it. He just wanted the fighting to stop, and he didn’t know how to make it happen.

You’re scaring the children, you fool! his mother screamed. And his father yelled, You started it! You’re always cutting me down. I put the food on the table, and don’t you forget it!

The intensity of their clash sent Andy and Molly scurrying to the bedroom closet. They knew not to be seen, and they huddled there, comforting each other in the dark. Sadly, the door was too thin to drown out the hatred.

The entire neighborhood knew about the fight. Mac could be heard from several houses down, shouting curses and that he’d never wanted these children to begin with – that Rachel had said she’d take care of them. He bellowed that the boy would never amount to anything and that his sister would end up a tramp. The retort from their mother would have made a sailor blanch. She castigated him as the worst father any child could have, and she shouted how he deserved to be dead. She screamed that he was not one to be talking about how to raise a child!

Andy and Molly remained crouched below the hangers and among the shoes, hugging one another and waiting for it all to stop. Often their father would storm out of the front door, like he did tonight.

Andy sobbed in relief. If the children were lucky, their father wouldn’t return until after they were asleep.

The fighting seemed to be never ending, a series of recurring skirmishes in an ongoing battle.

Then, as if the fighting wasn’t already bad enough, one day everything got worse. That was the day Andy’s dad learned about his son’s crying at school. The secret was exposed by Timmy Schultz, who had innocently shared at the Schultz dinner table about this kid in my class who cries every day and wants to go home. Mac had exploded when Arnie Schultz ribbed him about his crybaby kid. He stormed home from work, fuming.

At the slamming of the front door, the children instinctively scattered. From their hiding place, they could hear their father shouting at their mother, What do you mean you don’t know about it? It’s evidently been going on for two weeks. Am I to believe that the teacher has never once mentioned it to you? And Molly having to leave class to stop this nonsense; do you mean to tell me that she’s never mentioned it? This is unacceptable! I’m becoming a laughing stock! I won’t have it! Where is that boy?

You’ll not lay a hand on that child! his wife countered.

Andy stuffed his fingers into his ears and melted into the closet floor. Are they going to spank me, he wondered? His dad had never touched him, but his mom could wield a stinging wooden spoon. Molly spread her little body over him and wrapped him in her arms. Terrified, he trembled. The force of the fight escalated to hateful, hurtful epithets, and then breakables started hitting the walls. The floors shook with the fury of it all.

Andy was shattered to be the object of the fight. It’s all my fault, he whimpered. It’s all my fault! Surely he deserved to be spanked, hard, he reasoned.

He’d never been so afraid. The hateful words exploded deep in the bunker of his innocence, and the curses devastated his childish trust, far beyond the final slamming of the bedroom door and the abusive silence that followed.

For days afterward, his parents said nothing to each other or to anyone else. Then Mac came home, long after dark. He strutted defiantly through the door to smirk at Rachel’s hate-filled glares, obviously relaying that he’d found solace elsewhere. She threw a lamp at him, retreated with a scream to the bedroom, and slammed the door so hard the painting over the sofa fell with a crash. Andy covered his ears and cried out. His father stomped triumphantly to the recreation room in the basement and spent the night in the creaky, threadbare recliner. He left for work the next morning without his lunch box.

Andy wished he wouldn’t come back. His little insides churned violently when he did.

In a twisted way, life went on. His mother set food on the table with a thunderous clatter and ran the sweeper with the force of a football player on steroids. The children hid when indoors or sought refuge outside, as much as possible. Both tried to be invisible until the blade of the argument was sheathed and the blood left their parents’ eyes.

CHAPTER TWO

REPERCUSSIONS

The children were seen and not heard at the dinner table. The Sunday china glistened on a rarely used white damask tablecloth, and there was more food laid out than normally appeared over the course of a week. The guests, who were clients of their father’s, complimented their mother’s cooking.

Rachel, you are a superb cook! Mr. Dorffman exclaimed.

In an effort to advance his standing, Mac boasted that his wife’s cooking was influenced by a combination of Southern comfort and Jewish cuisine.

My wife was raised in the South and then grew up with a wealthy Jewish family in Chicago, he said.

What he failed to mention was that Rachel’s mother had worked as a live-in domestic during her daughter’s school years. Rachel’s father, a penniless Kentucky share-cropper, had had the lack of consideration to die of consumption when she was in grade school. His determined widow and young daughter had sought work in the North and had found it scrubbing floors and toilets in public buildings. It was barely enough to survive. Finally, someone pointed to a posting for a live-in domestic, and their lives took a turn for the better. The home they cared for was larger than the largest building (Robert E. Lee Elementary) in the little Kentucky town they had left, and Rachel had been afraid to sleep alone in her room for weeks. But eventually the attic rooms of the elegant house became home. While her mom cleaned and cooked and served during the day, Rachel was chauffeured with the Epstein’s daughter to school: the neighborhood public school for Rachel and a private school farther down the road for Chloe. Plus, Rachel benefitted from the cast-off clothing that Chloe tired of.

Mac also never mentioned his own upbringing, which had been abjectly poor. Always on the verge of starvation, he and his sixteen siblings had clung stubbornly to life.

And you might not be surprised to learn, Mac went on, that Rachel was first runner-up in the Miss Herndon pageant.

Mac had first seen his wife-to-be in the swimsuit lineup at the pageant and had liked what he’d seen. Rachel truly was beautiful, and she had been flattered by Mac’s advances. But it wasn’t until a couple of years had elapsed, and each of them had broken up from long engagements, that they’d found each other again.

On New Year’s Eve, nine years ago, I asked her to marry me, Mac bragged, and we spent our honeymoon at Niagara Falls.

Perhaps it was the wine (since Mac and Rachel seldom drank) and an attempt to declare his virility, but Mac next said, And she got pregnant with a boy on our first try! He jabbed his client knowingly. The man politely smiled.

Rachel looked mortified, however, and stammered, But we lost that child to crib death.

Now it was Mac’s turn to turn red. And like the silence after the last clap of thunder, the subject was dropped.

Andy was stunned. His little mind got the message that his parents had lost a child, his older brother, and that something called crib death had killed him. His parents’ strained reaction at the revelation only magnified his concern.

What is it, anyway? he whispered to Molly,