Emma constricts, cocking her arms. An instant later, before Michael knows what is happening, Emma gives Michael a mighty shove.
WHAM.
He slams into the back of the couch, knocking over a lamp that crashes into the floor.
“Oh!” Emma says, covering her mouth with her hands. “Oh my. Michael, I’m sorry. I…”
Emma springs up, and runs to the door. She opens the door, and runs into the night as Michael tries to gather himself and get up. By the time he gets to the front door, Emma is far down the driveway. He can barely see her image in the faint moonlight.
He doesn’t try to call for her.
Michael watches until he sees vehicle lights come on in the distance. He hears the truck engine start.
“Emma!” he shouts, to no avail.
He sees the lights do a herky-jerky stop-go-stop before Emma gets it going.
Michael wonders where she got the truck.
“Emma,” he says softly, as Blue kneels at his side in the doorway.
Emma takes the truck in a big circle and turns facing out on the gravel driveway. At Grinder’s Switch Road, she turns on a left blinker and Michael watches her slowly drive away in the distance. He looks back at the couch to see that she’s left the book he tried to give her.
He rubs his brow.
Emma winds her way back to the Denton farm in Josh’s truck, turns down the rustic road, and drives the truck hastily back deep into the brush where it was before. She hits the brake, turns off the ignition and the lights, gets out and scampers back home.
She gets in the bed still wearing her black dress, and falls fast asleep.
15.
Snake Handling
Dread is the worst kind of medicine, and Emma is feeling sick from it. She knew why David had come to the house the night before, the eve of Christmas Eve.
It was Friday evening. He had knocked on the door. Her father had answered, as if he knew the visit was coming – waiting on it like the return of the next day’s sunrise. She had heard her father let David in the door, them embracing like old friends.
She had watched her mother approach her in her bedroom. She had heard her mother say that David wanted to meet with just her father. She couldn’t hear what was said.
"La la la la la," she was thinking.
But she didn’t need to hear. Emma knew what it was about about. Just as she knew why he was coming back now, the next day. This was about the preacher's daughter becoming the preacher's wife.
David knocks at the door. It is Saturday, Christmas Eve, and he’s paying a visit at the usual five o’clock, never too early, never too late. But there’s nothing usual about this visit, and Emma knows that.
Her parents have given clear instructions on being ready, and she has followed them. That, she listened to, because she knows better.
Pumpkin bread Emma bakes in the oven, almost ready to come out. She’s just waiting for the timer to ring. Coffee brews in the pot. Emma is wearing a green dress. A six-foot tall cedar tree adorned with popcorn, pinecones and an angel on top fills a corner in the parlor.
Under the tree is six presents – one from each member of the Mays family to another.
Emma’s mother urged her to make David a present, but she didn’t. She figures she will be forced to give him something, though, soon enough.
Emma opens the front door, letting David in. He’s carrying a basket in one hand – “warm muffins for your family,” he says, “my mother made them” – and a small box in the other.
“Merry Christmas,” he says.
“It’s not Christmas yet,” Emma says, signaling him to come on in.
“You will want to eat these while they are warm,” David says, handing over the basket of muffins.
“I’m not hungry, really,” Emma says.
“Try one. I insist.”
She takes the basket from David. Emma reaches in with her free hand and pinches off a nibble from one.
“Mmm,” she says. “Yes. David. They are good. Thank you.”
Emma puts down the basket. She takes a seat on the corner of the couch and looks at David, sitting on the other end of the couch. He is on the edge, his buttocks are anchored just enough to keep him there. David's knees almost reach the coffee table in the middle.
The box he brought is there, on the coffee table.
She eyes it.
“Emma,” David says, “we have been courting for some time now, trying to determine if this is what God wants with us. I believe God has now spoken, and answered our prayers.”
Lord, Emma thinks to herself.
He didn’t take long.
One minute, he’s asking her to take a bite of a muffin; the next he’s about to pop the question.
She wants to run, and hide, but there is nowhere to go.
David looks at Emma for response.