Introduction

Charleston's past is full of romance. Does Anne's future hold the same?

Charleston's Anne Brumley has long dreamed of love while ringing the bells at St. Michael's, but those dreams are beginning to fade. Her sister Alisha and cousin Della encourage the thirty-six year old to move somewhere new for a fresh start.

Widower Roy Summerall has happily ministered to the country folks of Church of the Good Shepherd for years. So why would the Lord call him and his daughter away to Charleston--the city that Roy remembers from his childhood as pretentious and superficial? Surely the refined congregation of St. Michael's won't accept a reverend with a red neck and a simple faith.

Meanwhile, Anne's sister, Alisha, struggles with her husband's ambition, which seems to be taking him further from their dreams of a happy family. And Cousin Della's former fiance has returned to Charleston, making her wonder if she chose the wrong path when she married her gifted but unemployed-artist husband.

Family, friendship, and faith converge in a beautiful story about how God's transforming love works in the Holy City of Charleston.

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Excerpt

Roy’s right eyelid began to twitch when he sat down in the

small antique chair across from Bishop Boatwright. He pulled

at his stiff white collar. It was an XXL, but it fit his thick neck

snugly, and he often undid the metal tab toward the end of the

day to give himself a little relief. He repositioned his broad

frame, and the small chair creaked. Then he rubbed his wide,

sweaty palms on his khaki pants and looked up to meet the

bishop’s gaze.

“Church of the Good Shepherd is thriving, isn’t it?”

Roy nodded his head. “I can’t tell you what a blessing it

is to serve in my hometown, Bishop. It couldn’t be better for

me and Little Rose.” Roy had a thick South Carolina sandhills

accent, very different from the slow, round tidewater

drawl of Charleston. The sandhills accent was clipped and

most of Roy’s e and a vowels made the short i sound so that the word heck or hack both sounded like hick. It was the kind

of accent folks in the metropolitan areas of the state called

country or redneck, and he tried to temper it when he met

with the bishop, whose office was at The Cathedral of St.

Luke and St. Paul in the center of downtown Charleston.

“Why do you think it’s going so well?” The bishop’s

question seemed more directed to the stack of papers on his

desk than to Roy. The old man tugged at his white muttonchops

before looking up.

The young priest cleared his throat and puffed up his

broad chest. “Well, we keep it simple, I guess. I stick to the

Gospel in the pulpit every Sunday, and we pour all that we

have into our Alpha Course, which folks have attended from

as far afoot as Darlington, Hartsville, and even Florence.”

The bishop patted the left pocket of his pressed purple

shirt. He wore a large and ornate gold cross around his neck

that he kept tucked in his pocket when he wasn’t decked out

in his heavy robe and ruffles.

Roy looked out of the thick glass panes of the third-floor

corner office. It was a Holy City view if he ever saw one,

with the largest, most historic steeples in the country dominating

the skyline—St. Philip’s on Church Street, St.

Michael’s on the corner of Meeting and Broad, St. Matthew’s

on upper King, St. John’s on Archdale, and the Unitarian

church right next door which he had forgotten the name of.

He smiled when he thought of his simple red brick sanctuary,

circa 1967, back in Ellijay, with the lettered marquee

in the front. This month it read, Distressed? Try This Address!

(Every Sunday at 10 a.m.)

He turned back to the bishop, who watched him steadily

as if he wanted him to say more. “It’s my kind of people at

Good Shepherd, sir. The kind I grew up with, and we speak

the same language, you know?” He tugged at his collar and

smiled. “They trust me, and I know just where they’re coming

from. Then it’s not long before one or another brings in a

friend or a neighbor or coworkers . . .” The chair creaked as he

sat back. “And that’s why we’ve grown, I reckon. ’Cause we

know and understand each other.”

Bishop Boatwright made a steeple with the tips of his

fingers, then he raised his white bushy eyebrows, forming

two symmetrical arches. “I called you here because I have a

new position I’d like to recommend you for, Reverend.”

The twitch in Roy’s right eye turned into a flutter. He

reached up and rubbed it, then he leaned forward, resting his

elbows on his wide knees. “Bishop, you know it’s been a

tough few years for me personally.”

“Of course I do.” The bishop squinted. His pale blue

eyes shot a sharp look that Roy recognized as a complicated

blend of love, concern, and most striking of all, appraisal.

He kept on. “And now Rose and I are hunkered down in

Ellijay. She loves her school, and my mama sold the farm

and bought a house just down the road from us. Plus, my

brother is only ten miles away over in Robbin’s Neck.” Roy

bit his bottom lip hard. “It’s been real good for me to be back

in my old stomping grounds after losing Jean Lee.” He patted

the left side of his chest. “I feel like the Lord’s had his

hand on my heart, and he ’s been binding it up.”

“Undoubtedly.” The bishop balled his right hand into a fist, his large, gold ecclesiastical ring catching the afternoon

light. Roy had been a second-string offensive guard for

Clemson University before he became an Episcopal priest,

and the bishop’s gold band always reminded him of a Super

Bowl ring. This made him chuckle a little, imagining Bishop

Boatwright at the ten-yard line giving some defender the

Heisman before running toward the goal.

Bishop Boatwright held out his fist and leaned forward.

“You know what happens after you receive healing, son?”

Roy wasn’t sure how to answer this. Was it a theological

question or a personal one? He wasn’t bookish like the

bishop; he just knew the Holy Spirit and felt its daily presence

like the air his lungs inhaled or the soft light that fell on

his face on his morning walk to work.

“Sir?” he said.

“It’s been my experience these short seventy-six years”—

the bishop pounded his fist twice on the arm of his chair—“that

after you receive healing, the Lord calls you out to a new frontier.”

He pursed his pink lips and leaned forward. “He takes

that fresh strength and puts it to a new test.”

Roy tilted his square chin. He was a big, handsome fellow

with a head full of thick brown hair and dark brown eyes

to match. Bishop Boatwright had confirmed him when he

was twelve years old. And he’d ordained him the same year

his wife died some fifteen years later. Both times he had laid

his stubby hands on Roy’s head full of hair, his gold ring rubbing

against the boy’s scalp, blessing the holy ceremony with

the presence of the Almighty One he represented. The truth

was, this man was in authority over Roy, and like Saul on the road to Damascus, there was no use kicking against the goads.

He exhaled and uttered a prayer of mercy. “What did you

have in mind, sir?”

“Phil Rainey is retiring this spring.”

Phil Rainey, Phil Rainey, Phil Rainey. Roy ran the vaguely

familiar name through his mind as he thought about the other

churches in the middle part of the state. The only Phil Rainey

he knew was the rector of St. Michael’s in the center of downtown

Charleston. The fancy old church on the corner of

Meeting and Broad where his Aunt Elfrieda used to drag him

during his miserable summer visits.

Roy reached up to steady his right eyelid again. “I’m . . .

you don’t mean . . . ?”

Bishop Boatwright nodded. “Yes. St. Michael’s here in

Charleston. I’d like to recommend you to their search committee.”

He looked toward his desk as if his mind had already

concerned itself with his next appointment. “I think you

could be the man for the job, Reverend Summerall.”

Roy felt the burn of perspiration beneath his arms. He

blinked several times and set his jaw. “With all due respect,

Bishop, I’m not the kind of fellow that can lead a Charleston

church, especially a South of Broad one.” He looked around

the room at the shelves and shelves of books as if to find

proof. Then he pointed to his mouth. “Just listen to my

accent.”

The bishop turned back and cocked his head in curiosity.

“Or this.” Now that Roy had the bishop’s attention, he

smiled and pushed a little bit of his tongue through the gap

between his two front teeth. “I need braces.”

The bishop furrowed his bushy brows and Roy continued,

counting off the examples like a verdict.

“I drive an all-terrain vehicle on the weekends, I go to the

races for fun, I wear gold jewelry. Heck, I even vacation at

Myrtle Beach by my own choice.” Then Roy said with a firm

whisper, “Bishop, did you know that I have a tattoo of a

Clemson tiger paw on my right shoulder?” He rolled his shoulder

forward at the mention of it. He had dislocated it his junior

year, and his senior year he had torn so many tendons that he

had to have an operation. It still gave him a fit. “Sir, I wouldn’t

know the first thing about ministering to those ‘mind your

manners’ and ‘just where do your people come from?’ folks.”

The bishop took his time standing up, then ambled over

to his desk where he thumbed through his stack of papers.

“You spent your boyhood summers in Charleston, as I recall.”

He glanced toward Roy, who was peering out of the window

at St. Michael’s massive white steeple with its clock tower and

weather vane and one-ton bells that had called the city to worship

since before the Revolutionary War. He remembered

reading about how the steeple was painted black during those

days so the British ships wouldn’t spot it. Only it backfired.

The black made the church all the more noticeable from the

harbor, and the troops were quick to ransack it.

“They were the worst summers of my life.” Roy rotated

his right shoulder again. “My brother, Chick, and I were

treated pretty harshly by the local kids.” Roy could still hear

Heyward Rutledge calling him a “Neanderthal” when he

asked the fellow’s crush to dance at one of the Friday night

parties at East Bay Playground. He’d had to go home and look that word up in Aunt Elfrieda’s encyclopedia, and then he had

to take the scientific definition and translate it into the slang.

The bishop chuckled. He sniffed the air and scratched

his muttonchops.

Then he looked down at Roy and whole seconds passed

before he nodded once. “You might be just the man for the

job, Reverend. I want you to be open and trust me in this.

I’m going to recommend you to the search committee and

the vestry, and you’ll be hearing from them.”

Roy sat back in his chair as though he had been hit by a

three-hundred-pound nose guard. The chair seemed to waver,

and for a moment, he thought it might collapse under his

weight. He pictured Rose, his five-year-old daughter, curled

up in Mama’s lap on the front porch this morning. Charleston

was the last place he wanted to raise her. Jean Lee was gone.

Why in the world would the bishop, why would the Lord even,

want him to entertain this outlandish idea?

The bishop bowed his head and started to pray, but Roy

didn’t hear the words. When he heard the old man say,

“Amen,” he stood and firmly shook the bishop’s hand. Then

he got back in his pickup and drove quickly down Interstate

26 toward Interstate 95 where the live oaks and palmettos

gave way to the scrub pines and the flat lands of the only

place, this side of heaven, he ever wanted to call home.



“What did high-and-mighty have to say?” His mama was

sporting her new rhinestone-encrusted flip-flop heels and white shorts too short for a sixty-five-year-old woman. She

was flipping pancakes on his griddle while her new husband,

Donny, and Roy’s office manager, Skeeter, sipped coffee at

the kitchen counter.

“Breakfast for dinner, Daddy!” Little Rose abandoned

her piano-playing in the den and ran into his arms. He picked

her up and squeezed her tight, overcome as he often was by

how her little embrace soothed his very soul like the balm of

Gilead.

Mama turned down the eye of the stove and stacked

three fluffy pancakes on a plastic Dora the Explorer plate.

She coated each one with a thick pat of butter and set them

on the little round table in the corner of the room.

“Enjoy ’em while they’re warm, Rosebud,” she said.

“This is a one-plate-at-a-time meal, and I’ll do your daddy’s

next so y’all can overlap.”

“What’s news around the church house?” Roy massaged

his bum shoulder and looked to Skeeter, who blew a

bubble with the pink gum she always seemed to be gnawing

on. He watched the bubble deflate as she pulled four white

slips from her Day-Timer. “Here are the messages, but the

most pressing matter is Brother Jackson.”

Roy winced, his dark brown eyes narrowing. “He looked

real good a couple of days ago.”

“Well, hospice told Mrs. Jackson that they figured that

was a last burst of energy. They think the end is near.”

Roy nodded and looked at his watch. “I’ll take him the

Eucharist tonight.”

“Can I go too?” Rose said. She was dipping a fork-full into a pool of syrup she had poured right on Dora’s oversized

head.

Rose loved Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, who used to sing in the

choir until they found cancer in his pancreas. And she often

made sick visits with Roy. She was no stranger to Ellijay

Memorial and the Darlington County Hospice Center or the

Robbins Neck Funeral Home for that matter, and the nurses

and caretakers usually set aside a lollipop or some other little

trinket from the dollar store in anticipation of her next pastoral

visit.

He nodded yes as Mama handed him a stack of pancakes.

“What did Bishop Boatwright want, son?”

“He wants to recommend me for a job . . .” Roy shook

his head in disbelief as his kitchen got real still. “In downtown

Charleston, of all places.”

Mama’s eyes widened. “The Holy City!” She clicked

her long, silver fingernails together and winked at Rose.

“Now wouldn’t that be something!”

“Charleston?” Rose’s eyes lit up. Her granny had taken

her there once and bought her a pair of red, glittery shoes.

“Oh, that’s my dream city, Daddy!”

Roy pushed his pancakes aside. He turned to Donny.

“Why do all females go ga-ga at the mere mention of

Charleston?”

Donny shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

Jean Lee used to love Charleston, too, Roy now recalled.

She’d begged him to take her to some historic bed-andbreakfast

on their first anniversary, and he had complied,

though he didn’t care much at all for the squeaky old bed or the ridiculously high rate or the bathroom down the hall that

they had to share with four other guests.

“Don’t get too excited, gals,” he said. “I don’t think the

bishop has really thought this thing through. And if it was up

to me, we’d never leave Ellijay.” He gently laid his paper napkin

over his plate. “I’m going to run over to the church to get

what we need for Brother Jackson’s Communion.”

“Well, who is it up to?” Rose said. Skeeter popped her

bubble gum and Mama cocked her head, her big, amplysprayed

hair shifting in one cohesive clump.

Roy shook his head like an exasperated teacher and pointed

upward with his index finger. “Now who do y’all think?”



Late that evening after administering the Eucharist to Mr.

Jackson, who the hospice folks predicted would meet his

Maker within the next forty-eight hours, Roy lifted Rose out

of the pickup and tucked her into bed.

Then he went to the hall closet where he kept Jean Lee ’s

stuff. He often came in here late at night and took comfort in

the touch of her shimmery blouses, her cowboy boots, and

the sweaters folded neatly on the shelf above that still contained

just the faintest hint of her sweet and powdery scent.

He thought about Bishop Boatwright and his surprising

request to submit his name to the search committee of what

was arguably one of the oldest, stuffiest, most affluent

churches in the whole diocese. He didn’t want to minister in

some historic monument where the parishioners might shudder with disdain at his country accent or shoo him out

with the business end of the broom the way Aunt Elfrieda

did when he forgot to put the napkin in his lap during one of

her Sunday afternoon dinners. Truth was, he couldn’t even

imagine relating to those folks. It was a ridiculous idea.

Maybe Bishop Boatwright was slipping as he tilted toward

retirement. Maybe he was downright delusional.

Roy tucked his hands into the satin-lined pockets of the

pink leather jacket Jean Lee bought on a vacation they took

to Six Flags in Atlanta. She had stood in front of the threesided

mirror at one of those strip malls on the outskirts of the

city and said, “Tell the truth now, Roy. Is this too much for a

future priest’s wife?”

“Nah,” he said. “It’s you, baby.” And it was. It fit her in

all the right spots, and he knew in his heart that God wanted

her to be herself—lipstick, teased bangs, and all—like the

first day he laid eyes on her in the parking lot of Ellijay High

just days after his sixteenth birthday.

It had taken years to get used to life without her. And he

was just beginning to feel (after much urging from his mama

and daughter) that he could maybe meet someone one of

these days. He had even thought about asking Skeeter out but

the bubble gum bothered him, and he just never seemed to get

around to it. Maybe now was the time. Or maybe now he was

ready to meet some of those daughters and nieces the ladies at

church kept trying to introduce him to.

Roy’s unspoken hopes were becoming clearer in his heart

and mind. And they were these: that he might love again and

expand his family right here in Ellijay with his mama down the street and his brother, Chick, and their lively brood just a

few miles away.

“My life is here, Lord,” Roy said as he buried his face in

the pink leather jacket. “Don’t allow this to be taken away

too.” [Chapter 1 The Reverend Roy Jessup Summerall Jr.

April 3, 2008] view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Why doesn’t Roy want to move to Charleston? How
does his view of Charleston society, particularly the parishioners
of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, change
over the course of the story?
2. Describe Roy’s faith and his approach to ministering to
his new flock. What makes his ministry effective?
3. The children play a crucial role in the three narratives
of this story. How do both Rose and Cozy shed a new
and hopeful light on the struggles of their parents?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Beth Webb Hart's web site

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