He could have woken her mother up from the coma that she’d fallen into after the aneurism.
Jayden’s three girls came out of the cabin and got into the van with Diana and a couple of her girls. The rest of the camp members rode with Elijah and Jayden. Turned out that it was on the north side of town, and it was a very small place, with only five or six rows of chairs on two sides of a center aisle. As luck would have it, when they all walked in the door, the back rows were filled. Apparently, the back two rows on the right-hand side were where the cute boys sat, and all eight girls put a little extra swing in their walk when they passed by them to sit on the front pew.
Elijah was the last one in the door, and since the only chair left was right beside Jayden, his broad shoulder touched hers all during the service. Cool air flowed down from a vent right above her, but her hands were still sweaty, and her pulse jacked up another notch or two every time he leaned a little more her way.
If he was getting the same vibes she was, there was no way they could ever work together every day like Mary and Henry did. No, sir. No way. With the chemistry she felt, she’d be dragging him off to her cabin instead of cooking meals.
A lady wearing a purple dress took her place behind the lectern and said, “Special welcome today to the girls and their sponsors from out at Piney Wood. We’re always glad to see y’all when it’s our turn for you to visit us. If everyone will turn to page three eighty in the hymnals that are under your chairs, we’ll begin our services with congregational singing,” she announced, and then continued to the sound of pages flipping. “Everyone likes to sing, so we just let the whole church be our choir.”
You can’t sing in the choir. They wouldn’t have a robe long enough for you, and besides, your voice sounds like you’re a boy. Maybe you should have been a guy. God knows you’re tall enough to be one. Skyler’s voice came back to Jayden’s mind.
Jayden must have been about fourteen at the time, and that was the last time she ever asked her mother if she might start going to choir practice with Skyler on Friday nights.
The pianist played a short prelude and then the lady led them in “Abide with Me,” with an upbeat version of the song that bore little resemblance to the music notes in the hymnal. The boys on the back rows kept time by clapping their hands. Jayden mumbled through the first verse, but by the second one, she had it down.
Skyler had chosen this very hymn to be played at their mother’s graveside service, but Jayden had been too angry that she and her sister were the only ones there that day to even pay attention to the lyrics. Now as she sang the words, it seemed fitting. The last verse talked about pointing me to the skies, and heaven’s morning breaking. It asked that, in life or death, the Lord abide with me—whoever me happened to be.
When they had finished the hymn, the song leader and pianist took a seat over on the wall behind the piano, and the preacher stepped up behind the lectern. “I’ll add my welcome to the ladies and to Elijah from out at Piney Wood. This morning’s reading is from John 15. ‘Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.’ Now, I ask you all, each and every one of you, what does it mean to abide in Him? Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you this morning.”
That word abide stuck in Jayden’s mind. Was someone—she looked up at the ceiling—bringing back memories of her mother’s death and burial so that she would talk to Skyler about it? Or was the fact that Elijah was sitting so close supposed to be an omen telling her to think about abiding right there at Piney Wood? Would God speak to her after she had cut all ties