“Penny Lane, is in my ear and in my eyes,” he sang out.
She was taken back but she smiled now and mustered a little giggle as he continued.
In an instant Penny’s father and mother both emerged from the house. My grandfather escorted the boy, who would become my father, off our property with stern orders to stay away from Penny if he knew what was good for him. If there was one thing Tommy didn’t know it was what was good for him.
He stayed anywhere but away.
That night my grandfather scolded my aunt for leaving my mother alone. They talked of the horrors of what could have happened: kidnapped, beaten, frightened – she must have been so frightened. Penny didn’t speak, she rarely did. She sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap and her feet dangling from the piano stool. Her eyes were fixed on the band of white lace that circled her ankle at the top of her church socks. All winter long she waited for the sun and the warmth and the privilege to tuck her feet into cute little socks instead of stretching scratchy white tights over her lengthening legs in an unpleasant struggle. She loved these socks and sometimes in the winter she tried to sneak past her mother with her church socks on but she was always caught.
“You’ll catch a cold! It’s freezing out there.”
How a transparent layer of itchy material would keep her from catching a cold she would never understand, but she obeyed without protest.
She kicked her feet gracefully back and forth letting them swing under the piano stool before peeking out from beneath the fringe of her skirt. She smiled at her socks and forgot about the lecture her sister was getting beside her until her mother took her hand.
Penny slid off the stool and walked with her mother to the picture of Jesus above the mantle on their fireplace. She knelt with her family and prayed.
Dear Heavenly Father,
My family and I come humbly before you and enter into your presence with praise. We thank You Lord for all we have and ask that others may be so blessed. I thank You, Lord, for my daughters and I thank You for my wife. I am blessed to have such wonderful women in my life. I pray dear Lord that you will keep them safe, that you will protect them from harm and evildoers. I pray that you will watch over them and prosper them all the days of their lives.
Amen.
“Amen,” they recited in chorus.
But Penny prayed her own prayer that night while she knelt at her bed. She went through her usual round of thanks and requests and once she had attended to all requests on behalf of the starving children in Africa and the sick kids in hospitals everywhere and the poor, Jesus help the poor, she grew silent in case her parents were outside listening. She knew sometimes they did, not to be nosey or intrusive but because they were blessed by their daughter’s faith and diligent prayers. Penny felt honoured that her prayers were so profound to her parents. She felt something special when she prayed; she loved more and was loved more through her prayers – she knew it.
But that night she had something to ask that they would not be blessed to hear, in fact it was something she was sure they would not appreciate at all.
And Lord, she said silently, can you help Tommy? I think he is poor so maybe I have already prayed for him but I really want you to help him because he might be a nice boy and he doesn’t deserve to be poor. He helped me today, I’m not sure if you saw that. My father yelled at him and I don’t know why but it seemed like Tommy knew why. Maybe he’s a sinner but I’m a sinner too, I disobey my parents sometimes, I think I might be disobeying them right now even.But Lord, I think I’m good enough to go to Heaven. I love you and I try to be good and I go to church every Sunday, so if I’m good enough to go to Heaven and Tommy isn’t, I want you to take him in my place. I think that he might be good if he knew how but I don’t think anyone taught him. Maybe you can help him. Maybe I can help him. I will pray more tomorrow. I love you. Amen.
The next day Penny left school with her sister and they were walking home when they saw Tommy. He was beating up another boy or another boy was beating him up, it wasn’t clear.
“Oh look," sneered her sister. “It’s your boyfriend.”
“He is not my boyfriend.”
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