Dominion by Randy Alcorn Page B

thoughtful words people would walk away saying were profound, but he decided not to say them. He crumpled them in his fist and sat down.
Geneva hugged him tight from the left, leaving her wet makeup on the shoulder of his suit. His father put his frail, feather-light hand on Clarence’s. He couldn’t believe it was the same hand that used to throw a baseball to first without it dropping an inch, that used to swing a chopping maul for hours on end, that used to overpower him in arm wrestling even when young Clarence used both hands against him.
The pastor spoke on, but Clarence didn’t hear him. He was in a Mississippi pasture, with Dani, watching the color of buttercups on her face. “Do I look high yella now, like Aunt Licia?” Aunt Licia, Mama’s sister, was always so proud to be high yellow, the closer to white skin the better they thought in the old days, and if you could pass for white, that was the ultimate.
Dani. Oh, Dani.

The funeral procession snaked toward the graveyard. Clarence’s mind traveled to another graveyard, thirty years ago, outside Puckett. They’d gone to bury Papa Buck, his mother’s father, and he and seven-year-old Dani walked hand in hand. The funeral procession entered a beautiful cemetery. It was a peaceful, lovely, manicured plot with sculpted velvety grass and colorful arrays of flowers, growing wild and gathered in bouquets. He and Dani thought this was a fine place for Papa Buck.
But Uncle Elijah explained, “We’s just passin’ through the white section.” Soon they came to an unkempt pasture where instead of beautiful marble tombstones, plastic covered notepaper marked the graves. Looking around, Clarence saw that after exposure to the weather, no names would be left visible. Even in death it was marble monuments for whites and thin, rain-soaked paper for blacks. Little Dani had cried then. He drew her close to him and told her it didn’t matter, even though it surely did. He wanted to reach out and touch that little girl’s face again.
The rest of the day—Dani’s graveside service, family feast, all of it—passed for Clarence as if it were a television movie with bad reception going on in the background when your thoughts were somewhere else. When he got home, he withdrew to his office, withdrew from Geneva and the children and his daddy, the loved ones still with him, to brood about Dani, the loved one now gone. He kept thinking of that angel-like face, that face that looked just like…Felicia’s.
“You can’t have Felicia, God. You took my sister. But you can’t take away that little girl.”
He came out of his office and announced he was driving to the hospital. Geneva insisted she come with him. He relented.
“Let me inside, Clarence,” she said as he drove. “I know you’re grieving. So am I. Talk to me, please.”
He wouldn’t talk, not out of meanness but because he was afraid of what he would say, afraid he would frighten her. Besides, talking seemed so useless. What would it change?
Geneva tried repeatedly to fill the silence. But she couldn’t penetrate the dark winter of her husband’s soul.
“Felicia’s condition hasn’t changed,” the doctor told them. “Obviously, it’s a good sign nothing is worse. But she’s not out of the woods yet.” Clarence insisted on going into ICU to watch over Felicia, who still lay motionless on the bed.

Clarence stood at his bedroom doorframe, leaning back against the sharp edges, positioning the center of his back just so. Then he rubbed back and forth, up and down. Geneva always teased him about this, how he was her lumbering grizzly bear. She didn’t tease him now.
He flashed back to college football days as an offensive lineman. The defensive man could try all day to get to the quarterback. If he made it through once for the sack, he was a success even though he failed nine out of ten times. But if an offensive lineman succeeded nine out of ten times yet failed to protect the quarterback just once, his