The Blessed by Ann H. Gabhart

That my father loaned me his luck and that’s why he was below deck where he didn’t have the chance to make the shore. Of course the boat caught fire.”
    “An inferno on water.” The man shook his head at the thought. “I’ve seen it but once, but care not to see it again. Providence had me ashore at the time. Providence perhaps kept you on deck in the same way. It is a good thing to embrace Providence at times and to thank the Lord for such. Instead of feeling guilt for what you cannot change.”
    “Many told me the same.”
    “And you gave no credence to their words?” Brother Asa lifted his thick dark eyebrows. “Or do you have other reasons for despair?”
    “There are always reasons for despair,” Isaac said.
    “You speak truth especially for those of the world,” the man said with that echo of cheerful acceptance in his voice as he stood and placed his hat on his head. “And hunger is one of them. Come. I’ve kept you talking too long when it is your stomach I hear talking back to me.”
    Isaac echoed his words. “Those of the world.” He’d heard that said before, and suddenly he knew where he’d seen men dressed like the man in front of him. “You’re a Shaker.”
    The man smiled. “That is what those of the world call us, and while we are comfortable with the moniker, our true name is the Society of Believers in the Second Coming of Christ.”
    “I know.”
    Isaac’s knowledge seemed to surprise the man. “Do you?” The man studied Isaac. “Were you perhaps raised by the Shakers then and are one of those lured away from our villages by the temptations of worldly living?”
    “No. My sister went to the Shakers when our father died. She’s still there. In a village not far from here called Harmony Hill.”
    “The very village I call home. And what might your sister’s name be?”
    “Marian. Marian Kingston.”
    “Then you must be Isaac.” The man’s smile got wider as he put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder.
    Isaac frowned and wanted to shrug the man’s hand off his shoulder. It seemed too odd, the man knowing his name.
    The man laughed. “Have no fear, my brother. I didn’t divine your name.” Brother Asa’s smile disappeared. “Sister Marian mentioned her concerns for you during one of our union meetings. She said you were suffering much sorrow as do many who depend on the relationships of the world for happiness. But be assured, peace can still be possible for you.”
    “I don’t see how. My wife died.” Isaac hesitated and then went on. “Because of me.” The words tore a new wound through the middle of his heart to match many others until he thought it must surely be near collapse.
    “Yea, I see your sorrow. But Providence has put us on the same path this day. Come, my brother. Let us go fill your hungry body with proper sustenance. Only then can the sorrows of the soul be tended to.” He reached a thick, blocky hand down toward Isaac.
    Isaac stared at the man for a long moment before he reached to take the man’s hand. He remembered Marian once telling Isaac that the Shakers were dead to the world. And wasn’t that what he wanted? To be dead.
    Isaac stood up and followed the little man. Perhaps Providence had played a part in their meeting this day, and he would find a way to die without surrendering the very necessary need to breathe.

5

    It was good to have a full stomach again. But even better to have the cheerful Brother Asa walking along beside him with no worry dragging down his step. Nothing seemed to bother the little man. Not the chance of trouble coming his way because of his kindness to Isaac. Not the ridicule that some they passed on the street shot his way because of his short stature.
    “Look there. That Shaker feller’s done danced his legs off to his knees,” one of the men they passed said right before he stuck a foot out to trip Brother Asa.
    Isaac grabbed the little man to keep him from falling. Then he doubled up his fists ready to show the