by Jan Karon
"She had a trailer down in Holding, but it’s been moved.”
“We could go and ask around the neighborhood where she lived. Somebody would know something.”
“The police are doing that. They haven’t turned up anything.”
“I hate this,” she said.
“I hate it more.”
How, he wondered, could he be sitting here by a warm fire, when a fatherless boy was out there somewhere, almost certainly cold and hungry?
There was a knock at the back door. His heart pounded as Barnabas leaped from his place in front of the fire and skidded into the kitchen. Rodney! Surely it would be Rodney with some news.
When he opened the door, Dooley Barlowe looked him straight in the eye. “My mama tol’ me to come back.”
“Come in,” the rector said, hoarsely.
There was an ugly welt on the boy’s face. Barnabas licked it while Dooley silently removed his gloves, the down jacket, and the yellow windbreaker. He dropped the gloves in the bin and hung the jackets on the peg.
“Come and say hello to Miss Coppersmith.”
Dooley met Cynthia’s gaze without wavering. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
His face was red from pedaling in a chill wind, and he trembled slightly from the cold.
“It might be good if I made some hot chocolate to warm you up,” said the rector.
But Dooley was headed toward the stairs, Barnabas hard on his heels. “I cain’t stand here talkin’,” he said over his shoulder, “I got t’ take a dump.”
The rector looked at his neighbor, coloring furiously.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I never raised a boy!”
Before he called Rodney about the jewels, he called Walter.
“You’re in possession of stolen goods,” said Walter.
“Good Lord!”
“I doubt if Rodney will press any charges, but you ought to know where you stand by failing to report what you found.”
“I knew I should have reported it. It’s just that the choir was rehearsing three different performances, and I was busy with Lessons and Carols, and Rodney would have conducted a lengthy investigation, and . . .”
“Believe me, I understand. But it was still a damnfool thing to do,” Walter said.
He sat for a moment after talking with Walter, with his head in his hands. Then he called Rodney.
“I’ve got something I want to show you. How about this morning, at Lord’s Chapel?”
“Let me stop by the Grill and get a coffee to go, and I’ll be right over.”
He felt sick. In possession of stolen goods! A fine thing for a man of the cloth, for heaven’s sake. If there were any punishment, it was the nauseating humiliation he felt, which was surely punishment enough.
“You look like somethin’ the cat drug in,” said Emma, coming through the door.
“That’s a fine greeting.”
She sighed. “Dooley Barlowe is doin’ you about as much good as a case of diabetes, if you ask me.”
“He came back last night.”
“What a relief! I wish you’d called me!”
“I did. No answer.”
“Oh, yes, well . . . I was at Harold’s mama’s and we worked on my suit.”
“Your suit?”
“That I’m gettin’ married in. Red. Black buttons. Peplum. High neck.”
“I see.”
“Black patent shoes. Black hose. Pearl earrings. Where was he?”
“His mother’s, like we thought. She sent him back, told him she couldn’t care for him.”
“Breaks my heart,” said Emma.
That’s encouraging, he thought.
“But mostly, it makes me mad.”
Aha! Here it comes.
“You get house help, change your diet, get you a nice dog for company, start feelin’ better, and what happens?”
He was so astounded to hear Emma refer to Barnabas as a nice dog that he was speechless.
“What happens is, you get a boy who runs you down, wears you out, and worries you half to death, and you’re right back where you started. I declare, I’ve seen diabetes make you look better than you look this mornin’.” She caught her breath and plunged ahead. “Do you know how old you are?”
Remind me! he thought, enduring her assault. “Not twenty-five! Not thirty-two! Sixty! You’re too old to be takin’ on a boy, plus do your preachin’, and go to the hospital, and visit the elderly, and go to meetin’s, and read in that program with Olivia Davenport, not to mention the bells comin’ in, and the nursin’ home startin’ up, and that old mangy dog to wash . . .”
Now his nice dog was old and mangy.
As she continued her oratorical massacre, he came to a sober realization. He would certainly never tell her so, but he had to admit one thing:
She was right.
“Dark in here,” said Rodney. “But it smells good.”
“It’s the old wood, and years of incense and beeswax and flowers and lemon oil and dried hydrangeas. It’s a wonderful smell!” he agreed as he switched on the lights. “Come down this way. What I want to show you is where we keep the ashes of the departed.”
They walked down the hall and stopped at the closet, where he removed the key from above the door.
Rodney adjusted his holster. “Is somethin’ goin’ to jump out of there?”
“I fervently hope not.”
He opened the door and turned on the light, relieved to find that everything was as orderly as he’d left it. No one had tossed in any plastic flowers or worn hymnals.
“Now,” he said, carefully picking up the bronze urn that was sitting third from the left, “this is Parrish Guthrie. Remember him?”
“Ha! How could I forget th’ old so-and-so? I wasn’t th’ only one that got a deep breath when he went to his grave . . . or whatever that thing is.”
“This is an urn. After the body is cremated, the ashes—which are mostly bits of bone—are interred here.”
“Bits of bone!” Rodney said, shuddering. “I like th’ old-fashioned way—pushin’ up daisies.”
“Let’s take this urn and walk on back to the kitchen.” His heart was pounding. Oh, how he hated to tell the bitter truth about his wrong behavior.
He stood at the sink and unscrewed the cap of the bronze urn, which came off more readily than before. “I’m going to show you something very . . . what is the word? Something that grieves me.” With his other hand, he took the white tea towel from the rack and spread it on the drain board. Then he gently shook the urn, so that the contents would spill out.
Nothing tumbled to the mouth of the urn.
He shook it again and turned the urn nearly upside down. There was no rattle, as of seashells in a jar, and nothing came rolling onto the towel. He realized there was a good explanation for this:
The bronze urn was empty.
He felt strangely light-headed and confused. “I don’t understand,” he began.
“What’s the deal?”
The rector shook the urn. “I don’t know. I’m . . .”
“Somethin’ was supposed to be in that jar. Right?”
“Jewels,” he said weakly. “Jewels that I found in this very urn sometime before Christmas.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Let’s sit down.”
Rodney sat on the stool by the wall phone. Father Tim sat on the old pine table in the center of the room.
“Before Christmas,” he confessed, “I was cleaning up that closet, throwing things out. I picked up Parrish’s urn and it rattled strangely. I remembered I’d never seen the contents of an urn, so, out of curiosity, I brought it back here to the kitchen, and opened it. There were little cloth sacks full of jewels in there, cut jewels.”
“Maybe it was another jar you brought back here.”
“No. It was definitely Parrish.”
Rodney rested his hand on the butt of his pistol. “So, why didn’t you report it?”
<
br /> There! There was the question he was dreading.
As he explained why, Rodney took off his hat and scratched his head.
“I don’t know,” said the chief, “I never run up against anything like this. When you found ’em th’ first time and didn’t report it, you were in possession of stolen goods, I know that.”
“So I’m told by my cousin, who’s an attorney.”
“But now that there’s nothin’ here, well, there’s nothin’ I can see to charge you with. Maybe we ought to look in th’ other jars.”
The rector shrugged. He didn’t think it would do any good.
“This is creepy,” said Rodney, peering into the urns and stirring their contents with a bread knife from the silverware drawer. “I wish to th’ Lord I’d brought me a chew of Red Man.”
When they finished an hour later, they’d found nothing amiss. “I’m just goin’ to write up a report, and then you sign it, and I’ll file it.”
“Where? Where will you file it?”
“In my right-hand drawer over at th’ station.”
“Aha! I thought you might file a report with J.C. Hogan.”
“Not, by dern, if I can help it,” said Rodney.
He felt faint with relief.
He had thanked his neighbor for her imaginative gift.
He had confessed his unfortunate discovery and equally unfortunate behavior to Rodney.
And now there was only one thing left to do on his list, and that was to talk with Hoppy Harper.
He felt like calling the airline immediately and flying nonstop to Shannon, then renting a car and driving to Sligo. There, he’d spend at least four weeks in a remote inn, riding a bicycle along narrow lanes, and tapping his foot to fiddle music played in thatched cottages.
Instead of calling the airline, he called Hoppy.
“Harper.”
“Your good rector here,” he said, not feeling very good at all. “How’s Russell?”
“It’s amazing the way the infection is reversing.
Not typical in cases like this. How’re you? Are you running?”
“Slacked off.”
“I’ve got three words to say to you, pal: Just do it.”
“OK. You’re right, and I will. Let me ask you something. I need to talk with you about . . . an important matter. Your place or mine?”
“Mine, if it’s OK with you. Everybody from here to Wesley and back has upper respiratory infections. I can’t leave.”
“Say when.”
“Around six.”
“I’ll be there.”
He put the phone down. It was the first time he’d had a moment to catch his breath, and the jewels came instantly to mind.
Why were they gone from the urn? Why would they have been moved? Did someone know he’d found them? He felt an odd chill, and he did not like the feeling.
“Viral myocarditis!” Hoppy looked as if he’d been struck. “Good God,” he said quietly, and sat back in his chair.
Father Tim looked at the notes he’d taken while Olivia told her story. The condition was complex, and he’d tried to assemble the facts accurately.
The doctor leaned forward. “Tell me everything she said.”
“It began with what she thought was flu, about two years ago.”
"No energy,” said Hoppy. "Shortness of breath, chest discomfort.”
“That’s right. She said she felt like she was falling apart. She went to the doctor, took antibiotics, accelerated her vitamins, got plenty of rest, but nothing worked. They gave her a battery of blood tests and didn’t find anything.”
“Typical.”
“Finally, they did an EKG and saw some abnormalities. Then an echocardiogram, which showed an enlarged heart.”
“Then the biopsy,” said Hoppy.
“Right. Viral myocarditis.”
The doctor looked ashen.
“The symptoms waxed and waned. She would have perfectly normal times, just like she’s had since coming to Mitford, then severe flare-ups when she could hardly breathe, and scarcely walk for the edema in her legs.”
“The flare-ups are totally unpredictable. Who’s her doctor?”
“A man from your old alma mater, Mass General.”
“Leo Baldwin, I hope.”
He checked his notes. “Exactly! Leo Baldwin.”
“The best. I know him. Stunning credentials. What happened when she had the tissue biopsy?”
“Coxsackie B, she said. They tried medication, but the side effects were gruesome. Affected her blood count.”
“You’ve seen termites in action?” Hoppy asked.
“Yes. Right under my back steps, more’s the pity.”
“Coxsackie eats away like that, at the heart muscle. Vile, insidious, incurable. Why hasn’t she had a transplant?”
“You understand the chances of finding a donor with a normal blood type.”
“Seventy-five, a hundred to one.”
“Add to that the chance of finding a donor with B blood type.”
“Thousands to one.”
“And then the chances of getting the heart to the patient with the right kind of timing.”
Hoppy removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Crap,” he said softly.
He called Walter.
“Not there? You mean just . . . vanished?”
“The urn was empty.”
“Look, Timothy, you’ve been pressing hard. You haven’t had a vacation in years and—”
“No, I am not seeing things, and it was not my imagination. The jewels were there before Christmas. I only opened one little sack, there must have been fifteen or twenty stones in it, and I could see there were others, other little cheesecloth sacks just like it.” He sighed. “There is, however, one comfort in all this.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“I’m no longer in possession of stolen goods.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Issues of the Heart
“He’s hardly speaking to me,” said Olivia.
Percy came over to their booth, wiping his hands on the worn apron. “I don’t b’lieve I’ve had th’ pleasure,” he said to Olivia.
“Meet Olivia Davenport,” said Father Tim. “Olivia Davenport, Percy Mosely, the owner of this venerable establishment. When we were in for breakfast, he was out with the flu.”
She smiled and extended her hand. “I hear your calf’s liver with onions is four-star.”
“She didn’t hear it from me,” said the rector.
“Well, th’ Father here don’t like it, n’r Miss Rose, but th’ rest of us ain’t so hard to satisfy.”
“I look forward to deciding for myself.”
“For you,” said Percy, obviously enchanted, “we can have it back on th’ specials by Tuesday.”
“Well, then, look for me at noon on Tuesday!”
Percy went away in such ecstasy that the rector feared for his angina condition.
“Barely speaking?” asked her rector.
“I know what it is, of course. He’s afraid.”
“Yes, of course. And he’s ashamed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he wants very much to be brave, to let his feelings for you grow. But, as well as fearing the pain, I believe he’s ashamed of the fear.”
Olivia’s brow furrowed as she considered that. “Yes. Yes, I understand that.”
“Also, I feel that Hoppy is . . .”
“Is what?” she asked eagerly.
“Is thinking.”
“Thinking?”
“He knows your doctor.”
“No! Leo? He knows Leo?” She was obviously thrilled with this news.
“Hoppy interned at Mass General.”
Olivia laughed with unbridled warmth. The sparkle danced again in her eyes. “Mass General is like home! I’ve spent so much of my life there, why, just talking about it makes me suddenly . . . almost homesick. And Hoppy . . . he interned there and knows Leo.” She said this softly, as if
it gave her great comfort.
“I believe Hoppy may be thinking of how you could . . . that is, what he might do if . . .”
“A transplant? No. It’s too much. I’ve given up. The chances, the risks . . . nothing is in my favor. Father, I promise you—I can’t do it.”
“Well, Olivia, all I can say to that is: Philippians four-thirteen.”
She laughed easily. “I love it when you talk like that!”
Emma handed him the phone, looking tentative. “Harold’s preacher,” she said.
“My good brother,” said the voice on the line, “this is Absalom Greer—orchard keeper, general-store operator, pastor of three little churches, and all-around worker in the vineyards of the Lord.”
“Pastor Greer!” said the rector, instantly attracted to the tone of his caller’s voice. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“Well, my friend, since we’re to perform a ceremony together, I’d be beholden to you if we could have a mite of fellowship!”
“Consider it done,” he said with warm anticipation. “Consider it done!”
“I declare,” he told Puny on Wednesday, “if Dooley and I don’t get out to Meadowgate soon, Rebecca Jane will be in college.”
“When’s the baptizin’?”
“Two weeks hence. The weather has been so variable, with rain or snow nearly every Sunday, that I’ve never laid eyes on her.”
“I’d like to hold a baby,” Puny said wistfully.
“Well, then, young lady, go find yourself a husband.”
“Ha! There’s not a soul out there I’d pick.”
“How can you know that when you’ve limited the picking to Mitford and Wesley?” That was a good question, he thought.
“Mama said you don’t go huntin’, you let ’em kind of go by you in a parade.”
“Yes, well, that may be. But have you seen any parades going by lately?”
She sighed. “What d’ you want for supper?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Well, for a change I thought I’d ask, instead of leavin’ a surprise.”
“Puny, please do not try to fix a thing that ain’t broke.”
She stared at him. “What kind of talk is that?” “I mean that I fervently beseech you to keep doing exactly what you’re doing. Your surprises are my unending delight.”
She smiled gratefully but a little weakly, he thought, as she paired his clean socks.