by Jan Karon
Harley stood, cleared his throat, looked down. Work boots. Lug soles. Not good. ‘Give me a little beat there,’ he said to Willie.
‘You’re askin’ th’ wrong man for a beat.’
He thought Willie was mighty sour about goin’, but prob’ly didn’t want to stay home and miss anything, either.
Harley slapped his leg, laying down a rhythm. ‘Okay, here we go, now. Look out!’
Harley did a few steps. Lug soles stickin’ to th’ floorboards; he could kill hisself dancin’ in these shoes. Heel, toe, drag. Dadblame it. Not workin’.
‘If this is what’s goin’ on at Jake’s tonight,’ said Willie, ‘believe I’ll stay home an’ watch Th’ Voice.’
Slap went th’ screen door at th’ farmhouse and Lily heading to her truck.
‘Callin’ it a day!’ she hollered. ‘See you Friday.’
‘You comin’ to th’ dance?’ said Willie.
‘No way.’
‘You might find you a man.’
‘Not in that bunch of toothless wonders.’
‘Leastways, you might git you some exercise,’ said Harley.
‘Like I need it after sawin’ open nine pumpkins th’ size of Volkswagens, scrapin’ out two buckets of seeds, an’ cannin’ fourteen quarts.’ Lily climbed in her truck and slammed the door. ‘All I lack of bein’ dead is th’ news gettin’ out!’
Willie and Harley looked at each other.
‘Can’t argue with that,’ said Willie.
‘When you gon’ bake us a pie, Lil?’
‘When pigs fly,’ she hollered, gunning the engine.
• • •
Old Man Teague, first name Austin, was sitting inside the co-op door, his elderly redbone hound, Redeemer, asleep under his chair. Though ninety-one, Austin Teague might have been a hundred, easy. ‘Wrinkles all over!’ Jack once said.
‘Evenin’, Mr. Teague,’ said Dooley.
Austin Teague gave the vet a curt nod.
‘Evenin’, Mr. Teague.’ Jack hoped the old man would notice his new boots, but he didn’t.
‘I don’t like ’im settin’ at th’ door,’ Jake told Dooley. ‘Bad marketing.’
The transformation of the Crossroads Co-op was a jaw-dropper.
Sacks of animal feed, bone meal, grass seed, and mulch were stacked against the walls, carts of blue jeans, overalls, and work shirts had been rolled into the stock room, and forty folding chairs faced a bare dance floor. Jake’s girlfriend, Sugar, was wrangling the grill.
Over all, the familiar smell of hot dogs and fertilizer was made even more agreeable by the sound of Lonnie Grant tuning his banjo in the corner.
‘It’s a new day at th’ Crossroads!’ said Jake, who admitted he was nervous as a cat.
• • •
Grilled cheese and a pickle at th’ co-op,’ said Dooley. ‘Is this life workin’ for you?’ He sat back in the chair and looked at her. ‘Seriously.’
His wife could have gone places, lived in New York, had a whole other life. Sometimes he thought about these things.
‘Are you really asking me this? Listen to me, Doc. This is all I could possibly ever want. Ever.’
He wiped Jack’s mouth with a napkin. ‘For richer, for poorer?’
‘For better, for worse.’
‘Just remember that worse is in there.’
‘I’ll take it,’ she said.
Lonnie Grant was giving his mandolin a final tuning, Jesse O’Neill was strapping on his old Martin, and Buddy Ellison was at the bass, ready to ride.
‘Find Harley and stick with him,’ he told Jack. ‘Mom and I will dance the first dance, then we’ll all dance together, okay?’
‘Okay!’
‘You’re th’ man in your new boots.’
‘Don’t be shy,’ Jake said to the crowd. ‘This is th’ first time we ever danced at th’ co-op. It could be a monthly deal if you enjoy yourself. Let’s have a hand for th’ boys who volunteered to help us support th’ shelter. Three of th’ famous Ham Biscuits, folks! Fresh from their sold-out concert in Memphis, Tennessee!’
Cheers, stomps, whistles, applause.
‘I don’t know how to do this stuff,’ said Dooley.
She laughed. ‘You don’t have to know—you can do anything to the Biscuits.’
He looked at his wife as they walked to the dance floor. Here was the girl whose hat he once stole and who’d laid him out for it, big-time. He took her hand, felt a grin going viral on his face.
‘Happy anniversary!’ he said as the music exploded into the room like a shot.
• • •
While Lace danced with Doc Owen, he sat with Jack and Lucy Bowman and stared, slack-jawed, at Old Man Teague burning up the floor. Taps on his shoes, the whole nine yards. Though his face remained a stone, Austin Teague was dancing solo and flatfootin’ like crazy.
‘I declare!’ said Lucy. ‘An’ th’ old coot gainin’ on a hundred!’
The keys to the Teague smokehouse, tractor, truck, springhouse, front door, root cellar, hay barn, and storage shed hung on a chain from the old man’s overalls pocket and jangled in time to the music. Though ‘wrinkled all over,’ Austin Teague was some kind of dance machine.
‘I want to dance!’ said Jack.
‘Go,’ said Dooley.
Jack grabbed his hand. ‘But you come, too, Dad.’
‘Go with your boy,’ said Lucy. ‘He’ll be growed up an’ gone ’fore you know it.’
‘Only if you’ll dance with us,’ said Dooley.
‘It’s been a coon’s age since I danced old-style.’
‘Way too long. Here we go!’
The floor was churning. Rebecca Jane was showing off her skills from an Appalachian Studies class and hammering the floor, taps and all. Danny Hershell was dodging Old Man Teague and managing to flatfoot, though the soles of his tennis shoes were holding him back. Not liking to be held back, Danny whipped off his shoes, tied the strings together, hung the shoes around his neck, and danced in his bare feet.
‘Do this!’ Jack waved his arms.
He and Lucy waved their arms.
‘Now do this,’ said Jack, shaking all over.
They shook all over.
‘Lookin’ good there, Doc.’ Jake hammered by with Sugar, who smelled of chili dogs and onions.
Judy the postmistress had dragged Harley onto the floor and was giving him a run, and there was Hal, bewildered but happy, dancing with Marge.
Joanna. He hadn’t seen her come in. She was dancing with Mink and Honey Hershell and showing off her mountain roots. How easy she looked, as if no energy was required to be graceful on the dance floor or wrangle a breeched foal from a mare.
The Biscuits segued into a tune of their own and a local favorite, ‘Do You Want Mustard on That?’
Cheers. Everybody dancing, taps talking.
The local vet decided that even though he didn’t know what he was doing, he would give it all he had.
‘What’s that dance your husband’s doin’?’ said Linda Pritchard, who taught seventh grade in Mitford and commuted. ‘Th’ buck dance? Th’ Virginia reel? What is that?’
‘That’s th’ Dooley,’ said Lace.
• • •
At the band break, she thanked Joanna Rivers for her generosity to the clinic. ‘More coming,’ said Joanna. ‘And thanks for praying for my dad.’
‘Now let th’ young’uns dance!’ said Jake. ‘All th’ young’uns come up. Twelve and under, come on up. Parents can dance with th’ little’uns if they want to.’
‘Does that mean me, Mom?’
‘It does.’
‘You an’ Dad will come with me, okay?’
Dooley took Lace’s hand. Jack took her other hand.
It was good to be dancin’ at the co-op. It was good to be happy.
• • •
People were talking and laughing in the parking lot; they had carried Jack out, sound asleep, and put him in the truck.
‘Two minutes more,’ said Dooley. ‘Let’s say good night to Lucy.’
They walked over to the old green Pontiac.
‘Let me get that door for you, Lucy. I just remembered there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Soon, I hope. He’s dark, handsome, and amazingly intelligent.’
‘Oh,’ said Lucy, puzzled. ‘Very nice. But why do you want me to meet him?’
‘He’s not picky about what he eats, either.’
‘That’s always a blessin’,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t do much cookin’ anymore. Nothin’ to speak of, anyway . . .’
‘That’ll be just fine with him. And I must tell you that he likes to cuddle.’
She blushed. ‘Oh, Dr. Dooley! Good gracious!’
‘I know you have a small place, but he won’t take up much room. His name is Teddy.’
‘Teddy! Oh, my.’ She sat down hard in the driver’s seat, did a slow take, and looked up at him. ‘Go on, now. You’re teasin’ me! I can see th’ mischief in your eyes.’
Dooley laughed. ‘I am teasin’ you, Lucy, but there really is a Teddy.’
‘Pay no attention to such talk,’ said Lace. Her husband, the matchmaker! ‘Teddy is an adorable dog. A little pug. We think you might love each other.’
‘Which is what it’s all about,’ said Dooley, waxing philosophical. ‘Whether man or beast.’
‘A dog!’ Lucy said with a kind of wonder. ‘Which is a good thing in the end, as I have no space for a husband.’
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15
She was sleeping ‘the sleep of the dead,’ as her mother once called it. She hadn’t known she could be so exhausted. They’d come home from the dance and crashed into bed; the phone rang only minutes after they went to sleep. The Hershells’ border collie, Chips, had been hit by a maniac pickup truck outside the co-op. Blood. A lot of blood. And Mink a basket case.
She and Dooley had done the pain meds and the sedation, and stopped the bleeding. Dooley would evaluate in the morning, with surgery following in the afternoon or Friday morning. The leg could not be saved—the arteries and veins that run inside the leg were severed, the limb dead. Dooley had her phone set to alarm at five A.M. so he could do a vitals check.
She felt something touch her shoulder and sat up, startled.
‘What?’
Jack was sobbing. ‘I’m havin’ a ’mare!’
Her feet were on the floor. ‘We mustn’t wake Dad. I’ll go lie down with you and you can tell me everything.’ Charley was barking in Jack’s room.
‘I don’t want to go to my room.’
‘I’ll stay with you till you go to sleep.’
She was hurrying him out the door and into the hall.
‘I don’t want to go back to sleep, ever . . . ’
‘Come, I’ll pick you up.’ He was heavy with sorrow and the business of life.
‘. . . an’ I don’t want to go in my room again, ever. I want to be where you are.’
Charley barking.
‘I’ll carry you in your room so you can let Charley out. We have to let Charley out. I’m here, I’m right here.’
Charley was out of her crate like a shot and racing down the steps.
‘We’ll go to the kitchen now and you’ll tell me everything, okay?’
‘Okay.’
He had terrifying dreams too often. His granny locking him in the narrow toilet of her trailer. Hiding food and forcing a hungry little boy to search for it. Throwing away the baby from the pouch of his beloved plush kangaroo, now washed and put on hold in his closet. There were ’mares of his father, who he’d never seen, smashing into an oncoming train on a motorcycle that erupted in an inferno that ‘boiled his brain.’ His maternal grandmother and former ward had often told him this horrific story, sparing no detail.
‘Some come out of crucifying experiences and actually blossom,’ the social worker had said. ‘Some don’t do so well. Jack is doing well. Nearly all the kids have bad dreams. The remedy is love and time, time and love. Keep doing what you’re doing.’
Three A.M. by the kitchen clock. She let Charley out and sat in the rocker with Jack in her arms.
‘My ol’ granny scratched my eyes out an’ I couldn’t find my eyes to put back in.’
‘They’re in now and always will be.’ She kissed the lids of his eyes, tasting the salt.
‘She said she was my real granny an’ she would steal me back to live with her.’
He was crying again.
‘No, no, no. You and Dad and I are family forever, you will always, always be with us. She is not your granny anymore. You have two wonderful grannies who love you dearly and forever.’
What to say? Where was a manual for this? She pulled up the tail of her sleep shirt and wiped his eyes and nose. ‘You will always be with us and Charley and Choo-Choo . . . and the girls . . . and Harley . . . and Willie . . . always . . . forever . . . ’
Rocking, rocking, his eyes closing, his head next to the gathered beating of her heart.
She recited fragments of a poem learned in school and written in her journal.
‘All people are children when they sleep.
There’s no war in them then . . .
They . . . open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters. . . .
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers
Words like golden bees
would drift in.’
Sleeping now, breathing his steady boy breath. ‘Sweet dreams,’ she whispered.
She rocked awhile, healing herself, too, then shifted his weight in her arms and stood and let Charley in, and they went upstairs.
She felt guilty when he had his ’mares, anguished that she couldn’t love him enough to make the hurt go away.
• • •
First light. Moving fast, talking fast as they pulled on their clothes. Dooley was going over to check on Chips again and do payroll.
‘He mentioned an iPad a couple of times yesterday,’ said Dooley. ‘No way am I into that.’
‘I agree.’
‘Why sit inside and play games on a device when you can play games on a hundred acres with your dog?’ He put a foot on the windowsill and tied his shoelaces. ‘When he gets into the world, there’ll be devices enough.’
‘Mitford School has computers in first grade now.’ She ran her fingers through her long hair, gave it a twist, fastened it with a clip. ‘I’ll miss him so bad when he goes to kindergarten.’
‘Next year,’ said Dooley, disbelieving. It seemed Jack had just come to them, or that he’d been with them always, he couldn’t say which.
More than anything, she wanted to homeschool Jack, but it was beyond her powers; she knew her limitations. She zipped her jeans, pulled on the shirt she wore yesterday. ‘He really needs other . . .’ She hesitated, searching for her tennis shoes.
Other children, he thought. Sometimes neither of them could say it. ‘You’re a blur,’ he said. ‘Slow down.’
‘You’re one to talk. Race you to the coffeepot.’
• • •
He drank coffee while standing at the kitchen sink, looking out to a gray first light.
He needed to keep reminding himself that he had it all, everything. Except X-ray equipment. Hal’s old X-ray machine was shot. He hated sending clients over to Wesley for X-rays—it was a haul nobody needed and money he’d rather keep right here. Bottom line, he may as well forget it. There would be no money for new equipment until sometime late next year.
He reached to his shirt pocket. Gone. He kept forgetting.
Joanna had ridden her Gat
or over what she imagined his route had been. No phone. He had to get over there, but there hadn’t been time. It was dark before he closed the clinic every day. The phone store said they could recover pretty much everything from the cloud, so maybe there was no reason to make the trek to Joanna’s. Then again, maybe it wasn’t in the creek. Maybe it was lying in the pasture with a dead battery, but still operational.
He had to do something, anything, and get it behind him.
The news of Joanna checking out to Colorado had gone viral; the clinic was getting calls. Hal had done inoculations at a horse farm yesterday, and a donkey, a couple of llamas, and a six-hundred-pound sow were scheduled for a farm call on Monday. A ballistic hog had once chased him up a tree; he didn’t like to think about it.
Taking on large animals increased the incidence of emergencies. But the extra income would help pay pharmaceutical companies for drugs issued with a six-month grace period to his start-up practice. Last June, payback time seemed far away, but soon, in mid-December, he would owe serious bucks.
He filled two buckets at the kitchen tap, stuck a roll of paper towels under his arm, and headed to work. Twelve Flemish Giant show rabbits were due in today—a hundred and twenty pounds of pedigreed lapin. When he heard the symptoms, he guessed Pasteurella, but said nothing to the owner. If it was Pasteurella, they’d have to be quarantined in the crate room, and what would he do with the two patients recovering from surgery? Maybe the Persian in a crate in his office, the Havanese in the break room.
The plumbing job had advanced, but way slower than he expected. Their need for water was constant. If they wanted it hot, as they often did, that meant heating it on the old apartment-size stove in the break room.
Without even trying, he could niggle around and find something to complain or worry about, like the searing pain in his left hip from the fall in the creek. And somehow Teddy had gotten out of his crate last night and ended up in their bed—the little guy was total Velcro, and his hip was worse this morning. He actually enjoyed a good whine now and then. But he had nothing to whine about, really.