by Jan Karon
This whole place was paid for—this beautiful farmland with the view of the mountains, now obscured by heavy ground fog, and their house and even his truck—all. Thanks to Miss Sadie.
It had been a while since he’d thought about Miss Sadie, and how he’d hauled her fireplace ashes out of that old barn of a place that he perceived to be a castle and scattered them around her lilacs. His job description included setting cook pots in the attic and the front hall if the weatherman called for rain. After the rain, he’d go up the hill and empty the pots in her fishpond.
He’d done jobs at Fernbank that he’d never heard of before, like polish silver doorknobs and beat rugs hanging on a clothesline and wash windows with newspaper and vinegar. Whatever he did, he tried to do his best.
Who would have thought that skinny little kid would be walking across rain-soaked grass this morning and unlocking the door of his own practice—all because of an old woman who, for no reason he would ever understand, believed in him.
• • •
They ran to the henhouse because running felt good.
She had asked Willie to let her collect the eggs for a few days; it would be a type of field trip with Jack. She didn’t have time to collect eggs, but she needed to get the occasional breath of fresh air and Jack needed to burn energy.
‘Where does eggs come out?’
‘Where do eggs come out?’
‘No!’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk perfect.’ He was prickly this morning from lack of sleep.
She reached into the nest box without alarming the hen, and picked her up and showed Jack where eggs come out. This would launch the first semester of Meadowgate Ag 101. And right there—what timing!—was an egg half protruding from the oviduct.
Jack did a comic routine of staggering back with astonishment. ‘Man!’
She thanked the hen for her nonchalance.
A touch of Indian summer today, following a quick, hard rain in the night. They walked toward the house with a full egg basket—fourteen of nature’s most sublimely formed creations. Field trips, even mini, were good.
‘Mom, look! Big clouds!’
Heaps, piles, banks of clouds.
‘I see a pony!’ he said.
She knelt beside him. ‘Where?’
‘Over yonder with th’ long tail.’
‘I see it! Yes!’ And just above the pony, a gondola with its long-necked prow.
‘We could lie down and look some more,’ he said. Charley and Teddy came pounding toward them. ‘Lie down, Charley, an’ look at th’ clouds. You too, Teddy, an’ stop lickin’ me.’
The cool October grass a cushion, the sky alive with cumulus. She was hungry to paint clouds. To float into their mystery, find them out. This moment in the grass would not be time wasted, it would be research for the mural. Didn’t Constable study clouds for two entire summers? And look what happened! He became the best painter of clouds in the whole wide world.
She fought the temptation to close her eyes. She could sleep for a week. Two weeks . . .
‘If clouds could talk, would they say they like my new boots?’ He lifted his feet in the air.
‘I think so. You outgrew the others zoom, zoom!’
‘If clouds could talk, would they tell us about God?’
‘They sort of do tell us about God, by helping make the rain that grows the grass.’
‘Can they see us holdin’ hands an’ Charley’s red collar?’
‘In case they can see, we should wave. Here we are, clouds! It’s us, Lace and Jack and Charley an’ Teddy! Thanks for the neat mud puddle in our yard!’
He shouted at the top of his lungs. ‘An’ thanks for th’ graaaaassss!
‘Can clouds ever see inside of us?’
‘Only God can see inside of us. He made us, so he knows exactly what’s in there, and he checks it out all the time. He can look down inside me and see the big love I have for you. Big as the barn. Big as the sky.’
‘Big as th’ whole world?’
‘Bigger!’
Kindergarten next year. She felt her heart hesitate, then beat again.
She was missing him, missing him already.
• • •
An Instagram collage from Beth.
A selfie of Beth standing in her completely bare Manhattan apartment, a big window behind and a view of buildings. A shot of boxes and lamps and furniture in the back end of a moving van parked in an alley. A selfie of Beth with her beautiful mom, Mary Ellen, laughing on the terrace of a condo in Boston. How cool to think of Mary Ellen as Father Brad’s girlfriend! A shot of Beth’s new Kia Soul in front of the dealership, with Beth giving a thumbs-up from the driver’s seat.
Getting there!
See you Tuesday, Choo-Choo!
Cant wait!
• • •
She was on the scaffolding again, working with Harley at the upper reaches of the canvas. If they kept their momentum, the wash would be finished on Monday and she could begin sketching.
‘We’re cookin’, Harley.’
Harley nodded, doleful as anything.
She had never seen him so gloomy and pitiful, not even when she harassed him about misplacing his dentures. He was, she supposed, love-sick. She couldn’t know that for sure, of course, because he never talked about his relationship with Miss Pringle. But she remembered her own lovesickness and how it really was a kind of queasy feeling. Didn’t the poets go on about love and its awful effects even when it was wonderful?
‘The rollers are easier,’ she said. ‘But not as much texture as we could get with a brush.’ She hadn’t wanted a completely smooth surface; she was painting life in the country, which had feeling and dimension. ‘What do you think?’
‘Whichever y’ say.’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, Harley, what’s the matter with you? I thought it was goin’ to be fun workin’ with you on this project, we haven’t worked on a project together since the wedding. This mural will help send Jack to a good school, it is very important. So could you please just give me a break and buck up?’ She was talking to him like she’d done when she was a kid, when she was teaching him math and American history and he was resisting but really eating it up and she was giving him A-pluses. ‘You look like you’ve lost your best friend!’
Oops, shouldn’t have said that.
Back and forth, up and down.
‘I mean, have you seen this professor? Is he handsome? Some professors are, of course. But handsome would mean absolutely nothing to Miss Pringle, who is a woman of character and conscience. Besides, you’re educated, too, Harley. For instance, you know all about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Do you remember who commissioned it?’
A heaving sigh. ‘President Jefferson.’
‘When did Lewis and Clark depart St. Louis?’
‘Eighteen-oh-four. Spring of th’ year. May.’
Glum was the word for Harley Welch.
‘What did Mr. Jefferson send them out to do?’
‘They was sent out to explore an’ map th’ territory. Mostly, they hoped to find a direct waterway across th’ country plus stake our claim before other nations got th’ chance.’
‘What else?’
‘They was to study plants and animal life, as th’ president favored plants an’ animal life. Turned out they made a good many maps into the bargain.’
‘How many?’
‘Seem like it was a hundred an’ forty-some.’
This was like old times. He’d had the benefit of nearly all her studies; it had been a regular two-for-one in the basement of the rectory when Father Tim and Cynthia still lived there.
‘How do you spell Sacagawea?’
Oh, the sight of Harley spelling Sacagawea! One careful letter after another, as if engraving each in stone.
‘Perfect! How many people do y
ou think can spell Sacagawea?’
‘I couldn’t say.’ He was grinning now. ‘Nossir, I couldn’t.’
And there was her old Harley again!
‘Certainly not every professor, I can tell you that. Fancy education isn’t everything. You don’t need a doctorate to be an intelligent, sensitive, kind, and caring person which you truly, truly are, Harley. Forty boxes of books cannot equal that, I totally promise you.’
She dipped her roller. ‘And I’d be willing to bet that he cannot, for the life of him, cook a pot of collards.’
• • •
The driveway was jammed with pickup trucks and the cars of clinic clients. She walked across the front yard from the mailbox, reading Julie’s letter.
I was ten weeks when we came out for the wedding. We were so excited but—
How could we afford another baby? We couldn’t, so we were embarrassed to tell anyone when we were there. Forgive us for keeping it a secret. It’s time to tell the world and we are thrilled. Another thrill is that Kenny has been given a wonderful raise and a promotion! And we just learned we’ll be transferred soon. A lot in one chunk. We have no idea where, but Oklahoma is a possibility. So much to be thankful for . . .
Dooley was washing up at the prep-room window when he saw her. She was standing in the yard holding a letter in one hand and their mail basket in the other. She appeared to be . . .
Something in his gut. He threw down the towel and went out to her. ‘What?’
‘Julie and Kenny are having another baby.’
She was fighting tears. ‘I should be happy for her, I am happy for her.’
He never knew what to say.
‘Jack is enough,’ she said. ‘He’s truly enough, he’s so much more than enough.’
She drew away and gave him a smile. ‘I just realized . . . Jack will have another cousin!’
‘Three cousins! Okay!’ He held up three fingers after the manner of his son, and they laughed. It really did seem okay.
• • •
You won’t believe this.’
He came in late from the clinic and stood at the kitchen sink looking . . . older, she thought.
‘The entire toilet floor has to be replaced. A slow leak over a period of a few years. Two rotten floor joists, and we’ll need a new flange once the subfloor is down.’
‘How long? How much?’
‘Two more weeks. Two more thousand. Maybe three.’
He turned and looked out the window above the sink.
She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘We may as well get it behind us.’
‘I’m the one who signed off on “as is.”’
‘You took me as is, I took you as is. It’s not so bad.’
‘Hal didn’t know; there was no way he could know. The leak was under the floor, nobody could have seen it.
‘Man,’ he said.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16
At seven A.M., she was at the ironing board they kept in their bedroom, wearing the ragged T-shirt that said Love is an act of endless forgiveness.
Chips’s surgery was this morning; Mink and Honey Hershell would be there, both as shaken as if this were their child. Chips would be fine, of course, there were lots of happy three-legged dogs in the world.
She was ironing a shirt for Jack to wear to church.
‘Date night,’ he said. Her hair smelled of apples. ‘I have a great idea.’
He put his arms around her waist, spooning his form to hers. ‘Rebecca Jane can stay with Jack.’
‘We just had a date night,’ she said. ‘The dance.’
‘That was family night. This is our night. We’ll ride around with the windows down. Sing along with the radio. Have a burger in Wesley.’
‘All the way?’ she said, smiling to herself.
‘All the way. Definitely.’
He kissed the back of her neck; she maneuvered the iron around the collar of the shirt. ‘Can we afford it?’
‘I have a twenty I’ve been holding on to. An’ keep your cotton-pickin’ hands off it.’
A twenty! They were rich! She loved it when they laughed at the same time.
• • •
She was hand-washing her green date dress in the laundry sink by the open window and saw Jack. He was squatting in the driveway, playing with gravel—he loved gravel. Charley was sleeping on the warm stones.
‘This is Granpa Tim . . .’
Jack moved a piece of crushed river rock to another spot. ‘An’ this is Granpa Hoppy. You can sit there for my Name Day. An’ th’ grannies can be here . . .’
He moved other pieces around, intent. ‘This is Ethan an’ this is Etta if they can come . . . No, this is Mom and this is Dad and here is me . . . and this is Charley . . .’
Telling his story. Coming into the fullness of his still-new life . . .
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17
Chips was still sedated and sleeping in his cone collar, vitals good. After lunch and the all-hands-on kitten feed-up, they headed for the barn with Jack. The yard sale was on her mind and they were checking out the Beemer.
‘Mice like car interiors,’ said Dooley. ‘Barn cats also have a way with parked vehicles.’
Dooley ducked his head under the hood, peered around.
She looked at the old Beemer, which she had driven for years. Even sitting under a bashed-in shed roof, it was beautiful, it had an attitude. She hated to sell it; it was part of her history. Maybe that’s why there were so many junk cars parked in the weeds at people’s houses.
‘So what do you think? Two thousand? Twenty-five hundred?’
‘You wish,’ he said, kicking a tire.
On their way to the house, they stopped to admire the mud puddle where their tractor had trenched the grass.
‘Me an’ Charley want to jump in it!’ said Jack.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s pretty chilly now.’
‘Not too chilly.’ He looked up at her. Brown eyes pleading; that wonderful face. ‘Please, please, please!’
‘Give me your clothes,’ she said, calm as anything.
Screaming, Jack splashed with Charley into the brown lake that had popped up in the night. Teddy sat in the grass and barked.
‘I’m pretty tired of bein’ a grown-up,’ said Dooley.
She loved seeing the frown line between his eyebrows sort of disappear.
‘Did you know mud has healing properties?’ he said.
‘Mom, Dad! Look! I’m mud all over!’
Dooley was jiggling his leg. ‘Opens up the pores. Antimicrobial.’
‘Give me your clothes,’ she said.
In a flash, he stripped out of his jacket and shirt and unlaced his work boots and kicked them into the grass and peeled off his jeans and socks and sprinted to the puddle and bombed in.
Charley barked; chickens squawked; Jack could not stop laughing.
She shot the garden hose on them afterward, which might be the most fun she’d had in . . . ever.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18
It was a slow, cold October afternoon. As he walked across to check on Chips, he smelled the woodsmoke from their kitchen chimney. Chips would need one more night at the clinic; he would take him over to the house for some family time.
He checked emails on Amanda’s computer. A text from Joanna.
He bundled Chips up and took him home to the bed Lace had made by the fire. He filled a water bowl and put a daub of peanut butter on his finger, and squatted down with his patient.
‘It’s not looking good for Joanna to sell her practice,’ he said. ‘Her house goes on the market tomorrow. She decided to load what she can get in her truck and head out. She’s offering me what she can’t take. A Canon copier—ours is in midlife crisis. Some really great textbooks. Cautery supplies, a set of stocks—like new, she said, plus thre
e hundred bucks’ worth of radiograph equipment.’
‘Can we afford all that?’
‘Free, Lace. Free. Gratis! And we can really use it. Here’s the deal. I’ll leave at two on Tuesday—Blake can handle things, okay? It’s the only day I can get over there. Plus I can drop Teddy off at Lucy’s. I go right by her place.’
She watched his face. He was intense about giving her precise details.
‘Lucy said if Teddy works out, she’ll bake us a cherry pie. If it’s a bust, no pie and we get Teddy back. I want it to work.’ He gave his patient a scratch behind the ears.
Her husband loved cherry pie. Just now, when he laughed, there were crinkles around his eyes. Not many, and sort of new. But nice.
‘I’ll go to Joanna’s, look for my phone, pick up the equipment, and be back for supper.’
‘Beth gets here at five, remember.’
‘Right. She’ll want time to settle in; seems like a good day to get this done.’
‘When would you be home?’
‘A half hour to drop off Teddy. Forty-five minutes to Joanna’s. Who knows how long to find the phone, if I can find it. Then a half hour or so to load up what Joanna’s giving me, and home. Around six-thirty, maybe seven.’
‘I’ll send Joanna two quarts of pumpkin,’ she said. ‘She can surely find room to carry some pumpkin to Colorado.’
The wash coat for the mural was nearly done. She’d found a home for the kittens. They were getting free stuff for the clinic. And Beth was coming. Yes!
• • •
I have a great idea!’ Jack was out of breath from his dash up to Heaven with Charley and Teddy. ‘I could go with Dad to take Teddy an’ get things from th’ other vet, okay?’
‘What does Dad say?’
‘He said ask Mom.’ Brown eyes, long lashes, the hopeful face . . .
How can one’s adopted child be so much like the adoptive parents? More than once, she had instinctively felt that Jack was them, they were Jack. His innocent trust, even after all he’d been through, and his honest, wide-open heart . . .
She wanted his heart to stay open, but of course, it could not. It would learn to close like a night flower at first light.