by Jan Karon
He took the paper.
I use Golden Band flour because it’s light and easy to work. Also because my mother and grandmother used it. Golden Band! Generation after generation it’s the best.
“They sure don’t give you much room to rave,” he said. “And it looks like you’ve got twenty-eight words here.”
“Oh, law! I counted wrong. What do you think should come out?”
“Let’s see. You could take out ‘my’ and say, ‘because Mother and Grandmother used it.’ ”
“Good! Two to go,” she said, sitting on the edge of her stool.
“You could take out ‘flour’ in the first sentence, since they know it’s flour.”
“Good! One more to go!”
“This is hard,” he said.
“I know it. I been writin’ on that thing for four days. But look, they give you a cruise if you win! To the Caribbean! Have you ever been there?”
“Never have.”
“Only thing is, it’s for two. Who would I go with?”
“Cross that bridge when you get to it,” he said. “OK, how about this? ‘Generation after generation, Golden Band is best.’ ”
“How many words?” she asked, holding her breath.
“Twenty-five, right on the money!” He cleared his throat and read aloud. “I use Golden Band because it’s light and easy to work. Also because Mother and Grandmother used it. Generation after generation, Golden Band is best.”
“Ooh, that sounds good when you read it!” Winnie beamed. “Read it again!”
He read it again, using his pulpit voice. He thought the town’s prize baker would fall off the stool with excitement. Why couldn’t his congregation be more like Winnie Ivey, for Pete’s sake?
As he left the bakery, he saw Mitford’s Baptist preacher, Bill Sprouse, coming toward him at a trot.
“Workin’ the street, are you?” asked the jovial clergyman, shaking hands.
“And a good day for it!”
“Amen! Wish I could work the south end and we’d meet in the middle for a cup of coffee, but I’ve got a funeral to preach.”
“I, on the other hand, had a baptism this morning.”
Bill adjusted the white rose in his lapel. “Coming and going! That’s what it’s all about in our business!”
“See you at the monument!” said the rector. Since spring arrived, they’d often ended up at the monument at the same time, with their dogs in tow for the evening walk.
He ducked into Happy Endings to see if his order had arrived.
“How do you like your new butterfly book?” asked Hope Winchester, looking fetching, he thought, with her long, chestnut hair pulled back.
“Just the ticket!” he said. “You ought to review it for the Muse and first thing you know, half of Mitford would be attracting butterflies.”
“That,” she said, “is a very preponderant idea!”
“Thank you.”
“The Butterfly Town! It would bring people from all over.”
“I don’t think the mayor would much take to that. Unless, of course, they all went home at night.”
“Well, Father, progress is going to happen in Mitford, whether our mayor likes it or not. We can’t sit here idly, not growing and adapting to the times! And just think. People who like butterflies would be people who like books!”
“Aha. Well, you certainly have a point there.”
“Sometimes our mayor can be a bit overweening.”
He grinned. “Can’t we all? Did my book come in?”
“Let’s see,” she said, “that was the etymological smorgasbord, I believe.”
“ ‘Amo, Amas, Amat,’ ” he said, nodding.
“I declare!” sniffed Helen Huffman, who owned the place. “Why don’t y’all learn to speak English?”
“Father, is this a good time?”
He heard the urgency in Olivia Harper’s voice when she rang him at the office.
“It’s always a good time for you,” he said, meaning it.
“Lace went to the Creek to see her friend Harley. I implored her not to go, Father, I know how dangerous it could be. But she went, and now she’s home saying that Harley’s sick and she’s going back to nurse him. Hoppy’s in surgery, and I don’t . . . Please. She’s packing her things. You’re so good at this.”
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
Barnabas leapt into the passenger seat of his Buick and they raced up Old Church Lane.
No, he was not good at this. He was not good at this at all. His years with Dooley Barlowe had been some of the hardest of his life; it had all been done with desperate prayer, flying by the seat of his pants. Who was good at knowing the right parameters for wounded kids? Yet, blast it, it was his job to know about parameters. Being a clergyman, being a Christian, had a great deal to do with parameters, which is why the world often mocked and despised both.
He felt the anxiety of this thing. Lace Turner was a passionately determined girl who had suffered unutterable agony in her thirteen years at the Creek—a bedridden mother whom she had faithfully nursed since early childhood, and a brutalizing father suffering the cumulative effects of drugs, alcohol, and regular unemployment.
Through it all, the toothless, kindhearted Harley Welch had looked after Lace Turner’s welfare, shielding her whenever he could from harm. It was Harley’s truck that Lace had used to transport Dooley’s mother, then another Creek resident, to the hospital last summer.
He shuddered at the memory of Pauline Barlowe, who, burned horribly by a man known as LM, had not only endured the agony of skin grafting and the loss of an ear, but had to live with the bitter truth that she’d given away four of her five children.
Though Lace’s father and older brother disappeared last year, no one knew when Cate Turner might return to the Creek, nor what he might do if he found his daughter there.
He made a right turn into the nearly hidden driveway of the Harper’s rambling mountain lodge. With its weathered shingles, twin stone chimneys, and broad front porch, it was a welcome sight.
Barnabas leapt out, barking with abandon at the sudden alarm of countless squirrels in the overhead network of trees.
Thanks be to God, Lace was now in the care of the Harpers and doing surprisingly well at Mitford School. Naturally, she continued to use her native dialect, but she had dazzled them all with her reading skills and quick intelligence. He was even more taken, however, by the extraordinary depth of her character.
Another Dooley Barlowe, in a sense—with all of Dooley’s hard and thorny spirit, and then some.
He put the leash on his dog and left him secured to the porch railing, then opened the screen door and called. Olivia rushed down the hall and gave him a hug.
“Father, you’re always there for us.”
“And you for us,” he said, hugging back.
“She’s in her room, packing. I’m sorry to be so . . . so inept . . . .”
“You’re not inept. You’re trying to raise a teenager and deal with a broken spirit. Let’s pray,” he said. He looked into her violet eyes, which he always found remarkable, and saw her frantic concern.
He took Olivia’s hands. “Father, this is serious business. Give us your wisdom, we pray, to do what is just, what is healing, what is needed. Give us discernment, also, by the power of your Holy Spirit, and soften our hearts toward one another and toward you. In Jesus’ name.”
“Amen!” she said.
“Shall we talk to her together?”
“I’ve said it all, she’s heard enough from me, I think. Would you . . . ?”
He found Lace in her room, wearing the filthy hat from her days at the Creek, and zipping up a duffel bag.
She turned and glared at him. “I knowed you’d come. You cain’t stop me. Harley’s sick and I’m goin’.”
“What’s the matter with Harley?”
“Pukin’ blood. Blood in ’is dump. Cain’t eat, got bad cramps, and so weak he cain’t git up. But they’s somethin’ w
orser.”
“What?”
“Somebody stoled ’is dogs.”
“Why is that worse?” He’d try to stall her until he collected his wits.
“His dogs bein’ gone means anybody could go in there and take th’ money he’s saved back in ’is bed pillers. I’ve got t’ drive ’is truck out, too, or they’ll be stealin’ that.”
“What do you think the sickness might be?”
“I ain’t no doctor!” she said, angry.
“It could be something contagious.”
“So? Harley done it f’r me time an’ again. I was sick nearly t’ dyin’ an’ he waited on me, even went an’ fed my mam when my pap was gone workin’.”
She picked up the bag and shoved the hat farther down on her head, and walked to the door.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. Was he crazy? It was broad daylight. He had gone into the drug-infested Creek with her once before, to bring out Poobaw Barlowe—but that had been under cover of darkness and he’d never felt so terrified in his life.
“You ain’t goin’ in there with me in th’ daylight, a preacher wouldn’t be nothin’ but trouble. Besides, you couldn’t hardly git up th’ bank that time, you like t’ killed y’rself.”
She was right about that. He’d taken one step up and two back, all the way to the top. “What kind of medicine have you got?”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Why go in empty-handed? What can you do, not knowing? Come with me to the hospital, we’ll talk to a nurse.”
“I ain’t goin’ t’ no hospital.
“Lace. Get smart. You can’t do this without help. Drive to the hospital with me, I’ll get Nurse Kennedy to come out to the car, if necessary. Tell her what you know, see what she thinks.”
Lace looked at the floor, then at him. “Don’t try t’ trick me,” she said.
“I don’t think you’d be easy to trick.”
God in heaven, he didn’t have a clue where this was leading.
Nurse Kennedy leaned down and talked to Lace through the open car window. Lace sat stoically, clutching the duffel bag in her lap.
“It could be a bleeding ulcer,” said Kennedy. “Does Harley drink?”
“Harley was bad to drink f’r a long time, but he’s sober now.”
“Any diarrhea?”
“An awful lot, an’ passin’ blood in it.”
“How’s his color?”
“Real white. White as a sheet.”
The nurse looked thoughtful. “Vomiting blood, passing blood, pale, weak, cramps, diarrhea. All symptoms of a bleeding ulcer.”
At least whatever it was wasn’t contagious, thought the rector, feeling relieved. And it was curable.
“What’s the prognosis?” he asked.
“I could be wrong of course, but I don’t think so. If it’s a bleeding ulcer, it can be treated with antibiotics. Diet plays a part, too. The main thing is, he’ll need treatment. His hemoglobin will be low, and that’s serious.”
“We can’t thank you enough.”
As they drove down the hill, he still didn’t know where he was headed or how this would unfold.
He pulled the car to the curb in front of Andrew Gregory’s Oxford Antique Shop. “Let’s stop and think this through. If you go to the Creek, there’s nothing you can do. You heard the nurse, he’s got to have treatment. Let me get Chief Underwood to drive us in there, we’ll bring Harley out, money, truck, and all.”
“Where would you take ’im to? He ain’t goin’ t’ no hospital.”
“I don’t know. Let me think.” Not Betty Craig’s, that was for certain. Betty’s little house was stuffed to the gills with Russell Jacks, Dooley’s disabled grandfather; Dooley’s mother, Pauline Barlowe, who was looking for work; and her son, Poobaw. There wasn’t a bed available at Hope House, even if Harley could qualify, and the red tape for the county home would be a yard long.
“Blast!” he said.
“Is that some kind of cussin’?” asked Lace.
“In a manner of speaking,” he replied.
He was running late for dinner, and he had no idea how he would explain it all to his wife.
Of course, she was vastly understanding about most things, he had to hand her that. So far, she hadn’t run him out of the house with a broom or made him sleep in the study.
This, however, could definitely turn the tide in that direction.
She was standing at the back door, looking for him, when he walked up to the stoop with Lace Turner and a weak and failing Harley Welch.
She said only “Good Lord!” and came out to help him.
Hoppy Harper was on his way, possibly the last of that sterling breed of doctors who made house calls.
Heaving Harley up the stairs to the guest room was worse than hauling any armoire along the same route. Though shockingly frail, Harley’s limp body seemed to have the weight of a small elephant. It took three of them to get Harley on the bed, where the rector undressed him and bathed him with a cloth, which he dipped in a pan of soapy water.
Harley looked comic in the rector’s pajamas, which had to be changed immediately, given Harley’s inability to make it to the adjoining bathroom on time. “I didn’t go t’ do that,” said Harley, whose flush of embarrassment returned a bit of color to his face.
What had he gotten into? Father Tim wondered. He didn’t know. But when Harley Welch looked at him and smiled weakly, the rector felt the absolute wisdom of this impulsive decision, and smiled back.
He went to bed, exhausted. Lace had gained permission to stay over, sleeping in Dooley’s room next to Harley’s, and keeping watch.
He reached for his wife, and she took his hand. “Am I dead meat around here?” he asked.
She rolled toward him and kissed him softly on the nearly bare top of his head.
“I married a preacher,” she said. “Not a banker, not an exporter, not an industrialist. A preacher. This is what preachers do—if they do it right.”
Nobody on the vestry had heard a word from the real estate company that had made inquiries around town.
Oh, well, they’d thrown out the line and there would be another bite at another time. But had they made the bait attractive enough? They couldn’t worry about that. They couldn’t install additional bathrooms in the hope that Fernbank would lure a bed and breakfast. They couldn’t cut up the ground floor into classrooms in the hope it would lure an academy. In the end, they couldn’t even afford to paint and roof it, hoping to lure anyone at all.
At eight in the morning he dropped by Town Hall and sat in a Danish modern chair that once occupied the mayor’s own family room. He declined the weak coffee in a Styrofoam cup.
“Barbecue?” growled the mayor. “Barbecue? Two can play that game. Ray Cunningham makes the best barbecue in the country—outside the state of Texas, of course.”
“I don’t know if I’d fight barbecue with barbecue,” he said. “I hear Mack’s planning to have these things right up ’til election day.”
The mayor was just finishing her fast-food sausage biscuit. “Why do anything at all, is what I’d like to know! I don’t see how that snake could oust me, even if I was the most triflin’ mayor ever put in office.”
“Any town in the country would be thrilled to have you running things, Esther. Look at the merchant gardens up and down Main Street, look at our town festival that raised more money than any event in our history. Look at Rose Day, and how you put your shoulder to the wheel and helped turn the old Porter place into a town museum! Look how you rounded up a crew and painted and improved Sophia’s little house . . . . The list is endless.”
“And look how I don’t take any malarkey off the council. You know we’ve got at least two so-and-sos who’d as soon put a paper plant and a landfill in here as walk up th’ street.”
“You’ve never taken your eyes off the target, I’ll hand you that.”
“So what do you think?” asked Esther, leaning forward. The rector saw that she’d b
roken out in red splotches, which usually indicated her enthusiasm for a good fight.
“I think I’d wait a while and see how things go in the other camp.”
“That’s what Ray said.”
“In the meantime, I hope you’ll have a presence at the town festival. I hear Mack’s setting up quite a booth.”
“You can count on it! Last year I kissed a pig, this year I’ll be kissin’ babies. And one of these days, I want to do somethin’ for the town, thanking them for their support all these years. Lord, I hope talkin’ to you doesn’t infringe on any laws of church and state!”
He laughed. “I don’t think so. By the way—how about laying off the sausage biscuits for a while? I’d like to see you make it through another couple of terms.”
She wadded up the biscuit wrapper and lobbed it into the wastebasket. “You’re off duty,” she said. “So I’ll thank you not to preach.”
School would be out in two weeks and Dooley would be home.
Where in the dickens would he find the boy a job, or where would Dooley find one for himself? It would have to be in Mitford, which was no employment capital. He’d talk to Lew Boyd when he filled up his tank, or maybe the fellow who was looking after the church grounds could use a helper . . . .
Another thing. Maybe he and Cynthia could do something he’d never done in his life: take a week at the beach, rent a cottage—his wife would know how to do that. As for their mutual dislike of sand and too much sun, weren’t there endless compensations—like time to read, the roar of the ocean, and seafood fresh from the boat?
Dooley would like that, and he could take Tommy. They’d load the car and head out right after Dooley’s two weeks at Meadowgate Farm.
A vacation! For a man renowned for his stick-in-the-mudness, this was a great advance.
Whistling, he headed toward home.
Lace Turner was still wearing the battered hat. But her life with the Harpers had revealed a certain beauty. Her once-tangled hair was neatly pulled away from her face, dramatizing the burning determination in her eyes.