by Jan Karon
“Can you take me to her?”
She looked at him with that sober expression, and turned and walked into the hall. “Come on!” she said.
The smell. What was it? It intensified as he followed her down the long, dark hallway to the bed where Rhody Davis lay in a nearly empty room. A baby crib stood by the window, containing a bare mattress and a rumpled sheet; a sea of garbage was strewn around the floor.
The woman was close to his own age, naked to the waist, a bulk of a woman with wispy hair and desperate eyes, and he saw instantly what created the odor. Her right foot, which was nearly black, had swollen grotesquely, and streaks of red advanced upward along her bloated leg. The abscesses in the foot were draining freely on the bedclothes.
Her head rolled toward him on the pillow.
“Daddy? Daddy, is that you?” Sweat glistened on her body and poured onto the soaked sheets.
“Rhody—”
“You ain’t got no business comin’ here lookin’ for Thelma.”
“What—”
“Thelma’s long gone, Daddy, long gone.” She moaned and cursed and tossed her head and looked at him again, pleading. “Why’d you bring that dog in here? Git that dog out of here, it’ll bite th’ baby . . . .” She tried to raise herself, but fell back against the sodden pillow.
“Do you have a phone?” he asked Jessie. He was faint from the heat and the stench and the suffering.
Jessie sucked her thumb and pointed.
It was sitting on the floor by an empty saltine cracker box and a glass of spoiled milk. He tried to open the windows in the room, but found them nailed shut.
Then he dialed the number everyone was taught to dial and went through the agonizing process of giving the name, phone number, street address, and the particular brand of catastrophe.
“Gangrene,” he said, knowing.
At the hospital, he got the payoff for wearing his collar. The emergency room doctor not only took time to examine Rhody Davis within an hour of their arrival, but was willing to talk about what he found.
“There was definitely a puncture to the sole of the foot. Blood poisoning resulted in a massive infection, and that led to gangrene.”
“Bottom line?” asked the rector.
“There could be a need to amputate—we don’t know yet. In the meantime, we’re putting her on massive doses of antibiotics.”
“What follows?”
“Based on what you’ve told me, our department of social services will plug her into the system.”
“She’ll be taken care of?” asked Cynthia.
The amiable doctor chuckled. “Our social services department loves to get their teeth into a tough case. This one looks like it fills that bill, hands down.”
“I’ll check on her,” said Cynthia. “I’m his deacon.”
He should have been exhausted, with one long trip behind him and another one ahead. But he wasn’t exhausted, he was energized. They all were.
Cynthia chattered, fanning herself with one of the coloring books she’d been optimistic enough to bring. Pauline talked more freely, telling them Miss Pattie stories from Hope House, and holding Jessie on her lap.
Jessie alternately ate cookies, broke in a new box of crayons, and asked questions. What was that white thing around his neck? What was their dog’s name? Where were they going? What was wrong with Rhody? Could they get some more french fries? Did they put her monkey in the trunk with her tricycle? Why didn’t Cynthia paint her toenails? Why did the skin on Pauline’s arm look funny? Could they stop so she could pee again?
Sitting behind the wheel on the first leg of the journey, he glanced often into the rearview mirror.
He saw Jessie touching her mother’s face, though the concept of having a mother was not clear to her. “You’re pretty,” said the child.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t got no ear.”
“It was . . . burned off.”
“How’d you burn it off? Did you cry?”
“I’ll tell you about it one day. That’s why my arm looks funny. It was burned, too.”
“Are we goin’ back to get Rhody? Are you Rhody’s friend?”
“I’m your mother.”
Stick in there, he thought, feeling the pain as if part of it belonged to him. He looked at his wife. He knew when she was praying, because she often moved her lips, silently, like a child absorbed in the reading of a book.
As soon as they got around Daytona, they all played cow poker with enthusiasm, using truck-stop diners in place of the nearly nonexistent cows.
He felt as if he’d been hit by a truck, but thanks be to God, he hadn’t.
They rolled into Mitford at midnight, dropped Pauline and Jessie at Betty Craig’s, and went home and found Dooley’s note that said he was spending the night at Tommy’s. Crawling into bed on the stroke of one, he looked forward to sleeping in, until Cynthia told him she’d asked Pauline to leave Jessie with them on her way to work. Betty Craig was spending a rare day away from home with a sister, and did it make sense to leave Jessie with her elderly grandfather, who was a total stranger?
He slept until seven, when he heard Jessie come in, shrieking with either delight or fear upon encountering Barnabas. He woke again at eight, when he heard Puny, Sissy, Sassy, and the overloaded red wagon bound over the threshold and clatter down the hall like so much field artillery.
He burrowed under the covers, feeling the guilt of lying abed while the whole household erupted below him.
Someone was bounding up the stairs, and it definitely wasn’t his wife.
“Wake up, Mr. Tim!”
Jessie Barlowe, freshly scrubbed, with her hair in a pony tail, trotted into the room. As he opened his eyes, she scrambled onto the bed and peered down at him.
“Time to put your collar on and get my tricycle out of your car!”
Actually, it was more like he’d gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson.
Standing helplessly by the coffeepot, he’d fallen prey to Puny’s plea that he “watch” the twins while she did the floors upstairs. Cynthia and Jessie had gone next door, out of the fray, and here he was, drinking strong coffee in the study behind closed doors, as Sassy bolted back and forth from the bookcase to the desk, laughing hysterically, and Sissy lurched around the sofa with a string of quacking ducks, occasionally falling over and bawling. Barnabas crawled beneath the leather wing chair, trying desperately to hide.
“Ba!” said Sissy, abandoning the ducks and taking a fancy to him. “Ba!”
“Ba, yourself!” he said.
With the vacuum cleaner roaring above his head on bare hardwood, and Sissy banging his left knee with a rattle, he read Oswald Chambers.
“All your circumstances are in the hand of God,” Chambers wrote, “so never think it strange concerning the circumstances you’re in.”
The fact that this piece of wisdom was the absolute gospel truth did not stop him from laughing out loud.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amazing Grace
Pauline and Jessie were sitting at the kitchen table as he cooked dinner.
They heard Dooley coming down the hall.
“It’s Dooley,” said Pauline, gently pushing Jessie toward her brother as he walked into the kitchen.
Dooley was suddenly pale under his summer tan.
“Jess?”
It had been three years, the rector thought, and for a five-year-old, three years is a long time.
“Jess?” Dooley said again, sinking to his knees on the kitchen floor.
Jessie looked at him soberly. Then, standing only a couple of feet away, she slowly lifted her hand and waved at her brother.
“Hey, Jess.”
“Hey,” she murmured, beginning to smile.
It came to him during the night.
At seven o’clock on Sunday morning he called Hope House, knowing she would be sitting by the window, dressed for church and reading her Bible.
“Will you do it?” he asked
“Law, mercy . . .” she said, pondering.
“For Miss Sadie? For all of us?”
Louella took a deep breath. “I’ll do it for Jesus!” she said.
Harley Welch was dressed in a dark blue jacket and pants, a dress shirt that Cynthia had plucked out of Bane contributions and washed and ironed, and a tie of his own. It was, in fact, his only tie, worn to his wife’s funeral thirteen years ago, and never worn since.
“You look terrific!” exclaimed Cynthia.
“Yeah!” agreed Dooley.
“Here!” said the rector.
Harley took the box and opened what had been hastily purchased at a truck stop in South Carolina.
“Th’ law, if it ain’t a Mickey watch! I’ve always wanted a Mickey watch! Rev’rend, if you ain’t th’ beat!”
There went Harley’s grin . . . .
Driving his crew to Lord’s Chapel, he thought how it was Harley who was the beat. Harley Welch all rigged up for church and wearing a Mickey Mouse watch was still another amazing grace from an endlessly flowing fountain.
He stood in the pulpit and spoke the simple but profound words with which he always opened the sermon.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.”
Then, he walked over and sat in the chair next to the chalice bearer, leaving the congregation wondering. This morning, someone else would preach the top part of the sermon—an English clergyman, long dead, and one of his own parishioners, very much alive.
In the middle of the nave, on the gospel side, Louella Baxter Marshall rose from her pew and, uttering a silent prayer of supplication, raised the palms of her hands heavenward and began to sing, alone and unaccompanied.
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found
was blind, but now I see.
The power of her bronze voice lifted the hymn of the Reverend John Newton, a converted slave trader, to the rafters.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed!
The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.
The words filled and somehow enlarged the nave, like yeast rising in a warm place. In more than one pew, hearts swelled with a message they had long known, but had somehow forgotten.
For those who had never known it at all, there was a yearning to know it, an urgent, beating desire to claim a shield and portion for their own lives, to be delivered out of loss into gain.
The rector’s eyes roamed his congregation. This is for you, Dooley. And for you, Poo and Jessie, and for you, Pauline, whom the hound of heaven pursued and won. This is for you, Harley, and you, Lace Turner, and even for you, Cynthia, who was given to me so late, yet right on time . . . .
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home . . . .
Today was the day. He was ready.
Ron Malcolm, who had priced Fernbank at three hundred and fifty thousand, suggested they accept an offer of no less than two ninety-five. Fernbank was not only an architecturally valuable structure, even with its flaws, but the acreage was sizable, chiefly flat, and eminently suited for development. At two hundred and ninety-five thousand, give or take a few dollars, it would be a smart buy as well as a smart sell.
The rector looked toward Fernbank as he walked to the Grill. He couldn’t see the house, but he could see the upper portion of the fern-massed bank, and the great grove of trees.
A spa?
As hard as he tried, he couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
“Softball?” said Percy. “Are you kiddin’ me?”
“I am not kidding you. August tenth, be there or be square.”
“Me’n Velma will do hotdogs, but I ain’t runnin’ around to any bases, I got enough bases to cover in th’ food business.”
“Fine. You’re in. Expect twenty-five from Hope House, twenty or so players . . . and who knows how many in the bleachers?”
Percy scribbled on the back of an order pad. “That’s a hundred and fifty beef dogs, max, plus all th’ trimmin’s, includin’ Velma’s chili—”
“Wrong!” said Velma. “I’m not standin’ over a hot stove stirrin’ chili another day of my life! I’ve decided to go with canned from here out.”
“Canned chili?” Percy was unbelieving.
“And how long has it been since you peeled spuds for french fries? Years, that’s how long. They come in here frozen as a rock, like they do everywhere else that people don’t want to kill theirselves workin’.”
“Yeah, but frozen fries is one thing, canned chili is another.”
“To you, maybe. But not to me.”
Velma stalked away. Percy sighed deeply.
The rector didn’t say anything, but he knew darn well their conversation wasn’t about chili.
It was about a cruise.
He turned into Happy Endings to see if the rare book search had yielded the John Buchan volume.
Hope Winchester shook her head. “Totally chimerical thus far.”
“So be it,” he said. “Oh. Know anybody who plays softball?”
Ingrid Swenson was, if possible, more deeply tanned than before. He didn’t believe he’d ever seen so much gold jewelry on one person, as his wealthy seasonal parishioners tended to be fairly low-key while summering in Mitford.
She read from the offer-to-purchase document as if, being children, they couldn’t read it for themselves. Every word seemed weighted with a kind of doom he couldn’t explain, though he noted how happy, even ecstatic, his vestry appeared to be.
“Miami Development, as Buyer, hereby offers to purchase, and The Chapel of Our Lord and Savior, as Seller, upon acceptance of said offer, agrees to sell and convey—all of that plot, piece or parcel of land described below . . .”
While some appeared to savor every word as they would a first course leading to the entrée, he wanted to skip straight to the price and the conditions.
In the interim, they dealt with, and once again agreed upon, the pieces of personal property to be included in the contract.
“The purchase price,” she said at last, looking around the table, “is one hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars, and shall be paid as follows—twenty thousand in earnest money—”
“Excuse me,” he said.
She glanced up.
“I don’t think I heard the offer correctly.”
“One hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars.” He noted the obvious edge of impatience in her voice.
“Thank you,” he said, betraying an edge in his own.
Buddy Benfield made coffee, which they all trooped into the kitchen to pour for themselves. Ron brought Ingrid Swenson a china cup, not Styrofoam.
“You do realize,” she said, smiling, “that the electrical system violates all state and local ordinances.”
Had they realized that?
She withdrew a sheaf of papers from her briefcase. “Let’s look at the numbers, which is always an informative place to look.
“The new roof, as you know, is coming in at around forty-five thousand. The plumbing as it stands is corroded cast-iron pipe, all of which must be removed and replaced with copper.” She sipped her coffee. “Twenty thousand, minimum. Then, of course, there’s the waste-lines replacement and the hookup to city water and sewage at a hundred thousand plus.
“As to the heating system, it is, as you’re aware, an oil-fired furnace added several decades ago. Our inspection shows that the firebox is burned through.” She sat back in her chair. “I’m sure I needn’t remind you how lethal this can be. Estimates, then, for the installation of a fo
rced warm-air system with new returns and ductwork is in excess of ten thousand.”
Would this never end?
“Now, before we move to far brighter issues, let’s revisit the electrical system.”
There was a general shifting around in chairs, accompanied by discreet coughing.
“As you no doubt realize, Mr. Malcolm, Father—the attic has parallel wiring, which fails to pass inspection not merely because it is dangerous, but because it is . . .”—the agent for Miami Development Company gazed around the table—“illegal. Throughout the structure, there is exposed wiring not in conduit, all of which, to make a very long story conveniently shorter, is sufficient to have the structure condemned.”
His heart pounded. Condemned.
Ron Malcolm sat forward in his chair. “Miss Swenson, have you stated your case?”
“Not completely, Mr. Malcolm. There are two remarks I’d like to make in closing. One is that the property improvements so far noted will cost the buyer in excess of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. With that in mind, I believe you’ll see the wisdom of selling your . . . distressed property . . . at the very fair price which we’re offering.
“Now, to address the brighter side. What we propose to do will bring a vital new economy to Mitford. It will strengthen your tax base by, among other things, raising the value of every property in your village. Mr. Malcolm, I believe that you, for one, live on property contiguous to Fernbank. I don’t have to tell you just how great an advantage this will be to your personal assets.
“Surely, all of you realize that nobody in Mitford could afford to take this uninhabitable property off your hands, and I know how grateful you must be to your own Mr. Stroupe for bringing our two parties together. Lacking the local means to reclaim this property, it would be tragic, would it not, to stand by helplessly while Fernbank, the very crown of your village, is torn down?”