Out to Canaan

by Jan Karon

  Parkers filled the two church lots first, then sent traffic up the hill to satellite hospital parking, and down a side street to the Methodists. A stream of cars and pickups also flowed into lots behind the Collar Button, the Irish Woolen Shop, and the Sweet Stuff Bakery.

  Mitford Blossoms kicked in ten parking spaces while several Main Street residents, including Evie Adams, earned good money renting their private driveways.

  For the Bane workers, it was down in the trenches, and no two ways about it.

  For eleven hours running, the rector made change, sorted through plunder for eager customers, dished up chili and spaghetti, boxed cakes, bagged cookies, carried trash bags to Gene Bolick’s pickup, made coffee, hauled ice, picked up debris, found Band-Aids and patched a skinned knee, demonstrated a Hoover vacuum cleaner, took several cash contributions for the dig-a-well fund, told the story of the stained-glass windows, and mopped up a spilled soft drink in the parish hall corridor.

  Uncle Billy came to supervise, armed with three new jokes collected especially for the occasion.

  After five o’clock, vans from area companies and organizations hauled in and out like clockwork, carrying employees who proceeded to eat heartily and shop heavily.

  By eight o’clock, the cleaning crew came on with a vengeance, and at eight-fifteen, a small but faithful remnant, despite weariness in every bone, arrived at the hospital, where they gathered around Esther Bolick’s bed and sang, “For she’s a jolly good fellow.”

  The marmalades, they reported, had been among the first items to go, with some anonymous donor kicking in sixty bucks—thereby bringing the total to three hundred dollars, or ten feet of well-digging.

  It had been the most successful Bane in anyone’s memory, and had raised the phenomenal sum of twenty-two thousand dollars. This total not only defeated the Bane’s previous record by several thousand, it clearly put every other church fund-raiser, possibly in the entire world, to utter vexation and shame.

  Pauline came to his office in the afternoon and sat on the visitor’s bench, looking proud and strong.

  “I’m goin’ to AA,” she said, “and I’m not seein’ Buck anymore. That’s the best I can do, Father, and I want to do it, and I’m askin’ God to give me strength to do it.” She looked at him earnestly. “Will you pray that I can?”

  It was the longest speech he’d ever heard her make.

  He walked home with Pauline, loving the crisp air, the blue skies.

  “Whenever you think you’d like to move into your own place, I’ll give you a hand, and so will Harley.”

  “Thank you. But I don’t deserve—”

  “Pauline, you’ve given me one of the richest gifts of this life—the chance to know Dooley Barlowe. I don’t deserve that. So, let’s not talk about deserving, OK?”

  She looked at him and smiled. And then she laughed.

  “Mr. Tim!” Jessie ran up the hall and grabbed him around the legs. “I ain’t suckin’ my thumb n’more. Looky there!” She held her thumb aloft and he inspected it closely.

  “Buck got me to quit,” she said, grinning up at him. “He give me a baby doll with hair to comb, you want to see it?”

  “I do!” he said.

  Jessie darted into the living room and returned with the doll. “See how ’er hair’s th’ color of mine, Buck said he looked at a whole bunch of baby dolls ’til he found this ’un. You want to hold it? Her name’s Mollie, she don’t wet or nothin’.” She took him by the hand. “Come and sit down if you’re goin’ to hold ’er. Buck holds ’er a lot, but he cain’t come n’more, Pauline said he cain’t.”

  Jessie popped her thumb in her mouth, then took it out again.

  Pauline glanced at the rector and shrugged and turned away, but he’d seen the sorrow in her eyes.

  Bane is a Blessing

  To Thousands

  Last Friday, Lord’s Chapel gave their annual Bane and Blessing sale, which netted the record-braking sum of $22,000.

  According to Bane co-chair Hessie Mayhew, major funding will be provided to dig wells in east Africa, and buy an ambulance for a hospital in Landon county. Other recipients of Bane funds include mission fields in Bosnia, Croatia, Ruwanda, Harlan County, Kentucky, and food banks throughout our local area.

  Mrs. Mayhew said that special thanks are due to co-chai, Esther Bolck, who demanded the best from all voluntears and got it.

  A list of voluntears is printed on the back page of today’s edition. As Mrs. Bolik is sadly laid up in the hospital with two broken arms and a fractured jaw, you may send a card to room 107, but please, no visits until next Wednesday, doctor’s orders. She is allergic to lilies, which kill her sinuses, but likes everything else.

  A photograph of a large, fake check for twenty-two thousand dollars was included in the story.

  “Who wrote this?” asked Father Tim.

  “I’ve hired help,” said J.C., looking expansive. “Vanita Bentley!”

  “Who keyed it in?”

  “I did, Vanita only does longhand. She’ll be writin’ a special ‘Around Town’ column every week from here out.”

  “Congratulations!” said the rector. So what if the Muse would never win a Pulitzer? It wasn’t like it was The New York Times, for Pete’s sake.

  “Buon giorno, Father! Andrew Gregory, home at last!”

  “Andrew! By George, you’ve been missed!”

  Andrew laughed. The rector didn’t think he’d ever heard his friend sounding quite so . . .

  “Fernbank has been my fervent contemplation since we last talked,” said Andrew. “I’m eager to go up and have a look. How’s it faring?”

  “Well, for one thing, you have an orchard full of apples, and the roof is holding its own.”

  “Splendid! Can you let me in to have a look around?”

  “Absolutely. What’s good for you? How about . . . fifteen minutes?”

  “Perfect!” said Andrew, sounding . . . how was Andrew sounding, anyway? Was it carefree? Boyish? Relaxed?

  Come to think of it, who wouldn’t be relaxed after three months of visiting cousins in Italy?

  When Father Tim arrived at Fernbank, Andrew’s gray Mercedes was already parked in the drive, and Andrew stood waiting on the porch with a man and woman.

  As he trotted up the steps, he couldn’t help but notice that the woman was exceedingly attractive, nearly as tall as the tall Andrew, and with a striking figure. He blinked into the dazzling warmth of her smile, hardly noticing the dark-haired man standing with them.

  “Father!”

  “Welcome home, my friend!”

  They embraced, and Andrew kissed the rector, European-style, on both cheeks.

  “Father, first I’d like to introduce you to Anna, my cousin . . .”

  Good heavens, this was a cousin?

  “ . . . and my wife,” said the beaming Andrew.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Fernbank

  Surprised, if not stunned, by joy, the rector could scarcely speak. “Congratulations!” he blurted. “Mazel tov! Ah, felicitaziones!”

  Andrew pumped his hand. “Well done, Father! And this is Anna’s brother, Antonio Nocelli.”

  “Call me Tony!” said Antonio, embracing the rector and kissing him on either cheek. “I have heard much about you, Father.”

  “While I have heard nothing at all about you and Anna!”

  Anna laughed, throwing her head back. “Let me say, Father, that Andrew is our fourth cousin, so you must not alarm.”

  “Yes, for heaven’s sake, don’t alarm!” said Andrew, chuckling.

  Anna shrugged and smiled. “My English? Not perfect.”

  “Whose is?” asked the rector. “Well, shall we go in? Would you like to take them in while I wait outside?”

  “Heavens, no, you must come in, also,” said Andrew. The rector thought he’d never seen his friend so tanned, so boyish, so eager.

  “Here’s the key, then. Fernbank will be yours soon enough, why don’t you unlock the door?”
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  “I am very excited,” Anna told her husband.

  Tony agreed. “We could not sleep for thinking of the house Andrew has taken into his heart.”

  Andrew swung the double doors open, and they walked in. There was a moment of hushed silence.

  “Ahh, bella . . .” said Tony. “Molto bella!”

  Anna opened her arms to the room. “It is beautiful! Just as you said!”

  “A bit damp, my dear, but—”

  “But, amore mio, sunlight can fix!”

  “Anna believes sunlight can fix everything,” Andrew told the rector, pleased.

  They strolled through the house, savoring each room.

  Anna touched the walls, the banisters, the furnishings, often murmuring, “Fernbank . . .”

  In the ballroom, he told the story of the painted ceiling and two other Italians, a father and son, who had come all the way to Mitford to paint it, living with Miss Sadie’s family for nearly three years.

  As angels soared above them among rose-tinted clouds, he felt oddly proud, like a father proud of a child, eagerly savoring the cries of delight.

  Someone to love Fernbank! Thanks be to God!

  Indian summer had drawn on, offering a final moment of glad weather.

  They sat on Miss Sadie’s frail porch furniture, which the rector had dusted off. Andrew and Anna took the wicker love seat.

  “Now!” said Andrew. “We will tell you everything.”

  Father Tim laughed. “Easy. I can’t handle much more excitement.”

  “Tony and Anna owned a wonderful little restaurant in Lucera, only a few steps from my penzione. The food was outstanding, perhaps the best I’ve had in my travels around the Mediterranean. I began to go there every day for lunch.”

  “Soon,” said Anna, looking boldly at Andrew, “he came also for dinner.”

  “Tony cooked, Anna served, we discovered we were cousins, and, well . . .” Andrew smiled, suddenly speechless.

  “Shy,” said the rector, nodding to the others.

  Anna made a wickedly funny face. “He is not shy, Father, he is English!” She put her arms stiffly by her sides, pretending to be a board. “But that is outside! Inside, he is Italian, tender as fresh ravioli! If not this, I could not marry him and come so far from home!” She laughed with pleasure, and brushed Andrew’s cheek with her hand.

  “The building that contained the restaurant was being rezoned,” said Andrew, “and Mrs. Nocelli died last year . . .”

  Anna and Tony crossed themselves.

  “The cousins had moved away, some to Rome, others to Verona; the vineyard had sold out of the family, so there were almost no ties left. Yet, when I asked Anna to marry me, I feared she wouldn’t leave Italy.”

  Anna patted her husband’s knee. “Timing is good, Father.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  Andrew smiled easily. “The Nocellis are an old wine-making family in Lucera. We were married by their priest of many years. Fortunately, I was able to squeak in under the wire because of my Catholic boyhood.”

  “Your children,” said the rector, “do they know?”

  “Oh, yes. They came to Lucera for the wedding. They are very happy for us.”

  “Any children for you, Anna?”

  “I never had children, Father, and my husband was killed ten years behind by a crazy person in a fast car.”

  “And so at Fernbank,” Andrew said, “Anna and Tony and I will have our home and open a very small restaurant.”

  “Very small!” exclaimed Anna.

  “And very good!” said Tony, giving a thumbs-up. The rector thought Tony was nearly as good-looking—and good-natured—as his sister.

  Unable to sit still another moment, Andrew rose and made a proclamation. “We will call the restaurant Lucera, in honor of their lovely village and my mother’s girlhood home—and the wine for the restaurant will come from one of the many old vineyards which have produced there since the tenth century.”

  “Brava, Lucera!” said Tony. “Brava, Mitford!”

  “Good heavens!” The rector felt the wonder of it. “An Italian restaurant in Mitford, wine from old vineyards, and handsome people to live in this grand house! Miss Sadie would be dazzled. We shall all be dazzled!”

  Anna stood, nearly dancing with expectation. “I am longing to visit the apples!”

  “In those shoes, my dear?” asked Andrew.

  “I shall take them off at once!” she said, and did so.

  As he walked up Wisteria toward the rectory, he looked at his house in the growing darkness, trying to find the sense of ownership he expected to feel. Oh, well, he thought, that will come when the pipes burst in a hard winter and I’m the one to pick up the tab.

  He patted his coat pocket. In it was a check for fifteen thousand dollars, given him at this evening’s vestry meeting.

  Ron Malcolm had presented it with some ceremony. “Father, we priced the house to allow for a little negotiation. H. Tide wanted it so badly, they didn’t try to negotiate, so you paid top price. We all feel that ninety thousand is fair to you and to us, and . . . we thank you for your business!”

  Warm applause all around.

  He was feeling positively over the top. A two-story residence of native stone, all paid for, and fifteen thousand bucks in his pocket. Not bad for an old guy.

  He whistled a few bars from the Pastorale as he ran up the front steps to tell his wife the good news.

  He didn’t know where Buck had moved, and though he saw the superintendent on the job site, nothing was mentioned of his new whereabouts.

  Buck had left the yellow house spotless. This, however, hardly mattered, since the late-starting conversion would be getting under way next week. It would be all sawdust and sawhorses for longer than he cared to think, and Buck would probably leave it in someone else’s hands as soon as the attic job was finished.

  He didn’t want to lose Buck Leeper. In some way he couldn’t explain, Buck was part of Mitford now.

  “Timothy!”

  “Stuart! I was just thinking of you.”

  “Good, I hope?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said the rector, chuckling. “What’s up, old friend?”

  “Old friend. How odd you’d say that. I’m feeling a hundred and four.”

  “Whatever for? You’ve just been where people wear bikinis.”

  Stuart groaned. “Yes, and where I held my stomach in for two long weeks.”

  “Holding your stomach in is no vacation,” said the rector.

  “Look, I’m over on the highway, headed to a meeting in South Carolina. Can we meet for coffee?”

  “Coffee. Hmmm. How about the Grill? It’s close to lunchtime. I’ll treat.”

  “Terrific. Main Street, as I recall?”

  “North of The Local, green awning, name on the window. When?”

  “Five minutes,” said the bishop, sounding brighter.

  “This,” he said, introducing his still-youthful seminary friend, “is my bishop, the Right Reverend Stuart Cullen.”

  “Right Reverend . . .” said Percy, pondering. “I guess you wouldn’t hardly talk about it if you was th’ Wrong Reverend.”

  “Percy!” said Velma.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t listen to Timothy, call me Stuart.” Stuart shook hands all around, and the rector watched him charm the entire assembly.

  “Hold it right there!” J.C. hunkered over his Nikon and cranked off six shots in rapid succession.

  “I ain’t never seen a pope,” said Coot Hendrick, wide-eyed.

  “Not a pope, a bishop,” said Mule.

  Percy looked puzzled. “I thought you said he was a reverend.”

  “Call me Stuart and get it over with,” pleaded the bishop, hastening to a booth with Father Tim.

  Stuart poured cream in his coffee. “By the way, someone told me that Abraham’s route to Canaan now requires four visas.”

  “Not surprising, since it’s a six-hundred-mile trip. I wouldn’
t mind seeing the real thing one day. I was just remembering from a study we did in seminary that Canaan is the birthplace of the word Bible.”

  “Not to mention the birthplace of our alphabet. So, how would you like a stint on the Outer Banks at some point? I fancy it might be your Plain of Jezreel, at the very least.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Wonderful parish, small Carpenter Gothic church, historic cemetery, gorgeous setting . . .”

  “Keep talking.”

  “There’s a rector down there who’d like nothing better than a mountain church. I have just the church, and Bill Harvey, who’s the bishop in that diocese, thinks we might work out a trade—you could wn as an interim . . . the summer after you retire.”

  “I’ll mention it to Cynthia. Let me know more. So when are you going out to Canaan, my friend?”

  “I knew you’d ask, but I don’t know. I’m still terrified, just as you were.”

  “How did I get smarter than you?”

  “You’re older,” said Stuart, grinning. “Much older.”

  “Remember Edith Mallory?”

  “The vulture who tried to get her talons in your hide.”

  “We have an election coming up, and I feel certain she’s been funneling big money to the opposition.”

  “Who’s the opposition?” asked Stuart, taking a bite of his grilled cheese sandwich.

  “Not known as the sort who’d be good for this town.”

  “If I know where you’re going with this, the best policy is hands off.”

  “I agree. Especially since I have no proof.”

  “Poisonous business. But you know the antidote.”

  “Prayer.”

  “Exactly. How’s your Search Committee coming along? I haven’t had a report recently.”