by Jan Karon
Several women sat around the cold summer stove, talking in low voices. One sang softly with the chorus inside. “ . . . that calls me from a world of care, and bids me at my Father’s throne, make all my wants and wishes known . . .”
Three men in ill-fitting dark suits met him at the door of the rooms where Absalom lived with his sister, Lottie. All were clutching Bibles, and all spoke or nodded as if they knew him.
Lottie Greer sat in the chair by the fireplace, where she always implored him to sit when he visited.
“Miss Lottie . . .”
She looked up, gaunt and shockingly frail, her cane across her knees. “He said yesterday he wanted to see you, Father. He asked to die at home, the old way.”
He put his hand on her shoulder.
“He’s lingered on,” she murmured, lowering her head. “It’s been hard.”
“Yes,” he said. “I understand.” And he did. His mother had lingered, fighting the good fight.
Seven or eight men were gathered outside Absalom’s open bedroom door, and quietly, but forcefully, singing the old hymn the rector had known since a child.
“He wanted us to sing his favorites,” said one of the men with a Bible. “Join in, if you take a notion. Th’ doctor’s with ’im right now, looks like he’s in an’ out of knowin’ where he’s at.”
“Lena, get the Father something,” said Lottie.
“I’ve just poured him a glass of tea, Miss Lottie. I hope you like it sweet,” she said, placing the icy glass in his hand.
“Oh, I do. Thank you.”
“And some cake, you’ll want some cake,” she said, eager to please.
“Thank you, not now.”
“You help yourself, then, anytime,” she said, pointing to the kitchen table, which was laden with food. “It’s to eat, not throw out.” She colored slightly, and made a faint curtsy. “I hope you’ll try my pineapple upside down, it’s over by the sink.”
“Sing up!” said one of the chorus. “Brother Greer likes it loud.”
“Jesus, lover of my soul . . .” they began, limning the words of Charles Wesley.
He joined in.
. . . Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Savior hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last.
Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, O leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me . . .
He felt as if he were a child again, in his mother’s Mississippi Baptist church, where his own grandfather once preached. A kind of joy was rising in him, but how could it not? Absalom Greer would soon pass safely into the haven . . . .
Someone who appeared to be the doctor stepped out of Absalom’s room. “Go in, Father,” he said. “He’s asked for you.”
The bed on the other side of the spartan room seemed far away. It was as if he treaded water to reach it.
He heard the dense rattle in Absalom’s chest.
“Brother Timothy, is that you?” The old man kept his filmy blue eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“It is.”
“I’ve been lookin’ for you.”
Over the years, he’d seen it—as death drew near, the skin had a way of connecting with the bones, of fusing into a kind of cold marble that was at once terrible and beautiful.
“The Lord’s given me a truth for you,” said Absalom. It was as if each word were delicately formed, so it would move through the maze of the rattle and come forth whole and lucid.
Father Tim bent closer. “I’m listening, my Brother.”
“The fields are white . . . .”
Jesus had said it to the disciples . . . .
Then Absalom turned his head and looked past him, his face growing suffused with a kind of joy. “Glory, glory . . . there they are . . . I knew they’d come again . . . .”
The rector’s heart raced with feeling—he knew instinctively that Absalom Greer was seeing the angels, the angels he’d once seen as a young boy, swarming around his mother and baby sister in the next room.
The old preacher lifted his trembling hands above the coverlet, issuing a last pastoral command.
The men stopped singing. The talking in the kitchen ceased.
Lottie came into the room, leaning on her cane. “Is it his angels?” she whispered.
“I believe so,” he said.
He took the back roads, wanting to see pastures and open fields, wanting a span of silence between dying and living.
Perhaps Sadie Baxter had been among the first to greet Absalom, to bestow some heavenly welcome upon one to whom God would surely say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
He would miss Absalom Greer. It had been a privilege to know him. He was the last of a breed, willing, like Saint Paul, to be “a fool for Christ.”
In the fields, Queen of the Meadow towered over goldenrod and fleabane, over milkweed and wild blue aster. Beautiful, but dry. They needed rain. He wished he had his dog with him, licking up the windows to a fare-thee-well.
He made a turn onto the state highway and spoke it aloud: “The fields are white . . . .”
“Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields,” Jesus had said to his disciples, “for they are white already to harvest.”
The standing fields were the legions who hadn’t filled their God-vacuum with the One who was born to fill it; the standing fields were those who waited for someone to reach out and speak the truth, and tell them how they might be saved.
He had received Absalom’s message as a reminder, and did not take it lightly.
He glanced at the gas gauge. Nearly empty.
There was a little grocery store and service station up the road. He’d once stopped there for a pack of Nabs and a Cheerwine.
It came up sooner than he expected. He wheeled in and parked beside the building, then got the key from the store owner and walked around and unlocked the restroom. First things first.
Coming out of the restroom, he saw the black Lincoln pull off the road and ease past the gas pumps.
He stepped back instinctively, and watched Ed Coffey get out of the Lincoln and go into the station.
Ed Coffey. Edith Mallory’s chauffeur. The one who was driving when he leaped from the moving car in the Shoe Barn parking lot, the one who’d driven him home after the gruesome, rain-drenched night at Clear Day.
Ed wasn’t wearing his uniform. The rector didn’t think he’d ever seen Ed out of uniform since Pat Mallory died.
He stood by the building, wondering why he didn’t step forward and speak to the man, a Mitford native who had always seemed a decent fellow, though clearly snared by the lure of Mallory money. Hadn’t Ed looked at him a couple of times as if to say, I don’t want to do this, I know better, but it’s too late?
Ed left the station with a bulging paper sack in his arm, which he put in the trunk. Then he got in the car and quietly pulled onto the road, headed south.
A new Lincoln, clearly, not the old model Edith had kept around after Pat’s death. And this one had dark windows. He despised dark windows in a car . . . .
So Edith was back in Mitford. He could probably expect to see her at Lord’s Chapel. Edith on the gospel side, Mack Stroupe on the epistle side.
What happened when clergy looked into their congregations, only to see a growing number of people whose motives they distrusted, and whose spirits made their own feel anxious and uneasy?
He noticed that a new battery of yard signs had gone up, along with the general clutter.
We’re stickin’ with Esther
BILL AND ARLENE
We’re stickin’ with Esther
Ralph And Fay Lewis
OUR BANE WILL
BE YOUR BLESSING
Best Sale Ever!
Oct. 4, from 10 a.m.
> After Work Supper
6:00 p.m.
MACK MEANS
MONEY IN
MITFORD POCKETS.
$Mack for Mayor$
VOTE YOUR VALUES
Esther for Mayor
Play Ball!
Come one, come all
Baxter Field, August 10
HOTDOGS $1
“Seventy-five bucks from the glove factory, a thousand from Leeland Mining Company—which should be no surprise, that’s his fourth cousin. Five hundred from the canning plant, who’d also like to see some more development in these parts, ten bucks from Lew Boyd’s cousin, fifteen from Henry Watts, blah, blah, blah—exactly what you’d expect.” J.C. looked pleased with himself. “You can get off your high horse, buddyroe.”
Why pursue it? “So, tell me, have you seen Ed Coffey around lately?”
“Ed Coffey? If he’s around, so’s your old girlfriend.”
He felt as if he’d been dashed with cold water. “You might rephrase that,” he said.
“You’re plenty touchy,” snapped the editor.
“I learned it from you,” he replied.
Lace Turner was visiting Harley and had come up to the kitchen to have a piece of cake with Cynthia. He was taking the pitcher of tea out of the refrigerator when they heard a light knock at the door.
Jenny stood outside, peering through the screen. “Hello! Is Dooley home?”
Barnabas skidded into the kitchen, barking.
“He ain’t here!” Lace said.
“Why, Lace!” said Cynthia. “He is here. Won’t you come in, Jenny?”
“No ma’am. I just brought Dooley this.”
Cynthia opened the screen door and took the parcel. “We’re having cake, it’s chocolate—”
“No, ma’am, I can’t. Thank you.” She ran down the steps and across the yard.
Cynthia looked at Lace. “Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t know he was here.”
“But you did. You saw him come in ten minutes ago. So, that’s two lies.” His wife never pulled punches.
Lace shrugged.
“I’m not going to preach you a sermon,” said Cynthia, “but I want you to know something. I’m disappointed that you’d lie to her and to me. You’re better than that.”
Lace stared at the half-eaten cake on her plate. “I hate that girl.”
“Why?”
“She thinks she’s so smart, so pretty, so . . . fine.” Lace spit the word.
“Lace, look at me, please.” Lace looked at her. “You’re smart. You’re pretty. You’re—”
“I ain’t! I ain’t nothin’!” She stood up from the table, weeping, and ran down the basement stairs.
“So,” said his wife, looking grim. “She’s crying—it’s what Olivia’s been hoping for.”
“That’s good news,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders.
She smiled weakly. “Yes, but sometimes even good news feels bad.”
Esther Bolick picked up on the first ring.
“So, Esther, how’s it coming?”
“You’ll never believe it—we got an armoire from Marie Sanders!”
If he had anything to do with it, Esther would have two armoires. “How’s Hessie working out for you?”
“A saint, Hessie’s a saint. She’s heading up the After Work Sale, includin’ th’ supper.”
“Wow.”
“Did you know Hessie and I are wearin’ beepers? I feel like Dick Tracy.”
“I’ve heard everything.”
“Course, th’ polyester and double-knit is still pourin’ in.”
“Find me an orange leisure suit with stitched lapels, I’ll pay big money.”
“Too late, Mule Skinner already spoke for it.”
“Oh, well.”
“But the quality’s picking up, we just got a Hoover vacuum cleaner and a whole set of Hummel figurines. Oh, and a mink jacket, th’ hole’s where you can’t even see it.”
“How’s Gene?”
“Suing for divorce.”
“It could be worse,” he said.
Esther laughed heartily. How he loved hearing a Bane chairperson laugh. A minor miracle!
He was putting the receiver on the hook when it came to him out of left field.
Land of Counterpane. Black car, blue pickup.
Surely not . . .
And the black car that had eased around the monument at two in the morning, so quiet he scarcely heard the engine . . .
But that was weeks ago. That was the evening of his birthday, which was well over a month back, maybe five or six weeks. If Edith was around, why hadn’t anyone seen her?
Was Ed Coffey steering clear of Mitford, buying their groceries at country stores, keeping to the back roads, going ununiformed to attract less attention?
He’d drive by Clear Day and see what was going on, but there wasn’t any way to spot the house, since it sat a half mile beyond a locked electronic gate. That gate had been locked even on evenings when Edith invited the vestry to meet at her house. Guests were required to punch a password into a black box at the entrance.
There was a churning sensation in his stomach.
Not knowing what else to do, he went into the office bathroom and stuck his finger for a glucometer check. In his opinion, the glucometer was a decided improvement over peeing on a strip to check his sugar.
One twenty-four. Not bad.
He made a call from the office, still knowing the number by heart, and went home and got his old gardening hat from the closet shelf.
Rifling through the chest of drawers, he found the sunglasses he seldom wore because someone said they made him look like a housefly.
He put on the hat and glasses as he went down the stairs, thinking he’d check himself out in the kitchen mirror.
“Lord God!” shrieked Puny, standing frozen at the foot of the stairs. “You like to scared me to death!”
Hearing their mother’s alarm, both babies set up an earsplitting wail in the kitchen.
He tried bouncing their car seats, squeaking a rubber duck, making a face, and barking like a dog, but they were inconsolable, and he was out of there.
“This Cessna 152 don’t make as much noise as m’ little ragwing,” shouted Omer.
The rector was holding up pretty well, all things considered. He had skipped lunch, knowing he’d be airborne, had driven twenty-five miles to the airstrip, and here he was, skimming above the treetops with the mayor’s brother-in-law in a borrowed plane, wearing a decrepit garden hat and shades.
Father Roland, who occasionally wrote from the wilds of Canada, was totally wrong to think he was having all the fun, celebrating the Eucharist in crude forest huts and being chased by a bull moose. Mitford had its grand adventures, too. You just had to go looking for—
“Holy smoke, Omer!”
Omer flashed his piano-key grin at the rector, who was only momentarily hanging upside down.
“That’s what you call a one-G maneuver.”
“No more, thanks!” His face had been green twice in only a few weeks.
“OK, I’ll fly steady,” yelled his pilot. “How low d’you think you’ll want to go?”
“Low enough to see what’s going on.”
“I can take you down to two hundred feet, how’s that?”
He swallowed hard. “Fine.”
“You sure don’t look like yourself in that getup,” Omer shouted.
“Good!” he shouted back.
They saw the ridge looming ahead, the ridge from which Clear Day could see forever, but could not be seen.
“Here she comes!” Omer said. Father Tim pulled the brim of the hat farther down and adjusted the glasses.
What could have been a small landing strip emerged from the trees. It was the shake roof that covered the much-talked-about eight thousand square feet of living space, with its vast expanse of driveway and parking area to the left.
Bingo.
A blue pickup truck was pa
rked next to a black car. And there, on the uncovered terrace, standing by the striped umbrellas, were two people.
“Circle back!” he shouted to his pilot.
He wanted to be dead sure.
Omer circled back and buzzed the house. The man and woman on the terrace looked up angrily as he looked down.
Then the blue Cessna roared over the quaking treetops and across the gorge.
Omer glanced at him and winked.
Edith Mallory was not touring Spain or France or Malaysia or any of her other haunts, and neither was she living in her sprawling home in Florida.
She was living in Mitford, at Clear Day, and masterminding the political career of Mack Stroupe.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Play Ball
On the morning of the game at Baxter Field, Velma Mosely had a change of heart and started chopping onions.
This, she told herself, would absolutely, positively be her last pot of homemade chili.
“Listen up!”
Buck Leeper looked ten feet tall as he stood in the dugout before the Mitford Reds.
“We’re not here to fool around,” said the team manager, “we’re here to win. Got it?”
“Got it!” said his players, who were wearing red-dyed T-shirts and ball caps advertising The Local.
It was twenty minutes before game time, and the rector felt his adrenaline pumping like oil through a Texas derrick.
“Father, you’re th’ team captain, and I’m lookin’ to you to be th’ coach on th’ field. Keep ’em pepped up and give ’em advice when they need it—your job is to call the shots.” Buck looked him in the eye. “I know you can do it.”
Could he do it? He had prayed about this softball game as if it were life or death, instead of good, clean fun on a Saturday afternoon. Surely the three practice games, which had gone pretty well, would count for something.