by Jan Karon
The phone continued to ring.
“So,” said Ron, “even though our attorneys have gone over the contract thoroughly, let’s take one last look before we sign, to the advantage of all concerned.”
“I can’t imagine what purpose that will serve.”
Ron smiled. “Won’t take but a couple of minutes.”
The phone persisted.
“Here you go,” said Clarence, setting cups before Ingrid and her associate. “Fresh out of th’ pot.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” said Sandra, “why doesn’t somebody answer the phone?”
Nobody moved.
“Who would let a phone ring like that, anyway?” Scowling, she marched to the kitchen.
Ron glanced at Ingrid. “I’ve struck through and initialed your clause about the driveway repairs being a responsibility of Lord’s Chapel.”
She gave him a cold look and pushed the coffee away.
“Father! It’s Andrew Gregory on the phone!”
“Tell him—”
“He’s calling all the way from Italy. Says it’s important!”
“Excuse me,” he said, leaving the table.
Sandra handed him the receiver with a look of rekindled interest in the morning’s proceedings. The most exotic call she’d ever had was from Billings, Montana.
“Andrew?”
“Father, Emma told me I could find you in the parish hall. Sorry to disturb you, but something . . . terribly important has just happened. Is the Fernbank property still available?”
“Well . . .” For about five minutes, maximum.
“I’d like to make an offer. I’ll wire earnest money at once.”
Had he heard right? Was he dreaming this?
“Two hundred and ninety-five thousand, Father.” Andrew took a deep breath. “As is.”
He felt a sudden, intense warmth throughout his body, as if he were melting in a spring thaw.
“Andrew?”
“Yes?”
“Consider it done!”
He didn’t think he’d ever confess to anyone, not even his wife, how thrilled he’d been to see the look on Ingrid Swenson’s face.
No. Ecstatic was the word. He’d been forced to restrain himself from leaping into the air, clicking his heels together, and whooping.
Upon being told that Fernbank would in fact be sold, but not to Miami Development, Ingrid Swenson had used language that, as far as he knew, had never been spoken on the grounds of Lord’s Chapel. Mamie Gordon had actually put her hands over her ears, her mouth forming a perfect O.
When he saw Andrew, he would kiss his ring, the very cuff of his trousers! He would sweep his chimney, wash his windows, put him at the head of the Christmas parade in Tommy Ledbetter’s yellow Mustang convertible . . . the possibilities for thanking Andrew Gregory were unlimited.
Hallelujah!
“I’m jealous,” said his wife, rejoicing with him.
“Whatever for?”
“You weren’t this happy on our wedding day!”
“How quickly you forget. Let’s dance!”
“But there’s no music.”
“No problem!” he said, doing a jig step. “I’ll hum!”
Happy Endings was having a twenty-percent-off sale on any book title starting with A, to commemorate August.
“What about Jane Austen, can I get twenty percent off?” asked Hessie Mayhew, who didn’t have time to read a book in the first place.
“Sorry, no authors starting with A, just book titles,” said Hope Winchester.
He staggered to the counter with A Guide to Fragrance in the Garden, Andersonville: Men and Myth (Walter’s Christmas present), A Reunion of Trees, A Grief Observed, Alone by Admiral Byrd, Anchor Book of Latin Quotations, and A Child’s Garden of Verses.
“A very perspicacious selection!” said Hope.
“Thank you. My wife will not be thrilled, however, as we have no place to put them.”
“As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Violà! Bookshelves!”
“I’ll be darned.”
He nearly always learned something new on Main Street.
The nave of Lord’s Chapel became a deep chiaroscuro shadow as dusk settled over Mitford. Candles burned on the sills of the stained-glass windows to light the way of the remnant who came for the evening worship on Thursday, scheduled unexpectedly by the rector.
Winnie Ivey had donated tarts and cookies for a bit of refreshment afterward, and the rector’s wife had made pitchers of lemonade from scratch, not frozen. Hearing of this, Uncle Billy and Miss Rose Watson, not much used to being out after dark, arrived in good spirits.
Esther Bolick, weary in every bone, trudged down the aisle with Gene to what had long ago become their pew on the gospel side. Several Bane volunteers, already feeling the numbing effects of pulling together the largest fund-raiser in the diocese, slipped in quietly, glad for the peace, for the sweetness of every shadow, and for the familiar, mingled smells of incense and flowers, lemon wax and burning wick.
Most of the vestry turned out, some with the lingering apprehension that they’d robbed Mitford of a thriving new business, others completely satisfied with a job well done.
Hope Winchester, invited by the rector and deeply relieved that the A sale was successful, stood inside the door and looked around awkwardly. She found it daunting to be here, since she hadn’t been raised in church, but Father Tim was one of their good customers and never pushy about God, so she figured she had nothing to lose.
She slid into the rear pew, in case she needed to make a quick exit, and lowered her head at once. It was a perfect time to think about the S sale, coming in September, and how they ought to feature Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter, which nobody ever seemed to know about, but certainly should.
The Muse editor and his wife, Adele, slid into the rear pew across the aisle, and wondered what they would do when everybody got down on their knees. They both had Baptist backgrounds and felt deeply that kneeling in public, even if it was in church, was too in-your-face, like those people who prayed loud enough for everybody in the temple to hear.
Sophia Burton, who had seen the rector on the street that morning, had been glad to come and bring Liza, glad to get away from the little house with the TV set she knew she should turn off sometimes, but couldn’t, glad to get away from thinking about her job at the canning plant, and the supervisor who made her do things nobody else had to do. Not wanting her own church, which was First Baptist, to think she was defecting, she had invited a member of her Sunday School class so it would look more like a social outing than something religious.
Farther forward on the gospel side, Lace Turner sat with Olivia and Hoppy Harper, and Nurse Kennedy, who had been at the hospital long before Dr. Harper arrived and was known to be the glue that held the place together.
And there, noted the rector, as he stood waiting at the rear of the nave, were his own, Cynthia and Dooley, and next to them, Pauline and Jessie and Poo and . . . amazing! Buck Leeper.
The rector might have come to the church alone and given thanks on his knees in the empty nave. But he’d delighted in inviting one and all to a service that would express his own private thanksgiving—for the outcome of Fernbank, for Jessie, for this life, for so much.
He came briskly down the aisle in his robe, and, in front of the steps to the altar, turned eagerly to face his people.
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ!” he quoted from Philippians.
“I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,” he said with the psalmist, “my heart teaches me, night after night. I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not fall.”
He spoke the ancient words of the sheep farmer, Amos: “Seek Him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day
into night; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth: the Lord is His name!”
There it was, the smile he was seeking from his wife. And lo, not one but two, because Dooley was giving him a grin into the bargain.
“Dear friends in Christ, here in the presence of Almighty God, let us kneel in silence, and with patient and obedient hearts confess our sins, so that we may obtain forgiveness by His infinite goodness and mercy.”
Here it comes, thought Adele Hogan, who, astonishing herself, slid off the worn oak pew onto the kneeler.
Hope Winchester couldn’t do it; she was as frozen as a mullet, and felt her heart pounding like she’d drunk a gallon of coffee. Her mouth felt dry, too. Maybe she’d leave, who would notice anyway, with their heads bowed, but the thing was, there was always somebody who probably wasn’t keeping his eyes closed, and would see her dart away like a convict . . . .
“Most merciful God,” Esther Bolick prayed aloud and in unison with the others from the Book of Common Prayer, “we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed . . .”
She felt the words enter her aching bones like balm.
“ . . . by what we have done,” prayed Gene, “and by what we have left undone.”
“We have not loved You with our whole heart,” intoned Uncle Billy Watson, squinting through a magnifying glass to see the words in the prayer book, “we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”
He found the words of the prayer beautiful. They made him feel hopeful and closer to the Lord, and maybe it was true that he hadn’t always done right by his neighbors, but he would try to do better, he would start before he hit the street this very night. He quickly offered a silent thanks that somebody would be driving them home afterward, since it was pitch-dark out there, and still hot as a depot stove into the bargain.
“We are truly sorry and we humbly repent,” prayed Pauline Barlowe, unable to keep the tears back, not wanting to look at the big, powerful man beside her. Though plainly reluctant to be there, he nonetheless held the hand of her daughter, who was sucking her thumb and gazing at the motion of the ceiling fans.
“For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us,” prayed Cynthia Kavanagh, amazed all over again at how she’d come to be kneeling in this place, and hoping that the stress she’d recently seen in her husband was past, and that this service would mark the beginning of renewal and refreshment.
“ . . . that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways,” prayed Sophia Burton, wishing with all her heart that she could do that very thing every day of her life, really do it and not just pray it—but then, maybe she could, she was beginning to feel like she could . . . maybe.
“ . . . to the glory of Your Name!” prayed the rector, feeling his spirit moved toward all who had gathered in this place.
“Amen!” they said in unison.
It wasn’t that it didn’t trouble him; in fact, it made him a little crazy whenever the thought crossed his mind. But what could he do? What could he prove?
He couldn’t talk about it around town—it would seem like the worst sort of rumor-mongering and political meddling; he certainly wouldn’t mention it at the Grill, and didn’t think it wise to tell his wife, either. The new Violet book was wearing on her, and why clutter her mind with what appeared to be a very nasty piece of business?
Omer had sworn he’d keep quiet, at least for the time being. What could talk like that do, after all, except give his sister-in-law a stroke? And who could prove anything, anyway?
The rector took some comfort in the fact that election day was more than a couple of months away. Surely by that time Mack would show his hand, somebody would stumble, something . . .
The attic job was the current local recreation for those who had nothing better to do. Uncle Billy shambled down the street on his cane and gave all manner of directions to the crew, occasionally sharing the lunches they carried in bags from home or raced to the highway to pick up from Hardee’s. So far, he had wheedled french fries from two stonecutters and a joiner.
Coot Hendrick pulled his rusted pickup truck to the curb every morning around eleven, scooted over to the passenger side, rolled the window down, and watched the whole show in the privacy and comfort of his vehicle. While the crew mixed mortar, sawed lumber, and in general tore up large expanses of grass and two perennial beds, he ate Nabs, shucked peanuts, and drank Cheerwine until three o’clock. He then drove to Lew Boyd’s Esso, where he played checkers until five, after which he went home to his elderly mother and fixed her supper, usually a small cake of cornbread accompanied by a bowl of lettuce and onions, which he wilted with a blast of sizzling bacon grease and cider vinegar.
Beneath the attic, yet another church project was going at a trot.
While the preschool crowd gave new life to the old verger’s quarters, the kindergarten had stationed itself in the largest of the Sunday School rooms, where all manner of shrieking, cackling, giggling, and wailing could be heard emanating from its walls.
The rector loved walking into a room that was completely alien to the adult world—filled with fat plastic tricycles and huge vinyl balls that could be knocked around without smashing the windows. He especially liked the rocking horses, which, upon each visit, were going at a frantic pace with astonished babies hanging on for dear life.
Sissy and Sassy had taken to the fray like fish to water. After a full day of howling for their mother, they had settled down to a new life and hardly noticed the guilt-stricken Puny when he went with her to see them at lunchtime.
“Sassy, it’s Mama, come to Mama, please!” Sassy turned her head and chewed on a string of rubber clowns, recently chewed by a toddler who had poured a cup of juice on his head.
Sissy pulled up on a wooden table and tottered toward him at full throttle. “Ba!” she shouted. “Ba!”
“Ba, yourself!” He fell to his knees and held out his arms. “Come to granpaw, you little punkinhead!”
“I didn’t know he was a granpaw,” said Marsha Hunt, who was in charge of the mayhem.
Puny looked suddenly cheerful. “Oh, yes!” she declared. “And it’s the best thing that ever happened to him!”
After the eleven o’clock, Mack Stroupe positioned himself a couple of yards to the left of the rector and pumped hands enthusiastically as the crowd flowed through the door. Anyone driving by, thought Father Tim, wouldn’t have known which was the priest if one of them hadn’t worn vestments.
As she tallied the collection on Monday morning, Emma couldn’t wait to tell him:
Mack Stroupe had dropped a thousand bucks in the plate.
Rain. Torrents of rain. Rain that washed driveways, devastated what was left of the gardens, and hammered its way through roofs all over Mitford. The little yellow house had its first known leak, which Buck fixed by climbing around on the slate in a late afternoon downpour.
The rector drove up to check the leak problem at Fernbank and arrived in the nick of time. The turkey roaster and other assorted pots and pans were only moments before overflowing. He dutifully dumped each potful down the toilet, giving Fernbank a free flush, an economy which Miss Sadie had often employed.
He had tried to be completely candid with Andrew in a subsequent phone conversation, giving him the hair-raising truth about everything from roof to furnace. Oddly, Andrew had seemed jubilant about the whole prospect.
The wire for the earnest money had arrived at the bank and was deposited, the papers were being drawn up, and all was on go. Andrew would return to Mitford in a few weeks, anxious to begin work on the house before winter.
Father Tim stood in the vast, empty kitchen, looking out to sheets of rain lashing the windows. Even on a day like this, he hadn’t felt so good about Fernbank in a very long time.
Everywhere he went, he made known that he was on the incumbent’s side—without, he hoped, seeming preachy. Local politics was a fine line to walk for anybody, much less clergy.
What else could he do?
“You’ve already done!” said Cynthia. “An air show with banners and barrel rolls!”
“Yesterday’s barrel rolls can’t compete with today’s barbecue.”
“You’ve got a point there,” she said.
He watched as his wife furrowed her brow, looking thoughtful. Maybe she’d be able to come up with something.
“Tell me how things are, Betty.”
He’d gone to sit on the porch with Betty Craig, who heaved a sigh at his question.
“Well, Father, Jessie wets the bed and has awful bad dreams.”
“I’m sorry, but not surprised.”
“And poor Pauline, she’s just tryin’ ever’ whichaway to be a good mama, but I don’t think anybody ever showed her how.”
“I’m hoping preschool will help Jessie. I doubt if she’s been with other children very much.”
“She came home cryin’ her heart out yesterday, sayin’ she didn’t want to go back. But of course she seemed all right about it this morning when I took her to day care at Lord’s Chapel. I take her, you know, because Pauline goes to work so early.”
“Can you handle all this crowd in your house?”
“Oh, yes! It’s good to have a crowd, but I don’t think we could stuff another one in, unless they set on their fist and lean back on their thumb. You won’t be . . . sendin’ any more?”
“I believe Pauline will be looking for a little house soon.”
Betty was quiet, rocking. “You know, Mr. Leeper’s coming around.”
“What do you think of that?” he asked, trusting her judgment.
“Oh, I like Mr. Leeper, and he’s good to th’ children, too. But with her tryin’ to stay off alcohol . . . and I hear he’s still drinkin’ some . . . I don’t know if it’s the best thing.”
He’d thought the same, but hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.