by Jan Karon
“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.”
“I’m pretty much out of the loop,” said the rector, “but they seem excited. We surveyed the parish, and the consensus is for a young priest with children.”
“They can save all of us some heartache by asking the candidates a central question.”
“Which is?”
“ ‘Do you believe Jesus is God?’ ”
“Right. I’ve talked about that with the committee. Sad state of affairs when we have to point such a question at candidates who took the ordination vows . . .”
The bishop sighed. “Paul said in the second epistle to the good chap you were named after, ‘The time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine . . . they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn from the truth and wander away to myths.’ Ah, Timothy . . .”
“Eat up, my friend. You’ve got a long haul ahead of you. Why aren’t you flying?”
“I’m driving because I need time to think, I need some time alone.”
“A man has to get in a car and hurtle down the interstate to get time alone? Ah, Stuart . . .”
Stuart chuckled. “Two weeks at the beach doesn’t solve everything.”
“Especially not when you’re holding your stomach in,” said the rector.
“I’ve done it,” Winnie announced.
He couldn’t tell whether she was going to laugh or cry.
“Would you take this copy of the contract home and look it over?” she asked. “I had a lawyer look it over, but I don’t know how good he is, maybe if you’re not too busy, you could do it, I should have asked you before. Course I guess it’s too late now, since it’s mailed, but still, if you would . . .”
“I don’t know what help I can be, but yes, I’ll look it over.” Dadgum it, why didn’t he just go study for a broker’s license? He seemed to be spending as much time in real estate as in the priesthood.
“They’ve about ragged me to death, Father. I guess I’ll stay on and run it.” She looked white as a sheet, he thought.
“I’m thrilled to hear you’ll stay in Mitford. Your business is thriving, you have a legion of friends here—”
“But my family’s up there—a brother and sister and two nieces and a nephew.”
“I know. But aren’t we family? Don’t we love you?” Shame on him, trying to win her heart from her own blood kin.
“I’ll be glad to go on that cruise next week,” she said, not looking glad about anything.
Lace was sitting at the kitchen table doing her history homework when Dooley called from school. Father Tim answered the wall phone by the sink. “Rectory . . .”
“I’m on my way to study hall.”
“Hey, buddy!”
“Hey, yourself,” said Dooley. “What’s going on?”
“Not much. What about you?”
“We’re having our fall mixer tomorrow night. Man!”
“Man, what?”
“Four busloads of girls are coming, maybe five.”
“Man!” He agreed that seemed to say it all.
“How’s Barn?”
“Looking good. Eating well. Sleeping a lot.”
“I sort of miss him.”
“He misses you more. So, what kind of mixer is it?”
“We’re having a band, it’s gong to be in the field house. I helped decorate.”
“Aha.”
“We hung a lot of sheets with wires and turned it into a huge tent. It’s neat, you should see it.”
“When are we coming up for a visit?”
“I’ll let you know. I gotta go.”
“Want to say a quick hello to Lace? She’s here.”
“Sure.”
He handed the phone to Lace. “Dr. Barlowe.”
Her smile, which he had seldom seen, was so spontaneous and unguarded, he blushed and left the room.
They were sitting at the table having a cup of tea as Lace organized her books and papers to go home.
“What’s interesting in school these days?” Cynthia wanted to know.
“I just found out about palindromes, I’m always lookin’ for ’em,” she said.
“Like Bob, right?”
“Right. Words that’re the same spelled forwards or backwards. Like that,” she said, pointing to the contract he’d left lying on the table, “isn’t a palindrome, it says H. Tide readin’ forwards, and Edith if you read it backwards. But guess what, you can also make a palindrome with whole sentences, like ‘Poor Dan is in a droop.’ ”
“Neat!” said Cynthia.
“See you later,” she said, going to the basement door. “ ’Bye, Harley! Read your book I left on the sink!”
“What did you leave on the sink?” inquired the rector, filled with curiosity.
“Silas Marner.”
“Aha. Well, come back, Lace.”
“Anytime,” said Cynthia.
“OK!”
He pulled the contract toward him.
EdiT .H
His blood pounded in his temples. Edith? Could H. Tide be owned by Edith Mallory?
Is that why H. Tide wanted the rectory so urgently? Edith knew he and Cynthia would be living in the yellow house. Did she want to control the house next door to him in some morbid, devious way?
“What is it, Timothy?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.” He took the contract into the study and sat at his desk, looking out the window at the deepening shadows of Baxter Park.
Mack Stroupe. H. Tide. Edith Mallory.
If what Lace just prompted him to think was true, Edith was now trying to get her hands on another piece of Main Street property. The way she had treated Percy wasn’t something he’d like to see happen to anyone else, especially Winnie. And what might Edith be trying to gouge from Winnie, who was selling her business without the aid of a realtor?
He glanced at the contract—it was right up there with cave-wall hieroglyphs—and called his attorney cousin, Walter. “You’ve reached Walter and Katherine, please leave a message at the sound of the beep. We’ll return your call with haste.”
Wasn’t a signed contract legal and binding?
He paced the floor.
Edith Mallory had always held a lot of real estate. But why would she sell the Shoe Barn to her own company? He didn’t understand this. Was he making too much of a name spelled backward?
Then again, why had Mack Stroupe swaggered around town, boasting of his influence on H. Tide’s buying missions?
Another thing. Could Miami Development have anything to do with all this? Or was that merely a fluke?
He didn’t know what the deal was, but he knew something was much worse than he had originally believed.
He knew it because the feeling in
the pit of his stomach told him so.
Walter rang back.
“Cousin! What transpires in the hinterlands?”
“More than you want to know. Legal question.”
“Shoot,” said his cousin and lifelong best friend.
After talking with Walter, he rang an old acquaintance who worked at the state capitol. So what if it was nine-thirty in the evening and he hadn’t seen Dewey Morgan in twelve years? Maybe Dewey didn’t even work at the state capitol anymore.
“No problem,” said Dewey, who’d received quite a bureaucratic leg up in the intervening years. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“As quickly as possible, if you’d be so kind. And if you’re ever in Mitford, our guest room is yours.”
“I may take you up on it. Arlene has always wanted to see Mitford.”
If all the people he’d invited to use the guest room ever cashed in their invitations . . .
At ten o’clock, the phone rang at the church office.
“Tim? Dewey. I looked up the name of the undisclosed partner in H. Tide of Orlando, right? And also Miami Development. It says here Edith A. Mallory—both companies. Hope that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Exactly!”
He’d been looking for it, all right, but he hated finding it.
He pushed through the curtains to the bakery kitchen without announcing himself from the other side.
“Winnie, I’ve got to tell you something.”
“What is it, Father? Sit down, you don’t look so good.”
“H. Tide is owned by someone who may not treat you very well, I won’t go into the details. The truth is, you probably don’t want to sell to these people and be under their management.”
“Oh, no!”
“You’d be in the hands of Percy’s landlord. I think you should talk to Percy.”
“But I’ve already signed the contract and sent it off.”
“And I’ve just talked with my cousin who’s an attorney. Please. Talk with Percy about his landlord. And if you don’t like what you hear, we need to move fast.”