by Jan Karon
As a bachelor, he had wondered every year what to do on Christmas eve. With both a five o’clock and a midnight service, he struggled to figure out when or what to eat, whether to open a few presents after he returned home at nearly one a.m. on Christmas morning, or wait and do the whole thing on Christmas afternoon while he was still exhausted from the night before.
Now it was all put into perspective and, like his bishop who loved being told what to do for a change, he listened eagerly to his wife.
“We’re having a sit-down dinner at two o’clock on Christmas Eve, and we’ll open one present each before we go to the midnight service. We will open our presents from Dooley on Christmas morning, because he can’t wait around ’til us old people get the stiffness out of our joints, and after brunch at precisely one o’clock, we’ll open the whole shebang.”
She put her hands on her hips and continued to dish out the battle plan.
“For brunch, of course, we’ll invite Harley upstairs. The menu will include roasted chicken and oyster pie, which I’ll do while you squeeze the juice and bake the asparagus puffs.”
All she needed was a few military epaulets.
“After that, Dooley will go to Pauline’s and spend the night, and our Christmas dinner will be served in front of the fire, and we shall both wear our robes and slippers!”
She took a deep breath and smiled like a schoolgirl. “How’s that?”
How was that? It was better than good, it was wonderful, it was fabulous. He gave her a grunting bear hug and made her laugh, which was a sound he courted from his overworked wife these days.
He reached up to the closet shelf for the camera and touched the box of his mother’s things—the handkerchiefs, her wedding ring, an evening purse, buttons . . .
He stood there, not seeing the box with his eyes, but in his memory. It was covered with wallpaper from their dining room in Holly Springs a half century, an eon, ago. Cream colored roses with pale green leaves . . .
He would not take it down, but it had somehow released memories of his mother’s Christmases, and the scent of chickory coffee and steaming puddings and cookies baking on great sheets; his friends from seminary gathering ’round her table; and the guest room with its swirl of gifts and carefully selected surprises, tied with the signature white satin ribbon.
He stood there, still touching the box, recalling what C.S. Lewis had said. It was something which, long ago, had expressed his own feelings so clearly.
“With my mother’s death,” Lewis wrote, “all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis . . . .”
“Mother . . .” he whispered into the darkened warmth of the closet. “I remember . . . .”
He wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t seen Mack Stroupe again at Lord’s Chapel. It appeared that even his hotdog stand was closed—perhaps for the holidays, he thought.
He didn’t want to consider whether he’d ever see Edith Mallory again.
“I do this every year!” said Cynthia, looking alarmed.
“Do what?”
“Forget the cream for tomorrow’s oyster pie. And of course no one will be open tomorrow.”
It was that lovely lull between the five o’clock and midnight services of Christmas Eve, and he was sitting by the fire in a state of contentment that he hadn’t felt in some time. Tonight, after the simplicity of the five o’clock, which was always held without the choir and the lush profusion of garlands and greenery, would come the swelling rush of voices and organ, and the breathtaking spectacle of the nave bedecked, as if by grace, with balsam, fir, and the flickering lights of candles.
He roused himself as from a dream. “I’ll run out and find some. I think Hattie Cloer is open ’til eight.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. You cook, I fetch. I get a much better deal.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead, then went to the kitchen peg for his jacket.
“Man! What’s that terrific smell?” He sniffed the air, homing in on the oven.
“Esther’s orange marmalade cake! Vanita Bentley gave me a bootleg copy of her recipe. She ran off dozens on her husband’s Xerox.”
“Where’s your conscience, Kavanagh?”
“Don’t worry, this is legal. I called Esther and she gave me permission to use it. Have at it! she said.”
“Oh, well,” he sighed, feeling diabetic and out of the loop.
“You can have the tiniest sliver, dearest. I’m sure your food exchange will allow it.”
If she only knew. “Harley!” he called down the basement stairs. “Want to run to the highway?”
“Yessir, Rev’rend, I do, I’m about t’ gag on this book about that feller hoardin’ ’is gold.”
He heard Dooley and Barnabas clambering down from above. “Where’re you going?” asked Dooley.
“To the store. Want to come?”
“Sure. Can I drive?”
“Well . . .”
“You said I could when I came home for Christmas.”
“Right. Consider it done, then!” Perfect timing! It was just getting dark, and hardly a soul would be out on a cold Yuletide eve.
Harley came up the stairs, wearing a fleece-lined jacket that he’d found, good as new, at the Bane. “I was hopin’ f’r a excuse t’ lay that book down. It ain’t even got a picture in it!”
Barnabas stood in the fray, wagging his tail and hoping to be invited, as the doorbell gave a sharp blast.
“I’ll get it!” said the rector, hurrying along the hall.
It was Buck Leeper, standing in the pale glow of the porch light.
“I got as far as Alabama and turned around,” he said. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lion and Lamb
Buck was shaking as they went into the study. Though the rector knew it wasn’t from the cold, he asked him to sit by the fire.
There was a long silence as Buck waited for the trembling to pass; he sat with his head down, looking at the floor. The rector remembered the times of his own trembling, when his very teeth chattered as from ague.
“Does Pauline know you’re back in Mitford?”
“No. I came for . . . I came for this.” He looked up. “I didn’t want to come back.”
“I know.”
“It was sucking the life out of me all the way. I was driving into Huntsville when I knew I couldn’t keep going . . . .”
He was shaking again, and closed his eyes. Father Tim could see a muscle flexing in his jaw.
“God a’mighty,” said Buck.
Father Tim looked at him, praying. The man who had controlled some of the biggest construction jobs in the Southeast and some of the most powerful machinery in the business couldn’t, at this moment, control the shaking.
“I pulled into an Arby’s parkin’ lot and sat in the car and tried to pray. The only thing that came was somethin’ I’d heard all those years in my grandaddy’s church.” Buck looked into the fire. “I said, Thy will be done.”
“That’s the prayer that never fails.”
The clock ticked.
“He can be for your life what the foundation is for a building.”
Buck met his gaze. “I want to do whatever it takes, Father.”
“In the beginning, it takes only a simple prayer. Some think it’s too simple, but if you pray it with your heart, it can change everything. Will you pray it with me?”
“I don’t know if I can live up to . . . whatever.”
“You can’t, of course. No one can be completely good. The point is to surrender it all to him, all the garbage, all the possibilities. All.”
“What will happen when . . . I pray this prayer?”
“You mean what will happen now, tonight, in this room?”
“Yes.”
&n
bsp; “Something extraordinary could happen. Or it could be so subtle, so gradual, you’ll never know the exact moment He comes in.”
“Right,” said Buck, whispering.
The rector held out his hand to a man he’d come to love, and they stood before the fire and bowed their heads.
“Thank You, God, for loving me . . .”
“Thank You, God . . .” Buck hesitated and went on, “for loving me.”
“ . . . and for sending Your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins, and receive Christ as my personal savior.”
The superintendent repeated the words slowly, carefully.
“Now, as Your child, I turn my entire life over to You.”
“ . . . as Your child,” said Buck, weeping quietly, “I turn my entire life over to You.”
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
He didn’t know how long they stood before the fire, embracing as brothers—two men from Mississippi; two men who had never known the kindness of earthly fathers; two men who had determined to put their lives into the hands of yet another Father, one believing—and one hoping—that He was kindness, Itself.
In the kitchen, Cynthia said, “You won’t believe this! Look!”
She pointed under the kitchen table, where Barnabas and Violet were sleeping together. The white cat was curled against the black mass of the dog’s fur, against his chest, against the healing wound.
Father Tim sank to his knees, astounded, peering under the table with unbelieving eyes.
“It’s a miracle,” Cynthia told Buck. “They’ve been mortal enemies for years. You can’t imagine how he’s chased her, and how she’s despised him.”
Barnabas opened one eye and peered at the rector, then closed it.
“The lion shall lie down with the lamb!” crowed Cynthia.
“Merry Christmas, one and all!” whooped the rector.
“Merry Christmas!” exclaimed his wife.
“Right,” said Buck. “You, too.”
“I thought you’d never get finished.” Dooley came up the basement steps with Harley. “Hey, Buck, I thought you’d left for Mississippi. How’s it goin’?”
“Real good, what are you up to?”
Dooley pulled a pair of gloves out of his jacket pocket. “I’m drivin’ to the store! Let’s bust out of here, I’m ready.”
“Settin’ on high idle, is what he is,” said Harley.
They trooped to the garage and pushed the button that opened the automatic door. It rose slowly, like a stage curtain, on a scene that stopped them in their tracks.
“Snow!” Dooley shouted.
It was swirling down in large, thick flakes and already lay like a frosting of sugar on the silent lawn.
“Maybe you’d better let me drive,” said the rector.
“I can drive in snow! Besides, I won’t go fast, I’ll go really slow.”
“I don’t reckon they’s any cows out plunderin’ around in this, Rev’rend.”
Buck and Harley climbed into the backseat, and he slid in beside Dooley. “This isn’t Harley’s truck, buddy, so there’s no clutch. Remember to keep your left foot—”
“I know how,” said Dooley.
As they turned right on Main Street, there they were, on every lamppost—angels formed of sparkling lights, keeping watch over the snow-covered streets.
“By jing,” said Harley, “hit’s another world!”
“Glorious!” said the rector. The Buick seemed to be floating through a wonderland, lighter than air. He turned the radio to his favorite music station. Hark the herald angels . . .
“Buck, where are you staying?”
“I’ll bunk in with one of my crew for a couple days, then head back. Emil’s got me on a big job in Texas startin’ January.”
“Why don’t you bunk in with us? Harley, would you let Buck use your sofa bed? Cynthia’s using the guest room as a gift-wrapping station.”
“Hit’d be a treat. I sleep s’ far down th’ hall, I don’t reckon I’d keep you awake with m’ snorin’.”
“And you’ll have brunch with us tomorrow, if that suits.”
“I’d like that,” said Buck. “Thank you.”
Dooley braked at the corner. “Let’s ride by Mama’s, want to?”
“I’ll go anywhere you ’uns say,” declared Harley.
“We’ll just ride by and honk th’ horn,” said Dooley, “then let’s ride by some more places before we go to the store, OK?”
The rector grinned. “Whatever you say, buddy. You’re driving.”
Dooley turned left at the corner and made a right into the alley. Pauline’s small house, nestled into a grove of laurels, was a cheerful sight, with the lights of a tree sparkling behind its front windows and the snow swirling like moths around the porch light.
Dooley hammered on the horn, and the rector cranked his window down as Pauline, Poo, and Jessie appeared at the door.
“Look, Mama, I’m drivin’!”
“Dooley! Father! Can you come in?” She peered at the rear window, but was unable to see anyone in the darkened backseat.
“We’re on a mission to the store, but we’ll see you tomorrow. Merry Christmas! Stay warm!”
“Merry Christmas, Mama, Jessie, Poo! See you tomorrow!”
“Merry Christmas! We’re bakin’ the ham you sent, Father, be careful, Dooley!”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Tim!”
Sammy and Kenny, thought the rector. He hoped he would live to see the day . . .
Dooley put the Buick in low gear and glided off.
“Burn rubber!” yelled Poo.
At the end of the alley, Buck leaned forward, urgent. “Father, I can’t . . . I’d like to go back and see Pauline and the kids. Do you think it would be all right?”
Dooley spoke at once. “I think it would.”
“Go,” said the rector.
In the side mirror, he saw Buck running along the alley, running toward the light that spilled onto the snow from the house in the laurels.
“The last time we had snow at Christmas, we burned the furniture, remember that?” he asked, as Dooley turned onto Main Street. It was, in fact, the blizzard the media had called the Storm of the Century.
Dooley cackled. “We were bustin’ up that ol’ chair and throwin’ it in th’ fireplace, and fryin’ baloney . . .”
“Those were the good old days,” sighed the rector, who certainly hadn’t thought so at the time.
Dashing through the snow . . .
He was losing track of time, happy out here in this strange and magical land where hardly a soul marred the snow with footprints, where Dooley sang along with the radio, and Harley looked as wide-eyed as a child . . . .
And there was Fernbank, ablaze with lights through the leafless winter trees, crowning the hill with some marvelous presence he’d never seen before. He wanted suddenly to see it up close, feel its warmth, discover whether it was real, after all, or a fanciful dream come to please him at Christmas.
“Want to run by Jenny’s?” he asked. “It’s on the way to the store.”
“Nope,” said Dooley. “Let’s go by Lace’s.”
“Excellent! Then we can run over to Fernbank while we’re at it.”
“And by Tommy’s! He’ll hate my guts.”
“Anywhere you want to run, Harley?”
“No, sir, I’ve done run to where I want t’ go, hit’s right here with you ’uns.”
They should have brought presents—fruitcakes, candy, tangerines! He was wanting to hand something out, give something away, make someone’s face light up . . .
Bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright, what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight! Hey! . . .
They honked the horn in the Harper driveway and shouted their season’s greetings, then drove up the long, winding lane to Fernbank, where he would have been contented merely to sit in the car and look at its lighted rooms with a candle in every window.
They circled ar
ound to the front steps and honked, as Andrew and Anna came to the door and opened it and waved, calling out felicitations of their own. “Don’t mention this to Rodney Underwood!” he said to the couple on the porch.
Andrew laughed. “Our lips are sealed! Joyeux noël!”
“Ciao!” cried Anna. “Come soon again!”
They eased down the Fernbank drive and saw the town lying at the foot of the steep hill like a make-believe village under a tree. There was the huge fir at Town Hall with its ropes of colored lights, and the glittering ribbon of Main Street, and the shining houses.
An English writer, coincidentally named Mitford, had said it so well, he could recite it like a schoolboy.
She had called her village “a world of our own, close-packed and insulated like . . . bees in a hive or sheep in a fold or nuns in a convent or sailors in a ship, where we know everyone, and are authorized to hope that everyone feels an interest in us.”
Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere . . .
After a stop by Tommy’s and then by Hattie Cloer’s, they headed home.
“Harley, want to have a cup of tea with us before tonight’s service?”
“No, sir, Rev’rend, I’m tryin’ t’ fool with a batch of fudge brownies to bring upstairs tomorrow.”
Temptation on every side, and no hope for it.
“Say, Dad, want to watch a video before church? Tommy loaned me his VCR. It’s a baseball movie, you’ll like it.”
If there were a tax on joy on this night of nights, he’d be dead broke.
“Consider it done!” he said.
He sat clutching the pint of cream in a bag, feeling they’d gone forth and captured some valuable trophy or prize, as they rode slowly between the ranks of angels on high and turned onto their trackless street.
Other Mitford Books by Jan Karon
AT HOME IN MITFORD
A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
THESE HIGH, GREEN HILLS
For all families
who struggle to forgive
and be forgiven