by Jan Karon
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.
“I’d like to see,” he said, feeling shy as a schoolboy.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Of course! I’ve been wanting to do it for weeks.”
They trooped through the hedge to her workroom, where she showed him the growing stack of large watercolor illustrations for Violet Goes Back to School. He sat on her minuscule love seat and she displayed the results of her labors, revealing at the same time a shyness of her own.
He was dazzled by his wife’s gift. It knocked his socks off. “It’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful. The best yet!”
“Thank you! That means so much.”
“And Violet—in this one, she looks so, what shall I say? Happy!”
“Yes! You see, Violet likes going to school.”
“Aha.”
“Which reminds me—I’ve been wanting to tell you something, dearest.”
“Tell me,” he said, loving the earnest look of her in a bandanna and denim jumper.
“I’ll be traveling for several weeks after the book is released, going to schools and libraries. I know how you feel about that.”
He hated it, actually. He remembered how pathetically lost he felt when she traveled a couple of times last year. Worse, he’d gotten the most bizarre notions—that she might miss the bridge and drive into the river, or be mugged in the school parking lot, or that her crankcase was leaking oil. And what if she were stranded on the side of the road? Did she realize that people had been murdered doing that very thing?
He said what he always said. “Do you have to?”
And she said what she always said. “Yes.”
Ron removed his cap and jacket and shook the rain onto the rug at the office door.
“Feast or famine,” he said. “Drought or flood.”
“Are you talking about life or the weather?” queried Father Tim.
“Life and the weather,” said Ron. “We’re currently seeing a flood of real estate activity.”
“Now what?” He was sick of real estate activity.
“We’ve got a prospective buyer for the rectory.”
His blood chilled. “Already?”
Ron sat on the visitor’s bench. “They’re very interested, and said they’d like to see it next week.”
“Who is they?” Why did he feel so defensive, even angry?
“H. Tide. Out of Orlando.”
“That’s who’s looking at Sweet Stuff.” And if that’s who’s looking at Sweet Stuff, then Mack Stroupe was involved. Hadn’t Mack taken credit in the newspaper article for sending Winnie a realtor who was, in fact, H. Tide?
He’d never been able to bear the brunt of bad news in his head, in his intellect; he felt it instead in his body—in his chest, in his stomach, in his throat.
“Sorry,” said Ron, seeing the look on his face. “If they want it right away, we’ll do all we can to help you find whatever situation you need. Ideally, we’ll try to work something out that lets you stay in the rectory ’til you retire.”
“You’ll try to work something out?”
“Well . . .” Ron looked embarrassed and uneasy.
“Keep me posted,” he said, hearing the cold anger in his voice. He hadn’t meant to sound that way, but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t mask it.
He felt strangely frightened and alone.
Walking home, he concluded that he wouldn’t mention this to Cynthia, not until he had to. After all, nothing was written in stone.
Here was yet another circumstance he’d be withholding from his wife, and he knew instinctively this wasn’t a good tactic—the most fundamental counseling book would tell him that.
Disrupting the household . . . where would they go? Buck had a crew starting next door in September, in only a couple of weeks, and Cynthia would be moving her drawing board and library into his study. He had never liked change, and here he
was, facing the biggest change of his life, combined with a possible change of address at the most inconvenient time imaginable.
His retirement had all looked so smooth, so easy, so . . . reviving when he made the decision last year. Now it looked as if he could be set out on the sidewalk like so much rubbish.
But he was being hasty. Premature. He was overreacting.
He sucked in a draught of fresh air and turned the corner onto Wisteria. He dreaded facing Cynthia Kavanagh, who could look in his eyes and know instantly that something was wrong.
For two cents, he’d get in the car and drive.
And keep going.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bookends
Going at a clip toward the Grill, they met Uncle Billy tottering homeward from the construction site at Lord’s Chapel.
“I’ll be et f’r a tater if y’r boy ain’t growed a foot!”
Dooley cackled, looking at his feet. “Where’s it at?”
The rector noted that Dooley was slipping back into the vernacular, which, frankly, he had rather missed. Any wild departure from the King’s English, of course, would be remedied just ten days hence. Blast, he hated the thought of driving Dooley to Virginia and depositing him in that place, even if it was helping him learn and grow and expand his horizons.
Percy turned from the grill and beamed. “Lookit th’ big ball player. You ought t’ be traded to th’ Yankees and that’s a fact.”
“Dodgers,” said Dooley, laughing again.
The rector had seen more laughter in his boy this summer than ever before. And why not? He had a steady paycheck, a girl who was crazy about him, a best friend, a family that was pulling itself together, and, generally, a swarm of people who loved him. Not to mention, of course, an education that was annually the cost of a new car—with leather and airbags.
“Hey, buddyroe,” said J.C., cracking one of his biennial grins.
“Hey,” said Dooley, sliding into the rear booth. This was his first time hanging with these old guys, and he wasn’t too sure about it. He could have been scarfing down a pizza with Tommy over on the highway.
“Hey, slugger!” said Mule. “Let’s see that arm!”
Dooley flexed the muscle in his upper right arm, and everybody helped themselves to squeezing it.
“A rock,” said J.C., approving.
Mule nodded soberly.
“Killer!” said the rector.
J.C. pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face. “I’ll treat!”
“There it is again,” said Mule. “The feelin’ I’m goin’ deaf as a doorknob.”
“I mean I’ll treat Dooley, not th’ whole bloomin’ booth.”
“You better have some deep pockets if you’re feeding Dooley Barlowe,” said Father Tim, as proud as if the boy had an appetite for Aristotle.
“I’ll have a large Coke, large fries, and two hotdogs all th’ way,” announced the editor’s guest.
“All th’ way?” Mule raised his eyebrows. “I thought you had a girlfriend, you don’t want to be eatin’ onions.”
“Don’t listen to these turkeys,” said J.C., “they tried to run my . . . my, ah . . . thing with Adele and like to ruined my life. Anything you want to know about women, you ask me.”
Mule nearly fell out of the booth laughing.
“What’s goin’ on over here?” asked Velma, who couldn’t bear to hear laughter unless she knew what it was about.
“You don’t want to know,” said Father Tim.
“I certainly do want to know!” She put her hands on her hips and squinted at them over her glasses.
“Oh, shoot,” said Mule. “Can’t a bunch of men have a little joke without women wantin’ to know what it’s about?”
“No,” said Velma. “So what’s it about?”
“We’re teachin’ Dooley about the opposite sex,” said Mule.
“Oh, Lord, help!” Velma looked thoroughly disgusted.
“I wish y’all would quit,” said Dooley. “I don’t need to know anything about girls, I already know it.”
“See?” said Velma. “Now, let ’im alone. Dooley, if you ever want to know anything about th’ opposite sex, you come and ask me or Percy, you hear? We’ll tell you th’ blessed truth.”
“Dadgum!” Mule covered his face with his hands. “He’ll be glad to get back to school after listenin’ to this mess . . . .”
“Right!” said Dooley.
Ron Malcolm called to say that he’d be at the rectory Wednesday at noon, with the people from H. Tide.
Father Tim decided he’d be in the piney woods, as far from that miserable experience as he could get.
When he finally got the nerve to tell Cynthia, she looked at him blankly.
“Why are they showing it now if they’re not going to sell it until we move?”
“The truth is, if they get the right offer and the buyer’s anxious to move in, they’ll sell it now and find us something . . . .”
He could tell she didn’t believe her ears. “Find us something . . . ?”
He looked away. “The real estate scene in Mitford, as you know, is historically sluggish. The vestry feels they can’t afford to pass up the offer, if it’s right. People have known for two or three years that it would be on the market, and nobody’s spoken up for it.”
“The real estate market is historically sluggish because development in Mitford goes at a snail’s pace.” She turned away, and he saw a muscle moving in her cheek. “It’s almost enough to make me vote for Mack Stroupe.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“I was only kidding, for Pete’s sake, you don’t have to bite my head off.”
“I didn’t bite your head off.”
“You most certainly did. And furthermore, your nerves stay absolutely frazzled these days. You tote every barge and lift every bale in Mitford, with nothing left over for yourself. And now you tell me we could be run out of our home, thanks to a parish you have faithfully served for sixteen years? If that’s the way your vestry thinks, Timothy, then I would ask you to do me the favor of lining them up, one by one, and enjoining them to bend over. I will then go down the row and give every distinguished member exactly what they deserve, which is, need I say it, a good, swift kick!”
She turned and left the study, and he heard her charging up the stairs. Their bedroom door, which was rarely closed, slammed.
He felt as if he’d been dashed with ice water. All the feelings he’d lately had, the heaviness on his chest, the pounding of blood in his temples, the wrenching in his stomach . . . all rushed in again, except worse.
He sat at the kitchen table, stricken. They’d never before had words like that. They were both overworked, overstressed, and who wanted to be told they might be dumped on the street?
He was grieved that this was even a consideration by his own church officers.
Also, he was humiliated for Ron Malcolm, one of the finest men he’d ever known, and a personal friend into the bargain. Ron Malcolm was behaving like . . . like Ed Coffey, doing whatever it took, and all because of money.
Money!
He was glad he didn’t have enough money to matter, glad he’d given most of it away in this fleeting life. Dear God, to see what some people would do for a dollar was enough to make him call his broker and have the whole lot transferred to the coffers of Children’s Hospital.
What was the amount, anyway, that was left of his mother’s estate? A hundred and forty thousand or so, which he’d been growing for years. Even though he’d dipped into it heavily every time the Children’s Hospital had a need, smart investing had maintained most of the original two hundred thousand.
Actually, it hadn’t been smart investing, it had been safe investing. He was as timid as a hare when it came to flinging assets around. He wished he’d asked Miss Sadie her investing strategies. There were a thousand things he’d thought of asking after she died, and now it was too late to find out how she’d come up with more than a million bucks f
or Dooley, even after spending five million on Hope House.
Should he go upstairs and talk to Cynthia? What would he say?
He couldn’t remember feeling so weary, so . . . He searched for the word that would express how he felt, but couldn’t find it.
He didn’t have the energy to say he was sorry. Actually, he didn’t know if he was sorry. What had he said, after all? He couldn’t remember, but it all had something to do with Mack Stroupe.
Blast Mack Stroupe to the lowest regions of the earth. He was sick of Mack Stroupe.
So what if he shouldn’t have a napoleon? Hadn’t he waited more than a decade to eat a measly cheeseburger the other day?
He was no ascetic living in the desert, he was a busy, active clergyman in need of proper nourishment.
He did the glucometer check and marched to Winnie Ivey’s, blowing past several people who greeted him, but to whom he merely lifted a hand. They stared after him, dumbfounded. They’d never seen the local priest scowling like that. It was completely unlike him.
The bell on the Sweet Stuff door jingled, which turned the heads of four customers sitting at a table. It was fifth- and sixth-grade teachers from Mitford School, having tea. He could tell at once they wanted to talk, and he turned to leave.
“Father?” said Winnie, coming through the curtains behind the bake cases. “Can you stay a minute?”
Good heavens, Winnie Ivey looked as glum and pressed to the wall as he felt. What was wrong with people these days?
She set out another pot of hot water for the teachers, who were peering at him oddly, and caught his sleeve. “I need to talk to you about something,” she said, whispering.
They went to the kitchen, which, as always, smelled like a child’s version of paradise—cinnamon, rising dough, baking cookies. Somebody should put the aroma in an aerosol container. It was so soothing that he immediately felt more relaxed.