by Jan Karon
She would be home for Christmas, which was only two months away, spend a week or ten days, and return to New York until March, when she would come home to the little yellow house for good.
Perfect, he thought, making the sandwiches on Saturday night. Couldn't be better! He would have plenty of time to adjust to what he'd just done, get through the inestimable pressures of the holy days, and be waiting for his bulbs to come up as she flew in.
Dooley had had a big football game this afternoon, which he'd attended while Cynthia packed, and was now spending the night with his friend Tommy. In view of that, he turned on the disc player and listened to the tango music again—or was it the rhumba?
Standing at the kitchen counter, shuffling his feet to the music, he caught himself smiling from ear to ear. For more than sixty years, he had been slogging along in wet concrete; now he felt as if he were swimming in a Caribbean pool.
"What is asked of us," Raymond John Baughan had said, "is that we break open our blocked caves and find each other. Nothing less will heal the anguished spirit or release the heart to act in love."
Break open our blocked caves!
What a lot of battering it had taken to break open his own cave, he thought. Among the many other things she deserved, Cynthia Coppersmith deserved a medal.
With that in mind, he made her peanut butter-and-banana sandwich extra thick and wrapped it with a note.
"I can't help loving you," she read aloud from his note. "May God bless you and keep you and bring you back safely. Yours, Timothy."
They were sitting in the parking lot of the small commuter airport in Holding, eating their late Sunday lunch out of a paper bag and drinking root beer.
She smiled at him, her eyes the color of blue columbine. "Well, you see, we're just alike, then. I can't help loving you, either. Do you think I would have chased you like I've done if I could help it? Certainly not!" She took a bite of her sandwich. "Yum, yum, and a thousand yums."
"Are the bananas mashed in right?"
"Perfect!"
"I wanted this to be your main course last night, but I hadn't the nerve. I also prayed for rain, but that prayer went unanswered."
"You prayed for rain?"
"So I could take you walking in it. The news release at the library said you like to walk in the rain."
She laughed. He loved the sound of any laughter, but hers was a laughter that ignited something in his spirit.
"Oh, Timothy, there are so many lovely things to do, aren't there? I pray that we have hundreds of rains to walk in. I pray that I find out all your secrets and can do magical things for you, as you have done for me."
"One of my deepest secrets is that I like tapioca," he said, grinning.
"Tapioca? Gross! But I shall set my personal loathing aside, and you'll have all you can eat for Christmas dinner."
"Will you write?"
"Of course, I'll write. And when you write me, will it be one of those notes you'd send to a distant relative, or will it be deeply personal and sexy and delicious?"
"I'll see what I can do," he said, holding her hand.
"I hate to go."
"I hate to see you go."
"I loved your sermon."
"Is there anything you don't love?"
"Crow's feet, age spots, and goodbyes."
"Kiss me, then," he said.
He stood on the tarmac and watched her little plane until it became a speck in the sky. He prayed for her safety, her peace, her ability to complete her work, and her joy. "Give her joy," he said aloud, turning back to the terminal.
In the car, he wondered if he should try to find Pauline, Dooley's mother. She had lived in Holding for years, but when Dooley had run away to her last Christmas, and the police had searched for her and him, it had been in vain. She couldn't be found, and not a word from her since. It was just as well; surely it was just as well. What could word from his broken, alcoholic mother do but tear Dooley apart all over again, after he had begun to reconstruct himself?
He wanted to help Pauline, but the way to do that, the only way he had available, was to help Dooley. Had he helped him? Perhaps. Certainly, he had grown to love him, to find even his aggravating ways familiar and comforting. Mush, indeed! His heart had clearly made its own mush for Dooley Barlowe.
An invitation from Edith Mallory arrived the following Wednesday. Come for Thanksgiving dinner at Clear Day, she wrote. I hope I'm asking well in advance of any other demands on your schedule, and rest assured we shall have all your favorites.
What did she know about his favorites? He would have Emma reply that he and Dooley would attend the annual AllChurch Thanksgiving, which the Presbyterians were hosting this year. Her monogrammed stationery reeked of some musky scent that fairly clung to his fingers after he read it. Why couldn't she leave him in peace?
When he laid the note aside, Emma grabbed it and tossed it in the wastebasket. "Whangdo!" she snorted.
At a quarter 'til twelve, Puny rang. "Are you comin' home for lunch?"
"I thought I'd have a bowl of soup with Percy."
"If I was you, I'd come home," she said mysteriously.
The dozen roses in a box took his breath away. Clearly, they were the finest specimens the zealous Jena Ivey could muster.
Cynthia had handwritten the card before she left: With love from your neighbor, who misses you dreadfully.
Dooley helped himself to reading the card that evening. "Double mush," he pronounced.
Two consecutive freezes downed the geraniums but enlivened the pansies in every border. Though midNovember had arrived, the curry colored leaves of the oak refused to fall, providing a rich background for the remaining gold of the maples.
"A Flemish tapestry!" exclaimed Andrew Gregory, stirring a cup of hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick.
Percy Mosely sat on a stool at the Main Street Grill and declared he was glad to be rid of the tourists, so the locals could have a little peace and quiet. "Gawk an' squawk. That's what they do from May 'til th' leaves drop. Feller in here last week squawked to me about th' coffee, said it was s' weak he had t' help it out of the pot. That," he concluded, darkly, "was a Yankee lie."
"Winter!" grumbled J.C. Hogan, having sausage and eggs in the back booth. "I hate the dadgum thought of it."
"What you need," said police chief Rodney Underwood, "is a good woman to keep you warm."
"I doubt he could find one who'd want th' job," said Mule Skinner. "He was such an ugly young 'un his mama had to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dogs to play with him."
At the first frost, Miss Rose and Uncle Billy Watson were rumored to have set their brandnew thermostat on seventyfive, and let the chips fall where they may.
Grocery man Avis Packard announced his excitement over the quality of collard greens and turnips he was getting from the valley.
Dooley moved Jack's cage from the unheated garage to his room.
The Chamber of Commerce, who had conducted a woolly worm festival on the school lawn, predicted a bitter winter, while Dora Pugh at the hardware designed a window display with snow shovels and had a planahead sale on kerosene lamps and thermal underwear.
The vase of roses at the old rectory managed to last a very long time, as if defying what was to come. Before their petals fell on the polished walnut of the dining table, Puny decided to tie their stems with a string and hang them upside down to dry, figuring that, one day, they'd make a nice memory for somebody.
"Uncle Billy! How are you?"
"No rest f'r th' wicked, and th' righteous don't need none!" he said,
cackling. "Jis' thought I'd call up to chew th' fat, and tell you things is goin' good up here at th' mansion."
"I'm always glad to hear that," said the rector, tucking the receiver under his chin and signing the letter he'd just typed.
"I don't know what you think about preacher jokes..."
"What have you got? I could use a good laugh."
"Well, sir, this preacher didn't wan
t to tell 'is wife he was speakin' to th' Rotary on th' evils of adultery. She was mighty prim, don't you know, so he told her he was goin' to talk about boating.
"Well sir, a little later, 'is wife run into a Rotarian who said her husband had give a mighty fine speech.
" That's amazin'," she said, "since he only done it twice. Th' first time he th'owed up and th' second time 'is hat blowed off."
He laughed uproariously. "That's a good one, Uncle Billy."
"I can tell that th' livelong winter. It'll do me 'til spring. You're th' first to hear it, next to Rose."
"Where'd you find it?"
"I like to get my jokes off strangers, don't you know, so they're fresh to th' town. Come off a feller down at th' dump, passin' through from Arkansas. He th'ow'd out a whole set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, good as new. We got 'em in th' kitchen. It's a sight f r sore eyes what they do with drawin's of birds an' all."
"Cynthia tells me she's pushing her publisher to do something with those ink drawings of yours."
"Well, sir, that'd be good. I got more than a thousand dollars in m' mattress off that bunch of pencil drawin's we sold at th' art show. I hated t' take it, since some of my beagles looked like coons."
"What in the world will you do with a bankroll like that?"
"Set Rose up for Christmas, for one thing. It's th' most money I ever put my hands on. She thinks I'm rich. You ought t' see th' way she shines up to me since I got a little somethin' put away. A feller can't make that kind of money canin' chairs and buildin' birdhouses."
"That's a fact."
"We're goin' to have us a Christmas tree, don't you know, for th' first time in more'n thirty years. An' I'm goin' to be Santy and give 'er a dress or two an' some shoes I seen in a catalog—what they call slingback pumps."
"How about a suit for yourself, my friend?" Uncle Billy had turned himself out in his wife's dead brothers clothes for as long as he had known him.
"Well, sir, I don't know about that."
"You're a good fellow, Uncle Billy"
"I don't think so, m'self, but I thank you, Preacher. Th' same to you."
When they hung up, he found he had a new zeal for his letter-writing. Uncle Billy Watson doeth good like a medicine, he thought, paraphrasing the scriptures.
The door opened, but even before he saw who was coming in from the street, he felt a nameless dread.
"Hellooo," said Edith Mallory, closing the door behind her.
She marched straight to Emma's chair and sat down, as if it were her own. "I'm ravished!" she announced.
Not around here, you won't be, he thought.
"I haven't had a bite all day, except for the teensiest piece of toast for breakfast. Since you can't come for Thanksgiving dinner, there's the cutest new restaurant in Wesley, and I just know you'd love it. I've reserved a table for lunch, on the teensiest chance you can come. They have green tablecloths and green walls—I know how passionately you love green—and can you imagine, their dinner menu features elk and bison!" She peered at him with dauntless expectancy.
He did not love green, and anyone who would stalk and slaughter an elk or bison was a raving lunatic.
"Well? What do you think?" She opened her handbag and removed a compact. Looking into it intently, she twisted her mouth in a manner he found gruesome, then slathered it with a vivid orange lipstick. "Ummm," she said, poking out her tongue and licking her lips. When she crossed her legs, he saw for the first time that her skirt was ridiculously short.
He rose from his chair so suddenly that the silver bud vase on the windowsill above him went flying across the room and skidded to the door.
"Blast!" he said. "I was just leaving. Dooley is feverish, a wound to the knee. Football, you know."
He was stunned at the lie that came rolling out like so many coins BANANA SANDWICHES from a slot machine. He fled to the peg and grabbed his jacket and was putting it on when she got up and came toward him. In one smooth, swift, gliding motion, she threw her arms around him and pressed her body against his.
"Timothy...," she said, breathing onto his cheek.
He moved away from her, trying to wrench her arms from his neck. "Edith..."
"Timothy, I know how you feel about me, how you've always felt. I can see it..."
He flung the door open and ran into the street without looking behind him, without observing the careful, lifelong practice of locking up church property, without taking his briefcase, without considering that he might have handled the whole thing far better by meeting her headon and coming, once and for all, to manly terms with an ungodly circumstance.
He struck the pillow on the study sofa with such force that a welt gaped open, releasing a pouf of white feathers.
The vestry. They could help him. Or should he call Stuart? What could the vestry do, after all? What did you do to provoke it, someone might ask, and well they might. The answer was simple: Nothing! He had done nothing, never, not the slightest thing. He had been kind to her over the years, he had gritted his teeth and been kind, that was all, nothing more than he had been to anyone else in the parish, including her beleaguered dead husband.
Had he passed Ed Coffey when he hurried out of the office and down the sidewalk? Had Ed sat watching him from behind the wheel of the Lincoln, as he fled like a hare before a hound? It was humiliating to think that Ed might even now be shaking his head with pity over the priest who could not hold his own with his employer. Would Ed have to watch him skulk about eternally, fleeing from church offices, trapped in rainstorms, until either he or Edith gave up and gave in?
Certainly, he would never give in.
But he felt a chilling dread that Edith Mallory would not give in, either. There was something indomitable about her; she had had her way with Pat Mallory for more than three decades. She was not used to giving in.
He was not pleased that he felt oddly fearful, like a child in a tale of a wicked stepmother. And why did it suddenly occur to him that her direct approaches were preliminary to something more subtle, something he might not be able to recognize and avoid?
Percy looked at him meaningfully. "That feller you got doin' up your nursin' home...?"
"What about him?"
"He ain't my chew of tobacco."
"Is that right?"
"Started comin' in here two mornin's ago orderin' me around like some ninnyhammer, I like to shoved 'is head in 'is grits."
"Aha."
"Too bad you missed th' last two mornin's, he comes th' same time as your crowd, sits by hisself in th' front booth. Do this, do that, run here, run there. Makes Parrish Guthrie look like a church saint."
"They say he's the best in the business."
"I'll show 'im some business," said Percy.
After he left the Grill, he stopped in front of Happy Endings bookstore. He was looking over new titles in the window when Fancy Skinner got out of her car at the curb. He saw that Fancy had dyed a streak in her blond hair to match her 1982 pink Cadillac, and was wearing an angora sweater of the same hue.
"How you doin?" she called, waving to him.
"Terrific. How's your new shop?"
"Couldn't be better. My Mister Coffee busted this mornin' and I'm goin' in th' Grill for a coffee to go. By th' way, that bozo of yours up at your nursin' home...."
"Ah, which one is that?"
"Buck Leeper. Came in for a haircut, ordered me around like a slave. When he told me to give 'im his change, I told 'im to bend over. You oughtn't to let him run loose."
"Well." What else could he say?
"You ought let me take a little off your sides. That's kind of a chipmunk look you got there."
"Right."
So now Buck Leeper was his bozo, doing up his nursing home, and he was the one responsible for letting him run loose.
Dearest Cynthia,
Sometimes, if only for a moment, I forget you're away, and am startled to find your bedroom lamp isn't burning, and all the windows are dark. I must always remind myself that you're
coming home soon.
I hope your work is going well and that you're able to do it with a light heart. I've never been to New York, and I'm convinced that my opinion of it is a foolish and rustic one. Surely much humor and warmth exist there, and I'll restrain myself from reminding you to hold on to your purse, be careful where you walk, and pray before you get into a taxicab.
I've mulched your perennial beds, and done some pruning in the hedge. I think we'll both find it easier to pop through.
To the news at hand:
On Saturday, Miss Pattie packed a train case with Snickers bars and ajar of Pond's cold cream and ran away from home. She got as far as the town monument before Rodney found her and brought her home in a police car. It appears that riding in a police car was the greatest event of her recent life, and Rodney has promised to come and take her again. Good fellow, Rodney.
I have at last heard Dooley sing in the school chorus, and must tell you he is absolutely splendid. Cold chills ran down my right leg, which is the surest way I have of knowing when something is dead right. Our youth choir, by the way, will have a stunning program ready for your return at Christmas.
Barnabas pulled the leash from my hand yesterday afternoon, and raced into your yard. He sniffed about eternally, before going up your steps and lying down on the stoop. I can only surmise that he misses you greatly, as does yours truly,
Timothy...
The Sunday of the Village Advent Walk was bright with sun, yet bitterly cold. He was glad to put on the camel topcoat Puny had brushed and hung on the closet door. He had let it hang there for more than two weeks, eagerly waiting for the weather to turn cold. Winters had become so mild, he had scarcely had it on his back in recent years. Let the hard winter come! he thought, whistling the morning anthem.
At four o'clock, the villagers poured into Lords Chapel, teeth chattering, to stand expectantly in the pews as the choir processed along the aisle. "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up to the heights and sing!" Rays of afternoon light poured through the stained glass windows, drenching the sanctuary with splashes of color. It was enough, he thought, if no word were spoken or hymn sung.