A Light in the Window

by Jan Karon

  "Doing her own laundry, I take it?" He was going through the mail that came to the house, looking for his Anglican Digest.

  "Must be. Leaves th' washroom jis' like I leave it, clean as a pin. But it's creepy she's been here a whole week an' I ain't laid eyes on 'er. Only way I know she's up there, I hear th' toilet flush."

  "That's one way," he said. "Next time you're upstairs, maybe you could bring down the Country Life magazine I stuck in the guest room for Stuart during the blizzard. There's an article I'd like to review for a sermon—about basket weavers. There's an intriguing dash of theology in basket weaving."

  "I still cain't git in. Her door's locked tight as a drum."

  "Aha."

  "I hate locked doors. They git my dander up."

  "Ummm."

  "How's your neighbor? When's she comin' home?"

  "End of April," he said, feeling a constriction in his chest.

  "I'm prayin' for you," announced Puny, heading toward the dining room with a bottle of lemon oil and a dust rag.

  The phone woke him from a light doze on the study sofa.

  "Timothy?"

  "The very same. How are you, Cousin?"

  "Only just recovered from seeing you in New York, to tell the truth. Katherine says you must never do that again—I could have a stroke."

  "Tell her not to worry."

  "Once was enough, was it?"

  "You might say so."

  "And how are things with your neighbor? Rotten shame about your planes crossing routes in the air."

  "Walter, do you remember meeting Meg Patrick at Erin Donovan's tea? One of the cousins."

  "Meg Patrick. Meg Patrick..."

  "Tall. A Niagara of red hair. Wears bifocals."

  "Well, of course, you would remember all that, since you were only having sherry. Everyone else was drinking Irish whiskey out of teacups."

  "You don't remember, then?"

  "How many cousins were there—twenty-four? Thirty-two? No, I draw a blank. Why?"

  "She's turned up on my doorstep, out of the blue."

  "No warning?"

  "Well, there was a letter some weeks ago, thanking me for inviting her. Blast if I can remember doing it. But...no matter. How's Katherine?"

  "Volunteering four days a week. Singing to the elderly and can't carry a tune in a bucket—they love her. Doing art classes with handicapped kids and can't draw a straight line—they adore her."

  He laughed. "Put her on. Then, I'd like to discuss a legal matter."

  "Teds!" How many times over the years her voice had cheered him. "How are things with your neighbor...with Cynthia? We let you get safely through Easter without calling to find out, but now the jig is up."

  "Katherine..."

  "And don't play your cat-and-mouse game with me! Inquiring minds want to know, Timothy! You would not fly to New York if it weren't terribly serious—either a death in the family...or love!"

  "Katherine, you're a nuisance."

  "I know it, old darling. Now tell me everything."

  "I think I hear the phone ringing..."

  "Timothy, you are on the phone."

  "Rats," he muttered darkly.

  "From the beginning," she said. Hundreds of miles away, in a suburb of New Jersey, he could hear her settling back in the plaid club chair, putting her feet on the ottoman, and clinking the ice in her eternal glass of ginger ale.

  He was in for it.

  The statue of Willard, which he saw at the sculptor's studio in Wesley, was precisely as the mayor had said—the head was too big. He would never have spoken up if it hadn't been for the fact that Miss Sadie would pass the statue every time she went to shop at The Local.

  "The head...is too large," he said in what came out as his pulpit voice. He didn't like to pass judgment on a work of art, which was clearly a subjective matter.

  The sculptor walked slowly around the clay model as the rector stared at the floor.

  "You're right, of course," said the sculptor.

  There! What if he hadn't spoken? The size of Willard's head would have rivaled that of a Canadian bull moose. Miss Sadie would have been so disgusted with the whole thing that she would have done her food shopping on the highway, where making a left turn into Cloer's Market would be plain suicide—if she didn't die from eating their produce.

  Uncle Billy had gone with him to Wesley but didn't say a word in the artist's studio. On the sidewalk, he took the rector's hand and shook it soberly.

  "Rose'll be proud that you're lookin' after things, Preacher. I'll be et f'r a tater if that statue didn't look like a feller with a washtub settin' on his shoulders."

  "What did you think," he asked Emma, "of the wedding on Sunday?" As for himself, he thought it fine and beautiful, and it had been grand to see his old parishioners and their daughter, who, though now living in Virginia, still considered Lord's Chapel their home church.

  "Did you see that lizard pocketbook sittin' on that little shelf to the left of the altar?"

  "Lizard pocketbook?"

  "Stuck up there next to th' holy family like a sore thumb. Must've been left there by somebody doin' the flowers. I could not believe my eyes."

  "But there was so much else for the believing eye. Sixteen in the wedding party—beautiful young women, handsome young men—and all glowing like so many candles."

  "Just stickin' up there like a crow on a limb..."

  "The trumpet voluntary was outstanding, every bit as good as some recordings I've heard. And the flowers—absolutely the most glorious flowers ever to grace Lord's Chapel, don't you agree?"

  "It seems to me the flower people would have stepped back and taken a good look at the whole caboodle before they went rushin' out the door. If they'd done their job, they would have seen a lizard pocketbook sittin' on the shelf."

  "The retable never looked more magnificent..."

  "It's not even the season for lizard!"

  "Emma, Emma, Emma." What else could he say?

  He'd forgotten to take the brooch to the jeweler when he went to Wesley yesterday. He would take it today and pay a visit to the Children's Hospital while he was there.

  Remembering that he'd seen a blue ribbon among his mother's things, he got on his knees and fished the box from under the bed. He rolled the ribbon up and put it in his jacket pocket and went to his chest of drawers to collect the brooch.

  But it wasn't there.

  "It was up there when I dusted," said Puny. "In that little velvet bag."

  "Maybe I put it in my coat pocket when I went to Wesley to see the sculptor. What jacket did I wear?"

  "Beats me. Try th' blue."

  "That's the trouble with having too many clothes," he said sharply. He could remember a year or so ago when he had only two jackets. Now he had five.

  Would he have put it in his pants pocket? But those pants went to the cleaners this very morning. Every other Wednesday, Puny Bradshaw bundled up the clothes he had been wearing and, whether they needed it or not, sent them to be cleaned. He argued that the English almost never have their clothing dry-cleaned, and she argued that not only was he not English, but sometimes he sweated, so that was the end of it.

  He called the cleaners and begged them to go through his pants pockets the moment the truck drove in. To take his mind off a creeping anxiety, he went through all his suits and jackets, including those he wasn't currently wearing.

  If Cynthia had once put her hat in the freezer and a quart of ice cream on the bed, who knows what he might have done while his mind was elsewhere—which it usually was these days.

  When Evie Adams called the office at ten, he found himself wishing for a curate, a deacon, anybody. He had two meetings today, recklessly scheduled so as to disallow lunch, a hurried trip to Wesley that included buying two shirts and some poster paper for Dooley, and a visit to the Hope House site to see the progress they'd made in only a few days of good weather. Needless to say, there was plenty of work that needed doing on his sermon.

  Evi
e wanted to know if he could come by as soon as possible, and this time he didn't ask what Miss Pattie had done now. He only wished again for help and then suddenly realized he was wishing for Cynthia. Cynthia would know what to do; she would take care of it and leave Evie with new hope in her heart.

  Cynthia could fix things without even trying.

  Cynthia could eat the drumstick, and he could not. No matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to eat the drumstick.

  •CHAPTER TWELVE•

  HlS FEELING OF PANIC HAD PASSED ONCE BEFORE; it would pass again, he told himself. He must go forward on faith, not feeling.

  He remembered, too, what Emily Dickinson had said: "The truth must dazzle gradually, or evermore be blind." After the trauma of being asked to go steady, hadn't he settled down and gotten used to the idea? Hadn't he been dazzled, after all, and hadn't it been gradual?

  Well, then. He would put his mind to other issues, one of which was sobering in its own right.

  No, he could not send Dooley away to school, because, Walter said, he was not Dooley's legal guardian. His heart had leapt up when he heard that.

  "However," his cousin advised, "his grandfather can do it. Even though Russell isn't the boy's legal guardian, he is closest of kin, and it can be done on the basis of his verbal consent. It wouldn't hurt to have it in writing, of course."

  Getting Russell to go along with such an idea would be one thing. Explaining it to Dooley would be another. And how would the boy fare among affluent kids who had probably never heard the word "ain't" in their lives and who thought "poop" was the latest news in the school paper?

  Could he handle the English compositions, the algebra, the science? He felt sure of the algebra, with a little coaching, but the rest of it...

  On the other hand, he could easily see Dooley scrubbed up and wearing a navy blazer—yes, indeed. And singing in some school chorale and surprising himself on the ball field.

  "Be good for him," he said, pumping up for the task.

  He called Meadowgate Farm and asked Marge to pray for this crucial thing.

  "Ah, Tim. Isn't plain love more valuable than fancy education? But of course, we must let him go, mustn't we?"

  "I think so, yes. Such opportunities are once in a lifetime. We're talking twenty thousand a year, here. Certainly nothing I could easily fork over, and clearly, no one else will offer to do it. Sadie Baxter is an angel with wings, a harp, a halo..."

  "The works!"

  He called Cynthia to discuss the school issue. He saw no reason to mention her last note, which boldly stated that he was not up to loving. Perhaps she was right, but he would forge ahead. Faith, not feeling!

  "What are you up to today?"

  "Taking Miss Addison to lunch at my cafe. She's never been to a cafe! She says she wants to drink strong coffee out of a mug and eat something hearty like a plowman's lunch. Why, she's never drunk out of anything less than Baccarat and Sevres in her life!"

  "There you are, being a grand influence on yet another neighbor."

  "Have I...been a grand influence, Timothy?"

  "More than I can say." He felt a lump in his throat, for no earthly reason. "I needed your help yesterday."

  "You did?" She sounded as if he'd told her some wonderful news.

  "Evie Adams called and I went over, but my heart wasn't in it. I thought how you would have made things seem all right."

  "But of course, they aren't all right."

  "No. And won't be until Hope House is built."

  "Do you think it's important to make things seem all right when they aren't?"

  "Not always. But in this case, yes, very important."

  She was silent for a moment.

  He decided not to mention the brooch. It would turn up. Even if the cleaners couldn't find it, it would turn up.

  He left the office much later than usual—it was nearly dusk—and saw Buck Leeper walking on the other side of the street, leaning into the strong wind that had been blowing all day. He thought the man looked utterly desolate; perhaps it was something in the slope of his shoulders, but he really couldn't say.

  "What will we do? Carry him off kicking and screaming?"

  "He wouldn't be the first boy carried to school that way."

  "Not meaning any disrespect, Miss Sadie, but what do you know about boys being carried off to school?"

  "Father, you do not have to be a villain to act one in a play, nor do you have to be a boy to know that kicking and screaming about private school is more rule than exception."

  He pondered this.

  She leaned on her cane and gazed at him steadily. "It was Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that a mind stretched to a new idea never returns to its original shape. That boy needs his mind stretched."

  "Why are you so interested in Dooley's development?" He'd been wanting to ask that. At twenty thousand a year, he was curious.

  "He's a diamond in the rough, clear as day. My father was, and so was Willard Porter. They both made something of themselves, with no help from anybody. I'd like to see what happens when help comes to a boy who's rough as a cob yet loaded with possibilities."

  "Miss Sadie, isn't this like what Uncle Haywood did to you? He convinced your parents to send you to a fancy school in a foreign country, and you hated every minute of it. A fancy school, no matter where it is, will be like a foreign country to Dooley Barlowe. Actually, he'll go there speaking a foreign language, if you know what I mean."

  "Uncle Haywood thought a fancy school was the right credential for catching a husband," she said crisply. "It had nothing to do with stretching my mind with new ideas!"

  More than seventy years later, the very mention of Uncle Haywood was still distasteful to Miss Sadie. She made a face like she'd just eaten a persimmon.

  Dooley looked up from his homework at the desk in the study. "I seen that woman today. I come up th' steps and she was in th' hall closet, gittin' an armload of toilet paper."

  "Aha."

  "Seen me, went back to her room, locked th' door."

  "Ummm."

  "Got some eyes, ain't she?"

  "Green, I think. We need to have a talk."

  "When?"

  "Oh, soon, I guess." Not now. Not tomorrow. Not necessarily next week or the week after that. But...soon.

  "What about?" Dooley stared at him, expressionless.

  "Oh, this and that."

  "I ain't done nothin'."

  He sat on the edge of the desk. "Haven't done anything."

  "That's what I said."

  "Well, then, there's nothing to worry about. Not a thing. Just a talk, that's all."

  "Anyway, I ain't smoked but two. Buster Austin sucked down a whole pack."

  Rats! He didn't want to know that. "Really?"

  "He's th' one stole 'em, not me. Me an' Tommy stood across th' street while he done it."

  No, he didn't want to know any of this. But here it was, and he'd have to deal with it, which would result in another kind of talk, entirely.

  Dooley dived into the pause to change the subject. "You git me them shirts?"

  "I did. No plaid. Just blue."

  "Where're they at?"

  "Your prepositions dangle terribly," he said, quoting Cynthia Coppersmith.

  Those boys in their navy blazers would make chopped liver out of this kid; if he made it through alive, it would be a blasted miracle.

  He thought his words had sunk in during their talk at breakfast, but he couldn't be sure.

  Hadn't he smoked a few cigarettes in his time? He and Tommy Noles had nearly burned the Noles's barn down, but, thanks be to God, they'd put the fire out by flinging themselves onto the smoldering hay and rolling in it.

  They had shoved the blackened hay under the pile in the rear loft, and he'd gone around with singed hair for weeks, his father peering at him in his strangely abstracted way.

  Stealing, however, was another thing. Hanging out with a boy who was not only smoking but stealing into the bargain—this was
serious business. He hoped he had made his point and that it had been welltaken. Sometimes, talking to Dooley Barlowe was like talking to a fence post.

  He was glad it was Emma's day off when Mitford Blossoms made a delivery. Jena Ivey knocked on his office door and stepped inside, carrying a long box.

  "Good morning, Father!" He could see the mischief in her eyes as she held it out to him. "Your birthday isn't 'til June, so it must be something really special."

  "Aha." He looked at the box as if it contained a set of barbecue tongs.

  "They're my best, Father. I know how picky you are about roses."

  He should have felt delighted, he thought. Instead, he felt interrupted. "Thanks, Jena. Well, then, see you later. I know how it is when there's no one to mind the store." He held the door open for her.

  "Don't you want to peep in before I go?" Jena liked a chance to see the look on people's faces when they received flowers from her shop. '"Course, you don't have to read the card 'til I leave."

  Obliging, he lifted the lid and stared with spontaneous admiration at the dozen roses. They appeared to have come from a country garden only minutes ago—in fact, morning dew still clung to their petals.

  "Sprayed with mineral water," Jena said proudly, reading his mind. "What do you think?"

  "I think you're the best florist in these mountains—no contest."

  She looked disappointed. "Somebody once said the East Coast."

  "The East Coast, then! I'm sure of it." He gave her a hug, knowing that his Sundayschool supervisor thrived on hugs.

  "Well, enjoy the roses, Father. We're sure loving Dooley's contribution to the choir! Having him, I think we can build something wonderful over the next couple of years."

  The next couple of years? He nodded bleakly.

  She stepped out to the sidewalk. "Do you need a vase? I can run across the street and bring you one."

  "No, thanks. I have just the thing." He called after her as she hurried away, "God bless you! Thank you!"