These High, Green Hills

by Jan Karon

  The members of First Baptist mourned the loss. So many of them had been involved in Angie’s life; had held her as a baby, taught her in Sunday School, and made certain that she and Liza regularly got a box of decent clothes. In recent years, some had quietly paid the drugstore bill when the girls were sick with flu.

  After the funeral, the rector went with his wife to the rented house behind Lew Boyd’s Exxon station, still known to most villagers as the Esso.

  He didn’t say much, but sat on the sofa and held Sophia’s hand, against a background murmur of neighbors bringing food into the kitchen.

  Next to him, Cynthia cradled Liza on her lap, caressing the damp cheek that lay against her shoulder.

  When Liza began to sob, Cynthia began to quietly weep with her. Then, somehow, they were all weeping and clinging to each other, huddled together on the sofa.

  It was at once a terrible and a wondrous thing. He didn’t care that he suddenly had no control, that he had lost it, that his grief was freely pouring forth, apart from his will.

  They held each other until the wave of their sorrow passed and he was able to pray. They all knew that he had no answers, though they had hoped he might.

  Afterward, he and Cynthia walked down the path to their car.

  “Blast,” he said, clenching his jaw.

  She looked at him, at the way this death had moved and stricken him. In the car, she took his hand and drew it to her cheek. “Thank you for being a loving priest.”

  He didn’t feel loving. He felt helpless and poured out.

  “Upside down and backwards,” the new Baptist preacher had assured him yesterday.

  The usually cheerful preacher looked as if he’d swallowed a dose of castor oil. “Plan to spend the first six months in misery and confusion, and the next six months merely in confusion.”

  For someone who could barely heat coffee in a microwave, the thought of what lay ahead was mind-boggling. Yet, for all the gloom and doom he had heard on the subject, he knew his vestry was right—it had to be done. Death, taxes, and computer systems. This was the law of the land, and no getting around it.

  “Emma, I don’t know how to tell you this. But the vestry wants us to go on computer.”

  She looked at him over her glasses. “What? What did you say?”

  “I said the vestry wants us to go on computer. The bishop thinks it will bring some consistency to the affairs of the diocese. And chances are, it will do as much for the affairs of Lord’s Chapel. You’ll think so, too, once we get the hang of it.”

  “No way, José!”

  She rose from her chair, doing that thing with her mouth that made her look like Genghis Khan with earrings.

  “No one hates it more than I do,” he said. “But it’s going to happen.”

  “I work here fourteen years, day in and day out, and this is the thanks I get? I labor over these books like a slave, watching every penny, checking every total, and how many mistakes have I made?”

  “Well,” he said, “there was that pledge report five years ago ...”

  “Big deal! As if a measly fourteen thousand dollars was something to get upset about.”

  “... and the incident with Sam McGee ...”

  “Sam McGee! That skinflint! Anybody can say they put a thousand dollars in the plate and the check was lost by the church secretary! I hope you’re not telling me a computer could have found that stupid check he probably never wrote in the first place!”

  “Ah, well ...”

  “So!” she said, inhaling deeply. “Go and find some young thing with her skirt up to here, and pay her out th‘ kazoo. Does the vestry take into consideration the kind of money they’ll be shellin’ out for her, while the money they save on me goes to Sunday School literature and soup kitchens? Ha! Never entered their minds, is my guess!”

  He had expected Mount Vesuvius—and he was getting it.

  They were in bed at the rectory, propped against the huge pillows she had carted from her house in leaf bags. He had to admit it was a comfort, all that goose down squashing around back there. He could hardly get past the first page of his book without nodding off.

  “Timothy, do I snore?”

  He liked the way her questions sometimes bolted in from the blue, contained within no particular context that he could see. Good practice for a clergyman.

  He removed his glasses and looked at his wife. “Snore? My dear, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you positively rattle the windows. I think it could be overcome, however, if you would sleep with your mouth closed ... which might also eliminate the drooling problem.”

  “Timothy!”

  “See how it feels? You told me I mutter in my sleep and grind my teeth. So, tit for tat.”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding. I don’t really snore, do I?”

  “To tell the truth, no. You never snore. Maybe a whiffle now and again, but nothing serious.”

  “And no drooling?”

  “Not that I’ve witnessed.”

  She looked smug. “You really do mutter in your sleep, you know.”

  “Worse has been said.”

  He never failed to wonder how all this had come about. If he had known that being together was so consoling, he would have capitulated sooner. Why had he been so terrified of marriage, of intimacy, of loving?

  He had read again this morning about the wilderness trek of the Israelites and the way God miraculously provided their needs. Manna every day, and all they had to do was gather it.

  “Men ate the bread of angels,” was how the psalmist described it.

  That appeared, somehow, to illustrate his marriage. Every day, with what seemed to be no effort at all on his part, he received God’s extraordinary provision of contentment—there it was, waiting for him at every dawn; all he had to do was gather it in.

  “... bread of angels,” he mused under his breath.

  “See! You mutter even when you’re not sleeping!”

  “I hardly ever knew what I was doing ‘til you and Dooley Barlowe came along and started telling me.”

  She leaned against him in her striped pajamas and yawned happily.

  “You’re so comforting, Timothy. I never dreamed I would find anyone like you—sometimes, I hardly know where I end and you begin.”

  It was true for him, as well, but he said nothing.

  “I think our love fits into the miracle category,” she said.

  “Right up there with the Red Sea incident, in my opinion.”

  “Do you think the people who love you are happy about us? Isn’t some of the parish feeling a bit ... betrayed?”

  “Never. They’re glad to have someone look after me, so they don’t have to. Of course, they never had to, but bachelor priests are thought to require extra attention.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

  She kissed his chin. “Dearest?”

  “Ummm?”

  “Shall we bring the armoire over this Saturday?”

  Out of the blue, again! He had to be quick. “This Saturday, I’m taking you for a little ... recreation.”

  “I love recreation! What are we going to do?”

  In all his life, he had never been able to figure out what to do for recreation. As a bachelor, he was forever dumbfounded by the way people planned ahead for this very thing. “What are you doing this weekend?” someone might ask, and the respondent would roll off a daunting list of activities—a ball game, a movie, dinner out, a play, hiking, a picnic, and God knows what else. If he were asked such a question, he always wound up scratching his head, speechless. He never knew what he might do until he did it.

  “It’ll be a surprise,” he announced.

  “Good! I love surprises!”

  “Cynthia, Cynthia. What don’t you love?”

  “Exhaust fumes, movies made for TV, and cakes baked from mix.”

  “I’m all for a woman who knows what she likes—and doesn’t like.” He cleared his throat. “As for me, I
like this.”

  “This what?”

  “This ... living with you.”

  “Then why did you fight me tooth and nail for longer than it took to build the Brooklyn Bridge?”

  “No vision,” he admitted. “No imagination. No—”

  “No earthly idea of heaven!”

  “You said it.”

  “Well, then ...”

  He leaned over and kissed her mouth, lingering.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she murmured at last. “Who would ever have thought ... ?”

  . “Barnabas!” he called, coming in the kitchen door.

  It was time for recreation, and he’d better hop to it. Otherwise, he’d have to leg it to the hardware to rent a back brace for the lugging over.

  Barnabas raced from the study, skidded through the kitchen on a rag rug, and leaped up to give his master a lavish bath around the left ear.

  “If we confess our sins,” the rector quoted hastily from First John, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness!”

  Barnabas retreated on his hind legs, lay down, sighed, and gazed up at his master.

  His was the only dog in creation who was unfailingly disciplined by the hearing of God’s Word. Now, if all of humankind would respond in the same vein ...

  “I’m ready!” she said, appearing from the study. She was dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, tennis shoes and a parka, looking like a girl.

  “Ready for what?” he inquired, grinning.

  “What you said....”

  He was as excited as a boy, and no help for it.

  “Here we go,” he announced, offering his arm.

  Barnabas lay in the high grass, his tongue hanging out from the long climb uphill.

  They had walked around Mitford Lake twice, their cheeks red with the sting in the air, eaten lunch from a paper bag, sat on a log and laughed, and then headed up Old Church Lane to rest on the stone wall overlooking what he called the Land of Counterpane.

  In the valley, with its church steeples and croplands, tiny houses and gleaming river, they saw the retreat of autumn. Only the barest hint of color remained in the trees.

  “I have a great idea,” he said.

  “Shoot!”

  “Why don’t we do something like this every week? Both of us can get bogged down with work, and maybe this would be a way around it. Even for a few hours, let’s plan to get away.” He was learning something new, he could just feel it. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

  “Lovely!”

  He pressed on with mounting enthusiasm. “Even in the dead of winter!”

  “Wonderful! I couldn’t agree more.”

  There. Since all the stuff about checking accounts, where to sleep, and how much to spend without the other’s consent, this was their first important pact.

  “Shake,” she said.

  They sat on the wall until a stinging wind blew in from the north, then walked briskly down Old Church Lane and through Baxter Park.

  “Look,” he said, “there’s our bench.”

  “Where we were sitting when the rain came ... where you said you felt like thin soup, and invited me to go with you to see the bishop.”

  He was impressed with his wife’s memory, as he didn’t recall saying anything about thin soup.

  “By the way,” he wondered, “who’s supposed to cook dinner this evening?”

  “I can’t remember,” she said, wrinkling her brow.

  Percy shuffled to the back booth and poured coffee for the rector, who had come in for an early lunch. “How d‘ you like it?”

  “Same as ever. Black.”

  “That ain’t what I’m talkin‘ about.”

  “So what are you talking about?”

  “How do you like bein‘ married?”

  “I like it.”

  This was the first time since he’d returned from the honeymoon that any of the crowd at the Grill had really questioned his new circumstances. He had strolled in one day during Percy’s beef stew special, looking tanned and thinner, fresh from Maine, and not one word had Percy Mosely, Mule Skinner, or J. C. Hogan said about it.

  All he could figure was, they were ticked off at knowing somebody for nearly fifteen years who suddenly upped and married. It required a certain change of mind, which, as Emerson had pointed out, was a blasted inconvenience.

  “If I had it t‘ do over, I wonder if I’d do it,” said Percy.

  “You know you would. Where else would you get those terrific grandkids?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said the Grill owner, brightening.

  “I’d do it over in a heartbeat,” said Mule, sliding into the booth. “Fancy’s better lookin‘ today than she was when I married her.”

  J.C. slid in on the other side. “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. You couldn’t get me to do it for a million dang dollars.”

  “Before or after taxes?” Mule wanted to know.

  J.C. mopped his face with what appeared to be a section of paper towel. “Once was one time too many. I’d rather be shot by a firin‘ squad.”

  “Is that caf or decaf?” Mule asked Percy. “Fancy’s got me on decaf, I been stumblin‘ around for two days tryin’ to get awake. Hit me with a little shooter of both.”

  J.C. held his cup out to Percy. “I tried decaf for a week, and it was all I could do to get th‘ paper printed. We whittled that sucker down to four pages, I couldn’t paste up an ad without droppin’ to the floor to take a nap.” He blew on the steaming coffee. “Nossir, I wouldn’t be married for all the tea in China, women want to run your business—they put you on fiber, take you off bacon, put you on margarine, take you off caffeine.”

  “You’re mighty talkative today,” said Mule.

  “I was up half the night with the fire department. Omer Cunningham’s old hay barn caught fire and the sparks jumped over and started on the shed where he stores that antique airplane. The fire engine came, and it was fish or cut bait ‘til three in the mornin’.”

  “I thought I might go into newspaper work,” said Mule, “but I got over it.

  “If that airplane had caught, you might’ve found a landin‘ gear on your front porch.”

  “Had gas in it, did he?”

  “You know Omer, he’s always ready to fly. All he needs is a corn-field that hasn’t been plowed. He said he’s moving it to a hangar at the airstrip.”

  Mule stirred cream into his coffee. “Somebody told me Mack Stroupe’s going to run in the next mayor’s race.”

  “Mack’s for change,” said J.C. “Development, progress, and change—that’s his platform.”

  “I like the platform we’ve got,” said the rector. “ ‘Mitford takes care of its own’!” he recited in unison with Mule.

  Everybody in Mitford knew Mayor Esther Cunningham’s platform, including the students at Mitford School, who had painted it on a nylon banner that was annually carried in the Independence Day parade up Main Street.

  “You know how he built on to his hot-dog stand when he thought Percy was goin‘ out of business? He’s goin’ to use that side of th‘ building for his campaign headquarters.”

  “Right,” said J.C. “And I’m the Pope. You couldn’t get this town to vote for anybody but Esther Cunningham if you paid ‘em cash money. They’ll carry her out of office in a coffin.”

  “He’ll never run,” said the rector, “so we might as well forget it. Mack’s no genius, but he’s not stupid, either.”

  Mule leaned out of the booth, searching for Velma. “Are we goin‘ to order, or did I come in here for my health?”

  “You definitely didn’t come in here for your health,” said J.C.

  Percy’s wife, Velma, magically appeared with her order pad. “Order th‘ special.”

  “What is it?” asked the rector.

  “Ground beef patty with a side of Hi-waiian pineapple.”

  “How’s the‘ pineapple cut up?” Mule inquired. “I like slices, not chun
ks.”

  Velma frowned. “It’s chunks.”

  “I’ll have a grilled cheese, then. No, wait.” Mule drummed the tabletop with his fingers. “Give me bowl of soup and a hot dog all the way. Fancy’s got me off cheese.”

  “I’ll take a double cheeseburger all the way, plenty of mustard and mayonnaise, and large fries.” J.C. gave his order louder than usual, to make it clear he was a free man.

  “You don’t have to bust my eardrums,” said Velma.

  Mule sighed. “On second thought, hold th‘ onions on my hot dog, they give me indigestion.”

  Velma eyed the rector, who was inspired by the sting he felt in the late October air. “Beef stew!” he announced.

  “Cup or bowl?”

  “Bowl.”

  “Roll or crackers?”

  “Crackers.”

  “Change my order and bring me th‘ beef stew,” said Mule. “I always like what he orders. But no crackers for me, I’ll take the roll. And skip th’ butter.”

  “I never heard of a cup of beef stew,” said J.C.

  “Crackers are for sick people,” said Mule.

  “Lord!” Velma ripped the order off her pad and delivered it to Percy.

  Mule turned to the rector. “One thing I’ve been wondering ...”

  “What’s that?”

  “How do your dog and her cat get along?”

  “Violet lives in the house next door, and Barnabas keeps to himself at the rectory.”

  Actually, Cynthia fed Violet her evening meal at five, then popped through the hedge to the rectory, after which Violet curled up on Cynthia’s love seat and slept until her mistress returned to work the following morning and opened one of those canned items whose odor could knock a man winding at fifty paces.

  “A cat with a house,” said J.C. “That’s some deal.”

  “So her cat and your dog don’t cross?”

  “Not if we can help it.”

  “One time you told me Barnabas slept on your bed.”

  “Now he sleeps in the hall.”

  There was a reflective silence.

  “Anybody been up on the hill?” asked the rector.

  He had just come from the site of Hope House, the five-million-dollar nursing home that Sadie Baxter had given as a memorial gift to Lord’s Chapel. By the look of things, it would be a year before it was up and running with staff.