These High, Green Hills

by Jan Karon

  “I don’t call it meddlin‘ when you might be savin’ somebody’s life, not to mention hers. How she even sees over the dashboard is more than I can figure, low as she is.”

  “Ah, well,” he said weakly. He had rather be horsewhipped than tell Sadie Baxter she’d have to park at the curb like everybody else and stick to her own lane. He had seen the stern way she rapped the floor with her cane before Louella’s operation. To tell the truth, he might be a little afraid of Sadie Baxter.

  Maybe Cynthia would do this uncomfortable deed, and let him out of it altogether.

  He had shaved and showered, and was about to walk into the bedroom when he realized his wife would be there.

  He shook his head as if to return some sense to it. His wife. He more than relished the company of his wife; there were times he could hardly wait to see her. But when would his heart stop this foolish pounding on nearly every encounter? When would the comfort of merely being two old shoes kick in?

  She was sitting up in bed in something blue, with Barnabas on the floor beside her. “I gave Evie a little break today.”

  “You’re wonderful.”

  “Never! What do you think Miss Pattie and I did?”

  “I can’t even begin—”

  “We danced.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “The rumba? The fox-trot?”

  “Free-form.”

  “You had ... music?”

  “She turned on the radio. It was something about calling the wind Mariah.”

  “Aha.”

  “When Evie came home and saw her little mother dancing, she cried.”

  “Evie always cries.”

  He loved the open expectancy that so often lit her face. He sat on the bed next to her. “It all sounds amusing, but I know it isn’t, really. You’re brave and good to let Miss Pattie express something of her spirit.”

  “I’m not good, dearest, and I’m certainly not brave. I really don’t like going over there at all. It’s hard. But when I think how hard it is for Evie ... ”

  He took her hand, grateful.

  “There’s something terribly winsome and sweet about Miss Pattie,” Cynthia said. “She looks rather like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in a dress, don’t you think?”

  “Exactly!” He wouldn’t talk to her about Miss Sadie tonight.

  “I thought I might take her to ride one day. Rodney Underwood used to take her to ride in his squad car, but he’s too busy now. Do you think a Mazda would do just as well?”

  Yes, indeed, he thought, angels were very real. Miss Pattie and Evie Adams had been given one of their own, in the flesh. As had he.

  “Ah, Father!” It was Hope Justice, appearing out of the fog as the rector jogged his final lap up Main Street.

  He stopped, panting. He always liked seeing her face. And since she worked the night shift and slept most of the day, he didn’t see it often.

  “I wanted to thank you and the missus for what you did for our Benjamin and all. It was mighty big of you in every way. We just appreciate it, Father.” He saw tears welling up in Hope’s brown eyes.

  “Why, think nothing of it!”

  “It helped more than you know,” said Hope, pulling out a handkerchief.

  Jogging away in the damp December cold, he couldn’t help but wonder what he had done for Hope Justice. He didn’t want to seem dense, but the last time he could remember doing anything was years ago, when her husband was laid off from the glove factory.

  Puny Bradshaw Guthrie was getting back to her old self. In fact, he’d never seen her look better.

  “Stop starin‘ at my belly!” she said, giggling. “I can jis’ feel you starin’ down there to see what’s what. I prob‘ly won’t even show for another month or two!”

  He felt that uncontrollable grin spreading across his face. His Puny, with the red hair and freckles and the soul of a saint.... “And what does your mother-in-law, the mayor, think?”

  “She’s excited as anything. This’ll be her eighth great-gran.”

  “And twenty-five grans, I believe?”

  “Twenty-six, countin‘ her youngest girl’s little boy that popped out last week.”

  “I got you something and don’t sass me for doing it.” He went to the pantry and took out the mop.

  “It’s a squeegee with a flexible handle, and look here, you don’t ever have to bend over again, just work this lever.... ”

  She eyed the demonstration with suspicion.

  “And another thing,” he said. “I want you to eat a good lunch and stop pecking around here like a bird.”

  She laughed and saluted him. “Yes, sir!”

  He sighed. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you when—”

  “You don’t have to do without me! I’ll bring it to work with me!”

  “You ... you will?”

  “I sure will! And I won’t mind a bit if you play with it!”

  “You won’t?”

  “That little train you set up at Christmas, you could run that an‘ all. That would be entertainin’.”

  There was a thought, he mused, scratching his head.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  He had forgotten the three boxes shifting around in his car trunk, until the computer company called to say they’d be heading up the mountain “real soon.”

  While he had them on the line, he said, maybe they could tell him what to expect. No problem, said the caller. They would come and install the computer, the monitor, the printer, and the bookkeeping system, and give a two-hour introduction. Then they’d come back every week or so for a couple of hours until the church office could handle it on their own.

  How long, he wondered, would it take for his office to ... handle it? About a year, no problem, piece of cake, said the caller. Father Tim felt his stomach wrench. As for scheduling, they’d install it the week after Christmas, if that was all right with him.

  All right? He couldn’t thank them enough for their inexcusable, unprofessional delay in getting the blasted job done.

  When she heard the news, it seemed to him that Emma was her old self again. Not that this was any improvement.

  “Lord!” she said. “What I wouldn’t give for a chocolate Little Debbie, to celebrate!”

  Emma had given up Little Debbies for Lent three years ago, a sacrifice he deeply appreciated. Being in the same room with a Little Debbie of any variety was more temptation than he could handle.

  Emma eyed him. “She’s watching your diet, I suppose?”

  “Somebody has to.”

  There was a prickly silence.

  “I hear the ECW wanted her to be president.”

  “They did.”

  “I hear she wouldn’t be program chairman, either.”

  “You heard right.”

  “My, my,” said Emma, twisting her mouth in that way he so thoroughly disliked.

  He stopped by Mitford Blossoms only a hair before closing time and bought three roses of good breeding, along with several stems of freesia. Jena Ivey wrapped the bouquet in crackling green florist paper and tied it with satin ribbon—an extra business expense she willingly assumed for the fine presentation it made.

  “Special occasion, Father?” Jena liked to know what was up with her customers, and would look a man straight in the eye until she got the answer.

  He said it all together, as one word, “Marriedthreemonths.”

  On the back stoop of the rectory, he straightened his collar, held the bouquet behind his back, and marched into the kitchen.

  “Cynthia!”

  Barnabas came bounding down the stairs, sailed toward him, airborne, and gave his face a fine licking before he could summon a scripture. “You got me that time,” he said, wiping up the damage with his coat sleeve. The excited barking of his good dog filled the rectory like the bass of the Lord’s Chapel organ filled the nave.

  It was a wonderful thing, to be greeted as if you were the very Pope, but where was the woman who had m
oved in with him and shared his bed and left hilarious notes in his sock drawer?

  “Cynthia!”

  Maybe she was late coming home from work, from the little yellow house next door.

  He ran some water in a vase and put the roses and freesia in it. The barest whiff of scent came to him.

  He stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, holding the vase, and listened for her footsteps on the back stoop. Barnabas sat at his feet, staring up at him.

  “Come, then, old fellow, we’ll go for a walk.” Barnabas danced on his hind legs, barking.

  Cynthia would be home by the time they got back from the monument, and he’d take her to dinner in Wesley. Why not? He had done it once before, and she seemed to enjoy it immensely. He set the roses in the center of the kitchen table, wrote a hasty note on the back of the electric bill, and propped it by the vase.

  Gone to the monument. Back in a trice. Taking you to dinner.

  Love, Timothy

  He loved the soft shine of the street lamps in their first hour of winter dark. And now, Christmas lights added to the glow. Up and down Main Street the tiny lights burned, looping around every street lamp with its necklace of fresh balsam and holly.

  If he never left Mitford at all, it would suit him. He had been happier here than in any parish of his career. To tell the truth, there wasn’t even a close second, except, perhaps, for the little mission of fifty souls where he had served at the age of twenty-seven. They had taken him under their wing and loved him, but refused to protect him from sorrow and hardship. Indeed, there had been plenty of both, and that little Arkansas handful had made a man and a priest of him, all at once.

  He looked up to see clouds racing across the moon, as Barnabas lifted his leg on a fire hydrant.

  A line came to him, written by a fellow named Burns, who put out the newspaper in a neighboring village.

  Big cities never sleep, but little towns do.

  At barely six o‘clock, Mitford was already tuckered out and tucked in, poking up the fires that sent wafts of scented smoke on the December wind. He drew the muffler close around his neck.

  “Father!”

  It was Bill Sprouse, the new preacher at First Baptist, bounding along behind something that looked like a tumbleweed on a leash. Barnabas growled.

  “Good evening, Reverend!” He was glad to see the jolly face of the man who was working wonders at First Baptist and was liked by the entire community. Last summer, he and Bill and two other Mitford clergymen had pushed peanuts down Main Street with their noses to raise funds for the town museum. If nothing else had come of that miserable experience, it had bonded the local clergy for all time.

  “That’s Sparky,” said Bill Sprouse, with evident pride.

  The two dogs sniffed each other.

  “What breed?”

  “Beats me. We think it was a rag mop that mated with a feather duster. He was left on our doorstep in a cracker box twelve years ago. Rachel and I are foolish about the little so-and-so.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “How’s the computer coming? Learned your way around a menu yet?”

  “A menu?”

  Bill Sprouse laughed. “Do you have Windows? CD-ROM?”

  He didn’t even pretend to know what Bill was talking about. “It hasn’t been installed yet. Right after Christmas, they say. My secretary has threatened to quit.”

  “I lost two secretaries in the start-up at my old church. To get a computer system going in a church office takes youth, stamina, and the faith of an early martyr.” Bill Sprouse grinned knowingly.

  “Aha.”

  “I guess I’d liken it to having all your wisdom teeth pulled, with no gas to knock you out.” The two dogs continued in a circle, sniffing. “No, wait, that’s too mild. It’s more like ... ”

  The rector stepped back, ready to turn and run.

  “ ... having a frontal lobotomy. Yes! That’s it!”

  “Bill, good seeing you. My best to Rachel. So long, Sparky.”

  As he hurried toward the monument, did he hear Bill Sprouse guffawing, or was it the wind? He bitterly resented the thought of wrecking the peace of his workplace—not to mention the infernal aggravation of reworking the budget to accommodate the cost of the system.

  He saw the squad car coming, but noted that the passenger in the front seat didn’t see him. J.C. was too busy laughing. J.C. laughing? He turned his head to get another look, but the car disappeared around the corner.

  He quickened his steps toward home.

  Cynthia would be waiting.

  But Cynthia wasn’t waiting.

  He shouted through the rectory, finding it empty as a tomb. Then he dialed the house next door. No answer.

  Still in his coat and muffler, he popped through the hedge, noting with dread that the only light shining against the darkness was the one over the back stoop.

  “Cynthia!”

  He walked into the dark kitchen, turning on a light, and raced to her small studio. He was alarmed at what he might ...

  But she was not there, which gave him an ironic mixture of dread and relief.

  “Cynthia!” He turned on the hall light and bounded up the stairs and into her bedroom. What was that on the bed ...

  Good Lord!

  But it was only a pile of clothes she had stacked there for the Bane and Blessing sale.

  He went in the bathroom and drew back the shower curtain.

  Would she have driven to The Local for groceries? But they shopped only yesterday. Had she gone out to the FedEx drop on the highway to Wesley? But why wouldn’t she have told him or left a note? She had never before caused him to wonder at her whereabouts.

  He looked at his watch. Six-thirty. She was always home by five-fifteen, sometimes earlier. He must not panic, no indeed. His wife was a grown woman, fully capable of taking care of herself and having plenty of common sense into the bargain.

  He found he was pacing the bedroom floor.

  Should he call Rodney Underwood? That was a dark thought. Rodney would have his force swarming over the town and fanning out into the woods, not to mention taking fingerprints in both houses and talking over a radio crackling with static. He hated even thinking of it.

  Violet! He realized there was no Violet trooping along at his heels, trying to scratch him on the ankle.

  He could just feel it—Violet was definitely not in the house, or she would have made herself present at once.

  He went back to the kitchen and looked under the shelves in the pantry. The cat carrier was gone.

  The serenity of the little house was maddening—it revealed absolutely nothing. Everything was the same, yet everything was disturbingly different.

  He went to the sink and leaned against it and prayed.

  “Look here, Father, this is serious business. Protect Cynthia wherever she is, bring an end to the fear I’m feeling, and give me wisdom. Show me precisely what to do, through Christ our Lord, Amen.” Direct and specific. Plain and simple. Any tendency he had to pray like a Philistine fled before such confused anxiety as this.

  Her car was, of course, gone from the garage.

  He sat on the study sofa at the rectory, where he had often sat to figure things out. But he could not figure this. It was past seven o‘clock and his wife was two hours late arriving home on a cold, dark, and windy night in December.

  He would call his cousin, Walter, in New Jersey. But what would he say? Katherine would get on the phone and insist he call the police at once.

  Well, then, he would call Marge Owen, his friend ever since coming to Mitford, and the wife of the finest senior warden he’d ever had. She would know what to do.

  But he couldn’t make the call. He went out to the back stoop of the rectory and waited for Cynthia’s car lights to come down the driveway on the other side of the hedge.

  The wind was blustering, now, lashing the trees in Baxter Park.

  He couldn’t bear the torment any longer, and he wouldn’t consider the co
nsequences. At eight o‘clock, he went to his kitchen phone and called Rodney Underwood at home.

  “Hello, Rodney?” His voice sounded like the croaking of a frog. “Tim Kavanagh here.”

  Did he hear something outside? “Excuse me a moment ... ”

  He raced to the stoop and saw her car, parked in the driveway next door with its lights on. “Hello, dearest!” she called through the hedge.

  He sprinted back to the phone.

  “Rodney! About that talk we had yesterday. Just wanted you to know I’m working on it, consider it done. Goodbye!”

  He couldn’t hold her close enough.

  “Timothy, you’re smashing by doze,” she said, coming up for air.

  “Cynthia ... ”

  “I know you were frantic, and I don’t blame you. I should have told you again this morning, but you see, even I forgot! I didn’t remember my one o‘clock at Trent School until nine-thirty, and it’s a four-hour drive! I flew down the highway. I’m telling you, if they had nailed me for speeding, I would be on bread and water in solitary confinement in some little town that’s not even on the map!

  “I screeched to the door practically on the dot of one, and you should have seen the children, Timothy! They brought flowers, they’d made posters, one little girl brought apple jelly from her grandmother’s tree and wrote a poem for the lady author. Nearly everyone had drawn pictures of Violet. I can’t wait for you to see them, some are better than mine!

  “If I hadn’t shown up, it would have been terrible, they had looked forward to it so much. We sat on the floor and read and talked and had a wonderful time for two whole hours, and Violet was her best-behaved in years.

  “And then I had to start home and I was famished because I’d gone without lunch, and when I stopped for a hamburger, I took a wrong turn and drove an hour in the opposite direction.

  “It was horrible, horrid, I can’t tell you. I wanted to stop and call you, but I thought it would be best to spend time driving, because I told you I’d be late. Finally, I did stop and call—it was six-thirty-but there was no answer.”