by Jan Karon
Robert, who had sat on the back row and hadn’t come to the rail for communion, was leaning against a tree, looking upon the gathering with an expressionless face. He was tall and lean, and wore a short-sleeve shirt that revealed numerous tattoos.
He took his time walking over. “Hey,” he said, putting his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.
“Hey, yourself,” said Cynthia.
Rooter ran up, breathless, and surrendered the cups. “Here!”
“Thank you, Rooter.” Cynthia lined up the cups on top of the wall. “I believe we’ll each have a half cup to the very drop. Agnes, will you pour?”
“I didn’t hardly know what t’ say in y’alls meetin’,” confessed Granny Meaders.
“Hit was all wrote down,” said Rooter. “Plain as day.”
“Them words was too little f’r me t’ half see.”
Cynthia was digging slices of pickle from the jar and putting one on top of each sandwich. “I didn’t hear you speak up, Mister Rooter.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ t’ read out loud in front of nobody.”
“He was held back two year in ’is grades,” said Granny.
“An’ I ain’t a-goin’ back t’ that school after I git done in August, neither.”
“Where d’you think you’re a-goin’?” asked Granny.
“T’ hell an’ back before I go down th’ mountain in a bus, I can tell y’ that.”
Cynthia held forth a laden napkin. “Robert...”
Robert took it, wordless.
“I hope you‘uns don’t mind me wearin’ m’ bedroom slippers,” said Granny. As everyone peered at her open-toed slippers, she wiggled her digits beneath wool socks. “I cain’t hardly wear reg’lar shoes n’more, my feet swells s’bad.”
Cynthia nodded. “I understand perfectly!”
“I ain’t never seen a preacher in a dress,” said Rooter. “How come ’e was wearin’ a dress?”
Now disrobed, Father Tim strolled into the midst of the party in his favorite gray suit. “Let’s thank the good Lord for our loaves and fishes! Shall we wait for Clarence?”
“He wouldn’t want us to wait,” said Agnes. “I’m sure he’ll come along in a while.”
But Clarence didn’t come along.
“Senior dry food only,” said Blake Eddistoe. “This fella’s been living too high.”
“I figured it might come to this.”
“We need to get about seven pounds off his frame. Hip dysplasia is aggravated by weight gain, and of course the extra weight isn’t good for his heart. I believe you said he’s what, ten, eleven?”
“He was young when he came to me; I don’t know his age exactly, but yes, I figure eleven years.”
“More romps in the pasture wouldn’t hurt the old boy.”
“Wouldn’t hurt this old boy, either,” said the vicar, who hadn’t a clue where he’d find time to romp in a pasture.
“Adele’s been promoted,” said J.C. “You’ll read about it in th’ Muse tomorrow.”
He thought J.C. looked oddly dejected.
“Promoted to what?” asked Mule.
“From corporal to sergeant.”
“Congratulations!” said Father Tim. “We’re proud with you.”
J.C. ducked his head and fumbled with his overstuffed briefcase, which sat beside him on a dinette chair salvaged from a Mitford dumpster.
“Are they promotin’ her nine millimeter, too?” In Mule’s opinion, women shouldn’t be allowed to become police officers, much less tote heavy metal around in a holster.
“She’s not carryin’ a nine millimeter anymore,” snapped J.C. “She’s carryin’ a forty-caliber H and K.”
“You don’t have t’ bite my head off.”
“So what else is new?” asked Percy.
“Gene Bolick’s not doing so hot,” said J.C. “Th’ tumor’s too deep in there to operate, and the medication’s not working like it should.”
Mule peered into his lunch sack. “Uh oh. What in th’ dickens ...”
“Don’t even start that mess,” said Percy. “I don’t want t’ hear it.” Percy unwrapped the foil from his wedge of lasagna, and removed a plastic fork from his shirt pocket.
“Lasagna!” marveled Mule, peering over the top of his glasses. “What’d you bring?” he asked Father Tim.
“Chicken sandwich on whole wheat with low-fat mayo and a couple of bread and butter pickles.”
Mule looked into the recesses of his paper bag and sighed deeply.
“We thank the Lord for this nourishment!” said Father Tim.
“Amen!” Percy forthwith hammered down on last night’s leftovers. “Lew needs to get ’im a microwave in this place. Hey, Lew, why don’t you put in a microwave?”
Lew walked in from the garage, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Put in your own bloomin’ microwave. I ain’t runnin’ a restaurant, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Lookit,” said Percy, “we buy drinks, we buy Nabs, we fill up with gas an’ whatnot—it’d be an investment in keepin’ us as reg’lars.”
“Yeah, well, these turkeys was all reg’lars up at your place, an’ look what happened, you went out of b’iness!”
Everybody had a good laugh, except J.C., who was staring at his unopened cup of yogurt.
“Thanks again for the Christmas pickles, Lew,” said Father Tim. “I believe this is the recipe that inspired Earlene to kiss you on the mouth when you won the blue ribbon.”
Lew blushed. “Yessir, that’s th’ recipe, all right.”
“When is Earlene moving down to Mitford?”
“September!” said Lew. “Lock, stock, and barrel.”
“An’ don’t forget Mama,” said Mule. “Lock, stock, barrel, and Mama.”
Lew ignored this reference to his mother-in-law, who was moving from Tennessee with his once-secret wife. “How’s your new church comin’ along, Father?”
“We had our first service yesterday, I’m happy to say.”
“Great!” said Mule. “How many?”
“Including yours truly? Eight.”
Mule removed a see-through plastic container from the bag. “Mighty low numbers.”
“Numbers aren’t everything,” said the vicar.
“Who give you that haircut?” asked Mule. “Pretty sporty lookin’.”
“A woman who lives above the clouds across a creek without a bridge.”
Percy stared at him blankly. “No wonder it gets s’ long between cuttin’s,” he said.
“So, J.C., any more news of Edith Mallory?”
“I hear she said God again and was tryin’ to add another word.”
“How’d you hear that?” asked Percy.
“Ed Coffey.”
Mule looked offended. “Why were you talkin’ to that low-life bum? You just talked to ’im th’ other day.”
“None of your business.”
“Thank you very much.” Mule snapped off the lid. “Oh, law!”
Percy looked the other way. “Don’t tell us what it is, we don’t care what it is.”
“What is it?” asked Father Tim.
“I’ll be darned if I know. Lookit.” Mule displayed the item for all to inspect.
“That makes yogurt look like pheasant under glass,” said J.C.
“It’s brown,” said Percy. “Or is it dark green? My glasses ain’t doin’ too good.”
Father Tim peered closely. “Dark green.”
“Call ’er up and ask what it is,” said Percy. “I’d give a half-dollar to have it ide
ntified.”
Father Tim searched his pants pocket for a couple of quarters. “I’ll give the other half.”
“I usually don’t call Fancy at th’ shop, but for a dollar...”
J.C. pointed to the wall. “There’s th’ phone.”
“Yeah, but if I use th’ phone, which costs a quarter, I don’t get but seventy-five cents out of th’ deal.”
“It’s seventy-five cents you didn’t have,” counseled Father Tim.
“Right. OK.”
Mule dialed.
“Fancy, baby? Got a minute? What’s this you packed for my lunch?”
Long silence.
“You don’t mean it. I declare, that’s th’ way it goes, all right.”
More silence. The members of the Turkey Club sat forward on their chairs.
“What color was it before?”
Further silence.
“It’s not th’ first time somebody threatened to sue you over a hair deal. It ain’t goin’ to happen, so don’t worry about it. Right. Right. I love you, too.”
“You call your wife baby?” J.C. appeared mildly stricken by this revelation. “You tell ’er you love ’er in front of God and everybody?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Percy. “We’re gettin’ off track here. What is that mess she packed you for lunch?”
“Dadgum,” said Mule. “She forgot to say, an’ I ain’t spendin’ another quarter.”
“You’re losing all around on this deal,” said Father Tim. “Canceled out your dollar, and invested a quarter of your own money.”
“Shoot,” said Mule. “I quit. I guess I ought t’ just eat th’ thing an’ get it over with, I’m half starved.”
“Who’s suing Fancy this time?” asked J.C.
“What do you mean, this time? There’s only been one other time,” said Mule, offended.
“So that was that time, and this is this time.”
“You said it like somebody’s suin’ ’er all th’ time.”
“Lord help us,” said Percy. “Your blood sugar’s shot, you need nourishment. Get you a pack of Nabs out of th’ machine, and hush up, for Pete’s sake.” If Velma Mosely was here, she’d knock Mule Skinner in the head once and for all. How they’d dealt with ornery, hard-to-please Grill customers for more than forty years was way, way more than he’d ever understand.
“Smell it,” said Mule, trying to hand off the plastic container to Father Tim.
“No, thanks.”
Mule gazed into the container. “I think it’s guacamole.” He fished around in his lunch bag for a plastic fork and gave the thing a poke. “Ha! You’ll be sorry you bad-mouthed this little number. It’s guacamole over roasted chicken!”
J.C. stood up and grabbed his briefcase. “I’m outta here.”
“Where you goin? You ain’t even touched your yogurt.”
“I’m headed down to th’ dadblame tea shop with th’ women. Sayonara, hasta la vista, and see you in th’ funny papers.”
“Man,” said Mule, as J.C. blew through the door.
“His aftershave nearly gassed me,” said Percy. “Prop th’ door open, get a little air circulatin’ in here. What’s ’is problem, anyway?”
Father Tim didn’t comment, but he thought he recognized J.C.’s problem as one he’d formerly had himself.
On the way to Hope House, he mused on Edith Mallory, for whom he often prayed, even when he didn’t want to.
He couldn’t imagine having all logical thought blasted to smithereens. The childhood memory of running his hand into the grain bin at the hardware store came to mind. Tens of thousands of grains of corn, all looking and feeling alike, and all silken to his touch—what if he’d been searching for one particular grain in the bin, as Edith was searching for a particular word in the great sea of random words turned loose in her mind?
Lord, he prayed, help her find the next word. And the next, and the next ...
“Louella?”
Louella sat in her chair by the window, the television on mute.
“Miss Louella is sleepin’,” whispered the nurse, who tiptoed in behind him. “She stayed up late last night watchin’ the beauty pageant.”
“Please tell her I stopped by and will stop again, will you?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“How is she?” It had somehow astonished him to find her sleeping; he’d thought for a moment...
“Oh, she’s well, very well. We had to get that little bladder infection treated, you know, that wasn’t a good thing, but other than that, she’s perky and has her appetite!”
After the nurse left, he stood by her chair and prayed for his friend and Miss Sadie’s much-loved companion; he did not want to lose Louella.
He drove the Mustang from Hope House to Old Church Lane and turned right onto Main Street, where he parked in front of Dora Pugh’s Hardware.
“Can you duplicate this?” he asked Dora.
“Now, Father, you know better than to ask me if I can do somethin’ .”
“Right, but can you?”
Dora cackled. “Of course I can. But where’d you find this thing? It looks like somethin’ that dropped out of our town founder’s saddlebag when he rode up th’ mountain in 1846. Or was it 1864?”
With the new key on the sterling ring given him by Walter and Katherine, he walked at a clip to the Sweet Stuff Bakery and made a purchase. Using Winnie’s phone, he also made a call to Esther Bolick, but there was no answer and no answering machine.
Afterward, he dashed to The Local and dropped off a shopping list that Avis would have ready for pickup before the trek home to Meadowgate.
With the still-warm paper bag sitting on the passenger seat, he drove north on Main, made a left onto Lilac Road, and a right into the rear entrance of the Porter place, aka Mitford town museum.
He rapped on the backdoor, hard by a green plastic hanging basket containing the remnants of last summer’s geranium, and heard a shuffling gait on the other side.
“Who is it?” squawked Miss Rose, throwing open the door.
She was barefoot, and wearing a chenille robe topped by a woolen Army jacket with several war medals displayed on the lapel.
“It’s the preacher. I’ve come to visit!” He spoke loudly, and tried to sound cheerful, but truth be told, Miss Rose had always scared him half to death.
“Bill’s laid up in bed.”
“Is he sick?”
“I don’t know; I haven’t asked him.”
“May I come in and sit with him?”
“We’re not able to entertain company.”
“I have a bag of doughnuts for the two of you, but I guess I’ll just... take them home and eat them myself.” He’d never said anything so contrary to Miss Rose.
“Come in, come in!”
He thought the old woman looked less, but only a little less, fierce.
“And be quick about it,” she commanded. Still clutching the paper bag, he blew past Miss Rose and down the hall to the bedroom, which smelled strongly of urine.
Kneeling beside Uncle Billy’s bed, he saw that his face appeared unnaturally puffy.
“I’ve brought you a doughnut, Uncle Billy. Still warm. Winnie sends her love.”
“I’ll be et f’r a tater”—Uncle Billy’s breathing was labored—“if it ain’t th’ preacher.” His eyes opened, then fluttered shut.
“Are you feeling all right?”
Uncle Billy coughed. “Sharp as a briar.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
His friend’s hand was dry and fragile, a corn husk in winter.
“Uncle Billy, can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I done tol’ you,” Uncle Billy whispered.
“Tell me again, if you will, I didn’t quite hear it.”
Uncle Billy’s eyelids trembled.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He ran to the kitchen and tossed the bag of doughnuts on the table. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“
You’ll pay for it, then!” Miss Rose gave him a menacing look, grabbed the bag, and shuffled along the hall to the bathroom. He heard the lock click into place.
He tried the wall phone, but the line was dead, and he had no cell phone. Like it or not, he’d have to start carrying a cell phone with the rest of the common horde.
“I’ll be back!” he shouted.
He ran across the side yard and ducked through the bushes and sprinted across the street in front of the monument and raced up the steps of the town hall and through the lobby and into the mayor’s office where the receptionist was reading People magazine.
“Get an ambulance out to the Porter place,” he said, gasping for breath. “It’s Uncle Billy.”
CHAPTER SIX
Above the Cloud
“Congestive heart failure,” said Hoppy.
“His heart isn’t pumping normally, but the medications are working; we’re getting the fluid off. I think he can pull through this.”
“Thank God.”
“He’ll pee a bucket, which will help his breathing and get rid of the swelling. But what happens when he gets out of here? That’s where the cheese gets binding. He’ll need to restrict his salt intake, big time, and somebody needs to see that he gets a decent diet.”
“That’s a tough one. Miss Rose refuses to move up to Hope House and Uncle Billy won’t leave without her. But—I’ll do what I can. By the way, we loved seeing Lace.”
“We loved seeing Dooley,” said his old friend and overworked town doctor.
In the deeps of New Jersey, the answering service of his cousin Walter’s law practice advised him that Mr. Kavanagh was next door at Starbucks and would be along any minute, leave a number.
He rang Dooley’s mother, Pauline Leeper, in the dining room at Hope House, and asked if he could drop by later in the week.
“Is anything wrong?” He heard the anxiety in her voice.
“No, nothing wrong at all,” he assured her. He felt certain Pauline would approve. In any case, Dooley was twenty-one, and fully able to make this decision without parental approval.