by Jan Karon
He rolled the window down a few inches. “Need a lift?”
The old man looked up with alarm into the face of a black dog that seemed only slightly smaller than the truck, and turned and fled into the woods.
Clearly, Barnabas was not a good marketing tool.
“Agnes,” he said, hurrying into the schoolhouse, “would you mind if I put this bag in your freezer?”
“Of course not, Father. What’s in it, may I ask?”
“There’s the rub. Two squirrels, dressed out and ready to go in Miss Martha’s pot, but she wasn’t home.”
Agnes burst into laughter. “You’ve been to see Jubal.”
“Yes, and he asked about you. Said he reckoned you’d forgotten him.”
“The old so-and-so. Who could ever forget Jubal Adderholt?”
“Not me!” he said, meaning it.
“How was your round?”
He stuffed the bag into the freezer and gave her a synopsis.
“I’ll just put the kettle on for tea; I’m eager to hear your plan, Father.”
He drew the papers from the large envelope and sat down at her table. “This will be a surprise even to Cynthia. So, please—keep it absolutely to yourself.”
“Consider it done,” she said, quoting her vicar.
On his way to Meadowgate, he gave it another go.
He tried the front door and went around to the back. As tight as Fort Knox.
He hoped nothing was wrong; the sisters were usually here except for grocery shopping days.
He schlepped the bag around to the front yard and got in the truck, noting that Barnabas had at last lost interest. What a blasted pickle.
“Stay!” he said in his pulpit voice.
The moment his foot hit the porch, Jubal’s door opened.
“I been a-lookin’ f’r ye.”
“I expect so.”
“What’re ye totin’?”
He thought Jubal had a very expectant look on his face.
“Well, you see, Miss Martha wasn’t home. I stopped by twice, and don’t have a clue where she might be. Your squirrels have been on ice and in Miss Agnes’s freezer, so I’m sure they’re just fine.” He handed off the bag, thankful to his very depths to be rid of the blasted thing.
Jubal opened the bag and eyed the contents suspiciously. “This ain’t squirrel.”
“It ain’t? I mean ...”
“Hit’s ... Lord he’p a monkey; what is it?”
The vicar peered into the bag. “You’ve got me.”
“I send ye out with two fine squirrel an’ back ye come with a pig in a poke!”
“Wait right there, Jubal.”
He dashed to the truck and pulled the other bag from behind the driver’s seat. The idea was, if Miss Martha had been home and wasn’t prepared to send her own offering today, Jubal would still get a return on his investment.
Back he trotted to Jubal’s porch. Lord help a monkey, indeed, seeing as how Timothy Kavanagh was the monkey. Sometimes, he’d like to just lie down and go morte, as Lew Boyd would say.
Lloyd and Buster were pulling out as he pulled in at four o’clock. Thanks be to God, their kitchen was free; he was weary in every bone.
“You’re not going to believe this!” said his wife. She was beaming; she was glowing; she was electric.
“Come with me.”
She grabbed him by the arm and away they went along the hall and up the stairs and past Sammy’s bedroom and around the corner to the green door. He was panting like a farm dog after a rabbit.
“Do you know where this door leads?” she asked.
“The attic, I seem to recall, though I’ve never been up there.”
She opened the door and they ascended the narrow stairs until they came to a spacious, light-filled room with three north-facing windows and a smaller window to the west.
Silent, she took his hand as they wound themselves through the jumble of old furniture and dust-covered boxes, and stood at the large center window.
They looked down upon the mossy roof of the smokehouse and Sammy’s emerging garden, then out to the barn with its red tin roof and away to green pastures dotted with cows, and up to blue mountains beyond.
Wordless, she drew him to the west window, to the view of ewes and lambs and Meadowgate’s recalcitrant ram, and the great outcrop of rocks pushing forth from emerald grass.
“Beautiful beyond telling!” he said, moved.
“It needs only one thing more.”
“Del!”
“Yes! Otherwise”—her eyes were bright with feeling—“it’s heaven.”
“Speaking of heaven,” he said, “why am I too often surprised when God answers prayer?”
“How’s May coming?” he asked, grating cabbage.
“My favorite. Want to see?”
She dried her hands and fetched the watercolor sketch. A lamb lay by the side of a ewe, smiling—as lambs are wont to do. Violet perched on a nearby rock, her green eyes wide with curiosity.
“Aha! My favorite, as well. Blast, but I’m proud of you! And Violet, also. A charmer, that girl.”
“Thanks, sweetheart. Only seven more to go, and three months to finish.”
“Sammy and I can take your things up to heaven after supper.”
“Supper?” she said, grinning.
In some way he couldn’t understand, dinner was becoming supper since they’d moved to the sticks.
After grating enough cabbage for a small regiment, he sat in the war zone, aka the kitchen, and stared unseeing at the blue tent. His diligent wife was going about the business of getting their meal up and running.
She came to his chair and touched his shoulder. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“I’m feeling my age.”
“Well, then, go and do something about it!”
“Like what?”
“Walk in the pasture with the dogs, zip down to the mailbox ... get your heart racing.”
“I’ve spent nearly seven decades getting my heart racing.”
“How’s your sugar?”
“Fine. I really want to just sit here and feel my age. Instead of, you know, denying the feeling.”
His wife gave him an odd, but undeniably tolerant, look, and went back to the business at hand.
He guessed his own nose, like Lloyd’s, was pretty sensitive. As he walked toward the garden to call Sammy in for supper, he smelled tobacco smoke on the spring air.
Sammy was sitting with his back against the picket fence, and was startled when Father Tim opened the gate. Sammy flicked the cigarette into the fence corner, where it landed among the rakes and shovels.
“Supper time,” he said.
They were silent as they walked to the house. Did he talk with Sammy now and spoil Cynthia’s dinner? No. But if he didn’t talk with Sammy, the dinner was spoiled anyway—he felt his stomach in a veritable knot. Perhaps what was needed was time.
“We’ll talk after we eat,” said Father Tim. If nothing else, they’d have time to think about what they wanted to say to each other.
As he bowed his head to ask the blessing, he noted that Sammy’s scar was aflame.
If he had such a scar, his would be aflame, also.
He decided to talk on what could loosely be called his own turf the library. The leather chairs lent a certain authority that he might find lacking in himself when push came to shove.
“The day after you arrived, we talked about the rules.”
“Yeah, but you said th’ g-garden was all m-mine.”
“I also said no smoking, and thought that should cover it.”
“Yeah, but if it’s all m-mine, then I ought t’ be able t’ do what I want t’ d-do in there, I’m th’ one w-workin’ it.”
“You’re being paid to work, the rules come from the household that’s taken you in.”
“You t-tell me somethin’, then it ain’t t-true n’more.”
The clock ticked on the mantle. A lamb bleated in the paddock. “You lived as an
orphan for many years, Sammy. No mother, and a father who couldn’t be a true father to you. In truth, you were father to him.
“Now you’re living in a family. There’s a oneness to family life—what one person does affects all the others. I know it’s frustrating for you, you’ve been making your own rules for a long time.”
“No smokin’, no hustlin’, no c-cussin’, k-keep m’ room clean. I can’t d-do all that b-b-bull.”
“Here’s the deal about rules. They aren’t meant to put you in a box; they’re meant to give you freedom. Doesn’t pool have rules? Can you ignore the rules and win the game?”
Sammy didn’t respond. He jiggled his leg, anxious to be away from the inquisition.
“You have a secure roof over your head, three meals a day, a job you say you like, a paycheck, your own room, people who care about you. Does that mean anything to you?”
Sammy’s jaw flexed; Father Tim sensed he was ready to bolt. He didn’t want to push Sammy too far—he had money in his pocket, and shoe leather for the road.
“Think on these things, son. And let’s go up and get some rest.We can talk again tomorrow; we can always talk. One thing you can count on is that we can talk.”
Sammy shot to his feet and headed for the library door. He stood for a moment with his hand on the knob, his eyes defiant. “I hate this p-place.”
He opened the door and vanished down the hall and up the stairs.
Father Tim listened to the sound of Sammy’s feet on the treads, as he’d often listened to Dooley’s all those years ago.
It was painful to do what was right. There were times when he’d like to let things slide, go with the flow, call it a day, whatever.
His heart was a stone as he poked his own way upstairs.
He had no idea how he’d lived so many years without someone to talk with in bed. In his somewhat unsophisticated opinion, it was the apex of the common life.
Thankfully, the fries weren’t mentioned. They’d tasted like cardboard, he thought, through no fault of the cook.
“He says he hates this place.”
Cynthia sighed, rolled toward him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Poor Sammy. I guess you could say we’re in over our heads.”
“Way over,” he said, disconsolate.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cake
“Father Tim? Lew Boyd.
“I been meanin’ to tell you that some rough-neck come by th’ station lookin’ for you. I told ‘im you were livin’ in th’ boonies. Don’t know who it was, ’e looked mighty low on th’ food chain t’ me. I give ‘im directions t’ where you’re at.
“Let’s see. I guess it was two, three weeks ago when he come by, maybe more, I don’t know—time flies when you’re balancin’ front ends.” Beep.
The call must have arrived in the library answering machine yesterday; he’d been too distracted to notice the blinking light when he talked with Sammy.
For years he’d had an odd fantasy that his childhood best friend, Tommy Noles, would come searching for him. He devoutly hoped, however, that Tommy, who’d vanished after college as into ether, wouldn’t turn up looking “low on the food chain.”
The character who showed up at Lew’s was probably one of the several who’d passed through Mitford over the years, seeking a handout from the priest at Lord’s Chapel. He’d kept a special cash fund labeled D&O, which only he and Emma knew to be Down and Out.
He hit the “message” button again.
“Father Tim? This is Betty Craig. I hate t’ bother you, but pretty soon, there’ll be nothin’ left of me t’ bother you with. Miss Rose throwed a pot lid at me, an’ that’s not th’ half of it. Let me know if you’ve come up with anything, an’ I hope t’ hear back real quick.” Beep.
He had no earthly idea what to do. If Esther Cunningham weren’t out riding the range, she’d have this thing in the can. After sixteen years in office, Esther had thrown in the towel, otherwise he’d have voted for her ’til the cows came home. The only thing to do was stall for time; he’d call Betty and give her a pep talk, and next week, he’d bear down on this ...
He glanced at the clock on the library mantel and noted that he was pacing the floor. This was no way to get his heart rate up. He felt oddly lost, anxious.
It was way too early for Sammy to be stirring. Cynthia was sleeping in ’til seven, having had a restless night. He’d already taken the dogs out and downed his toast and coffee. And, of course, he’d read the Morning Office and talked with the Lord, albeit in a dispirited sort of way, for his mind had dashed about like a terrier.
He continued pacing, pulling at his chin.
Sammy couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old when Pauline deserted her children, taking Poo with her. Clyde Barlowe had made off with Sammy; Kenny had been traded by his mother for a gallon of whiskey to a stranger named Ed Sikes; Jessie, the baby, had been abducted by a dysfunctional cousin of Pauline’s.
It was during this terrible upheaval that the eleven-year-old Dooley had come to live at the rectory. How he and Dooley had gotten through those early years was more than a mystery, it was a miracle. And now, Sammy ...
He realized that Sammy probably had little or no memory of ever sitting down at a table for a family meal. Almost everything he was doing at Meadowgate would be, in one way or another, new to him.
With one possible exception. Truth be told, Sammy had been reasonably deft at keeping his room in a semblance of order, which had amazed both Cynthia and the Flower Girls. Very likely, this sense of order came naturally to him; plus, he’d been father to his father for years, and therefore seriously acquainted with responsibility. Lon Burtie once said Sammy’s gambling in the pool hall helped put food on the table when Clyde drank up his disability check.
First thing this morning, he’d praise Sammy for the good job of keeping his room straight. He’d been meaning to mention that ...
The wind was picking up, he could smell the noxious odor of creosote throughout the house. Cynthia sneezed; he sneezed ... same old, same old. The chimney fiasco was a lesson in patience if ever there was one ...
At precisely seven-thirty, Lloyd and Buster trooped in with buckets of wet mortar, looking apologetic.
“We’ll try not to spill nothin’ on y’r floors.”
Buster nodded. “We’ll try not to.”
Willie trotted in their wake.
“Dozen,” said Willie, who had bypassed the frills of a carton and used his hat.
Father Tim plucked the brown eggs from the hat and deposited them in the blue bowl. “So we’re holding our own?”
“Yessir. Holdin’ steady.”
Maybe he’d been wrong, maybe the lowlife who’d robbed their henhouse had moved on, after all. A set of beat-up lowers and a can of beans were hardly an indication of serious housekeeping.
“It’s Del!”
He positively shouted as he saw the blue van with the American flag decal wheel into the backyard. A Confederate flag waved from the antenna.
His wife’s face lit up big-time. “I never dreamed I’d be thrilled to see Del—especially when I was expecting Lily.”
“Full of surprises, those girls.”
“Only one problem. Del doesn’t cook or bake, and we need a cake for Sunday. Sissie’s expecting it, and Roy Dale and Gladys ...”
“Won’t Lily be coming tomorrow?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, we’re on our own tomorrow; Lily’s doing a birthday party at the mayor’s office in Wesley.”
He considered this. “I don’t suppose baking a cake would get my heart rate up?”
“Probably not. But it would be lovely of you to try it and see.”
There he went again, opening his big mouth.
By eight-fifteen, they were en route to the attic, schlepping a vacuum cleaner, a broom, a dustpan, two easels, four boxes of art supplies, a box of art books, a stool, a basket of cleaning rags, an upholstered chair, a cat bed, two cat bowls, a ten-pound bag of
cat food, a jug of drinking water, and a cat.
They bumped and thumped along the hall like so many Conestogas across Kansas.
He’d pitch in and haul one more load, then knock on Sammy’s door. Maybe he’d run to Mitford today and take Sammy and his siblings to Sweet Stuff, and pick up cake ingredients while he was at it.
Chances were, Sammy was already awake. Even a teenager would have trouble sleeping through the move from hell to heaven.
The bed was loosely spread, there was an empty package of Camels in the trash basket, unfolded laundry sat in the chair...
From a cursory look in the closet, Sammy was wearing the black jeans, blue sweatshirt, and threadbare tennis shoes he’d arrived in.
Maybe Sammy had gotten up early, and walked out to the garden, or even to the barn, and all that was needed was to go and find him. He stood looking out the window, unseeing, then turned and went downstairs.
He and Willie searched the place, but to no avail.
Sammy was gone. His heart told him so.
“I saw his potatoes yesterday. They were so healthy and beautiful. And the lettuce ...” His wife sat at her easel by the attic window, looking bereft.
“He’ll be back,” he said, trying to convince them both. “Gardeners always want to see their potatoes come in.”
He sat in the upholstered chair they’d dragged up from the lower hall. He didn’t want to ask this; he knew he wouldn’t like the sound of it in the room. “Should we call the police?”
“I think we should give him a chance to come home,” she said. “What if he just went to the woods to think things over? Or maybe he walked to Kirby’s Store. The police seem a very serious piece of business at this point.”