Light From Heaven

by Jan Karon

  Sammy burst into laughter.

  Cynthia laughed through her tears.

  Father Tim felt the eighteen-wheeler roll off his shoulders.

  “Anybody want a piece of cake?” he asked.

  “Lily’s doin’ th’ mayor’s party; she does it ever’ year an’ they all love it! Course, if it was at night, like it used t’ be, I’d sing, but they quit havin’ it at night; said a little hanky panky got t’ goin’ on.”

  “Uh-oh.” Violet was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt; he hardly recognized her. “Well! We didn’t know anybody at all was coming today.”

  “Oh, yes, if one don’t come, another’n does. When Lily said she was doin’ th’ mayor’s party, I reckon she thought you knowed you’d git a replacement. We always give a replacement.”

  “Wonderful. Well! Do you bake,Violet?”

  “Bake.” She pondered this. “In what way?”

  “Cakes.”

  “Lily bakes. I clean.”

  “Couldn’t you bake and clean?”

  “I wouldn’t want to, t’ tell th’ truth. But what did you have in mind?”

  “I baked a cake yesterday ...”

  “Git outta here! No way did y’ do that!”

  He saw Lloyd stick his head through the opening in the blue tent, and smoke over their house help.

  “... and then, last night,” said the vicar, “we had a sort of... celebration and Cynthia and Sammy ate most of it. So I need another one for Sunday.” She seemed unmoved. “For the children!” he said, trying to close the deal.

  She gave forth a moan. “OK, I’ll do it f’r you an’ Miss Cynthia. But jis’ this once.”

  “Preheat the oven to three seventy-five,” he said. “You can’t just pop it in there, you have to wait ’til the oven heats.”

  “I ain’t as dumb as a rock. I have baked a cake or two in my life; I jis’ ain’t made a callin’ of it.”

  He remembered his life as a bachelor and how simple it had been.

  Taking the red leash from the coatrack, he had a thought. When Sissie, Rooter, Sammy, Roy Dale, Gladys, and seven Millwrights got hold of that cake, it would be history. Sunday was a very special Sabbath, indeed, and wouldn’t the adults be thrilled to find their own chocolate cake on the table at the end of the service?

  He cleared his throat. “Violet?” he said.

  He zoomed along the state road with Barnabas sitting stoically in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. He had to get the papers notarized, pick up provisions at The Local, zip over to see Harley and Lew, then head back to the sticks, ASAP. His sermon was sitting in the library on the back burner and needed to be moved to the front.

  He wanted to get it under wraps before Dooley arrived on Saturday night, probably a little worse for wear after driving an antediluvian Jeep all the way from Georgia.

  He took a left on Lilac Road so he could run up to Church Hill and get a glimpse of the new paint color on Fernbank, now home to Andrew and Anna Gregory’s three-star restaurant, Lucera.

  He could barely glimpse the late Victorian Fernbank through the trees, but saw that it sparkled. The new paint appeared to be a pale yellow, which he hoped the former owner might view with approval from her post on high.

  He swooped right onto Old Church Lane and, realizing that his good dog might need a pit stop, pulled alongside the curb at Baxter Park. “Just a quick one,” he said, putting on the leash.

  It was good being back in the park; it seemed years since he’d entered the leafy glade where he courted his wife and she courted him back.

  He noted the patrol car parked beneath the walnut tree. On occasion, an officer pulled into the park to check it out, though the worst, and possibly only, crime that ever occurred here was an attempted assault years ago on a Wesley college student.

  Aha! The car was Adele Hogan’s. Yes, indeed, brand spanking new and looking good. As he walked Barnabas to the bushes, he noticed that the heads of the two people in the front seat were very close together. In truth, they appeared to be ...

  ... kissing.

  He felt his blood turn to ice. He looked away and then looked again.

  Yes! Kissing! Clear as day.

  He gave the leash a yank and bolted from the park, his heart sick within him.

  “Is it something you could do ... gently?”

  “I could take it down, but who’d put it back ag‘in?” asked Harley. “An’ come t’ think of it, how could Miss Sadie have took down part of th’ head liner and got it back t’ look right? I don’t b’lieve that’s th’ place t’ go messin’ around.”

  He hadn’t yet checked with Andrew for permission to give the Plymouth a more thorough going-over. He wanted to see what Harley had to say first.

  “Maybe she used a tool of some kind to hide this ... thing.”

  “Wonder if she could of hid it under th’ hood? Y’ know that ol’ car’s got a Golden Commando V8 engine in it. Man, that thing was a stroker; it’d run like a scalded dog! Had y’r dual four-barrel carbs, had y’r special dual exhaust system ...”

  Father Tim checked his watch. “My hunch is, it’s not under the hood. Miss Sadie wasn’t an under-the-hood type.”

  “What’re you lookin’ f’r ... exactly?”

  “Something about this high, this wide, and this long.” He made a series of gestures.

  Harley appeared perplexed.

  “Think about it, if you would. I’ll check back. And Harley ...”

  “Yessir?”

  “Don’t mention this to anybody, please. Not a soul.”

  Harley nodded, sober. “You can bank on it, Rev’ren’.”

  He stepped inside where Lew was counting bills from the register.

  “Hey, buddyroe,” said the vicar.

  “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

  “Good. Who do you think the character was who came looking for me?”

  “Don’t have a clue. Asked ’im ’is name; he didn’t say nothin’. Just said he’d find you.”

  “Old? Young? Tall? Short?”

  “Prob’ly late forties. Hard livin’ on ’is face, so couldn’t say for sure. Medium.”

  “Walking? Riding?”

  “Walkin’.”

  “There but for the grace of God go us,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Full House

  The truckload from Meadowgate arrived early, trailed by the Jeep.

  Last Sunday, Dooley had wrangled permission to sleep in, having pulled into Meadowgate at one a.m., “fried,” as he said, from a week of exams and the long haul home.

  This Sunday, Dooley wanted to see what his brother was up to at Holy Trinity. Though Sammy felt humiliated when Dooley learned of his involvement in Sunday School, Dooley’s approval and interest had changed everything.

  Toting his vestments in a dry-cleaning bag, Father Tim hurried into the church with Sammy, while Cynthia and Dooley lingered at the wall, admiring the swoop and glide of hawks above the gorge.

  He was happy, instead, to admire their spinet piano, and the burgundy runner along the center aisle, and the four chairs folded and leaning against the rear wall in case of an overflow, and the card table in the narthex where the pew bulletins would greet one and all each Sunday. Sammy thumped several full egg cartons onto the table, along with a homemade tent card: first come, first served, and headed for the sacristy with the cake box.

  Who needed a full choir and stained glass with riches such as these?

  “You look divine,” said his wife, who was helping him vest. “In a manner of speaking, of course!”

  He noted that his scarlet chasuble and gold-embroidered stole made him feel splendid—yes, that was the word!—and full of hope. Indeed, their resident male cardinal was also vested for this glorious Whitsunday.

  “Oh, and Timothy ...”

  “Yes?”

  “John the Baptist.”

  “Already? I just had it cut.”

  “That was Lent. This is Pentecost.”

  If i
t wasn’t one thing, it was two, as his grandmother had been fond of saying.

  He was checking the altar that Agnes had prepared when someone trotted down the aisle. “Hey-y, Father!”

  “Violet! My goodness, this is a pleasant surprise. Hey, yourself!” Violet was decked, to say the least.

  “Lloyd said he’d give a dollar if I’d go t’ church with ’im, so here I am! An’ here’s th’ dollar.” She waved it around for his inspection.

  The vicar grinned. “I guess a dollar goes a long way, after all.”

  She gazed at the altar, the carved pulpit, the kneelers. “I ain’t never been in a church like this, so y’all’ll have t’ s’cuse me if I step in it.”

  He laughed. “Not to worry. When the heart’s right, it’s impossible to do anything wrong.”

  “My gosh,” she said, looking pleased, “that’s a sermon right there.”

  Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove

  With all thy qnick’ning powers

  Kindle a flame of sacred love

  In these cold hearts of ours.

  See how we trifle here below

  Fond of these earthly toys

  Our sonls, how heavily they go

  To reach eternal joys.

  In vain we tune our formal songs

  In vain we strive to rise

  Hosannas languish on our tongues

  And our devotion dies.

  Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove

  With all thy quick’ning powers

  Come, shed abroad a Savior’s love

  And that shall kindle ours.

  At the time of announcements, he looked out to his congregation with a certain gladness.

  Given Sparkle’s increasing confidence with their hymnbook, Miss Martha’s flat-out volume, and Violet’s impressive vocal skills, the a cappella singing at Holy Trinity had picked up.

  Way up.

  “Our Lord has given us yet another day of perfection, and we’re going to do our part to savor every moment. After the offering, we’ll process into the churchyard and have Holy Communion at the wall. Then, at the close of our service, we’ll come back inside, finish up with chocolate cake ...”—he liked the approving murmur that rippled through the nave—“and learn Rooter’s new hand sign.

  “Now. What’s different today about Holy Trinity?”

  Rooter’s hand shot into the air.

  “Rooter?”

  “’At pianna.”

  “Yes, the piano! As you’ll read in the bulletin, it’s a gift from God—via a thoughtful and generous lady in Mitford. And now we need but one other gift from the One Who is, Himself, the Perfect Gift: we need someone to play it.”

  He looked at his parishioners; they looked at one another.

  Much shaking of heads, followed by silence.

  After a moment of sober introspection, Sparkle raised her hand.

  Their vicar’s grin spread ear-to-ear.

  This morning, he’d seen three parishioners sign last week’s greeting, Peace be with you, to Clarence.

  “And also with you,” Clarence had signed back. Good medicine for their amiable and gifted crucifer, he reckoned, and very good medicine for them all.

  Father Tim figured his own hand-signing vocabulary consisted roughly of most of the alphabet, Rooter’s installment of last Sunday, How’s your work coming along?, A thousand thanks, I love you, and, of course, How are you doing, man?

  Enough right there to found a civilization!

  He walked to the church door, looking for Rooter to come in and give his weekly demonstration. He saw four young Millwrights seated on the wall; Rooter stood facing them, and appeared to be holding forth with some zeal.

  “’Bout half of ever’body in ’is church has kilt somebody,” he heard Rooter declaim.

  The Millwrights were wide-eyed.

  “Robert with th‘tattoos on ’is arm? He kilt ’is own granpaw.”

  Mamie Millwright clapped both hands to her mouth.

  “An’ Sissie’s granmaw? She shot Sissie’s granpaw dead. Blam! Square in th’ head. ‘Is brains gushed out all over ever’thing.”

  Father Tim walked down the steps and crossed to the shady north corner of the church. “Rooter!” he said.

  Rooter wheeled around, startled.

  “Would you step over here, please?”

  He sometimes felt as if he could soar over the gorge like the hawks. Standing with Cynthia and Dooley and Sammy as his parishioners filed through the church door and back to their lives above the clouds, he realized he was as eager as a child for all the Sundays to follow; Holy Trinity was his cake.

  “Rooter, this is my son, Dooley Kavanagh.” His heart seemed to swell, quite literally, as he spoke these words.

  Rooter furrowed his brow and looked at Dooley “How come if you ’n’ Sammy are brothers, he ain’t but one of y’all’s daddy?”

  “I don’ see how he could be y’r daddy,” said Roy Dale.

  Dooley grinned. Why not?”

  “’E’s too old.”

  The vicar winked at Dooley No rest for the wicked, he thought, and the righteous don’t need none.

  Granny peered closely at Dooley, then at Father Tim. “He don’t look much like y’r ownself.”

  “More hair,” he said.

  “See ‘at bunion?” Granny pointed to her right foot, generously exposed by a bedroom slipper. “Hit’ll be took off t’morrow. Lord have mercy, I’m skeered of th’ knife! I’ll be jumpin’ out th’ winder an’ runnin’ clear t’ Ashe County”

  Cynthia gave Granny a hug. “We’ll be praying for you, Granny And don’t worry, you’re going to be just fine.”

  “Agnes,” he said, “what was in the bag I took from your freezer?”

  “Wasn’t it squirrels?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m afraid the squirrels are still where I left them.”

  She laughed. “Which is where they’ll stay ’til someone other than myself removes them!”

  “Jubal couldn’t identify what I took from the schoolhouse. I certainly apologize—and I’ll be glad to replace it!”

  “I have no earthly idea what it might be.The turtle Jeff Stokes brought us made the most delicious soup. And the frog legs... I believe Clarence fried them last week while I planted asters. Come to think of it, there was something his sales representative gave him, but I never saw what it was.”

  He didn’t know if his culinary inclinations would ever catch up to those of his parish.

  Each and every Millwright filed past with a wordless nod or hesitant smile. He found the entire family to be as shy as deer—a characteristic generously compensated for by Sparkle Foster.

  “I used t’ play th’ piano at church,” she confessed as she came through the line, “an’ got s’ wore out, I was kind of glad y’all didn’t have one. Then when you called for somebody this mornin’, I got this warm feelin’, kind of like choc‘late meltin’ if you leave it in th’ car when it’s hot, an’ I knew th’ Lord wanted me to do it.”

  “And God bless you for it, Sparkle! It will make all the difference.”

  “Somebody’ll have t’ get me some sheet music. Y’all sing really diff’rent stuff.”

  “Consider it done!”

  “An’ tunin’,” she said, “it’ll need tunin’.”

  Miss Martha grasped his hand with both of hers and shook it mightily.

  “Fine service, Father.Very fine.”

  “Very fine!” said Miss Mary.

  “And thank you, Cynthia, for the new Sunday School. I’ve always said, if you don’t go to Sunday School, you go home with half a load of bricks!”

  Miss Mary nodded. “Half a load!”

  “I really liked bein’ with y’all, said Violet. “It’s a good thing I can read music! Oh, an’ I put th’ dollar in th’ plate.”

  “One of your better investments, I assure you. Bring her again and again, Lloyd.”

  Lloyd shook the vicar’s hand, blushing furiously.

  Father Tim liked t
o think that something in Robert Prichard might be lighter, freer. And yet, each time he looked into Robert’s eyes, the darkness held fast, he couldn’t find the light.

  “Lead poisoning,” he told Donny when they stopped by the trailer after church.

  “She’ll need to be at Mitford Hospital for at least three days, according to Dr. Harper. He wants her there first thing tomorrow morning, she’s dangerously anemic and undernourished. They’ll test her liver function; give her chelation therapy; start iron supplements; that sort of thing.”

  “It ain’t depression?”

  “Almost certainly some depression caused by her inability to be up and about. But no, depression isn’t the main issue.”

  Donny kicked at a tree stump in the yard of the trailer. “How come they didn’t find it th’ other two times I took ’er?”

  “Lead levels aren’t always part of a fatigue workup.”

  A car sped along the gravel road, sending a flume of dust into the air.

  “Any insurance?”

  Donny gave him a hard look. “Lusters pay as they go.”

  “What about Sissie? Who ... ?”

  “Don’know who she’ll stay with. I’ll be cut-tin’ pines of a mornin‘and runnin’ ’em th’ough th’ mill of a e’nin’. Granny’s goin’ down th’ mountain to have a bunion took off t’morrow. I’ll figure out somethin’.”

  “Doctor Harper says Dovey can’t come back to the trailer for a while.”

  Donny glowered. “Why not?”

  “The state environmental people need to come in and check the pipes, and any other potential lead sites. You and Sissie will need to get out, too.”

  “F’r how long?”

  “I don’t know”

  Donny uttered an oath. “Now I got t’ git out of m’ own house?”

  “I’ll meet you at Mitford Hospital at seven in the morning, help you get her checked in.”

  “I don‘know whose goin’t’pay f’r all ’is mess.”

  “Tell you what,” said the rector. “Let’s pray about it.”