One Shenandoah Winter

by Davis Bunn

  “I got the idea from a picture in a magazine. It’s sort of copied after a cottage in the French countryside.” She looked around, taking strength from the home and the morning. “I guess I was being silly over that old truck, wasn’t I?”

  “Not at all.” Nathan still held on to her arm. He liked the way it felt, grasping this strong yet feminine lady. “It’s perfectly natural. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  “Right. Why bother, when so many others are willing to be hard for you.” But the attempt at joking fell as flat as her sigh. Connie turned around and said, “Poppa Joe’s been asking for you.”

  This was not good. “Is he in pain?”

  “Not that you’d know. But then, he’s never been one for complaining.”

  Together they passed through the living room. Connie had collected crystal-bearing rocks from different places along the Appalachian Trail, and set them so sunlight entered the tall windows and turned the ceiling into a collection of rainbows. But not today. The gray mist gathered around the windows, and even an hour after sunrise she still needed the lamps.

  The hallway had long since become crowded with all the odors of the seriously ill. Nathan found the familiar scents oddly jarring here, in this home with its veil of blooming flowers and its quiet orderliness. Even in winter, when the earth was frozen and the sky quiet, the odors here seemed a violation of this woman’s determined strength.

  As he walked down the back hall a voice called feebly, “That you, son?”

  “Good morning, Poppa Joe.” He entered the back bedroom, his eyes adjusting swiftly to the gloomy light. Recently the old man had become sensitive to anything but the dimmest illumination. “How are you feeling?”

  “Right poorly.”

  The quiet admission brought a startled frown to Connie’s face. Nathan could well understand. The old man never complained. Never. Even as the illness devoured his strength like locusts going through a field of ripened corn, even as his flesh wasted away until his skin lay flaccid upon his frame, Poppa Joe refused to complain.

  Connie dropped down beside the bed. “What’s the matter? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Oh, it ain’t my body, gal. I’m not any worse today than yesterday.” And it seemed true, for his voice still held its quiet strength. And his eyes remained unglazed. This was one of the high points of Poppa Joe’s day, when the medication that saw him through the night had worn off, and the pain had not yet set in. He and Nathan would sit a while, perhaps talking, more often just sharing the morning quiet.

  Then he would stir, or grimace slightly, and Nathan knew that the tentacles of discomfort were spreading. After he had sent the old man off again into a dull-eyed comfort zone, Nathan found himself spending the entire day looking forward to the next few minutes when he and the old man would sit together that afternoon, alert and listening to all that went unsaid.

  Connie seemed to release herself from the chains of tension. Now that she was sure he was not suffering, she allowed herself to glance at her watch. “I’m already late for work. Dawn promised to be back here in half an hour, Poppa Joe.”

  “I’ll stay until she arrives,” Nathan assured her, and settled into the chair by the bed.

  Connie looked down at him, and for a single instant allowed her own veils to fall. Her gaze was full of shattered dreams, until they too fell away to expose a heart full of longing. And something more. But all she said was a whispered, “Thank you.”

  She leaned over to kiss her uncle’s forehead. Poppa Joe responded with a murmured, “Take care, daughter.”

  After she had gone, they sat there in the silence. It was Poppa Joe’s natural state and was becoming increasingly comfortable to Nathan. Every once in a while he would glance over. The old man lay there, all but gone save for the light in his eyes and the rasping strength in that voice.

  But today, somehow, the silence was not enough. Nathan cleared his throat and said, “Sitting here with you, I feel a remarkable sense of refuge.”

  Poppa Joe strained to turn his head so that the gaze could lock in on him. “I’m comforted to hear that.”

  “It’s crazy. I’ve spent all my life fighting cancer. The enemy. That’s how I’ve always thought of it. And yet here I am, sitting helpless, watching you die, and I feel comfortable.” He shook his head. “I must be crazy.”

  “Don’t sound that way to me.” The old man weakly cleared his throat. Nathan had come to know the sound and the message, and reached for the frosted pitcher of ice water. He poured a glass and held the straw to Poppa Joe’s mouth, then set the glass back down. Poppa Joe went on, “You recollect us talking about how folks used to call the local doc the Gatekeeper?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, sometimes a man’s task is to accept God’s will. Hard thing to do when our will is different. But a strong man, now, he learns to accept what he can’t change.”

  “My whole life has been spent pushing back the borders of death.”

  “That’s good, son. But a man’s days are measured. Sooner or later, he’s gonna face that door. The question then is, will there be folks there to help give his passage dignity?”

  Nathan found himself having difficulty swallowing. “You’re the one with dignity, Poppa Joe. You give it to everybody around you.”

  The old man did not respond for a long moment. Finally he went on. “Been laying here thinking for quite a spell. Found myself able to look on up ahead. The door’s right there in front of me. Ain’t able to hear the Lord call my name yet, but I know He will. Yessir, He surely will. And soon.”

  In the gaunt face with its bones punched upward like stones in a wind-carved cliff, the eyes burned bright as spotlights. “Got myself in a muddle, son. Think maybe you could help me?”

  “If I can.”

  “I been laying here wishing there was some way to make my passage mean something.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Just wish I could carry something with me. A parcel of good I could take with me up to the high place and set down there before the throne.” He held Nathan with a gaze as powerful as a vise. “Something worthy to give my Maker. And I got myself the feeling you’re the only one who can help me do it.”

  Nathan felt the words merge in his heart with those spoken by the pastor. He wanted to object that he had little to offer anyone here on earth, much less to a God he was only now coming to think might exist at all.

  But before he could form the words, Poppa Joe halted him with a grimace. Instantly Nathan reached for the bottle and the syringe. That twitch of the face was Poppa Joe’s only signal that the pain was growing intolerable. Nathan inserted the needle into the vein, pressed down the plunger, and watched as the gaze dimmed and the eyes closed. Then he sat there, listening to Poppa Joe’s weakened breathing, and pondered on what the old man had just said.

  Nineteen

  The voice, when it came, seemed to bring Nathan out of an open-eyed slumber. “Are you gonna sit there all day?”

  Nathan raised his gaze to where Dawn stood standing in the doorway. “How long have you been there?”

  “Oh, hours and hours.” She smiled at him, her head cocked so that the blonde hair spilled over one shoulder. “You know what? You looked like Poppa Joe just then.”

  “It must be the gloom.” He glanced over at the bed. The old man was resting peacefully. Nathan pushed himself to his feet. He had been sitting in one position so long his legs tingled. “I better be getting off.”

  “I mean it, you had that same look he gets when he stares off into space and the whole world just fades away.” Dawn looked past him to the bed, and her smile turned sad. Nathan watched her face and saw how she was busy putting all she said into the past tense. “Don’t know what I’m gonna do without Poppa Joe Wilkes.” She drew a broken breath. “This town ain’t gonna be the same without him around.”

  He nodded, and felt the need to speak, to force her to begin preparations. Gatekeeper. “It won’t be
long now, Dawn.”

  The words coursed through her with trembling force. She gave a tiny nod.

  Nathan set a hand on her shoulder, as easy as he had with Connie, then walked out of the room and down the hall and into the gray-clad day. As he climbed into the car and started the motor, he thought he heard Poppa Joe’s voice again, speaking of yet another mystery. No matter what his logical mind might say, Nathan felt as though the man had settled an obligation upon his heart.

  That afternoon Connie was watching a state crew dig a hole alongside the county road when Brian Blackstone’s car pulled over and stopped. Connie stepped away from the men and their machinery and met him as he opened his door. “Don’t tell me the church has lost its water too.”

  “Not so far as I’m aware.” He smiled at her. “How are you, Connie?”

  “Coping.” She stared back at the hole in the ground. “I never thought I’d be glad for a problem with the water lines, but right now anything that gets me out of the office is a blessing.”

  “You look tired,” he said, and motioned for them to walk further away from the ditch digger and the men. “Are you sleeping?”

  “I lie in bed a lot. I close my eyes. I suppose there must be some sleep in there somewhere.” She huffed a sigh, wanting to do away with such talk. “How are Sadie and the baby?”

  “Both are doing just fine.” He had aged well, the pastor, despite his own hard times. His face retained its boyish soft angles and gentle look, his eyes remained clear and alert. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “You shouldn’t be. I’ll get by.”

  “Life isn’t about just getting by, Connie.” When she did not respond, he went on, “You’re the hardest kind of person to reach. You come to church, you study, you pray, you go through all the right motions. But when a crisis strikes, you don’t want to admit you need more help than what is available.”

  “You and your fancy speech.” But her scoffing lacked conviction. “I don’t have a crisis, Brian. I have a sick uncle.”

  “Connie,” he started, but sighed himself to a halt. “Call me if you need me, all right?”

  Connie stared after him as he turned and walked back to the car. She had never gotten off so lightly with the pastor before. It left her more uneasy than an argument.

  That night, the inner voices and the worries and the sense of life unraveling filled the dark corners of Connie’s room. They did not so much permit her to sleep as push her into confused slumber and draw her back again, almost against her will.

  She awoke to a sense of having heard something, yet the house and the night were utterly still. More than quiet. The air seemed close, like the gathering pressure that came before a summer storm. And yet, as she rose from her bed and slipped on a robe, she did not find it uncomfortable. Just odd.

  The gathering stillness accompanied her down the hall to the back bedroom. Quietly she pushed open the door and stood there listening for a moment.

  A voice from the bed rasped, “That you, daughter?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  She reached behind her and snapped on the hall light. A faint yellow glow revealed Poppa Joe settled in his bed, his eyes awake and watching her. She asked, “Are you in pain?”

  “It’s been a hard night,” he admitted.

  “I can give you an injection.” Connie opened the drawer to his bedside table. “Nathan showed me how. He said there might be a time—”

  “That Nathan is a fine fellow.” Poppa Joe followed her with his eyes as she pulled out the little metal box with its implements. “Troubled, though. Man’s had himself a hard row to hoe.”

  Connie fitted the needle onto the syringe, and unscrewed the top from the vial. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Didn’t have to. I asked him if he wanted to share his burden. He wasn’t ready.” His eyes were on her face now. “He’s gonna need a hand to find his way, daughter. Got to learn how to open up and get that load off his heart.”

  She filled the syringe to the point Nathan had indicated. She pulled the needle out of the rubber stopper. “I like him,” she confessed quietly.

  “I’m glad you do, darling. He needs your strength.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked down at Poppa Joe. “He also makes me madder than a hornet on a hot August day.”

  “That’s natural enough. You’re both too good at being alone.”

  “And just exactly what do you mean by that?”

  Poppa Joe stared at the ceiling. “I figure that Nathan is near ’bout the strongest man I ever met, in his own way. Problem is, he don’t know it. All he can see is his burdens and his woes and his failures.” The old man was silent for a time, his breath rasping harshly in the night. Then he said, “Man’s got two problems. He don’t know he’s strong, and he can’t find his way.”

  Connie set the syringe down carefully on the towel laid across the top of the bedside table. “I don’t think I could help him find that out. I don’t hardly know it for myself.”

  “Oh, you know, child. You just forget sometimes. We all do, when times is hard and the Lord seems distant.” He kept his eyes on the ceiling, as he went on, “No, that man’s got to let the Lord show him the way, plain and simple.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but something halted her. There was a sense of gathering. She had no other way to describe what she felt. A gathering of the night’s silence, a sense of gentle power moving into the room. The hall light seemed to reach out further and further, until even the night itself was pushed from the room. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck, but she was not frightened. The presence was too gentle to be threatening.

  “I feel like I’ve let God get too far from me.”

  She had not even realized she had spoken until she recognized the voice as her own. It was as though the words had sprung from a place so far inside her that they came from beyond herself. She looked down at Poppa Joe, but he continued to stare at the ceiling, his gaze centered on something only he could see.

  She heard him say, “Knowing a problem takes a body halfway to solving it.”

  She inspected him, wondering if he felt it too. But his breathing remained unchanged, each breath drawn with an effort that registered on his wasted features. Yet his eyes shone with the same light she felt building in the room, pressing in on her heart.

  “I asked Nathan if he’d help me with a problem. One that’s been worrying me something awful.” Poppa Joe paused long enough to lick dry lips. Connie reached for the glass and fitted the straw into his mouth. His swallows sounded strangled. But when he had finished, he spoke with the same calmness as before. “I told him I’ve been wanting for something I could take with me. Something I could lay down before my Lord. Something that’d give my death meaning.”

  She wanted to tell him to not speak of his dying. But the gentle power would not let her. Instead, she had the sense of her heart being pointed toward what Poppa Joe had just said, as though here were both a mystery and a key. And a challenge. She found herself shivering slightly as she sat there and listened as Poppa Joe’s breathing gradually eased, and the eyes closed, and the old man drifted off into slumber. The presence in the room seemed to back away, out of the chamber and down the hall and away from the house, allowing the night to return. Still she sat there, feeling the words ring deep inside her. And she wondered how losing Poppa Joe could ever have more meaning that it already did.

  Twenty

  On Friday morning, the week before Christmas, Reverend Brian Blackstone stopped by the clinic. In the days and weeks to follow, the visit became fixed in his mind as the moment when he realized change was coming to Nathan Reynolds.

  As soon as he entered the clinic, he could not help but notice the differences. For one thing, Hattie Campbell was smiling. Fresh flowers stood in a vase on her desk. A pile of new magazines replaced the dusty copies of Family Circle. The locals who sat there chatted quietly, their manner easy. Illnesses were
compared, especially by those bringing children, and recipes exchanged.

  “Hello, Brian, how are you?” Nathan Reynolds came through the doorway leading to the consulting rooms, his arms full of files. He set them down on Hattie’s desk and walked over. His nod to the waiting room was relaxed. “Nothing’s wrong with Sadie or the baby, I hope.”

  “No, they’re both fine.” Brian felt the eyes, knew all were listening carefully. “Actually, it’s about one of my other parishioners.”

  “Well, come on back.” The doctor’s voice was different too. Not a smile, no. But no hostility either. The doctor looked tired and drawn, but what doctor didn’t. He gave the room another brisk nod. “Won’t keep you folks long.”

  Brian waited until they were in Nathan’s office and the door was closed before observing, “You’re going through some changes of your own, Nathan.”

  “Yes, I suppose I am.” He had the doctor’s air of pressures on all sides, yet focused tightly upon the moment at hand. Like a dark-haired cat resting with weary vigilance behind his desk. “What can I do for you?”

  Brian found himself picking his way delicately through unfamiliar territory. “As much time as you’ve been spending over at the Wilkes recently, have you noticed any changes in Connie?”

  “She doesn’t appear to be doing too badly, considering the fact that she’s losing her uncle.”

  “She’s losing more than that. Poppa Joe is her last living relative, as far as anybody knows. And somewhere in the process, she also appears to have lost her snappish nature.”

  Strong features stretched in a quick flash of humor. “I’m not sure I’d miss that so much.”

  “You would if it meant the heart was going out of her.” Brian knew there was no way to express his worries. All he could do is plant the seeds of concern. “Connie has been a bedrock of this community, as much as Poppa Joe in her own way. She’s the one who looks out for our interests when it comes to competing voices in the county and state governments. She’s as fiercely protective of this little town as a mother hawk is over her brood. At least, she was.”