by Jan Karon
‘Th’ nurse is with him. He’ll be awful sad to miss talkin’ to you, can he call you back?’
A car drove by, honked, he threw up his hand.
‘I’ll give him a shout this evening. How are you, Peggy? Are you all right?’
‘Holdin’ on,’ she said. ‘I’ll be ninety ’fore we know it. Sister took my broom away las’ week.’
‘Uh-oh.’ Peggy loved her yard-sweeping broom.
‘Said, Give me th’ keys to that broom, Mama, you flyin’ it over th’ speed limit.’
They had a small laugh, as they often had more than sixty years ago. ‘You and Henry and Sister are faithfully in our prayers. It’s wonderful to hear your voice.’
‘I thank you for the rest of my days, Timothy. We sho’ love you an’ your wonderful wife.’
‘We love you back,’ he said.
• • •
HOPE TURNED AWAY TO HIDE HER TEARS.
‘I’m sorry, Father. It’s just so hard right now. Dr. Wilson says I must go to bed at once. He sent me to the hospital in Wesley for an ultrasound and . . . it isn’t good. This is my last day at work, I don’t know for how long.’
‘Who will run the store?’
‘I really can’t afford . . . I mean, I don’t know. I thought of closing it, but . . . it’s . . . we just want the baby to be . . .’
She was sobbing. He had forgotten his handkerchief; it would have helped to have it.
The bookstore was operating on a shoestring, he knew that. Though the bottom line didn’t always show it, a lot of people would be seriously disappointed if it closed. He loved seeing schoolkids sprawled on the floor, drinking in a story, exercising their imaginations. Jefferson had famously said, I cannot live without books. How could they live without their bookstore? Happy Endings was an institution; right up there with church and school, it was a bridge from the uncivil to the civil. Where else could he take his dog and read Sunday’s Times on Monday morning?
And now, a baby, and something gone wrong.
‘My body is making a terrible trap for the baby. Please don’t tell anyone.’
‘You have my word,’ he said. ‘Please. Sit.’
He led her to a chair, brought her the box of tissues and a glass of water from the coffee station.
‘I can’t talk about it anymore right now.’ She gave in completely to her suffering; he sat close by, let her be. Her body making a trap . . .
‘I’ll give you a day a week,’ he said. He could hardly bear seeing her like this.
‘Oh, but Father, no, I couldn’t . . .’
‘Thursday!’ he said, suddenly wild with this dangerous notion.
• • •
ON HIS WAY TO LEW’S, he fingered the bookstore key in the pocket of his sweater, and noted a definite spring in his step.
Lew was waiting for him at the pumps. ‘Bud told me some stuff. Th’ driver said he had to get to the airport.’
‘What else?’
‘Bud said while I was checkin’ th’ oil, th’ guy opened th’ door behind th’ driver’s seat an’ a bag of some kind fell out. A big leather kind of bag, an’ he handed it back in an’ closed th’ door an’ stooped down and picked up whatever fell out of th’ bag an’ opened th’ door an’ handed that back in. Bud found somethin’ after they left, prob’ly rolled up under th’ chassis an’ th’ driver missed it.’
He walked inside with Lew, who reached under the counter and handed him a glasses case.
Two initials on the cover—KD—in what he reckoned could be actual gold. A light fragrance suggested itself when he opened the case. Empty. Soft leather; maybe kidskin.
‘Nice case,’ he said, handing it back.
‘Guess we’ll hold on to it if they come this way again.’
‘What else?’
‘That’s it.’
He walked to the Mazda, frowning. An old parishioner passing through, most likely. K.D. He ran a few names from the past. Kitty Duncan—not likely, she was in her eighties a decade ago. Katherine Daily. Married again, if he knew Katherine, and still serving artichoke dip too runny for the cracker, bless her heart. He being a slow learner and a hungry bachelor, her artichoke dip had landed on his shirtfront more than a few times.
On the way home, he had a moment of remorse. God knows, he’d never done retail and didn’t have a clue. But how hard could it be? Ring a sale, take a little money, make change—if that’s all there was to it, no problem. And definitely no gift wrap.
But that was the small stuff. What could be so very wrong with Hope’s pregnancy?
• • •
HE DUMPED THE MOUNTAIN WINESAPS into a bowl in the kitchen, stacked their new books on the table in the study, and went looking for his wife.
She was at her drawing board—pale, oblivious to his presence in the doorway, squinting. Her eyesight had been diminishing over the last couple of years. She didn’t need to be baking pies tonight; he needed to take this woman to dinner. But first things first.
‘I have a job,’ he said.
She looked up, mildly startled. ‘You also have a message from the bishop.’
‘You go first.’
‘He’s very apologetic for leaving you hanging.’
They probably wanted him to approach Edith Mallory and ask her to remember the diocese in her will—but what was so grave about that?
‘He’s a very nice man and eager to meet you.’
‘Good, good.’
‘He would have canceled his trip to the Bahamas, but the family was coming—they have three children and nine grandchildren. The airfare was nonrefundable and he hadn’t gone on vacation with his wife in two years. His wife’s name is Eleanor.
‘He’d like you to be at the cathedral Monday morning at nine. A cold front is moving in tonight for two days, and unlike the Mustang, the heater in my car actually works.’
His deacon had it covered. ‘No clues as to . . .’
‘None. We’ll take coffee in a thermos.’
He went to her and massaged her neck. ‘You need a break.’
‘We just had a break.’
‘Ireland was no break. How about a week at Whitecap?’
‘I’d love a week at Whitecap. But not right now, sweetheart.’
‘How about dinner tonight at Lucera?’
‘I’d love dinner tonight at Lucera.’
‘What don’t you love, Kav’na?’
She turned and looked up at him. She Who Never Hesitates looked hesitant. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner,’ she said, smiling now. ‘What kind of job?’
‘Selling books. Thursdays ten to five. I’ll pack a lunch and take Barnabas with me.’ He was excited; he was twelve years old.
• • •
THANK HEAVEN it was Saturday and she would have tomorrow to try and find someone to come in for a day, any day, she could not be choosy now. Together with Father Tim’s day, perhaps they could cobble things together and she could keep the business.
She had tidied the reading area, thrown out old newspapers, dusted the bookshelves. It was all she could do; the pain was there again. Now she must lock the door and turn the sign around to say CLOSED, and Scott would park at the curb and open the car door for her and she would see the love in his eyes and the alarm, and beyond that, they would know nothing more until she saw the specialist in Charlotte next week.
She was afraid of being afraid. And yet she could not, even with prayer, hold it in check.
She looked at her yellow cat lying contented on the sales counter. Margaret Ann had always lived at the bookstore, but things were different now. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said. She coaxed the bewildered feline into the book bag, the book bag that read HAPPY ENDINGS.
Dr. Wilson had not been able to make that promise.
• • •
‘I DREAM
ED OF OUR FATHER LAST NIGHT.’
He heard a kind of elation in Henry’s voice.
‘He was real, Timothy. So real. How can this happen when I never met or knew him? Surely it’s the picture you gave me, I’ve studied it many hours these last months.’
He, too, had studied photographs of his father, searching for clues.
‘His presence was real, it had bone and marrow,’ said Henry. ‘Have you ever experienced this?’
‘There was a parishioner at Lord’s Chapel, whom I knew for many years. She was a type of mother to me—or aunt or grandmother—and a tender friend. Sadie Baxter. I’ve dreamed of her several times. It’s always very real, even one in which she was sitting in a tree and calling down to me.’
‘The one who remembered Dooley in her will.’
‘Yes, because she saw something exceptional in him. She also gave the town a state-of-the-art nursing facility and other gifts we seem to take for granted these days. In any case, I count such dreams a benediction.’
‘We didn’t talk,’ said Henry. ‘It seemed he’d come just to let me look at him. He was sitting on the bench in my little patch where you and I sat, and was gazing at me in a steady sort of way. I was afraid I wouldn’t measure up, and then I felt joy that he would come at all.’
He completely got the power of Henry’s encounter, felt his own tears rise.
‘He was solemn.’ Henry’s voice broke.
‘Solemn,’ he said. ‘That would be our father.’
‘And then he nodded. Just . . . nodded. And I sensed he was giving me his approval. There was beauty in his face, and I had the feeling it was my turn to study him, that he was offering that privilege to me. And then I woke up, dumb as a stone. I had no desire to make a sound or to be real to myself—I wanted the dream of our father to be the reality.’
This was his very first taste of what sibling rivalry might feel like. He was honestly happy for Henry, for this fragile mite of contact, but he wished his father would also appear to him, Timothy, and give a nod of approval. Would he never rid himself of this damnable neurosis? Perhaps diabetes wasn’t his Pauline thorn.
For some reason, they didn’t talk about the rashes or the weight loss or the alarming battle raging in Henry’s blood.
• • •
OPERA, great smells from the kitchen, and a bottle of Madame Cliquot’s midrange brut in an ice bucket by their table.
Tonight, they would dine on Tony’s Pollo alla Griglia in the room where they’d savored Louella’s fried chicken and biscuits. Then they would visit the ballroom with the painted ceiling where he and Cynthia had danced beneath a heaven brimming with angels.
By Mitford standards, not a bad night out.
‘Just under the wire,’ he said, handing over his letter.
‘Bedtime reading.’ She smiled, happy, and slipped the envelope into her purse.
‘How about a toast?’ he said. ‘To Miss Sadie, who helped make us all better than we might have been.’
‘To Miss Sadie.’
They clinked, they drank.
‘I love toasts,’ she said.
‘You were going to tell me what you don’t love.’
‘Retirement in all its forms, wrinkle cream that makes nothing disappear but misguided hope, and, of course, age spots.’
This had been his cue for years; he took her hand, examined the back of it with absorption. ‘These aren’t age spots, Kav’na. They’re freckles.’
She laughed, one of her real letting-go laughs. While he was at it, he kissed her hand.
‘Great to see y’all havin’ such a good time,’ said their server.
Chapter Eight
Out there, the gray stain of first light and the stinging cold. In here, the toasting heater, his favorite sweater, his favorite wife.
In the coffee-scented car on the open parkway, they were children on a field trip, owning the light that grew and changed and made luminous a nascent gold on early autumn hills. The mist steaming along the ridges was theirs, and granite cliffs, and stark silhouettes of wind-shaven trees, and then the sun rising full-bore, to have its way with all that crept and crawled and walked upright.
He had to wonder—why travel across oceans when this vast and sublime world lived at their very door?
• • •
JACK MARTIN WAS GOOD-LOOKING, or perhaps striking would be the word.
Medium build, blue eyes, silvering hair. Even the magenta of the clerical shirt, which flattered very few, suited the bishop’s coloring.
‘You had a good trip, Father?’
‘Very good, thanks.’ Broad windows with a mountain view, a fire on the hearth. ‘We took the parkway to Linville Falls, 221 to Marion, then I-40 here. The Alleluia Highway, we decided to call it.’
‘We, you say?’
‘My wife, Cynthia, is with me.’
‘Not waiting in reception, I trust.’
‘No, no. She’s in town at a bookstore.’
The bishop gestured toward one of two wing chairs before the fire.
‘They opened early for her visit; she’s signing a few editions of her work. She’s a writer and illustrator of children’s books.’
‘As I know very well.’ The bishop leaned to the table beside his chair, removed a book from a pile, displayed the cover of Violet Comes to Stay.
‘I sent out for her books when we returned from our trip. I now have them all, save one, which is shipping right away. They’ll end up with the grandchildren.’
‘She’ll be pleased. Many thanks.’ Two walls of books had already accumulated here.
It was fair to say he hadn’t been greatly alarmed by the bishop’s invitation and its cloak of mystery—curious and perplexed would be closer to the truth, though he was surprised now by a certain tension, even dread, that he hadn’t expected.
‘We’ll have coffee in a moment, then move straight along. As I’m sure you know, Father, I gave Mrs. Kavanagh my deepest regrets for the muddle of this whole business. Let me offer my apologies firsthand.’
‘None needed,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’
‘A comedy of errors. I couldn’t phone you from the island because we were quite remote, with no cell phone service. I had to give the matter into God’s hands entirely, where it belongs in any case.’
The modest rap on the door, and the bishop’s assistant with a coffee tray, and the standing and the introductions. While the bishop agreeably chose all that was offered, he declined cream, he eschewed sugar, and passed on the offer of a chocolate. The retreating assistant closed the door, soundless.
‘In a fairly short time, I’ve learned a great deal about you, Father. Good stuff. Good stuff. You married late.’
‘Never too late,’ he said. ‘But yes. Sixty-two.’
Jack Martin stirred his coffee. ‘I understand marriage suits you.’
‘I think I never knew much about who I really am until she told me. I like her version and I’m sticking with it.’
The bishop’s laughter was contained, but genuine.
Romantic, Cynthia had insisted from the beginning; deeply sensitive, a brilliant diviner of character—but that was his little secret. He smiled at the bishop, sipped his coffee. Definitely not church coffee. More secular.
‘You chose to settle in Mitford after you retired. Permanently?’
‘We have no aspiration to live elsewhere. It’s an easy town, quite beautiful in its hanging valley, and still with a certain innocence that appeals to us.’
‘You had sixteen years at the Chapel of Our Lord and Savior. Growth was steady, and I’m told you made a sizable addition to the building.’
‘A second-floor Sunday school, yes.’
‘It’s quite the reverse in many parishes, as you know.’
‘The parish is fortunate to have summer people who help pay the bi
lls. A good mix—I was very fond of it all.’
‘Your retirement was for medical reasons. Complications of diabetes, I believe. How is your health currently?’
‘Stable. My wife doesn’t allow otherwise.’
‘Was there something about a suicidal Pepsi?’
‘Coke,’ he said. ‘I drank a Coke on an empty stomach, and my system went haywire. I drove my car into a stop sign and injured a dear friend who was out walking his dog. The dog was killed instantly.’
This was hard, painful; he despised it. ‘And cake,’ he said. ‘There was also a cake incident. So, there were two diabetic comas. I was rolling the dice—something I’m not known to do and something I’ll never do again.’
Jack Martin drew in his breath. ‘You’ve had a bout or two with depression.’
‘More than one or two.’
‘Chronic?’
‘No. But with some frequency in my forties—I was a priest without a heart for God. Then an especially tough time after what we call the Coke incident.’
‘You’re a straight shooter, Father. Nor am I one to roll the dice, to use your term. I’ve read your file very prayerfully and talked to several of your close associates.’
The bishop fingered the chain of his pectoral cross. ‘Together with a few people whose opinions I regard highly, I feel that you and your wife make a good model for marriage, a good model for living. Especially in the wake of a tragic model. Henry Talbot is divorcing his wife and leaving the church.’
Something went on with his heart, a beat or two skipped.
‘Talbot came to me just hours before we left the country. He confessed he’d let his parish down, and cheated on his wife for some years—I won’t go now into the details of who, what, and why. As desperate as that is, there’s more.’
Jack Martin sat back in the chair as if suddenly fatigued.
‘Other issues have surfaced. Less troubling by comparison, but there nonetheless.’ The bishop gazed toward the windows and the mountains beyond. ‘It’s a man breaking down in many ways at once. I’ve seen some disasters in my time, but this is a train wreck.’
Not just leaving the church, not just cheating on his wife, not just a divorce, but other issues as well. He was struck by the calamity of it.