by Jan Karon
HE WALKED OUT TO THE STOOP, the phone to his ear, and looked up. A snow sky. Big time.
‘Sam! Good morning. Walk up to the bookstore with me.’
‘I ain’t got no clothes on.’
‘Get ’em on,’ he said. ‘Paying job.’
Sammy could work ’til noon—bring in lunch, take the truck to have Lew check the ignition, and help Coot sort the recycling. He was scratching around for something for Sammy to do, as the cat door was finished and, as much for Truman as for Cynthia, covered by a hand-lettered sign: DO NOT OPEN TIL CHRISTMAS.
Kenny had been working on his kid brother; Harley had done his part, and Miss Pringle’s terms and conditions hadn’t hurt. Hair combed. Hands clean. A good-looking boy. He was grateful for the simple happiness of walking up the street with Sammy.
‘Buck’s goin’ to take me to work with ’im next week.’
‘Great.’
‘He said he might find a job for me.’
‘That should be pretty easy to do. You’re a good carpenter, you can paint, and if they need any help with landscaping . . .’
As they rounded the corner onto Main, he saw a familiar figure walking their way.
‘Father Tim! Merry Christmas! Joe Jordan, remember me? I was on th’ vestry back in the day. We moved down th’ mountain and I’m up to see my cousin. This your boy?’
This isn’t Dooley, he was about to say, but hesitated.
He put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. Sammy didn’t flinch.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is my boy. His name is Sammy.’
• • •
BEFORE HE OPENED THE STORE, they took a turn into Village Shoes.
‘Happy Hanukkah, my friend.’
‘Merry Christmas, Father!’
They embraced, each giving the other a rousing back slap.
‘Shoes for Sammy while I open up, and I’ll be back for brown loafers and a pair of black dress shoes. Ten and a half B.’
‘Will do, and mazel tov. Sweet deal for the Children’s Hospital.’
He paused outside the shoe store and looked up. A flake touched his cheek; one landed on his glove. It was snowing.
• • •
‘ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY,’ ‘In the Deep Mid-Winter’ . . . a CD of his most-loved Christmas music . . .
Sugar, fake cream, napkins, and the sign turned around to OPEN . . .
It was his favorite part of the day. He would miss it.
He was shelving new inventory near the front when he heard the bell and looked up.
Good Lord. Edith Mallory. Pushed in her wheelchair by Ed Coffey.
He paused briefly with his mouth agape and went to them at once.
‘Edith!’ He felt an overwhelming flood of affection; stooped and embraced her. ‘Edith.’
‘Fa . . . ther.’
Snow mingled in the fur of her coat collar . . .
He took her gloved hand, not speaking. They had been through a great deal together. She had wooed him, once locked him in a room with herself, and pursued him unashamedly. And then, the catastrophic blow to her head and the loss of ability to form words and speech.
Edith’s longtime driver had aged noticeably, but who hadn’t? He embraced Ed, a spontaneous act that could never have happened in years past.
And here was his chance.
It had come to him; he had not been forced to seek it. But he knew he couldn’t do it. Not at all. All those years with everyone hounding her for money; a never-ending procession of people to her door, hands out. He would not, could not do it. How would he tell the Children’s Hospital board that she had dropped by to see him but he could not do it?
‘We wanted to get up here before th’ snow sets in,’ said Ed. ‘Miz Mallory’s been missin’ th’ place. She’s taken a house on th’ ridge for a few days.’
‘We’re glad to have you, Edith. Welcome home. Merry Christmas.’ His heart was painfully full.
Edith handed him an envelope inscribed with his name, gave him something that resembled a smile.
He opened the envelope. A folding card, handwritten by Edith’s assistant, with a check tucked inside:
Father,
You have given when no one asked. I have given only when pressed. This is a new avenue for me, one I hope to travel until the end. I hear your favorite charity is in dire straits. May God bless you to a happy old age. Pray for me. Edith
He was touched by this; thought it could appear crass or impatient to look at the check now.
Ed Coffey cleared his throat.
He got Ed’s message, studied the amount, blinked. This time, he might actually faint.
To: Children’s Hospital.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Edith spoke slowly and with precision the words she was first able to articulate after the disastrous head injury.
‘God . . . is . . . good.’
The three of them held hands and wept together, a kind of family once bitterly estranged, now united.
• • •
PEOPLE ROAMING THE STORE, several youngsters in the Children’s section, the bell jangling.
‘Hey, Dad!’
Dooley striding in—a surprise visit on his way to Meadowgate.
‘Wanted to stop by and say we’ll see you out there tomorrow. From Lace and me.’
Dooley brushed snow from his hair, handed over a bag filled with wrapped gifts. A first, this bag of gifts—with the imprimatur of the girl Dooley loved. So many firsts, all the time . . .
‘I have somethin’ else for you. It’s the most important.’
Dooley pulled a twenty from his jeans pocket, and folded it. Then he folded it again. And again. And once more. And handed it over, solemn.
‘Merry Christmas, Dad. Thanks for all you do for me.’
Dooley gave him a quick hug and was gone before he could speak.
• • •
‘EXCUSE ME.’
A smartly dressed woman he had never seen approached the sales counter. ‘That plant in your window. What is it, may I ask?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A rubber plant. After a fashion.’
‘I’m opening my house for Christmas and need something tall and green in my foyer. Where did you get it?’
‘It was a gift.’
‘Does it require much water?’
‘Not much.’
‘Must it have light? My foyer is dark.’
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘it is completely maintenance-free.’
He carried it across the street to her SUV, and came back and totted up the take to date.
$3,000,000 Kim and Irene
500,000 Edith
100.00 rubber plant
Including the spray tan certificate, which might go for twenty bucks:
$3,500,120.00
Not bad for openers.
• • •
IT WAS HARD TO SETTLE DOWN; he was flying, and it wasn’t caffeine. This was a Christmas unlike any he’d ever known. So many gifts, a shower of gifts.
God was near, and he was all fingers. Still, he would wrap this one himself. When he started in the bookstore, Scott had paid for a book to be given away. He had prayed about that.
He scribed a greeting on one of the few remaining gift labels.
Merry Christmas To
Coot
From Your Friends
At Happy Endings
• • •
TO GET THE TRAIL PROJECT MOVING, he would need help with the details. Who would make the signs? They would want three estimates. What did they have to do to get council approval? There would be a good bit of bureaucratic hemming and hawing about the project. Where would they source litter bins and benches? There would be work to do on the Internet . . .
He had talked to Cynthia abo
ut his idea.
‘Be specific,’ was her advice.
He called from the store. ‘Emma! Merry Christmas!’ He was certifiably crazy.
‘Merry Christmas! Who’s this?’
‘How quickly you forget.’
‘Father Tim! I’ll be et f’r a tater,’ she said, quoting Uncle Billy. ‘I’ve been checkin’ th’ obits to see if you’re in there. I can’t believe th’ story in th’ paper, you must be over th’ moon.’
‘And then some. Can hardly believe it myself. How’s your Tuesday going?’
‘South,’ she said. ‘My employer is movin’ to Florida.’
‘I’m gearing up for a project. How about four hours, eight to twelve on Tuesdays, starting the second week of January, with a possible cutoff at the end of March?’
Did he deserve her numerous skills? Should she play hard to get and show him what’s what? He could hear her wheels turning.
‘I thought you’d never ask!’ she said. ‘Are you at th’ store?’
‘I am.’
‘Are you wearin’ boots?’
‘I am.’
‘Good. It’s comin’ down out there. Do you have a hat?’
‘Of course.’
‘When you walk home, wear th’ hat, th’ temperature’s droppin’.’
• • •
‘I HAD SOMETHING to pick up at the Local. I should be on my way home, but I couldn’t go without thanking you. There’s just no time to say what I need to say. Our driveway is terrible in bad weather.’ Sharon McCurdy was mildly breathless, distraught.
‘You prayed and Hastings is completely fine. Is that a coincidence? I need to know this.’
‘I can’t say that I have any confidence in coincidence. I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and tough.’
She glanced out to the street. ‘I must hurry. It drives me crazy that God, if there is one, doesn’t allow himself to be seen. It seems all smoke and mirrors, a fabrication of the silliest sort. How are we supposed to believe?’
‘“All that I have seen,” Mr. Emerson said and I say with him, “teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen.”’
‘I don’t know. All these years and I don’t know. How does one pray? If I don’t believe in God, why would I pray? And yet I feel a great need to pray. About . . . something. Many things. Would God hear me? Must I believe to be heard? What would I say?’
‘You would say whatever is in your heart.’
‘I can’t imagine that. It’s frightening to even think it. You’re saying, just . . . whatever?’
‘When Hastings cries out to you, the door of your heart opens, just as prayer opens God’s heart to us. There’s a sense in which the questions you’re asking are themselves a kind of prayer.’
‘I cannot speak to God, it seems a sham. Why would he respond to what is shallow and forced?’
‘God answers all our heartfelt petitions. He may answer no, or yes, or wait, or maybe. Yet there’s one prayer for which he has only one answer, and the answer is yes.’
‘Tell me,’ she said, sharp.
‘Thy will be done.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it. There is a caveat.’
‘There is always a caveat,’ she said, bitter.
‘One must pray it with a surrendered heart.’
She turned away from him, covered her face with her hand. ‘My God.’
He was concerned for her, for the snow coming hard on their mountain roads . . .
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea and see you on your way.’
‘There’s no time to think, to ask the right questions,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘There’s never enough time for anything, ever.’
He went at once to the coffee station and she followed.
‘I’ll pray for you,’ he said.
‘Pray for me now,’ she said. ‘Now! No one has ever prayed for me. Pray for Hastings, pray for my husband, who has Parkinson’s. My God, pray for this crazy world, for the mess we’re making of it.’
He switched on the kettle, and they went to the Poetry section and stood by a bookcase and he held forth his hands and she let him clasp her own.
‘Lord, for the longing of Sharon McCurdy’s heart and for her safety on these roads, for Professor McCurdy and the longings of his own heart, for the well-being of the bright and gifted Hastings and his rich curiosity, and yes, Lord, for the mess we’re making of your inexpressible beauty, we ask one thing: Thy will be done. Thank you for your boundless grace, for your unconditional love, for your mighty power to heal. And thank you for making yourself present to Sharon in a way she is fully able to receive with joy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.’
She was weeping.
‘When I speak of God’s will, it helps to know that he wants the best for us. If you can’t believe he’s there, pray anyway. If you feel he’s cheap and withholding, thank him anyway. There will come a time when you’ll thank him even for the hard places.’
‘Perhaps somewhere I have the smallest bit of faith,’ she said, ‘something left over from my childhood. But it’s almost nothing, not enough . . .’
‘If you yield it up, God will make it enough.’
He put the tea bag in a to-go cup and poured hot water from the kettle.
She wiped her eyes with a paper napkin and composed herself. ‘Two sugars,’ she said.
• • •
HE WALKED HOME, the snow falling thickly. Louise had stopped in for a quick tutorial and he had done a mite of housekeeping, thus the bank had closed before he could get there. He would make the deposit after Christmas.
‘You’re our miracle on Main Street,’ Hope had said. ‘We’re up twenty-seven percent over last year.’
Twenty-seven percent. Above all they could ask or think, a dream more than fulfilled. Indeed, the whole experience seemed a dream.
Another chapter had already begun. He wanted to see this present moment as clearly as possible—the procession of lighted angels wearing crowns of snow, an old Jeep moving along the street, slow as a dirge, the gnashing sounds of machinery plowing along Main.
He was grateful for his fleece-lined jacket with the hood, and the warmth of his mortal flesh. He walked faster, head bowed into the flurry.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you . . .’ he whispered into the gathered dark. His breath was vapor on the mountain air.
Chapter Thirty
Mark my words,’ said the weatherman on the six o’clock news. ‘It’ll be over around seven.’
Viewers marked his words but it wasn’t over. By the end of the newscast, the precip had piled up to seven-plus inches, and was still coming down.
He and Cynthia would not attend midnight mass in Wesley. And very likely wouldn’t make it out to Meadowgate tomorrow.
Because he had for years celebrated a mass, and often two, on Christmas Eve, he was never able to figure the best time to open gifts. Exhausted both on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning by the second-busiest season of the church calendar, he considered it a toss-up. Christmas Eve was certainly Nanny Howard’s preferred time. ‘While the house is still warm!’ she always said.
This year, they decided to do a little of both—open one present each tonight, and in the morning, all the rest. He was plenty curious about Sammy’s gift in its simple wrap of newspaper and recycled ribbon, and eager to open his first Christmas present from his brother, to whom he’d sent a rare edition of the work of Henry’s first poet hero, Dunbar.
In the meantime, there was the big box from Cynthia with his name on it, and the gifts from Dooley and Lace . . .
He pulled on his snow boots. He would blaze a trail for his dog to the bed where their tulip bulbs lay dreaming. ‘Deep in their roots,’ Roethke had said, ‘all flowers keep the light.’
; When he stepped out with Barnabas, he stuck in a yardstick. A little over eight inches. Definitely above his ankles and still coming down.
He imagined Hamp Floyd, hunkered behind his house with his own yardstick. This was serious business for the Worm.
‘It’s plenty deep,’ he said, stomping snow onto the mat inside the door.
‘We’re going,’ she said.
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘We’re going. How could we not?’
How could they not?
Harley rang. ‘Don’t you worry, Rev’ren’. We gon’ have you shoveled out to th’ street in plenty of time. You sure you don’t want to take y’r truck?’
‘Nossir,’ he said, ‘we’re traveling up by camel.’
• • •
SHE HAD SET a small table in the study, where they could have dinner and see the tree strung with colored lights and ornaments of mixed vintage.
They were leaving the sign, DO NOT OPEN TIL CHRISTMAS, on the cat door. If Truman went out in this, they might not find him ’til the spring thaw.
Before dinner, she took the box from under the tree and presented it to him.
‘It was going to arrive in January, but here it is by some miracle I won’t even attempt to understand. Please try it on, I’m dying to see you in it.’
‘Is this what I was measured for?’ He was mildly dubious.
‘It is,’ she said. ‘Please, honey.’
He tried it on.
A perfect fit. Already hemmed and ready to roll. He was vainer than he imagined. He stood looking in the mirror in their bedroom with a kind of delicious astonishment. He wasn’t so fat. He wasn’t so abbreviated in height. He even appeared to have more hair.
He wore the tuxedo, cummerbund, bow tie, the works, as they sat by the fire having a glass of champagne. She was in what she called her New Darling, the rather grand replacement robe for the one left behind in Ireland for cleaning rags.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said.
He believed her. He couldn’t help himself.
Then he read aloud the letter Puny had found, and they agreed that the timing couldn’t have been better:
I once dreamed, but never truly imagined, that I would one day salute someone as “wife.” It is a designation of the greatest virtue, and though a simple word, has deep and complex meaning.