A New Song

by Jan Karon

  “Doughnut holes!” Jean Ballenger plunked down a box from the shop next door to her mainland hairdresser.

  “Lookit!” said Ray Gaskill, who didn’t want to miss out on the action. He lifted the lid of a bakery box, exposing half a cake, inscribed HDAY TO RAY in lime-green icing. “I was sixty-seven last July . . . that’s August, September, October, it ain’t but four months old and been in th’ freezer th’ whole time, help yourself.”

  Penny Duncan arrived with a gallon of sun tea, made before the rains began, and a freezer bag of thawed oatmeal cookies. Mona Fulcher dispatched Junior Bryson with a vast container of hot soup, a pot of chili, and a sack of cups and plastic spoons. Stanley Harmon dropped by with two thawed loaves of homemade bread from the freezer at First Baptist, along with a quart of apple juice he’d nabbed from the Sunday School.

  Not knowing that his priest had already asked a blessing, and feeling his own heart so inclined, Sam Fieldwalker offered a fervent psalm of praise and petition.

  “A double shot!” remarked someone who had happily bowed for both prayers.

  Leonard Lamb popped a doughnut hole in his mouth. “We need a double shot,” he said.

  At two o’clock, his adreneline still pumping, he drove to the motel to fetch Barnabas for a run along the beach.

  The heater had raised the temperature of the room to that of a blast furnace. He turned the heater off, snapped on the leash, and was out of there with a dog so relieved to be rescued that he slammed his forepaws against Father Tim’s chest and gave his glasses a proper fogging.

  The beach was more littered than usual, but nothing compared to the pictures he’d seen of Whitecap beaches in the aftermath of worse storms.

  His brain felt petrified; he could scarcely think. For a man who’d been accused of thinking too much, it was an odd feeling, as if he were living his life in a dream, reacting to, rather than initiating, the circumstances that came his way.

  He did know one thing for certain—he had to get his crowd out of the Mid-Way Motel, pronto.

  Dodging the detritus of the storm, he ran easily, chuffing south toward the lighthouse and glancing at a sky so blue it might have been fired onto porcelain. The sea beneath was azure and calm, the water lapping gently at the sand.

  He saw it, but thought nothing of it. Then, several yards down the beach, he stopped and looked again.

  It was a little plane, bright red against the cloudless sky. He thought of his two jaunts into the wild blue yonder with Omer Cunningham, and the time Omer flew him to Virginia so he could attend Dooley’s school concert. Blast, he missed the boy terribly. It had been four months since he saw him vanishing around the corner of Wisteria and Main on his bicycle. “ ’Bye, Dad . . .”

  Barnabas skidded to a stop and barked furiously as the plane dipped toward the wide beach, then veered out over the water.

  Father Tim stood and watched as it gained altitude and headed south. Did he see someone waving at him from the cockpit?

  Probably not, but he waved back, just in case.

  He was sitting on the bottom step of the walkway through the dunes, tying a shoelace, when he heard it.

  Holy smoke, that plane was not only coming this way again, it was coming in low. Very low.

  In fact, it was landing. . . .

  It blew past him, contacted the sand, and bounced lightly along the beach. As it slowed, farther along the strand, the tail came up, then settled again.

  He might have been plugged into an electrical outlet the way his scalp was tingling. It couldn’t be, he thought, as he saw the doors open. . . .

  But it was.

  Barking wildly, Barnabas jerked the leash from under his foot and bounded toward the red plane and the people clambering out of it.

  “Omer! Dooley!”

  No, indeed, he would not bawl like a baby. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket as he sprinted behind his dog. Amazing grace! Hallelujah! Unbelievable!

  And it wasn’t just Omer and Dooley.

  “Pauline!” he yelled to the woman running toward him. “Buck!”

  Dooley reached him first. “Hey,” he said, throwing his arms around Father Tim, who hugged back for all he was worth.

  “Hey, yourself, buddy, hey, yourself !”

  Dooley cackled. “You’re breakin’ my ribs! Hey, ol’ dog, ol’ Barn, ol’ buddy.” Dooley fell onto the sand with Barnabas, as Pauline shyly gave Father Tim a hug, and Buck and Omer pounded him on the back to a fare-thee-well.

  “This is my little Stinson Voyager,” said Omer. His proud smile revealed teeth large enough to replace the ivories on an upright. “What d’you think?”

  “Beautiful! Handsome! A sight for sore eyes!” said Father Tim.

  Buck grinned at him, looking pounds lighter and years younger. “We buzzed over here a little bit ago, checkin’ out th’ beach. We thought it was you we saw.”

  “Yeah,” said Dooley, “how did you know we were coming?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Cool.”

  Omer gave the Voyager’s rear tire a swift kick. “Tundra tires. Got those special, since I knew I’d be comin’ down on a soft field. By th’ way, I had my buddy in Raleigh check it out, he said this end of th’ beach was church property, so we could land here, no problem.

  “Lookit!” Omer dragged him to the open door and pointed to a storage box behind the backseat. Father Tim smelled something wonderful.

  “We’re carryin’ beef stew, we got fried chicken, we got bottled water, an’ . . . what else we got?” he asked Pauline.

  “The ham Emma baked for tomorrow!” said Pauline, flushed with excitement. “And Miz Bolick’s orange marmalade cake.”

  “Yeah!” said Dooley. “Three layers! Plus stuff that Tony and Mr. Gregory and Anna sent, but it all smells like garlic.”

  Omer was busy pulling cargo from behind the seat. “Couldn’t haul but forty pounds, what with icin’ down th’ food and carryin’ three passengers, but we got more comin’ next trip.”

  “Let me get a wheelbarrow,” said Father Tim. “We’re covered up with wheelbarrows at church.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Father Tim saw several onlookers gathering.

  “You probably don’t want to leave it here long. Whitecap is full of nice people, but . . .”

  “Oh, I ain’t goin’ to leave it here long a’tall. I’m makin’ a run back to Mitford here in a little bit.”

  “Back to Mitford?”

  “See, tomorrow mornin,’ I’m haulin’ young ’uns.”

  “Poo and Jessie,” said Dooley. “They’re comin’.”

  “Ah,” he said, trying to understand.

  Dooley adjusted his ball cap. “You better tell ’im, Mama.”

  “Well,” said Pauline. She looked suddenly shy. “Well . . .”

  “We tried to call,” said Buck, “but we couldn’t get through.”

  “See, what it is,” said Dooley, “is Mama and Buck want you to marry ’em tomorrow.”

  Buck Leeper, who had probably never blushed in his life, turned beet red. “If you don’t mind.”

  “When I heard what was goin’ on,” said Omer, “I offered to fly ’em down here.”

  More hand-shaking, back-slapping, and riotous barking as his delirious dog dashed around them in circles.

  Hauling a trunk full of food and water, he drove Dooley to the Fieldwalkers’, where he let his wife weep the tears he was holding back. That was just one of the many conveniences of marriage, he thought, as Cynthia bawled and clung to Dooley like moss to a log.

  On the way to St. John’s, he figured Stanley would let him use the sanctuary for the wedding tomorrow afternoon. If that didn’t work, surely they’d loan their basement hall. Then, if worse came to worst, there was always the Town Hall—not a pretty sight, but he’d heard of couples getting married there.

  Whatever happened would have to happen fast.

  Lord, he prayed . . .

  They said goodbye to Omer, who was leaving with
half the crowd trailing along to see the takeoff.

  “What it is,” Omer explained as they headed down the lane, “is a complete fabric aircraft. You’ve got your steel-tube fuselage with a fabric cover . . .”

  “Could I go in th’ church and look around?” asked Buck.

  “Sure, grab a hard hat, I’ll go in with you. The crew’s packing up to leave. They’ll be back on Monday and things will start to get serious around here.”

  Pauline beamed. “Buck don’t have to go far to find a hard hat,” she said. “May I come in, too?”

  “Come on!” he said. “But watch your step. There’s plaster lying forty ways from Sunday.”

  He called Sew Joiner aside. “Before your men leave, there’s something I’d like them to do, if possible. We’ve just had a very . . . unusual request.”

  During the impromptu and elaborate meal at the Fieldwalkers’, which Marion called a rehearsal dinner, Father Tim proposed a toast to Buck and Pauline. Buck, who was unaccustomed to much society, bobbed his head with awkward appreciation. Pauline smiled and held his hand, saying little, owing to the fullness of a heart overcome with wonder, and what she supposed might even be joy.

  Before Tony’s tiramisu was passed around, Cynthia and Pauline trundled off to the bedroom with a kerosene lamp to view the wedding frock. Father Tim loved hearing peals of his wife’s laughter issuing from the room, as such frivolity had recently been as scarce as hen’s teeth.

  He put his arm around Dooley, noting that the boy was now a couple of inches taller than himself. He also checked the look on Dooley’s face. Was he happy about his mother marrying Buck Leeper? As far as Father Tim could tell, the answer was yes, definitely.

  Following an evening made more festive by candles and a crackling fire, Buck and Dooley were dispatched to Room Twenty-two at the Mid-Way. Pauline was invited to bunk in with the Fieldwalkers, who noted that the guest room leak had stopped and another chamber pot had been improvised.

  Otis announced that the Kavanaghs would be moving on Tuesday afternoon into the million-dollar home of Martha Talbot, a seasonal resident from Canada who hadn’t been in Whitecap for two seasons, due to a series of family weddings from Brazil to Portugal, not to mention Bar Harbor, Maine.

  It was all quite breathtaking, thought Father Tim, as he climbed into his pajamas and fell, deeply weary and as deeply grateful, onto the lumpy bed of Room Fourteen.

  But he couldn’t sleep.

  He lay listening to the hiss of the heater and his wife’s whiffling snore. Jonathan thrashed and turned, kicking him in the ribs once, then twice.

  Numb with exhaustion, he got up and put on his robe and slippers, lit the kerosene lantern, and sat in the worn armchair by the window. A ten o’clock service followed by a one-thirty wedding tomorrow, and here he was at half-past midnight, his eyes as big as the headlights on Loretta Burgess’s eighteen-wheeler.

  He went to the bathroom and did a glucometer check. Ah, well, no more tiramisu for him for a while; he’d be chopped liver tomorrow.

  He took his Bible from the windowsill, opened it in the low light, and closed his eyes and prayed. Thank you, Lord. . . .

  Let’s face it, he could have been fished up from the bottom of Judd’s Creek. The nail in the picket could have pierced Cynthia’s eye instead of her hand. If Maude Proffitt hadn’t jumped when she did, her ceiling would have landed on her head instead of her recliner. The list was endless. St. John’s might have been completely demolished, the whole tree could have come down . . .

  Jericho.

  He jerked awake, realizing he’d dozed off. Out of the blue, a word had come upon his heart.

  He saw the word in his mind as if it were inscribed on a blackboard with white chalk, JERICHO.

  “Jericho,” he whispered, puzzled. Barnabas stirred at his feet.

  Lord, is this of You? Are you telling me something?

  He examined his heart, and realized he felt the peace he always required in order to know whether God was in a particular circumstance.

  Intrigued, he turned in his Bible to the Old Testament, to the sixth chapter of Joshua, and began to read:

  “Now Jericho was securely shut up . . .”

  Out of curiosity, Ray Gaskill opened the door of St. John’s on Sunday around noon, and gaped at what he saw.

  The shattered plaster had been hauled to either side of the nave and covered with tarps. The floor in the middle had been swept perfectly clean, the broken windows covered, and the rolling scaffolds parked neatly at the rear of the nave.

  The pulpit had come out from under its tarp and shone with a lustrous coat of lemon wax, as did two pews that were aligned to face the pulpit. Oil-fired heaters, hissing warmth, flanked the pews on either side.

  On a table before the altar, which was laid with an embroidered fair cloth and a silver chalice, paten, and candelabra, stood a vase displaying stems of gold leaves and red berries.

  Above the wooden cross, the bright autumn noon gave its light through the window where He stood, arms outstretched, waiting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dearly Beloved

  “Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God, to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.”

  He knew most of the service by heart, never liking to see a priest’s eyes glued to the prayer book instead of the congregation. He spoke the words today with unusually tender feeling.

  “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by His presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and His Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.

  “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity . . .”

  In the front row, Jessie played with the ruffle on her new dress, Poo gave the proceedings his absorbed attention, Dooley looked oddly proud and moved. Cynthia was beaming.

  “. . . therefore, marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.

  “Into this holy union, Pauline Barlowe and Bernard Leeper now come to be joined.”

  There were enough teeth showing in Omer Cunningham’s grin to play the Wedding March.

  “Pauline, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

  Pauline’s response was a fervent whisper. “I will!”

  Otis Bragg pulled a handkerchief from his plaid sport coat and blew his nose. Marion Fieldwalker dabbed at her eyes; Sam appeared personally pleased, as if the whole lot of Barlowes were, at the very least, first cousins.

  “Bernard, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”

  He saw Buck’s eyes mist with tears. Then Buck cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that could be heard to the ceiling joists.

  “I will!”

  “Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?”

  Dooley spontaneously stood, then sat again, as those assembled chorused in unison, “We will !”

  He was choking up, himself. He touched his ear, a signal to his wife to pray for him, and step on it.

  “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

  Dooley rose from the pew and came forward, white-faced. Though his heart hammered with anxiety at the responsibility he was about to bear, he felt powerfully certain that this was a good thing; his m
other would have someone to care for her, and for the first time ever, his brother and sister would have a real family.

  The wedding feast was laid in the basement fellowship hall of First Baptist, where a motley collection of portable generators helped create the welcome aromas of garlic, coffee, hot rolls, and other comestibles, lightly dressed with the scent of gasoline from the generators.

  The feast tables were covered with blue paper cloths, and decorated with boughs of red berries purloined from a stand of nandina behind the Sunday School. Votives glimmered on the tables, and along the top of the spinet by the kitchen door.

  “Here they come!” someone shouted.

  Laughing and excited, St. John’s choir, joined by a baritone and soprano from First Baptist, assembled breathlessly in the middle of the room.

  As the bride and groom entered, a cheer went up from all who had attended Stanley Harmon’s morning service and were thus invited to the feast; then followed the exultant voices of the choir.

  “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven

  to his feet thy tribute bring;

  ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,

  evermore his praises sing:

  Alleluia, alleluia!

  Praise the everlasting King!”

  Pauline Leeper put both hands over her face like an unbelieving schoolgirl, and felt the arm of her husband go around her shoulders. Then she heard the oohs and aahs of her children, who stood beside her. She thought she might never again see, or be blessed with, anything so wondrous.

  Following the blessing and subsequent hymn, Father Tim had a moment’s thought of Jeffrey Tolson and the earnest choir he had abandoned. His heart felt suddenly moved toward the man; he wondered where he might be, whether he’d escaped harm during the storm, and if he ever longed for his children. Father Tim watched with both sadness and delight as Jeffrey’s son made a beeline toward him with an Oreo cookie in each hand, eager to share one. He squatted and proffered the palm of his own hand, eager to receive it.