by Jan Karon
“My friend Alicia invited me to visit her aunt in Martha’s Vineyard, but we’re going to take a family trip out West.”
He noted that Lace pronounced aunt like the Virginians, and not like Mitfordians, who comfortably used what sounded like ant and even aint.
“I love the West!” Cynthia said. “Where?”
“Hoppy’s great-grandfather had a ranch in Montana, so we’re going there, then we’re going to explore the Oregon Trail.” Lace smiled suddenly.
Father Tim thought her smile a miracle of healing; in the early years, her countenance had reflected only anger and the weight of a terrible sadness. Further, he thought her poise was nothing to be taken lightly. Though a year younger than Dooley, she seemed wiser, more mature, more settled into her skin.
“Sounds like good medicine for my doctor,” said Father Tim. In all the years he’d known the earnest practitioner, Hoppy had taken only two vacations, one of them his honeymoon.
“Olivia bought him cowboy boots.”
“Aha!”
“But don’t tell,” said Lace. “It’s a secret.”
“Never!”
Though the conversation flowed smoothly enough, the tension in the room was palpable; he felt it somewhere around the region of his jaws, as if he’d clenched his teeth since their visitor arrived. There was no mistaking Lace’s cool indifference toward Dooley, and Dooley’s wall of defense against her.
Father Tim remembered the day Dooley had stolen Lace’s old hat and she’d responded by punching him so hard in the ribs that Dooley thought a few of them broken. Now, that was communicating!
Cynthia passed the small sandwiches a second time. Father Tim took one, Lace declined. Dooley took two, one in each hand, then, realizing his social blunder, tried to return one to the plate, but Cynthia had passed it out of reach. He popped an entire sandwich into his mouth and sat red-faced and chewing, holding the other as if it were a hot potato.
Something must be done! thought Father Tim. He shot from his chair and addressed the assembly.
“Why don’t we all go for a ride in my car? Dooley, you can drive!” There! That ought to do it. Dooley at the wheel of the red Mustang, the top down, the four of them without a care….
“A ride?” queried his wife, refilling their glasses. “Whatever for?”
He sat as quickly as he’d stood.
“Didn’t go too well, did it?” Cynthia asked.
They lay in bed, holding hands.
“Depends on what we were expecting.”
“We were expecting them to be friends, of course, just as they used to be.”
“He told me she snubbed a phone call he made to her at school.”
“Yes,” she said, “but it’s more than that. Because of their backgrounds, they’re both terrified of feeling their feelings. Dooley can take Jenny to a movie and it doesn’t mean a great deal to him, but there’s something so…intense, so volatile in his feelings toward Lace that he simply tries to shut his feelings down.”
“Deep stuff.”
“Some of the stuff you dealt with when courting me.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely!”
“What happened?” he asked, smiling in the dark. “How did we end up in the same bed?”
She patted his hand. “Water wears away stone.”
He yawned hugely. “Whatever that means,” he said.
He sat in a straight-back chair in a small, empty room with a dirt floor. It was the same cool, hard-packed floor of his grandmother’s potato cellar, but there were windows through which light streamed, casting patterns at his feet.
He heard a door opening behind him; children filed into the room on either side of his chair. They came in silently, almost reverently, and settled themselves at his feet as if waiting for him to speak, to tell them a story or solve some great riddle; there were dozens of children, many more than a small room could possibly hold, but their silence made them seem fewer. The light from the open doorway fell upon their hair and illumined their faces as they looked at him, searching for something he had no ability to name or to deliver. He tried to speak, but couldn’t open his mouth; he tried but could not speak—
“What is it, dearest?”
Her hand on his shoulder was the most reassuring touch he’d ever known, save that of his mother. “I keep falling asleep and waking again. Did I disturb you?”
“You were dreaming,” she said. “I’ve been awake, too. It’s the change that’s coming.”
It’s already with us, he thought. We have disrupted something precious, something fragile. Yet they were doing what they believed God wanted….
“Come,” he said, taking her into his arms. They lay without talking as he stroked her cheek.
“I’m going with you to New York,” he said at last.
“You don’t have to, it’s all right.”
“No, we’re going together.” To arrive in Tennessee in early June and leave the middle of July didn’t seem the best thing, but he was going with his wife, period. As for his lifelong fear of flying, he’d put his head down and do it, he’d reckon with it.
She kissed him tenderly. “I’ll be proud to show off my husband.”
He turned his head on the pillow and looked out the window to the leaves of the maple tree gleaming in the moonlight.
“Whitecap didn’t seem so hard.”
“We were lighthearted about going to Whitecap,” she murmured.
“The freedom of an island…”
“The wind in our hair…”
“Gulls wheeling above us…”
“The smell of salt air!” He completed their old liturgy. Whitecap had seemed inviting and open; what lay ahead now seemed closed, though he didn’t know why.
“This will be our last foray,” he said.
“Thank you, Timothy. We’re no spring chickens.”
Ah, yes. He would be sixty-nine in less than a month, looking square into the maw of The Big Seven-oh. But age had nothing, less than nothing to do with serving God. There were countless older saints who, faithful to the end, had perished on the mission field. And there were mission fields at home, right in his own backyard—hadn’t he always been a proponent of the local mission field? After Tennessee, he would get down to it once and for all. He would find his niche and make his mark for God at home, in Mitford. What with two days at the Children’s Hospital in Wesley, a couple of days with Scott Murphy at Hope House, Wednesdays with Homeless Hobbes’s soup kitchen, and a pulpit here and there, he’d have more than a full plate.
“Let me pray for us,” he said, smoothing her hair from her forehead. The faintest scent of wisteria rose from her flesh, evanescent but consoling. He’d be able to locate his wife anywhere, even blindfolded in a crowded air terminal; her smell had become the smell of home to him, of peace and certainty.
“Lord,” he said, “to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid. We can hide nothing from You, yet something is hidden from us. Speak to us again, Father, help us discern Your direction for our lives. Are we on the path you’ve set for us? Have we missed the mark?”
They lay still then, hearing the ticking of the clock, and Barnabas snoring on the hall landing.
Buck Leeper dropped by the following morning on his way to the construction site in Holding. He stood at the front door holding a to-go cup of coffee, looking exhausted and apologetic.
“I figured you’d be up.”
“Since five-thirty,” said Father Tim. “What is it, my friend?”
“Could we sit out here and talk?”
They thumped onto the top step of the front porch.
“I had a big runaround yesterday, I thought I’d found Kenny.
“Somebody on my job said they’d seen a bunch of paintings on velvet up around Elizabethtown, said they were propped against a van in an empty lot, an’ signed Kenny Barlowe.”
Though the mission had clearly failed, a bolt of adrenaline surged through Father
Tim.
Buck swigged the coffee. “I started to call you, but there was no time, I just jumped in th’ truck an’ went for it. I drove up there an’ found th’ van—my heart was pumpin’ like a jackhammer, and then this kid came out, probably around Sammy’s age. It was all I could do to keep from bustin’ out cryin’.”
“But?”
“But th’ boy’s name was Wayne, his daddy’s name was Kenny Barlow, no e. I met his daddy, a pretty decent guy down on his luck. I bought a painting of a deer head, it’s rolled up behind th’ seat in th’ truck.”
“Well done.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to quit on this.”
Father Tim took a deep breath. Quit. That’s what he was about to do, as well. But it would do no good to quit, no good at all.
“Let’s don’t quit,” he said. “Let’s don’t quit.”
Buck set the cup on the step between his feet.
“A few days ago I asked Pauline to tell me everything she could remember about the boys, like if they had any birthmarks, an’ th’ color of their eyes.”
“Good thinking.”
“She couldn’t remember th’ color of their eyes.”
There was a long silence between them.
“When she realized she couldn’t remember the color…” Buck hunched over, his head in his hands. “It was the alcohol, of course. All those years…”
“Those years are behind you.”
“Yeah, they are, thank God.” Buck looked at him. “But you pay the consequences.”
“True. But now God is in the consequences with you. Otherwise, you’re in them alone, desperately alone.”
Buck stood up. “Forgive me for makin’ a rough start to your day, Father. Findin’ a needle in a haystack ain’t ever been my long suit.”
The men walked to the truck together.
“I saw something on TV last night,” said Father Tim. “It happened right after the Second World War when nobody had any money. A sewing machine company held a contest…whoever found the needle hidden in a haystack would win a brand-new sewing machine. There were people swarming all over that haystack, hay was flying everywhere. And guess what?”
“What?”
“The chances were one in a million, but somebody found the needle.”
Buck laughed his water-boiling-in-a-kettle laugh. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah!” said Father Tim, beaming.
Dear Timothy:
We’re elated that you and Cynthia will be arriving only a few days hence. Have done as you asked and scraped up a rug. It appears that dogs have chewed one end of it, but you can pop that end under a piece of furniture. Be it ever so humble, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with your quonset hut (my lodge in the Canadian wilds wasn’t half so commodious). I hope you don’t mind that I mounted my moose head on your living room wall, as my own quarters (being humbler still) had no room for it. I’m living four miles away, and trust you’ll let me visit the old thing when the mood strikes? Jack Farrier, a Primitive Baptist who knows these coves and firths like the back of his hand, will be taking you around on Monday following, to visit your new parish. Some areas don’t have bridges, you’ll be driving through creek beds, so bring your waterproofs! Spaghetti supper on arrival, courtesy of yours truly. Be assured, Timothy, that God is working in Jessup, Tennessee!
In His service, Fr Harry
P.S. Could you possibly bring mosquito netting? Enough for two Kavanaghs and one Roland ought to do the trick, Richard and Trudy are bringing their own.
He decided he wouldn’t bother his wife with this latest communication from the mission field.
He opened the refrigerator and spied his lunch of freshly made chicken salad with hard-cooked eggs and celery, his favorite combination—no nuts and grapes for him, thank you. He peeled back the Saran Wrap and nabbed a carrot stick and shut the door—lunch would wait ’til he returned from Meadowgate—he wasn’t as ravenously hungry since he cut back on his insulin a few days ago. If his sugar started acting up, he’d do the ten extra units again. Which reminded him—he needed to stop at the drugstore and pick up a glucometer; it had been on his list for days. And his jogging…he needed to get back to it.
He was due in five minutes to meet Dooley and follow the Wrangler to Meadowgate Farm. The boy could have driven out alone, he was nearly twenty years old, for heaven’s sake, but he wanted to go with him as he’d done all those years ago when he left Dooley at Meadowgate and traveled to Ireland to meet Walter and Katherine.
They found Hal and his associate, Blake Eddistoe, in emergency surgery with a border collie. After a visit on the porch with Marge and seven-year-old Rebecca Jane, he and Dooley walked to the creek, to the very place they’d said goodbye before. Dooley had been only eleven then; he remembered sitting with him on the creek bank and talking, his heart heavy. Was it so different now?
“Well, son…,” he said.
“I’ll maybe write you or something.”
“Would you? We’ll write you back. And we’ll call, of course. I believe it will be a good summer for both of us.”
They sat on a large, smooth stone embedded in the creek bank. Dooley picked up a stick and slapped the water, precisely as Father Tim remembered him doing years ago.
“How will you get on with Blake?” There had been more than a clash or two with Hal’s associate; while Dooley veered toward a more natural practice of veterinary medicine, Blake was staunchly committed to traditional treatments.
“I’ll do my thing, he’ll do his.”
“Seems fair enough.”
“He needs to keep his nose out of what I do, that’s all.”
“Still fair enough. But it might be good to swap ideas along the way.”
Hal would keep the two in line; he was well aware of the friction between them. As Hal’s own medical theories were drawn from tradition, he often sided with Blake, but Dooley’s fresh perspectives intrigued the seasoned vet, and he gave the boy plenty of rein.
Dooley slapped the water with the stick. “What do you think about Sammy and Kenny?”
He would not, could not tell Dooley what he thought. He thought that finding them may be a closed chapter. “I don’t know. Buck and I will do everything we can. Just because I’m going away doesn’t mean I won’t think about it, pray about it, and try to come up with something.”
Dooley gazed at the water. “What can I do?”
Father Tim sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.” Sammy and Kenny might be two grains of sand on a beach that stretched to the horizon.
Dooley raised his head and looked at Father Tim. “I’m goin’ to try and come up with something,” he said with finality.
“Tim!”
Hal Owen waved from the front door of his clinic. “Tim! Before you go…”
“Yes?”
Hal walked quickly toward Father Tim. “Sorry we didn’t get to visit.”
“How’s the collie?”
“He’ll make it. He was torn up pretty badly by some dogs across the creek, but he’ll be fine. Listen…something to think about…”
He didn’t need another thing to think about.
“Marge and I would like to go to France next year and take Rebecca Jane. We’d leave sometime after Christmas.” Hal removed his glasses and stuck them in the pocket of his blood-stained surgical smock. “We’ve been invited to run the practice of a college chum for a year while they take a similar post in Italy. We were talking last night—we wondered if you and Cynthia might care to farm-sit?”
Farm-sit. He’d never sat a farm.
“You’d be fifteen minutes from Mitford in your Mustang, twenty-five if you use the pickup. Might be interesting. I know how Cynthia likes to sketch out here. Joyce Havner comes every Monday and Friday to clean house, there are two churches right down the road…”
“Aha.”
“Dooley would be here for the summer, of course, and Blake would be around full-time to manage the practice. There wouldn
’t be any farmwork involved. Lewis would do the bush hogging, Sam Rayner the milking, Bo Davis the odd jobs…business as usual. If the notion strikes, you might take a few eggs out of the nests every morning.”
“Aha!” he said again; his mind was Jell-O.
“Plus, Meadowgate would be a great place to work on those essays you mentioned!”
“I don’t know, I’d have to…”
“Pretty soft job, all things considered.”
“Right. Well…”
“No need to make a decision now. It’s just…something to think about.” Hal slapped him heartily on the shoulder and gave him a hug.
“Take care, old friend. The Lord be with you.”
“And also with you,” said Father Tim, hugging back.
Though time was short, he took the long way home.
He wanted to think. He’d been in a kind of funk the last few days; a gray fog seemed present in his brain.
It came to him that he was terribly thirsty, as if something in his very soul had been deprived for a long time….
Why wasn’t he taking his wife on a cruise instead of hauling her to Tennessee? He envisioned a ship’s passengers lined up in deck chairs, broiling like chops. No. No way. He could never do it. He and Cynthia did little to amuse themselves because there was so much he didn’t like—he didn’t like flying, he didn’t like the thought of lining up in deck chairs, he didn’t like Cynthia’s occasional enthusiasm to see Spain or France or even return to Maine, the scene of their honeymoon. What had she gotten herself into? A celebrated author tied to a man as dull as dishwater and entirely self-serving.
In truth, he was too pathetic even to play golf. Didn’t retired clergy have a fondness for golf? He thought so; he seemed to recall he’d heard a lot of golf talk around diocesan meetings, about how terrific it was to keep the mind alert, the body strong. Look at Stuart Cullen, for example. A golfer, and fit as any boy. Yet, in the end…
“Throw me in the briar patch,” he muttered aloud. “Anything but golf!”
He mopped his brow with his handkerchief and cranked the air conditioner a notch higher.