by Jan Karon
“Correct. Amazing.”
“I was at the hospital that day, I’d gone in to take a birthday card to Ellie Johnson, one of the nurses, she was so good-hearted—and they were all sayin’ you’d left to go back to school because the doctor thought your daddy would be all right, and then he died right after that.”
“Yes.”
She turned the photo around. “Ta-dahhhh!”
Was that him? Or a complete stranger? It was him, all right. He was grinning, as if he knew something no one else knew. All that showed was his head, which was fully covered by hair. Overall, a pretty nice-looking guy. Why had he always thought he was ugly as a mud fence?
“Margaret Nelson took it with my camera so I could have a picture with th’ Holly High track team, then I took hers. That’s me way over on th’ left,” she said. “Th’ one with th’ stringy hair and th’ horse face.”
“That’s no horse face. Why would you say that?”
“Mama always said I had a horse face.”
He felt a stab of something like anger. “Jessica, we’re in our eighth decade. We must stop listening to voices from the past—and we must stop immediately. What do you say?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “You are so right, Timmy. You are so right. I just knew it would be great to see you again, you always had so much common sense.”
“I’m afraid it’s my wife who has the common sense in our family.”
“I’m glad to know you’re married; I always wondered. I never married. Are you happy?”
“I am. God’s grace has been boundless in my life.”
“It’s been hard to keep up with you, since you never came home after your mama died and you settled everything. I sure am sorry I couldn’t nurse her when she was sick, but I was nursin’ Mr. Houck full-time.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Everything worked out. By the way, thanks for the card you sent when my rabbits died, it meant a great deal.”
“Oh, gosh, I sent you a card?”
“You did.”
“Isn’t it funny, th’ different things people remember?”
She shuffled through the large photos and chose one; he noticed the color rising in her cheeks as if she were blushing. “I didn’t know if you’d want to see this. I took it that night at th’ Peabody, I hope it’s all right to bring it.”
“I’d like to see anything you have.”
He and Peggy Cramer stood in front of the duck fountain at the Peabody Hotel, holding hands and dressed to kill. Peggy wore a strapless gown with a gardenia corsage pinned to the wrist of an elbow-length white glove, and held aloft in her other hand, as if it were some rare prize, the pack of Lucky Strikes he’d bought her from the tray of the cigarette girl. He wore a white dress shirt with French cuffs, navy trousers, bow tie, and a white jacket with the two-carat engagement ring in the breast pocket.
He felt color suffuse his own face. Peggy was looking at him like he hung the moon; he was looking at her—he remembered the torrent of his feelings even now—with a mixture of gut-wrenching trepidation and the full menu of 1 John 2:16. It was his first year in seminary.
“Back then,” she said, “it seemed like people could hardly get engaged without runnin’ up to Memphis; we just swarmed up there like house flies.”
“Diamond rings burning holes in our pockets,” he said.
“Doin’ th’ foxtrot an’ th’ Memphis Shuffle. About to faint ’cause we’d nearly starved ourselves to death to get in our dresses.”
“Smelling up the place with aftershave.”
“An’ ‘Evenin’ in Paris,’” she said. “Don’t forget ‘Evenin’ in Paris.’”
He laughed. “Who could forget ‘Evening in Paris’?”
“I was sorry things didn’t work out,” said Jessica.
He handed her the photograph. “Don’t be.”
It was th’ same night Harold Wilson and I got engaged.”
“Should I be sorry things didn’t work out?”
“No,” she said, laughing. “Definitely not. Mama an’ Daddy were scared to death I’d be an old maid, so when Harold asked me, I said yes. Oh, gosh, then two weeks later, I told him I couldn’t go through with it, but not to take it personally. To tell th’ truth, I think he was awful relieved. He married Beth Snyder and has a whole gang of kids an’ grandkids.”
A light breeze moved in the branches above them; shadows trembled in their laps.
“I was thinkin’,” she said, “as I went through my pictures that th’ whole Holly Springs crowd that night had been off to college an’ had jobs an’ all, an’ they still hadn’t gotten engaged or married. It seemed like we were, I don’t know, th’ last of th’ breed or somethin’.”
Deep down, he’d wanted to remain one of that breed.
“Remember how Patty Franklin turned Tommy down flat, so Tommy was roamin’ around tryin’ to make out with everybody else’s girlfriend?”
“That was Tommy, all right.” He’d been wounded by the fact that Tommy never contacted him after he disappeared from Holly Springs. Tommy had simply vanished, and all he could learn was that Tommy had broken up with his fiancée and threatened to join the Marines. For a long time, he’d been angry that he’d mixed his blood with someone who chose to do his own thing without giving a rip for how others felt about it. “Any idea where he is now?”
“Not th’ faintest. Gosh, I hadn’t thought about Tommy in years. I remember he wore wax lips that night an’ put a whoopee cushion in Patty’s chair. But he was a great dancer, an’ so popular with everybody. Course, he got awful bad to drink, did you know that?”
“I knew he was drinking pretty heavily back then, but so were a lot of other people.”
“Maybe it was because he couldn’t find a good job after college. Course, even his mama was an alcoholic, not to mention his daddy. I never saw Miz Noles but maybe once or twice, they say she hardly ever left th’ house. Anyway, she passed a long time ago, I can’t remember exactly when, an’ his little sister married th’ brother of her college roommate an’ moved to Cincinnati.”
“His father?”
“Died about fifteen years ago. I went to th’ funeral out of respect because he was my history teacher an’ I always liked him, but Tommy didn’t come.”
“Tommy used to say, ‘Die young and make a good-lookin’ corpse.’ I hope that’s not the answer to his whereabouts. Otherwise, people don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.”
“You did,” she said.
“So what else have you got there? This is the most entertainment I’ve had since crossing the state line.”
She sorted through the photographs and handed him one.
Louis and Ol’ Damn Mule! He had an impulse to kiss the fading image. Louis in his overalls, wearing his primordial felt hat, grinning, and showing the gold tooth which was his most prized possession after Ol’ Damn Mule and his Remington pump.
He shook his head with wonder. There was no way he could keep his eyes dry.
“You can have that. I took it myself.”
“This is a very powerful portrait,” he said. “You’re another Eudora Welty.”
“Thank you, that’s a huge compliment. I love Miss Welty’s pictures, I guess I understand her pictures better than her books. Did you ever read her?”
“Not in years.”
“I’m fixin’ to read her again. I had a professor who said that under all those cotton dresses with a smocked bodice, Miss Welty was dancin’ naked to a piped tune. I hope you don’t mind my sayin’ that. If Miss Welty could come back as anything she wanted to, I think she would be a unicorn—livin’ on th’ old Trace.”
“Do you have the negative? I won’t take it if…”
“Oh, mercy, I have boxes and boxes of negatives. I was just wild with a camera, I even made a darkroom in my closet so Daddy wouldn’t have to foot the bill at the drugstore. Here’s that family who lived on your farm.”
Louis and Sally. And Rufe and Washington and Lincoln and Rosi
e. In the wagon, posing as if in a studio. Solemn, respectful of the camera. Sally seated on a bench with her husband. The light soft on their faces, on their innocence, their wonder.
He leaned his head against the tree and closed his eyes.
Jessica was quiet. The temperature was rising.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’m back.”
She smiled and shuffled through the photographs. “I thought I might have one of your other Peggy. But I guess I don’t. I know you thought th’ world of her. Do you remember all those years ago when you an’ your mama an’ daddy came to our house for a covered-dish? It was before th’ war was over. Oh, gosh, I know exactly when it was, it was the day we got th’ news that Glenn Miller’s plane went down, my mother was just devastated, she loved Glenn Miller, we had all his records. Anyway, I was ten, which would make you nine. So many people showed up, we must have invited th’ whole county. Your mama brought Peggy to help out, and we ate at a long table under the cherry trees.”
He hated that he didn’t remember.
“I thought your Peggy was nice, and really pretty, too. I could swear on th’ Bible I took her picture with my Kodak, or maybe then it would have been my Brownie. Anyway, Daddy nearly had a fit that I wasted money takin’ pictures of colored people, it cost so much for film and developin’ and nobody had two nickels to rub together durin’ th’ war.”
He dug into his pants pocket. He was wearing out his handkerchiefs, and this was only his second day in town.
“I’m sorry this is makin’ you sad. Should I show you any more?”
“I want to see everything. It’s just that it’s hard…to come home.”
“I never left, so I don’t know. I wanted to leave, but I was too scared.”
They looked out to the stones, silent for a time.
“Let me show you some pictures.” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to the face of his son.
“My son, Dooley. Adopted at the age of twenty-one.”
“He is so handsome! I dearly love freckles.”
“Sophomore at the University of Georgia, he’s going to be a vet. And this is Mrs. Kavanagh.” He liked saying that.
“Oh, my gosh, she’s beautiful. Just beautiful.”
“Yes. She is. Her name is Cynthia.”
“I’m so glad you have each other, Timmy. I had a crush on you, did you ever know that?”
“I had no idea. And I can’t imagine why.”
“You were different. Really different. Do you remember reciting Wordsworth to me one day? You were twelve, I was thirteen.”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember. I’m sure girls didn’t want to hear Wordsworth, but I never really knew what girls wanted to hear.”
“It was the Lucy poems. You had the most beautiful voice I ever heard, th’ words just rolled out—not like you were reciting, but like you were livin’ in those poems. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly.”
“Thank you. You’re kind.”
“I remember you always wanted a brother, and I always wanted a sister.” She was pensive for a moment. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I think th’ whole point of life is to know God, and be able to accept the way things turn out.”
“I agree absolutely. And you, Jessica? Why didn’t you marry?”
“I never had th’ courage.”
“It does take courage, I’ll grant you that.”
“Sometimes I hate it because I let myself miss so much in life. Too scared to do this, too scared to do that. But I really did give my nursin’ everything I had. I loved my patients better than anything in the world. I saw so much sufferin’, and I really feel like I helped a little.”
“I believe that helping even a little can be enough,” he said. “Yet I’m sure you helped much. Very much.”
“Somewhere at home I have a picture of your track team taken by a real photographer. You were such a big track star at Holly High, you just ran like th’ wind. I even remember your number.”
“No way,” he said.
“Seven”
“You’re amazing.”
“I’ll look for th’ picture—you were sixteen, I was seventeen.”
“Why don’t we head off to Phillips, we’ll beat the crowd? My bones can’t endure this hard ground another minute.” Barnabas stood and shook himself, eager to move on.
“Oh, mercy,” said Jessica, “it’ll take a crane to get me up from here.”
He stood and gave her a hand up, and she brushed herself off and dug into her purse and pulled out a camera and looked at him, beaming.
“Would you mind if I take your picture?” she said.
EIGHT
She was still beautiful.
“Timothy.” She held out her hand and he took it. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for having me.” The palm of her hand was cool; she wore a suit the color of the blue parlor walls.
“I didn’t know whether you’d come.”
“I wasn’t so sure about it myself.” He’d changed pants in the stockroom at Booker’s, put on his linen sport coat, and left Barnabas with Red.
“Please,” she said. “Let’s sit in the window.”
The room wasn’t greatly changed from his visits many years ago, though the overall spirit of it was brighter. They sat in high-backed velvet chairs in the bay window, at a table furnished with a silver tea service and a vase of roses. Three petals had fallen onto the white cloth; a small cake, ornamented with a curl of shaved chocolate, was displayed on a crystal stand.
“After I wrote the note, I was sorry to have used chocolate as a bribe.” She smiled a little and took up the cake knife.
“And I’m sorry to confess that diabetes is my thorn. I must plead a very small portion.”
She deftly laid his thin slice on a plate and cut another for herself. “Betsy, the one who let you in—this is her famous dark chocolate mousse cake with raspberry-lemon filling. The chocolate is what food writers call ‘intense.’ I scarcely ever allow it in the house except for special guests.” She poured an amber-colored tea into his cup. “And you are a very special guest.”
Something pounded in his skull like hoof beats, once, twice, three times. This had happened to him in the pulpit on occasion, while wrestling with an especially daunting topic. He shouldn’t have done this.
“Lemon? Sugar? Cream?”
“I take it as it comes from the pot, thanks. The house looks wonderful.”
“I did all the things Mama wanted to do but couldn’t, with Daddy being sick all those years.” She filled her own cup. “I drove out to Whitefield a few weeks ago and saw the work that’s going on. Whitefield will again be a star in our crown. Have you seen it?”
“I have. And couldn’t like it better.”
As she lifted her cup, her teaspoon clattered to the table. “Excuse me! Oh, my goodness.”
She appeared to be trembling a little. “It’s just that I’m…so nervous.”
He managed a smile. “Join the crowd.”
“I’ve waited all these years to apologize to you, and I’m not terribly good at small talk.”
“Please don’t stand on ceremony with me.”
“Thank you. So if you don’t mind, I think I should just…” She seemed uncertain.
“Get it over with?”
“Yes.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “Before you came, I asked that God’s will be done.”
“That’s the prayer that never fails.”
“I hardly know where to begin.”
He couldn’t be any help there. He took a sip of tea—strong, fragrant, just the ticket.
“Before I go on, I’d like you to know…that I cared for you. I know you can’t believe it”—she caught her breath—“but it’s true.”
He shouldn’t have done this…
She sat on the garden bench with her legs crossed, smoking. The Pall Mall bore a crimson band of lipstick which he knew to be Cherries
in the Snow.
He liked seeing his great-grandmother’s ring on her finger, it made him feel more confident about the future. Several weeks before the night at the Peabody, on a break from his first year in seminary, Nanny had offered him her mother’s platinum two-carat engagement ring.
‘Do you love her?’ she had asked.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He had felt miserable saying it, because he wasn’t absolutely certain.
‘Her father is a very rich man. I’m sure her family will approve of Mother’s lovely old ring.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this, Nanny?’
‘Of course I’m sure. And heaven forbid, if things don’t work out, she’ll give it back to you and no harm done.’
She had handed him the ring in its original box from the Jackson jeweler, saying, ‘Be careful, dear child, but not afraid.’ He hadn’t known, and didn’t ask, why she had said that.
Peggy gave him a chilling look. ‘Why are you goin’ to that ol’ seminary, anyway?’
‘Because.’
‘Because why?’
He had never understood it himself, not completely. ‘Because I have to.’
‘Why do you have to?’
Because he wanted to do something for God for a change, not for himself.
Because he knew he’d never make it as a lawyer.
Because loving poetry and literature and being pretty good at track and excelling academically wouldn’t cut it as a profession.
Because he believed it might please his father, and even reveal to Matthew Kavanagh some truth that would free him from the cold anguish he suffered and caused others to suffer.
And finally, because nothing else promised the ineffable mystery and joy that he hoped, that he prayed, would be his if he placed himself in God’s service.
‘I don’t know.’ He felt miserable. ‘I just have to.’ She wanted answers, he wanted answers. There were no answers.
She was jiggling her right foot, something she did when she was sour and impatient. ‘Daddy says the cotton business is not dead or dyin’, there’s still plenty of money to make in th’ cotton business if you know what you’re doin’. Besides, Daddy is diversifyin’, which is what all smart people learn to do in hard times.’