Jan Karon's Mitford Years

by Jan Karon

  “Come back when you can stay longer!” she shouted.

  He disappeared into the boxwood and raced to the car, slightly breathless.

  Four minutes.

  At Hill Crest, he roared through the entrance and up the hill as if pursued. He had rounds to make.

  He parked beneath a sycamore at the edge of the lane and cranked the front windows down so his dog could get a breeze. Then he went around to the trunk and took out the bucket of tools which also contained a dozen roses, and headed for the blackjack oak.

  Rain sparkled among the leaves and spangled the broad cushion of grass.

  He had read in Second Timothy this morning, believing, as he had since a boy, that St. Paul had somehow directed the letter to him as well as to the earlier Timothy.

  To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

  After years of delving the contents, he knew the epistle by heart.

  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

  He realized that each time he went to the letters, he possessed some looming apprehension of one sort or another to which this verse inevitably pointed.

  There was no doubt in his heart or mind; it was very clear that he wanted to help Henry. But the thought of risking anything at all was tough to swallow.

  He had stood at the window in his old room this morning and asked for the grace to let his fear go.

  He checked his watch, wondering where Cynthia and Dooley might be—probably gaining on Johnson City, maybe even bound for Knoxville.

  The roses had gone wild, waving their canes in the air like a choir of Pentecostals. He wouldn’t do anything serious, it was the wrong season. “Just a little off the sides,” he said, pulling on his pruning gloves.

  He would begin at the left-hand corner of the fence, working his way to his mother’s grave and then to his father’s urn. He would pay his respects at last.

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  Jessica Raney loped toward him in a straw hat, waving a manila envelope.

  “Look what I found!” She was slightly out of breath, and beaming. “I guess you think I live here.”

  He laughed. “Not yet, please.”

  “I was hopin’ I’d find you, I was just thrilled when I saw your car parked out there. Abracadabra!” She pulled a photograph from the envelope and handed it to him.

  His father. Standing in the foreground, talking to someone off-camera, and laughing. Behind him, and slightly out of focus, Peggy set a bowl on the picnic table as a woman with her back to the camera stood talking to someone wearing an apron.

  “See how your daddy’s hair photographed? Real silvery, almost like a platinum print. I thought th’ way he was more dressed up than everybody made a nice contrast, an’ look at th’ composition of th’ people behind him, I think that worked sort of well. That’s your Peggy who ran away. That’s Miz Floyd in th’ apron, her husband worked in our dairy. An’ I don’t know who that is with her back to the camera.”

  “My mother.” He remembered the dress. Light blue, with a pattern of pink hibiscus flowers, from Kennington’s.

  “Double bingo!” she said, elated. “It’s all yours! An’ guess what.”

  “I give up.”

  “Did anybody ever tell y’all your daddy’s last words?”

  He felt the beating of his heart. His mother had never made any reference to last words.

  “Remember I was at th’ hospital that day, an’ th’ nurse I went to take something to was your daddy’s nurse. I called her last night to say you were in Holly Springs, and she remembered what your daddy said before he died. She said you left to go back to school, and a little bit later she went in to make him comfortable. She said your daddy stared at her a long time and then he said…”

  A light perspiration broke onto his forehead. If he ever got out of Holly Springs alive and in his right mind, it would be a miracle.

  “…then he said, He was right. He was right.”

  He looked at the pruning gloves, at the wear on the fingertips, at the way the end of the right glove thumb allowed his own to poke through.

  “I thought you should know that,” she said, “in case nobody ever told you. People say stuff all th’ time before they die, and a whole lot of it never gets back to th’ family. When my grandmother died, th’ last thing she said was, They’re callin’ my number, it’s number eighty-six.”

  Tears streamed along her cheeks. “I loved my grandmother to pieces, she was so sweet and kind. I wasn’t with her at the end. I was goin’ th’ next day, but she passed in th’ night, th’ nurse was holdin’ her hand. She’s buried over by th’ dogwoods across th’ lane.”

  He removed a glove and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. Would this never end?

  He embraced her and patted her back, which somehow relieved the wrench in him, and stood away from her and saw the girl whose family owned the dairy with the silos visible from his back yard, the girl who sent him a card when his rabbits died.

  “You’re terrific,” he said. “You’re terrific.”

  “I brought th’ picture in case you were here. I think God wanted you to be here.”

  “Absolutely. No doubt.”

  “I’ve got to run, my Nellie’s in th’ car. We’re drivin’ to Oxford to see my aunt today, she’s th’ last of my mother’s side.”

  He had nothing to give her, no way to return the grace she had extended to him. “May I pray for you?” he asked.

  “I would be honored,” she said.

  He took her hands in his and asked God to continue his watch over her, and to bless her for blessing her childhood friend and neighbor, and gave thanks for the gift of their old friendship and her generosity, and the long life of her aunt, and she kissed him on the cheek and walked toward the lane where her car was parked, and turned around and waved and called out, “I think I still have a crush on you!,” and he lifted his hand and waved back, and she was gone.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Flags.

  Bunting.

  Traffic.

  The town looked like a postcard that Tyson’s could sell by the gross.

  “Happy Fourth of July,” he said to Amy. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for a barbecue somewhere?”

  “I always work on the Fourth,” she said, obviously proud of it. “But only ’til eleven.”

  “I’ll take three postcards with the cotton wagons, three with the gazebos, and what else do you have of the courthouse?”

  “We have a Fourth of July card, but they were fixin’ the clock that year, and the hands are missin’.”

  “C’est la vie. I’ll take a couple. Any handkerchiefs?”

  “No handkerchiefs in ages. How about a little pack of Kleenex to stick in your pocket?”

  He was through bawling—absolutely, completely done—but it might be handy for the glove compartment. “Barnabas and I are leaving in the morning; we wanted to say goodbye.”

  “I’ll miss y’all.” She came around the counter to scratch his dog behind the ears.

  “We’ll miss you, Amy. Thanks to you, I met Mrs. Lewis. When I stopped by this morning, she gave me a photograph of my parents.”

  “She did?”

  “It’s a great treasure. A wonderful gift.”

  “That is so nice of her. I know she has this really dark side, but she has a really bright side, too.”

  “Like the moon. And don’t we all?”

  “Did she sleep last night?”

  “Not a wink, she said.”

  “Did she have any breakfast?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. She was putting coffee grounds on her begonias.”

  “That’s great!” she said, clearly hopeful. “Will you ever come back?”

  “Definitely. And I’ll bring family next time. Thanks for your kindness; it means a lot. You’ve been one of the highlights of this trip.”

  She blushed. “What about your
paper? Don’t you need a paper this mornin’?”

  “Believe I’ll pass.” He would see his family in the morning, and because of that, he didn’t feel the need of anything, really. A small joy was stirring in him.

  “I’ll drop you a card,” he said. “What would you like it on—the cotton wagons, the gazebos, or the Fourth of July number?”

  “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “How about all three? Kind of spaced out, over a period of time. I love to get mail.”

  “Consider it done. How about writing back with all the scandal?”

  “Oh,” she said, laughing, “we never have any of that in Holly Springs.”

  At Booker’s, he found Red doing a window display—galvanized watering cans, galvanized tubs, galvanized troughs, galvanized buckets.

  “My galvanized window,” said Red.

  “We’re leaving early tomorrow, it was a pleasure to be at Booker’s again. I smoked my first cigarette, earned my first wages, heard my first off-color joke right here.”

  “Ought t’ put up a memorial plaque over th’ seed bins. Speakin’ of jokes, I got a priest joke for you if you wouldn’t take it wrong. I only tell clean, but I can’t say th’ same for some of th’ roughnecks we get in here.”

  “Fire away.”

  “This Irish priest is drivin’ through Miss’ippi and gets stopped around Holly Springs for speedin’. Th’ state trooper smells alcohol on his breath an’ sees an empty wine bottle on th’ floor of th’ car.

  “Trooper says, ‘Sir, you been drinkin’?’

  “Priest says, ‘Just water.’

  “Trooper says, ‘How come I smell wine?’

  “Priest looks down at th’ bottle, says, ‘I can’t believe it. He’s done it again!’”

  He laughed.

  “Hope that wadn’t too sacrilegious.”

  “Actually, there’s a very good sermon in that joke. I’ll make a note.”

  “You ought t’ come on home, it’s th’ goin’ thing t’ get back t’ your roots. My wife’s after me to sell th’ business an’ move to Kentucky, but I’m stayin’ put. I wadn’t more than six months old when my family pulled out of Louisville—no roots in that.”

  “I’ve had a good go at my roots this trip,” he said. “The kind of hospitality I grew up with is still alive and kicking, that’s for sure.”

  “You find anybody you were lookin’ for?”

  “I did. And some I wasn’t looking for.”

  Red let Barnabas sniff the back of his hand. “My groundhoggers were askin’ about you.”

  “Give those guys my best.”

  “Said they have somethin’ for you. When you pullin’ out?”

  “In the morning. Seven o’clock sharp.”

  “I’ll be in th’ stockroom. Knock on th’ back door; it’ll be here.”

  “I don’t suppose I could guess what it is?” Scary.

  “Don’t have a clue. But they been workin’ on it a good bit.”

  What could he say? “I’ll swing by.”

  He was headed for the door when he saw Will and threw up his hand.

  “How those taps doin’?”

  “You’re talking to Fred Astaire. Take it easy, Will, I’ll see you next trip.”

  He walked to Christ Church and followed the signs to the office, but couldn’t locate anyone. Blast. July Fourth. He kept forgetting. Hanging on the knob of what he presumed to be the rector’s office door, he found a needle-pointed message:

  SCOTLAND OR BUST

  A vacuum cleaner roared somewhere in the building. He tore a scrap of paper from the notepad on the desk outside the office, wrote a signed promissory note, and placed it under a paperweight. That would keep him honest; he’d put a check in the mail as soon as he got home.

  He went around to the Baptists, found the office, and pulled out his wallet.

  “I’d like to make a gift in my grandfather’s name,” he told the church secretary, who was his age and then some.

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” she said.

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Churnin’ ice cream. I just came in to make copies of ‘America the Beautiful,’ we’re havin’ a sing-along before th’ fireworks tonight.”

  “Will you take a credit card?”

  She held out her hand, grinning. “Baptists take money in any form, and aren’t ashamed to ask for it, either.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said, giving her the card. “I’m making a gift in memory of my grandfather, who preached here for many years.”

  “Who was your grandfather?”

  “Yancey Howard.”

  “Yancey Howard? Great day!”

  “You knew him?”

  “He baptized me in the creek at Walnut Grove, along with all my brothers and sisters. We loved him to death.”

  “My guess is, he loved you back.”

  “How much do you want to give? And how would you like us to designate it?”

  He told her the amount and thought for a moment. “Ask your pastor to use it for those who’re up against it.”

  “For…those…who…are…up…against…it,” she said, writing it down. “Are you Miz Madelaine’s boy?”

  Boy. That was worth the ten-hour drive right there. “I am.”

  “I remember she had our Sunday School class to your house one time on a field trip. Your mother gave the lesson; it was about how God looks on his children as an orchard or a garden—how he has to prune us, sometimes, which really, really hurts, but that’s what produces more flowers and more fruit. I never forgot that lesson about pruning.”

  He signed the card slip. “Did we know each other then?”

  “I hate to say this.”

  “Say it,” he said.

  “I don’t remember you at all.”

  That put a grin on his face all the way to Frank’s parking lot.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, son.” Maybe not his flesh-and-blood son, but his gut-and-heart-and-spleen son. “Where are you?”

  “I-40 west out of Knoxville.”

  “You’re making good time.”

  “Great time.”

  “Don’t be usin’ your lead foot on this trip.”

  “No way.”

  “Call me when you stop.” He wasn’t a fan of jabbering on a phone to someone who was driving.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Love you both,” he said.

  What had he heard in Dooley’s voice? Relief? A good night’s sleep? Whatever it was, he liked the sound of it.

  He was right. He was right.

  Did that mean what he wanted it to mean?

  Did it mean he’d been given the grace to speak of God’s love in a way his father could hear and believe? How could those particular words have meant anything else?

  His father’s soul delivered unto God. He mused on this miraculous possibility. Then again, how could he ever know the true meaning of that short but emphatic confession? Maybe it meant Timothy was right, maybe it meant Christ was right, or who knows, maybe it meant the doctor was right.

  It would be revealed in heaven, of course, but he wanted to know now, wanted to believe his father’s spirit was, as George Macdonald said, “in continuous touch with God.”

  He’d worked for decades to set up certain beliefs and rationales about his early years, shaping and molding the clay, as it were, until its form was, at least, tolerable. Perhaps what he’d heard from Jessica suggested more shaping and molding to be done. He couldn’t say; time would tell.

  Jim Houck was waiting in the front booth.

  “How’s it goin’?” asked Jim.

  “Great,” he said, sliding into the booth. “I’m headed out first thing tomorrow.” He filled a mug with coffee from the beat-up carafe. “How about you?”

  “Settled another piece of Daddy’s dust yesterday.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “He left a good bit for me to settle if I want t
o keep livin’ here. Seems like once I got over that big hump with you, it’s easier goin’. How’s comin’ back been for you?”

  He didn’t have a pat answer; not yet, anyway. “To say the least, it’s given me a new perspective. I’ve got a lot of sorting out to do. Think you’ll stick here?”

  “Have to stick somewhere. My old man left me a tract of land east of town, about twenty-five acres. Might build me a house, maybe set a trailer on it.”

  “I’d like to keep in touch,” he said.

  Jim reached in his jacket pocket and drew out a business card. “Call my cell phone anytime.”

  He looked at the card. “You sell Fords.”

  “Try to.”

  “Here’s my home number,” he said, pushing his own card across the table. “You’re more likely to reach me there most days. I want to say again how much I appreciate knowing the truth.”

  “Felt better after tellin’ it. It’s been like tryin’ to swallow somethin’ that won’t go down.”

  “Same here. One stone, two birds. I’ll be praying for you, Jim.”

  “I can use it. Did I mention my old man went by th’ hospital t’ see your dad?”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Couldn’t remember if I did. I was pretty torn up, pretty nervous that day in church.”

  The doctor had felt reasonably positive about his patient’s survival, though the recent stroke had been a setback. They might have to take him up to Memphis, but overall, the prospects for a certain level of recovery weren’t bad.

  Holding his father’s hand, he’d delivered a passionate homily which he believed would change Matthew Kavanagh’s heart for eternity. Though his father had turned his head away, he gripped his son’s hand for a long time. No further words were spoken.

  He waited, praying silently, then kissed his father on the forehead and left for Sewanee. He remembered the drive back as an agony of grief and self-doubt, and was devastated when the call came from his mother. Walking into his rented room near the seminary campus, he heard the phone ringing, and knew instinctively who it was, and why.

  “They said your dad was in bad shape, so my ol’ man went by to say he was sorry. Said it was layin’ on him so heavy, he had to do it to get a minute’s peace. Didn’t want to, but had to. Said he told your daddy he still thought he was a s.o.b. th’ way he handled his cotton dealin’s, but he was sorry he put him an’ his family through th’ grinder. My old man was glad he went, said your dad passed that same day.”