by Jan Karon
His eyes searched the small room for his wife and he remembered she’d left again, to sign papers. Had he told her how great she looked in red?
“Okay, sweetie.”
This was definitely a nurse he hadn’t seen before. She was unplugging, unhooking, very busy. He rather hated to get unplugged; sitting here had been blithe and pleasant, very blithe.
“You have family?” the nurse asked.
“Oh, yes. My wife. My son. My dog.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, yes.”
“What do they do?”
What do they do? “Let’s see. One is a retired railroad conductor; he had the northbound run on the City of New Orleans.” He imagined the train racing along the track, people waving.
“I went on that train when I was little,” she said. “My grandmother took me to New Orleans to see my aunt. She had fourteen cats.”
“One is a Vietnam vet and owns his own car service. And one is retired from school sanitation.”
“Um-hmmm,” said the nurse.
“There’s one who sells cars, I can’t remember his name right now. He’s trying to figure out where he fits in.”
“A perfect description of my husband, bless ’is heart.”
“And T, he can do it all, you name it—plumbing, electrical, dig for dinosaurs.”
“Wow,” said the nurse. Off came the IV bandages, hair and all.
“And there’s Ray, of course.” He wanted to complete the list; he was worn out. “He’s cooked for presidents, movie stars, tycoons, you name it. You should taste his catfish.”
“Yum, love catfish. Hush puppies, coleslaw, th’ works.”
“Billy. Billy. Willie runs a produce stand at the side of the road. His grandmother left him her farm; he’s missing a thumb.”
She held his wrist and looked at her watch.
“And my wife, she’s my sister…”
“Oh, boy.”
“…in Christ, of course. Let’s see. Peggy. Peggy’s gaining on ninety, but she can still see a chigger crawling on a blackberry. Then there’s Rosie…”
“Very interesting family.” The nurse yanked something from the wall. “Large.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Very large and interesting family.
THIRTY-ONE
“You’ve done it again, Tim.”
Henry lay with his eyes closed, drowsy from the sedatives given to inhibit nausea during the infusion.
“What have I done?”
“Saved my life twice. By saving my mother’s life, you made mine possible—and now, this. Somehow, I believe I’m going to make it.”
I believe that with you, he wanted to say, but it was too soon; too much hard ground lay ahead.
The IV bag was currently emptying something vital of himself and their father into Henry’s bloodstream. It was the end of a long journey; it was the beginning.
Henry turned his head on the pillow and looked at him. “Mama told me about the time you cut down the Christmas tree. She said you spent three nights at her house; you slept on a pallet by the fireplace.”
The memory was vivid, it might have been yesterday. Cornbread and milk in a mason jar…
“She said that’s when your mother miscarried your little brother—right here in this hospital.”
Dear God. Of course. How was it he’d never guessed? In all the years since, no one had spoken a word to him about a matter of such great importance. ‘It may not be the answer we’re expecting,’ his mother told him when he prayed for a brother, ‘but God always answers.’
“I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing, Tim. I thought you knew.”
“No, you said the right thing. It’s okay.” Sixty-four years between loss and gain. What goes around comes around.
“You’ve had a lot thrown at you in a mighty short time,” said Henry. “The way you’re able to handle the truth is something to see. It reminds me of a Dunbar poem that Papa taught us children—he called it a poem about attitude.
“‘A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double. And that is life. A crust and a corner that love makes precious, With a smile to warm and tears to refresh us, And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laugher. And that is life.’”
He adjusted the paper mask, which he loathed wearing.
“Which reminds me of something in turn. Samuel Rutherford wrote, ‘Whenever I find myself in the cellar of affliction, I always look about for the wine.’”
“I’m certainly looking about for the wine.”
“I’m looking for it with you, Henry.” That he could say, that he could surely say. “How are you feeling?”
“My soul is easy.”
“Nausea?”
“Not too bad right now.”
“I have something to show you.” He took the photograph from the manila envelope and held it up for Henry to see.
He noticed that his hand trembled, animating the women beneath the cherry tree.
“You’ll never again have to try and spin his face from air.”
Unable to speak, Henry fixed his gaze on the image of Matthew Kavanagh.
Afternoon light slanted through the window blind; illumined the face of the laughing man, the bowl in the brown woman’s hand.
“A mole by his left eye—and looks like a gold tooth.” Henry was reading the runes of their father’s face.
“It was.”
“That’s a nice jacket.”
“I remember that jacket,” he said. “It was blue. Mother liked him to wear blue; she thought it looked good with his silver hair.”
“Beautiful head of hair. Is that something on his lapel?”
He squinted at the lapel. It seemed he might touch it, feel the weave of the linen. “A daisy, perhaps. Mother sometimes put a flower in his buttonhole.”
“He’s wearing a tie,” said Henry. “Yet this looks like they were in the country.”
“We were at a dairy farm up the road. It was before the war ended; they invited the neighbors for a covered-dish. Dad always dressed up, he wasn’t a fan of shirtsleeves unless he was working in the field with Louis.”
“And there’s Mama.”
“Probably setting out a bowl of her good potato salad.”
“So young,” said Henry. “Everyone is so young.”
“That’s my mother in the dress with the hibiscus flowers.” Her long, dark hair was caught up in a figure eight on the back of her head. She once looked at herself in the mirror before leaving the house in that dress and turned to him and asked, ‘Timothy, do you think this dress is too exotic for Holly Springs?’
“‘No, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s not too exotic for anything.’ He’d been pleased to know she trusted him with a word like exotic.
Tears misted Henry’s eyes. “They were beautiful, all of them.”
“A dear lady I was in school with took that picture. She believes God charged her to give it to me, and I’m charged to give it to you.”
“Thank you.” Fatigued by the exertion, Henry closed his eyes. “Thank you.”
“I’ll put it back in the envelope,” he said. “It’ll be in this drawer when you’re allowed to touch it. Try to sleep. I’ll be sitting right here when you wake up.”
As earnestly as he’d yearned for his father to love him, he had wanted to be able to love his father. Perhaps now he could love his father in Henry—and even in himself. Certainly he could love the man in the hosta grove who looked at his wife with such unguarded tenderness. He could love the man who paid a dear price to protect a young black boy from harm. He could love the man who had taken his son’s hand and walked around the barn on the frozen eve of Christmas.
Feeling the weight of his own exertions, he sat in the chair by the window and dozed until the nurse came in and removed the empty IV bag.
Before the infusion, he’d been
allowed to administer the sacraments, which had given them both an ineffable calm. Now that the infusion was complete, the sense of helplessness returned.
“I can only pray,” he said, standing again by the bed.
“But that’s enough. More than enough.”
“Many people are lifting petitions for God’s mercy and grace in the life of Henry Winchester. This prayer simply beseeches God to hear all of us who’re praying, and grant answers according to his will.”
He adjusted the mask again, and bowed his head and recited the old prayer he’d esteemed since seminary.
“Almighty God, who has promised to hear the petitions of those who ask in your son’s name: we beseech you mercifully to incline your ear to us who have made our prayers and supplications unto you, and grant that those things which we have faithfully asked according to your will, may effectually be obtained to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of your glory.”
He made the sign of the cross over Henry. “In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.” He pronounced the word in the Baptist manner, with the long a: “Amen.”
“Amen,” said Henry.
He was worn through utterly, there was nothing more to give or be gained.
“Even if we don’t see each other again,” said Henry, “I’d like you to know I will thank God for you the rest of my life.”
“Not see each other again?” He tried to swallow the knot in his throat. “I guess I forgot to tell you: I’ll be back in two weeks. You aren’t shuckin’ me off so easy.”
“Brother Grant and some of the deacons will be driving up before long; Sister’s coming every Sunday, and one of my old conductor buddies lives down at Ripley. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to come back if it’s trouble.”
“I ask you, Henry: What would the world be without trouble? Dunbar wouldn’t have had a blasted thing to say. Besides, I’m hoping to bring your nephew to see you.”
“A nephew.” Henry smiled. “It hardly seems real. But Cynthia is mighty real; a remarkable lady—beautiful inside and out.”
“Alis volat propiis.”
Henry pondered this. “She flies with her own wings.”
“Nailed it,” he said, grinning. “She liked the Langston Hughes you recited—it was a striking contrast to the Longfellow I’ve been blabbing. Well. I’m on my way, then. We’ll head out early tomorrow, but I’ll call the nurses’ station tonight—have them wake you up to ask how you’re doing. They’re fond of that sort of thing. By the way, I need to take some barbecue home. Do you happen to know where Elvis got his barbecue?”
“Everywhere he could, would be my guess.”
He laughed. “I’ll touch base every day. Remember that half of western North Carolina is praying for you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Henry. “As long as I keep looking about for the wine, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re a poet and don’t know it.”
“Deus te custodiat, Tim.”
“Deus tecum fratercule,” he said.
As he walked from the room, a nurse was standing at the open door with a plastic cup of pills. “Law help, what were y’all sayin’?”
“Henry said, ‘May God watch over you.’ I said, ‘God be with you, my brother.’”
“What was that language?”
“Latin.”
“Oh, phoo,” she said, “I can speak Latin. Ere-whay are-yay ou-yay oin-gay?”
“To the lobby to pick up my wife, and off to North Carolina in the morning.”
“O-gay afely-say.”
“Ake-tay are-cay of-ay enry-Hay.”
She laughed. “E-way ill-way. Ome-cay ack-bay.”
He saluted. “Oon-say.”
He met Jack Sutton in the hall.
“The technologist says it’s going well.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m on my way to see him, I hear he’s comfortable.”
“I think so, yes. Again—when will we know if the cells are engrafting?”
“Ten to fourteen days,” said Sutton. “Then we’ll find out whether we’re going uphill both ways or headed for a breakthrough.”
He’d like to think Jack knew he had a sister. Maybe he’d been in New York, say, for a medical convention; maybe he’d called her and they’d had lunch together, each searching the other’s face for clues to the mystery of their father. There were a thousand ways it might have happened, or could happen yet.
“I’ll be back in two weeks,” he said.
“Good medicine.”
“I’ll stay in touch.”
“You’ve been great, Tim. There was about a five percent chance your blood would be a match, and look what happened.”
“Grace,” he said.
“Plus you had enough cells to get the job done, which is no small feat for someone in your age category. We’ve all done everything we know to do; it’s up to God. Travel safely, call me anytime.”
“Thank you, Jack.” They shook hands. “You’re in our prayers. My regards to your dad.”
“Sure thing.”
In his imagination, he was already in his pajama bottoms in the bed at the hotel—the draperies closed, his wife reading in the chair with her feet on the hassock, the thermostat on seventy, the fan on auto.
He found her sitting in a corner of the waiting room, her nose in a book.
“Kavanagh! E’re-way out-ay of-ay ere-hay.”
She looked up at him and laughed; he saw the naked gladness in her eyes. “You definitely got your money’s worth with that pill,” she said.
THIRTY-TWO
It was as if he’d passed through a dark tunnel into a blaze of light.
He knew what day it was; he noticed the weather; he realized he was ravenously hungry, and he was appalled at the condition of the clothes he’d been wearing for so many days, albeit with the extra shirt and pants Cynthia brought from home.
“Have poached eggs on unbuttered toast if you must,” he said as they sat in the hotel dining room, “but I’m having a full-bore J. C. Hogan.”
“What might that be, sweetheart?”
“Two scrambled eggs, a rasher of bacon, grits, biscuits, link sausage—and a bowl of fruit.”
“I’ll look the other way,” she said. “But just this once.”
“How ’bout those floor mats?”
“‘Go, Tigers’? Someone got the short end, and I don’t think it was Leon.”
While the valet service was bringing their car around and Cynthia was using the facilities, he called Walter.
“Walter, it’s your cousin. Are you sitting down?”
“The last time you asked me this, you’d gotten engaged at the tender age of sixty-two. You can’t top that.”
“I’ll let you be the judge.” He paused a moment for effect. “You have another cousin.”
There was a long silence in New Jersey as Walter examined reason and logic. “Another cousin? Come on. How in heaven’s name could that happen?”
He told him.
“I called Walter,” he said, as the Mustang arrived at the hotel entrance. “He’s very keen on the idea of another cousin.”
“Dominoes all over the place.”
“By the way, before we leave Memphis, there’s something important we must do.”
She glanced at her watch. “You wanted to get out of town by eight-thirty.”
“I’ve changed my mind. Vita brevis.”
“Life…?”
“…is short.”
He checked his jacket pocket, which contained Tommy’s envelope and the two tickets. Then, feeling an idiotic grin spreading over his face, he offered her his arm.
“The party’s not over,” he said. “We’re going to Graceland.”
AFTERWORD
Henry Winchester was released from the hospital and returned home six weeks after the infusion of stem cells harvested from his half brother.
The current prognosis is good.
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Jan Karon, Jan Karon's Mitford Years