by Jan Karon
Back at the lodge, he rang Fletcher.
''Twas a hard night, Rev'rend, with th' hematoma and havin' but one side to turn her on. An' Dr. Feeney wasn't pleased with her urine production, so he puts her on th' IV which keeps us on th' hop. She's quite exhausted, the old dear, an' I'm ruined into th' bargain, for Eileen's away.'
'Her spirits?'
'Th' same. But you can't help but love 'er for all that.'
'Does she want to be painted today?'
'She does, but it's her hair she's fretting over. She's very particular about her hair.'
'She wants to be painted at her worst, she says.'
'Aye, but she doesn't mean it where her hair's concerned. I've no idea what to do with it, as I can hardly manage my own poor thatch, an' Seamus, I think he would try it if he could, he says 't would help her feel herself.'
'When do you think my wife should come?'
'She's napping now, and I must get a wink if I can. Let her have her bite of lunch, an' come after. She wants you, too, Rev'rend, if you don't mind. She says you can sit in th' corner like last time; she likes you near, I think.'
It was a small, odd pleasure he felt.
Cynthia was at the chicken run, sketching the flock with pen and ink. 'Isn't this divine? I've wanted for weeks to do it.'
'We can get chickens for you at home. The town allows hens, but no roosters.'
'Who would want hens without roosters?'
'If its eggs you're after, you don't need roosters.'
'It's the whole business I'm after--all the feathers and crowing and the lovely hens pecking.'
'We go up after lunch,' he said. 'A hard night, but she asks that we come. She's worried about her hair. Anything you could do?'
'No, darling, as you're aware, I've no skills in that department. I'm fretted about my own hair; 'tis a hay bale.'
He derived scant satisfaction from having next to none to worry about.
He went to Anna in the kitchen. 'May I use the phone for a quick call to Sligo?' His phone charges would, at the end, be accounted to his credit card.
'Of course,' she said. She was trying to pull up a scrap for him.
'And would you give me the name of a car rental company?'
'You'll be seeing the sights, then?'
'Finally.'
'I know it's humble, but we'd love you to take the Vauxhall. Unless you're going a distance.'
'No, not planning to do that. Just want to get around and enjoy this area.'
'Do take the Vauxhall, then, if you would. We would like that. Please.'
'Very generous, Anna. Will do, then. We're grateful. May I ask if you've told him?'
'This afternoon, I think--he's working the sheep today. I don't know; it's very hard. I dread telling him before dinner, but then I don't want to tell him at the end of a hard day, for he'll be sleepless. The sentence for such a thing--who knows how many years it might be? I wish we could just bring the painting here and hang it in its rightful place and leave things alone.'
'Would Liam be willing to do that?'
'No. He will be cut to the quick and wanting justice done.'
With no idea of the effect it would trigger, he needed to push through to another of her apprehensions.
'I have something to ask. Forgive me if I ask too much. Cynthia is painting Evelyn again today after lunch. Would you come with us and do up her hair for the portrait?'
She gazed out the window, through the scrim of curtain, and didn't reply.
'I've asked too much,' he said.
'No.' She turned and gave him a steady look. 'You haven't. It's always been coming to this. 't is the right time, isn't it?'
'I believe so, yes.'
'The Sweeneys are bringing family for dinner, and the author and niece were going to be in Sligo for a play this evening, but changed their minds.' She bit her lip. 'Nonetheless, I will do it. But Reverend . . .'
Her hands trembled; she clasped them together.
'I'm frightened.'
He wanted to console her, to say he thought it could be a good thing, but he thanked her and said nothing more.
He helped his wife into the Vauxhall and took her to lunch at Jack Kennedy's. It was the 21 Club, the Paris Ritz; she was dazzled.
'Tomorrow,' he said, 'a holy well. And Innisfree, if you'd like. There's an old fellow there with a boat to take us over--if we can find him at home.'
They ordered things they shouldn't order, including fries. His penance, a Diet Coke; hers, a salad with vinegar and a mite of oil. There was a certain ease in the low murmur of the room, the occasional burst of laughter.
Jack Kennedy gave him the glad hand. 'So you've stopped by with your lovely daughter, Rev'rend. Introduce us, if you please.'
On leaving, two elderly checker players doffed their caps to her.
'I love this,' she said, sitting on the stool beside him, the sun at their backs.
'What don't you love, Kav'na?'
'Needless rules and regulations, foxglove seeding itself in our rose beds, age spots.' She showed him the back of her hand, the small blemishes.
'Freckles,' he said.
He always said that; it was a tradition.
At Broughadoon, they got their jumble together--Cynthia's hamper, his prayer book, Anna's packet of hairpins. 'She loses them all over the place,' Anna said.
'Ye're goin' up to her, then?' asked William.
'Shall we deliver your compliments?'
William looked aggrieved. ''t would be good to go with ye.'
He laughed. 'No way. Too much ruckus with her calling down the Garda on our heads. I'm not getting in the middle of that.'
'Ye owe me a checkers game, Rev'rend, I hope ye remember.'
'I remember. Consider it done.'
'An' Anna girl,' said William, 'behave yourself--the oul' woman's in a desperate way.'
They went up in the Vauxhall. Seamus surprised at the sight of Anna; the two of them awkward in this setting.
'Fletcher?' he asked Seamus.
'Nodding off in th' kitchen a bit. She's kept on th' hop.'
'Mrs. Conor?'
'Sleeping when I looked in five minutes ago.'
Anna waited in the hall as he went in with Cynthia.
Evelyn Conor was sleeping, yes, but something wasn't right.
He saw at once the bluish shadow around her mouth, the blue of her nail beds, the compromised breathing.
'Get Fletcher!'
Don't do this, he said to her without speaking. Don't do this.
Thirty-seven
'My God, I could kill myself.'
'It happens,' he said. A trite remark in view of circumstances, but it served. 'No Eileen and too little sleep. Don't punish yourself.'
Fletcher was clearly agonized. 'She could have died. Joseph and Mary, I've never done such as that before.'
'The way she came back was miraculous. Biblical!' He knew what it meant to be gob-smacked.
'The Narcan. Dr. Feeney left it just in case. He's a very shrewd man, not every doctor thinks ahead like that. So yes, it happens, it definitely happens, an' I'm tellin' you, Rev'rend, I'm not th' only one who ever gave an overdose.'
'She came awake almost instantly.' He was still marveling.
'That's how it works with that drug, even the point-four milligrams I gave. But some bounce into a pain crisis, she could have come awake in pain she couldn't bear--it can go either way.'
'And see there, Fletcher, now she's having her hair done.'
They sat on stools at the kitchen island. Seamus set out a pot of tea and two mugs, poured for them.
'Thank God I'm not a drinkin' woman,' said Fletcher. ''t would be a double whiskey I'm havin'.'
He reflected on what happened when Anna walked into Evelyn's room, holding the packet of hairpins as if a sacrament. She stood by the bed, looking down at Evelyn. Evelyn looked up. No one spoke. A certain ease came into the room then--as if something once taken up was laid down.
Seamus wiped his eyes, bl
ew his nose. ''t is a bloody roller coaster around here,' he said, laughing a bit.
'She's asking for you, Reverend.' Anna at the kitchen door, her face revealing the answer to his question, but he asked anyway.
'How did it go?'
Anna smiling. It was manna.
He went to her, embraced her, and stood away, grateful.
'She says she's too weary to be painted today. She wants Seamus to show Cynthia the music box Mr. Riley gave her. Could you step to the hall a moment?'
They stood by the window with the etched inscription.
'I thought, what if she should die, Reverend, and we never know the truth? And so I asked her who Liam's father was, I asked very kindly, I was putting her hair up, and she said, Why do you ask such a wicked thing? And I said, Because you once told me it was Mr. Riley's business partner. She seemed stricken and said, I told you that? And I said yes, and she said she'd been black-hearted to speak such a hurtful lie and that, no, 't was Mr. Riley who was Liam's father. She swore it to me, and I believe her--she seemed very shamed. She asked me if I had suffered over it and I said yes, and she took my hand and held it a moment. It was . . . affecting, Reverend.'
'You told her that Liam never knew?'
'Yes. She was grateful.' Anna drew herself up. 'I don't wish to weep,' she said, smiling a little, 'for I may not be able to stop.'
He went in and took his chair by the bed.
'Bail o Dhia ort,' he said. He had copied it out of the journal this morning, asked Anna how to pronounce it, for the Irish is not phonetic.
She turned her head and peered at him. 'Bail o Dhia is Muire dhuit.'
'You're looking very beautiful,' he said. 'If you don't mind my saying so.' The pearl ring lay on the table.
'Where did such a sentiment come from?'
'From my heart,' he said. 'The truth without varnish.'
A tinge of color in her cheeks. 'I'm too weary to be painted today. I regret having troubled you.'
'No trouble at all.'
'I hear you're staying on for a time. Perhaps it can be done another day.'
'Of course. We were afraid for you, Evelyn. You stood on the brink.'
'I've stood on the brink all my life. I should like to be standing elsewhere for the days left to me--in a green pairc, perhaps, with a view of Ben Bulben.'
She lay quiet, looking at the ceiling.
'I wish the peace to come back,' she said.
'He himself is peace. He comes if we invite him, and stays, if we ask. It's ourselves who wander away.'
'Why do we wander away?'
'It's the old free-will business--we're charmed by the self, by our own pointless self-seeking.'
'What does he want from us?'
'He wants us to ask him into our lives, to give everything over to him, once for all.'
'I can't imagine.'
'I couldn't, either. I heard it preached and talked about all my life. I exegeted Romans and memorized vast amounts of scripture before I was twelve years old, but somehow it went in one ear and out the other--I got the bone, but not the marrow. Long after becoming a priest, I remained terrified of surrendering anything, much less everything. And then one day, I did.'
'Why?'
'Because I could no longer bear the separation from him.'
She licked her dry lips. 'You said there would be nothing to lose.'
'And everything to gain.'
'I don't wish to be humiliated.'
'By God?' He took the lid from the balm and moistened the swab.
'By anyone, and especially God.'
'God does not humiliate the righteous. He may fire us in the kiln to make us vessels, crush us like grapes so we become wine--but he never humiliates. That is the game of little people.'
'I have always depended on my own resources. '
'God gives us everything, including resources. But without him in our lives, even our resources fail.' He applied the balm.
'Tell me again why the peace comes--and then goes away.'
'His job is to stick with us, no matter what, and it's our job to stay close to him. Draw nigh to me, he says, and I will draw nigh to you. When we wander away, all we need to do is cry out to him, and he draws us back--into his peace, his love, his grace. He doesn't wander, we do.'
'Why must it come to this? Why must our lives be shackled to some so-called being who can't even be seen?'
'But he can be seen. We see him in each other every day. I see him in you.'
She closed her eyes. A long breath from her, as if she'd been holding it back.
'I've hurt many people,' she said.
'Despair can be passed like a wafer to everyone around us, especially to those close to us. Into the bloodstream it goes, and down along the family line. Then comes the clot that stops someone's heart, that puts a welcome end to it for them, but not for the others. You were not the direct cause of that terrible death, Evelyn.'
'Such an emptiness,' she said.
'You may have come across Blaise Pascal in your husband's library. He said, There's a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can't be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.'
'I don't wish to go on . . . without the peace.'
'Would you like Tad to come?'
'Tad is with his brother, leave him be. You are all we have.'
It was his own surrender he saw in her.
They were on the porch with Seamus and the dogs when a vehicle of uncertain vintage roared up the drive.
'Paddy!' said Seamus, reaching for his comb.
The driver braked, left the motor running, stepped out, and removed a large suitcase, then another, from the trunk. Paddy stood down from the car, glanced up at the assembly.
'Seamus! Give a hand here.'
Paddy was blowing as he reached the porch. He removed dark glasses, eyed the Broughadoon trio. 'Are you celebrating her recovery or is she still screaming bloody murder?'
His jaw felt slightly locked. 'Some better, we think.'
Paddy glanced at Anna without greeting. 'I'm intent on wrapping up my novel, I suppose you've heard I'm writing one. 'Tis impossible to find proper solitude in Dublin with its blather and nonsense.'
He would have introduced his wife, but Paddy passed quickly into the entrance hall, a sharp smell of aftershave in his wake.
Seamus made it to the porch, thumped down the heavy bags. 'Joseph and Mary,' he said, aghast.
Thirty-eight
Dear Henry,
You must not think I forgot my promise to write regularly--the guilt of not doing so is felt each day. Further, I left my cell phone with its internat'l calling plan in Mitford and am dependent upon the business phone here, which is why I didn't call back after speaking with Sister's eldest. He says your last doctor's visit was good. Thankful to hear you are growing stronger, though yet fatigued. I have a foolish worry that you will forget and eat a 'thin-skinned' fruit, as you were cautioned not to do!
In any case, we remain in the fishing lodge at Lough Arrow, and circumstances have been in flux, to say the least.
Cynthia had an ankle incident yet again, but is on way to recovery.
We have made the acquaintance of an Irish woman who, until this afternoon's unleashing of her heart to God, reminded me of our father. (An amazing story which I will tell you later.) Dad is unforgettable for many reasons; I am today moved by a great tenderness for him. As I once said, you got his good looks--something to be pretty happy about.
Then there are the two brothers and their long antagonism--now it appears that Paddy, the elder, who inherited the manor house and a hundred acres, has stolen the painting (mentioned in my last letter) from Liam, the younger, who through a twist of circumstance inherited but a few pictures and books. Pardon the tangled density of that sentence.
I Googled such a theft in the US and learned it is a felony. If Irish law is similar to ours, Paddy could serve a sentence of up to twenty years if convicted.
For these reasons and more, there have been a few tears around here, some my own.
Would you pray for this family as they move through unprecedented change and, I hope, healing? And will you pray for Dooley as he returns to school for another year on his journey to becoming a vet?
Thanks to the vagaries of C's ankle, we have been largely housebound, but tomorrow will visit Tobernalt, a holy well not far from Lough Arrow, then on to WB Yeats's Innisfree. We are at last being Tourists From the States.
I will sign off now and call on arrival home. I know the fatigue was anticipated, but I hope not too much to keep you out of your cantaloupe patch in the cool of the morning. You, Peggy and Sister faithfully in our prayers. C sends fondest love, as do I.
Dhia dhuit, my brother
He signed the letter, folded it, glanced at his wife, who was looking out the window.