“You and George have paid your debt, it’s over, it’s all in the past.”
“Seem like th’ worst thing is me’n George bein’ in your house, like you might be…collectin’ criminals.”
Father Tim laughed.
“Seem like it might he’p a little if one of us was t’ move som’ers else.”
“Don’t think about it. This will blow over. You and George come walk with me to church on Sunday, I could use the support.”
There went Harley’s grin again, meeting behind his head.
Hoppy rang after five o’clock. “Bill Watson has congestive heart failure. There’s no cure, but medication can help relieve the symptoms.”
“He’s off his medication,” said Father Tim, feeling like a turncoat.
“When we hang up, I’ll give him a call and preach him a sermon.”
“Have at it!” He wasn’t eager to conduct another funeral service.
“Now,” said Hoppy, “how are you doing?”
“Doing fine.” He hadn’t keeled over, so he must be doing fine.
“How was the Oregon Trail?”
Hoppy completely ignored this thoughtful inquiry.
“You’re taking your shots twice a day?”
“Absolutely.”
“No cornbread?”
“Not a crumb.”
“Exercise?”
“Three times a week, two miles on the road to Farmer.”
“What about the antidepressant?”
Silence. He could not tell a lie.
“I want to see you tomorrow. Speak to Jean about working you in.”
“Can’t do it! I have a funeral.”
“Funerals don’t last all day, pal. I’ll tell you about the trail when I see you tomorrow.”
Blast.
He was dozing on the sofa when the phone rang.
“Father, how you doin’? It’s Lew Boyd.”
“Lew!” He was addled from sleep, but conscious enough to sit up straight and take a deep breath. This was the call he’d been dreading.
“There’s somethin’ I been meanin’ to talk to you about.”
“Yes, Lew, I know, and it’s very unfortunate. I’m sorry.”
There was a startled silence. “You are?”
“Yes. I regret it deeply, and hope it doesn’t hurt business in any way.”
“Hurt business? How could it hurt business?”
“I’ve been concerned it could scare some of your customers away.”
“I don’t see how,” said Lew, sounding completely bewildered. “All I’m tryin’ to do is git married.”
“Married!” Good heavens, he’d just shouted. His dog leaped off the rug, barking.
“When I won a pickle contest back in high school, she kissed me.”
“That’ll do it every time!”
“I didn’t enter kosher dills that year, I entered gherkins.”
“Aha.”
“Her name’s Earlene.”
“Earlene! I’ll say…”
“You know Juanita’s been gone six years.”
“That a long time.”
“Almost seven.”
He couldn’t seem to figure out where this was headed. “Is there something I can do to…help?”
“See, Earlene lives in Tennessee an’ me’n her, well, it’s about to half kill me runnin’ up an’ down th’ road in my ol’ pickup. I’m no spring chicken, you know what I mean?”
“Indeed I do.”
“So, what it is, I’d like you to marry us.”
“Ah! Well! Goodness. Congratulations!”
“But we can’t tell nobody for a while yet. It has t’ be secret.”
“Why is that?”
“Her mama’s real bad off with heart trouble. It wouldn’t do to tell ’er, we want to go real easy on breakin’ this to ’er; see, Earlene’s been takin’ care of ’er mama more’n ten years, since her daddy died.”
“I see. When were you thinking?”
“Sometime next week.”
“Next week?”
“It’d have t’ be a Tuesday or Wednesday,” said Lew, apologetic.
“Those are th’ only days she could get off from th’ flour company. She used to be a librarian, but th’ flour company offered a benefit package you wouldn’t believe.”
“This is great news, of course. However, I can’t perform the ceremony until I’ve counseled with you and Earlene.” Older marriage prospects seldom cared for this idea, so he emphasized its consequence. “That’s very important; it’s practically canon law.”
“Cannon law?”
“Also, there would be a waiting period of thirty days.”
His caller was clearly flabbergasted.
“May I ask why you’d like me to marry you?” Lew was a Baptist, no two ways about it.
“Well, see, Bill Sprouse is still laid up. An’ since I been workin’ on your vehicles f’r twenty years or such, I thought it’d be a good way to say I ’preciate your business.”
When Lew rang off, Father Tim lay on the sofa, dizzied by the prospect of what lay ahead.
How would he get it all done? He didn’t know. One thing he did know was that he needed help, he needed…
He was loath to even think it, but truth be told, he needed Emma Newland.
He clapped his hand to his forehead and uttered a piteous sound, loosely akin to a moan.
Though his startled dog sat bolt upright, he declined to bark.
He was afraid to answer the phone. Let the machine take it…
Beep. “Father! It’s Olivia. We’re back home in Mitford, and we’d love to see you. I hear Cynthia’s traveling, and—”
He grabbed the receiver from the hook. “Olivia! Welcome home!”
“There you are, Father! How lovely to hear your voice! Will you come to dinner tonight? Everything we’re having is good for us. I know it’s short notice, but do say yes!”
“Yes!”
“Lace brought you something, I mustn’t say what, you may faint! It was her idea, I had nothing whatever to do with this scheme.”
Lace brought him something? He was grinning from ear to ear.
“She also wants to show you her new car—it isn’t really new, of course, still I’m mortally envious! And I’m sure Hoppy would like to have a look at his patient—though you’ll be the one making the house call.”
He dressed for dinner, and had a few minutes to scan his sermon notes when the phone rang.
Cynthia wouldn’t call ’til late evening; he’d let the machine pick up.
“Tim, Bill Sprouse, you got to hear this. Buddy, tell th’ father how many Persons in th’ Holy Trinity.”
Hard by the receiver, Buddy barked three times.
“Good fella! Now, how many Testaments in th’ Bible?”
Two barks.
“Amen! Now tell ’im how many true Gods.”
One bark.
“Brother, did you ever hear th’ beat of that?”
Hooting with laughter, Father Tim snatched the receiver from the hook.
“Ask Buddy if he’d like to preach for me on Sunday.”
“Sorry, but he won’t be able—he’s supplyin’ over in Farmer.”
Father Tim couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed from the heart instead of the head.
“I wanted to tell you I’m up an’ hobblin’ around,” said Bill.
“Thanks be to God!”
“Buddy an’ I’ll be out on th’ street first thing you know, evangelizin’ the neighborhood.”
All the way to the Harpers, he held on to the sound of happiness in the voice of Bill Sprouse.
The mint-condition, fern-green BMW 325 coupe was parked in the drive, bathed in the glow of a gas-lit lamp.
“Man!” said Father Tim, speaking for Dooley as well as for himself.
Lace stood before him with the wrapped box, radiant.
“Would you like to guess? You could shake it!”
“I can’t imagine…,” he sai
d, feeling like a kid at Christmas. He took the deep, square box and shook it. Muffled knocking about of something heavy. “Umm…” He would love to make this beautiful girl laugh with a clever guess or two, but blood could not be squeezed from a turnip.
“Bellows for the fireplace?” he asked, completely pathetic.
“No, Father! Guess again!”
Hoppy sat in an easy chair, one long leg crossed over the other, wearing his much-talked-about cowboy boots and grinning from ear to ear.
“Perhaps you could give him a clue!” said Olivia.
“You’ll be head over heels about these!” Lace crowed. He thought it marvelous the way her amber eyes danced and shone.
He shook the box again. The pressure was on. It could be books….
“Books!”
“You’re warm!” she said. “Change one letter!”
In the easy chair, Hoppy couldn’t seem to remove the foolish grin from his face as he conspicuously jiggled his foot.
Aha! Could it be? “No way,” said Father Tim, laughing. “No way are these boots!”
Lace jumped up and down. “You guessed it! You did it! Now you can open the box!”
Hand-tooled. With heels. Sharp as a tack.
Boots.
“Do you like them?” Lace waited, expectant, as he trotted around the living room to a minuscule thunder of applause.
Being a loafer man for roughly the whole of his existence, he was a tad nonplussed. Boots, like capers and eggplant, might be an acquired taste. On the other hand, they seemed to fit, they definitely made him taller….
“He’s thinking about it,” said Hoppy, “like I had to do.”
“I believe I’ve thought it through,” said their guest. “It’s entirely possible that in the not-too-distant future, I may well be…head over heels!”
That they all gave him a congratulatory hug was a welcome bonus.
Lace studied the car owner’s manual; Hoppy returned to the hospital to check on a patient; Father Tim and Olivia walked out to the terrace and stood at the railing. In the cool night air of August, there was an ephemeral scent of fall.
“Father, Lace’s gift is meant to thank you, if only a little, for all you’ve done for her. When she saw how thrilled Hoppy was with his present, she wanted to give you that delight, also. She bought them with her own money.”
“All the more appreciated!”
“We know a pair of boots can’t express everything we feel. I hope you aren’t offended.”
“Offended? Good heavens, I’m flattered beyond words.”
“Without you, I almost certainly wouldn’t be standing here on this wonderful evening, and who can say where Lace might be? Thank you, dear friend.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “It was altogether the leading of the Holy Spirit.” He patted Olivia’s hand with true fondness. “Lace looks wonderful; tell me how she’s doing, what’s happening in her heart.”
“I wonder if the anger will ever go away. But even worse is the fear—she lived with it for so many years, I still see it in the way she holds her shoulders. It’s softening, yes, but a kind of around-the-clock alertness to danger seems just beneath the surface.
“I remember walking in the woods with my father, I was perhaps nine or ten. He showed me a special tree near the river. Long years ago, someone had struck a blow with an axe, leaving the blade in the tree. Daddy showed me how the trunk of the tree had grown around it ’til only a little of the blade was left showing.
“Lace’s fear and anger are an old axe blade, buried deep.”
“Her faith. How has that helped?”
“It’s helped greatly. Yet I think she may believe what too many of humankind believe—that it’s really our own raw determination which sees us through. The power of God’s grace isn’t fully realized in her yet, she’s still young.”
“I’ll pray that it be fully realized,” he said. Indeed, as he moved each day down the list of souls for whom he prayed without ceasing, Lace Turner was nearly always next after Dooley Barlowe. “I know it’s premature, but Cynthia and I have hoped that one day…” He found he couldn’t say it, after all; it seemed foolish when spoken aloud.
“That one day they’ll form a truce?”
“Well, yes.”
“Hoppy and I think about that, too. We love Dooley, and I believe Lace cares for him. But the odds seem short for them, don’t you think? Lace can be critical and cold, and very suspicious of love.”
“So can Dooley.”
Olivia looked beyond the trees to the twilit mountain beyond.
“Regarding any future…truce…there’s one thing we can be certain about.”
“And what is that?”
She turned and looked at him, smiling.
“That time will tell,” she said.
Olivia’s mortal envy of that BMW, he thought on the way home, would be nothing compared to Dooley Barlowe’s raging jealousy. Suddenly Dooley’s seven-year-old Jeep would be prehistoric, ready for the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.
If Dooley had the million and a quarter Miss Sadie left him in her will, what he’d choose to drive would be different, indeed. Just how different was, of course, the point.
He had memorized that entire portion of Miss Sadie’s letter, which was delivered to him only days after her death.
As you know, I have given a lot of money to human institutions, and I would like to give something to a human individual for a change.
I have prayed about this and so has Louella and God has given us the go ahead.
I am leaving Mama’s money to Dooley.
We think he has what it takes to be somebody. You know that Papa was never educated, and look what he became with no help at all. And Willard—look what he made of himself without any help from another soul.
Father, having no help can be a good thing.
Father, having no help can be a good thing.
As he recalled the letter, word for word, he could hear Miss Sadie as if she were at his very elbow….
But having help can be even better—if the character is strong. I believe you are helping Dooley develop the kind of character that will go far in this world, and so the money is his when he reaches the age of twenty one.
(I am old fashioned and believe that eighteen is far too young to receive an inheritance.)
I have put one and a quarter million dollars where it will grow, and have made provisions to complete his preparatory education. When he is eighteen, the income from the trust will help send him through college.
I am depending on you never to mention this to him until he is old enough to bear it with dignity. I am also depending on you to stick with him, Father, through thick and thin, just as you’ve done all along.
Cynthia loved the questions her young readers asked; though having a grand time, she was keenly missing her husband; life on the road had its downside; and how was Violet handling her prolonged absence?
“Well enough,” said Father Tim. “She’s lying in my lap.”
Violet seldom acknowledged his presence until her mistress left the house. At once, she glommed on to him, raveling his sweater sleeves, giving his pants a generous coating of white hair….
“The little flirt! Have you put the top down since I left?”
“Umm, no.”
“Please put it down, dearest. Summer will be over before we know it, and our glasses freezing to our noses.”
“I will, I promise.” Even in absentia, Cynthia was trying to help him have fun. “You’ll never guess what Lace brought me from Oregon.”
“Cowboy boots!” she crowed.
“How did you know?”
“She called me from the trail, I’m the one who gave her your shoe size.”
Wives knew everything. Except on the rarest occasion, it was almost impossible to surprise a wife.
He pondered his own axe blade. Over the years, time and time again, he would forgive his father, then the bitterness would seep back into his soul li
ke a toxin. Often, it lingered and did its damage for months before he came awake to the Enemy’s ruse, whereupon he forgave Matthew Kavanagh yet again.
Without faith, his soul may not have survived the blade. But like the tree, God had enabled him to grow, and even flourish, around it.
He got into his pajamas, weary beyond telling, and knelt beside the bed and thanked God for survival, for overcoming, for grace. He remembered Sammy and Kenny and Dooley and Jessie and Poo, and all those whom the blade had struck….
Cynthia would be home in ten days, he mused as he climbed into bed, and Dooley would leave for school in twelve. He missed Dooley already.
The summer break had come and nearly gone, with only the briefest interludes of hanging out, being together. And virtually all the interludes had contained some hard issue.
He reminded himself that things would be different next summer.
Yes, God willing, things would be different next summer.
With this thought, which delivered a certain peace, he drifted to sleep, breathing the faint scent of wisteria from the pillow he held in his arms.
Next door, Hélène Pringle stood at her bedroom window and watched the Kavanaghs’ second floor go dark.
She had wanted to take a loaf of her homemade bread to her neighbors, but heard in The Local that Cynthia was on a worldwide tour, or was it a whirlwind tour? Whatever sort of tour it might be, she was away, and it would not be appropriate to carry food to the father in his wife’s absence.
She was relieved, really. It seemed to her that giving food bore the marks of sympathy, and surely he had grown tired of sympathy for what happened months ago, and which was, she hoped, forgiven and forgotten by all.
Of course, he continued to look épuisé. She based this opinion on his pale face and slow step as he walked by the rectory with those little red-haired girls whom he claimed as grandchildren.
She heard the wind chime caroling on the porch below, and was pleased with the sound. Harley and Mr. Gaynor had been very kind to give her a hand with hanging it—in fact, they’d helped her with a great many things around the house and yard. She’d been terribly surprised to learn, just yesterday, that Harley had also been incarcerated. It did seem odd, of course, to have two former prisoners living downstairs, but if the father approved and thought it all right, so did she. Perhaps one of the father’s ministries was to help such people get a new lease on life, just as he’d helped her to do.