“You’re faithfully in my prayers, Stuart.”
“As you are in mine. And look—when you come, bring Cynthia. I’d like to see her beautiful face into the bargain.”
“She’s a treasure.”
“I knew it before you did!”
“Always hogging the credit. Just like a bishop.”
They laughed together, at ease. Few things in life were more consoling than an old friendship in which all the hair, as in the story of the velveteen rabbit, had been rubbed off.
Happy Endings’ rare book business was definitely growing, as Hope could see by last month’s sales records. She would e-mail everything to the owner by the end of the day, and would look for Helen’s usual single-word e-mail reply of Bravo! to a strong bottom line. In this case, Hope thought she could count on a rare double bravo, considering that the dismal Mountain Month promotion had not impacted overall sales.
She went to the room where George was working at the computer.
“We had a great month!” she said as he glanced up. “You’re doing a wonderful job.”
She thought he appeared stricken, somehow, by this declaration. She had noticed for days that he was unusually quiet, even distant.
“Thank you,” he said. He stood and looked at her in a way he had never looked at her before. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She stepped back, as if fearing a blow, then sat down in the rickety chair she’d once dragged to Happy Endings from the Collar Button Dumpster.
“I’m going to be leaving,” he said.
Leaving? She tried to speak the word aloud, but could not.
“I wanted to wait until after your bookkeeping was done. I know how you dislike doing it.”
“Leaving,” she said.
“I’m going back to prison.”
Tears welled in her eyes, she who had never wept until these last weeks. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve known for some time that my coming here wasn’t what I was supposed to do. Let me put it another way: I was supposed to come to Mitford, it was vitally important for me to come, but I can’t stay. I didn’t know that in the beginning, but as I came to know it and pray about it, God put a call on my heart to go back into the prison system, into ministry.”
“Ahhh,” she said.
“I can never thank you enough for giving me a job and trusting me to handle it.”
She shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“I can never thank you enough for the way you stood up for me when people made snide remarks. You have great character, Hope, and I’m grateful.”
She had always thought character something old-fashioned, out of a book, something no one seemed to bother having anymore, but if it meant so much to George…
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll be sorry to leave.”
“Oh,” she said, hearing a disgusting bit of whine in her voice.
“I’m going to Connecticut—first there’s a training program, then I’ll be working in ministry at a federal penitentiary.
“In the eight years I served time, I saw men who had no hope come to trust in the one true hope. I saw families rebuilt and lives changed in ways no one could have dreamed—but not every life.
“I remember the nine o’clock lockdown, we had five minutes to get to our cells. For a lot of inmates, this was payback time—a time when the dark night of the soul devoured them alive, while I went into my cell with a Brother, a Friend, a Confidant. No matter how tough it got, I had that consolation, that power—I had everything, I could make it.”
She let her breath out in a long, slow, unconscious sigh.
“With God’s help, I’ll be serving as assistant chaplain—if I can get through the red tape.”
“You can do it, George! If He’s going to help you, He can certainly do something about the red tape.”
“There you go, living up to your name.” He laughed, tears shining in his eyes. “I’ll be here for two more weeks, if you’ll have me. I’ll show you how I’ve been handling your Internet sales, and help out any way I can. Of course, you can’t manage the store and the rare book business, too. I’m praying God will send the right person.”
“I think…” She drew a deep breath.
“What do you think?”
“I want to tell you something.” She was afraid to tell him, but it was important. “I thought I was…” This was hard, and embarrassing.
“I thought I was falling in love with you, and then…I don’t know what happened, it had something to do with really falling and landing on all those books, because after that I realized how much I value you as a friend. I knew that, more than anything, I was grateful for your kindness to me.” She drew a deep breath again and smiled as he sat on the edge of the desk and looked at her, seeming relieved about this, about everything.
“I felt comfortable with you after the fall, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I want to tell you again how I’ll never forget the way you spoke my name when I was lying in the window.”
She saw the way his eyes looked into hers as she spoke, saw some joy in them that moved her.
“I truly have begun to hope,” she said. “I feel there’s something more for me, for my life. I can’t explain it, I don’t know what it is. But I do know that I’m glad for you, George. I think I can honestly say I’m happy you’ll be leaving.”
He moved from the desk, pulled his chair close to hers, and sat down, leaning forward.
“Did you know your name is everywhere in the Bible?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t read the Bible. I tried once because it’s said to be great literature, but Mr. Wordsworth and Miss Austen seemed more accessible. And Mr. Wodehouse was loads more fun.”
He laughed a little; she was consoled by the sound of it.
“Then you couldn’t know that He’s called the God of hope.”
She felt an odd excitement, something like a child might feel….
“In the letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, ‘Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.’”
“Abound…,” she said, liking the word.
“I trust that one day you’ll come to believe, and that He’ll fill you with joy and peace in your believing. That’s how your hope will come to abound, to grow a thousand times over. I pray for that daily.”
“But I don’t want you to pray for me, remember?”
“I know.” He rolled his chair back to the computer. “By the way, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to Father Tim until I see him on Wednesday.”
“I promise. Does Harley know?”
“I told him last night.”
She nodded and turned to leave the room.
“Hope?”
“Yes?”
“It occurs to me that I’ve also seen a building named after you.”
“Really?” she said, laughing.
“Hope House. Have you ever been up to Hope House?”
“Never!”
“Over their door, engraved in limestone, you’ll find this: ‘Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we…hope in thee.’” His grin was warmly ironic.
“I’ll be darned,” she said, grinning back. “We’d better get to work, or next month we won’t have any sales at all to report.”
The rolls were coming out of the oven when the phone rang. “Hello!” he said, decked out in a matched pair of oven mitts.
“Father! It’s Marion Fieldwalker, I have news that deserves better than e-mail!”
“I’m all ears.”
“Junior and Misty have a baby boy! Four o’clock this afternoon!”
“Thanks be to God!”
“You’ll never guess its name!”
“Jedediah?” Nobody seemed to used the “iahs” these days.
“It’s Timothy! Named after your own good self.”
He was dumbfounded. No one had ever been named after him, as far
as he knew.
“Great news, Marion! Give them my congratulations, we’ll send a gift right away.”
After hanging up the phone, he turned to his dog. “Junior and Misty Bryson, you remember them, they had a baby boy!” Barnabas cocked his head to one side. “Named Timothy,” he said proudly. “After me.”
He took off the mitts and raced to the bottom of the stairs.
“Cynthia! Junior and Misty had a baby boy.”
“Lovely!” she said, appearing at the top of the stairs in a chenille robe she confessed to have owned since Watergate.
“Dinner’s ready. His name is Timothy.”
“Timothy! My favorite!”
“Named after me.”
“Congratulations, dearest, what an honor.” She blew him a kiss.
“Would you mind if I come down in this old robe you hate with a passion?”
“Of course not. If I had time, I’d get into that old robe of mine you hate with a passion.”
“Timothy Bryson,” he said to himself as he went to the kitchen to serve their plates. “Timothy Bryson! A fine name.”
His travel-worn wife was devouring the salmon roulade as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Heavenly!” she murmured. “Divine!”
“Thank you.” His cheeks grew warm with pleasure. “I got the recipe from Avis.”
“Perfection!”
He’d nearly forgotten her boundless enthusiasm, it was wondrous to have it again, he’d been barren without her….
She peered at him over the vase of late-blooming roses. “It’s no wonder women chase after you, Timothy.”
“Now, Kavanagh…”
“It’s true. You’re handsome, charming, thoughtful, sensitive—and you can cook! The very combination every woman dreams of. However…” She patted her mouth with her starched napkin and went after another forkful of wild rice. “Do remember this….”
“Yes?”
“You’re mine.”
He laughed.
“All mine.”
“Amen,” he said.
“Totally, completely, absolutely mine, just like it says in the marriage service.”
“I vowed so once, I vow so again.”
“So watch it, buster.”
“Consider it done,” he said, grinning like an idiot. He loved it when she talked like that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Even to the Dust
“Does it have to be used in the lap?”
“Of course not! I use mine in my lap because there’s nowhere else to put it when I work in your study. What a question!”
Emma rolled her eyes as if he were the dunce of the millennium. The computer salesman stared at the ceiling as if counting the acoustic tiles.
Why did he have to do this, anyway? He’d rather go out in the yard and eat worms.
He walked to Winnie Ivey Kendall’s house, formerly Oliva Harper’s mother’s house, and more recently the house where Miss Sadie and Louella had lived before Miss Sadie died. Musical chairs!
He’d been here to a hat party, he’d visited Olivia in that terrible hour before her heart transplant, he’d come to see Miss Sadie the day she hung up her car keys, and now he was paying a call on Winnie’s brother, also his retired barber. Indeed, there was an ever-changing drama behind every door on which a priest knocked.
Joe Ivey opened the door, unshaven, barefoot, and in his pajamas.
“Just dropping by to get a little taken off the sides,” said Father Tim.
Joe didn’t find this humorous.
“I won’t stay but a minute, just wanted to see how you’re pushing along.”
Joe hobbled to the sofa, where a pillow and blankets awaited. He lay down, leaving his caller to shift for himself. “I’m makin’ it.”
Father Tim thumped into a worn, silk-covered chair once belonging to Olivia’s deceased mother. “Hoppy says you’re going to do just fine if you stick to what he tells you. And there, my friend, is the rub.”
“What rub?”
“Sticking to what the doctor tells you.”
Joe grunted, pulling the cover under his chin.
“And just think what lies ahead!”
“What lies ahead?” asked Joe, suspicious.
“You’re retired now, you can go fishing!”
“I never fished in my life an’ I don’t expect t’ start now.”
“Aha. So, what will you do?”
“Cross-stitch,” said Joe.
“Cross-stitch? That beats all I ever heard. In fact, maybe I didn’t hear right….”
“Men do needlework, too, you know.” Joe looked more than a little ticked.
“Yes, but it’s the last thing I’d ever dream would interest you.”
“So what’d you think might in’erest me?”
“I don’t know; I never thought about it. Maybe…greeting customers at Wal-Mart in Wesley?”
Joe looked menacing. “You got t’ be kiddin’ me.”
“It pays well, you get to meet a lot of nice people.”
“I’ve met all th’ nice people I ever want t’ meet,” said Joe. “I don’t need t’ meet n’more nice people.”
Being a priest was hard. You had to try and make sick people feel better, even when they had no intention of feeling better.
He talked to the Hope House administrator; all rooms were full. Though Mr. Berman was the eldest of the residents, he’d made it clear that he had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon, and the resident whom they thought last week might be dying had rallied and was planning her ninetieth birthday party. However, given Miss Rose’s link to Miss Sadie, the administrator would do what she could as soon as a room came open.
Why was he always messing in other people’s business? He had never understood this lifelong compulsion, especially as it often landed him in trouble.
He phoned Betty Craig.
“Betty, now that Russell’s gone—”
“Don’t even say it, Father. I been hopin’ you wouldn’t call, I know what you want me to do.”
“What do I want you to do?”
“You want me to look after Miss Rose Watson, and maybe Uncle Billy, too, if he makes it.”
“Oh, he’s going to make it, all right. What I propose is—”
“It gives me th’ shivers just to think of lookin’ after Miss Rose.”
“I understand, Betty, but consider this—you’re the best one there is.”
“No, sir, don’t try to sweet-talk me, I’m the only one there is, outside of Hope House.”
“Right. But you are the best, Betty. Look what you did for Russell Jacks—softened his disposition, lengthened his life…”
“Shortened mine….”
“Betty, what if you go to the town museum twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, that’s all? I’m not asking you to take anybody into your home like we did with Russell.”
“Twice a day?”
“That’s all, ’til we can get something open at Hope House. Uncle Billy needs to be watched; he might go off his medication, and I expect Miss Rose is none too regular with her own.”
Betty sighed.
“Maybe you could look after their meals twice a day, while you’re at it. We’ll get someone to come in and clean.”
Betty was thinking….
“I suppose I wouldn’t be a good Christian if I turned you down,” she said.
“If you turn me down, it wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with whether you’re a Christian, good or otherwise.”
Betty was thinking some more.
“What if I pray about it and call you back, Father? How would that be?”
“I think that’s one of the wisest answers anyone has given me about anything in a long time,” he said.
“Dry, ain’t it?”
“The worst I can remember in some years. Kindly fill it up, and sweep me out if the offer still holds.” Father Tim slid from behind the wheel and located a paper towel to clean his win
dshields.
“I’m about to give up on this sweepin’ out business,” said Lew.
“Why’s that?”
“Age. Age and drivin’ t’ Tennessee ever’ weekend. I’m feelin’ about six cookies short of a dozen.”
“I’ve been wondering—how can you keep Earlene a secret in this town? Hasn’t anybody guessed you’ve got a sweetheart up the road?”
“No, sir, I tell ’em I’m visitin’ my old aunt.”
“You have an old aunt in Tennessee?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Th’ one that taught me pickle-makin’.”
“That’s a convenient story, all right, but I don’t know how long it will go over.”
“Dry as tinder,” said Lew, pumping Exxon into the tank of the Mustang. “I don’t allow no smokin’ around th’ station ’til after we get a good rain.”
“Is Harley anywhere to be found?”
“In th’ grease rack,” said Lew.
“Harley!”
“Rev’ren’, how’re you comin’ along?”
Merely laying eyes on Harley Welch gave him a certain happiness.
“Couldn’t be better!” he said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you back,” said Harley.
“Let’s get together.”
“Yes, sir. When might that be?”
“You and George come over to the house Friday night. I’ll make Mississippi barbecue.”
There went Harley’s toothless grin, meeting behind his head again.
Emma had shown him how to go online, and after painstaking deliberation, he’d chosen an address and a code word.
He thought this address the cleverest, most unique idea he’d come up with in an eon, but someone else already had it. Who else could possibly have chosen such a thing? He went through three additional clever and unique addresses before one was finally accepted. The code word, Barnabas, made it through whatever maze these things might contain, which gave him a small comfort.
He sat with her while they e-mailed Walter and Katherine, an act that was guaranteed to blow their minds, then as soon as Emma left, he forgot everything she’d told him and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.