“Give it to th’ Lord!”
“We’ll definitely do that. But do you think she’d like something specific? The Lord’s Chapel roof is perfectly fine, thanks to her. The expansion was paid for long ago. Hope House is running in the black....”
“I think we should pray about it. That’s what Miss Sadie an’ I always do when she givin’ money. I ‘member how we prayed ’bout th’ money she give your boy. Whew, law! When Miss Sadie wrote that down, that was more aughts than I ever seen behind a number! What’s he doin’ with it, anyway?”
“He doesn’t know he has it. I haven’t told him.”
“What you waitin’ for? Th’ creek t’ rise?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Child, I’m glad nobody ever give me a million dollars; it would’ve been my ruination.”
“You think so?”
“This ’un an’ that ’un would have took it off of me like takin’ candy from a baby. No, honey, I never liked to fool with money.”
“Here,” he said. “This whole row has nuts.”
Louella gave him a fond look. “Ever’ time you come t’ see me, I feel like Miss Sadie in th’ room.You an’ her was close, honey.”
“I dreamed about her the other night.”
“How’d she look?”
“She looked young! I was amazed to see her looking so well!” He remembered the dream as if it had been a visit.
Louella winced.
“What is it?”
“This ol’ shoulder be actin’ up ag‘in. Hurtin’ me all night.”
“Let me have a go at it,” he said.
He got off the low stool where he always sat when he visited, and touched her shoulder. “Here?”
“No, honey, that ain’t th’ place. Move up a little to th’ lef’.... That’s right. On up a little more.”
“Right here?”
“Right there! Oh, mercy, that’s sore as a boil, don’t rub too hard.”
Nurse Herman stuck her head in the door.
“I’m next in line after Miss Louella!” she said, grinning.
He stepped along the hall to Ben Isaac Berman’s comfortable room.
Ben Isaac nearly always kept his door open, and was nearly always listening to classical music. The offering of the moment was definitely Mozart... possibly the Divertimento no. 10 in F Major, but only possibly.
He knocked on the open door. “Ben Isaac?”
“Here, Father, right here! Come in, come in.”
The tall, handsome old man appeared, using a cane and dressed in a coat and tie with dark trousers.
“Ben Isaac! You’re dressed fit to kill.”
Ben Isaac leaned toward the vicar, and spoke in a low voice. “I have a nice woman friend, Father.”
Father Tim shook his hand vigorously. “I’m happy to hear it! That changes everything, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does. We’re walking down to lunch together in half an hour.”
“And where does this fortunate lady live?”
Ben Isaac’s eyes gleamed as he pointed to the wall and whispered. “Right next door.”
“Right next door is the very place I found my wonderful wife!”
The old man chuckled. “Oh, my,” he said. “Oh, my.”
He popped into the chaplain’s office, glad to see Scott Murphy, who had been a literal Godsend to Hope House—not to mention the Kavanaghs’ favorite bookseller.
“Congratulations!” he said, embracing his friend.
“Thank you, thank you, Father. And thanks for agreeing to officiate at our wedding.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, meaning it. “We’re having our first service at Holy Trinity on Easter morning at ten o’clock. Wish you could come up.”
“My service is also at ten. But we’ll definitely come another Sunday. What’s the driving time?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes to the farm, then about fifteen or twenty to the ridge.You could come for coffee and follow us up.” He checked his watch. “Got to get moving....”
“Any advice before you go?”
“For... ?”
“For being engaged? I’ve never done this before.”
Father Tim laughed. “You don’t want any advice from me. I nearly botched the whole thing. No, wait, here’s my advice; it’s what I’d have done if I’d had sense: Thank God continually for His kind favor. And send flowers before you mess up, as well as afterward.”
Scott grinned. “Consider it done,” he said. “And umm, there’s something on your left cheek. Looks like ...”
The vicar reached up and rubbed his cheek.
“Soot,” he said. “But you don’t want to know.”
“Blast! A dollar fifty for a pack of Nabs and a Diet Coke,” he told J.C. “The trouble is, we remember when a pack of Nabs was a nickel.”
“I don’t go as far back as th’ nickel,” snapped J.C.
“Oh, excuse me, I forgot your extreme youth places you in the dime category.”
“Fifteen cents,” said J.C., hammering down on something unidentifiable.
“When pigs fly,” said the vicar. He thought the Muse editor looked as if he’d tossed and turned all night—in his clothes. “So where’s Mule? Where’s Percy?”
“Percy’s gettin’ a colonoscopy. Mule’s takin’ Fancy to lunch in Wesley.”
The vicar thought he’d rather have the colonoscopy. “Let me ask you something,” he said, popping the tab on his Coke.
“Ask away.”
“What’s eating you?”
J.C. frowned and held up the remains of a sandwich. “I’m eatin’ it.”
“Come on, be straight with me.”
He’d never messed in J. C. Hogan’s business, with the possible exception of the time J.C. was courting Adele and, in both his and Mule’s opinions, doing it all wrong.
J.C. rewrapped his sandwich and stuffed it in his briefcase. “Adele got a promotion.”
“Right. And a new gun.You told us.”
“She got a raise.”
“That’s good.”
“She got a new hairdo.”
“Aha.”
“She’s gettin’ a new squad car.”
“Oh, boy.”
There was a long silence. Father Tim watched a fly crawl up the inside of Lew’s front window; a horn blew in the grease pit; Lew came in to ring up a gas sale.
When Lew left, J.C. looked at Father Tim, obviously miserable.
“An’ she got a new partner.”
Bingo. “Driving partner, I take it.”
“Right.”
“So, look. I’m out of here in ten minutes. Let me ask you something. What are you doing about all this? Wasting time thinking Adele’s sweet on somebody else? Trying to figure out what she’s up to? Worrying that you aren’t number one anymore?”
“Yeah,” said J.C.
“So a lot of good things are happening for Adele. Have you congratulated her?”
“No.”
“Unbelievable! Sent her flowers?”
“That’s not my style.”
“Told her she’s the best? Kissed her when you came home? Kissed her when she came home?”
“That hasn’t got anything to do with anything.”
“It has everything to do with everything, buddyroe. I remember what you did for Adele when you were courting.You took a couple of pork chops over to her house. And you did that only one time! This is serious business, J.C., and once again, you’re giving it the old pork chop routine—which never cured anything; never has, never will.”
“You’re preachin’ me a sermon.”
“You’ve got that right. When you have a terrific wife like I have a terrific wife, you can’t diddledaddle around. How long since you took Adele out to dinner? How long since you courted this woman? Your wife is going places. Are you going places with her?”
No response.
“I believe I know Adele pretty well, she works her tail off to make Mitford a better place to live,
plus she does all she can to keep you straight. You need to be rubbin’ her feet at night, takin’ her a cup of coffee in th’ mornin’....” He was lapsing into his Mississippi vernacular.
The editor’s face was as red as a parboiled beet. “Rubbin’ her feet? Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?”
“OK, OK, somewhere between pork chops and a foot rub is where this thing needs to fall. But let me tell you, a new aftershave won’t cut it. And bein’ too high and mighty to get excited about her success definitely won’t cut it.You got to court this woman, and you got to get a move on.”
“I got to court her again?”
“The way you courted her the first time was so triflin’, it didn’t even count. You got to court Adele like this is the first time.”
“I should never have said pee-turkey to you.” J.C. slammed his briefcase shut.
“And I’m sayin’ all this to you because I think the world of Adele, and dadgummit, buddy, I love you.” Good grief, he’d never said such a thing to J. C. Hogan in his life.
“Over and over again, I acted the fool with Cynthia, and let me tell you, that is a very dangerous thing to do.” He remembered being unfairly jealous of her editor, threatened by her success, and desperately afraid of losing all that God had given him. “Do you love Adele?”
“Yeah,” said J.C. “Big time.”
“Did you take your vows seriously when I married the two of you?”
“I did.”
“The way I see it, you don’t have any time to lose.You need to get yourself down to the police station and walk in there ...” He looked at his watch. “I saw her patrol car in the parkin’ lot a few minutes ago—walk in there and...”
“And what?”
He had preached himself into a lather. And what, indeed? J.C. was sitting on the edge of his chair.
“Say you’re turning yourself in for bein’ a fool.”
“Come on! Don’t be a horse’s behind.”
“Ask her to sign out early tonight, tell her you have plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“My meddlin’ ends right there.” Father Tim wadded up the wrapper from the Nabs and tossed it in the trash bucket. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”
He’d forgotten to ask J.C. if he knew anything more about Edith Mallory. He prayed for her faithfully and thought of her often—trying to imagine her urgent search for the connecting word among what Jubal had likened to the swarming of bees.
And what if the first word she had expressed with such feeling was lost again?
God, she had said! On the day she’d locked him in the room with herself at Kinloch, she had no heart for God, not in the least.
He didn’t want her to lose that word; it was imperative that she be able to hold on to that word.
Hold on, Edith! he thought, as he removed the key from the ignition in the town museum driveway.
Betty Craig looked done in.
“How is he?”
“Not a bit good.”
“And Miss Rose?”
“Th’ meanest ol’ woman that ever drew breath, Father, an’ that’s all there is to it.”
“What’s going on?”
“He’s jis’ goin’ down; he won’t hardly eat nothin’, an’ you know he loves my cookin’. He wanted chicken an’ dumplin’s, but just sucked some of th’ broth out of a spoon.”
“Does he need to go back to the hospital?”
“I think he does.”
“Pulse?”
“Weak.”
“Where’s Miss Rose?”
“In th’ bathroom, grinnin’ at ‘erself in th’ mirror last time I looked. She’s jis’ wicked!”
“Not wicked. Sick. It’s a terrible disease, and hardly any money’s ever spent to learn more about it.”
“What ought we t’ do?”
“I’ll call Hoppy. Should I go in?”
“I think you should. You’re always good medicine for people.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, meaning it. J. C. Hogan had been ready to knock him upside the head.
He stood by the bed, silent, gazing upon the man who had caused so many to laugh for so long ...
Without opening his eyes, Uncle Billy held up his hand and Father Tim took it. “Is that... th’ preacher?”
“It is, Uncle Billy.” He had a knot in his throat the size of a golf ball, honored to be recognized merely by his touch.
How many sickbeds had he visited in his lifetime? His own mother’s had been the most wrenching, and this one, this bedside, seemed oddly similar. He realized it was because Bill Watson was more than a cherished friend, more than a long-time parishioner—he was family.
“Let me pray for you,” he said.
“That’d be good.”
But when he knelt to do it, he found he couldn’t speak for the tears.
He pulled into the Meadowgate driveway with seven potted lilies crowded onto the passenger seat and floorboard, and saw the green pickup truck parked in the pull-over.
The odor of ashes and creosote greeted him as soon as he hit the back steps.
“Darling, look who’s come to see us. Pansy Flower, this is my husband, Father Tim Kavanagh.”
“Pleased,” said Pansy, who did a miniature bob. The curtsy hadn’t gone the way of the milk wagon, after all. Indeed, it was cropping up all over the place—a regular come-back!
“Pansy of the famed Flower Girls! I’m happy to meet you, Pansy.”
“Pansy’s telling me about her large and very talented family,” said Cynthia.
“Ten young ’uns! Eight girls, two boys. None dead. I myself personally am th’ baby.”
“Aha!”
“Iris, Lily, Rose, Arbutus, Delphinium, we call ’er Del,” Pansy totted them up on her fingers. “Vi‘let. Daisy. Jack in the Pulpit, we call ’im Jack. An’ Sweet William, we call ’im Billy.”
Father Tim observed that she positively beamed during this pronouncement.
“Let’s see, now. Iris is the one who sews?” Cynthia had her notebook and pen at the ready.
“No’m. Iris irons. ’Cept she can’t do much right now, she’s got corp’ral tunnel.”
“So. Iris irons. Lily sews.”
“No’m, it’s Rose that sews. Lily cooks for parties.”
“And Arbutus?”
“She don’t do nothin’. She married Junior Bentley an’ lives in a brick house.”
Tuckered, he sought the solace of his wing chair and avoided looking at the plywood.
“A brick house?”
“Yes, ma’am. On th’ new bypass across from Red Pig Barbecue. With two screen porches.”
“So let me make sure I understand. I call Rose if I need sewing, Iris if I need ironing, and Lily when I give the Christmas party.”
“Yes, ma’am. Oh, an’ we forgot to talk about Daisy, she’s twenty-two, an’ works with Jack an’ Billy killin’ hogs.”
“Killing hogs!”
“Yes, ma’am, from October to March, they kill hogs ever’ Saturday an’ make sausage. It’s available in links, patties, or bulk.”
He thought his wife looked a tad on the pale side. “Please, just write it all down,” she said, transferring the notepad to Pansy.
“Don’t you want to know ’bout Vi’let?”
Cynthia thumped into a chair at the pine table. “Of course! Have a seat, Pansy, and tell me everything.”
“Vi‘let works of a week, an’ sings country music for parties on Saturday night.”
“The parties that Lily caters?”
“Yes, ma’am, they hire out as a team. Barbecue an’ fried catfish is Lily’s specials; she serves that with cole slaw, hush puppies, an’ homemade tater tots. Or if it’s fried chicken you want, she does coleslaw, mashed taters, an’ biscuits. Vi‘let, she sings jis’ like Loretta Lynn, an’ plays th’ guitar.”
He caught himself nodding off.
“Her an’ Lily charges by th’ head. Twenty dollars a head fo
r cookin’ an’ singin’.”
“What if someone wants cooking and no singing?”
“They don’t work that way; you have to take th’ whole package. An’ no Sundays ’less it’s a church party. For a church party, Vi’let sings gospel an’ they give a ten-percent discount. But they don’t get much church b’iness.”
“I suppose not; church people like to do their own singing.”
“Yes, ma’am, an’ their own cookin’ in many cases.
“Well, Pansy, what I really need is someone to clean. As you can see, this dreadful mess can’t wait ’til the cows come home. I need someone tomorrow morning, bright and early. Doesn’t anyone in the family clean?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am! ’Cept for Arbutus who married Junior Bentley an’ lives in a brick house, we all clean.”
“Thank the Lord!”
“But for cleanin’, we rotate.”
“Rotate?”
“Yes, ma’am, you don’t git the’ same one twice runnin’. It goes like this—Lily comes Monday, Rose comes Tuesday, I come Wednesday, Del comes Thursday, Iris ... no, wait, I think it’s Rose as comes Monday an’ Lily as comes Tuesday. Oh, shoot, I can’t remember all that mess; it’s too confusin’. You let us work that out.”
“Happy to,” said his wife, who appeared ready for a nap.
The cross stood in the center of the bare pine table, draped in purple.
Cold air, and with it a noxious sift of creosote, flowed down the broken chimney and seeped around the plywood into the kitchen. Though Cynthia had done what she could to freshen things up, the malodorous smell permeated the room.
It was a time in the church year that always moved and jolted him. He’d sat in many a church on this night, with only candles lighting the nave, sorrowing over His suffering and death, keeping watch for His resurrection. Indeed, he’d never known any way to receive the authentic joy of Easter without entering into this dark hour.
His feelings were stirred by the clear and shining voice of his wife as she read from the first Epistle to the believers at Corinth.
“ ‘I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.’”