He pulled the candlestick closer and read aloud from the Gospels of Luke and John in the old prayer book.
“‘... Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots....
“ ‘Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended ...’”
He thought he heard a knock somewhere but couldn’t be certain. “Did you hear something?”
It came again, louder this time, at the backdoor. “Willie!” he said, leaving the table. “It must be important.”
He switched on the light and opened the door, but saw no one. “Willie? Is that you?”
A tall, thin figure stepped into the porch light.
“It’s m-me. S-S-Sammy”
CHAPTER NINE
Keeping the Feast
On the morning of Good Friday, a mild, nearly balmy breeze blew into the valley.
Relishing the liberty of a short-sleeve shirt, Father Tim stood outside the laundry room with a brick mason who nursed a plug of tobacco in his jaw and surveyed the damage.
“Back then, they laid their chimney stacks one brick thick.”
“That’s not good, I take it.”
“Was then; ain’t now. It’s a wonder it ain’t fell in before. Out here, see, y’r storms come mostly from th’ west, th’ side y’r chimney’s on. All that wet blowin’ in collects in y’r mortar, then when y’r freezes come, th’ mortar contracts; y’ know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“Swells up, freezes, swells up, freezes. Pretty soon, comes loose, falls out, big gale blows, down she goes.”
“Got it.”
Throughout the house, the ancient window sashes had been forced open to let in drafts of spring air, and sweeten the bitter smell of wood ash. Father Tim heard the drone of several vacuum cleaners operating simultaneously on bare wood floors, in concert with the rumble of a supersize clothes dryer and the agitation of a washing machine.
The mason shot a stream of tobacco juice into a camellia bush. “Busy place,” he said to the vicar.
A serious contingent of Flower Girls had reported for duty, and according to the look on his wife’s face only moments earlier, Father Tim determined that all was right with the world.
He sat with Sammy on the back steps, taking a break.
“Thanks, buddy.”
Sammy nodded with a short, self-conscious jerk of his head.
They’d piled the debris collected behind the plywood into a couple of wheelbarrows. As transferring the detritus from the barrow to the truck bed would be too labor intensive, they’d huffed the heavy barrows to the farm dump beyond the root cellar.
“We’re glad you’re here,” said Father Tim. “You’re safe with us.”
Another jerk of the head.
Déjà vu, thought the vicar. These porch steps were exactly where he’d sat with Dooley on their first visit to the farm all those years ago.
“How did you get here?”
Sammy raised the thumb of his right hand.
“How did you know where we are?”
“Asked at th’ gas station in Mitford, they all knowed.”
“Dooley and I looked for you in Holding. He was pretty worried when we couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I w-w-wanted t’ git out on m’ own; I w-wanted to make it on m’ own, like D-Dooley”
“Dooley didn’t make it on his own.”
A guinea streaked by, with another in hot pursuit. It was mating season at Meadowgate.
“For that matter,” said Father Tim, “I didn’t make it on my own, either. We can’t make it on our own; we need each other. Why didn’t you tell Lon?”
“I wanted t’ sh-show ’im I could do it without no help. I didn’t have n-nobody t’ talk to.”
“You have somebody now. Dooley. Poo. Jessie. Buck.” Mentioning Sammy’s mother wouldn’t be a good thing; Sammy bitterly resented the wrong she had done all her children. “Cynthia. Barnabas. Me.” He put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder, and felt him flinch. He also felt the bone beneath the skin.
“I got me a job at a n-nursery Lasted th-ththree weeks.”
“Didn’t work out, then.”
“They said I s-stole money. I didn’t do it; it was a f-fat boy done it.”
“We may have a paying job for you right here, if you’re interested. After all, if we’re going to have tomato sandwiches, we’ve got to have tomatoes. I’m pretty good with roses, but don’t know much about tomatoes.”
A light flickered in the boy’s eyes. “I can grow t’maters, big time.”
“I’ll bet you can.”
“C-cukes, squash, melon, pole beans, all ’at.”
“Okra?” He was a fool for okra.
“I ain’t never g-growed okra but I could do it.”
“Any plans to go back to your father?”
“I ain’t n-never goin’ back. He pulled a gun on me, made me set still without hardly b-breathin’, said if I moved he’d blow m’ brains out. He was b-bad drunk. After while, he passed out an’ I run. I slep’ that night in’ the neighbor’s garage an’ kep’ goin’ ’til I c-come t’ M-Morganton. I found a nurs’ry an’ got a job.”
“Where did you stay?”
“I slep’ in th’ sh-shed where they kep’ th’ clay pots an’ all. I hope him an’ C-Cate Turner is burnin’ in hell right now.”
There was a long silence; only the squawking of the guineas, the call of a bird.
“What became of your beautiful garden?” Father Tim remembered the garden Sammy had created in “a waste place,” as the Bible sometimes put it; its loveliness had brought tears to his eyes.
Sammy shrugged. “It’ll g-grow over an’ nobody’ ll know it was there.”
“Any idea where you want to go from here?”
“Don’t know where I’d s-stay at.”
“Cynthia and I talked about it; we’d like you to stay with us for a while. But we have a few house rules.”
Better lay it out upfront.
“No smoking. No cussing. Keep your room in order. If you leave, let us know where you’re going. Curfew—eleven o’clock.”
Sammy watched the guineas disappear around the smokehouse. The old scar on his face reddened.
“Did you hear me, son?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Interested?”
Sammy nodded. “Yeah.”
“How long since you were in school?”
“I ain’t been t’ school since eighth grade, an’ I ain’t goin’ back, neither.”
“How old are you?”
“S-s-sixteen.”
“When did you turn sixteen?”
Sammy shot him an aggrieved look.
“If you’re going to stay with us, and I hope you will, I need to know the score.”
“Last month.”
“March, then.”
“Yeah. Th’ fourteenth.”
In North Carolina, it was legally permissible to drop out of school at the age of sixteen.While that may not be the best of rulings, Father Tim was relieved; if they had to force Sammy to go to school, Sammy might be lost to them forever.
Father Tim sniffed the air; a wondrous aroma was wending its way through the kitchen door and out to the porch ...
It had a been a long time since Sammy had wolfed down his supper last night and crashed on Annie’s bed without removing his clothes.
“That muffin we had a while ago is history. Let’s go in and have some breakfast.”
Sammy shot to his feet; a grin tried to spread across his face. The vicar noted that Sammy caught it before it got very far. In any case, it was sunlight breaking through leaden clouds.
Good Friday was a fast day, and though Cynthia later vowed she’d asked for something “very simple,” Lily-
who-cooks-for-parties had done herself proud.
Cheese grits, bacon, fried apples, scrambled eggs, drop biscuits, and cream gravy sat in bowls and platters on the pine table. She had also fried up half the sausage she’d toted as a gift from the sausage-making operation, and set out two jars of jam from the farm coffers.
His wife trotted in from the laundry room and gasped. “Is this a dream?”
“Hallelujah and three amens!” said the vicar. He’d better call the Mitford Hospital and reserve a room. “What do you say, Sammy?”
Sammy appeared dumbfounded, unable to reply.
Lily was already elbow-deep in a sinkful of hot, soapy water, giving the pots and pans a thorough what for. She giggled. “Better not carry on like ’at ’til you see if it’s any good.”
The vicar pulled out a chair for his marveling wife. “We hear by the grapevine that you sing like Loretta Lynn!”
“Oh, no, sir, that’s Vi’let as sings like Loretta. If I was t’ sing a’tall, which I don’t, I’d sing more like Dolly.”
“Aha. And thank you for the sausage, Lily. A very thoughtful gift!”
“It’s th’ mild, not th’ hot; we didn’t think you‘uns looked th’ hot ’n’ spicy type.”
“Very thoughtful!” he said. How could he eat such a feast when his commitment was to fast?
“Anyhow, it ain’t from me; it’s from Daisy. Daisy does sausage. I don’t have nothin’ to do with sausage makin’! No, sir, it’s way too messy. I’ll never make no sausage ...”
“I believe Lily is the one who also sews, dear.”
“Oh, no ma’am, that’s Rose as sews. I’m not facilitated to do nothin’ but cook an’ clean.”
“Let’s pray,” he said.
Worn, they sat in the library by a waning fire. Sammy was watching a billiards competition on the TV in his room; Violet was curled on the lap of her mistress; the farm dogs snored in their accustomed places in the kitchen. Peace like a river ...
“Let me read to us,” he said. He believed his homily was nailed; the rest was up to the Holy Spirit.
He thumbed through the little volume of Longfellow’s poems that he’d found among Marge’s many books, and read from “Endymion.”
“... O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds, as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
‘Where hast thou stayed so long?’ ... ”
“Do you believe with Mr. Longfellow,” she asked, “that no one is so accursed by fate but some heart responds to his own?”
“I do believe it. It’s true for Dooley, and for Lace. It was true for Buck and Pauline ...” He could go on and on. “It was true for us.”
“For so many years I thought that no heart, however known or unknown, would ever respond to my own. I never dreamed of this happiness with you. And for you to read aloud to me is such a lavish gift; it’s above all I could ever ask or think.”
“Do you remember the time you came down to my study?” he asked. “It was in the middle of the night, and I was walking through the valley . . . you read the hundred and third psalm to me. I was so happy to see you, I felt I’d been rescued from drowning; your voice meant everything to me.”
They sat for a time, gazing at the crimson embers beneath the grate.
“Mother read to me,” he mused, “but not for entertainment. It was purely instructional, bless her soul! But I had Peggy, as you know. Peggy couldn’t read, but she told me stories. Lengthy, complex, wonderful stories of her childhood in the backcountry of Mississippi. Then, when I learned to read, I read to her.”
“I’m trying to remember—when did you see her last?”
“I was ten when she disappeared. Just vanished. I was stricken.” Where did she go? He never knew ...
He suddenly felt again the old sorrow, as if a door had opened somewhere, spilling a grim light into the corridor.
His truest friend had simply never come back to his mother’s kitchen, to cook with her and make her laugh; to slip him a forbidden sweet, and listen to his cares as if they were actually important.
After she’d gone, he often rode his bike down the narrow lane, and entered her cold cabin and called her name. The cabin looked as if she’d simply walked away and would soon return—a dress still hung on a nail, an apron was thrown over the back of a chair, wood for a cook fire had been brought in and placed by the hearth.
His mother, whom he believed to know everything, had appeared to know nothing about Peggy’s disappearance. More than once, he’d trekked to the barn—what if she’d been gathering eggs in the loft, and fallen through the rotten boards? For months, he looked for her on the streets of Holly Springs, and once went to her church on Wednesday night and stood in the road to see whether she came.
It occurred to him as he sat here, more than a half century later, that he’d looked for Peggy for most of his life. Or more truly, he’d looked for her particular warmth. In the divided, often-cold household of his childhood, Peggy’s warmth had ignited in him a kind of fire to love and be loved.
He gazed at his wife with quiet amazement. “I never thought of it before,” he said.
“What have you never thought before?”
“You remind me of Peggy.”
She leaned her head to one side and smiled. “I’m proud to remind you of Peggy,” she said. “Why don’t we go up now, darling—to clean sheets and swept corners?”
She took his hand and led him along the stairs, and once again he felt the happiness of these last weeks. He would do something wonderful for his wife one day. He’d do all in his power to give back what she had so generously given him.
He opened his eyes and looked out the window near their bed. In the cold first light, the distant tree line appeared rimmed with platinum.
“Are you awake?”
“I am.”
He rolled over and kissed her on the cheek. “He is risen!”
“He is risen, indeed!”
“Alleluia!” As ever on Easter morning, a certain heaviness departed his spirit.
“I’m excited about our first real service at Holy Trinity,” she said. “Wait, I take that back. Last Sunday was wonderfully real.”
“I like the way you think; you’ll always be my deacon.” He slid out of bed. “I’ll start the coffee; the ham’s ready to pop in the oven just before we leave.”
“I’ll make breakfast for Sammy and me. Are you having toast?”
“Just toast. And a little butter.” While a priest typically fasted before the Eucharist, his blasted diabetes wanted mollycoddling.
They made the sign to each other; it had become their new private liturgy.
Father Tim pushed open the door to the room where the Owens’ daughter Annie had lived until she finished college. Her years in the foreign service had kept her away from home for long periods, but soon, she’d be moving to Asheville, a fact that thrilled not only the Owens, but himself, as well.
Barnabas bounded in and stood by the bed, wagging his tail.
“Sammy! Good morning! Time to get up, son.”
“What’s g-goin’ on?”
“A blessed Easter to you! We’re off to church in an hour or so, breakfast on the table in twenty minutes.”
“Church?” Sammy sat up in bed, wearing one of Dooley’s left-behind sweatshirts. “I ain’t goin’ t’ no ch-church.”
“We talked about it last night.”
“Y-yeah, but I didn’t s-s-say I’d g-go.”
“House rule. We go to church as a family.”
“That rule wadn’t on th’ l-list you give me b’fore.”
“I’m sorry. I took that rule for granted and failed to mention it.
Please get up now and have some breakfast.”
“Quit breathin’ on me!” he heard Sammy say to Barnabas, who caught up with his master on the stairs.
He realized again that he’d never enjoyed making anybody do anything. But enjoyment wasn’t necessarily what it was all about when a lost boy comes under your roof. It had often been tough sledding with Dooley, and it could be tough sledding again.
Lord, he prayed, thank you for being on the sled . . .
They were early, yet four vehicles were already parked in the lot.
As he blew through the door with Barnabas at his heels, he checked his mental list. Pew bulletins on the top shelf by the bell rope. Juice and cups and a tin of cookies on the bottom shelf. Bread and wine in the sacristy; his white vestments hanging behind the door. Lilies in front of the altar, the snowy fair linen laid on, floors swept clean, windows shining . . .
Yesterday’s housekeeping detail with Sammy and Cynthia and Lloyd and the Mertons had been one of the highlights of his priesthood.
Buzzed with excitement, he marshaled his troops.
“Miss Martha, do you sing?”
“Real loud!” announced Mary.
“Good! That’s what we need this morning. Open up those pipes, ladies.
“Kavanagh, I’m depending on you, as well.”
“You know perfectly well I was given an eye, not an ear!”
“No excuses! Lloyd, do you sing?”
“Tenor. But can’t read music t’ save my life.”
“Not a problem, we’re using the old hymns. And there’s a visitor! Welcome to Holy Trinity! Happy Easter! Do you sing?”
“It’ll set y’r dog t’ barkin’,” declared Sparkle Foster.