‘I consider it a compliment.’
‘Falling asleep on our anniversary and not even helping with the dishes. That’s a compliment?’
‘You feel comfortable with me. I don’t think I’m a particularly comfortable person. Besides, we celebrated early in Dublin, remember?’
He grasped her foot, held it tight—so much was loose in this world. ‘Thanks for helping keep watch.’
‘If you’re sleeping down here, I’m sleeping down here. How many nights?’
‘One more, I think.’ He closed his eyes, spoke aloud their favored prayer from the Compline.
‘Before the ending of the day / Creator of the world we pray . . .’
She joined her voice with his. ‘That thou with wonted love shouldst keep . . .
‘Thy watch around us while we sleep . . .’
The prayer ended, the fire crackled and sighed.
‘Are you drifting off?’
‘Not immediately.’
‘Let’s write love letters again,’ she said. ‘Like we did when I was stuck in Manhattan all those months and we were trying to figure out what we meant to each other.’
‘Love letters are hard.’
‘But that’s what makes them good.’
On his bed by the hearth, Barnabas whimpered in his sleep, his squirrel whimper; Violet slept in the armchair.
‘How often?’ he said.
‘Twice a week?’
‘That’s way too much, Kav’na.’
‘Once a week, then. That’s absolutely the best deal I can make.’
The small rattle against the window of maple branches in a September wind. He was completely content, apt to say anything.
‘Let’s do it.’
• • •
PERHAPS SOME BY-PRODUCT of nocturnal energy poured off celestial bodies, rained on the hapless, jangled human nerves. In any case, he couldn’t sleep.
He breathed a mantra known to pacify his nervous system—Thank you, thank you, thank you, again and again, and finally, onto his nightly petitions for Cynthia, Dooley, Lace, Sammy, Kenny . . . off he went, naming the legions, lingering on some blurred or precise image of each, all this followed by supplications for the Church, this country, her leaders, her enemies.
He could usually manage that much in a lateral fashion before his petitions drifted like clouds before a leeward wind. He found drifting to be the provoking nature of prayer—and there was the water tower in Holly Springs and Henry and Peggy in the house with the swept yard, and his breathing coming easier now, and he was no longer lifting up the living, but poking around in the dim chambers of those gone before.
If wakefulness persisted, as it was doing tonight, he often applied himself to the useful soporific of ‘praying the town,’ which meant going in his imagination from door to door, interceding for Mitford families, with special intentions for the sick. If he lasted long enough, which was rare, he included the merchants, who needed all the help they could get.
It had been thoughtless to buy into Cynthia’s letter-writing scheme, as if he had nothing else to do. Though, come to think of it, he had nothing else to do, except three miles three times . . .
So if he was going to write her, where would he go for inspiration? He had used the Song of Solomon more than once, which was also more than enough, being the sticky business most people knew it to be.
Better still, if he was going to get serious about it, he needed first to answer the letter from Henry, which had arrived days ago. He considered getting up and doing it now, but if he moved, the whole sleeping arrangement would come to pieces.
O Lord, I call to you, come quickly to me, Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice . . .
Somewhere in the fifth verse, his mind drifted.
Camelopardalis, he was thinking as he fell asleep.
• • •
DAWN. THE LIGHT SHY, the sun hidden; low-hanging fog.
Still in his robe and pajamas, he took his coffee mug out to the maple beyond the study window and looked toward the dark stain of mountains along the horizon.
What he needed was a new route. In the past, he’d run up Wisteria and across Church Hill Road, cut up Old Church Lane and hung a left at Fernbank, then a left on Lilac Road and a right toward Farmer. He wasn’t crazy about the Farmer leg of that run, some drivers insisted they paid taxes on both sides of the road and were determined to get their money’s worth. The road to Wesley was busier still, with more carbon monoxide to suck into his lungs, so what to do? A parochial route; that was the ticket, though he hated having ten extra pounds flapping in the face of every Tom, Dick, and Harry on Main Street—fat was a private matter.
He’d give the parochial plan a try. If he didn’t like it, he could change it. He would cross Main and hook a right toward Farmer, then a couple of rights to the tower monument, then up Lilac, hit Church Hill, and home. Easy.
Okay. And if he had any wind left when he hit Lilac, he could keep going and run around the monument, then twice around the parking lot at town hall, then over to Church Hill and home to Wisteria.
Forgetful of the morning dew, he sat on the bench under the maple tree, exhausted just thinking about it.
• • •
Dear Henry . . .
The morning was close, humid; he was sweating as he hooked a right toward Farmer. Any advantage of the running he’d done in the past was long used up; he was strung tight as a mountain banjo.
Out of the Irish skillet and into the fire, it appears that C and I cannot avoid all manner of boondoggleries.
But no, he wouldn’t go into the McGraw affair, too much work composing all that drivel, and to what end?
We’re plenty glad to be back at 107 Wisteria. As I said when we talked, we arrived home in the middle of the night, Dooley and Lace driving us up the mountain. What I forgot to say is that I wish you could have seen our little town sleeping at two in the morning—I was especially moved by the sight of the streetlamps glimmering as if under the spell of sober thought, and the silent mountains beyond. It is cause to believe that one day, all will be well with the world.
He would like to say, You must come and have a look for yourself.
But he couldn’t say it; it would commit him to something he couldn’t fully undertake.
Thank God for your steady improvement. This six- to twelve-month stretch of your immunodeficiency is a tough pull—but I should think everything depends on it. On the upside, your hundred days of staying out of the fray will soon be over—maybe a matinee (usually only a few people in the theater) and a box of popcorn?—I’ll Google your low-bacteria diet to see what is approved. No Milk Duds would be my guess.
Thanks for your letter received on the seventh. We still have tomatoes in plenty, and will indeed save our seeds for your patch. You are a better man than I if you get anything useful from them.
If Henry should ever come to Mitford, he wondered whether he could introduce him as his brother. The thought had presented itself in Ireland, but hadn’t concerned him. Now he was home, and the anxiety had come back. It wouldn’t be so easy with others as it had been with Louella.
He had stopped to adjust the bandanna around his head when he looked up and saw the limo headed north toward Farmer.
Identifying the plate was a lost cause; the car was in the opposite lane and moving fast. He didn’t care for tinted windows, though they had their virtues; he wasn’t even the man for sunglasses. He regretted that he’d gaped like a moron.
The point was, Henry’s bloodline made itself clear even to the casual observer. What would his former parish have to say? And why in God’s name would it matter what was said?
It mattered because the fact of Henry’s existence revealed their father’s duplicity, which was a slap in
the face of his mother. Or worse, in his view, was that some may think his mother had been the one for duplicity. Either way, his mother’s memory would bear the brunt, and the fault would rest on his shoulders. He had not let sleeping dogs lie, he had roused them up and they had gone baying.
The Methodist chapel was coming up on his left—he imagined himself resting on the bench in the memorial garden, shaded by a hedge of privet; he saw himself making excuses to Wilson, but no, he couldn’t worm out of this, not with Wilson doing twenty to his three.
The vastly more important thing was that his half-brother now freighted a population of Tim Kavanagh’s stem cells. That his cells would have been a match for Henry’s was given less than a five percent chance, but they matched—an indisputable miracle, according to members of the Memphis medical team. The miracle had kindly extended itself to a successful transfer of his cell soup, which vanquished—for how long, no one knew—the acute myelogenous leukemia.
Clearly, God had given him this particular brother, and his cowardice to fully accept that was shaming.
• • •
ESTHER CUNNINGHAM was driving home from the Local with a sack of fingerling potatoes when she saw Father Tim running east on Lilac Road. Now, there was a sight for sore eyes. She threw up her hand, but he didn’t see her. While everything else was changing, there was their retired priest running his legs off, just like he’d done for years. It was a consolation to see somebody doing the same thing over and over again.
Take this bag of potatoes—used to be, as far as she knew, there had been Idahos, Irish, and russet—period. Now there were four thousand types of potatoes, including fingerlings that looked like a bag of noses with warts. You couldn’t just have a potato potato anymore. Avis Packard was over the moon for fingerlings, and here she was, falling for it and paying double. Why hadn’t she resisted such extravagance? She hadn’t resisted because she was too exhausted to resist.
She didn’t know when she’d been stripped so bare, all the way to the bone and down to the marrow. Ruined, as her mother used to say.
Had she seen the doctor about it? Of course not. Why go to a doctor for being exhausted? For having cancer, yes, for ulcerated stomach, yes, go to the bloomin’ doctor, but for worn-out, it was simple—rest, lose forty pounds, walk to the mailbox every day, think positive, breathe deep, eat right, and be regular—just the thought made her want to lie down.
She had confessed this to Ray a few weeks ago. And what wisdom of the ages had he rattled off? ‘It’s the economy, Sugar Babe.’
Yesterday, he rolled out another brilliant observation. ‘It’s our age, Doll Face.’
And now he was going to fix everything, which was what he always did—she knew better than to complain to Ray Cunningham. He would be taking them out West for three months in their Coachman Freelander. ‘This’ll put pep in your step,’ he said. To Ray, a few weeks in that old RV could cure every ailment from ingrown toenails to congestive heart failure.
They would experience the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, all the way to the Willamette Valley. They would ride in a Conestoga wagon, meet Indians, and sit around smoking a peace pipe, though she would not inhale, no way. How anybody had the gall to smoke a peace pipe with people they had decimated was beyond her. It was a Wild West bonanza Ray had signed up for, and while he was out of his mind with excitement, she was dreading it like a double root canal. How she would endure being cooped up in an RV with his unending torrent of ‘Cupcake’ and ‘Sweet Lips,’ she had no clue. She’d been cooped up with it many times in the past, but that was then and this was now.
Mayoring Mitford for going on two decades had nearly put her under, and even though she served her last term three years ago, she still hadn’t completely recovered. She had been diced, sliced, barbecued, and fried trying to run this town. She’d rather have mayored Chicago, Illinois.
Everybody thought Mitford was just this quaint little village with people runnin’ around prayin’ for each other. So let them try to placate the boobs on the town council, the nitwits in Raleigh, and the sleazy developers from parts unknown. Let them try to keep taxes from escalating, and the merchants from doing exactly as they pleased and thinking they owned the place. Let them keep the Independence Day parade from wandering down side streets everywhichaway, leaving llama poop scattered from one end of town to the other.
And that was just the small stuff. As for the big stuff, how about the moment that deserved to be recorded forever in the history of Mitford, USA?
Just as she’d known it would, the nasty business of the box stores had landed on the council table in ’95.
Whop! The council and the whole bloomin’ town split down the middle like a ripe melon dropped on concrete. Right there was where the cheese got binding, and stayed that way for a full year before it finally came to a vote.
Ray had driven her to the council meeting. She was a basket case. If this thing went through, Mitford was chopped liver; it was every other desperate small town in America, with their acres of asphalt and windowless buildings looming over the struggling enterprises of Main Street.
The votes came in. It was a tie. Ray’s grin lit up the entire back row.
When they called for her vote, she stood and gave it the Big Jack Benny. She looked to her right and she looked to her left. One side of the council was grinning; the Other side was shaking in their boots. They all knew where she stood, they all knew how much she loved this town, and they all knew that a tie and only a tie gave the mayor a vote.
Horace Greene, a Catholic on the Other side, crossed himself in plain view of God and everybody. And she had reared back, squared her shoulders, and lowered the boom on box stores. Nada. No way. Not in this town.
People always said Esther Cunningham was a tough cookie, but no, on too many issues she had been as soft as the inside of a cathead biscuit. If she had it to do over, she would take no prisoners.
And then Vanita Bentley askin’ her, Is Mitford still takin’ care of its own, Miz Cunningham?
No! she wanted to shout. Absolutely not! Why ask such a foolish question? You have two eyes in your head, figure it out. See the trash blowin’ around on Main Street, and th’ plastic bag that’s been snagged on th’ awning of the Woolen Shop since the storm in August? August! And what about th’ candy wrappers an’ chewin’ gum an’ cigarette butts litterin’ the sidewalk an’ the dirty display windows in half the shops? What was the matter with retailers who couldn’t get out there with a broom once in a while, and keep their windows washed so shoppers could see the bloomin’ merchandise? Not to mention Avis Packard and his pile of cigarette butts along the curb at the Local, shame on him. You had to go in and talk to merchants like this was their last day on earth if they didn’t get their act together.
And last year’s Christmas parade—if that wasn’t pathetic, nothing was. There was Santy Claus ridin’ in on his float, the star of the show, the big kahuna, and the spectacle of him throwing out that little dab of candy was mortifying. A handful! A pittance! She was shocked and the children were crushed. ‘Not a budget item,’ was what a council member said. If she was mayor again, she would show them budget item. What kind of town had a Santy that didn’t give out enough candy to stick in the toe of a stockin’?
And what did Andrew Gregory know about filling the oil drum of an old woman and her halfwit son in a hard winter, or pulling a few strings to see that a fatherless family got fed or had clothes on their backs? Oh, no, he was busy tryin’ to make an inn out of Evie Adams’s old house and run a rubber-tire trolley up Main Street, everything but stand on the sidewalk in a clown suit to bring in the tourist trade. She hoped her successor was having a happy life, thank God he didn’t marry Cynthia before the Father got to her.
As for th’ mess at Lord’s Chapel, which nobody seemed able to figure out, she’d been around the block a few times and could absolutely guarantee that whatever was going
on down there would sooner or later blow up—in more faces than one.
As she pulled into the driveway, she noticed the blotches on her right arm. Ha. On her left arm, too.
She looked in the mirror on the back of the sun visor, to see if her face had broken out. Was the Pope Cath’lic? Just like the old days when she was mayor, her entire mug was one big splotch. Stress, Hoppy Harper had said. Sausage biscuits, said her grandson, Joe Joe, who would soon be the best police chief the MPD ever had.
She killed the engine and stared at the garage door. Ray was playing golf today with his crazy pilot brother, Omer. She would have an early lunch, fix herself a salad, and no way would she dig out the leftover rum cake hidden behind the organic peas Avis Packard had conned her into buying.
She sighed, close to bawling. She didn’t want any of that lonesome grub.
What did she want?
She turned the key in the ignition, cranked into reverse, and backed out to Church Hill Road. She was going to Wesley, where she would swing in the drive-through at the Highlander, park in the shade, eat her chili dog and fries in the car, and listen to Rush Limbaugh.
• • •
‘LOOK THERE,’ said Hessie Mayhew, who sat by the window of the Woolen Shop, having coffee with Lois Burton. ‘It’s Father Tim, I thought he was still in Ireland.’
‘I can’t believe you didn’t know he came home days ago.’
‘I can’t know everything,’ snapped Hessie.
‘But you’re paid to know,’ said Lois, ‘bein’ a reporter on th’ Muse an’ all.’
‘Fifteen dollars an hour,’ said Hessie, ‘does not buy universal knowledge.’
Only yesterday, she had pictured Father Tim salmon fishing in waders and a tweed cap. And there he went, blowing up Main Street in shorts and a T-shirt, letting it all hang out. She didn’t think clergy should run or even jog. It was too up-close-and-personal a thing to do in front of people trying to mind their own business and get a little shopping done. Besides, without his collar, he looked positively naked. She took out her notebook, jotted something in green ink.