She laughed. ‘So there’s a trick prayer that solves all our problems? You would be a poor candidate for the witness stand.’
‘It has power to do what’s intended.’
‘What exactly is its intent?’
‘To lead us out of ourselves. Liberate us from the gridlock of ego.’
‘The gridlock of ego. You sound like my husband. Okay, you’ve been kind to listen to me. What is the prayer?’
‘Thank you, God, for loving me and for sending your son to die for my sins. I repent of my sins and receive Christ as my savior. And now, as your child, I surrender my entire life to you.’
Long silence, and then laughter. ‘Oh, no. I’m not ready for that, not at all, no. It’s not my sins I’m calling about, Father. Or perhaps you have misunderstood.’
They were both exhausted
‘Call me anytime. If I don’t answer, you may get my deacon, Cynthia, who just happens to be my wife. She’s wonderful. You’ll love her, everybody does. She was betrayed, too, you see, and really gets it.’
He sat for a time after they said their goodbyes.
A few nights ago, Cynthia mentioned she was ready for him to retire once and for all.
But no. Old priests never retire; they just get the occasional wrong number.
22
MEADOWGATE
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24
Tommy remembered saying it to only three people in his life. To his grandma, Ivy Amelia Sanderson, his granddaddy Milton, and when he was eighteen, to Adrienne Millhouse.
He had burned alive with love for Adrienne Millhouse, stayed in love with her long after she moved out west with her parents to a place he never heard of. He had tried a couple of times in college to love somebody else, and had tried again in Nashville. But trying isn’t the magic. Maybe it sounded like a blurb on a refrigerator magnet, but love happens when you’re not trying.
Now he needed to say it again, was dying to say it again. So why couldn’t he say it again? Because all he had to offer besides a great sound system was a beat-up van, a run-down house, and forty acres needing lime and fertilizer.
Beth had made serious money in New York and she had no plans to stay here, which is where he wanted to live forever. Right now he was renting an apartment the size of a guitar case, chasing the dream, the dollar, the big break, so he could settle into the home place and make it what it used to be.
She would love what it used to be. Cherry trees, pear trees, apple trees bowed to the ground with fruit, walnuts lying thick in the grass, wild turkeys roaming where he had hunted and fished every summer as a kid.
But in the end, maybe the home place was getting in the way of his life. Maybe he was clinging to a dream that couldn’t come true for years.
Maybe what he really needed to do is wake up and grow up. Or just man up—and take the risk—and say what he was crazy to say.
• • •
What he said was ‘I have a gig in Nashville on Tuesday, and three hours in the best recording studio on the planet.’ They were in a booth at Jake’s and it was loud in here. ‘Come with me. Cut a song with me.’
She had never thought of herself as spontaneous. She had her dad’s let’s-think-this-thing-through DNA that other people’s money required. Money wasn’t a dice roll. She had seen how Wall Street cowboys had done it and that wasn’t her way. She should say she would think about it, because she really didn’t know.
‘We could drive up on Sunday,’ said Tommy. ‘I have friends with a horse farm. It’s a beautiful place, they’re great people. You could stay with Luke and Betsy.’
She didn’t know how to stay in the home of strangers. She should say no.
But what she said was ‘Thanks. Great! I’d love that.’
She caught her breath, laughed. Felt the heat in her face. She was rolling the dice.
• • •
They drove out to his grandmother’s farm and wandered through the house. It was sunny today, but cold. There was no heat in the rooms and the water had been turned off. It was a winter house.
He smiled at her and touched the kitchen table covered with oilcloth, the kettle on the stove, the peeling wallpaper he had helped his grandma hang. They went upstairs to his bedroom and looked out the windows to the barn, and away to the deep blue hem of mountains on the robe of sky.
The bed he had slept in till college and afterward on visits was something like a cot. Above it, thumbtacked posters and album covers of Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Patsy Cline in a cowgirl outfit, Tammy Wynette, Ronnie Lee Milsap, Bonnie Raitt, and a baseball glove hanging by its wrist strap.
She studied the faces of people she had never heard of, except Patsy Cline.
‘Classics,’ he said, nodding toward the posters. ‘I grew up on those people.’
The smell of the house—walls and curtains infused with the scent of coffee and maybe fried bacon and ashes cold in the fireplace—all speaking kindly of the life of Ivy Amelia and the grandson she helped raise . . .
In the kitchen on a shelf were framed pictures. One of Tommy on his bike when he was ten, before the accident with Dooley. One when he graduated from high school and one when he was in college—the same determined look, she thought, the same beautiful smile. His mom and dad standing by a yellow convertible—his mother trim and smart, his dad wearing a fedora. His petite grandma and handsome grandpa in the vegetable garden out back, both in overalls and laughing. An uncle in California with a beard and a headband, signed Clyde 1976 San Francisco.
‘So now you’ve met the family,’ he said.
She was carrying a bottle of water and wet the tail of her shirt and cleaned the glass in the picture frames.
‘You look like your grandpa.’
‘A great man. Gone a long time. Couldn’t have done it without them.’
Tommy walked out to the porch at one point and stood facing the mountains. When he came in, she could tell he had rubbed his eyes and she wanted to put her arms around him and say she was sorry about his grandmother, that she understood, which she truly did. It was hard to hold back her sudden feeling of tenderness, but what would happen if she didn’t hold back? She couldn’t live someone else’s dream.
They walked around the garden, still patched by snow. ‘I’m tillin’ it up in the spring. Corn. Beans. Tomatoes. Lettuce . . .’
‘What about rabbits?’ she said. She knew that much about farming.
They had a picnic on the porch where the sun was, where vines were growing through cracks between the floorboards and she took pictures and they took selfies and sat on a blanket he had slept under as a boy.
It was a beautiful place. White oaks revealing enormous branches against a cloudless sky. The long, hard-packed driveway grown up with orchard grass in the middle. A bucket hanging on a nail by the door. His grandmother had filled the bucket with zinnias in summer, lilacs in May, Queen Anne’s lace in September. A bucket on a nail. She was moved by its simple beauty against the faded green of the shingle boards.
She could imagine Ivy Amelia at the screen door, waiting to see her grandson walking up the drive from where his mother dropped him off at the road. Later, he would arrive in his pickup truck; later, still, in his van with the sound equipment and four hungry Biscuits. Ivy Amelia would walk out to the porch, waving . . .
He had brought his favorite guitar today, a 1956 Gibson, and they were singing together when their eyes met and she was suddenly lost—plunged to a depth she’d never reached before. She felt the beating of her heart in her throat, heard them singing the words as if this were not happening at all . . . then the sensation of coming up fast, as if breaking the surface of a lake, hungry for air.
• • •
After he took Beth to Meadowgate, he parked the van in his driveway and dialed the radio to the country classics station.
He hammered out the dent in the rear left
door. Soaped the whole thing and hosed it off. As for wax, that was a two-hour undertaking. So no wax.
‘You were always on my mind, you were always on my mind . . . ’
He would go out to Meadowgate this evening for supper, then pick her up on Sunday at eleven and head out to the town he was still counting on.
Funny, but he’d never kissed her. Before they met at the wedding, Dooley told him her income range. He’d never known a woman who made that kind of money; he thought it might be like kissin’ the Bank of America. But that idea was definitely revised. How he felt when they sang together had nothing to do with financial; it was easier than breathing.
He had a gig tomorrow, Christmas Day, and one on Saturday, so he had to get the van cleaned up for her now and hose it off again Sunday morning for the trip to Nashville. The guys would ride to the venues with Lonnie.
He checked the air in the tires. Sprayed Armor All on the dashboard and wiped it down, hosed the floor mats, reorganized the sound equipment. Collected loose change from the console and put it in his jeans pocket for Jack. Installed two bottles of water in the cup rack, and her present in the glove compartment.
‘I fall to pieces, each time I see you again . . . ’
The gold bracelet was the only gold his grandma ever owned. He had wrapped it himself.
Maybe he should talk to Dooley about all this. Or maybe not.
His hands were shaking as he wiped down the seats and realized he was saying it—under his breath, over and over.
• • •
Beth didn’t want to think about her life right now, about where she was going. Meadowgate was supposed to be a halfway house, a safe place where she could make sense of the connections she had severed and what the future may look like.
How could she leave behind forever what she was trained to do, good at doing? She hadn’t expected to fall in love with Jack and the wonderful life Dooley and Lace were living—with family close by, and the old house so sweetly giving to all who come through the door. Surely she must be again what she had been in the city—but without the craziness, if that was possible. How easily she had surrendered to craziness by marrying Freddie.
Their marriage had lasted ‘about the time it takes to pluck a chicken,’ her mom’s housekeeper said.
‘All those expensive suits he left behind!’ said her mom. ‘And pounds of ties!’
She had been relieved but bewildered. It was like he walked into the night and was smuggled out of the country. Later she heard that he showed up at his office the following day, unfazed, in an Armani blazer.
The truth was, she had wanted to love somebody, thought it was time to be in love. And so she had worked to make love happen.
He was a clever attorney and popular with legions and called her darling like in the old movies they watched for hours. Shallow is what she had been. Lace was never shallow, she was real and true. Tommy was real and true, and Dooley and Harley and Willie.
She didn’t know if Elizabeth Anne Middleton could be real and true.
• • •
Lace sat on the side of the bed with the journal open in her lap.
She had recorded their amazing news a few days ago. There was really no good explanation why women with adhesive disease can get pregnant. Her dad said that over time, adhesions can become thinned and give way without medical intervention, but there’s no guarantee. Medical intervention can even make things worse. All she knew is that her dad and Dr. Wilson were really positive, and that somehow, much less of her biological father’s cruelty haunted her body. Her body had revolted and laid claim again to itself.
She uncapped her pen.
DECEMBER 24~ Once he was a little boy whose story was~
I can watch tv anytime I want if Granny is sleeping and eat anything I want if there is anything to eat. Granny keeps me because she gets money and because my other mom went to California and my other dad is dead because of a train.
Tonight he wants to do the sweetest most wonderful thing. He wants to tell his story after supper to his mom and dad and Uncle Tommy and Aunt Beth. His story has grown to have a life apart from bedtime~ it is his “certification”~ and he is eager to share it. Thank you, Lord!
• • •
Look,’ said Lace.
Dooley stepped to the window.
Sunset burning the western sky; Beth, Tommy, and the farm dogs walking out the hay road, like he and Lace had done through hard times and easy. He remembered they were walking the hay road just before the wedding when his cell buzzed. The birth mother had given up rights and Jack would be coming to Meadowgate the following day.
‘God help us,’ he’d said. And his prayer had been answered in spades.
• • •
Lace, it’s Kim! It’s up and it’s marvelous! The entire wall of the playroom—imagine how huge it will look to the children and how real it all will be. I feel I could walk into it and pet Choo-Choo.’
‘You wouldn’t want to do that!’ This was bliss, this was surely bliss. That her work could bring such happiness . . .
‘Everyone will be arriving next week. We’re going to have a party in the playroom and churn ice cream and have a Christmas tree decorated with moss and berries and birds’ nests and everything real and wonderful.
‘I know you can imagine what joy I feel to have discovered my sister and her adorable family. I had no one, really, for so many years.
‘So thank you, Lace, for bringing your world into my life and theirs, I feel like a kid myself. Oh, and a big tub of little ducks will be coming to the party. And a farmer in overalls with a wheelbarrow filled with presents! And a golden retriever like in the mural—I do hope he’s properly trained.’
‘So elaborate, Kim. So fabulous!’
Kim laughed. ‘Ah, well! This is Hollywood, you know.’
• • •
I can read four whole books an’ spell forty-eight whole words . . .
‘ . . . an’ make peanut butter an’ banana san’wiches an’ say prayers to Jesus all by myself!
‘With two dollars an’ eighteen cents from Uncle Tommy, I have eleven dollars an’ . . . how many cents, Mom?’
‘Nine.’
‘Eleven dollars an’ nine cents in my pig bank!’
Jack looked at the floor. He was stuck.
‘What happens in July?’ said Dooley.
‘In July, I get a baby brother!’
‘Remember we don’t know it will be a brother,’ said Lace. ‘We won’t know till your little sister or brother is born, okay?’
‘Okay, but it could be a brother.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Dooley. ‘Keep movin’ on your story.’
‘My uncles are Uncle Pooh, Uncle Sammy, Uncle Kenny, Uncle Henry in Miss’ippi. Uncle Walter in New Jersey, Uncle Doc, an’ Uncle Tommy.’ Seven fingers.
‘Proud to be included!’ said Tommy.
‘Uncles are hard ’cause there’s a lots. For cousins, Etta, Ethan, Rebecca Jane, an’ Colleen Marie makes this many cousins.’ Four fingers.
‘Mom or Aunt Beth or Dad teaches me somethin’ every day. Like th’ a’phabet an’ makin’ pizza. An’ Dad showed me how to turbo my bike with a Pokémon card!’
Lace looked at Dooley looking at Jack. Her wonderful, handsome husband was smiling.
How far all their stories had come.
She placed her hands over her belly. And always, always, more stories waiting to happen.
• • •
He and Beth were doing the supper dishes. He liked to wash, she liked to dry and put away.
‘Where are you playing tomorrow?’
‘Big family reunion in Holding,’ said Tommy. ‘Wish I didn’t have to do it. I’ll miss all the action at Meadowgate.’ The bracelet was burning a hole in his pocket. Before he got the gig, he planned to give it to her on Christmas morning, but m
aybe he should do it tonight because he was rehearsing tomorrow morning.
‘Could I go with you? I could help set up or something. I wouldn’t get in the way.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Dooley’s mom and dad are coming out for the big surprise. It would be great for them if it could just be family. They won’t miss me!’
She didn’t know exactly how he was taking this.
‘I could meet you in town to save time,’ she said.
He was what Dooley said he’d been at the wedding: plastic in a microwave.
• • •
They walked out to the van. She was learning to love the big silence of a country winter night.
‘I want to be like Jack,’ he said.
Beth laughed. ‘Me, too! But how do you mean?’
He took her hands in his. He was determined to say what he needed to say, what he had said only three times in his life.
But what he said was ‘I’d like us to have a new story. One we could be in together.’
She had kissed before, but this was the first time.
23
MITFORD
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24
Grace Murphy had set her alarm for seven A.M. She wanted to be among the first to bring in the Muse from the porch.
She put on her glasses and sat in her pajamas by the front door until she heard the light thud, then ran with the newspaper to the dining room table.
The front page showed pictures from the parade, with Coot in his Santa suit the biggest picture of all! She would make sure he put it in the scrapbook she gave him last year for Christmas.
She drew in her breath when she saw the next page. They had used her story in her own handwriting! She thought it would be in printing!