To Be Where You Are

by Jan Karon

  Not a problem! Jake would drive, and hoped they would allow his wife to ride with him. He and Tammy would look forward to it. Glad to do it! Thanks for asking!

  • • •

  I’m not doing it, Esther, and that’s the end of it. You’ll be riding in a great car, exactly what you wanted. Twin turbos, five massage settings, you name it, and that’s the end of it. Done! I am not riding with you or anybody else in that blasted parade, so forget it.

  Esther Cunningham looked shocked. So be it. And just in case she missed the point . . .

  No! Absolutely not! A thousand times no!

  ‘Wake up, honey.’

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘You’re talking in your sleep,’ said Cynthia.

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7

  He was up before six on Wednesday and called Father Brad, whom he knew to be an early riser. They would meet Friday at ten at the church office. Then he’d meet Pooh at eleven, in the nave. As for Jessie, he needed to talk first with Pauline, but didn’t know how to go about it. He had adopted Dooley, found and mentored Sammy to the best of his ability, driven years ago to Lakeland to rescue Jessie. He had perhaps insinuated himself too deeply in that sundered family, it was an awkward situation.

  But first things first.

  He drove up to see Esther—to be done, once and for all, with the nuisance of the parade business. He’d contacted Ray, who was out doing errands, for clearance to drop by.

  She was at the kitchen table in what she called her ‘wrapper.’

  ‘Have you seen what’s goin’ on at Feel Good?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Tables and umbrellas! On th’ sidewalk! As if this is Paris, France, which it isn’t. Think of th’ paper napkins that’ll be flyin’ into th’ gutter an’ th’ bird poop that comes from droppin’ food all over . . . ’

  ‘We have the car you wanted.’

  ‘What did I tell you, Father?’

  ‘Totally available and very happily at your service. And, Esther, I will not be riding in the parade.’

  She gave him a stricken look.

  ‘Jake Tulley and his wife will be up front; you’ll ride in back.’

  ‘I’m not ridin’ in th’ backseat alone, I can tell you that. Who invited th’ wife, anyway?’

  ‘The fellow who’s kind enough to provide the car you couldn’t live without. Now listen to me, Esther. I have listened to you for a hundred years.’ He leaned in. ‘It’s my turn.’

  The wide eyes, the mottled face—her blood pressure going AWOL. If J. C. Hogan had to publish another special edition, this one citing Tim Kavanagh as perpetrator . . .

  ‘I have a brilliant idea,’ he said. ‘Ride with your husband.’

  ‘My husband? Ray?’

  ‘The very one. The one, in fact, who has nursed you through every setback, entertained your every whim, put up with your monkey business, and generally earned a crown in heaven. The one who, even as we speak, is picking up your dry cleaning and bringing you a chocolate nut sundae from Wesley and driving home like a maniac before it melts. That one. Yes.’

  There. He couldn’t take it anymore.

  ‘You know what I’d like to do?’ she said.

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Croak right here and leave you to blame.’

  ‘Exactly what I had in mind,’ he said.

  And then she laughed. Good heavens, he’d never seen anything like it. Over the decades, he’d pried a laugh or two out of her, but this was a gully washer.

  • • •

  The kitchen counter was strewn with food items, and the blender was making its gnashing sounds.

  His wife had a decidedly haggard look.

  ‘I’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis, just like you said.’

  He gave her a kiss. ‘I’m sorry. And?’

  ‘Nurse Kennedy gave me this recipe to rebuild bone density.’

  ‘Ha! The very recipe she gave me. We’re in the same boat.’

  ‘That’s why growing old together is lovely. You have someone to complain to.’ She patted his arm as if he were a house pet. ‘I dragged out everything you put in the freezer, but all I get are these huge blobs. What vintage is your blender?’

  When things worked, they were theirs; when they failed, they were his. ‘I don’t know. Maybe twentysomething?’

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  ‘Okay, but remember that physical exercise is the true key to restoring bone loss. Put this stuff away and let’s walk up the street, I have something to show you.’

  ‘I’ll take a rain check. I just bought art supplies in Wesley and the traffic was dreadful and I’d love a good sit.’

  ‘Come, let’s go. We’ll drink this stuff later. Chop chop, Kav’na.’

  She washed up, laughed, gave him a flash of her cornflower blue eyes. ‘I love it when you’re spontaneous.’

  • • •

  There was a virtual parade of tourists motoring along Main, with the occasional dog hanging out a window. Canada, Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, the welcome and inevitable Florida—a smorgasbord of license plates. Their spot beneath an umbrella at Feel Good was a hit with his wife.

  ‘I’ve made a decision,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to buy a truck or any other vehicle unless you’re tired of me using your car. I’ll walk everywhere I can.’

  ‘Not a problem, sweetheart, as long I retain first dibs on my car.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘You’re back where you were years ago.’

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ he said, proud once again of the notion to abandon wheels. ‘Now. I’ve been thinking. I feel like planning something special for us. What is your heart’s desire?’

  ‘You keep asking my heart’s desire and I keep telling you.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The RV trip.’

  He had avoided following through on this particular heart’s desire by forgetting it each time it was mentioned. It was Cynthia who had the venturesome spirit. She could have settled the West while he contented himself with planting a lawn around their dogtrot cabin.

  In truth, he was a somewhat trifling partner. He never took her to the movies in Wesley, much less to New York for the theater, though sometimes, of course, they drove on the parkway and stopped at an overlook.

  And how long had it been since he sent flowers? A year? Two? And he was the man who, only minutes ago, she had called spontaneous? He could think of nothing he’d recently done for her, beyond bringing home fresh pasta from the Local, cooking it four minutes and grating Parmesan on top.

  Life was short, his wife was youthful and good-looking—how could he afford to be boring? Her birthday trip to Ireland and the honeymoon trip to Maine were the extent to which he’d traveled with her in fifteen-plus years of making a life together. Holly Springs did not count as a holiday, for that was when his brother, Henry, was near death. She had come to Memphis and sat with him for days by Henry’s bed; she had done everything and more to make things better by her living presence.

  All she wanted, as she had repeatedly said, was to go on an RV trip, her husband at the wheel and she, the carefree passenger, wearing a ball cap and knitting. What a perfectly harmless and completely achievable ambition!

  He looked at the woman seated across the table in the slanting October light. So beautiful, inside and out. George, Lord Lyttelton had said, How much the wife is dearer than the bride. His wife was a blessing, endlessly above all that he could ask or think.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said. ‘In the spring! After the auction!’ They would drive into the sunset listening to audiobooks as she knitted away.

  The church bells chimed the hour.

  The deal was finally done.

  He took her hand and kissed it.

  But one question nagged.

  How would
he back it up, much less parallel-park the blasted thing?

  • • •

  I saw Father Tim and Cynthia sittin’ under an umbrella at Feel Good,’ said Lois Burton. She was fond of her view of Main Street and the surprises it rendered.

  ‘He was kissin’ her hand. I wouldn’t have pegged him as a hand-kisser.’

  ‘Awww,’ said Nurse Green, who had stopped in at the Woolen Shop for a knit hat. She was loath to comment further, as she could not understand hand-kissing. Hands were where germs come from. As a nurse, she had to constantly wash up whether she needed to or not, it was regulation.

  Sidewalk umbrellas were at the root of it. They called out a reckless streak in people.

  • • •

  His mind was blank, his sleep hopeless.

  Avis stood at the screen door, looking over the backyard. Yellow leaves were falling from his neighbor’s tree. They were coming down in a small wind that had kicked up before the local news. There’d be a big temperature drop tonight. He took his jacket off the hook and put it on and zipped it up.

  The only way he could back out now was to die, which he’d be happy to do. Just not by his own hand, no way.

  How could hometown indies possibly make it in a day of monster food stores? The big boys gave you an ATM, a gas station with car wash, kiddy slides, cooking demos, and fifty percent off everything. Plus the entire inventory was jumbo: Sixty-two buffalo wings per pack. Muffins the size of car tires. Toilet paper in rations bigger than his truck bed. Shampoo in gallon jugs.

  He was resisting what had come to mind a few days ago—it seemed like foxhole religion.

  He hiked up his britches and tried to get a deep breath.

  But what did he have to lose in the privacy of his own home?

  ‘God, if you’re up there and you can hear me, all I’m askin’ you for is what to say to these people. That’s it. I’ll give five percent to the Children’s Hospital between now and th’ trip to Charlotte. That’s th’ best I can do because of high overhead, an’ thank you.’

  He had a coughing fit and stepped out to the porch and turned his back to the wind and lit a Camel and there was the little dog, sticking its head out of the bushes.

  He stood motionless for a minute and felt a strange warming in his chest.

  ‘Hey.’ He had no clue how to talk to a dog. He had never talked to dogs.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  The dog looked at him.

  Was its tail waggin’? People said that was a good sign. He couldn’t see because th’ tail was in the bushes. He remembered his mother and how she went and jumped off the bridge, just like that with no warnin’ to anybody. It nearly killed him, though he tried not to let people know it, including hisself. She had always fed stray dogs, an idea his daddy did not go for.

  ‘Do you want to . . . I don’t know, come over for a bowl of soup or somethin’?’ He wasn’t doing test recipes these days. His cooking had fallen off th’ cliff, he didn’t have th’ heart for it.

  The dog crept out of the bushes and sat down.

  ‘I don’t know nothin’ about dogs,’ he said, apologetic. Like he knew zero about cars. A Plymouth or a Pontiac? A coonhound or a terrier?

  Okay, the dog was waggin’ its tail. He could tell because leaves thrashed around its haunches.

  ‘Cream of mushroom, tomato bisque, chicken noodle,’ he said. ‘All canned, but say la vee.’

  He took a long drag on his Camel. Blew out the smoke, coughed, spit. Somethin’ in his chest. Maybe a sprained muscle from helping unload Mexican cantaloupes yesterday. Coughed again.

  Leaves thrashing.

  He went inside and fired up a gas burner and heated a can of chicken noodle and tested the temperature with his thumb—not too hot, not too cold, just right—and poured it into a bowl and stepped outside to set it by the bushes.

  But the dog was gone.

  He stood on the porch, the bowl cooling in his hands. He felt ashamed, somehow—ashamed that he’d been foolish about a dog.

  Maybe he should just tip the bowl up and have the soup hisself.

  But he set the bowl on the porch and stepped inside and stood away from the door so he couldn’t be seen. He waited, holding his breath.

  He was ready to quit when he heard it bound onto the porch and dig in.

  Lap, lap, lap, lap, lap, lap, lap.

  Then the dog was gone and the bowl was empty and everything was quiet except for the wind.

  8

  MEADOWGATE

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8

  THURS OCT 8~ All furniture smushed to east side of studio~ mattress and springs upright against wall. Huge floor cloth arrived yesterday and already down.

  Canvas arriving tomorrow or Saturday~ Irene has worked with this art supplier for years and he’s doing everything possible to make her happy.

  Harley and Willie are great helpers. They cut a piece of plywood to fit inside the window frame and we’ll stretch the canvas over the window and all the way to the door and staple it at the edges. Harley said he would be the boss of the job and Willie was totally relieved.

  Harley and I will gesso the whole canvas. They’re sending a tub of gesso and we’ll use house painters’ brushes or rollers~ they will send both in case we like one better. All we have to do is brush the gesso on the canvas like you would brush paint on a house and then let it dry and I will come back with a wash on top of the gesso.

  Cynthia and I talked about whether to use burnt sienna or raw sienna for the wash. Raw seems earthier to me~ they are sending a gallon, and when that dries I will sketch in the images and it all begins!

  H & W are making scaffolding out in the barn but the art supplier says a ladder will work. I can work faster on scaffolding with all my stuff up there and not have to keep climbing up and down. We will install the canvas and they’ll assemble the scaffolding in the studio.

  The mountains and sky will require gobs of paint. Irene did the ordering but Kim is paying for all the supplies~ I am so excited and Dooley seems to be too~ I hope it helps take his mind off the clinic being a total wreck.

  We have a litter of thrown-away kittens in a box by the kitchen stove and a sweet little pug named Teddy who’s waiting to be adopted has a crate in our bedroom at night. And everybody is trooping over here to use the bathroom because I did not have the heart to let Amanda and Blake and Doc Owen use that awful outdoor toilet.

  Jack and I sat on the floor in the kitchen and I drew images and he cut them out and we moved them around on a piece of cardboard 11 x 14”~ I think I finally know how to arrange everything in the mural. Mountains and clouds across the entire upper portion~ so many mountains it stops the heart, and all the shadows and nuance that mountains require. The elements: red truck the girls and Choo-Choo Truman though he doesn’t live here anymore the farm dogs and Charley and the barn and the shed with the Beemer and Willie’s house and the pond and the long stand of trees and the fence posts with their unseeable wires and the Hershell house way in the background and our old tractor and the corner of the clinic with the green sign.

  Jack said Put in my swing! So we did~ which called for a tree. And put in a bike he said in case I get a bike and not a pony! So we will lean a bike against the railing of the glider porch. Put me in he said with my dump trucks! I said there are no people in this picture because the people looking at the mural will put themselves in. How will they do that he said and on and on and on!

  A lot of elements in the mural will be placed differently than they are in reality~ like the pond which we can’t really see from the house but we see in the painting. Kim says the point is to ‘deliver the feeling and flow’ of Meadowgate.

  I think everything is now in my head in a more organized way and our parents are praying and Cynthia will do anything she can to help and Dooley and Willie and Harley and I’m on the prayer list in the pew bulletin at L
C as ‘Lace Kavanagh facing a welcome challenge.’ And that is my team! Go, team!

  This should get Jack through way more than a year of a good college. I’m excited but about to throw up too. Philippians 4:13.

  P. S. Dooley picked flowers for me this morning~ a branch of witch hazel with its dancing yellow blooms and the last of the blue asters! The Latin for witch hazel is Hamamelis and means ‘together.’ xxxooo

  P.P.S. I have $11.03 in my bank. When you start saving, all of a sudden change starts appearing out of nowhere~

  • • •

  The drilling, the jackhammering, the patients wailing in their crates—it was right up there with daily molar extractions.

  And the mural. He was trying to get with the program. Because yes, it was a wonderful thing, but Lace’s head was somewhere else, trying to whittle that huge project down to a size she could deal with. He wanted to help but felt helpless. The best he could do was check on the scaffolding project or take care of the supper dishes or pick up sandwiches from Jake’s.

  And now Homer was dead. How Homer had lasted beyond the wedding, he didn’t know. Homer was valiant—that was the word. He had rarely seen such a noble, uncomplaining spirit as he saw in Lucy Bowman’s pet pig. He had loved Homer, too, and complying with Lucy’s wishes, he and Hal had done everything to keep him alive and make him comfortable, and that had likely been wrong. Old age, cancer, dental problems, vision and hearing loss—it was a blessing for Homer to be put down. But Homer had been Lace’s favorite patient and he hadn’t told her yet and he dreaded it because, by some quirk that was completely nuts, he felt guilty.

  He was walking out to the barn to check on the scaffolding job, Jack running to catch up.

  ‘Hey, Dad! I have a great idea!’

  ‘It’s not a good time for great ideas,’ he snapped.

  Jack stopped and burst into tears.

  My God, what was happening? He walked back and stooped down to put his hands on Jack’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, buddy. Really sorry. It’s always a good time for great ideas.’