by Jan Karon
‘She saved my life. She was my friend all these years.’ Sobbing. ‘Make it easy on ’er. Don’t let me know.’
Teague turned and went down the porch steps, stumbled a little at the bottom. ‘Don’t let me know!’ he cried as he literally vanished into the night yard.
She was conscious of the warm, stunning flesh pressing hers, of the old man’s keening, a kind of desolate howl, as he went to his truck. Then the closing of the truck door and headlights moving in reverse down the drive and onto the road and gone.
She nudged the door closed with her shoulder and stood there, trying to find her breath.
The hound panted but didn’t flinch as she carried her to the kitchen and squatted, careful with what she figured to be less than forty pounds of debilitated bone and muscle, and eased her down by the stove where the kittens had been. She went to the laundry then, and took the dog bed off the shelf and came back to the kitchen illumined by a waxing moon and put the bed down and rolled Redeemer onto it. The dog yelped.
She palpated her abdomen. A lump. Large. The dog opened her eyes and in the near darkness seemed to reveal whatever pain or resignation was stirring in her. In that look, Lace found a connection. She had connected in that way before with animals, and knew that it mattered.
She offered water, but it was refused. Peanut butter on her finger. Refused.
She took the afghan and a throw pillow from the window seat and made a pallet and stretched out beside Redeemer, a hand on the hound’s flank.
‘Lord, here is your servant, Redeemer, made with love and bound by your grace. Thank you for your mercy.’
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20
At first light she went again to the kitchen and covered the body with a towel and made coffee and spoke with Dooley when he came down.
‘Our cemetery,’ she said.
Not to the crematorium in Wesley. Not to some remote spot near the woods. Harley and Willie would dig a place for her in the Meadowgate pet cemetery, enclosed by a fence and entered by a gate. Barnabas was out there, and a lamb, a pet crow, and more than a few farm dogs and Owen family cats. It was important to acknowledge the beauty of Redeemer’s devotion to a lonely old man.
And Mr. Teague, if he ever wanted to, could come and sit on the bench and visit.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23
Willie watched Harley get in his truck and head to town.
He fanned the front door for a minute, airing out the place. He’d never been a man to wear cologne, but Harley, he was different.
He closed the door, sniffed the air, and opened a window.
He knew it would take gumption to ask a man about his romantic life, but he wanted to know, maybe even had a right to know, bein’ as how him an’ Harley shared expenses. He remembered his mama sayin’ it was curiosity that killed th’ cat. As a young’un, he expected to die a sudden death every day or two.
What if Harley up an’ moved out to git hitched? Now they’d got his room all settled an’ had their meal times runnin’ by th’ clock—Harley generally cookin’, him cleanin’ up th’ kitchen an’ Swifferin’—it would be a letdown. That was th’ word. They had finally settled on th’ History Channel an’ th’ Weather Channel as their go-to entertainment, an’ shook hands on no CNN, no Fox News, nossir, they wadn’t neither one of them fallin’ out over politics. So the thing is, he’d already got used to this arrangement, never mind that he was suspicious of it at th’ start.
Harley spoke a good bit about Miss Pringle, how she was born in Paris, France, and brought up by her granny in the country an’ about her daddy bein’ a rich man who’d built that big white house in Mitford. He talked about how smart she was with her piano music an’ all, and how she spoke French a good bit when he went to visit.
‘Fret, fret, fret,’ his wife used to say—he’d always been a worrier. But it made him nervous to think Harley could turn around an’ move out an’ tear up this whole scheme. All he wanted was a word, a sign, so he wouldn’t be took by surprise.
Miss Pringle’s place, that rock house where Father Tim used to live, that was a nice house for a man to put his feet up in. So he couldn’t blame Harley if that was the way this was headed. There was one thing, though, that he might have to speak to Harley about if he took a notion to marry Miss Pringle.
It was th’ way Harley left his teeth layin’ around in front of God an’ ever’body. Out of respect, Harley had pretty much wore his teeth when he moved in. Then first thing you know, they’d show up on th’ kitchen window sill, in a rocker on th’ porch, on th’ stove hood, most anyplace. He, Willie, had not said a word, and wadn’t goin’ to, as a man had to have one spot in this world where he let hisself go and could feel at home.
Maybe Dooley an’ Lace had some notion of Harley’s plan. But he wouldn’t trouble them with such a question; nossir, them two was run plumb ragged, goin’ at a trot all th’ time. He had no idea how they kep’ it up. But of course they were young. An’ they could handle it.
• • •
It was a relief that Dooley’s biological dad was gone. She had always sensed the shadow of Clyde Barlowe hovering over her husband.
Sometimes she wondered what had happened to her own biological father.
Ironically, their dads had hoboed together, stayed drunk together, broken the law together. She didn’t see how Clyde Barlowe had lasted as long as he did. Surely her own father was buried somewhere; maybe it would be good to know the truth, maybe it would help. Or maybe not. She never mentioned his name to Dooley.
She wished she could at least have a sofa for Name Day.
But so what if Lace Kavanagh had no decent living room furniture—her mother never had money to buy anything at all. No sofa, no chairs, just a table and four Pepsi crates and a wash pan and a stove and a bed and a leaking refrigerator and walls covered with newspaper. When her brother moved out, he took nothing with him because there was nothing to take but his few clothes and a shave kit and the bedroll he carried under his arm. All he said when leaving was, ‘Mama, Lacey,’ and they never saw him again.
She and her mother hung their clothes on nails, a look Lace thought softened the bare walls. With the lamp burning, the draping fabric had given the room a certain texture and dimension, like in a photo by Walker Evans, who she came to know in books from the bookmobile.
The bookmobile had saved her life. But nothing and nobody could save her mother’s life, though she had tried every day. She could count on one hand the little pleasures of her mother’s time on this earth.
The porch swing was the most wonderful furnishing they ever had during those years at the Creek. Her daddy had made it for her mother when she got sick with the blood disease. Maybe it was his way of saying I’m sorry for being a drunk fool, a violent man to you and your children. She thought her mother took it that way, as a gesture of making up to her something good that he had scared away.
She had a memory of her mother’s apology to visitors for lack of seating, other than the swing. ‘Ye’ll have to sit on y’r fist an’ lean back on y’r thumb!’
That’s the way it would be for Name Day. A pile of people scooped together in the farmhouse, mostly in the kitchen, sitting on their fists and leaning back on their thumbs, laughing.
• • •
Hey, Lace, I can’t let this go.’
Dooley held up a sweatsuit that a wash had failed to improve.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s still good.’
‘A lot of stuff is still good. But it has to go, Dooley. Just let Beth and me do this, please. Look at the benefits—we gain a guest room and make extra money. You’re giving your junk to a good cause.’
‘I don’t know. It seems crazy not to go through everything.’
‘Beth and I have been through everything. If you want to go through it again, you need to do it now.’
He looked around the room, checked
his watch. A surgery in twenty minutes. ‘Do what you want to, then. It’s all yours.’
‘But remember what you just said. Okay?’
He was glad she was making him skip the torment; he would never get around to going through this mess.
‘We’re giving ten percent of the proceeds to the Food Bank,’ she said. ‘It’s not about us all the time.’
He hesitated.
‘It’s not all about us,’ she said.
• • •
It looks beautiful!’ she told Beth.
‘It’s a store!’ said Jack. ‘You should have toys.’
Their junk looked pretty good, displayed on sheets of plywood laid over sawhorses. Lace had called around the neighborhood, drumming up business.
‘All that washing, ironing, and folding,’ said Beth. ‘All that dusting and sneezing! This simple country life is not to be missed.’
‘You are such a good sport,’ said Lace.
After supper, there was Dooley Kavanagh picking through stuff like he owned it, and bringing them an armload.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lace. ‘But those things are not free, you know.’
‘I know, I know.’ He laid the items by the cash box. ‘How much?’
‘You have a shirt, four pairs of tennis shoes in shreds, a camera, and two pairs of jeans.’ She consulted Beth’s list. ‘That is . . . ’
‘Thirty-six dollars,’ said Beth. Lace held out her hand.
‘And this radio,’ he said. ‘But I shouldn’t have to pay for it; we could use it in the break room. I should get it free, this is my radio.’
‘It was your radio,’ said Lace. ‘You haven’t used it since college. Remember you said we could have everything and do whatever we wanted with it.’
‘They make you pay for stuff, Dad.’
‘Maybe I’ll pass on th’ radio.’
‘How much does it cost?’ said Jack. ‘I could pay!’
‘Ten dollars,’ said Beth.
Jack looked at his dad. ‘I don’t have ten dollars. I only have three left from my helmet.’
‘Thanks anyway, buddy. You’re a good guy. So does it work? Buyer beware.’
‘Cleaned up, tested, and set on High Country Classics,’ said Beth. ‘A steal!’
He shuffled through a few bills, handed Beth the money, grinned. ‘Hard-nosed women.’
‘Thank you for your business,’ said his wife, having a laugh.
They heard footsteps on the front porch, and voices, and the door opened and in rushed the frigid air with the Hershells and Danny from the next farm. Then the Owens and Rebecca Jane, who would be helping with the sale, and truck lights turning off the road into the driveway, which would be Harley and Willie with drinks and nachos from the co-op.
‘A bonanza!’ said Beth.
‘Hey, Beck,’ said Danny Hershell. ‘I’d like to buy somethin’.’
Danny Hershell was twelve years old now, and proud of it. When his daddy told his granpaw that Danny had growed a foot last year, his granpaw said, ‘Oh, Lord, now we’ve got a freak in th’ family.’
‘What are you lookin’ for?’ said Rebecca Jane. She had fixed him good with her trick, but would he let on? Not in a hundred years, the cretin.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A belt, maybe? Or I could use a pocketknife.’
‘Willie got our only pocketknife,’ said Beth.
Danny stood by the table a certain way so they could see the birthday T-shirt his uncle had sent from Chicago. Navy blue with a red bear head. Truly cool.
‘How much money are you willin’ to spend?’ said Rebecca Jane. She knew he did not spend money if he could help it.
Danny dug into his jeans pocket and brought out a fistful of change. He opened his hand and grinned big. ‘Two dollars and five cents. Found it on th’ barn floor where somebody must’ve dropped it.’
• • •
So?’ said Dooley, leaning over the cash box.
‘Guess,’ said Lace.
‘Eighty, ninety bucks?’
‘Guess again.’
‘I give up.’
‘A hundred and sixty-two dollars and five cents. Can you believe it? And more to go next Saturday.’
His wife and Beth were jubilant.
‘Look, Dad, what I bought!’
A vintage eggbeater with a red handle, the kind with a crank on the side. He remembered it from Lace’s apartment in Chapel Hill.
‘Man! What did you pay for that piece of machinery?’
‘Two quarters. It was on sale jis’ for me.’ Jack whizzed the beaters. ‘Look at it go!’
Dooley laughed his cackling laugh. It didn’t take much for them, living out here in the sticks.
• • •
Two-thirty and not much sleep so far.
Days ago, she had finally come awake to a hard fact: For Name Day weekend, her studio needed to be a bedroom again, the perfect spot for Kenny and Julie and Etta and Ethan.
She would have to finish the mural early and ship it out of here. The tight deadline was now tighter, if only by a few days.
She had painted Choo-Choo but it wasn’t right. It was some other bull from some other pasture. No matter how hard she tried, the eyes fought her; she couldn’t get that special gleam, the nearly conversational gaze so peculiar to Choo-Choo. And the forehead—it should be broader. She had kidded herself that this rendering would work, she did not have time to repaint it. But it wasn’t Choo-Choo.
Who would know? She would know. Eyes speak, and they needed to say the right thing. The bull was a huge feature of the mural, a muscular block of color in the lower right foreground, a kingly guard at the gate.
The fun for the viewer would be to get by Choo-Choo and walk into the life of the mural as if it were real. In her childhood, even in the hell of it, her imagination had been pure and eager. She could enter into the illustrations in a book and lose herself completely. This is what she wanted for the children who would visit Kim—that they would go away with the vision of a beautiful life in the country, taken into themselves without knowing.
Dooley sleeping hard.
In her mind, she squeezed titanium white, carbon black, cadmium red, cerulean blue onto the palette . . .
Now would be good.
She slipped out of bed and went along the creaking floorboards and ascended the twenty steps to Heaven.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24
It was a jumbo-size postcard with a closeup photo of Jack. Big smile, big eyes, the slight dimple in his chin. She kissed one of the cards, which would go in the album she would make when there was nothing else to do, ha ha.
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11,
THE WORLD WILL WELCOME
A NEW KAVANAGH.
ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12,
WE WILL WELCOME YOU!
Celebrate Jack’s Name Day
at Meadowgate Farm
Farmville Road
4 p.m. ~ Casual
The only thing you can bring is a present.
Thank you!
Everybody was so not asking for presents these days, but Name Day was huge, and presents would be okay just this once.
She drove to the post office and bought thirteen stamps.
‘Thank you for your business,’ said Sugar, who always made the post office window smell like hot dogs with mustard.
• • •
Snow movin’ in on th’ eleventh,’ said Willie, grim as the Reaper. He was famous for dumping bad weather news on Meadowgate’s special occasions.
He set his desiccated hat on the farm table.
‘Two inches,’ he said.
She took the eggs from his hat and placed them in the blue bowl. She had no intention of getting worked up over Willie’s weather predictions. He had driven them crazy before the wedding, but he�
�d been right. It rained and blew a gale, knocking limbs down which they had to clean up. But it all passed over before the ceremony and everything was gorgeous.
‘Two inches isn’t such big deal. Besides, it’s too early for an accurate forecast.’
Willie returned his hat to his head and headed for the door.
‘Could be four, they’re sayin’.’ Once snow got started in these mountains, you never knew when it would stop.
• • •
Jack had worn his red helmet all morning.
‘Look at you, look at you!’ said Violet, who was in to do a major cook-and-freeze-off with Lily.
‘We went to get my bike yesterday. They let me get on it to see does it fit.’
‘So does it fit?’
‘Yep. We brought it home an’ it’s hid so it’ll be brand-new on Name Day. Do you know where it’s hid, Lil?’
‘I do not, an’ don’t want to know or you’d worm it out of me.’
‘If you knew, I could just go look at it. I wouldn’t ride it or anything.’
‘Awww,’ said Violet. ‘Ain’t that sweet? Gimme some sugar.’
‘No,’ said Jack.
‘He don’t do sugar,’ said Lily.
• • •
Lace was brushing her hair; his wife took forever to brush her hair.
He lay on his back with the covers kicked off. Though the thermostat was cranked way down, it was hot as th’ hinges up here. Their old furnace could make it happen; it was a bulldog.
In five and a half months—the wedding, their little guy, a puppy, the plumbing disaster, the business start-up plus the pounding they were taking with large animals since Joanna’s sellout, the mural . . .
He rolled over.
. . . not to mention a ton of people and five sleepovers coming up. Not to mention the jaw-dropping payout to the pharmaceutical companies on the fifteenth, not to mention the upcoming quarterly insurance payment, not to mention Christmas. They had hardly thought about Christmas.
‘We’ve got a lot goin’ on.’ Call him the master of understatement.
She was numb with fatigue. She had asked Violet to come with Lily on the twelfth. That would help. And when would she start running again? When would she stop sleeping in this stupid ragged T-shirt and buy something grown-up? ‘They say we’re young, we can handle it.’
