To Be Where You Are

by Jan Karon

  She drove to Mitford, listening to Tommy’s new CD.

  She could not believe that Harley’s teeth were missing again, which means he would be a toothless wonder for Name Day. It drove her crazy and she did not have the time or patience to deal with it. Leave it alone, she told herself. Think positive! Okay, she would go over her Christmas list for her parents.

  They never expected her to give them a really nice gift, but this year would be different.

  For her dad, a sander. He would be working on his projects again, making a bookcase for the Meadowgate living room, and shelves for the clinic. His old sander was ‘going south,’ he said.

  For her mom, the Library of America editions of James Agee and Robert Frost and a three-volume set of Thornton Wilder.

  For Dooley, warm running clothes and maybe she would join him on his run around the lake, so something for herself, too.

  She had never given such wonderful gifts. She was intoxicated; sang along with Tommy, tried to control her miles per hour.

  • • •

  In the hospital parking lot, she spotted a penny. Picked it up. Felt faint when she stood.

  Not once had she let herself worry about the fact that something really strange was going on with her.

  • • •

  Her dad respected Dr. Wilson, yet where his family was concerned, he always wanted to know what Wilson said and did. What about your lipids? Did he order tests? Why did he say that? I’ll call Wilson in the morning. If it was about her mom or Dooley or Jack or her, he always called Wilson in the morning.

  She didn’t text her parents that she was coming.

  They were in the kitchen and she saw the happy look on their faces when she walked in. She tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  ‘Sit down,’ her mom said.

  ‘Tell us everything,’ her dad said.

  She told them everything. And they held her and wept.

  • • •

  She ran over the brick edging when she turned out of their driveway. Her hands were trembling. She didn’t remember the drive to Meadowgate, but came back to herself when she saw Dooley’s truck parked at the co-op. She blew the horn, and four miles later saw smoke rising from their kitchen chimney and Charley and the farm dogs running out to meet her.

  • • •

  How many you need?’ said Jake.

  ‘Thirty-five,’ said Dooley. ‘Could get by with thirty if we have to.’

  ‘Long as you get ’em back Sunday evenin’ before dark. I’ll meet you here at four on th’ dot. Sunday-night football, plus I’m grillin’ out for Sugar’s kids an’ grandkids.’

  ‘I’ll be here. And thanks. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Don’t be throwin’ any dances over at your place,’ said Jake. ‘I don’t need th’ competition.’

  ‘No dances. Just a boy gettin’ a new name. Besides, nobody could compete with you, buddy. You th’ man out here in th’ sticks.’

  They had a laugh.

  ‘Maybe you’ll take a look at my cattle when you get a chance. Not much to look at, I’m down to a few steers.’

  ‘Next week,’ said Dooley. ‘For sure.’

  ‘Guess you heard the weather update.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could be a big one.’

  ‘Better than two inches?’

  ‘Maybe triple that.’

  ‘We’re wimps down here. Look what Buffalo, New York, just went through.’

  Any time now, his sister would be leaving with Father Brad and the rest of the crew. Looks like the weather would give them what they wanted. And before it was too late, he hoped Jessie would get what she needed.

  He was ready to pull onto the state road when he saw the green hatchback moving his way.

  He choked up, hammered down on the horn. All those missing years, nobody knowing . . .

  Kenny! Back on home ground. Complete with cousins.

  • • •

  The laughter until two A.M. didn’t disturb the three farm dogs that slept in their corner in the kitchen. All three were going deaf, and one nearly blind. They had lived here all their lives and knew no other smells or comforts, table scraps or barn cats.

  Every inch of the farm was their own, including the scent of cow patties baking in summer grass, the sheep smell still clinging to their old shade spot under the wild cherry trees, the urine and scat of bear, fox, bobcat, neighboring dogs. They were also imperial custodians of the woods, of trees smelling of velvet rubbed off by bucks, of lichen on fallen limbs, of doe beds in their brushy cover. Other creatures had marked this place ten thousand times over, but Meadowgate belonged to them.

  There had been a concerted effort to move them to the new house at the end of the path in the woods. They were betrayed into climbing in Doc Owen’s truck bed for a ride to the co-op, and were instead taken to the new place. They did not like it. The air in the house was sharp and acrid, the dirt had a strange odor, there was no barn with hay to lie in. They rolled in the decaying flesh of a crow and walked back along the path to Meadowgate.

  Once more, the truck came and took them to the new place. And once more, they returned to Meadowgate, where they collapsed on the porch in the afternoon sun. The truck did not come again.

  Indeed, the sense that their territory was theirs for all time was not greatly disturbed by the pup that came on board a while back. This, too, would pass. Live and let live.

  Woven into the mélange of their dreams was the sound of laughter from the kitchen, and music. ‘Gonna love you ’til the cows come home . . . ’

  Bone Meal, who in particular had enjoyed music and laughter, shivered a little in her sleep.

  • • •

  Sammy’s plane had been delayed and he had arrived, ravenous, at ten P.M. Dooley had served him a mound of spaghetti and meatballs, the best he ever had, though he ate out frequently in Chicago, where he lived in a room with a shower down the hall. Chicago had a hot pool groove going on—you could make money, you could get somewhere, and he had his own home base for the first time.

  He lay awake in one of the twin beds in the guest room, aware of the faint scent of lilac, maybe in the laundry soap used for the sheets. He had stolen a lilac bush when he lived with his dad; dug it up and moved it to their patch of red clay. He had planted it where no one would see it. It was a beautiful thing, not to be shamed by eyes that had no understanding of beauty. He was astonished that it survived and then actually bloomed. He had shown it only to Lon Birdie, who fought in Nam and raised orchids and lived in a gas station.

  It was plain, this room, no frills, but it felt like home. It was like he’d been running a marathon and fallen across the finish line at Meadowgate, totally blanked, adrenaline shot.

  He checked his watch, which he always wore to bed. Two-thirty. He would have to face his mother tomorrow, and he dreaded that to the point of being sick to his stomach. He would be ice; she would not get to him in any way, not by any route; he would see to that.

  Even if he didn’t make eye contact, he would feel the pressure of her longing. She would probably say again that she was sorry, but that could never make up for what she had done to him and to Kenny, to all of them. He didn’t know if he would ever have a kid, but he knew he could not give it away like she did Kenny, to a total stranger for a gallon of bootleg whisky. Of all his sibs, Pooh seemed to have made it in a pretty positive way; he had hung in there, never detaching from their mother. How Pooh rode out the years before she got sober he couldn’t imagine. She loved Pooh more, he supposed; Pooh was her pet, he supposed, while the rest of the kids had been less than nothing to her.

  He couldn’t believe he’d been willing to die that time the Mustang slid off the highway and down the bank. He didn’t try to purposely kill himself, he just stopped trying to control the skid. Why try any more to control anything? He let go of the wheel.

 
Everybody said it was a miracle that he lived, that he walked away with nothing but a cut on his forehead. He had felt shame at wrecking Father Tim’s car, but it had taken a few years to apologize.

  Then he went with Father Brad on the snow camp deal and took a fall down the side of a serious outcrop of rock and again nearly died, or felt sure he would, and God had spoken to him. Turn your ass around.

  Dumb as he might be, he knew God did not talk like that, didn’t use words like that, but that was exactly what had been said, clear as light, plain as day. It was as if the mountain, the sky, the trees, the rocks were speaking in a single voice, the scariest thing that had ever happened to him, worse than the skid down the bank. And then the truly weird, unbelievable peace that came into him like a warm flood. He lost all sense of muscle and bone; he was vapor on the freezing mountain air, momentarily free of some hell he had lived with since he was a kid.

  He remembered saying ‘Thank you, God,’ and really meaning it.

  He had waited several months before he told Father Brad, who started bawling and slapping him on the back and even picked him up and set him down again, laughing like a maniac. ‘Wow,’ the priest had said, wiping his eyes. ‘Thanks be to God! Wow.’

  He had expected that time on the mountain to solve everything. But it hadn’t. He still could not forgive his mother; there was still plenty of stuff he did that he shouldn’t do.

  But he had come here to have a good time; he hadn’t weighed himself down with his show stick, his break stick, or any of the other stuff. He was here to watch Jack growing up and to be with family.

  He punched up the pillow and turned over. Having ‘the ears of an animal,’ as his backer liked to say, he heard the whisper of snow against the windowpane.

  He would be ice, she would not get to him in any way, by any route; he would see to that.

  19

  MITFORD

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12

  The ham was in the oven.

  He put his phone in his jacket pocket and walked over to Feel Good for an early breakfast. Snow had fallen in the night and was predicted to start again midmorning.

  ‘I’ve got what you might call a marital problem,’ said Omer.

  ‘Must be somethin’ in the water,’ said J.C.

  Omer leaned back in his chair. ‘But other than that, I’m a happy man.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Don’t tell us what the problem is, thought Father Tim.

  ‘Problem is, my wife’s makin’ my dog fat.’

  ‘Geez,’ said Mule.

  ‘When Shirlene and I got hitched, Patsy was fine. Then here comes th’ biscuits, th’ gravy, th’ creamed rice, th’ mashed potatoes.’

  ‘That’s a problem?’ said Mule. He loved biscuits, gravy, and mashed potatoes, which were totally outlawed at his house.

  ‘Don’t give Patsy that hot dog, I say. Oh, she says, it’s just a little bitty bite. An’ there you go—Patsy’s four pounds over fightin’ weight.’ Omer shook his head, looked at the priest. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you, my training didn’t touch on that marital issue. I admit I caved to Barnabas a time or two.’ Liar, liar, pants on fire—way more than a time or two. Barnabas was nuts about fried oysters and popcorn and he, Tim Kavanagh, had given in regularly. He once went to the porch to eat popcorn while Barnabas stood at the glass door and eyed the consumption of every kernel.

  Abe dropped by the table on his way out. ‘Hey, guys, you know why Mayberry was so peaceful and quiet?’

  ‘No,’ said J.C., who didn’t go for jokes before, say, noon.

  ‘It was a small town,’ said Omer. ‘In th’ South, in th’ fifties. That’ll give you peaceful and quiet.’

  ‘The answer,’ said Abe, ‘is nobody was married.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Mule.

  ‘Andy, Aunt Bee, Barney, Floyd, Howard,’ said Abe. ‘Goober, Gomer, Sam, Ernest T. Bass, Helen, Thelma Lou, Clara. All single.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Father Tim. ‘The only married person was Otis!’

  ‘Right,’ said Abe. ‘And he stayed drunk. Think about it.’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said J.C., who had just confessed that he slept on the sofa last night.

  • • •

  His phone buzzed on the walk home.

  ‘Hey, Granpa!’

  ‘Hey, buddy!’

  ‘It’s Name Day!’

  ‘We know, we know. We’ll be out soon.’

  ‘Mom and Dad said be careful.’

  ‘We will, I promise.’

  ‘I got your back, Granpa, okay?’

  ‘Okay!’

  It was the first time Jack had ever called him. He was grinning all the way home. He remembered the countless photos of grandchildren he’d been forced to look at and admire over the years. He could never quite understand all the fuss. But things were different now. Really different.

  • • •

  According to local news, last evening’s snowfall amounted to less than an inch in the Mitford area. But they could look for more, extending into the evening.

  He stood by the study window, a mug of tea in his hand. No call yet from Father Brad.

  He checked his watch. Everything was ready to go and piled at the door to the garage—everything except the ham, which in a half hour he could put in its carrier for the road. He might be the only man on the planet with a ham carrier.

  ‘It’s coming down.’ He said this with some gravity.

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Pretty heavy,’ he said. He wouldn’t have to say more, as his wife was a mind reader.

  ‘I can’t imagine not going. We can’t even think about it. All that food they made for everyone. And your beautiful ham. And our gift for Jack. And you’re conducting the ceremony!’

  ‘I wonder what Pauline and Buck and Pooh will do,’ he said. As for Jessie, she was not due back to civilization until Sunday afternoon. He crossed himself, lifted another prayer for the snow campers.

  He rang Hoppy, who was headed to the garage to warm up the car. Maybe he should call Dooley, to see what it was doing at Meadowgate. But Hoppy would have called Dooley, and he and Olivia were headed out, so . . .

  ‘Remember,’ said Cynthia. ‘I have front-wheel drive.’

  ‘True. And they’re good about plowing the roads out there. And Willie will handle their driveway.’

  Her husband was a worrier—with the southerner’s alarm at a flake or two. She, however, was from Massachusetts. ‘We should go,’ she said.

  He put his cup in the dishwasher. ‘I’m a little concerned about the forecast. Four inches, maybe six? They can’t seem to nail it. And what if it freezes?’

  ‘We should go. The sooner, the better.’

  Here was the clincher. ‘What if we get stuck out there?’

  She walked to the hall closet and took out her coat and hat and came back and put them on the sofa. ‘We’ll do what you’re so fond of doing, sweetheart. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  • • •

  The phone was ringing as he latched the carrier.

  ‘Whoever it is will leave a message,’ she said.

  ‘Probably Dooley.’ He hurried to his desk. ‘How much snow do you have?’

  A pause. ‘We have nine inches so far and more to come.’

  ‘Lace? Who is this?’

  ‘Brooke Logan in Stamford, Connecticut. Have I called at a wrong moment?’

  Cynthia was jiggling the car keys.

  ‘Well, yes, yes, you have, Ms. Logan. We’re on our way to our son and his family and . . .’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Is there something . . . ’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Call again if you . . . ’

  A click in Connecticut.

  ‘Who i
s Ms. Logan?’ said Cynthia.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I don’t have a clue.’

  A siren. In the direction of Ivy Lane. He remembered hearing it fifteen or twenty minutes ago. There was nothing completely unusual about the sound except this one gave him a sick feeling.

  The phone again; caller ID, the Local. Avis was headed to the hospital.

  ‘We’ll take care of it, Father,’ said Otis. ‘Abe has help today at his place, he’ll fill in for you. You go on with your family.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Johnsie, she called th’ ambulance, then called th’ store. Seem like he couldn’t get his words out.’

  Stroke. His immediate instinct was to drop everything and get up there. He hesitated, torn. The priesthood had equipped him with a powerful pull to the siren call. But this wasn’t just any day, it was Name Day. ‘Thank you, Otis. I’ll stay in touch.’

  He picked up the carrier. ‘This is not good,’ he said to Cynthia. ‘This is not good.’

  He finished loading the hatch.

  ‘I’ll warm up the car,’ she said.

  He turned back to check on Truman’s water bowl and lock the door to the kitchen. The phone again. Though his wife would be as steaming as the ham, he answered it.

  ‘Helene!’

  ‘Father, I know you and the young family are having a large affair this weekend.’

  ‘We are, we are, yes!’ He was breathless.

  ‘I’ve just discovered the oddest thing on my back steps.’

  ‘What . . .’

  ‘I can only guess who they belong to, Father. A delicate subject, really.’

  ‘What may I do for you, Helene? We’re trying to get ahead of the snow.’

  ‘It was a pair of . . . well, teeth. On my steps. It was . . . alarming, you might say, to come upon them, protruding from the snow.’

  ‘We must go, Helene, truly.’

  ‘I picked them up with my kitchen tongs and put them in a bag.’

  ‘Helene . . . ’

  ‘I feel certain they belong to Mr. Welch, and wondered if you might possibly step over and fetch them? I’ll just pass them out the front door.’