by Jan Karon
Gene Bolick wondered how a man Father Tim’s age would be able to keep up his husbandly duties. As for himself, all he wanted to do at night was hit his recliner after supper and sleep ’til bedtime. Maybe the father knew something he didn’t know. . . .
Louella heard people all around her sniffling and blowing their noses, it was a regular free-for-all. And Miss Sadie, she was the worst of the whole kaboodle, bawling into her mama’s handkerchief to beat the band. Miss Sadie loved that little redheaded, freckle-face white boy because he reminded her of Willard Porter, who came up hard like Dooley and ended up amounting to something.
Louella thought Miss Cynthia looked beautiful in her dressy suit; and that little bit of shimmering thread in the fabric and those jeweled buttons, now, that was something, that was nice, and look there, she wasn’t wearing shoes dyed to match, she was wearing black pumps as smart as you please. Louella knew from reading the magazines Miss Olivia brought to Fernbank that shoes dyed to match were out of style
It seemed to her that the sniffling was getting worse by the minute, and no wonder—just listen to that boy sing! Louella settled back in the pew, personally proud of Dooley, Miss Cynthia, the father, and the whole shooting match.
Finally deciding on mustard, Uncle Billy abandoned the game. He’d better come up with another way to noodle his noggin or he’d drop off in a sleep so deep they’d have to knock him upside the head with a twoby-four. He determined to mentally practice his main joke, and if that didn’t work, he was done for.
Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow,
Grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife,
And to life’s day the glorious unknown morrow
That dawns upon eternal love and life.
Amen.
Dooley returned to his pew without feeling the floor beneath his feet. He was surprised to find he was trembling, as if he’d been live-wired. But it wasn’t fear, anymore, it was . . . something else.
Father Tim took Cynthia’s right hand in his, and carefully spoke the words he had never imagined might be his own.
“In the name of God, I, Timothy, take you, Cynthia, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.
“This is my solemn vow.”
They loosed their hands for a moment, a slight movement that caused the candle flames on the altar to tremble. Then she took his right hand in hers.
“In the name of God, I, Cynthia, take you, Timothy, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.
“This is my solemn vow.”
As Walter presented the ring to the groom, the bishop raised his right hand. “Bless, O Lord, these rings to be a sign of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”
“Cynthia, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
She felt the worn gold ring slipping on her finger; it seemed weightless, a band of silk.
Katherine stepped forward then, delivering the heavy gold band with the minuscule engraving upon its inner circle: Until heaven and then forever.
“Timothy . . . I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Hessie Mahew was convinced the bishop looked right into her eyes as he spoke.
“Now that Cynthia and Timothy have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, I pronounce that they are husband and wife, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
“Those whom God has joined together . . . let no man put asunder.”
Dooley felt the lingering warmth in his face and ears, and heard the pounding of his heart. No, it wasn’t fear anymore, it was something else, and he thought he knew what it was.
It was something maybe like . . . happiness.
CHAPTER TEN
The Beginning
Henry Oldman met them at the airport in the Cullen camp car, a 1981 turquoise Chevy Impala that made the rector’s Buick look mint condition, showroom.
It was theirs to drive for the week, and they dropped Henry off at his trim cottage with a two-stall cow barn and half-acre garden plot. While Cynthia chatted with Mrs. Oldman, Henry gave him the drill.
“New tires,” Henry said, delivering a swift kick to the aforesaid.
“Wonderful!”
“New fan belt.”
“Great!”
“Miz Oldman washed y’r seat covers.”
“Outstanding. Glad to hear it.”
“Mildew.”
The handyman who’d served the Cullens for nearly fifty Maine summers was sizing him up pretty good, he thought; trying to figure whether he’d be a proper steward for such fine amenities.
“You’ll be stayin’ in th’ big house, what they call th’ lodge. Miz Oldman put this ’n’ that in y’r icebox. Juice an’ cereal an’ whatnot.”
“We thank you.”
Henry pulled at his lower lip. “Washin’ machine door come off, wouldn’t use it much if I was you.”
“I suppose not.”
“Downstairs toilet handle needs jigglin’ or it’s bad to run. Ordered th’ part t’ fix it, but hadn’t got it yet.”
“We’ll remember.”
“You got a pretty big hole in y’r floor. Last year or two, we’ve had more’n one snake come in.”
“Which floor exactly?”
“Dinin’ room. I set a barrel over it, Bishop said it’d be all right ’til I can get somethin’ to fix it. Had a rag in th’ hole but somethin’ chewed it out.”
Now we’re getting down to it, he thought.
“Got rid of y’r ants, but not much luck with th’ mice, mice’re smarter’n we give ’em credit for.”
His wife didn’t need to know this. Not any of this.
Henry kicked the tire again for good measure. “Attic stairs, you pull ’em down, they won’t go up ag’in.”
The rector shrugged. He’d rather have a root canal without Novocain than stand here another minute.
“Course you know there’s no electric at th’ Cullen place.”
No electric? His blood pressure was shooting up; he could feel the pounding in his temples. “What lights the place? Pine torches?”
“Only two places hereabout still has gas-lit.”
He hadn’t fared so badly since trucking off at the age of nine to Camp Mulhaven, where he entertained a double-barreled dose of chiggers and poison ivy. What would Cynthia think? What had he gotten them into? He’d wring his bishop’s neck, the old buzzard; his socalled honeymoon cottage was a blasted tumbledown shack! He’d call the moment they arrived and give Stuart Cullen a generous piece of his mind. . . .
“Wouldn’t keep any food settin’ on th’ porch.” Henry removed a toothpick from his shirt pocket and pried the circumference of his left molar.
“Why’s that?” He couldn’t remember ever leaving food on a porch. Why would anyone leave food on a porch?
“Bear.”
Bear?
He craned his neck to peer at his wife, standing with Mrs. Oldman by a flower bed. Thank heaven she hadn’t overheard the last pronouncement.
“Well!” said the rector, putting an end to the veritable Niagara of bad news. “We’ll see you when we bring the car back.”
“You’ll see me tomorrow,” said Henry. “Bishop called today, asked me to come check th’ water, see if it’s runnin’ muddy. Bishop’s daddy, he tried to dig a new well before he passed, but . . .” Henry raised both hands as if he had no responsibility for the fail
ure of this mission, it was some bitter destiny over which he’d lacked any control. “Bishop said bring you some speckled trout, you know how to clean trout?”
“Ahhh,” he said, wordless. He’d never cleaned trout in his life.
Henry raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have Miz Oldman do it for you.”
He could hardly wait to get in the car, if only to sit down.
These were the days of heaven. . . .
He walked out to the porch, loving the feel of old wood, silken with wear, under his bare feet.
The view took his breath away. Early morning mist hovered above the platinum lake, and just there, near its center, a small island with a cabin on its narrow shore....
Nothing stirred except waterfowl: He saw a merganser and a string of young ply the water with great determination. Next to the lodge, cedar waxwings dived and swooped in the seed-dowered garden.
It would definitely take some getting used to, but he was liking this place better with every passing moment.
He expanded his chest and sucked in his stomach and circled his arms like propellers, awash in happiness, in contentment—in a kind of energized sloth, if there could be such a thing.
Though they’d slept at his house the first night and at hers on the second, last night had somehow marked the true beginning.
At the rectory, his antediluvian mattress had rolled them into the middle of the bed like hotdogs in a bun. At her house, circumstances were considerably improved, though the alarm clock had, oddly, gone off at three a.m. Odder still, the clock wasn’t in its usual place on her bedside table. Failing to turn on a lamp, they leapt up to locate the blasted thing and, navigating by moonlight alone, had crashed into each other at the bookcase.
But last night had been everything, everything and more.
He cupped his hands and drew them to his face and smelled her warm scent, now and forever mingled with his own. In truth, he had entered into a realm that had little to do with familiar reason and everything to do with a power and mystery he’d never believed possible. Perhaps for the first time in his life, there was nothing he craved to possess, nothing he felt lacking; he was only waiting for his coffee to perk.
He had schlepped the coffee in his suitcase, for which effort his underwear smelled of decaf Antigua and his socks of full-bore French Roast. Eager to begin their honeymoon on a note of thoughtfulness, if not downright servitude, he had gone to the kitchen to concoct the coffee, to be followed by a breakfast of . . . he opened the cabinets and checked the inventory . . . a breakfast of raisin bran in blue tin bowls.
He’d never messed with gas stoves. While chefs were commonly known to prefer cooking with gas, he’d always feared it might blow his head off. Dangerous stuff, gas, he could smell it in here more strongly than in the rest of the house. If he lit a match, they could be spending their honeymoon in Quebec. . . .
But come on, for Pete’s sake, wasn’t he up for a little excitement on this incredibly beautiful, endlessly promising day? Wasn’t all of this an adventure, a new beginning?
He withdrew a kitchen match from the box and studied it soberly, then walked to the gas-powered refrigerator and retrieved the coffee. Now. Where might the coffee pot be lurking?
Aha. That must be it on the shelf above the stove. Then again, surely not. He took it down and inspected it. Campfires. Many campfires. He lifted the lid. Oh, yes, just like his mother once used, there was the basket on its stick....
Thinking he should try and clean the pot, he removed the basket and peered inside. Hopeless! He rinsed it out under a trickle of cold water. That would have to do; this was not, after all, a military kitchen.
He filled the basket with some satisfaction, thankful he’d brought preground, otherwise they’d be chewing beans....
His wife appeared, looking touseled and teenaged in her nightgown. She slipped her arms around his waist and kissed him. “I love campfire coffee!”
Using the flat of his hand, he hammered down on the lid, which, once round, had somehow become oval with age. “What don’t you love, Kavanagh?”
“Ducks that cry all night, beds with creaking springs, and feather pillows with little gnawing things inside.”
“My sentiments exactly.” He smiled at his bride, set the pot on the stove, and struck the match.
“Stand back!” he warned.
“Those weren’t ducks calling last night.”
They were rocking on the porch, side by side. He had never felt so far from a vestry in his life. “They’re loons.”
“Loons!” she said, marveling.
The ensuing silence was punctuated with birdsong.
“Related to the auks.”
“Who, dearest? The Cullens?”
“The loons.”
“Of course.”
“They mate for life.”
“Lovely! Just like us.”
They watched the navigation of yet another duck family, thought they spotted a bald eagle, counted three kingfishers, sipped a second cup of coffee.
He relished their easy quietude this morning; it held a richness to be savored. Surely he was blessed beyond all reckoning to have a highly verbal wife who could also be quiet. He had always valued that in a woman, in a man, in a friend. Though his mother had possessed a sparkling way with people and was bright and eager in conversation on many subjects, she also had a gentle quietude that made her companionship ever agreeable.
“God is mercifully allowing me to forget the dreadful experience of getting here,” Cynthia said of yesterday’s journey.
“You mean the four-hour mechanical delay, the two-hour layover, and the forty-five minutes on the runway with no air stirring in the cabin?”
“The same!” she said.
“The usual,” he said.
He wondered what his dog might be doing at the moment. And how about his boy—how was he faring? He’d call home tonight. On second thought, he could forget calling anybody. His bishop had conveniently forgotten to say there was no phone at Cullen camp.
“I love this place, Timothy. It’s so wonderfully simple.”
“What would you like to do today?”
“Nothing!”
He was thrilled to hear it.
“Of course,” she said, “we might pop down to the village and peek in the shops.”
He hated to be the bearer of bad news. “Umm . . .”
“There are no shops!” she said, reading his mind.
“Right. Only a service station, a small grocery store with a post office, and an unused church.”
“So we can poke through the graveyard. I love graveyards!”
He grinned. “Of course you love graveyards. But I don’t think there’s a graveyard at this particular church. Stuart mentioned that the flock was buried elsewhere.”
She leaned back in the rocker and turned her head and looked into his eyes, smiling. “Well, then,” she murmured.
He took her hand and lightly kissed the tips of her fingers. “Well, then,” he said.
Henry had come on Wednesday with fresh trout and a blackberry pie baked by Mrs. Oldman, and on Thursday with a free-range chicken, a quart of green beans, a sack of beets and potatoes, and a providential lump of home-churned butter.
In truth, they were savoring unforgettable meals at an oilcloth-covered table on the porch, lighted in the evening by a kerosene lantern. One evening had been crisp and cold enough for a fire; they’d hauled the table indoors and dined by the hearth on a hearty vegetable stew, sopping their bowls with bread toasted over the fire and slathered with Oldman butter. Each dish they prepared was such a stunning success that he now dreaded going home to four pathetic electric eyes, albeit on a range of more recent vintage.
In the four days since arriving, they’d clung to the porch like moss to a log, celebrating the sunrise, cheering the dazzling sunsets. Their off-porch expeditions had been few—a walk around the lake, twice, and a canoe excursion to the island. Not being water lovers, they made the island foray with consid
erable temerity. Finding the cabin empty, they picnicked under a fir tree on a threadbare Indian blanket and, setting off for home, found the trip across had so bolstered their confidence that they paddled north for a couple of miles, only to be drenched by a downpour.
Yesterday, they’d climbed through the window of another cabin in the Cullen camp. Sitting on the floor of a room built in 1917, according to the date carved on a rafter, they drank Earl Grey tea from a thermos and told all the jokes they could remember from childhood.
Finding themselves on a roll, she suggested they draw broomstraws to see who’d entertain the other with a retelling of Uncle Billy’s wedding joke.
The rector was not pleased to draw the short straw. After all, who but Uncle Billy could tell an Uncle Billy joke? He returned the straw. “Sorry,” he said, “but this joke can’t be done without a cane.”
She got up and went to the fireplace, whipped the broom off the hearth, and handed it over.
“Is there no balm . . . ?” he sighed.
“None!” she said.
Using the hearth for a stage and the broom for a cane, he hunkered down and clasped his right lower back, where he thought he might actually feel an arthritic twinge.
“Wellsir, two fellers was workin’ together, don’t you know. First’n, he was bright ’n cheerful, th’ other’n, he didn’t have nothin’ to say, seem like he was mad as whiz. First’n said, ‘Did you wake up grouchy this mornin’?’ Other’n said, ‘Nossir, I let ’er wake ’er own self up.’ ”
Hoots, cheers, general merriment.
