A Light in the Window

by Jan Karon

  She looked abashed for a moment. "Then I'll live in my car!" she yelled and dashed toward the hedge.

  He had gotten as far as his back stoop when it hit him.

  He couldn't use her stepladder to find a point of entry because her stepladder was in the basement and the only way to get to the basement was through a door in her hallway.

  If he were a drinking man, he would have a double Scotch. On the rocks, and make it snappy. What was his brain made of these days? He couldn't seem to think straight for five minutes in a row.

  The option was to break out a basement window. But could he then get through the door at the top of the basement stairs and into her hallway? If he remembered correctly, she liked to keep that door locked.

  Could he even get that leviathan ladder of hers through a basement window, if he managed to crawl through, himself? Didn't he remember seeing the windows when he hauled Violet out of the coal chute, and weren't they unusually narrow?

  A locksmith. That was the answer.

  But when he called the only advertised locksmith in the area, there was a recording. He left a halfhearted message for the smith to call him back and hung up, feeling mold beginning to form under the slicker.

  He splashed through the hedge toward the far side of the little yellow house, passing her garage on the way. He saw the dim outline of her head in the driver's seat of the gray Mazda.

  Meg Patrick a raving beauty? The very thought boggled his mind. Had she worked so hard in New York that her eyesight was failing?

  The basement windows were not only too narrow to push the ladder through, they were far too small for him to crawl through.

  He went into the garage, dripping, and knocked on her car window.

  She rolled it down halfway.

  "Hello, is this Miss Coppersmith's residence?"

  "It is," she said, unsmiling.

  "Ma'am, we have a problem. I am too large to crawl through your basement window and fetch out your ladder, which is too wide to be fetched out in the first place. So there you have it, and would you care to change your address temporarily and move to the rectory, where a fire and a bowl of soup wouldn't be a bad idea?"

  "Don't you have a boy?"

  "A boy?"

  "Yes, a boy who is small enough to crawl in the basement window."

  "We're awfully short on boys right now, ma'am. In any case, the basement door to your hallway may be locked, which means we couldn't gain access to your house even if I rounded up a dozen boys."

  She stared straight ahead at a garden hoe hanging on the garage wall and sighed deeply.

  "Do you know if the hall door to your basement is locked?"

  "I always lock it when I go away, so nothing can...crawl up the stairs."

  "Quite," he said, sighing also.

  "I don't suppose you could crawl up the coal chute?" she said, still not looking at him. Violet howled from her crate in the passenger seat.

  "No ma'am, we aren't trained to crawl up coal chutes. It's company policy. We tried it once, but our men kept slipping back and landing where they started."

  "A definitive portrait of my relationship with my neighbor," she snapped.

  "Why, yes, it is," he said, pleased with himself.

  They sat at opposite ends of the study sofa with a box of Kleenex on the middle cushion.

  Violet was curled on Cynthia's lap, sleeping, and Barnabas lay on the kitchen rug, leashed to the knob of the back door. The rector had decided he had only a couple of choices: Leave his dog in the garage, feeling punished through no fault of his own, or leash him to the knob where, should Violet get loose, a door torn from its hinges would be the worst that could happen.

  The rain lashed the windows, the fire crackled, the clock ticked.

  "I love the ticking of a clock," she said, sounding mournful.

  He sneezed. "Does anyone else have a key?"

  "Bless you. Not a soul, except David, who's traveling on business in the Far East."

  He could break the glass pane in her storm door, but he didn't mention that.

  She sneezed.

  "Bless you," he said.

  "You could stand on the back stoop and Dooley could kneel on your shoulders and lean over the railing and pry up the window in the downstairs bathroom," she said.

  "That's a thought." He could see such a circus act crashing into the mud below, with only minor fractures as a result. He sneezed.

  "Bless you. Maybe the locksmith will call you back."

  "Maybe."

  She hugged herself. "I'm freezing."

  "Why don't you lie down, and I'll stir up the fire?"

  "I've been up since four o'clock this morning," she said, looking miserable.

  He brought a pillow from the armchair, and she lay down obediently. He covered her with the plaid afghan that was folded over the back of the sofa. "How's that?" he asked, looking at her huddled form.

  He could barely hear what she whispered. "Heaven."

  He put his hand on her forehead. "Warm," he pronounced and sneezed.

  She spent the night on the sofa, under a pile of quilts, refusing the offer of his bed.

  He had brought her a pair of his socks and sat at the end of the sofa with her feet in his lap, sleeping in an upright position until two a.m.

  He awoke when Cousin Meg flushed the toilet over his head, and he added two logs to the fire. Then he crept up the stairs, feeling feverish.

  After the locksmith arrived the next morning, he walked her through the hedge, lugging Violet's crate in one hand and her carryon in the other. He went back to his car for the two suitcases, which were easily as heavy as Meg Patrick's, and popped those through the hedge and up the stairs to her bedroom.

  She stood on the soft carpet in the room that he had never before seen and looked at him. He was somehow not surprised that he read his own thoughts and feelings in her eyes, though he had no idea what his thoughts and feelings were.

  He took her in his arms and they stood for a moment, wordless.

  Then he went down the stairs and home, where he searched for a handkerchief in his upper bureau drawer and found her house key.

  He had breakfast with Dooley but stopped by the Grill for coffee.

  "Edith Mallory is home," he announced. "I'll talk to her this week."

  "Better get a move on," said J.C.

  His muscles ached and his head felt the size of a Canadian moose. "For Pete's sake, don't expect miracles." He'd rather take a whipping than see Edith Mallory.

  "Percy's decided it's not going to happen," said Mule. "He says somethin's goin' to come up that'll stop it."

  J.C. wiped his face. "That's called denial, buddyroe."

  "Let me ask you something. Do you think my cousin Meg is...goodlooking?"

  "With those glasses on," said Mule, "she's ugly as homemade sin."

  "Without her glasses?"

  "I've never seen her without glasses. Probably not bad. Tall, slim, nice legs, great hair. But too weird, you know what I mean?"

  Percy came to the booth and sat down. "Yessir, I've lost my last night of sleep over this thing."

  Then why, the rector wondered, did Percy's hands shake when he put cream in his coffee?

  The crowd at the hospital called to ask if they might drop by before lunch.

  He sneezed. Good! He could ride back with them and check into the emergency room.

  At eleven, three nurses and Hoppy Harper in a Navy peacoat over a green scrub suit came through his office door with J.C. Hogan.

  "Tadaaa!" said Nurse Kennedy, handing him something.

  Several bright flashes went off in rapid succession.

  When he could see again, he read what was engraved in brass on the wooden plaque:

  For Father Tim

  Beloved friend

  and confidant

  For thirteen years,

  you have doctored

  the gang at

  Mitford Hospital

  with the best

  medicine
of all:

  love.

  We love you, too!

  "I wrote it," said Nurse Kennedy, grinning proudly.

  "I told her what to say," announced his doctor.

  "I corrected their terrible spelling," Nurse Phillips assured him.

  Nurse Jennings threw her arms around his neck. "I didn't do a blessed thing but come up with the whole idea!"

  J.C. reloaded his camera as Emma took the plaque out of the rector's hands and looked for a place to hang it. "Sit down and have a cup of coffee. And no offense, but it's fourteen years he's been runnin' up th' hill to th' hospital," said his proud secretary.

  "Father, I believe you know who this is."

  And he did, more's the pity. It was Dooley's school principal, Myra Hayes.

  "This is to inform you that Dooley Barlowe is being suspended for ten school days for the possession of tobacco products and for smoking on school grounds."

  There was a deafening silence. The decision might have come down from a Supreme Court judge, so awesome was Myra Hayes's indignation.

  He sneezed and his eyes watered. "When shall I pick him up?"

  "Immediately," she said.

  And just when they needed the blessing of every teacher they could get their hands on...

  "Go to your room until I can deal with this thing," he told Dooley. He was shaking with a chill, and all he wanted to do was to lie down.

  He managed to get his clothes off and his pajamas on and haul the quilts from the sofa to his bed. Then, he put on the socks Cynthia had worn and crawled between the icy sheets.

  He was asleep before he could turn the lamp off.

  •CHAPTER FIFTEEN•

  HE COULDN'T REMEMBER BEING SO SICK.

  For three days, Dooley fetched and carried through the hedge, ran to the drugstore and The Local, heated soup and delivered it upstairs, and generally made himself useful.

  Timing is everything, thought the rector, who was getting plenty of mileage out of Dooley Barlowe's recent indiscretion.

  A new and virulent strain of flu, complicated by sinus infection, said Hoppy, who made a house call wearing a mask and gloves. His doctor looked down his throat, listened to his breathing through a stethoscope, thumped him like a melon, and darted through the hedge to do the same to his neighbor.

  Apparently fearing contamination, his cousin came out only at night, like a cockroach. She was rustling so many books from his shelves that he once heard her make two successive trips downstairs. On the last trip, he groaned loudly, making sure he could be heard beyond his closed door.

  Dooley came in the next morning, looking pale. "I heard you hollerin' in here last night like you was dyin'. Are you dyin'?"

  "No such luck," he said, feeling his sinuses drain like pipes.

  "Well, try t' hold it down in here if you don't mind—you like t' scared me t' death."

  "Speaking of being scared to death, wait 'til I get well, buster. You haven't seen anything yet."

  Dooley turned paler still. Good! He needed to be scared. Getting himself thrown out of school like so much wastepaper, breaking the blasted law, shooting himself in the foot...

  "You want ginger ale or tea?"

  "Tea, thank you, and ask my dog to come in here while you're at it," he said darkly. "I know he's sleeping on the foot of your bed."

  "Cynthia was sick as all get-out when I seen her last night."

  "Tell me about it."

  "01' Vi'let eat a mouse that got in while she was in New York City. Dropped it right on Cynthia's bed. Gross."

  "I thought she liked mice."

  "Not half eat, she don't," said Dooley, who appeared to know.

  "When you bring up the tea, I'd like you sit in the chair under the lamp and read to me."

  "What d'you want me to read?"

  He might as well reach for the moon. "Shakespeare."

  Dooley pointed a finger down his throat. "Gag."

  When the boy went downstairs, he dialed her number, but it was busy Dooley delivered the Muse to his chair in the study, along with a fried bologna sandwich. "You want mustard or catsup?"

  "Mustard." This was living. Or it might have been, if he weren't still nearly dying.

  There was that blasted photo on the front page, as if nothing else was going on in this town. Why did his nose look like the bulb of a tulip? And that smirk on his face—is that what he looked like when he was smiling? If he never saw another picture of himself, it would be too soon.

  "Here," said Dooley, "it's time for your medicine. I hope it makes you better. I'm about give out."

  "If you're going to be a vet, you'd better get used to caring for the sick."

  "Can I go to Tommy's after school?"

  "Are you out of your mind?" Dooley rolled his eyes.

  "In case it hasn't occurred to you, you're grounded. Big time. We'll talk as soon as I can manage it. Now, onto other matters. That was a grand reading from Hamlet. We'll have Dickens tonight."

  "Who's Dickens?"

  "Only one of the finest storytellers in the English language, but longwinded, so eat your Wheaties."

  "Man," said Dooley, wishing he were back in school. "And I'd like to have a look at that English composition you're writing about my dog."

  "He ain't...isn't...just your dog. I live here too, y' know."

  "Yes, well, and who feeds and brushes and bathes him?"

  "I could brush 'im. An' I could feed him sometime..."

  "There's a thought. Go to it." Why had he mistakenly assumed that a tenday suspension was all bad?

  He made his usual search for J.C.'s way with words but found only one gem:

  Local Man Convicted of Wreckless Driving.

  He tore the story out to send to Walter.

  On page three, Hessie Mayhew continued her annual saga.

  Lady Spring has been sighted in our village at last, and skeptics are now convinced that she is here to charm us for the season.

  Arriving less discreetly than in times past, she has already covered several banks with fuchsia phlox and tossed bouquets of violets hither as well as yon, showing special favor to the wooded pathways behind the post office.

  One always looks for her touch, of course, at Lord's Chapel, where the gardens created by sexton Russell Jacks give pleasure year in and year out. Here, Lady Spring has entreated the redbuds to bloom a dash early, presenting themselves in glorious array behind the old tombstones. Do stroll down and have a look, as they make quite a show.

  There's hardly any need to notify you of the great white cloud that is, as we write, settling over Fernbank. As all can see, Miss Baxter's apple trees are once again doing their best to make us the prettiest town in creation.

  But take heed: don't plant yet. We've ten days to go, so do try and contain yourself. Hessie ended with a quote from John Clare:

  The snow has left the cottage top;

  The thatch-moss grows in brighter green;

  And eaves in quick succession drop,

  Where grinning icicles have been,

  Pitpatting with a pleasant noise

  In tubs set by the cottage door;

  While ducks and geese, with happy joys,

  Plunge in the yardpond brimming o'er.

  The sun peeps through the window pane;

  Which children mark with laughing eye,

  And in the wet street steal again

  To tell each other spring is nigh.

  The timeline for planting, May 15, was also The Grill's timeline.

  He let the newspaper drop to the floor. How had the days passed so quickly? First there was the shock of hearing the news, which took its own kind of time. Then, the brainstorming sessions and Ediths trip to Florida, and now he was sick.

  Unless a miracle happened, they were looking at God knows what— a stroke for Percy, a strange job for Velma, and no way to get a decent cup of coffee, except by standing straight up at a shelf that ran along Winnie Ivey's bakery wall.

  It was more than the probable loss of a lan
dmark. It was, he concluded, a violation of ordinary lives made larger by continuity and connections.

  He went to the sofa, uttered a brief but loaded petition, and dialed her number.

  "Helloo?"

  "Edith?"

  "Hello, Timothy. Magdolen has just gone out to The Local, so I'm my own social secretary."

  "I'm sick..."

  "Yes, I've heard. So sorry"

  "That's why I haven't called sooner..."

  "Not since your house help hung up in my face..."

  "Something wrong with the phone lines, no doubt."

  "What are you proposing, Timothy? And oh, you may as well know that I have no intention of seeing you while you're contagious, even if you are my priest."

  "I should be completely over it in a couple of days. What about lunch in Wesley on Thursday?"

  "We'll see," she told him, in a tone that said she had no intention of seeing.

  His cousin still refused to accompany them to church. In reply to the note he left under her door, she left a note for him on the kitchen table:

  I shan't come with you, though I do appreciate the invitation. Csn Meg

  He couldn't help but notice she'd left the lid off the pickles.

  "Hello."

  "Hello, yourself," he said, noting that the receiver felt like a barbell. "Feeling better?"

  "Better than what?"

  "Better than if you'd been pushed from a tall building."

  "Only slightly. And you?"

  "Rotten, if the truth were known."

  "The truth is seldom known, Timothy."

  He moved quickly. "The truth is, Edith Mallory is involved in something I didn't have a chance to tell you about, which is why she called and invited me to dinner, and if Cousin Meg is a raving beauty, I am Michelangelo's David." There. He hadn't meant to sound so angry about it, but he was angry, he suddenly realized. Why was he having to report his personal life to Cynthia Coppersmith?

  Clearly, she didn't want to talk about it. "Thanks for sending Dooley over. You've no idea how it's helped."

  "Actually I do have an idea. He's a boon to me, as well. Couldn't get out of bed the first two days. What did Hoppy say?"