by Jan Karon
“I shot two rolls up there Wednesday. Doin‘ a feature page next week.”
“That’s going to be some deal,” said Mule. “I wouldn’t mind movin‘ in there myself. I hear there’s goin’ to be a fountain in the lobby.”
“And an aviary in the dining room,” the rector announced proudly.
Mule scratched his head. “Did I hear it’ll have its own church?”
“A chapel. A small chapel. Local millwork, a rose window. First-rate.”
Velma carried two lunch plates on her left arm, and a third in her right hand.
Mule looked on with approval. “That’s a trick I always thought highly of.”
“Beef stew with crackers. Beef stew with roll, no butter. Double cheesburger all the way, with large fries.” Velma set the plates down in no particular order and stalked off.
The men dropped their heads as the rector asked a blessing.
“Amen,” said Mule, rubbing his hands together.
“How’s your boy?” asked J.C., who was busy pouring salt on his burger and fries.
“Great. Couldn’t be better. He’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”
“He’s not gettin‘ the big head in that fancy school, is he?”
“Nope. Dooley Barlowe might get a lot of things, but the big head won’t be one of them.”
“Did you read my story on Rodney hirin‘ a woman?” J.C. was not a pretty sight when he talked with his mouth full.
“You don’t mean it.”
“I bloomin‘ well do mean it. She starts the middle of November. A woman in a police uniform.... I can’t see it.”
“Why not? It’s the law, no pun intended.”
“Would you want a woman preachin‘ in your pulpit?” asked J.C., spilling coffee on his tie.
“Depends on the woman.”
“I can’t see a woman carrying a pistol.”
“How come you don’t like women?” asked Mule. “I like women.”
“I told you. They’re in the overhauling business.”
“Maybe you could use a little overhaulin‘.”
“I been overhauled, buddyroe. Dropped fifty pounds, quit cigarettes, gave up red meat, and quit readin‘ trashy books. Oh, yeah. I even got shots for smelly feet. Was that good enough? No way. She was outta there the year the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Denver Broncos twenty-seven to ten.”
“Big year,” said Mule. “The Yankees won the World Series.”
“Not to mention the Chicago Daily News went belly-up.”
None of this information gave the rector a clue as to what year they were talking about, and he had no intention of asking.
“So,” said Mule, “did the shot work, or have you still got smelly feet?”
Lunch at the Grill, thought Father Tim, was what kept life real. He had to confess, however, that he could hardly wait to get back to the office and finish the C. S. Lewis essay entitled “Thought, Imagination, Language.”
Cynthia gave him a hug as he came in the back door. “We’ve been invited to Miss Rose’s and Uncle Billy’s for banana pudding this evening.”
“Oh, no! Please, no!”
“Dearest, don’t be stuffy.”
“Stuffy? Miss Rose has been hospitalized with ptomaine poisoning twice—and nearly sent a Presbyterian parishioner to her reward. You’re the only person in town who’d put your feet under her table.”
“So, pray for protection and let’s go,” she said, looking eager.
It didn’t take much to delight Cynthia Kavanagh. No, indeed, it hardly took anything at all. What’s more, she loved flying in the face of mortal danger.
“Besides, they’ve invited us for banana pudding practically since the day I moved here, so we can’t disappoint them.”
“Of course not.”
“Next Wednesday,” she said, “Miss Sadie and Louella are having us up for supper.”
“Right.”
“Fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”
“We’ll be there.”
“And homemade coconut cake!”
“I’ve made a reservation in the emergency room,” he declared, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Don’t worry, I’ll watch you every minute. You mustn’t have the gravy or the cake, and only the tiniest portion of potatoes, they’ll be loaded with butter and cream.”
He was glad J. C. Hogan wasn’t around to hear this.
“Then,” she said, adjusting her half-glasses to read from a list, “Ron and Wilma invited us for Friday evening.”
“Ummm.”
“Hal and Marge want us for dinner at the farm, the first Sunday of November.”
“Aha.”
“And the mayor has asked us for a family barbecue the following Sunday. What do you think?”
“Book it.”
She looked faintly worn. “So much social activity! I thought you led a quiet life.”
“I did,” he said, “until I got married.”
“Oh.”
“Everybody wants a look at you.”
“But they’ve seen me for ages!”
“Not in your new circumstances.”
She sighed. “And then there’s Thanksgiving!”
“And the All-Church Feast, which we must attend, and Dooley and Russell Jacks and Betty Craig for turkey here the day after, and ... You look all in, what’s up?”
She sighed again. “I’ve started a new book, and it has a crushing deadline.”
All or nothing at all. That’s what he liked about this new life.
They walked to the Porter place—cum—town museum, holding hands. A Canadian cold front had moved in, inspiring them to wrap like mummies.
“I went to see Miss Pattie this morning,” she announced, her breath sending puffs of steam into the frigid air.
“You did?”
“I gave Evie two hours off.”
“God knows when Evie’s had two hours off. You’re a saint.”
“I’m no such thing. We played Scrabble.”
“Scrabble? With Miss Pattie?” Evie Adams’s mother hadn’t been in her right mind for a decade, causing Evie to call the church office with some frequency, in tears of frustration.
“She spelled one word—‘go’—and declared herself the winner. Then we had an imaginary lunch and she showed me her imaginary doll.”
“Knowing you, you can describe that doll in detail.”
She laughed. “Dimples. Blue eyes—one won’t shut. It had lost its socks and shoes, and I think its toes were once chewed by a puppy. I told Evie I’d come again.”
He stopped and put his arms around her. “I’ve always wanted a deacon. You’re hired.” He kissed her on both cheeks and then on the mouth.
“Dearest ... everyone will talk.”
“It’s time I gave them something to talk about,” he said, meaning it.
“I’ll be et for a tater if it ain’t th‘ preacher! Rose, come and look, he’s got ’is missus with ‘im.”
They stood at the back door of the museum that led to the apartment the town had remodeled for Miss Rose and Uncle Billy Watson.
The old man’s schizophrenic wife of nearly fifty years peered around the door. The rector thought she looked fiercer than ever.
“What do they want?” she demanded, staring directly at the shivering couple on the steps.
Uncle Billy appeared bewildered.
“You invited us for banana pudding!” said Cynthia. “Yesterday, when I saw you on the street.”
“I did?” Miss Rose put her hands on her hips and gave them a withering look. “Well, I don’t have any banana pudding!”
“Oh, law,” said Uncle Billy, “did you go an‘ forget you invited th’ preacher and ‘is missus?”
“I certainly did not forget. It’s too close to Thanksgiving to make banana pudding. I would never have had such an idea.”
Uncle Billy looked anguished. “You ‘uns come on in, anyway, and set where it’s warm. I’ve got somethin’ for you, Preacher, hit’s nearly b
urnt a hole in m‘ pocket.”
“That’s all right, Uncle Billy, we’ll come another time.” Talk about a life-saving turn of events.
“Nossir, I need t‘ give you this. It’s somethin’ that belongs to th‘ Lord, don’t you know.”
They trooped in as Miss Rose eyed them with suspicion.
The rector observed that she was still dressing out of her long-dead brother’s military wardrobe. Under a worn housecoat whose belt dragged the floor, she was wearing Army pants and a World War II field jacket. He was almost comforted by the sight of her unlaced saddle oxfords, which were her all-time favorite footwear.
“I cain’t set down, cain’t lay down, an‘ cain’t hardly stand up,” said Uncle Billy, who was leaning on a cane. “Ol’ arthur’s got me, don’t you know.”
They hovered timidly by the kitchen table while Miss Rose stood at the stove and gave them a thorough looking-over.
“Preacher, could you step in here a minute?” Uncle Billy opened the door to the unheated part of the house, admitting a blast of arctic air, and led the way. As the door closed behind them, the rector looked back at his wife, who was trying to appear brave.
“I put it over yonder,” said Uncle Billy, turning on a light in a room stacked with old newspapers. “I’ve kep‘ it hid from Rose—she wouldn’t take t’ me doin‘ this, don’t you know.”
He felt thoroughly refrigerated by the time the old man located the stack of yellowed papers and withdrew an envelope. With a trembling hand, he gave it to the rector.
“It’s m‘ tithe,” he said, his voice breaking. “Th’ Lord give me that money for my pen an‘ ink drawin’s that Miss Cynthia sold, and I’m givin’ His part back.”
The rector was so moved, he could barely speak. “May the Lord bless you, Bill!”
“Oh, an‘ He does. Ever’ day, don’t you know.”
“I’m glad we went,” he said, buttoning his pajama top.
“Me, too. Even if Miss Rose does scare me half to death!”
She put her hands on her hips and said fiercely, “I don’t have any banana pudding!”
“Thanks be to God!” he shouted, as they collapsed on the bed with laughter.
CHAPTER THREE
Gathered In
“You LOOKIN‘ at th’ las’ supper,” said Louella.
As Fernbank’s dining room was closed off for winter, they were sitting at the kitchen table.
“Louella’s having her knee operation on Thursday,” Miss Sadie reminded her guests. “She won’t be able to cook like this again for a long time.” His hostess, who was also his oldest, not to mention favorite, parishioner, appeared wistful.
“Who’s driving you to Winston-Salem?” asked Cynthia, who had offered to do it a month earlier.
“Ed Malcolm. I don’t know how Mr. Leeper heard about it, but somehow he did, and gave Ed the day off so he can drive us. Have you ever?”
“Extraordinary,” said the rector. Buck Leeper, the abrasive, profane, don’t-tread-on-me supervisor of the Hope House project ...
Cynthia helped herself to another deviled egg. “How long will you be there?”
“Five days, we think,” said Miss Sadie.
“What will you do down there for five days? And where will you stay?”
“I’ll have a cot in Louella’s room!”
“She goan baby me,” said Louella, looking sunny. Miss Sadie had babied Louella, who had been born at Fernbank, since they were children. In recent years, however, circumstances had begotten the reverse.
Five nights on a hospital cot? he thought. Not good.
“Louella would do the same for me.”
“Amen!” pronounced Louella, passing the mashed potatoes. “Y‘all eat these up. We don’t have no puppy dogs t’ feed ‘em to.”
He could tell that his wife was in seventh heaven, eating like a trencherman and happy as a child. She looked at him and smiled. “Keep your eyes off the gravy, dearest.”
Lord knows, he was trying. “What will you do when you come back? Surely the stairs ...”
Louella will sleep down here in the kitchen.“
“For how long?”
“The doctor said no stairs for three months.”
“We ain’t tol‘ him our stairs go almos’ to th’ Pearly Gates. How many we got, Miss Sadie?”
“Twenty-nine! Papa wanted thirty, but it didn’t work out.”
Sadie Baxter alone at night on that cavernous second floor? And what if Louella were to take a tumble on this cracked and broken linoleum? He didn’t like the sound of the plan, not at all.
“When we go up at night, we go together,” said Louella. “But sometime, it’s more settin‘ down than goin’ up.”
“That’s right. Sometimes it takes so long to get to the top, it’s nearly time to start back to the bottom!”
“Me an‘ Miss Sadie, we sing our way up. I say, Do you remember ’To You before the close of day ...‘? She say, Sho’ I do, you start and I’ll jump in. We set there and sing a verse, then we climb up another little step or two. Sometime, we go through two or three hymns jus’ to lay our bones down.”
“And sometimes,” said Miss Sadie, inspired by the excitement of revelation, “we don’t come downstairs at all.”
“Miss Sadie, she keep candy in her vanity, an‘ I keeps Spam and loaf bread in my bureau. We watch th’ soaps and th‘ news.”
“We play checkers, or go ramble in the attic. I love to ramble in the attic. It keeps me young to remember old times.”
“Many a day,” said Louella, “we read th‘ Bible out loud, or Miss Sadie jus’ sleep ’til dark.”
“Louella, you don’t need to tell that!”
“It’s th‘ gospel truth.”
Miss Sadie looked suddenly tired. “This old house ...” she murmured. “I don’t know....”
You can learn a lot over a platter of fried chicken, he thought. Why had Miss Sadie never told him any of this? She always made everything seem bright and shining. They had no business rattling around in this clapboard coliseum alone. But what could be done? Hope House wouldn’t be finished and staffed for another year. Maybe good help was the solution, someone to come in at night.
Or ... well, now. That was a thought. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? The fine old house on Lilac Road, bequeathed to Olivia Davenport by her mother ... perfect!
Only months ago, Miss Sadie had found something she never knew she had—blood kin. The beautiful Olivia was her great-niece, a surprising revelation that had thrilled both women. It was, however, a revelation they chose to keep secret, as it pointed to an illegitimate child by Miss Sadie’s own mother.
Now, Olivia was married to Hoppy Harper, who had engineered her miraculous heart transplant. As they were living happily in the doctor’s rambling mountain lodge, Olivia’s house on Lilac Road sat quite empty. And didn’t it have a brand-new furnace, wall-to-wall carpet, and every imaginable convenience, all on one floor?
He wouldn’t introduce the idea just now, however. He’d make his move on Monday.
The shrill ring of the phone sounded in the hallway.
“I’ll get it!” said Cynthia.
He would ask Olivia if there were any plans to sell her house. If not, he’d work on breaking down Miss Sadie’s resistance to the idea of leaving Fernbank. She had lived in the house her father built since she was nine years old—more than eighty years. One didn’t casually walk away from such a bond.
“Miss Sadie, it’s Olivia.”
As Miss Sadie left the room with her cane, Louella leaned over and whispered, “Honey, this ol‘ house killin’ me and it killin‘ her, don’t let her fool you. ’Sides that, when I say Miss Sadie, you ‘member this hymn, she say she do, but she don’t. Miss Sadie doan want you to think she doan remember. And ramblin’ in th‘ attic?’ She could stay up there ‘til Jesus comes, kickin’ up all that dust.”
“I don’t like the thought of you two being twenty-nine stair steps apart at night,” he said.
> “An‘ I don’t like th’ idea of Miss Sadie doin‘ th’ cookin‘ aroun’ here! Fact is, she don’t cook—she sets out. She sets out mustard, she sets out baloney, she sets out light bread. Bless th‘ Lord, we in a pickle!”
Cynthia put on Louella’s apron and announced she was washing the dishes. She handed her husband a drying towel.
Miss Sadie came back to the kitchen and closed the door. “I declare, if it’s not one thing to muddle over, it’s two. You’ll never guess what that was all about.”
“I could never guess,” Cynthia admitted.
“Olivia said, Aunt Sadie, I want you to come and live in Mother’s house, we’re worried about you and Louella.”
“Thanks be to God!” said the rector.
“Praise Jesus!” boomed Louella.
“Bingo!” exclaimed Cynthia. “And what did you say?”
Miss Sadie sat down and met each pair of eyes. “I said I’d have to think about it.”
Cynthia spoke up at once. “I hope you’ll think about the fact that it’s all on one floor.”
“And think about the heating system,” he added, “and the insulation, and those good, tight windows, all brand-new. Warm as toast!”
“Think ‘bout where it is!” crowed Louella. “One block from th’ grocery! Aroun‘ the corner from th’ post office!”
“You all don’t have to preach me a sermon!”
After a respectful silence, he plunged in again. “Twenty-nine steps and nobody to sit and sing a hymn with. I wouldn’t want to do it.”
Miss Sadie looked at him coolly.
“I’ll be sleepin‘ in th’ kitchen, listenin‘ to th’ roof leakin‘ in th’ buckets,” moaned Louella.
“Is the roof leaking again?” he asked. “I thought it was fixed.”
“I thought it was fixed, Miss Sadie thought it was fixed. But it ain’t fixed.”
“It’s fixed everywhere except the entrance hall!” said Miss Sadie, looking stern.
“Yas ‘um,” Louella muttered. “An’ when it rains, it take a soup pot, a Dutch oven, an‘ a turkey roaster t’ catch it!”
