These High, Green Hills

by Jan Karon

  “Don’t go to your room yet,” he told Dooley. He had left the new spread on the backseat of his car and wanted to put it on the bed before Dooley saw his renovated room.

  “I already went,” said Dooley. “I took Joseph up there while you all talked about artificial legs.”

  “Arms. I bought you a new bedspread. It looks like an Indian blanket.”

  “Neat. I like my remote. But you still get the same old three channels. At school, we get fifry-four.”

  “Fifty-four? Amazing.”

  “It’s not amazing, it’s cable. You could get cable.”

  He had once entertained the idea, but decided to send the twenty dollars a month to the Children’s Hospital. What did he need with the native dances of Malaysia, anyway, much less all the sports he could watch, when he never watched sports?

  “You’ll be too busy to lie around this summer watching fifty-four channels. Tommy wants you to go to his grandmother’s place in Arkansas for two weeks, there’s the town festival where you said you’d like to have a cold-drink stand, and I know Hal and Marge want you to come and visit—”

  “I’m going out there to stay,” said Dooley.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to spend the summer at Meadowgate Farm, helping out Doc Owen.”

  He felt his throat tighten. Had he heard wrong? “What do you mean, spend the summer at Meadowgate? We never talked about that.”

  “I wrote Miz Owen and asked her and she wrote back and said if it was all right with you, I could do it.”

  He felt an odd chill. “But I never said ... we never talked about ...”

  “I knew you wouldn’t care.”

  “But I do care. And Cynthia cares. We’ve been looking forward to seeing you, to having you home.” He felt a kind of anguish, as if he would burst into tears. Then he felt the anger.

  Dooley looked at him and shrugged.

  Hot.

  He got up and took off his pajamas, and padded to the bathroom.

  All the windows were open, but no breeze was stirring.

  He went to the closet and, as quietly as he could, took the fan off the shelf without turning on the light. He removed the clock from the night table, set the fan in its place, and plugged the cord into the socket by the bed.

  “Timothy, what in heaven’s name are you doing? You sound like the charge of the light brigade.”

  “Plugging in the fan.”

  “With a large crew of helpers, I take it.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s hot.”

  “Like a sauna.”

  He aimed the fan at the bed, turned it on high, and climbed in beside her.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “Well done.”

  They lay there, looking at the shadow of leaves on the ceiling.

  “What is it?” she asked, finding his hand and holding it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s on your mind? I always know, you know.”

  Marriage had many benefits. But a wife who could read your mind didn’t seem, at the moment, to be one of them.

  “Dooley,” he said.

  She waited.

  “He wants to go to Meadowgate for the summer.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. And determined to do it, too.”

  “But why? Why not just a visit?”

  “He wants to work with Hal, said he wrote Marge and she said he could do it if we agreed.”

  “Do we agree?”

  “No! No, blast it.”

  “I hate this,” she whispered. “We thought he’d be glad to come home.”

  “The truth is,” he said, bitterly, “only we were glad. It was a one-way street.”

  “Why hasn’t Marge mentioned this to us?”

  “I don’t know.” Marge Owen was his oldest friend in Mitford, the first friend he had made here, fifteen years ago. He and Hal and Marge had been as thick as thieves until Dooley came to the rectory and Rebecca Jane was born to Meadowgate. Then they had drifted apart, but never, he thought, in their affections. They knew very well how he cherished the boy, but they cherished him, too, had grown close to him....

  “Let me talk to Marge,” said Cynthia.

  “No, leave it. He wants to go. That’s the whole point, after all. Not whether they somehow instigated this or how we feel about losing him. The point is, he wants to go.”

  Devastated. That’s how he felt. Empty, yet filled with heaviness.

  He occasionally thought about the cave, how frightened they had been, and about the peace he had felt toward the end. He had learned something in there, but he didn’t know what. Perhaps he didn’t know what because he hadn’t allowed himself to think about it, to chew over it. Things had been so busy, after all, there was no time for reflection.

  Feast or famine, he mused, walking from the office toward the church. As a bachelor, he had nothing but time in the evenings. This was a different life, all right, and he was glad of it. Having his wife sit on his lap and muss what was left of his hair, waking up to a kiss that sent him reeling, spending hours with someone whose company he relished, who made his conversation seem witty when clearly it wasn’t ...

  Once again, mice had been gnawing at the retable, that venerable shelf to the left of the altar. According to the junior warden, they may need to replace the side paneling, would he have a look? Mice had always been attracted to that particular spot, as if the wood were infused with Vermont cheddar.

  While he was there, Emma said, he should check whether the coffeepot was left on from the lay readers’ meeting in the parish hall last night. According to her, lay readers loved to leave the pot on ‘til the contents turned to mud. Lay readers were, in her opinion, at the bottom of the church ladder, having no candles to light, no wine to dispense, no cross to carry, no linen to wash and iron, no sacramental bread to bake, no flowers to arrange, no music to learn—all they had to do was stand up there and read from a book.

  He regretted not having time to spend with Lacey. She had gone before he could get away from the Barnhardts. He wanted to learn how her prayer on the creek bank had affected her heart and her spirit, what it had meant to her. What had it meant to the other people who flowed down the bank into the water, to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? What had changed back there on the Creek, that place where even angels feared to tread?

  He unlocked the door to the narthex and went in, feeling at once his gladness to be there.

  He was seldom alone in the church anymore—the parish was growing, and more and more often, someone was puttering about or having a meeting, or the tourists were trying to get in and see the ancient Mortlake tapestry, which was insured to the hilt.

  He bowed before the altar and sat down in the second pew on the Gospel side, and kicked his shoes off.

  This was home.

  He didn’t much care about the mice, who were not, at least for the moment, dining on the retable. He wanted merely to sit and let the peace soak in, and the fragrace of the chestnut walls, and the years of incense and dried hydrangeas and fresh flowers and beeswax and lemon oil.

  He had loved the smell of his churches over the years, perhaps especially the little mission church by the sea. With the windows cranked open to the fresh salt breezes, and the incense wafting about on high holy days, it was enough to send a man to the moon. The Protestants didn’t think much of incense, and the culture of the sixties hadn’t done anything for its reputation, either, but he was all for it.

  When the Lord was laying out the plan for the Tent of Meeting to Moses, He was pretty clear about it. He asked that Aaron “burn sweet spices every morning” when he trimmed and filled the lamps, and to burn them again in the evening. Bottom line, there was to be “a perpetual incense before the Lord, throughout the generations.”

  Ah, well, it wasn’t worth wrangling over, incense. In the end, it was just one more snare of church politics.

  Why are church politics so bitter? someone recently as
ked. Because the stakes are so small, was the answer.

  He chuckled.

  Lord’s Chapel had had its share of political squabbles, but thanks be to God, not in the last three or four years. No, things had gone smoothly enough, and he was grateful.

  But why was he musing on politics, when the church was so sweetly hushed and somehow expectant? The light poured through the stained-glass depiction of the boy preaching in the temple, through purple and scarlet and gold, and the azure of the boy’s robe as He stood before the elders. That was one smart, courageous kid, he thought. I’m glad I know Him.

  “Rest. Rest. Rest in God’s love,” Madame Guyon had written. “The only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.”

  He sighed and moved forward in the worn pew, and fell to his knees on the cushion.

  “Lord,” he said aloud, “I’m not going to pray, I only want to listen. Why does Dooley turn away from us?

  “And what was the lesson of the cave?”

  Cynthia wasn’t interested in pulling punches.

  “I don’t want to make Dooley feel guilty, that’s not the point. What I want is for him to know how I feel. That’s fair. And besides, why didn’t he let us know?”

  His style was to give the issue to God and haul it back again, ad infinitum, ‘til the cows came home, until the thing finally wore itself out in him. His wife, however, had her own style.

  “Dooley,” she said over dinner at the kitchen table, “we were looking forward to your homecoming.”

  Dooley nodded.

  “We love you, and we’ve been excited about having you home for the summer.”

  Dooley stared at the wall.

  “It makes us sad that you’re choosing to go to the farm.”

  Dooley took a mouthful of lasagna.

  “We wanted to spend time together, but we respect your choice and want you to have a good summer and learn a lot from Dr. Owen.”

  Dooley nodded.

  “But that’s only part of how I feel. Here’s the other part.” She made eye contact with Dooley and held it. “You have hurt my feelings and made me mad as heck. Sometimes, I think you act like a creep.”

  Dooley gulped.

  So did the rector.

  So be it.

  “Did you see it?” asked Percy.

  “See what?”

  “Th‘ banner.”

  “Aha! Got it up, did you?”

  Percy looked grim. “Went up this mornin‘ at ten o’clock. Caused a stir.”

  “It’s hard to see a banner when it’s on an awning over your head. I’ll step across the street and take a look.”

  “They left a letter out of th‘ dadgum thing.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “But they knocked fifty bucks off th‘ price.”

  “The least they could do.”

  “I started to tell ‘em to jus’ shove th’ whole business, but ...” Percy shrugged, despondent.

  “Go ahead and make me a tuna melt. I’ve got some leeway in my diet today. Be right back.”

  He jaywalked toward the other side of the street, barely dodging Esther Bolick in her husband’s pickup truck. Esther screeched to a halt and leaned out the window. “I hear th‘ mayor leaked the news to Miss Sadie.”

  “We’re forging ahead.”

  “I’m not doing orange marmalade,” said Esther. “I’m doing peanut butter. Three layers, with jelly in between. Apple or grape?”

  “Grape!”

  “For gosh sake, get out of the street before somebody nails you,” she said, roaring off.

  Safely on the other side, he turned and peered at the banner over Percy’s awning.

  Eat Here Once, And You’ll Be Regular

  He guffawed, slapping his leg.

  But whoa. He couldn’t stand here laughing. What if Percy looked out the window and saw him?

  He turned his back to the Grill as if he were examining the brickwork in the post office, and hooted. The postmaster stuck his head out the door and pointed to the banner, grinning. “I’ve also known it to be otherwise,” he reported.

  He trotted across the street. “Percy,” he said, soberly, “I’d give the banner company their fifty dollars back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that banner is going to be the talk of the town.”

  Percy brightened. “You think so?”

  “That’s what advertising is all about, isn’t it?”

  “Well ...” said Percy.

  “Trust me on this,” said the rector.

  Cynthia put her arm around his waist. “You want me to do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  He went to the study and sat at his desk and dialed the Owens. Barnabas followed and lay down at his feet.

  “Hello? Meadowgate here.”

  “Marge? Timothy.”

  “Timothy!”

  “I won’t keep you ...”

  “That’s OK, Rebecca is sleeping and Hal is at a Grange meeting. How are you?”

  “Good. Dooley says he’s coming out to you for the summer.”

  “Is he? I ... I didn’t know, exactly. I said if you all agreed ...”

  “It’s what he wants to do. Just wanted you to know that I’ll need him here until Miss Sadie’s party on Sunday the fourteenth.”

  “Of course! Well ... yes. Miss Sadie’s party. We’re looking forward to it.”

  “He’s singing, you see.”

  “I see.”

  Long pause.

  “Well, Marge. Thanks for everything. When shall we have him out there?”

  “Oh ... anytime. Just anytime that suits. Perhaps you could ... send him home with us after the party?”

  “Good. All the best to Hal, then.”

  “Yes, and to Cynthia.”

  He hung up, feeling his stomach wrench. He had never before been uncomfortable with Marge Owen; she had, in fact, been the one who had made him most comfortable from the very beginning. How often had he put his feet under their table, in the peace of the old farmhouse, while the duties of a new and difficult parish kept him spinning?

  Another thing. It was clear that Dooley Barlowe hadn’t exercised the good sense or common courtesy even to tell them he was definitely coming.

  He hated this. He hated it.

  “I’m excited, Father, I just wanted you to know it.” It was Sadie Baxter, and the old zing was back in her voice.

  “That’s what I like to hear. We’re excited, too. It’s mighty hard to dig up a brass band these days, but we’re trying.”

  “Don’t you go to any trouble, now!”

  “Trouble? Why, Miss Sadie, trouble is what it’s all about! If nobody went to any trouble in this world, the church would never have a roof. Cornbread would never get baked. Boys would never go to school.”

  She laughed. “Cynthia says Dooley is coming to visit us today.”

  “Around two o‘clock, I think. You’ll be looking at a new boy.”

  “Not so new he won’t be hungry. You tell him not to stand on ceremony. Louella is fixing lemonade and cinnamon stickies just like Mama used to make.”

  “I’m jealous.”

  “You’re a case is what you are!”

  “Worse has been said,” he assured her.

  He woke up with it on his mind, and went downstairs to his study, padding as quietly as he could through the bedroom.

  Five o‘clock.

  He had been getting up at five a.m. for years. It had become his appointed hour, even if he’d gone to sleep wretchedly late.

  He leaned against the mantel and stretched, breathing the prayer he learned from his grandmother: Lord, make me a blessing to someone today.

  Good. So good to stretch, to come alive, he thought, pushing up on the balls of his feet.

  He would make coffee, he would read the Morning Office and pray, he would sit quietly for twenty minutes; then he’d go to the hospital, a round he made every mor
ning, with rare exceptions.

  Visiting the sick continued to be good medicine, as far as he was concerned. If he was having a rough go of it, all he had to do was pop up the hill to the hospital and self-concern went out the window.

  When he retired, he intended to keep at that very thing....

  When he retired?

  He let the tension go from his arms and stood holding the mantel.

  When he retired. Where had that come from?

  He went to the kitchen and ground the beans and brewed the coffee, feeling an odd blessing in this simple daily ritual. A ritual of well-being, of safekeeping, in the still and slumbering house.

  He took the steaming cup and set it next to his wing chair, then turned on the lamp and picked up his worn prayerbook.

  This was the time to fill the tank for the day’s ride. He could put in a quarter of a tank and, later, get stranded on the road, or he could pump in a full measure now and go the distance.

  But something was pushing ahead of the Morning Office.

  Why haven’t You answered those questions? he asked silently.

  He had received nothing in that hour at the church but a sense of calm. That in itself was an answer, but not the one he was looking for.

  Forgiveness.

  He felt the word slowly inscribe itself on his heart, and knew at once. This simple thing was the answer.

  “Forgiveness,” he said aloud. “Forgiveness is the lesson of the cave....

  He sat still, and waited.

  “And what about Dooley, Lord? Why does Dooley pull away from us?”

  Again, a kind of inscription.

  Ditto.

  He shook his head. Ditto? God didn’t talk like that; God didn’t say ditto. He laughed out loud. Ditto?

  He felt his spirit lifting.

  Ditto! Of course God talks like that, if He wants to.

  He got up and walked to the window and looked out at the new dawn.

  He would have to forgive Dooley Barlowe and Marge and Hal Owen, whether he liked it or not.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The One for the Job

  COOT HENDRICK passed the rear booth on his way to the men’s room. “I bin eatin‘ here thirty years,” he said, “an’ I ain’t regular yet.”