by Jan Karon
“No problem. What instruments?”
“Organ and trumpets.”
“I can’t sing over trumpets,” said Dooley.
“You don’t have to sing when the trumpets are playing.”
“When is rehearsal?”
“Tomorrow at three o‘clock. I’ll see you at Meadowgate around two.”
“I’m sorry she died,” he said. “It seemed like she’d live a long time.”
That, he thought, is the way it always seems with someone we love.
He raced to the hospital to see LM. Who had sat with her after the last dressing change? How was the morphine doing? Any signs of infection? A few hours away from a desperate situation could seem interminable; he felt out of the loop.
“So far, so good,” said Nurse Gilbert. “They start grafting in the morning. Dr. Wyatt got in last night with his nurse.”
He let himself into the room and stood by her bed.
“Hey, there,” he said, softly.
It appeared she had not moved since he first saw her. Still the great, swollen mass of wet dressings and the odor that stung the nostrils. Still the eye looking desperately into his, and the air pumping mechanically from the respirator into the green tube.
He didn’t know why, but as he looked down at her, something in him connected with a new reality. It suddenly became real to him that Sadie Baxter was where the gospel had promised a redeemed soul would be—in Paradise. If he believed that so fully and completely, why was he grieving? Because it had taken time for such supernal knowledge to make its way from his heart to his head. Or was it from his head to his heart?
He realized that he was smiling uncontrollably, as he had smiled in those first months of his marriage. Tears sprang to his eyes, tears of joy, and he felt he should turn away from the woman lying there who felt no joy, whose tears were born of an agony he couldn’t possibly know. But he couldn’t turn away. He felt riveted there, beaming, as if his face were not his own.
He reached out to touch her right hand, the one that was completely and wholly well, and saw that he took it, and held it, and wept and did not turn away.
“Father! It’s Scott Murphy!”
“I needed to hear your voice, my friend.”
“I’m excited about coming to Hope House, sir. September is only two months away, and I’ve already given my notice. How are things in Mitford?”
“Sadie Baxter has died. The memorial service is tomorrow.” That was precisely how things were in Mitford—that one event had, for him, obscured all others.
“Miss Baxter? She died? She was ... so alive when I saw her!”
“She fell, and couldn’t recover from the shock of what came with it. I want you to know how heartily she approved of you.”
“I’ll do my best to honor that, sir.”
There was a comfortable silence.
“I’d like you to know what I’ve been thinking, Father, if it’s not too premature to talk about it.”
“Never too soon.”
“I was wondering ... I’ve seen how positively the elderly respond to animals—rabbits, dogs, kittens, I’ve even worked with ponies. I was just wondering, sir, if there might be anything left in the Hope House budget to build a small ... kennel.”
“A kennel?”
“Too rash?” asked Scott, concerned.
“You must admit it’s not the ordinary line of thinking.”
“But that’s just it, Father. Ordinary lines of thinking don’t extend far enough when reaching into the lives of people who’re often losing touch.”
“Keep talking.”
“Only a small kennel, so the animals could visit on a regular basis. It’s awkward to round up people who’ll bring their dogs and cats in. As I recall, that area behind the parking garage might work for a kennel and a run. But it’s just a thought, sir, only a thought. Actually, we have the greatest resource of all, right down the street from Hope House.”
“We do?”
“At Lord’s Chapel. The children, sir.”
“Aha.”
“I don’t have to tell you what a positive influence children and old people can have on each other.”
Where had his own enthusiasm gone? Had it flown with his youth?
“I’m also thinking of a garden. There’s a plot behind the dining hall that would be perfect for the residents because it’s easy to get to. A little digging in the dirt can be good for the soul.”
“Absolutely!”
“Anyway, Father, I just wanted you to know that I’m very excited about my future in Mitford, and I thank you—and Miss Baxter—for asking me to come.”
“It will be a fine thing, Scott, I know it in my bones.”
“Speaking of bones, Luke and Lizzie send their regards.”
He laughed when he hung up. Scott Murphy’s new blood would be good, indeed, for this old rector, not to mention the forty residents of Hope House who, whether they liked it or not, would be forced to enjoy their last years.
On his way down Main Street from Lew Boyd’s, he saw the Independence Day parade forming behind the police station.
The Mitford School Chorus was at the front, as always, carrying the banner inscribed with the mayor’s longtime political platform. Mitford Takes Care of Its Own.
Next came Coot Hendrick’s truck, loaded with hay, and kids waving American flags.
The truck was followed by Fancy Skinner’s pink Cadillac, with Mule’s real estate sign on the hood and a Hair House sign on the rear. He saw Fancy, dressed in a pink sweater and Capri pants, polishing the hood ornament with a rag.
Still jockeying for position, it appeared, was a woman in a cowboy hat, leading two llamas. He heard the Presbyterian brass band strike up somewhere, and caught a glimpse of a drum majorette who, he presumed, was borrowed from Wesley.
As he drove down Main Street, already lined with spectators, he saw cars turning into the Lord’s Chapel parking lot.
To other eyes, perhaps, the north end of Main was getting ready to celebrate while the south end was in mourning.
But he didn’t see it that way. Not at all.
While the trumpets sounded the good news of Sadie Baxter’s presence in a glorious Heaven, the electric cheese slicer would sound LM’s entry into a living Hell.
“Pray for LM,” he said to Marge and Olivia before the memorial service.
Ron Malcolm overhead the request. “I’ll pray, too,” he said.
A priest was thankful for people who didn’t need all the details, but took the smallest request to heart, and acted.
“The people have gathered, the trumpets have sounded!” he exclaimed. “Sadie Eleanor Baxter is at home and at peace, and I charge us all to be filled with the joy of this simple, yet wondrous fact.”
How often had people heard that, for a Christian, death is but the ultimate triumph, a thing to celebrate? The hope was that it cease being a fact merely believed with the head, and become a fact to know with the heart, as he now knew it.
He looked out to the congregation who packed the nave to bursting, and saw that they knew it too. They had caught the spark. A kind of warming fire ran through the place, kindled with excitement and wonder.
When Louella sang, her voice was steady as a rock, mingling sweetly, yet powerfully, with the boy’s. Their music flooded the church with a high consolation.
Jesus, Thou art all compassion
Pure, unbounded love Thou art
Visit us with Thy salvation
Enter every trembling heart ...
Into the silence that followed the music, and true to his Baptist roots, Absalom Greer raised a heartfelt “Amen!”
The rector looked to the pew where Sadie Baxter had sat for the fifteen years he had been in this pulpit, and saw Olivia and Hoppy, Louella and Absalom holding hands. Those left behind....
“We don’t know,” he said, in closing, “who among us will be the next to go, whether the oldest or the youngest. We pray that he or she will be gently embraced by death,
have a peaceful end, and a glorious resurrection in Christ.
“But for now, let us go in peace—to love and serve the Lord.”
“Thanks be to God!” said the congregation, meaning it.
The trumpets blew mightily, and the people moved to the church lawn, where Esther Bolick’s three-tiered cake sat on a fancy table, where the ECW had stationed jars of icy lemonade, and where, as any passerby could see, a grand celebration was under way.
“There,” he said, placing the small, engraved stone over the fresh earth. Sadie Eleanor Baxter, it read. Beloved.
She didn’t open her eyes at all. He had no way of knowing whether she realized he had come, or even cared.
He pulled the chair close to her bed and sat down. Today, they had taken sheets of skin from the back of her neck, her buttocks, and abdomen, and done all the grafting in one long ordeal which he saw reflected in the face of every nurse he encountered in the hallway.
All of it was beyond words, but he did the best he could.
“Hey, there,” he said.
“Timothy!” It was Marge Owen.
“I thought you’d like to know that Dooley delivered twin calves this evening! Hal had gone to a Grange meeting, and Mr. Shuford called and said his prize heifer was having a bad time. I drove Dooley to his farm and ... he did it!”
He gulped.
“Maybe it wasn’t strictly ethical, but ...”
“Someone had to do it!” he said, heady with pride. “Put him on if he’s around.”
He heard Marge calling, “Dooley! Dooley?”
Dooley.
“Hey,” Dooley said in his grown-up voice.
“Hey, yourself. Tell me everything. Twins, was it?” Sissy and Sassy had started a trend.
“It was Mr. Shuford’s best heifer, and Miz Shuford was out in the barn having a fit. She said that heifer was her best friend. I never heard of such a thing, but I knew I better get it right.”
He laughed.
“The heifer was in dystocia. If somebody hadn’t been there, she could have died. I saw these feet sticking out, one front hoof and one back hoof, and when I reached in there, I could tell there was two calves. I like to died. I figured I had to match up the hooves before I started pulling or I could have strangled one of the calves or something.
“So I run my arm in there and found the front hoof that went with the back hoof that was sticking out, and started pulling, and pretty soon, we had two calves lying in the straw.”
Dooley took a deep breath. “I can’t exactly remember everything.”
“What did Mrs. Shuford say?”
“She gave me a big hug and all, and Mr. Shuford, he gave me a twenty-dollar bill and said it was mine to keep.”
“Phew! What a story. I’m proud as heck.”
“Yeah,” said Dooley. The rector could almost hear the grin spreading over the boy’s face.
“I’d like you to tell Cynthia, but she’s taking a bath. Can she call you in the morning?”
“She better call before seven. I’m going with Doc Owen to Asheville, to a vet meeting or something.”
“Big doings, pal. Well, listen—we love you.”
“I love you back!” said Dooley.
He literally jumped around the room, shouting.
“Yee hah!” he yelled. “Yee hah!”
There was no need to hurry back to Fernbank to go through her possessions. That could wait until things slowed down, when it would be a pleasure and not a burden.
He had checked the house carefully when he went for the urn. The roof was still leaking, but not enough to pose a problem as long as he left the pots where they were.
Winnie Ivey had agreed to spend her nights with Louella until Hope House opened in the fall. Winnie appreciated the extra money, but better than that, she and Louella liked each other’s company.
All he had to do was go to the law office in Wesley and sign a few papers, which he’d take care of next week.
He mused that he might drive Cynthia to Meadowgate on Sunday, and they’d all troop over to the Shufords and see the twins. It made him grin, just thinking about it.
Cynthia offered to sit with LM in the evening; in fact, she insisted on it.
“Can you handle it?” he asked. “It’s not ... easy, exactly.”
“Of course I can handle it. I’m your deacon.”
She brought his supper on a tray, and did everything but feed him with a spoon. “Now, rest,” she told him, stern as any school principal, “and I don’t mean maybe.”
Which was worse? Emma Newland or his own wife?
“Yes, ma‘am,” he said, lying on the sofa and stuffing a pillow under his head. Barnabas leaped up and crashed on top of him, sighing. What more could he ask of life, after all?
He had just fallen asleep when the phone rang.
“Timothy? She wants you.”
“Who?” he said, feeling groggy.
“LM. They say she’s looking around the room for you, and seems agitated. I wasn’t going to disturb you, no matter what, but... even I feel this desperation in her. They’re taking the breathing tube out in a little while. Can you come?”
“I’ll be right up.”
The questions he’d been storing were endless.
Who are you? Why hasn’t your family been here? How did this happen? What does LM stand for? He had thought Lillian, perhaps, for no sensible reason. How old are you? What do you do? What can I do?
When he arrived at the hospital, Cynthia went home to work on her book, which was due at the publisher in only four weeks.
“Stop at my house as soon as you get home,” she said, looking anguished. “I want to know.”
In the hallway, he met Hoppy, who grinned at him with relief. “You can come in while we take out the breathing tube. We’re so used to you, it’s like you work here.”
He waited until the thing was finished, the tube out, and went and stood by the bed. “You probably can’t say much for a day or two,” Hoppy told his patient. “This thing was inserted between your vocal cords, which means your throat will be sore, and talking won’t feel so good. Go easy.”
He knew Hoppy was also curious to know more about his patient, but respectfully let the rector have the first round while he took a much-needed break down the hall.
The doctor and the nurse closed the door as they left.
She was swathed in fresh dressings over the grafts. “You’re looking good,” he said.
She whispered something that was barely audible, and he leaned down to hear it again. “My ... kids.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
She only looked at him and shook her head slowly.
What was her name? Was it Lillian? He didn’t think he could wait any longer. “What is your name?”
She struggled to swallow.
“What does LM stand for?”
She shook her head. No. “That’s... th‘ name of ...” the tears began, “th’ man who ...”
“Who did this to you?” he said, suddenly knowing.
She nodded her head. Yes.
“Can you tell me your name?” She would like to hear her own name spoken; according to Wyatt, it would be a consolation.
The tears came freely, now, and she worked to open her mouth and speak. “Pauline,” she whispered.
“Barlowe,” he said, his heart pounding.
She looked at him for what seemed a long time, then nodded her head.
Yes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Starting Over
“POOBAW,” she whispered.
“Your son.” Dooley’s little brother, now ten years old.
“Where ... ?” She swallowed and grimaced. “How is he?”
He knew at once that he would lie. “Fine. Don’t worry.” What if it was, in fact, a lie? Could LM have done something as sinister to the boy? He would face that later.
“Who ... has him?”
“He’s in good hands.”
The tears continued. “So
much ... to tell you,” she managed to say.
“I want to hear.”
“Th‘ pain ... ”
“Yes.” They had given her a shot only minutes before.
“I want you to know ... ” Her eye closed, and she began to breathe quietly.
“Yes?” he said.
“That I can bear it.”
“I can do all things through Christ ... ,” he said, quoting the first part of Olivia’s favorite verse from Philippians. He could scarcely hear her response.
“... who strengthens me,” she whispered.
“What’re you havin‘?” asked Velma, as J.C. slid into the booth.
“Wheaties and skim milk.”
Velma raised her eyebrows. “No coffee?”
“I’m off coffee.”
Mule sighed. “Here we go again,” he said, as Velma moved to the next booth.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” glowered the editor.
“I mean, why don’t you marry th‘ woman and get it over with?”
“What woman?”
“Adele Lynwood! Who else would I be talkin‘ about?”
The rector blew on his steaming coffee, ready to duck. It was clear that Mule Skinner was tired of intrigue and cover-up. He wanted to see cards on the table.
J.C. sat back in the booth, looking exhausted, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Dadblame it,” he said.
“Dadblame what?” queried Mule, pressing on.
“I guess you know about Adele.”
“Any ninny can see you’re sweet on her. What we don’t know is—what in th‘ dickens is goin’ on?”
“Dern if I can figure it out,” said J.C. “One minute it’s on, the next minute it’s off.”
“One minute it’s Wheaties, the next minute it’s grits,” said the rector.
“Right,” said Mule.
The rector swigged his coffee. “Sounds pretty typical to me.”
J.C. leaned forward. “It does?”
“Sure. One day you know, one day you don’t. Pretty soon, if it’s right, you really know.”
“Oh.”
