by Jan Karon
He took two Violet books off the shelf and headed for the register, Emma nipping at his heels.
‘Nothing she does is out of the goodness of her heart. A restaurant is a commercial enterprise; she is paid to make great fries, she is supposed to stack her garbage in a neat pile for pickup.’ She stood at the sales counter, slid her glasses down her nose, gave him a look. ‘So where’s any leadership involved in that?’
He swiped her card.
‘How’s Snickers?’ he said.
• • •
HE WAS ROAMING THE STORE looking for O titles when he heard the bell. Irene McGraw. Irene was in her usual garb of pants and cotton sweater, making the casual appear elegant. He wished he could remember the name of the famous film star people said she looked like, but since he never saw a movie . . .
She didn’t see him, so he let her browse. Book browsing had its own set of rules, of course. It was a contemplative pursuit, and he was trying to learn when to reel in a paying customer and when to reel out.
‘Irene,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to see you. I apologize for the uproar we caused.’
She smiled. ‘It was very funny. So few things are in today’s news. Thank you for your concern, it was lovely to feel looked after.’
‘How’s the new grandson?’
‘A fine, big boy, thank you. He has his Grandfather Chester’s eyes.’
‘I miss seeing Chester,’ he said, meaning it. ‘How may I help you?’
She waved her hand, a kind of flutter. ‘Lots of grandchildren who love to read.’
‘Fifteen percent off titles beginning with O,’ he said.
‘I’ll just wander through, if you don’t mind. I may be a while. I like to read the books I give.’
He was impressed, to say the least.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then. And many thanks for your kind generosity to the hospital. When we went looking for you that day, I waited for Cynthia in your living room. I confess that I studied your paintings. They’re breathtaking, really.’
There was the look he always associated with her, the distant, sorrowing, distracted look. A look which was actually rather beautiful, like the face of a Madonna.
She smiled, but didn’t acknowledge his praise. ‘I believe the children’s books are that way?’
‘Come with me,’ he said.
Two hours later, Irene McGraw was still sitting on the floor in the Children’s section, books strewn about in a bright sea of color. For the first time since he’d known her, she appeared . . . what? Relaxed. Comfortable.
‘I’m just going to have a bite of lunch,’ he said. ‘Cynthia made a sandwich with grilled chicken, it’s already cut in half. Will you join me?’
He hardly expected her to accept, but she did. She looked up and smiled and said, ‘I’m hungry as a bear. Thank you.’
He brought over his sandwich with the apple cut in slices, and the almonds and raisins, and laid it all out on the children’s book table with two cups of water, then helped himself to a chair several sizes too small, and passed her the half sandwich on a napkin.
‘Since we’re in the Children’s section,’ he said, ‘I’ll ask a child’s blessing.
‘God our Father, Lord and Savior, thank you for your love and favor, bless this food and drink we pray, and Irene who shares with me today. Amen.’
‘Amen.’
‘I learned that from my first-grade teacher, Miss Sanders—I don’t recall if she was married, we thought all teachers were Miss, devoted to us exclusively. We prayed in school back then, saluted the flag, all sorts of wonderful stuff we can’t do anymore.’
‘My mother was a schoolteacher,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t my birth mother, she was an aunt by marriage. My mother died when I was born.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Though I never knew her, I miss her very much.’ She gazed beyond him, grave, then looked at him and said, ‘How is that possible?’
He considered this. ‘I suppose there’s a sense in which you did know your birth mother—she carried you close to her heart for many months, you inhaled and exhaled her amniotic fluid, which provided everything you needed for life and good health. Most important, she’s how you got here in the first place and began making a valuable difference in the world. All of that, it seems, forges a pretty close relationship, much to be missed.’
She looked at the sea of books, unable to speak.
‘Perhaps you could give me a tutorial,’ he said. ‘I’m old at book loving, but new at bookselling. Would you be willing to explain why you choose one book and not another?’
‘These,’ she said, ‘are the ones I like so far. All the open ones are under consideration. And that stack is definitely not making the cut. Where shall we begin?’
‘Let’s begin with the books you like,’ he said, interested.
• • •
BY THREE-THIRTY, gone from the window were The Secret Garden, Sense and Sensibility, and all twelve volumes of the obscure classic Swallows and Amazons.
He called his wife to come give him a hand with the O window. Got the answering service. Huffed a wing chair to the window. Thumped the stuffed cat onto a rug by the chair. Installed a floor lamp. Screwed in a bulb.
With Irene McGraw’s help, he unrolled the October banner. Placed a book on either end to flatten the thing for the next thirty days. Looked up and waved to whoever pecked on the glass.
One by one, he distributed O titles. Stacked Of Mice and Men and Oliver Twist on the table by the chair.
Went looking for a title to place on the cushion of the chair.
‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ suggested Irene.
Did that.
Displayed O Pioneers! by the cash register, with a 15% OFF sign.
Washed his hands at the coffee station.
Done.
• • •
AT FOUR O’CLOCK, Irene left with twenty-one books, ranging from picture to young adult. She had, in every sense of the term, made his day.
‘Guess!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hope. ‘After all you did last week, I’m afraid to think it. Four hundred and . . . maybe ten dollars?’
‘Four hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-seven cents. Plus I found some loose change under the wing chair cushion in Poetry, and put that in to make an even five hundred.’
Tears. Not hers. His.
• • •
HE TORE OPEN THE BOX in the garage and dug through the Styrofoam peanuts.
Beautiful. He was thrilled.
He grasped the butt with his right hand, and laid the shaft across his left palm. Giving the cue a slow turn, he examined the workmanship of the inlaid forearm and its striking design. He looked at the collar, the ferrule, the tip. Definitely a pro stick as far as he was concerned.
• • •
AFTER THEIR EARLY DINNER on Friday, he sat with Cynthia in the kitchen.
‘I’m just going to love him.’
‘That’s the hard way,’ she said.
‘With God’s help, I want to be something like grace to him. I don’t know how the shrink stuff works and I don’t want to pretend to know or try a bunch of fashionable strategies. So, if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, maybe he and I will both learn something in spite of ourselves.’
‘You know he’s frightened of attachment, of any real closeness. It’s what he wants most from you, but he’ll keep trying to push you away.’
‘I’m not going away.’
‘Let me pray for you.’ She took his hand, rested her shoulder against his.
‘Lord, you know how crucial this time with Sammy will be. Open his heart, we pray, to your love and to Timothy’s. I ask you to give Timothy your words, and to anoint all that he says and does to draw Sammy into the circle of your astonishing grace. May it be a te
nder time, somehow transforming in ways we can’t know. We ask all this, believing, but ask this far more—that your perfect will be done in Sammy’s life and in the lives of his siblings. Thank you, God, for second chances, for without them, I wouldn’t be here tonight to lift this petition. In the marvelous name of Jesus, we are thine own forever.’
He kissed her hand. ‘You’re my best deacon.’
‘Flu season this year is terrible. I know we had our shots, but a lot of people who had a shot are sick as cats. I do not have time to be sick.’
‘If I get sick,’ he said, ‘I’ll quarantine myself.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll sleep downstairs with Barnabas.’
‘In that case,’ she said, ‘maybe I’ll just get sick with you and we’ll finish off the soup.’
She took the ladle from the drawer and bent to her task at the stove. ‘This may be Puny’s best chicken soup ever. I’ll put it in three containers. Give them my love, and please use a sanitizer before you go over, and be sure and wash your hands when you come back. Also, it might be good to hang your clothes on the peg by the side door and have a really hot shower first thing.’
The fire crackled and spit.
‘One more thought,’ she said. ‘I’ll put wipes by the door. Could you please wipe the doorknobs when you come home—outside and inside?’
Florence Nightingale was alive and well and living in Mitford.
• • •
‘LORD HELP, REV’REN’, I’M HALF KILLED.’
‘You look it,’ he said to Harley. He stood in the doorway of the tidy basement bedroom next to the oil burner. ‘Cynthia sends her love, and to prove it, she sends hot chicken soup. Interested?’ Starve a cold and feed a fever? Or was it the other way around? He could never remember.
He lifted the lid from the container; Harley sniffed the air.
‘Are they any noodles in it?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Yessir, I’ll have a shot right out of th’ jug, thank ye.’
Harley drank soup and lay back on the pillow. ‘Boys howdy, that ought t’ do it.’
‘Where are your teeth?’
‘Law, I don’t know, I ain’t even thought about ’em in two or three days. Maybe on th’ kitchen table.’
‘Let me pray for you.’
‘Yessir, an’ pray for our boy in there, he’s been sick as a houn’ dog. An’ pray Kenny don’t git it, some of us has t’ work f’r a livin’.’
‘Will do.’
‘An’ pray f’r th’ furnace man t’ git th’ rattle out on Monday mornin’. Ever’ time it starts up, it rattles an’ bangs ’til a man could jump out th’ winder buck-naked.’
‘Here we go,’ he said, bowing his head.
• • •
SAMMY SAT FACING THE WALL on the far side of the bed, his back to the open door.
Not knowing what to say, he knocked.
‘What?’ said Sammy, not turning around.
‘Cynthia sent hot chicken soup.’
‘I don’ want n-nothin’.’
He made the sign of the cross. Your words, Lord.
‘I have something for you.’
‘I don’ need n-nothin’.’
Sammy’s shoulder blades as sharp as wings, the vertebrae delineated. So young, so old. He stood transfixed by the sight of Sammy’s bare back and its articulation of despair.
He wanted to tell Sammy that he was loved, that he was forgiven, that there could be a new start, a real beginning. He wanted to say, You’re safe with us, you’re surrounded by people who care for you and we won’t let you go. He wanted to pray aloud for whatever succor the words might conceivably offer. But he was mute.
He took the cue to the bed, carrying it horizontally in both hands.
At the altar of defeat, he laid the stick of grace.
Then he turned and went home to the yellow house where he had been given everything and more, none of it especially deserved.
• • •
ACCORDING TO CALLER ID, it was Henry Talbot.
‘Father, thank God you’re there. Please pray for . . .’ The voice broke. ‘. . . my husband.’
‘I’m praying for him faithfully. And for you, Mary.’
Mary Talbot tried to speak, but could not. He was going to say that he would do anything he could, but there was the click, and he stood for a moment holding the receiver.
• • •
THEY HARDLY EVER GOT TO HEAR the innocuous buzz of their doorbell, installed in the seventies by a former priest. Most people came to the side door, and UPS and FedEx historically dropped off in the garage.
Eight-fifteen was late for a visitor; he was already in his robe and pajamas following the prescribed hot shower.
He switched on the front porch light and opened the door.
Dooley was grinning. ‘Hey, Dad! Let’s go car-shoppin’.’
Chapter Thirteen
Dooley was in the lead and there was Father Tim bringing up the rear.
Hessie peered through the window of the Woolen Shop. They were running along the street close to the parked cars, and laughing.
What had happened to his freckles? Had they been surgically removed? Or do freckles at some point just vanish on their own? His cowlick had also disappeared—that had been her favorite Dooley feature when he was a boy.
Whoa, look at that—muscles, even. The grubby little kid in overalls had turned into one good-looking hunk, pardon the expression.
And what was it about Father Tim that seemed different? Loose, that was the word, as if he were as light as air, just springing along.
She opened her notebook and entered a reminder:
Google fade frkles
• • •
AFTER THEIR FOUR-MILER and a shower, he wrangled Dooley into lunch at the Feel Good.
‘Hand-cut,’ he said, pushing the fries to Dooley’s side of the table.
‘That’s a really nice cue you gave Sam. But nobody gets why you did it. I mean, he thinks it’s some kind of joke or a trick. I think it scared him; it didn’t make sense.’
In his experience, grace hardly ever made sense. ‘If he’s going to shoot pool, he needs a decent stick.’
‘He probably thinks he should be punished for bustin’ the old stick, and he knows you know he took yours off the rack, so it hacks him for you to make a move he can’t understand. It’s like you’re trying to pull something over on him.
‘Clyde would have half killed him for what he did; Clyde half killed him for breathing.’ Dooley called his biological father by his given name. ‘Anyway, I brought him a new one, too, so now he has a backup.’
‘Good shooters need a backup,’ he said.
‘But think about it, Dad. I gave him a really great pool table. You and Cynthia let us put it in your dining room. You took out all your furniture so he could do what he loves. How many people would do that? How can he get his head around that kind of thing? When I was a kid, I could never understand why you were so good to me, I thought you’d end up knockin’ me down or kickin’ me out, it didn’t make sense for you to be good to me. Sometimes I hated you for it, because I didn’t know what was in your head.’
He listened; ate a couple of fries.
‘So here he is,’ said Dooley, ‘actin’ like a creep. And here we are, givin’ him all this great stuff. Is that th’ message we want to send?’
‘For now, anyway.’
‘When I’m home on the twenty-sixth, I’m going to seriously work on ’im about his teeth. They’re a mess. I’ll take care of the money; he needs to get that behind him.’
‘You’ll have to catch him first.’
‘And the stuttering. It holds him back; other pool shooters give him a hard time. Maybe I’ll work on that when I’m home for Thanksgiving.’
Dooley pushed away the ketchup.
‘I thought you liked ketchup on your fries.’
‘I do, but Lace is tryin’ to get me off sugar. There’s a lot of sugar in ketchup.’
‘Lace . . .’ he said, wanting to talk about that.
‘I asked Harley if Sammy’s cool with his rent,’ said Dooley. ‘Sammy’s paying on time. It was a good decision for me to quit paying his share. He doesn’t want to be out in the cold like he was when he ditched Clyde. He’s proud to be livin’ down there—it’s warm, it’s clean, it’s cheap. Sammy’s no derp just because he acts like one.’
Dooley reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a phone, looked at it, took the phone in both hands, and used his thumbs to . . . whatever.
‘A new kind of game?’ he said.
‘Talkin’ to Lace.’
‘Talking?’
‘Texting, Dad.’
‘So how’s she getting along?’
Dooley put the phone in his pocket. ‘She didn’t say.’
That gate was locked, he may as well get used to it. ‘You know she’ll be home on the eighteenth. Any chance we can get you back our way?’
‘I’m slammed.’
‘What’s on for tonight?’
‘Sammy and Kenny—we’re goin’ out for pizza. Dutch. Then Bud’s ball hall.’
‘Sammy’s better, I take it.’
‘He’s not contagious at this point, but Harley probably is. I can’t get the flu. I’ve got something goin’ on at school Monday and Wednesday.’
‘Let’s talk about what we can do for Kenny.’
‘He wants to go home to Oregon; he’ll be here a year this December. He said he’d like to leave early January.’
Kenny had knocked on the door at Meadowgate Farm last Christmas Eve. Though hoped for and prayed for, his arrival was nonetheless unexpected. He had appeared out of the blue as the siblings he hadn’t seen since he was seven or eight years old were getting in costume for a Nativity pageant in the kitchen. It had been the Christmas miracle people wish for but seldom get.
‘I don’t want him to go back,’ said Dooley, ‘but I understand. He misses his mom and pop.’
