A New Song

by Jan Karon

“Consider it done, then. And when are Babette and Jason coming?”

  “They’ll be home Wednesday.”

  “Good, wonderful,” he said.

  “Have you . . . seen Jeffrey?”

  “Not in some time.” Taken by surprise, he chose to be vague without being untruthful.

  “Jean Ballenger says there’s a pile of work waiting for me.”

  “Including a blazer for yours truly. I haven’t had a blazer in years. Cynthia talked me into it and picked out the buttons.”

  There was a pause. “I’m . . . so very grateful, Father Timothy. For everything.”

  “So am I,” he said. “So am I.”

  “Emma,” he yelled through a lousy connection, “don’t bake a ham!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t bake a ham!”

  “Spam? What about Spam?”

  Rats. “I’ll call you back!”

  When he called back, the line was busy.

  He rang Pauline’s small house in the laurels, reluctant to wake Dooley, who had arrived late last night from school.

  “Dooley ...”

  “Hey!” Dooley said, hoarse with sleep.

  “Hey, yourself, buddy. We’ve got a problem down here.”

  He went out into the rain and stood beside his car for a moment, dazed and heartsick, finding that everything was finally sinking in—all at once.

  On the way to St. John’s, he wheeled into Ernie’s, which was swaddled front and side with tarps.

  Though Books, Bait & Tackle was down for the count, Mona’s half of the building was going full throttle, thanks to a serious stash of bottled water, and a generator that had seen the café through the after-effects of several storms and a hurricane. He stepped into the warmth of Mona’s, smelling dripping coffee and frying bacon, and loving the refuge of it.

  Every booth was full. “Over here, Tim!” called Roger Templeton.

  “Squeeze in,” said Roger, moving over to make room.

  “Roanoke, Junior, how’s it goin’? How’s Ernie?”

  “Haulin’ books to th’ Dumpster,” said Junior. “We’re just gettin’ a bite to eat before we pitch in. I took a day’s vacation to help.”

  “Is there any way he can dry the books out?”

  “Nope,” said Roanoke. “Dead inventory.”

  “What about Elmo?”

  “Seems fine,” said Roger, “but he won’t come out from under the cash register.”

  “Junior, I heard you took somebody to ER yesterday. How’d that go?”

  “Good mornin’, Reverend, what can I get for you this mornin’?” It was Misty Summers, smiling at him and looking prettier, he thought, than the first time he saw her.

  “Why, Misty! Did you break your arm?”

  “No, sir, it got burned. Hot grease flew off the stove when Ernie’s wall fell down.”

  “Aha.” He glanced at Junior, who was lit up like a Christmas tree. “Well, I’m sorry to hear it and hope it heals soon.”

  “Thank you. It hurts really bad, but the doctor said it’s going to be fine. Let’s see, now, that was . . . umm, what did you order, sir? I forgot.” For some unknown reason, Misty Summers was blushing like a schoolgirl.

  “Coffee, no cream, and orange juice,” said Father Tim.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  “How bad is it at St. John’s?” asked Roger.

  “Pretty bad. The force of the tree across the roof racked the building to one side. Otis has a crew coming in. Did a good bit of damage.”

  “When we get Ernie straightened out,” said Roanoke, “we’ll be down an’ give you a hand.”

  “Why, thanks,” he said, touched by the offer.

  Walking across the hall to Ernie’s, he asked Roger, “By the way, what happened with Ava?”

  “Darned if I know. Just out of the picture, it seems. Junior didn’t have much to say about her.”

  “Well, well.”

  “Looked like a pretty uneven match, anyway.”

  “Right,” said Father Tim, ducking into Ernie’s and not liking what he saw.

  In the book room, shelves that weren’t anchored to the walls had been knocked sprawling, literally scattering books to the wind. The shelves on the fallen wall had crashed with the bricks, piling books among the debris. The smell of wet paper pulp filled the cold, drafty room, which was only loosely protected by the tarp.

  Several of Ernie’s fishing buddies were stacking ruined books in wheelbarrows.

  He embraced the man who, from the beginning, had taken him in like family. “Sorry, my friend.”

  Ernie tried hard to produce a characteristic smile, but couldn’t.

  He was standing under the tent Sam had erected in the churchyard, drinking coffee with Leonard and Otis, peering at the endless rain and waiting for the contractor to arrive.

  “You th’ Rev’ren’ Kavanagh?” An elderly man in a cap and slicker stepped under the tent.

  “I am, sir.”

  “Albert Gragg.”

  Albert Gragg tipped his cap and shyly extended his hand. “I’m from up Dor’ster, Miss Ella sent me.”

  “I hope there’s no trouble. . . .”

  “She couldn’t get you on th’ phone. She’s fell and broke her hip.”

  “No!” he said, stricken by the news. He hated to hear this. He didn’t like this at all.

  “A fracture or a break?”

  “Clean break. She’s in th’ hospital and can’t play y’r organ a’tall, said she’d call soon as she can get through.”

  “What happened?”

  “In th’ storm, said she heard somethin’ hit her porch real hard, thought it was a limb offa that tree she thinks so much of, but it was th’ neighbor’s doghouse that was out there blowin’ around. Said when she went runnin’ out to check, th’ rain had made ’er porch slippery as hog grease an’ down she went. She got to th’ phone, called me, an’ I carried ’er to th’ hospital.”

  “I hate to hear this. You’re an old friend, Mr. Gragg?”

  “Oh, forty years or more I been lookin’ out for Miss Ella and ’er mama, doin’ whatnot.”

  “God bless you for it. Who’s her doctor?”

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say.”

  “Tell her I’ll be up as soon as I can, we’ve got a mess on our hands. Tell her she’s in our prayers, and she can count on it.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Albert Gragg, tipping his cap.

  “And how’s the captain and his brother, do you know?”

  “What cap’n?”

  “Captain Larkin.”

  “I can’t say. I ain’t seen him, he don’t get out much. His boy carries his groceries in ever’ week or two.”

  “Well, then,” he said, feeling helpless. How many times had he wished there were two of him?

  Stanley Harmon stepped under the tent, wiping his bare, bald head with a handkerchief.

  “Sorry about this, Tim. Awful sorry.”

  “Thank you, Stanley. It was a hard hit, all right. Any damage at your place?”

  “A few limbs down is all. Y’all are welcome to worship with us on Sunday at eleven, or you could hold your service ahead of ours, at ten o’clock. How’d that be?”

  “Terrific. That would be great. Thank you!”

  “They say we’ll have water by then, so th’ commodes’ll flush, but far as power goes, bring some candles.”

  “We’ll do it.”

  “Looks like we won’t have power ’til Wednesday. Mildred and I are cookin’ on a Coleman stove. Y’all doin’ all right over at Mid-Way?”

  “Oh, fine, just fine.”

  “You can come stay with us, and I mean it. Mildred said she’d love to have you. Now the kids are off at school you’d have th’ whole basement to yourselves, just y’all and our two dogs, Paul and Silas, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Thanks, Stanley, we’ll hunker down at Mid-Way for a little while, shouldn’t be long.”

  “What else’ll you folks need S
unday?”

  “I just learned our organist broke her hip.”

  “Uh-oh. Well, no problem, we’ve got a crackerjack organist, and come to think of it, he’s played a few Anglican services here and there. I’ll talk to him and let you know tomorrow. Run by First Baptist in the morning around eight. I’ll show you the ropes, give you a key an’ all.”

  “You’ll get a crown for this, Stanley!” he called as his colleague dashed into the rain.

  Coleman stove! That was the ticket.

  Stanley ducked back under the tent. “Oh, shoot, I forgot we can’t have organ music without power.”

  “True enough. How quickly we forget.”

  “Well, see you in th’ morning.”

  A cappella, then, and no two ways about it.

  Less than half the expected crew had shown up at Dove Cottage and, after hauling furniture out of the pit and stuffing it into the study, were tearing out the living room flooring.

  According to Otis, the maverick porch had pulled the front wall away, causing the floor joists to collapse. The wall would have to be winched back before they could replace the flooring, and when that was done a crew would come in to do the refinishing. Bottom line, they were looking at a minimum of two or three weeks to complete the job, and the crew couldn’t get to the porch before spring.

  Hearing this exceedingly unwelcome news, he thought of Earlene Ferguson, who, lacking a porch at the retirement home, simply “dropped off in the yard like a heathen” when exiting her front door.

  “Don’t worry,” said Otis, “I’ll have some of my boys from th’ Toe put your porch back on. I ain’t scared of drivin’ a few nails myself.”

  Shivering in the raw October air, Sam, Leonard, Otis, and Father Tim waited for the contractor, and surveyed the fallen limbs and debris littering the churchyard.

  “We ought to stack th’ limbs,” said Leonard, impatient to get moving.

  “No use stackin’ limbs in this weather,” said Otis.

  Rain drummed on the tent roof.

  Sam sighed. “Goodness knows, it’s sad to see that old tree half ruined.”

  “It was probably two hundred years old, maybe more. Marjorie and I’ve seen any number of people married under that tree.” Leonard poured coffee from a thermos. “Did you know there are trees still living since before the time of Christ?”

  “Where at?” asked Otis.

  Leonard blew on his coffee. “I don’t know, I forgot. It was in a magazine.”

  “I ain’t believin’ it,” said Otis.

  When the contractor still hadn’t arrived at eleven o’clock, Otis bit the end off a cigar, lit it, and, fuming, blew the smoke out his nostrils.

  “I’m goin’ to be kickin’ some butt from here to Chincoteague,” he declared, stomping from the tent.

  “How’ll we let everybody know where we’re holding the service?” Marshall Duncan asked Father Tim. “And how will they know it’s at ten, not eleven?”

  Ray Gaskill hammered down on his toothpick. “Put a sign at th’ post office today, so word gets around. Then put one in th’ churchyard, people’ll be comin’ by to see th’ damage.”

  The road crew roared past St. John’s in a parade of heavy equipment, waving at the assembly under the tent.

  “You want to see the basement?” Leonard asked Father Tim.

  “Is it safe?”

  “I wouldn’t go down there,” said Ray. “No, sir, not me.”

  “I believe I’ll pass. Besides, I’ve got to run to the motel and take lunch to my wife.”

  “Where you goin’ to get lunch?” asked Ray.

  “Mona’s.”

  “Not unless you want to stand in line in th’ rain. I just come by there, it ain’t a pretty sight. You could go to the grocery store, get you some Vienna sausages in a can, tuna in a can, all kinds of things in a can, and a loaf of bread, some mayonnaise . . .”

  “Aha.”

  “And if I was you,” said Ray, “I’d keep th’ underside of your Mustang hosed off, you’re gonna be eat up with rust.”

  He said nothing to Cynthia about the predicted duration of the job at Dove Cottage. If the thought of three weeks at the Mid-Way was enough to make him crazy, there was no telling what it might do to his wife.

  “There’s no way to patch it,” said Sewell Joiner. “We’re talkin’ shore up, tear out, strip off, an’ set straight—it’s goin’ to look a lot worse before it looks better.”

  “Whatever it takes,” said Father Tim.

  “We’ll have to excavate part of th’ basement and tear out and rebuild th’ wall. You got a bad crack in th’ bed joints of th’ masonry—”

  “We’re more in’erested in th’ sanctuary right now,” said Otis. “What’s it goin’ to take to get us back in business?”

  “First thing we’ll do is get some rollin’ scaffold inside and tear off th’ plaster that’s not already fallen off th’ ceilin’ joists and studs. We’ll be tearin’ off some sheathin’ an’ shingles and replacin’ that busted roof joist, then we’ll use a come-along to straighten th’ whole thing up again an’ put on a new roof.”

  “I’d like you to get your boys started in th’ mornin,” said Otis.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” said the contractor.

  “Go on and get ’em over here, we want to move on this thing. It’s depressin’ to ever’body not to see some action.”

  “Fine,” said Sewell Joiner. “I can do that.”

  Otis unwrapped a cigar. “How long to get th’ job done?”

  “Two, three months if we got th’ weather on our side. That’ll include gettin’ replastered and repainted.”

  Two or three months? Father Tim’s heart sank like a stone.

  At three o’clock, a crowd of parishioners had assembled under the tent, looking for a report on the damage, volunteering to help, offering consolation, and fervently commiserating. The rain drew on, shrouding the churchyard in a dusky gloom.

  “I’ve got these little bitty mushrooms growin’ between my toes,” said Orville Hood, who kept St. John’s oil tank filled.

  “Let me see!” squealed Penny Duncan’s youngest.

  “I was sittin’ in th’ livin’ room workin’ a crossword when I thought th’ world was comin’ to an end.” Maude Proffitt was swaddled in a yellow slicker and rain hat, with only her eyes visible. “Boom, somethin’ hit right above my head. Honey, it was the ceiling, it just cracked open like a hen egg. Well, don’t you know I jumped across th’ room, my feet never touched th’ floor! Thank th’ Lord I didn’t stay in that recliner another minute, or I’d’ve been pushin’ up daisies right over yonder.”

  “Have a brownie,” said Marjorie Lamb. “I baked these yesterday before the power went off.”

  “Law, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee to go with this,” said Maude, eating the brownie in two bites.

  Sue Blankenship’s glasses kept trying to slide off her wet nose. “Did you hear th’ Father’s poor wife was hit by a picket fence?” she asked a baritone in the choir.

  “No way! A whole fence?”

  “Well, maybe just a picket.”

  Ann Hartsell, newly arrived from her nursing job across, saw the church and burst into tears. This caused her two youngsters, just fetched from day care, to erupt in a storm of sympathetic weeping.

  “Have a brownie!” implored Marjorie, stooping to their level with the plastic tray.

  “Th’ trouble with this storm,” said Ray Gaskill, “is mainly th’ trees. It’s trees that’s done th’ damage.”

  “ ’Til I moved here, I never knew islands had trees,” said Edith Johnson, who was an ECW bigwig.

  Jean Ballenger shivered in her winter coat. “We nearly got the Last Supper finished, we’re just working on the tablecloth. That much white seems to take forever. If you ask me, I don’t believe all those men would have used a tablecloth.”

  “Do you think we should still try to have th’ Fall Fair?” asked Mildred Harmon, handing around a plate of
ham biscuits.

  Father Tim turned aside from talking with the contractor. “Yes, indeed ,” he said. “Rain or shine!”

  Jean patted her bangs in place. “What a relief! I couldn’t bear the thought of all that work lying in a drawer ’til next year.”

  Early the following morning, the rain stopped.

  He drove Cynthia, Jonathan, and Violet to Marion’s, popped by First Baptist, and arrived at St. John’s at eight-thirty as the five-man work crew blew in, on time and ready to roll.

  By eleven o’clock, the sun came out, the temperature rose seven degrees, and a third of the north end regained running water.

  “Hallelujah!” shouted Father Tim, tossing his rain hat in the air.

  Otis stubbed out his cigar and pocketed the butt. “OK, boys, let’s stack limbs.”

  Father Tim popped into the nave now and again to check the crew’s progress. He was over the sick feeling, wanting only to see the work move ahead quickly.

  Though pews and pulpit were under tarps, and plaster dust covered everything, the stained-glass window at the rear of the sanctuary was unharmed, with only minor cracking and pulling around the frame. The strong early light illumined the image sharply, casting color onto the white tarps. Come unto me. . . . That was sermon enough for this storm, he thought, or for any storm.

  Each time he went inside, he glanced nervously at the choir loft, anxious for the safety and protection of the organ.

  “No problem,” said Sewell, who, Father Tim learned, was known to constituents as Sew, pronounced Sue.

  He decided to stop worrying. If he couldn’t trust a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man who could kick in the remaining portion of a concrete-block basement wall, who could he trust?

  He’d seen smaller crowds show up for Sunday worship.

  By noon, more than half the parish had arrived, many with lunch bags from Mona’s, some with family picnics. As the ground was too wet to sit on, they sat in parked cars, doors open, calling to one another, ambling through the tent where Sam had set up a folding table and a forty-two-cup coffeepot powered by a portable generator.