“Yes, Vincent, that’s what that means.”
He pictured her smile through the phone. “Good, because our senior population is skyrocketing. They are a wonderful volunteer base if they can be focused and funneled into a defined strategy. They need and want to take care of their own. Typically, that’s seniors whose health begins to fail, and seniors whose homes become a challenge. I’m asking the board to approve medical checkup days and a canvass to register seniors so no one gets overlooked. The old cooking-for-one class is always well attended. Bingo is great. And the bus trips. But the proposed new programming is the meat and potatoes of what a good core group of seniors can do for each other. Oh, and because men aren’t known for their nurturing ability, they’ll take on small home repair and maintenance duties for elderly seniors. Nothing too elaborate. Whatever we can fund.”
“And preparing and practicing for an emergency. I’m thinking about the homeless. Me, being close to one. One example, and it happened here,” Beebe said. “A senior’s home needed fumigating. For three days, the man had nowhere to stay. Those situations just come up without warning. Your seniors could be mobilized to respond. I’m thinking the displaced person would stay at the center. Could that happen?”
“You’re great, Beebe.” Vincent, on his feet, carried the conversation down the hall and into the main room. “I’m going to use that example with the board of how you’re already thinking. With your background in grief therapy, seniors can take mini courses to assist older members of the community, see the signs, at least know to involve you.”
“Senior Life 101,” Beebe assigned a course description.
The positive discussion drew him toward the sunshine. He stood on the stoop. “An excellent name. We’re a good team.” He made an internal note to change Beebe’s job title from community center spiritual assistant to senior life assistant. He asked her to email her curriculum vitae. She said she’d take Sunday and complete it. She had all day. Still not attending church, he thought.
“I’ll need to get someone on the hook here to replace me,” Beebe said. “Listen to me, talking in fishing terms. Just the hint of going home does it.”
Beebe’s enthusiasm was throttling up, but Vincent lost some momentum. “I hadn’t thought about a replacement. What are the chances?”
“The ministers in town will help out. Some of the larger churches have assistant pastors who are quite capable. It’s Swanson’s choice.”
“The funeral home director?”
“Fourth generation. Robert Swanson. I feel bad about being a short-timer, but maybe Robert had several choices when he asked me to take the job. I’ll get with him tomorrow.”
“You’re sure?” He had to keep asking. He hadn’t wanted something to work out this much in a long, long time. He missed Carolyn. He missed someone close in his life. Not that he wanted a romantic relationship with Beebe. He wanted a friend, a friend with depth, someone to talk with about the center’s management on his level, not the board members, not the volunteers. Beebe would cross all phases of his life.
“I’m sure,” Beebe said. “A session break comes up the first two weeks in August, so my replacement needs to be in place by the third week. That seems doable, somewhat quick, but doable.”
“You’re helping us out at this end.”
“I really appreciate this, Vincent. I will do my best for you.”
Vincent heard the sincerity in her words. “I know that.”
“But Daddy.” Beebe’s excited tone drained with those two words. “Remember, the real reason I’m coming home is Daddy. He’ll be suffering almost the minute I get there.”
Vincent wandered down the sidewalk in front of Crossroads. “You know I’ll sit beside you when you tell him. If you want that.”
“Yes, I do. He’ll want a first-hand account. How’s he doing? I’m going to call him later.”
“I’m not aware of any problems.” Vincent used general terms. He suspected something was amiss between Cliff and Rosemary. There was Terri Miller’s grave with his wife’s remains buried there. Plus, the fact that Cliff would realize her March death was kept from him for months. Vincent could see Cliff operating under the premise that Vincent’s involvement to hire Beebe was equal to scheming behind his back. Which it was. Cliff would not see that the delay to sit and speak with him about his wife’s death was in his best interest. No way was he going to see that at the outset. Aloud, Vincent said, “This is his busy time. Summers always are. The hardware store promotes outdoor projects which bring customers in, and the cemetery grows grass with wild abandon.”
“Good. If I know Daddy, he’ll handle this thing with Mother and stick to his schedule. That is the best medicine. By fall, we should be over the hump.”
“Should be.” Vincent was a little less optimistic.
“The unknown factor in this is how Daddy and I will get along.”
Beebe closed up her conversation with Vincent before he responded. His thoughts drifted to a similar unknown factor: How would he and Cliff get along after Cliff learned the part he played?
Vincent knew how people suffered after the death of a loved one. Unlike Abigail Walker, Carolyn received medical care at Lakeside General. Vincent stayed close at her bedside. Carolyn’s invading tumor did not allow her to convert her thoughts to speech. He had so wanted to hear her voice once more before she left him to stumble through life without her.
When he looked around, Vincent found himself sitting on the bench where he first saw Abigail Walker, thinking about the last time he saw Carolyn.
* * *
Beebe hung up. She heard the hope in Vincent’s voice. She hadn’t heard hope associated with her in a long time. Well, she thought, maybe that was too narrowly defined. She had no hope for herself on the church side of things. Others—those who grieved—found hope through her. That, she admitted, had value.
Hope and value, when the pairing was her and her father, were noticeably absent. Their relationship donned a continually scratchy feel, like a wool suit, and an ill-fitting one. She dialed her father’s home number while she ambled across the funeral home’s parking lot to her car.
“I just this minute walked in the house to call you for an update,” Cliff said.
Beebe slowed her step. She heard a crunch of interest in his voice so she ignored the wooly chafing and provided a rundown of Vincent’s involvement.
“Things are coming together for you,” he said. “I’ll have to remember to thank Vincent. I sort of had my antennae out for something you might like, but this sounds like a great collaboration.”
“You sound pleased.” Her words carried the scalloped edge of suspicion she’d tried to trim.
“I am. Of course, I am.”
His tone seemed positive, but still, she wished she could see his face to determine if believability lived there. Maybe it did, she thought, and felt herself soften by degrees. Cautiously pliant, she asked him about his day, and he told her.
She sat in her car’s front seat, the door open, key still in her hand. It surprised her that he focused on the cemetery, not the hardware store. In her malleable state and hearing about the tasks in and around the cemetery jogged a wealth of memories of her early childhood. Every summer night before bedtime, she and her father walked the winding path to the cemetery’s back gate. He always held her hand all the way there and all the way back. She looked up at the tall man. He told her stories of symbolism about the ancient markings on the grave stones. She couldn’t draw her eyes away. The heavens sparkled with dancing stars just beyond his face, seeming so close, that if he raised her up, she could touch them.
Some of his daylight duties included her company in their completion. There was a block building within view o
f the caretaker’s house. Inside that building, Beebe would often catch her father tending to the oiling of incredibly old and incredibly long leather strips. The oil preserved them.
“When the cemetery was new,” Cliff said to his young daughter, “one-hundred-seventy-five years ago, before you, or me, or Mommy, loved ones used these straps to lower caskets into the graves. Back then, that’s how it was done.”
Beebe’s job was to hold her end of the leather strip taut, so her father’s large hand and the cloth it grasped could massage the oil in. While he talked, Beebe looked over to the narrow table positioned against the wall. A chisel and hammer lay there. Seven-year old Beebe was squatted beside her father when he opened a dust-covered box he rescued from the attic. Even Beebe knew the tools he lifted out were old.
“Lots of hands have touched these,” he said. As they walked through the cemetery over the next few days, he pointed out the headstones with enough age that the chisel and hammer they found were used to engrave the lettering.
On another day after Beebe got home from school, she stood across the floor in the maintenance shack. She held protective goggles to her eyes because its elastic strap was too stretched to do the job itself. She watched sparks shoot off the grinder as her father sharpened the heavy forged-steel chisel.
When he was satisfied with the result and told her she could lay the goggles aside, he said words she remembered still. “It’s our job to keep the old ways in good repair.”
Beebe learned her sense of duty from her father.
* * *
Right on time, Vincent Bostick crossed the street to Ned and Willa McMitchell’s one-story Tudor, shaded by a fabulous cedar. He’d walked the four blocks from Crossroads. The McMitchells were going on seven years in Larkspur. They came to town six months before the date Rev. Mosie Razzell chose for his retirement. None of the members of First Lutheran Church—and Vincent was one—noticed any sparks between the two men of the cloth. They worked together for the congregation, community, and a smooth transition.
Vincent knocked on the front door. The McMitchells expected him. He made the arrangements earlier, after Sunday services. Today, he combined God’s work with the center’s work. He needed Ned’s assistance with a certain retired pastor.
Willa, seven months pregnant with their first child, opened the door, gave Vincent a brilliant smile, and pulled him inside. Ned came up behind them, leaving the door to his study wide. The threesome decided to adjourn to the back patio for the talk Vincent wanted to have about Rev. Mosie Razzell.
“Nice Sunday afternoon,” Willa said. She set a tray with a pitcher of iced tea and glasses on the patio table.
Vincent and Ned sat in adjacent chairs with the sun at their backs. The umbrella spearing the tabletop was tipped to assist with blocking the sun’s rays.
“Have you started nesting yet?” Vincent grinned up at Willa, accepting the filled tea glass she handed him.
Ned took the question instead. “Oh my word, you should see her. She puts on thick socks and a flannel gown and knits. I sat on the needles last night.”
Willa’s round features, face and belly contrasted with Ned’s straight-arrow physique. Even her hair, its wavy, long locks, barretted in a bundle at the back of her head, posed in opposition to her husband’s short cut, with its front section pushed off his forehead into a cowlick.
“Crochet, dear,” she said with love in her eyes. Wisps of her golden hair caught the breeze. “I do what I can.”
Vincent enjoyed the McMitchells’ company often enough to know this was a favored expression of Willa’s.
“You see what I’m up against,” Ned said. The six-foot-six man was folded at pointed angles into the cushioned patio chair. Willa sat down next to her husband. When they touched hands, Vincent’s thoughts snagged on his love for Carolyn and the everyday pleasures living with her brought.
“So you want to talk about Mosie? You don’t mind if Willa stays?” Ned asked.
“Fine with me,” Vincent said, then immediately included Willa in the conversation. “Have either of you noticed a change in Mosie?”
“We both noticed,” Ned said, tugging at his left earlobe.
“He can’t seem to hold his focus.” Willa added. “He’s seventy-seven, but he’s always been sharp.”
“What have you noticed?” Ned asked Vincent. “More of the same?”
“A little more dangerous,” Vincent said. “Have I ever told you the story about the old minister crossing the road? He didn’t make it to the other side.”
Willa gasped.
Vincent related the story that played out in front of the hardware store. In conclusion, he said, “He was out there initially, then he just snapped back in.”
“What do you propose?”
“Well, he’s a prime candidate for the new programming I’m designing for Crossroads. Cliff Walker’s daughter, Beebe, has agreed to take a position at the center.”
“Beebe?” Willa said.
“She grew up here, of course. When she said she was thinking about returning, I approached her. She’s perfect.”
“So, if I may anticipate, you’re recruiting me to help line Mosie up for Ms. Walker’s assistance. Are they acquainted?” Ned wanted to know.
“Yes, they are, and so far, all comments are favorable for the board’s approval of the programming.” Vincent felt a restless eagerness stir. The worthwhile programs established a new and welcoming purpose within him. “But approval or not, Mosie needs someone looking in on him.”
“Nearly struck by a car is serious,” Willa said. “Will you go to him, Ned? Shouldn’t you go right away? It’s Sunday. That should play in your favor.”
“I doubt it being Sunday will make him any more receptive.”
Vincent’s mind automatically expounded on Ned’s statement. These days, Mosie was often grumpy. One never knew which Mosie would greet them, or on his grouchy days, would, more correctly, bark at them.
Willa gaped at her husband. “Are you saying, why try?”
Ned answered. “Oh, no. We have to try.”
In the end, they waited until Monday afternoon.
Road to Larkspur
Dark clouds hung back at the horizon. With spitting rain already coming down, Vincent Bostick and Pastor Ned McMitchell decided to drive to Rev. Razzell’s house rather than walk the few blocks. Vincent switched the ignition off. When both men stood on the sidewalk, they looked up at Razzell’s cottage-style house with its pitched roof over the door set off to the right, making ample room for a picture window and brick chimney on the other side.
Ned sighed. He moved toward a winding front walkway. “This is going to be an uphill battle. But one worth the effort.”
Vincent fell into step behind.
“When I got to town,” Ned said with a laugh, “I never heard such praise for a man before. I don’t have to tell you. You grew up in Larkspur.”
Vincent silently watched the pace of his own beat-up loafers and navy chinos in step on the concrete behind Ned’s black and gray Nikes and black nylon sports pants.
“I expected a magnitude of limp handshakes and pasted-on smiles before people accepted me as here to replace Mosie,” Ned went on. “That wasn’t the case. Just seeing me with him was enough. Folks didn’t consider me a competitor or interloper. Their affection was almost instantaneous. I owe that to him.”
Ned stopped at the foot of the porch steps. Vincent knew the impact of the difficult situation caught up to him.
Pulling alongside, Vincent patted Ned’s back. “This can’t wait. I’ve tried to prepare the words I’ll use, but…” Vincent’s inability to complete the sentence only
proved his struggle to align kindness and tact with the shattering concept he and Ned would deliver to Mosie Razzell. “Damn it! It shouldn’t take programming and the state’s money to reach out to a beloved community member in need.”
Ned’s expressive eyebrows tilted up comically at the foul language.
“Pardon my French. I bet I got that accent wrong.” Both men laughed. The tension broke.
“Let’s do this,” Ned said. “My guess is, you won’t be the only one swearing before this is done.”
Vincent knocked on an aluminum screen door, taking in signs of disrepair. The caulking around the door was dried and cracked; the white paint, peeling. These were the small repairs a maintenance team with a qualified handyman could address.
Mosie Razzell pulled the wooden front door open. Vincent looked up to Ned, then back to Razzell. Despite their smiles, Razzell frowned deeply. Apparently, he interpreted their arrival on his porch for just what it was, a harbinger for bad news.
“What do you want?” Razzell said sharply.
Evidently, Razzell was working on a crotchety day. It saddened Vincent to see such a drastic deviation from the first impression Ned related just a minute ago. “Afternoon, Mosie. Ned and I want to talk about one of the pilot programs Crossroads will undertake when some state funding comes through.”
“Can we step inside?” Ned asked.
On guard, Razzell pulled the screen door he’d pushed open back several inches.
“Do you want to come out, then? The drizzle has almost stopped,” Vincent said. Razzell’s porch held two lawn chairs with seating for a third on the wooden rail.
“No. And I don’t want to listen to nonsense either.”
“Come on, Mosie. Give us a chance. You shouldn’t call it nonsense until we’ve gotten through our spiel,” Ned said.
Razzell sent his cross expression to Vincent. “Can we move this along?”
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