Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good (44 page)

From the Fieldwalkers in Whitecap, where he had supplied for a year, a fold-out card with a brief gazette.

‘Allelulia!’ he called in to Cynthia. ‘Morris Love is now St. John’s minister of music. Marjorie says, “Every pew is filled but for two seats on the gospel side which are reserved for all time for you and Cynthia. Come soon. Fish for breakfast!”’

‘And one from Otis and Marlene Bragg, signed “Bragg Paving Company for All Your Stone, Gravel, Asphalt and Concrete Needs.”’ Period. He was fond of the Braggs.

A handmade card with a line penned first by Christina Rossetti: ‘Love Came Down at Christmas.’

‘Agnes and Clarence send loving wishes for a happy Christmas season and good health for the new year, and ask that we come up for a visit in the spring.’

From Father Brad, a handsome card to be set on the mantel:

Comin’ atcha Jan. 1. He is born that we might have life. Pretty astounding. Looking forward to being with you and yours.

On he plowed, dredging time and memory, until the pimiento cheese was put away and the fire burned to embers and his wife went upstairs, followed by Truman. Violet had recently elected to watch through the night with Barnabas, a display of character which he found admirable in a cat.

A card from . . . Henry Talbot. Of all things:

Father, have ended up in New Mexico. Will try to stay in touch. Could you send me the prayer you mentioned when I was there? The one you prayed after you were ordained. Use this address until further notice. Pray for me. Yours, Henry

He put Henry’s card on his desk and the other cards in the bowl on the console, then turned off the lights and made his way up to bed.

•   •   •

O
N
T
HURSDAY
AFTERNOON
, Esther Cunningham was reclining in the chair pirated by her grandson, the police chief, from the furnace room. ‘I had to call in th’ cops to get my chair back,’ she told anyone who would listen.

‘Ray!’

‘What is it, Honey Bun?’

Why was her husband lookin’ old? She had not previously noticed this. After all these years, she still saw him as the boy at the picnic who brought fried chicken and coleslaw which he made himself, though he was clearly no sissy. She had eaten three pieces of his chicken, crispier than she’d ever tasted, and married him two months later—they were both nineteen.

‘Didn’t th’
Muse
come today? Is this Thursday or am I in a coma and lost track of time?’

‘It’s here somewhere,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t had a minute to pick it up.’

‘How come you hadn’t had a minute?’ She endured an extended coughing fit. ‘What were you doin’ all day?’

‘Lookin’ after you, Sugar Babe.’ He poured a spoonful of cough syrup, put it to her lips. ‘Down th’ hatch.’

‘What was there to look after? I had toast and a boiled egg for breakfast, Marcie brought a salad for lunch and decorated th’ tree, and we’ve got th’ Crockpot goin’ for supper.’ She could not understand people who thought themselves overworked.

‘Right,’ he said, thumping into his own recliner. ‘You needed stamps from th’ post office, said it was life or death. You wanted your green dress dry-cleaned for Christmas, so I ran that over to Wesley. I was on th’ phone about th’ hospital bill, they charged you for a urinary diversion which was twenty-four thousand an’ I called to say they had not touched anything urinary, and they checked and
took it off th’ bill, which Medicare should truly appreciate. Then th’ laundry—all th’ beds needed changin’ you said, since th’ girls have been sleepin’ over, so I washed and folded stuff like you told me to, and filled your medicine box an’ called your sister in Dallas an’ gave her an update an’ invited Omer an’ his new girlfriend to dinner since we’re havin’ his favorite. Then I set th’ table an’ laid th’ phone off th’ hook so you could take a nap.’ Ray gave forth a shuddering sigh.

‘Who’s his girlfriend?’

‘Fancy Skinner’s sister, Shirlene.’

‘Lord help, I hope we won’t be gettin’ Fancy Skinner in this family.’

‘Shirlene’s a nice girl. When you get better, she’ll give you a tan. Her treat, she said.’

‘That tan where you strip down to your birthday suit? I’ll get my own tan, thank you. Is th’ phone still off th’ hook?’

‘It is. An’ thank God in his mercy.’

‘I was wonderin’ why nobody called.’ She had figured people didn’t care whether she lived or died.

‘Then because th’ school bus was in th’ shop an’ Marcie had a meetin’, she asked me to pick up her grans at school.’

‘Lord help!’ she said, aghast. ‘
All
her grans?’ She could not believe the wrinkles in his forehead.

‘All of ’em that was in school.’ As they climbed in the van, he’d done a head count—twelve, or was it eleven?—to be dropped off at a total of four different houses. To be absolutely sure, he asked them to count their own heads. Yellow house, Bitsy, Donna, and Albert; white house, green shutters, Sissy and Sassy; green house, white shutters, Buster, Harry, Susan, Paula, and Robbie; brick house, Jerry and Rosalind. And that was just Marcie’s crowd. There were a dozen more distributed among their other four daughters, and nobody in the family was Catholic.

‘Only one got off at the wrong house,’ he said. The whole lot of
them were famous for getting off at each other’s houses and drivin’ their mothers crazy. ‘It’s been a handful, Doll Face.’

This was a shock. The girls had certainly had their say about
her
wearin’ their daddy out, an’ now
they
were wearin’ him out, sendin’ him on a pick-up-and-deliver as if he had nothin’ else to do.

She watched as he laid his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Before he could hit the recline mode, his mouth dropped open and he was snoring to beat the band, bless his heart. She would have to do somethin’ nice for him when she got stronger. Maybe she would buy a new nightgown, Lord knows they weren’t dead yet, or take him up to Lucera, which would cost out th’ kazoo, and maybe they should even have wine—bein’ Baptist, they never had wine except for a communion or two at Lord’s Chapel, didn’t Jesus have wine?

In the meantime, she would climb out of this chair and round up her own dadblame newspaper.

She hobbled to the kitchen, where she found it on the counter with the mail, then she hobbled back to her chair and coughed a good bit and read the headline that ran clean across the front page.

‘Ray!’ she said.

He sat up and blinked. ‘What is it, Honey Pie?’

‘Go put th’ bloomin’ phone on th’ hook and come listen to this.’

•   •   •

‘H
AVE
YOU
SEEN
IT
?’ Esther Bolick held up today’s
Muse
so Winnie could see it over the bake case.

‘I read every word. Everybody’s talkin’ about it.’

‘Have you ever?’

‘Never!’ said Winnie. ‘Three million dollars! I can’t get my feeble mind around that kind of money. So nice that th’ movie star twin bought her sister’s paintings for one and a half million, can you believe it? An’ every dime to go to th’ Children’s Hospital! Then our own Miz McGraw turns around an’ gives a million an’ a half to match it.’

‘They’ll be needin’ a lot of cakes for that big auction next spring. It’s black-tie, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Winnie. ‘An’ how about them not havin’ a clue all those years that they were twins? That is so sad.’

‘I would say if they get th’ two hundred people they’re lookin’ for, they’ll need five fourteen-inch OMCs, sliced event-style.’

What had happened to Esther’s bad knees? Was it a miracle healing? Never again would she, Winnie Ivey Kendall, sign an agreement of any kind. Not in this life.

‘I think their names are really pretty,’ said Winnie. ‘Irene Elizabeth and Kimberly Frances.’

‘That auction will be big-time,’ said Esther. ‘You should do three-layers. An’ believe me, you’ll need help to get that job done.’ Esther was standing on tiptoe, eyeing her across the case.

‘I’ve never seen one of Kim’s movies, but Thomas is goin’ to get ’em on Netflix.’ Her dentist had told her not to grind her teeth and here she was grinding her teeth. ‘I don’t have any idea they’ll come to me, anyway. There are other bakers in this world, Esther. They might even get a caterer from Charlotte.’

‘
Charlotte?
That’ll be a million and a half out of th’ budget right there!’

She could not do this another minute. ‘Besides,
formal
affairs these days go for a chocolate dessert every time.
That
 . . . is
statistical
.’ So saying, she marched back to the kitchen.

Esther fumbled in her pocketbook for the car keys. ‘Chocolate!’ she muttered. ‘An’ when th’ party’s over, there’s everybody wonderin’ why they can’t sleep, an’ blamin’ it on too much wine!’

•   •   •

‘I
T
WAS
A
REALLY
GOOD
STORY
,’ Minnie Lomax told Hessie. They sat in the front window of the Woolen Shop, drinking hot cider schlepped from Village Shoes.

Minnie was fond of encouraging Hessie, who had no husband, no money to speak of, and was forced to work for peanuts for J. C. Hogan, who had never once made a purchase in this shop.

‘I liked your headline—“Twin Gifts Kick Off Children’s Hospital Campaign.”’

‘Well, thanks,’ said Hessie. ‘There was so dern much to that story, I didn’t know where to start. I’m still in recovery.’

‘I thought it was great that the movie star twin will make an appearance at the auction. That is really, really nice of her to come such a long way for children she doesn’t even know. An’ then Miz McGraw givin’ that matching gift in memory of her poor dead husband—he used to buy all his woolen items from us. He played golf in Scotland, but bought all his woolen items from us. Wasn’t that wonderful?’

Minnie wished Hessie would listen more carefully when she talked, but Hessie’s mind was usually elsewhere.

‘Way too many details to that story,’ said Hessie. ‘It half killed me. That’s th’ last big news this town needs for a long time, I can tell you that.’

•   •   •

‘I
HAVE
SOME
GOOD
NEWS
and some bad news,’ said Puny, hands behind her back.

‘But first, congratulations on all that money for Children’s Hospital, I know you must have prayed up a storm. An’ I’m so happy for Ms. McGraw that she has a twin, she deserves it! Sissy an’ Sassy drew straws on which one of them would end up rich an’ famous an’ Sissy won. I tried to tell ’em they could both be rich an’ famous, but . . .’

‘Bad news first,’ he said, weary in every bone, ‘and get it over with.’

He had dragged himself out of bed this morning. Retail was definitely worse than priesting. It was Christmas Eve, and because his
work schedule of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was now ended, he had pitched in with Hélène and Coot for Christmas Eve, aka the last fling of his second career.

‘Th’ water heater’s leakin,’ it’s runnin’ out on th’ basement floor.’

Their second water heater in four years. Where had American quality and ingenuity gone? What was the matter with people?

‘I’ll call th’ plumber,’ she said.

‘Thank you. Is that the good news, that you’ll call the plumber and I don’t have to?’

‘Th’ good news is behind my back. Three guesses.’

‘Puny, Puny. You know I don’t like guessing.’

She handed over an envelope, grinning.

His letter to Cynthia? Yes! The lost letter was found!

He whooped.

‘Where?’

‘You know th’ place under your desk where th’ drawers are at? It has those little feet that set it up off th’ floor a inch or two—I found it under there. When I was dustin’ your desk, I dropped one of your pens and that’s where it rolled an’ I reached in there an’ . . . Merry Christmas!’

She was beaming.

‘Don’t tell Cynthia,’ he said.

•   •   •

H
E
WALKED
OUT
TO
THE
STOOP
, the phone to his ear, and looked up. A snow sky. Big time.

‘Sam! Good morning. Walk up to the bookstore with me.’

‘I ain’t got no clothes on.’

‘Get ’em on,’ he said. ‘Paying job.’

Sammy could work ’til noon—bring in lunch, take the truck to have Lew check the ignition, and help Coot sort the recycling. He
was scratching around for something for Sammy to do, as the cat door was finished and, as much for Truman as for Cynthia, covered by a hand-lettered sign:
DO NOT OPEN TIL CHRISTMAS
.

Kenny had been working on his kid brother; Harley had done his part, and Miss Pringle’s terms and conditions hadn’t hurt. Hair combed. Hands clean. A good-looking boy. He was grateful for the simple happiness of walking up the street with Sammy.

‘Buck’s goin’ to take me to work with ’im next week.’

‘Great.’

‘He said he might find a job for me.’

‘That should be pretty easy to do. You’re a good carpenter, you can paint, and if they need any help with landscaping . . .’

As they rounded the corner onto Main, he saw a familiar figure walking their way.

‘Father Tim! Merry Christmas! Joe Jordan, remember me? I was on th’ vestry back in the day. We moved down th’ mountain and I’m up to see my cousin. This your boy?’

This isn’t Dooley, he was about to say, but hesitated.

He put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. Sammy didn’t flinch.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is my boy. His name is Sammy.’

•   •   •

B
EFORE
HE
OPENED
THE
STORE
, they took a turn into Village Shoes.

‘Happy Hanukkah, my friend.’

‘Merry Christmas, Father!’

They embraced, each giving the other a rousing back slap.

‘Shoes for Sammy while I open up, and I’ll be back for brown loafers and a pair of black dress shoes. Ten and a half B.’

‘Will do, and mazel tov. Sweet deal for the Children’s Hospital.’

He paused outside the shoe store and looked up. A flake touched his cheek; one landed on his glove. It was snowing.