A Light in the Window (9 page)

“Moved to New York!” He was surprised to hear himself say this almost gaily, with a certain enthusiasm. There. That was the solution right there. Just toss it off as if it were nothing. A couple of times, and he’d have it down pat.

“Timothy!” she exclaimed. “How could you?”

“Katherine, I refuse to discuss it, and that’s that. The whole thing has been beyond me, is beyond me, and promises to stay beyond me. So, please. Back off.”

“Back off! Ha! You forget who you’re talking to. This is me, Teds, who does not believe that life consists of backing off but of forging ahead! Did you have a fight?”

“We did not. I hardly even saw her after I came home.”

“Well, you big dope, that’s the problem right there.”

He felt weary of all this, as if he’d like to fall prostrate on the carpet and not bother getting up.

The sun had been shining brilliantly for days, and the intense blue sky he’d looked for was there, cloudless, perfect.

Up on the hill, where the ruins of the old church had lain for so many years, something new, something restorative was going on. He could hear engines gunning, hammers ringing, voices shouting back and forth. It was not a clamor. It was, instead, the sound of excitement, even of happiness.

He remembered the summer he and Tommy Noles had hung over the fence surrounding a gaping hole that, in the spring, became the First National Bank. As much as he loved baseball, he had wanted nothing more than to watch the sober gray edifice being constructed, stone upon stone. The sight of an entire building coming together before their very eyes was awesome, better than a movie, better than a hundred movies.

He would have given anything, anything he owned or would ever own, to get in the cab of one of those cranes and muscle something around, something huge, something gigantic.

He would visit Russell and Betty tomorrow, then he’d walk up to the job site and take a look. That he’d steer clear of Leeper went without saying.

Betty Craig looked ten years younger and had lost weight into the bargain.

“Betty! You look like a girl. What’s your secret? I demand to be told.”

“I don’t know!” she said, blushing. “I guess it’s that Mr. Jacks is bein’ such a help around here. I can’t imagine what I ever did without him.”

“You can’t mean it.”

“Oh, but I do! Just look at these shelves he built in the hall.”

Putting Russell Jacks into Betty Craig’s care had been a brilliant move. It had also kept him from going back to his derelict house in the scrap yard and taking Dooley with him.

Betty took the rector by the arm and led him along the little hallway. “And look here in my room how he made that nice headboard I always wanted and built me a little round table to go by the bed.”

Betty’s clock radio and a Bible were sitting on the table the old sexton had built. Amazing!

“And see,” she said, leading him to the window, “how he’s made those nice beds with the pansies for me to look at of a mornin’!”

“A beautiful sight! He’s completely well, then, is he?”

“Oh, yes, sir, and I just hate it, I just hate it! Don’t tell a soul I said so, but once he goes, they’ll want me to nurse Miss Pattie, and I don’t believe I’m up to that, oh, Father ...” Betty was wringing her hands. She had gone from blithe to mournful in only moments.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said.

“Do you know the latest on Miss Pattie?”

How could Emma have skipped over that one? “What’s the latest?”

“Naked on the roof.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes. Used to crawl out on the roof in that little pink wrapper, but not anymore. No sirree, now it’s her birthday suit.”

He put his arm around her shoulder as they walked up the hall. He was as anxious as Betty for Russell to stay in this sunny home with the starched curtains. Something would have to be done to keep him from going back to the scrap yard, but he didn’t know what.

She sighed. “Well, come and see him. He’ll want to see you. Oh, dear, you didn’t bring the livermush. He’s nearly had a fit for livermush since you left.”

“I confess I forgot. Two months without livermush is a stretch. Of course, you could have asked Puny to bring some from Wesley. She would have done it gladly.”

“Well, he’ll be happy to get it when it comes. You know, Father, it’s good to do without something that means a lot to you.”

“Is it, Betty?” he asked, sincerely wanting to know.

“Oh, yes. Then when you get it again, you appreciate it more.” But he didn’t know if he would ever get it again, if he’d ever have the chance to appreciate it more.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I am,” he said and smiled.

“Got ‘er runnin’ like a top,” said Lew Boyd, wiping his hands on a rag. “You want t’ sell ’er, I’ll make you an offer.”

Lew Boyd no more wanted to buy his Buick than he wanted to go bungee jumping in Wesley. He always said that to his customers. He felt it was part of his service to make them feel good about the vehicle he’d just worked on.

“What would you give me for it, Lew?” He assumed what might be taken for his pulpit look.

“Well,” said Lew, “I’d ... ah, have to think about it.” He tried not to laugh until he got around the monument.

The weather was turning colder, the flame of autumn had torched the red maples along Lilac Road, and now and again he caught the scent of wood smoke. It was his favorite perfume, right up there with horse manure and new-mown hay. And where would he get wood to make his own smoke this year? Parishioners were good about supplying everything from produce for his table to bulbs for his garden, but wood was not something that often came his way. As smart as Avis was about finding a load of corn, surely he’d know where to get a load of wood.

He was barely winded when he turned onto Church Hill Drive from Lilac Road and headed toward Fernbank.

Louella had called and asked him to come. Was Miss Sadie sick? Something worse than sick, Louella said ominously.

When Louella answered the door, she didn’t speak but shook her head as if words could not suffice.

In Miss Sadie’s upstairs bedroom, he saw hats piled on the bed and hatboxes stacked in the corners and on the dresser. Miss Sadie was sitting in the wing chair where she had told him the last tragic episode of her love story. He was surprised to realize her feet did not touch the floor; she might have been a doll sitting there. Like Louella, she didn’t speak.

She handed him a yellowed certificate, and he sat down in the wing chair across from hers.

He looked up slowly to meet her eyes, but she was looking out the window.

He found he didn’t wish to speak, either. Three people in one household had been struck dumb by the appearance of a piece of paper, a piece of plain truth. Rachel Livingstone was the maiden name of Miss Sadie’s mother.

Clearly, she had sent for him so that he might come and do something, but he could do nothing. He looked at her face in profile, in the unforgiving autumn light, and saw a strange peace. Indeed, the room seemed wrapped in a peace that he began to enter.

They sat for a long time in a silence that he found deeply comforting. He could not remember ever sitting like this with someone, except following a death. Perhaps this hard thing was for her a type of death; the mother whom she had adored as a saint had at last revealed the secret of her illegitimate child. It had been a family of secrets, a life of secrets.

“We went up in the attic yesterday, looking for Mama’s hats. I said, ‘Louella, let’s look in this old dresser. We never really went through Mama’s things.’ We found the birth certificate folded up in a handkerchief bag with a little pair of socks.

“Last night when I couldn’t sleep, I remembered Mama going out with her basket for the poor. Twice a week, every week, she went and always came back so sad, so sad. Finally, I quit begging to go with her. She was going to see my older sister,” she said, looking at him in amazement. “Just think ... I had a sister.”

He smiled, sensing an odd happiness welling up in her, even though tears began to roll down her cheeks. She did not try to stop them nor turn her face away but let them come freely.

“All those years I might have known her! Might have skipped rope with her, or let her braid my hair, or told her my dreams! If I might just have seen her or touched her, my own flesh. There she was, all I’d ever wanted, yet God kept her from me ... and replaced her with China Mae and Louella.” She laughed through her tears.

“Two for one,” he said gently.

“I have to believe He knew what He was doing.”

“You can count on it.”

“I had a great aunt in Arbourville. Maybe that’s why Mama had the child there. A year and a half later, she married Papa ... I don’t suppose he ever knew ... In another year and a half, she had me.” Her breath caught. “Oh, I so wish I could have known my sister!”

“I so wish she could have known you, Miss Sadie.” He stood up and went to her and drew her from the chair and put his arms around her and held her like a child. “I love you,” he said simply.

She looked up at him, the tears shining in her eyes. “We’re going to make the best of this thing.”

She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “Now, let’s move on to what started all this in the first place. You are going to help me take these hats to Olivia Davenport, aren’t you, Father?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just think of the joy we’ll have when we see her wearing them! You do think she’ll wear them, don’t you?”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt.”

“Can we take them this week?”

“I’ll have to see about renting a U-Haul,” he said, grinning.