A New Song (19 page)

Father Tim nodded. “I’ll say.”

“This is his autobiography. Looky here.” Ernie turned to the back of the book and displayed a long list. “That’s some of th’ books he read. He read thousands of books and kep’ account of every one. Plus he traveled and wandered all over th’ world an’, with no education to speak of, turned around an’ wrote hundreds of books his own self.”

Ernie scratched his head. “I guess if I could, I’d just read books and not strike a lick at a snake.”

“Sounds good to me!”

The proprietor took a paperback off the shelf. “Here you go, I’m givin’ this to you. Take it an’ read it, and tell me what you think.”

“I’ll do it.”

“To my way of thinkin’,
Last of the Breed
was L’Amour’s best book, and if it don’t keep you on th’ edge of your pew, nothin’ will.”

“I thank you, Ernie. Thank you!”

“I take you for a big reader, yourself.”

“I guess you could say Wordsworth is my main man.”

“Wordsworth, Wordsworth . . . ,” said Ernie, trying to place the name.

“I’ll bring you something, see what you think.”

“Good deal,” said Ernie, looking pleased.

At the cash register, Father Tim fetched a dollar and change out of his shorts pocket for the Richter book and the eight-page
Whitecap Reader.

“Seen your neighbor yet?” asked Ernie. “Guess I ought to say heard ’im, is more like it.”

“What neighbor is that?”

“Th’ one behind th’ hedge.”

“Didn’t know there was one behind the hedge.”

“You didn’t?” Ernie looked incredulous.

“Should I have?”

“Seems like somebody would’ve told you.”

He waited for Ernie to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Maybe you could tell me.”

“Well . . . it’s what’s left of th’ Love family, is what it is.”

He thought Ernie looked pained, as if regretting that he’d introduced the subject.

“Aha.”

“See, there was a whole clan of Loves at one time. Redmon Love, th’ grandaddy, bought that big trac’ of land up th’ road where you are, built him a fine home in there and put a wall around it. Then planted a hedge both sides of th’ wall. It’s grown up like a jungle th’ last twenty years or so.”

Father Tim looked at his watch. If he was going to ride bikes this morning, not to mention walk his dog, he’d better get a move on.

“Th’ Love house was th’ finest thing on any of these islands, a real mansion, but you can’t see it’s back there ’less you’re lookin’ for it.”

“I’ll be darned.”

“Mr. Redmon had somebody come in from upstate New York and make him a tropical garden, had palm trees and monkeys an’ I don’t know what all.”

“Monkeys?”

“Well, there ain’t any monkeys in there now, but used to be. I used to hear ’em when I was a kid.” Ernie paused and gave a loud rendition of what, it might be supposed, was the call of a monkey.

“Like that,” said Ernie.

Father Tim nodded, impressed.

“Used to be macaws in there, too, an’ some said elephants, but I never went for that.”

“Pretty far-fetched,” agreed Father Tim, rolling up his newspaper and putting it under his arm.

“Anyway, th’ whole clan built around th’ mansion. You’re livin’ up from th’ place his second grandson used ’til, oh, I don’t know, maybe two or three years ago, then they pretty much stopped comin’.”

“Right. So who lives behind the wall?”

Ernie looked at him soberly. “I wouldn’t say nothin’ to your wife.”

“Really?”

“No use to make ’er worry.”

The screen door slammed behind two fisherman. While one examined sinkers and knives, the other ordered bait.

“We need a half pound of shrimp, a dozen bloodworms, and a pound of squid. Better make that a pound and a half.”

“Catch you later, Tim,” said Ernie. “Come again anytime, you hear?”

 

He dropped by St. John’s to see how the organization of the church library was developing. Marion Fieldwalker and her volunteers were cataloging, dusting, shelving, and generally making sense of books that had been stacked in a room off the narthex since the time of the early prophets. He cheered them on and made a pot of coffee as his contribution to the effort.

There was no reason at all, of course, for his wife to know he’d taken this little detour. . . .

He was zooming by his desk as the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey!” said Dooley.

“Hey, yourself, buddy! What’s going on?”

“The Reds whipped th’ poop out of th’ Blues last night!”

“Hallelujah! Tell me everything!” He thumped into his groaning swivel chair and leaned back.

“You should of seen ol’ Mule, he come t’ bat four times with runners on base, got a base hit ever’ time!”

Ah, it was music to his ears when Dooley lapsed into the old vernacular.

“I scored four runs on ’is hits. We whipped ’em by seven runs.”

“Man alive!” he said, rejoicing with his boy. “Well done!”

“Waxin’ th’ Blues was great, we cleaned their plows. You should of been there.”

He should have, it was true. “Good crowd?”

“Ever’body, nearly. Ol’ Coot Hendrick, he was there shakin’ hands like he was President of the United States. Ol’ Mayor Cunningham, she throwed out th’ first ball.”

“How are Poo and Jessie and your mom?”

“Great. I had supper with ’em Saturday. Poo’s gettin’ really tall, Jessie’s quit suckin’ her thumb.”

“Have you seen Lace?”

Silence. “A couple of times.”

“Really? You took her to a movie?”

“Are you kidding? She hardly looks at me. Anyway, she’s not allowed to go out with guys ’til next year. She’s still fifteen.”

“Aha.” He noted that Dooley’s speech had returned to the prep school mode.

“But I saw her with some friends a couple of times, like when I took Jenny to a movie.”

He rubbed his chin and frowned. That wouldn’t have been his agenda for Dooley’s summer, but who was he to judge? Jenny was their pretty, soft-spoken neighbor who’d regularly come looking for Dooley, knocking on the back door year after year, summer after summer. What if his own neighbor, his very wife, had not come knocking on the rectory door?

“Is Lace still tutoring Harley?”

“She comes when I’m working, she gave him A-plus on something. I don’t know what it was, but he was pretty excited, I think it was math.”

“Are you ready to go back to school?”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“If you’re going to be a vet, you have to go to school,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, right. So I’m goin’ back, but I’d rather stay home.”

“You’ve got eight days, make the most of it. As we discussed, the Barnhardts will swing by with Joseph to return you to academe.”

“By the way, Harley says you’re doing great with your curfew.”

“He said he’d whip my tail if I messed up.” Dooley cackled. The thought of the thin, toothless Harley whipping him was clearly a great amusement.

“What are you guys eating these days?”

“Harley made pizza last night, it was great.”

“With everything?” He loved the details.

“No anchovies, no onions, tons of sausage and cheese. He could get a franchise.”

“How’s our tenant?”

“She asked me twice if I’d show her your house, said she wanted to see what y’all did, the addition and all. I said maybe when you come in October, you’d show it to her. Why would she care anything about the addition? She’s not going to do one.”

“I have no idea.”

“Anyway, I think Lace is taking lessons over there before she goes off to school, she leaves in a week. She’ll hate that school.”

“Please. Keep your opinions on that school to yourself.”

“I promise you those girls are weird. They write and draw and read and wear totally weird clothes like lace-up shoes and glasses with wire rims. I mean, they can’t even dance, they step all over you.”

“How’s your bank account?”

“Huge.”

“How huge?”

“I made six hundred dollars so far.”

“I owe you six to match it, that makes twelve, what’s the total?”

“With what I saved last year, that makes seventeen hundred, even.”

“You can buy a sharp little ride for what you’ll have by the end of summer.”

“I don’t want an old car, I told you over and over.”

“We’ll both be old as the hills if we wait ’til you earn enough for a new one.”

Dooley sighed.

“Look,” he said, feeling guilty, repressed, and prehistoric. “Cynthia and I will kick in another five hundred, that brings you up to twenty-two hundred.”

“Thanks! Hey, really! Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome. Now stay out of trouble.”

“I’m stayin’ out.”

“Good. Well done. If we’re still here, you’re going to love this place next summer.”

“Why?”

“Sand. Water. Girls. Shrimp and hush puppies. I don’t know, good stuff.”

“And I’ll have a car.”

“You’ll have a car. Right.”

“Look, I’ve got to go.”

“Tell Harley hello.”

“I miss ol’ Barnabas. Tell Cynthia hey, is she OK?”

“She misses you, she looks great, she has a tan and a half.”

“Well, I got to go.”

“Love you, buddy.”

“Love you back.”

He sat for a moment at the desk, nodding to himself and smiling. He was proud of that boy. Though there was only about sixty thousand left of the inheritance from his mother, he should have kicked in an extra hundred.

 

Hot. Hotter than hot.

He walked into Dove Cottage, thankful for the fan whirring in the living room, and was greeted by his dog bounding down the hallway, pursued by a youngster.

“Look who’s here!” he said.

“Jon’than!” said Jonathan Tolson.

Cynthia appeared from the kitchen. “Jonathan’s come to spend the day with us. I didn’t think you’d mind having company. We can go bike riding Saturday.”

“Right!”

“Your dog,” said Jonathan, hugging Barnabas around the neck. “My dog.”

“Right. Any dog of mine is a dog of yours.” He squatted down and met the blue-eyed gaze of their blond-haired visitor.

“I went to visit Jonathan’s mommy this morning and she wasn’t feeling well, so . . .” Cynthia lifted her palms, smiling.

“So, we’ll have an adventure,” said Father Tim. “We’ll take a walk on the beach, then we’ll go eat hotdogs, and ice cream after. How’s that?”

“Not hotdogs,” said Jonathan, wrinkling his nose.

“Pizza, then! Or french fries. I’m easy.”

Jonathan nodded eagerly, his curls bobbing. “French fries.”

“You’re lots more fun with kids around,” announced his wife.

“Your big dog can go?” asked Jonathan.

“Absolutely. He loves ice cream.”

Cynthia took her husband’s hand and pulled him along the hall to the kitchen.

“Janette’s terribly depressed,” she said in a low voice. “She doesn’t want to get out of bed. I went to check on her this morning—I’m not sure Jonathan had been fed recently. He just devoured a whole plate of cheese and crackers, thank heaven I had milk. . . .”

“What about the other children?”

“Gone across to cousins. She said they didn’t have room for Jonathan. Apparently, Janette hasn’t been working for some time. She takes in sewing, you know.”

“Dear Lord,” he murmured. He’d recommended medical help for Janette Tolson, but she refused, assuring him she’d be fine. He’d seen the emptiness in her gaze, heard it in her voice, and knew she was in trouble.

“I’ll be back,” he said, kissing his wife.

 

“The children . . . ,” he said, sitting by Janette’s bed.

“I don’t . . . care,” she whispered.

He remembered Miss Sadie talking about her love for Willard Porter, about caring so much for so long that all caring was at last exhausted.

“God cares. He’s with you in this.”

She turned her head slowly and looked at him, disbelieving.

He put his right palm on her damp forehead. He remembered his mother’s cool hand on his forehead when he was sick, and how much that simple gesture had counted to him.

“I promise,” he told her.

She closed her eyes and the tears seeped from under her lashes.

The average view of the Christian life, Oswald Chambers had said, is that it means deliverance from trouble. Father Tim agreed with Chambers that, in fact, it means deliverance
in
trouble. That alone and nothing more, and nothing more required. But the child of God had to face the strain before the strength could be provided. Janette Tolson could not face the strain.

“Let me pray for you,” he said.

He kept his palm against her forehead, and with his other hand, held hers.

“I
not
stay,” said Jonathan, frowning.

“We’ll have pancakes for breakfast,” he implored. It was a lame strategy, but the best he could do.

Jonathan shook his head and stomped one foot.
“No!
I want to go
home.”

“In the shape of ducks!”

“Babette and Jason are having fun with cousins. Don’t you want to spend the night and have fun with Barnabas?”

They couldn’t take him home; his mother was in no condition to look after him. He had called Jean Ballenger, who, eager to please her new priest, had agreed to spend the night with Janette. Tomorrow, following the counsel of Hoppy Harper, he would talk with Janette’s own doctor, whom she had avoided for months, and take Janette across to the hospital. He dreaded the prospect.

He looked to his wife, who, of all people, should be able to come up with something to entice a three-year-old.