Light From Heaven (16 page)

“And be quick about it,” she commanded. Still clutching the paper bag, he blew past Miss Rose and down the hall to the bedroom, which smelled strongly of urine.

Kneeling beside Uncle Billy’s bed, he saw that his face appeared unnaturally puffy.

“I’ve brought you a doughnut, Uncle Billy. Still warm. Winnie sends her love.”

“I’ll be et f’r a tater”—Uncle Billy’s breathing was labored—“if it ain’t th’ preacher.” His eyes opened, then fluttered shut.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Uncle Billy coughed. “Sharp as a briar.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

His friend’s hand was dry and fragile, a corn husk in winter.

“Uncle Billy, can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I done tol’ you,” Uncle Billy whispered.

“Tell me again, if you will, I didn’t quite hear it.”

Uncle Billy’s eyelids trembled.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He ran to the kitchen and tossed the bag of doughnuts on the table. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“You’ll pay for it, then!” Miss Rose gave him a menacing look, grabbed the bag, and shuffled along the hall to the bathroom. He heard the lock click into place.

He tried the wall phone, but the line was dead, and he had no cell phone. Like it or not, he’d have to start carrying a cell phone with the rest of the common horde.

“I’ll be back!” he shouted.

He ran across the side yard and ducked through the bushes and sprinted across the street in front of the monument and raced up the steps of the town hall and through the lobby and into the mayor’s office where the receptionist was reading
People
magazine.

“Get an ambulance out to the Porter place,” he said, gasping for breath. “It’s Uncle Billy.”

“Congestive heart failure,” said Hoppy.

“His heart isn’t pumping normally, but the medications are working; we’re getting the fluid off. I think he can pull through this.”

“Thank God.”

“He’ll pee a bucket, which will help his breathing and get rid of the swelling. But what happens when he gets out of here? That’s where the cheese gets binding. He’ll need to restrict his salt intake, big time, and somebody needs to see that he gets a decent diet.”

“That’s a tough one. Miss Rose refuses to move up to Hope House and Uncle Billy won’t leave without her. But—I’ll do what I can. By the way, we loved seeing Lace.”

“We loved seeing Dooley,” said his old friend and overworked town doctor.

In the deeps of New Jersey, the answering service of his cousin Walter’s law practice advised him that Mr. Kavanagh was next door at Starbucks and would be along any minute, leave a number.

He rang Dooley’s mother, Pauline Leeper, in the dining room at Hope House, and asked if he could drop by later in the week.

“Is anything wrong?” He heard the anxiety in her voice.

“No, nothing wrong at all,” he assured her. He felt certain Pauline would approve. In any case, Dooley was twenty-one, and fully able to make this decision without parental approval.

He dialed Betty Craig at the little house where Dooley’s grandfather Russell Jacks had lived out his last years in a spare bedroom.

“Betty! It’s s ...”

“Father Tim! I know your voice, an’ I know why you’re callin’ me.”

“Now, Betty ...”

“You want me to go an’ sit with Miss Rose while Uncle Billy’s in th’ hospital!”

What could he say? “Will you do it?”

Long, pondering silence. “My rates have gone up!” she blurted.

“Not a problem.”

“It’s
not?”

Betty Craig, who had tried for several years to retire from registered nursing, was too kind to refuse outright this onerous opportunity.

“Not at all. In truth, you’ve been needing to raise your rates.”

“I
have?”

“Can you go over this morning and take care of the laundry and change the sheets and do a little cooking?”

“Well, but...”

“Why don’t we raise your rate by twenty percent? Does that sound fair?”

“Oh, very fair.”

“Whatever you need at The Local, put it on my account. Thank you, Betty, and of course, when Uncle Billy comes home, we’ll need you to do all the good things you did last time he was sick. God bless you, you’re an angel. Let me know your hours.”

He hung up quickly, took a deep breath, and dialed again.

“Buck?”

“... in a hole ...” Static.

“Call me at the farm.You have my number?”

Static. “Down th’ mountain...” Static. Dial tone.

He checked his e-mail.

Five messages.

He didn’t have all day, he had to get up to Holy Trinity and meet with Agnes at... he looked at his watch... nine-thirty Good. He had an hour.

He dialed.

“Hello?”

Babies howling.

“Puny! it’s ...”

“Hey, Father! Can you hear ’em bawlin’? Law, these boys is a
handful.”

“I’ll bet.”

“But I love ’em, we all love ’em! Got to go, Father, you never
seen
s’ many dirty diapers. I never knowed boys make more dirty diapers than girls, did you ever hear that?”

“Never did. May I stop by in a few days?”

“Call me first, this house is upside down an’ backwards, you should’ve seen me packin’ Joe Joe’s lunch this mornin’, I put a stuffed bear in ’is lunch box and laid ‘is sandwich on th’ toy shelf. Guess I’ll eat it myself.

“Oh, law, got to go.”
Click.

He pulled the keyboard toward him, and rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt.

He selected a font. He clicked on a border. He chose a type size. He formatted the page. He scratched his head. He typed.

He hit “print” and ordered twenty-five copies, then saw how good they looked, and duplicated the first order.

He stuck the whole caboodle in a folder, and trotted to the kitchen, feeling upbeat. Though he was sales and service, not marketing, this effort nonetheless pleased him.

He swung by the window seat where the easel was up, the watercolors were out, and February was toeing the mark. “What do you think?” He stuck a flyer under her nose.

“I love it!”

“It could have been, um, more exciting copy. But in the end, I decided to keep it simple.”

“Always the best approach!” She gave him a laudatory kiss.

What more did a man need in this world?

He blew by Green Valley Baptist Church and gave the wayside pulpit message two thumbs up.

 

COINCIDENCE IS WHEN GOD CHOOSES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.

Agnes met him at the wall, where they stood looking down at clouds collected in the hollows after last night’s rain. Then, carrying the tea basket, and the folder under his arm, he walked with her to the nave.

He saw it at once and drew in his breath.

“Beautiful!” he exclaimed, hurrying ahead of her to the pulpit placed on the gospel side of the aisle.

He smelled the familiar scent he associated only with churches and his mother’s parlor; the pungent wax that had been rubbed so carefully into the oak would long after release its sweet savor upon the air.

She came behind him on her cane. “Clarence made it four years ago, when God renewed our conviction that He would send someone. It sat here only a short time, and then we took it to the schoolhouse where it would be safe.”

The polished oak glowed in the light from the window above the altar. “Exquisite!” he said.

“He brought it over on Sunday evening, and with great joy, we installed it. Do you like where it’s placed?”

“Couldn’t like it better! What became of the original?”

“It was stolen many years ago. The vandals who did this were not thieves, but desecrators of another stripe.”

She pointed to the initials rudely carved into the left side of the pulpit. “Just there ... ‘JC loves CM.’ We were at first greatly distressed, then I realized what we might take it to signify: Jesus Christ loves Clarence Merton.”

He laughed. “Lemons into lemonade, and gospel truth into the bargain! And look here! Such elaborate detailing. He did this, as well?”

“Yes, with the old carving tools given him long ago.”

He ran his fingers over the tooled oak, tracing the path the knife had taken before him.

A crown of thorns.A heart.A dove.A dogwood blossom. And in the center of these, a cross.

“Agnes...” That’s all he could find to say.

She was moved, proud. “Yes.”

“Let’s thank God!” Indeed, it was pray—or bust wide open.

He took her hand in both of his, and they bowed their heads.

“We praise You, Lord, we thank You, Lord, we bless You, Lord!

“Thank You for the marvel and mystery of this place, for these thirty remarkable years of devotion, for Your unceasing encouragement to the hearts and spirits of Your servants, Agnes and Clarence, for Your marvelous gifts to Clarence of resourcefulness and creativity, and for Your gift to them both of a mighty perseverance in faith and prayer.

“We thank You for this nave above the clouds in which Your holy name has been, and will continue to be, honored, praised, and glorified. Thank You for going ahead of us as we visit our neighbors, and cutting for each and every one a wide path to Holy Trinity. Draw whom You will to the tenderness of Your unconditional love, the sweetness of Your everlasting mercy, and the balm of Your unbounded forgiveness.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” they said together.