These High, Green Hills (66 page)

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Authors: Jan Karon

BOOK: These High, Green Hills
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“There’s a large riding stable coming in about a mile down the road, they’ve asked me to vet the horses. That could be a full-time job, right there.”
“I understand. Of course. Your practice is growing.”
“We’ll miss the boy, Tim, you know how we feel about him, how Rebecca Jane loves him. But look, we’ll have him out the first two weeks he’s home from school, if that works for you.”
“Absolutely.”
“Ah...”
“Yes?”
“Will you tell him?”
“I will. I’ll talk to him in the next couple of days, get him thinking of what to do this summer. Be good for him.”
“So why don’t you and Cynthia plan to bring him out and spend the day? Bring Barnabas, too. Marge will make your favorite.”
Deep-dish chicken pie, with a crust like French pastry. “We’ll be there!” he said, meaning it.
“Will you tell him?” he asked Cynthia.
“No way,” she said.
Nobody wanted to tell Dooley Barlowe that he couldn’t spend the summer doing what he loved more than anything on earth.
She opened her eyes and rolled over to find him sitting up in bed.
“Oh, my dear! Oh, my goodness! What happened?”
He loved the look on his wife’s face, he wanted to savor it. “It’s already turned a few colors,” he said, removing his hand from his right temple.
She peered at him as if he were a butterfly on a pin. “Yes! Black ... and blue and ... the tiniest bit of yellow.”
“My old school colors,” he said.
“But what happened?” He never heard such tssking and gasping.
“T. D. A,” he replied.
“The dreaded armoire? What do you mean?”
“I mean that I got up in the middle of the night, in the dark, and went out to the landing, and opened the windows to give Barnabas a cool breeze. As I careened through the bedroom on my way to the bathroom, I slammed into the blasted thing.”
“Oh, no. Oh, heavens. What can I do? And tomorrow’s Sunday!”
“Spousal abuse,” he muttered. “In today’s TV news climate, my congregation will pick up on it immediately.”
“Timothy, dearest, I’m so sorry. I’ll get something for you, I don’t know what, but something. Just stay right there and don’t move.”
She put on her slippers and robe and flew downstairs, Barnabas barking at her heels.
T. D. A. might stand for “The
Dreaded
Armoire” as far as his wife was concerned. As far as
he
was concerned, it stood for something else entirely.
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