A Light in the Window (38 page)

“I was in New York, but now I’m in Mitford.”

“Well, that explains it,” she said airily.

At nine-thirty, Cynthia popped through the hedge to the rectory.

He had laid the table for breakfast in the dining room, something he had done only a few times in thirteen years. On the other side of the window, the birds were at the feeder, and the sun shone warmly on every wet branch from the night’s rain.

“Timothy!” she said, with something like wonder. “You’ve outdone yourself!”

And he had, rather. Grilled sausages from the valley, grits, an omelet with mushrooms and Monterey Jack, Avis Packard’s homemade salsa, English muffins with a coarsely-cut orange marmalade, and coffee that was still in the bean only moments ago.

“I love salsa!” she said, helping herself after the blessing. “I love grits!”

His heart swelled at the very look of her; he was thrilled to see her eating like a stevedore.

She dipped into the salsa. “I’ve decided I’m not going to do
Violet Goes to New York.
James thinks I’m some kind of milk cow, I suppose, made to bring forth whatever strikes his fancy.

“Besides, I’m not going to work myself to death doing a book I don’t even want to do. If anything, I’ll do
Violet Goes to Mitford!
How’s that?”

“Terrific! That’s the spirit!”

“You’re on a roll,” he said, buttering her muffin. “Best-sellers, every one!”

“Oh,” she giggled, leaning back in her chair. “I’m so glad to be home.”

“Let’s go for a walk after breakfast.”

“And see Miss Rose and Uncle Billy?”

“Do we have to? She was threatening cinnamon stickies the last time they invited us, or was it banana pudding? Well, at least we can see the new sign the mayor put up in their yard.”

“Let’s go shopping at The Local, too, and I’ll make dinner for you and Dooley tonight.”

“Excellent! I accept. And we can stop off and see the new kneelers at Lord’s Chapel. But of course, you’ll see them on Sunday.”

The light faded from her eyes. “I have to go back tomorrow afternoon.”

“No ...”

“It’s the revisions, you see. There’s no help for it. This ... my dearest, is stolen time.”

Stolen time.

He took her hand and turned it over to see the small, uplifted palm. He kissed its softness and placed her palm against his cheek.

Stolen time.

He would willingly be the blackest of thieves.

He remembered a speaker at a seminar who had put five large stones in a glass. Those were the important things in life, the speaker said and went on to demonstrate how the small stones, or less important things, could easily be put in and shaken down among the cracks.

However, if the small stones were put in first, it was impossible to add the large stones.

He called Emma. “I won’t be in at all, actually.”

The last time he hadn’t come in at all, she remembered, he’d been deathly sick. He certainly didn’t sound sick this time. He sounded like he had never felt better in his life.

They were going out the back door when the phone rang. “Father?”

“Yes, Evie?”

“Forgive me for calling you at home, Father, but I just had to ask ... Can you, would you please come by for a few minutes?”

He could hear Evie trying to suppress the tears that always threatened when she talked with her priest.

“It’s nothing really bad this time, it’s just ...” She hesitated for a moment, then wailed, “... it’s just
general!
”

“I’m on my way,” he said.

“What did you get in your stocking?” Miss Pattie wanted to know.

“My stocking?” asked Cynthia, who inspected her legs at once.

“She thinks it’s Christmas,” said Evie, helping her mother to the sofa, where she sat down, plump and serene as a cherub.

“We baked it all morning!” Miss Pattie exclaimed.

Cynthia joined the old woman on the sofa. “Really?”

“I baked, Evie basted. But we do our cornbread dressing separate. We don’t like stuffing.” Miss Pattie wrinkled her nose.

“Now, she thinks it’s Thanksgiving,” said Evie, looking desperate. “She likes holidays.”

“Have a drumstick!” Miss Pattie passed a green ashtray to Cynthia, who stared at it, then selected something imaginary from it and took a large bite. The rector noted that she also pretended to chew.

“Delicious!” she said bravely, wiping the corners of her mouth with her fingers. “Just the way I like it! Juicy on the inside, crisp on the outside!”

“Not too dry, is it?” Miss Pattie leaned forward with interest.

“Not one bit!”

“I like the part that goes over the fence last, myself.”

“Mama, for Pete’s sake!” said Evie.

Miss Pattie turned to the rector. “Have some cranberry sauce, and pass it to your wife.” She gave him a copy of
Southern Living
from the lamp table. “It’s homemade, you know.”

“Thank you,” he said, handing the magazine to Cynthia as if it were a hot potato.

“Oh, mercy, I forgot.” Miss Pattie lifted the hem of her dress and tucked it into her collar. “Father, would you say the blessing?”

“You’re wonderful,” he said. They had detoured to a bench in the bookstore garden.

“I am?”

“To eat the drumstick.”

She leaned her head to one side and smiled.

“I thought,” he said, feeling oddly moved, “that was the most generous thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” He saw the laughter in her eyes.

“You know I wouldn’t, and I’m less the man for it. But for you, it was ... natural.”

“Yes, well, you see, I prefer dark meat.”

They laughed so hard that someone passing on Main Street looked suspiciously into the tiny garden.

“To tell the truth, I was frightened to death,” she said at last.

“Whatever for?”

“Because I didn’t want to embarrass you, or hurt Evie’s feelings, or disappoint Miss Pattie. But I couldn’t just sit there staring at that ashtray in the shape of a frog. So I ate the drumstick.”

“Well done,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“It’s the first time I’ve been part of your ... work. It was an honor, Timothy.”

As they walked to The Local, he thought of the relief they’d seen on Evie’s face and Miss Pattie sitting upright on the sofa, snoring peacefully. Yet, the visit had been nothing more than a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. He had always wrestled with the frustrating smallness of the things he was able to do. “Let God take care of the big stuff,” a seminary friend once said. “It’s our job to fill in the cracks. Kind of like caulking.”

As they shopped for vegetables at The Local, Miss Pattie’s sing-song voice came to him: “... and pass it to your wife.”

When Cynthia glanced up from the artichokes, his face grew suddenly warm, and he could scarcely look her in the eye.

She had made a superb dinner in his own kitchen. Dooley had eaten like a horse and, after washing the dishes at lightning speed, had gone to spend the night with Tommy.

Now they sat together on the sofa, holding hands and listening to one of her Mozart CDs on his player. Tonight was certainly not a night for the tango. Or was it the rhumba?

The smallest of fires crackled on the grate, and he thought how this very thing was what he had wanted all his life. In some unspoken place in himself, in a place he had never regarded or chosen to recognize, had been the longing to sit with someone in this inexplicable peace. He felt oddly complete, as if the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle had been slipped into place.

“How was it for you in New York?” she asked, putting her head on his shoulder. “Were you frightened?”

“Frightened? I was frightened of going, but once I got there, I was ... almost happy, I think. Flying seems to be the worst of it, the taking off and the landing. But in the end, old fears passed away, and there was the good fellow in the taxi and Miss Addison and Walter. Miss Addison felt woefully sorry for me. She said that very thing had happened to her in Vienna.”

“Really? Tell me.”

“She went there as a surprise to meet her husband while he was on a business trip, and all the while he was flying to her in Paris.”

“Paris to Vienna, New York to Mitford, it’s all the same,” she murmured against his cheek. “You’re my hero.”

He had been a lot of things but never ever a hero. He cleared his throat. “I don’t think I’d like to do it again.” He thought he should say that, just for the record.

“Did you see Palestrina?”

“The Barnabas of the cat kingdom! Large! She had it in for me. I could tell by the look in her eyes. I would not want to be in a closed room with that cat.”

“Oh, Palestrina is all bark and no bite.”

They laughed uproariously.