Light From Heaven (71 page)

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Authors: Jan Karon

BOOK: Light From Heaven
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It wasn’t all roses with Sammy.
But then, he hadn’t expected it to be.
Certainly, the almost-nightly phone talks with Dooley helped. No question.
The garden had helped.
His part-time job with Willie was helping.
And the trips to Bud Wyzer’s pool hall were definitely beneficial, though Sammy resented the fact that he hung around, especially in his collar.
Agreeing that his presence at Bud’s bar compromised Sammy’s sense of independence, the vicar decided to bite the bullet and do something more than hang around.
Come January, he’d take up the game, himself.
Cynthia was dumbfounded. “Glory
be
!” she said.
Where his Yankee wife had learned such talk was beyond him.
“I thought you was p-prayin’ f’r Kenny t’ be f-found.”
“I am. We are.”
“He ain’t showed up.”
“Perhaps God has something else for Kenny’s life. Something more important.”
“Wh-what could be more important than b-bein’ with ...”
“Family?” Sammy had never used that word in the vicar’s hearing. “I don’t know. But God knows.”
“M-maybe you need t’ ch-change y’rprayer.”
“I’m expecting God to send him, I believe God will send him, but in the end ...”
“In th’ end, what?”
“I continue to pray the prayer that never fails.”
“Wh-what’s it say, I f’rgit.”
“Thy will be done. It’s what our Lord prayed when He knew He was going to be crucified, it’s ...”
“An’ s-see what happened?” Sammy looked deeply troubled. “It d-didn’ work.”
“So! We’re hoping Dooley and Lace will be Mary and Joseph and of course, Father Tim will be a shepherd.You’ll make a perfect wise man, and the costume will be lots of fun; I’ll make it myself. We hope you’ll do it; we really need you to do it!”
His wife was aware that this wouldn’t be an easy casting job. “We’ll give him everything he likes for dinner, and I’ll use the word
need.
What can he say?”
“No,” said Sammy.
“I’ve got a great idea.”
They were sitting in the kitchen before a blazing fire. Lloyd had claimed the new chimney would draw better than it had in its heyday, and from the looks of things, he was right.
“We’ll get our tree from the woods on the Thursday before Christmas.You, Dooley,Lace, Sammy, Willie, we’ll all go out looking. How does that sound?”
He remembered how he and Peggy, his mother’s housekeeper, had gone to the woods with a wagon and ax and chopped down what they had imagined to be a forty-foot cedar. It had been an immense accomplishment, even if the tree, as it turned out, reached only halfway to the ceiling.
“Straight from a Victorian postcard,” said his wife. “And a perfect opportunity for hot chocolate in a thermos! I love it!”
“Cynthia, Cynthia, what don’t you love?”
“Shopping malls at any time of year, especially now; flea shampoo that does nothing more than attract a new colony of fleas; and roasts that cost a fortune and cook out dry”
“When I ask you this question, you always have the answer on the tip of your tongue. How do you
do
that?”
“I don’t know, I suppose it’s just
in
there, waiting to get out.”
“Where shall we put the tree?”
“On the window seat, don’t you think? There’s plenty of room. Of course, no one can see it from the road, which is a shame. I love to see Christmas trees shining in windows. But the kitchen is where we live.”
“Done!” He went to the drawer by the stove and searched for the tape measure.
“Our boy will be rolling in tomorrow afternoon. What if I take us all to dinner at Lucera?”
“Umm,” she said.
“Umm? You wouldn’t like a fancy, overpriced dinner?”
“No, darling. And Dooley wouldn’t, either, nor would Sammy, nor would you. But thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He measured the depth of the window seat, and the height and width of the cubicle.
“Short and fat!”
His wife looked up from her book.
“Not you, Kavanagh.”
He occasionally wandered through the house, gazing at the plaster Nativity scene.
While Mary and Joseph waited patiently on the window seat where the tree would be placed, the humble old shepherd and his flock resided in the library on the coffee table, and the wise men and their amusing camel had been appropriately placed “afar,” in the parlor bookcase.
Unbeknownst to anyone but the vicar, the Child lay in a bureau drawer, swaddled in one of his undershirts.
It was no surprise that he’d been sent to Mitford on more than one occasion to haul back items for the holy days:
Old sheets for costumes, rope from Harley’s vast supply of odds and ends, candles, wreath frames, ribbon, wrapping paper, gift boxes ...
“Plunder!” he said, off-loading it all onto the kitchen table.
“Did you tell Willie we’ll need straw?”
“Straw is easily come by, not to worry”
“I wish we could bring a lamb or two inside,” she said, actually meaning it.
“Where are we going with this thing? You’ll have me building the walls of Bethlehem as a backdrop.”
“Wouldn’t
that
be wonderful?” she said, looking interested.
When his wife wasn’t doing a book or a wall calendar, she was a force to be reckoned with.
Two bowls of popcorn were making the rounds of their small soiree by the fire.
“I thought it would be lovely if we added something,” announced their director. “Lace, will you read a poem for us on Christmas Eve?”
“I will!”
“Since our entire cast is assembled, save for a wise man, which is very hard to find these days, I was thinking it would be good if you read the poem to us tonight. Then, when we hear it again on Christmas Eve, it should have fresh depth and meaning for us all. What do you think?”
Lace took the book Cynthia proffered; her amber eyes scanned the poem.
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, and began to read.
“Let the stable still astonish;
Straw
—
dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?”
Father Tim watched the firelight cast shadows on the faces of his loved ones. The recovered Bo snored at his feet.
“Who would have said: ‘Yes.
Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts
and says, ‘Yes.
let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here
—
in this place.’”
There was a thoughtful silence among them. The fire crackled.
“It d-don’t rhyme,” said Sammy.
“Not all poetry rhymes,” said Father Tim. That was absolutely everything he knew about the subject. “Beautiful, Lace.You have the voice of an angel.”
“Perhaps you could let everyone assemble around the manger, then you come into the room, read the poem, and take your place in the scene. What do you think?” Cynthia queried the cast.
“Brilliant!” said Father Tim.
“Sure,” said Dooley.
“I like it,” said Lace. “Should I just tuck the poem in my robe, afterward, and sit on the hay bale beside the manger?”
“Perfect!” said their director. “And Father Tim will kneel to Joseph’s right—with Barnabas, of course. Timothy, do you have the shepherd’s crook?”
“On top of the old cupboard, ready to roll.”
“And then, we’ll all sing ‘Silent Night,’ and Sammy will plug in the tree.”
“What are you going to be?” Dooley asked Cynthia.
“I’ll be the innkeeper.”
“That’s sort of a mean role—to have to say there’s no room in the inn, sorry, go sleep in the stable.”
“Business is business. If you’re an inn and you’re full up, well, then, there’s no room. Just think of all those people swarming into town to pay their taxes, poor souls. And how many inns could there have been? Certainly not enough!”
“And who knew they would be turning away the King of Kings?” asked Lace.
“There’s the rub!” said the vicar, getting into the spirit of things.
“Of course, there won’t be any speaking,” Cynthia advised the cast.
Dooley looked aghast. “Just ...
silence?”
“Yes. We’ll use that time to look inside ourselves, to try and feel what they were feeling.”
“How could we know what they were feeling?”
“How did Lee J. Cobb know what Willy Loman was feeling? He wasn’t a salesman, he was an actor. Better still, how did John Gielgud know what Hamlet was feeling when he killed Claudius—Mr. Gielgud wasn’t a murderer, he was an actor.”

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