A Light in the Window (8 page)

Why could he get no further than this?

When he walked home at four-thirty, he was planning to go to his study, sit down, and force himself to write the letter explaining everything.

Instead, he marched through the hedge and up her back steps and hammered on the door. He knew she was in there; her Mazda was parked in the garage.

Not a sound. He might have been pounding on the door of a tomb.

He felt certain someone was watching him. She was probably looking out the bathroom window, chuckling to herself. Or worse, she’d gone to the club with Andrew Gregory and was doing the tango with the new social director who reputedly looked like Tyrone Power.

Blast!

He stomped through the hedge. Maybe he’d go for a ride on his motor scooter. Maybe he’d open it up on that flat road to Farmer and see, for once, just what it could do. He must remember not to hit the brake too hard; it would lock the rear wheel and lay the bike down. He’d have to hurry if he wanted to get back by six o’clock to feed Dooley who was at football practice.

As he opened the back door, a marvelous aroma greeted him. There was a pot on the stove, a casserole in the oven, and a note on the counter.

There it was. A perfect excuse to call and say he was coming over with hot, homemade stew.

“Hello,” her answering machine said brightly, “I’m sorry I can’t talk to you in person, but Violet and I are in New York for awhile. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks!”

His heart pounded as he hung up the receiver.

In New York?

Not right next door, where he might have gone and had a talk with her and arranged a time for them to do the simple thing she asked.

In New York.

He felt an awful emptiness. Even the quality of the afternoon light seemed suddenly flat and dull.

He heard Barnabas in the garage barking to go out, but he sat down on his stool at the counter and stared at the morning mail, not seeing it.

When he stopped in to see the mayor and the renderings of the statue, she looked him up and down.

“You’re antsy,” she said. “You ought to get you a chew of tobacco to work on. That’s what Ray does, an’ it helps him every time.”

Get a haircut!

See your neighbor!

Loosen up!

Take a laxative!

Chew tobacco!

Women were forever trying to tell him what to do. What he needed was the company of other men. Perhaps he should go hunting. But then, he’d never been hunting in his life.

He saw himself stalking something through the woods, possibly a deer, which made him feel nauseated. Then he saw himself tripping over the gun and blowing his head off.

No, he was not outfitted for stalking anything. And no wonder. His father had not only refused to take him hunting and fishing but refused to let him go with anyone else. He had ended up with his nose stuck in a book when he might have been bagging a few quail with Tommy Noles.

The truth was if he wanted male camaraderie, he’d have to get it in his private club—that finest of institutions known as the Main Street Grill.

In the meantime, he would pour himself into his work as he hadn’t done in years. And, he would mind his health with more spirit than ever. No, he was not ready to retire. Stuart had seen all along something he couldn’t see. He had many more years left to serve, and that was what he wanted to do, desperately. If nothing else came of his feelings for Cynthia, he had realized, at last, that he wanted to go on, with more stamina and conviction than ever.

He needed to look into Olivia’s Bible-reading group, which had become so popular that other churches in the diocese had requested bookings.

He needed to make time for a Youth Choir supper and ferret out his final Bane and Blessing contribution, perhaps that lace cloth bought so long ago for the rectory by the old bishop’s wife, which should fetch a nice sum.

There was the visit to Absalom Greer coming up, the final touches required to pull together the Men’s Prayer Breakfast, the slide show of his Ireland trip for the ECW and the choir, and the Francis of Assisi observance that would be held in the church gardens. He needed to prepare some remarks for the presentation of the fountain to be installed near the memorial roses.

He needed, also, to get by and see Miss Pattie, and he absolutely had to check on Russell Jacks, their church sexton and Dooley’s grandfather.

Though it wasn’t on his list of church matters, Dooley Barlowe must have clothes—at once. That meant an evening sorting through Dooley’s closet, followed by an afternoon in Wesley.

On top of everything else, of course, were the upcoming sermons. The one he preached on returning from Ireland had been like a crude raft launched upon the ocean; he had nearly swamped himself. That he could have gotten so rusty after two short months was astounding to him.

“Why don’t you use one you already done? Did?” Dooley had asked.

Sermons, like manna, he replied, must be fresh. He’d once heard a priest say that he prepared his sermons up to a year in advance! He’d been incredulous.

For him, making a sermon was like getting dressed in the mornings. As the Spirit moved, one put on what one felt like wearing that particular day. After all, who could preach effectively from a prepared sermon on joy when he might be feeling as dull as a post? No, he would not be tempted by prepared sermons any more than he might be tempted by the meatloaf Puny made eight days ago, sitting in the refrigerator in Saran Wrap.

Soon, he wanted to preach on personal, as compared to institutional, salvation. Confessing Christ before others was an act of institutional salvation that most churchgoers had done long ago. He wanted to get at something more compelling, more life-changing-the process of personal confession, of personal relationship with Christ. He also wanted to point out that being a priest no more assured him of heaven than being a chipmunk would assure him of nuts for winter.

He realized he hadn’t felt so strong in nearly a year. He would go home, put on his jogging suit, and take Barnabas for a run up Church Hill if the blasted rain would hold off long enough. Yesterday, the sun shone until everything he beheld revealed its dazzle. Then, today, the gray clouds stretched across the heavens like a canopy of steel.

He had turned the corner toward the rectory when he saw it.

A moving van was backed within inches of Cynthia’s front door, barely missing the bushes she had so proudly twined last year with strings of Christmas lights.

“Wait up!” he called, running. He reached the van just as two men came out with her drawing board.

“What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely, feeling his heart thunder in his ears.

“We’re loadin’ this van,” said the man with a tattoo on his arm.

“What for? Why are you loading this van when someone lives here? This is a permanent residence!”

“Coppersmith. We’re movin’ a Coppersmith. And if we’re goin’ to make time, we gotta haul butt outta here.”

“Where? Where are you moving Miss Coppersmith?” He was afraid to hear the answer.

“New York City,” they said in unison, disappearing into the van with the drawing board.

“Eat you some grits,” said Percy.

“Eat! Eat! Is that all anyone can think of? I’m not here to eat.” He came closer to cursing than he had come in years. It was right there, waiting to be spoken, but he turned from it, ashen.

“Dadgum,” said Percy quietly.

He sat frozen in the booth, thankful that Emma was out with a toothache. If he had been trapped today in that minuscule office with Emma Newland, he couldn’t have hacked it. He felt stripped, exposed, not wanting anyone to speak to him.

Eat. Well, if that’s not what he came here to do, what was he doing here? The tea looked insipid to him. He went to the counter and took his mug off the rack.

“I’ll have coffee. Half decaf.”

Percy filled the mug without a word.

“Sorry.”

Percy nodded. He would make it up to him, the rector thought. He had no right to bite the head off one of his staunchest friends. He felt humiliated. Was this what life was going to be like because things hadn’t gone to suit him?

The salty old evangelist, Vance Havner, once preached at his mother’s church and told a story he’d never forgotten. “How’re you?” the preacher had asked one of his congregation. “Oh, pretty good, under the circumstances,” was the reply. “What I want to know,” said Havner, peering intently at his audience, “is what is a Christian doing under the circumstances?”

What, indeed, was he doing under the circumstances?’

Straighten me out, Lord, he prayed, before I become an embarrassment to you and everybody else.

“Only the mediocre man is always at his best,” Somerset Maugham had said.

Aha, he thought, hoping to find some consolation in this.

He did not find any.

“Have you started on the family research?” his cousin Walter wanted to know when he called from New Jersey.

“Haven’t touched it,” he said. “Too much going on.”

“Like what?”

He reeled off his list dutifully, thinking it sounded pretty flat after all. He needed a big wedding, perhaps, or a baptism. He always loved celebrations that filled the church with flowers and relatives and that little hum of excitement and love that gave special witness to the Holy Spirit.

“What about your neighbor?”

“What about her?”

“Blast, Timothy! You know what I mean. Tell all, or I’ll put Katherine on.
She’ll
be unmerciful.”

Lord knows, that was the truth. “She moved to New York.”

“What?” Why did his cousin sound so personally affronted? What was it to him that she moved to New York? “Why?”

“I don’t have the particulars.”

“Well, if you don’t have the particulars, who does?”

“Walter ...”

“You let her slip away, didn’t you, old boy? Right through your fingers. As if you could afford such a thing ...”

“What do you mean, as if I could afford ...”

“How many men your age, in your income bracket, would be pursued by a good-looking woman with all her wits about her? She sounded like a prize to me, but if you’re so hell-bent on growing old alone, with no one to ...”

“Walter,” he said sternly, “put Katherine on.”

“Hello, Teds!” She had called him by this silly nickname for twenty years, which she had thankfully shortened from the early version, “Teddy Bear.”

“You wicked girl, how are you?”

“Oh, fine, I suppose, as long as Walter goes into the city. But he’s been home for days with a runny nose. You’d think it was terminal. I’ve fetched and carried like a slave.”

“There’s a good wife.”

“Speaking of wife, how’s your neighbor?” She had never owned the slightest streak of discretion.