Come Rain or Come Shine (3 page)

I felt a stone lift off my heart. After that I said it to everyone~ my parents, my parents!

Thank you, God, for helping us through hard times. They are my mom and dad forever.

Maybe the 20th~ D and I talk a lot about living at Meadowgate. It has felt like home to us for years. If we ever marry~ it is scary to write that word!~ I want to stay at home. But I never tell anyone I would like to stay home. What's so wrong with that anyway? Beth dreams of a big job at Goldman Sachs and Laurel wants to design cars. Cars! And she doesn't want children. She says no way.

D and I agree that four would be perfect. He helped raise his four sibs when he was little. He was ten years old and feeding them out of cans and then they all got scattered to the wind and all but Pooh were lost for years. We will never let scattering happen.

Nov 28~ Dooley wants to feel safe with me, but he can't. And I don't really feel safe with him because I don't know where this is going. Beth says that knowing where a relationship is going doesn't solve everything.

She let the journal lie open in her lap. She shouldn't be reading these entries when there were so many happy ones. But the old stuff was good, too—it was a reminder.

She was aware of another reminder—the pain that was so familiar she sometimes forgot it. She reached for the pills she kept in a box on a shelf with the old Britannicas, and swallowed one with a glass of water from their well.

It was her night to make supper happen and she'd hardly given it a thought. Meadowgate was a total commune right now. When the Owens moved out a month ago, she and Father Tim and Cynthia and Harley piled their belongings into three vehicles and moved into this rambling old house, where everybody immediately went to work making things ready for June fourteenth, for the beginning of another life.

Father Tim and Cynthia would move home to Mitford the night of the wedding, but Harley would stay on, helping
with farm chores and general improvements and living in Rebecca Jane's old room with the princess canopy bed. Harley had been her true family when she lived at the Creek; he had been the best place to run when she needed to hide from her father. Not only had Harley protected her when he could, he had encouraged her passion for books and learning. Harley was the best, and now she would take care of him, which was great with Dooley since he also considered Harley ‘blood.'

She loved having family around, including Willie, who had his own little house on the place. He had been the main hand at Meadowgate for years and was always in and out with his weather predictions. Sometimes Blake Eddistoe, Hal's vet tech who would stay on in the practice, stuck around for supper, and sometimes Rebecca Jane Owen, almost sixteen and still crazy about Dooley, would come over with her mom and dad, and there was Lily Flower, who cleaned two days a week and was such a fun nutcase and worked harder than anybody and sometimes had supper with them and washed up after.

Okay. Boiled red potatoes with chives and butter. A salad. And roast chicken with rosemary from the garden. Not two chickens, but three. Enough to make great sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch and soup after.

She paged forward to a blank sheet in the Dooley book, took a deep breath, and wrote the word:
Cherish.

She did not date the entry.

She returned the book to the shelf and hurried to the west-facing windows of the attic studio. In the far corner of the fence line, she saw them. Dooley and Father Tim were specks as they climbed into the truck.

‘Dooley!' Her breath formed a small vapor on the glass.

She lifted her hand and waved, though she knew he couldn't see her.

‘I've been meaning to ask,' he told Cynthia as he changed clothes for supper. ‘What do you wear to a potluck wedding?' He couldn't just float around all day with his vestments flapping in the breeze.

‘Very casual.'

‘A knit shirt?'

‘I don't know about a knit shirt,' she said. ‘Maybe too much of a golfer look.'

‘So, a white dress shirt, maybe? Without the starch?'

‘How about your blue stripe or your blue check? And khakis, I think.'

Khakis. This would be a first. Back in the day, seersucker suits had been de rigueur for Mississippi summer weddings.

‘And socks with your loafers,' she said. ‘Loafers without socks is sort of a good-old-boy look, someone said.'

He ran a comb through what was left of his hair. ‘I'm a pretty good old boy.'

‘The chickens will be done in twenty minutes,' said Lace. ‘If you could please take them out?'

‘Will do.' Cynthia was putting potatoes on to boil.

‘I just need to run up to Heaven. Back in a flash.'

‘I know the feeling. Take your time.'

She did run. All the way to the top of the house to the room Cynthia had called Heaven and claimed as her art studio while living at Meadowgate years ago.

Right there! On just this apple at just this spot, this one simple thing. She brushed in a rough semblance of the
Coccinella septempunctata
and stood back.
Yes
. Cecil Kennedy would be crazy about it if he weren't dead as anything. She wished she could work on it right now, but no way; maybe tomorrow. This painting would rock.

Dooley had come in; she could hear his voice all the way from the kitchen.

She cleaned her brush and, inhaling the aromas rising from the oven, ran down the stairs. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes . . .

She was starved and he would be, too.

H
e had never been to a wedding except the one for his two cousins in Kentucky when he was still haulin' liquor. They were cousins by marriage, not by blood, so no chance of any funny business happenin' to their young'uns.

‘What am I gon' wear?' said Harley.

‘Your teeth, for sure,' said Lace. ‘And a clean shirt and khakis. I'll lay it all out on your bed.'

That dadgum bed. He was mighty thankful to have a bed an' wouldn't complain, but it was criminal for a grown man to be sleepin' in a pink bedstead with a ruffled thingamajig on top.

‘Man,' said Dooley.

She put her hand on his leg—her signal for him to stop jiggling, as she called it.

The house was quiet now, people sleeping, a bit of light from Father Tim and Cynthia's window—Father Tim would be reading in the room that he and Cynthia would turn over to the newlyweds after the wedding. And Harley, Harley would be snoring downstairs in Rebecca Jane's left-behind princess bed, and Willie would be having his midnight snack of cornbread and milk in the little house with walls covered by vintage calendars from the tractor supply, and over at Hilltop, Hal and Marge and Rebecca Jane would be sleeping in rooms still smelling of fresh paint . . .

It was strangely calming to know where everyone was, including Bowser, Bo, Buck, and Bonemeal, the four old farm dogs slung up on the porch at their feet. When Hal and Marge moved to the hill, they had taken five canines, but four had come back and wouldn't go again. They had seen the new place and didn't care for it; this was home.

It had been a long day for Dooley, for everyone at Meadowgate. The clinic closed on Saturdays at noon, but he'd gone in at seven-thirty and looked at the books and rearranged his office and cussed his copier and had a meeting with Hal and Blake and greeted everybody who came through the door. He'd given shots to the heifers, improved the way the south well had been closed up, and checked out the barn loft for hay storage.

‘Five rotten timbers,' he said. ‘Could be worse.' He closed his eyes and leaned back against the cushion of the porch glider. ‘All the waiting we did to get here, and we thought that was hard.' He exhaled. ‘Dreams are a lot of work.'

And she didn't have a dress yet and there were the rentals to be preordered from Holding, who had to order them from Charlotte—tables, chairs, tablecloths, napkins, plates, flatware, glasses. And lanterns to be found for the tables, probably at the co-op—Cynthia would help her paint them—and the invitations waiting to be addressed and this time she would say yes to Olivia, who had volunteered to arrange the flowers, and of course she and Lily would soon be getting on with the rosemary bread they would bake and freeze, four loaves per table, plus cheese wafers . . .

‘Are we crazy?'

Dooley laughed. ‘Still crazy after all these years.'

‘How many years? I bet you can't remember.'

‘The first time I saw you,' he said, ‘you were twelve going on twenty-four.' His eyes were closed and he was grinning.

‘And you were thirteen. You were wearing a blue shirt with a button-down collar.' She didn't remember ever seeing a button-down collar before; she was jealous of his shirt.

He had been a total snot, but she'd never seen anybody as cute and for some reason it made her mad that he was that cute and getting away with it.

‘I can't believe it,' he said.

‘What?'

‘The thing about time. How it flies. I thought only old people thought that.'

‘What I can't believe is, I'm marrying the bratty derp who stole my hat.'

He laughed. ‘And I'm marrying that weird Creek kid who punched me for stealing it. That's really unbelievable.'

Out there were stars and planets and the dark procession of cedars along the fence line.

He wondered how often they had sat on this wicker glider, talking against the night, against the morning when he or she or both would have to get in the car and drive like a rock star and clock in somewhere else. Hal and Marge had gladly conveyed the beat-up porch furniture with the sale, along with a lot of other stuff he and Lace had grown accustomed to. He liked familiar things, things that had been worn in by good people, people he could trust. This afternoon he had bought back the truck he sold his dad a few years ago. He felt safe in that truck, it was worn in just right.

This was her favorite time. Crickets and stars and the person she would spend the rest of her life with. ‘The pool table is coming out Monday,' she said.

‘Where are you putting it?' he said.

‘In the library. Cynthia says she'll miss having it fill up their entire dining room. Harley will bring the library chairs to my studio, and speaking of chairs, I think we should rent the wood finish, not white. Four hundred and twenty dollars for chairs for the ceremony and supper.'

‘Do it,' he said. ‘It's your day.'

‘Our day.'

‘I've been thinking about the tent. A guy at school says a tent rental for fifty people at a sit-down would cost twelve hundred bucks, maybe more. Not in our budget.'

‘But if it rains . . .' Willie pretty much promised rain, a prediction that had made him briefly unpopular.

‘The barn. Tables for ten, end to end, to make one long table down the center aisle. If it rains, the shed will keep it from blowing into the barn.'

‘I love that. It's perfect.'

‘So we could put the food tables in the grain room, sans mice; we'll take the door off. And muck out the stalls.'

‘The stalls should be easy; the girls haven't used them much. I can do that.'

‘Brides don't muck out stalls,' he said.

‘But I like doing it, remember? I used to do it when Hal and Marge had horses. It's very grounding.'

He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You're amazing.'

She didn't feel amazing; she felt worn, somehow. ‘So what about a tent for the ceremony? We need a tent. We can't just sit out in the open. I mean, we could, but if . . .'

‘If rain's predicted, we could do the ceremony on the front porch. We can get fifty chairs on the porch. Ten rows five chairs wide. I measured, we can do it.'

Why remind him that rain hardly ever falls straight down, it falls at a slant? But she was stressing too much about these things, she needed to lighten up.

‘It will be a great day,' he said. ‘Come rain or come shine.'

‘That's an old-fashioned thing my mother used to say before she got sick. Like, she'd scrub the floor tomorrow, come rain or come shine.'

‘My granpa used to say it, too.'

‘I never hear you talk about him.'

‘He was good to me. He saved my life by dumping me on Dad. If he hadn't done that, we probably wouldn't be sitting here tonight. Granpa was too old to do much, and then he was too sick, but he did the best he could while I was with him. He always said, I'm gon' take care of you, boy, come rain or come shine.'

He'd never thanked his granpa, Russell Jacks, who was sexton at Lord's Chapel for a lot of years. He'd been too young and too confused to think about thanking. Obviously, it was too late—or maybe, as some liked to think, it was never too late.

‘I've been coming out here since I was eleven years old,' he said. ‘Why am I just now getting it in my head that there's a lot of work on this place? Nothing ever seemed like work before.'

‘You see the work now because it's yours.'

‘Ours,' he said.

‘Imagine those funny girls with their heads sticking over the stall doors while we're having potluck.' She laughed, a sudden thing, like a cloudburst. It made her feel herself again.

‘We need to keep them out of the barn till hot weather, when they'll need the stalls for shade. By the way, keep reminding everybody to shut the big gate after they feed up.'

‘I will.'

‘We haven't had to close it in a couple of years, so it's easy to forget. The clinic sign will be ready for us to bring home after graduation. It looks great.'

Everyone who drove the Farmer road would see it hanging on its post in a bed of red and yellow zinnias.

‘I'll be back on it in two weeks.' He wouldn't come home next weekend; he would spend it packing up his stuff, saying goodbye, doing a little partying with friends. Then the gown, the crazy hat, the whole nine yards, and immediately after, he was bustin' out of the academic world.

‘Doctor Kavanagh!' She looked at him with a kind of wonder. ‘I can't believe it.'

He thought there was an awful lot they couldn't believe these days.

‘Harley, Hal, Marge, and Rebecca Jane, who still adores you, will all be there,' she said. ‘They're coming in Hal's van.'

‘Hal's van smells like old dogs.'

‘They'll drive with the windows down.'

They laughed a little, holding each other in this moment that wouldn't come again.

‘Hoppy and Olivia are driving up from Charleston, where Hoppy is making a speech, and I'll come with your parents.'

He jiggled his leg; there was too much going on.

‘It would be perfect if all your sibs could come to the wedding,' she said. ‘I know Kenny and Julie can't afford to fly from Oregon and bring the kids, but if I could sell . . .'

‘It's okay. They'll come later. Kenny has a great job doing what he loves, and it's not the best time for him to leave, anyway.'

Something about the bridge Kenny was working on and the government funding going sour.

‘Anyway, all the others will be here,' he said. ‘I talked to Sammy today. He's in Minnesota. A trick shot competition.'

She could see Sammy hunkered over the pool table with his ponytail and the burning look he had when blowing everybody out of the water. And now he was on cable TV, and winning trophies and making money.

She wished her wedding dress would present itself in her mind as clearly as the image of Sammy breaking a rack. Something soft. Ankle-length. Simple but amazing. That's all she knew. And the Seven Sisters roses in a bouquet with rosemary, and a satin ribbon the color of Jersey cream . . .

Rebecca Jane was up for catching the bouquet. ‘Throw it to
me
!' she had begged. ‘It's okay that I'll be a nun and never, ever get married.'

She took his hand and felt the beating of his pulse. They hadn't really talked about his mother coming to the wedding, and how Sammy would feel about it. Sammy hadn't seen her since he was six years old—Pauline had abandoned all but one of her five children when they were really young. But Pauline had changed, of course. Everything about her life had changed, and maybe the wedding would work some miracle for Sammy and his mother. Everybody was praying for that.

‘Inviting her is the right thing to do,' Dooley had said. ‘Sammy and Mama—that's their deal, not mine. So there'll be some tension. There's always some tension at weddings, right?' He had been a groomsman more than a few times.

A heifer bawled from the pasture and was quiet again. He
wanted to crash on the bed in his room next to the porch and sleep for weeks. But he couldn't leave her, not yet—their whole history had been about leaving.

‘I wanted to tell him today,' he said. ‘He mentioned something about . . .'

‘Children.'

‘Yes.'

‘I can't be with you when you tell him. I'll cry and I don't want to.'

‘It's okay,' he said. ‘I'll do it.'

‘But I can tell Cynthia. Hoppy and Olivia and Hal and Marge have known it for so long, I've felt guilty about not telling your parents.' Dooley had wanted to do it sooner, but couldn't.

‘So before I leave in the morning,' he said. ‘It's really bothering me, I've got to do it.'

‘I'll talk to Cynthia while you talk to him. But we can't say anything to anybody about Jack Tyler.'

‘I know. It's too soon.'

He needed to say how much she meant to him, how much he loved and wanted her, but he couldn't manage to say anything right now. Professor Morgan had called him ‘a lad of few words.' That wasn't true. There were words spilling around in him all the time. Too many words. His problem was organizing them.