Come Rain or Come Shine (4 page)

He had held himself away from her for years until that Christmas at Meadowgate. It had snowed and they had gone out in it with Bowser and Bonemeal and a sled and she was
wearing the jacket with the hood and the snow was coming down very fast and he couldn't believe how beautiful she was, so beautiful in some new way that he felt he didn't deserve such beauty, it was beyond him. He was struck by the sudden understanding that he could lose her by not loving her enough.

He had gripped her hand and they moved on. He was carrying a weight he couldn't identify—a heaviness that must be given up.

They had stopped to look over their tracks and across to the farmhouse with its vine of smoke from the kitchen chimney. Something shifted in him then, and he knew without thinking what was about to happen. He was terrified, but didn't look down. He leaped from one bank of the chasm to the other—and she received him with a tenderness he couldn't name. He was safe; he was home.

He drew her closer, felt the beating of her heart. A lot of times their hearts beat in different rhythms, but tonight they beat together, a rare thing that had never happened with anyone else.

After breakfast he walked out with his dad and they sat on a bench under the barn shed.

There would be no children for them; they had known it for quite a while. They had processed this truth in several
different ways, which took time and emotional energy, and they hadn't really been ready to talk about it.

Lace had been diagnosed with adhesive disease, caused by infections due to rupture in the abdominal cavity. The problem, which was almost constantly painful, couldn't be detected by CAT scans or MRI images and for years had been treated as irritable bowel syndrome.

Her father had kicked her twice in the abdomen. ‘The first time,' said Dooley, ‘she was seven years old. The second time, she was ten.' She had been frightened by the menstrual blood and the terrible yelling of her father, and her mother hiding beneath the bedcovers.

He said all this as best he could without flying into a rage or breaking down. He had broken down once in a KFC drive-through, once when talking to a professor, and more than a few times with Lace.

Dooley stood and caught his breath. All the telling had been done now; it was nobody else's business. He felt some of the fury and sorrow lift off and saw that his dad was weeping, and in a gesture in which he felt like the parent, he put his arm around his dad's shoulders and promised himself this would be the last time he would mourn what could not be
changed.

T
he smells of Lily's breakfast wafted his way.

He finagled his morning insulin shot and stood by the bedroom window, buttoning his shirt. Ha! There was Harley getting out of an older-model car with a ski rack.

‘I just saw Harley coming in,' he told Willie.

‘Been over at Jake's for a sausage biscuit. With th' woman he met when he hitched home from th' tire store.' Willie set a hatful of eggs on the kitchen counter.

‘He looks mighty jaunty.'

‘They went for a ride last evenin'.' Willie gave him a look.

As a parson, he was accustomed to knowing what was going on with people. He was completely in the dark about this. ‘How old is this person?'

‘Says she's th' same age as him.'

‘Must not be her ski rack, then.'

‘Nossir, she don't ski, but says a rack makes 'er feel young.'

‘That's one way,' he said.

He walked to the barn with Harley, who would be foreman on the removal and replacement of the barn's rotten floorboards.

‘She wants me to go t' Las Vegas,' said Harley. ‘She'll do th' drivin'.'

‘Las Vegas,
Nevada
?'

‘You can see th' pyramids, she says, I always wanted to see th' pyramids, an' you can ride in a boat on a river inside a buildin'.'

‘No way,' he said.

‘Yessir, she's been there in person.'

He opened the barn door; Daisy, LuLu, and Pete came running to the cat bowls.

‘When is this to take place?'

‘I ain't said nothin' to Dooley yet. Sometime after th' weddin', like ever'thing else.'

‘You really want to go to Las Vegas?'

‘Life is short,' said Harley. ‘God is good. An' th' best things in life are free.'

He had never heard talk like this from Harley Welch.

‘Las Vegas is not free. I know that much.'

‘I've got a little money saved back. A good bit, t' tell th' truth.'

He scooped dry food into the bowls.

‘Does this person know that?'

‘I told her right down to th' penny, an' Amber, she says she's got a good bit saved back her ownself.'

He was no mother hen, but he didn't like the sound of this.

‘Maybe we should invite her over for . . . I don't know . . . a glass of tea?'

‘Why?' said Cynthia.

‘To check her out.'

‘Harley is a grown man.'

‘But Las
Vegas
? With a woman driving a
ski rack
?' Where were his wife's
instincts
?

‘I don't believe Harley would actually stray that far from home. Anyway, I thought he was smitten with Miss Pringle.'

‘Harley was smitten with Miss Pringle when he was with Miss Pringle, and now he's with this Amber person.' He remembered the book that came out in the forties, which Tommy Noles found in his mother's apron drawer. He had been interested in the map of London in the frontispiece until Tommy showed him what was what.

His wife gave him a smile. ‘She has a roofing business.'

‘A what?'

‘A roofing business.'

‘Cynthia. Listen to me. This cannot go on. This ski person is not Harley's type. A roofing business!'

‘Roofing can be very lucrative.'

Sometimes it was hard being married to an open-minded woman.

He would ask Lily, who catered the Wesley mayor's annual shindig and knew everybody in these coves and hollers.

‘Amber,' he said.

‘What's her last name?'

‘I have no idea, I thought the first name would be enough to . . . you don't know her?'

‘I do not know anybody named Amber in the roofin' business.'

‘So who do you know in the roofing business?'

‘Tim Bolick. Randy Chase. Billy Upton. Charlie Knight. That's it.'

‘Can you call around and see if they know anything about this person?'

She gave him a squinty look.

‘Early-model Toyota hatchback,' he said. ‘White. Ski rack.'

‘I never said she was a roofer, I said she's a hoofer.'

He was stunned. ‘A hoofer?'

‘A dancer,' said Harley, grinning.

He wished Harley would put his teeth in, he had gotten used to seeing them. ‘A dancer?'

‘Yessir.'

‘At her age?'

‘She says look at Tina Turner.'

He literally raced to find his wife, who was sitting on the floor in the front hall, painting baseboards.

‘Remember,' she said, ‘that you swore to never get involved again in somebody's romance.'

‘Did I say that?'

‘When Shirlene and Omer . . .'

‘But that turned out great. They're happily married!'

‘Correct. But you said you would completely quit meddling in people's romances.'

So his wife was confirming that it was a romance. It was official.

‘Harley says she's not a roofer. She's a hoofer.'

‘A hoofer?'

‘A dancer.'

‘An exotic dancer?'

‘I have no idea,' he said.

Who would stop this craziness? Why was he always the one to worry about things?

His wife looked up at him, puzzled. ‘But where in heaven's name would she
hoof
in these mountains? I mean, really, honey. Think about it.'

‘Maybe she doesn't live here, she's just passing through.' More reason to be concerned.

Getting no help from his wife, he went to see Lace in her attic studio. There had been zero chance to speak with her
since his talk with Dooley yesterday morning, and now wouldn't be a good time. People could not write sermons or paint paintings or accomplish much of anything with people knocking on the door, but this was
life
and so be it.

‘It's you!' said Lace, obviously pleased.

He made his apologies. ‘This Amber person is not a roofer, she's a hoofer.'

‘I know.' She wiped her knife with a rag. ‘He seems so happy about her. But of course he can't go to Las Vegas and let her spend his money.'

Thanks be to God, there was someone in this household with a rational world view.

‘Praying for you,' he said, awkward. ‘I'm sorry.' Worse than sorry, he and Cynthia were grieved, but this wasn't the time.

‘It's okay,' she said, hoping to make him feel better. It wasn't really okay, but maybe it would be, could be . . .

‘Should we call Miss Pringle? Invite her out for . . . a little visit?'

Lace laid the knife in the easel tray. ‘I think it's too late for Miss Pringle.'

Too late for Miss Pringle!

Down he went to the kitchen, where Lily was scrubbing the bare pine floor.

‘What did you hear from your roofers?'

‘Nothin'. They're all workin', is my guess. It's good roofin' weather.'

‘It's just as well. This Amber person is not a roofer, she's a hoofer.'

‘A what?'

‘A hoofer. A dancer.'

‘Oh, boy,' said Lily. ‘This train is movin'. He's got a date this evenin'. He asked me if I thought he was too old to call it a date.'

‘I was pretty old,' he said, ‘and I called it a date.'

‘Well, there you go. You want a glass of tea?'

‘No, thanks.'

He looked at the current job list pushpinned to the corkboard beside the back door.

Weed ALL borders once weekly prior to 14th

Measure barn aisle to the inch TODAY

It was clear that this list had been written by his wife, who was fond of capital letters and telling people what to do.

Work ROTTED barn dirt into kitchen garden

Weed-eat chicken run TODAY and AGAIN June 13

Order SIX flats white impatiens at co-op for pickup May 14

Mark your calendar to plant impatiens either side barn door on May 15—remember to WATER after planting

Pick up signpost and green paint next Tuesday at co-op

Day before wedding, use pooper scooper around main house AND path to barn

Remember to CHECK FINISHED PROJECTS OFF THIS LIST

‘Are you okay?' said Lily.

‘I am.'

‘You don't look it.'

‘Thank you,' he said.

‘It's th' red Agnes!' She peered out the window to the pasture. ‘They are so cute.'

‘
Ang
us,' he said for the fourth or fifth time.

‘Right,' she said.