Light From Heaven (27 page)

“We may have a paying job for you right here, if you’re interested. After all, if we’re going to have tomato sandwiches, we’ve got to have tomatoes. I’m pretty good with roses, but don’t know much about tomatoes.”

A light flickered in the boy’s eyes. “I can grow t’maters, big time.”

“I’ll bet you can.”

“C-cukes, squash, melon, pole beans, all ’at.”

“Okra?” He was a fool for okra.

“I ain’t never g-growed okra but I could do it.”

“Any plans to go back to your father?”

“I ain’t n-never goin’ back. He pulled a gun on me, made me set still without hardly b-breathin’, said if I moved he’d blow m’ brains out. He was b-bad drunk. After while, he passed out an’ I run. I slep’ that night in’ the neighbor’s garage an’ kep’ goin’ ’til I c-come t’ M-Morganton. I found a nurs’ry an’ got a job.”

“Where did you stay?”

“I slep’ in th’ sh-shed where they kep’ th’ clay pots an’ all. I hope him an’ C-Cate Turner is burnin’ in hell right now.”

There was a long silence; only the squawking of the guineas, the call of a bird.

“What became of your beautiful garden?” Father Tim remembered the garden Sammy had created in “a waste place,” as the Bible sometimes put it; its loveliness had brought tears to his eyes.

Sammy shrugged. “It’ll g-grow over an’ nobody’ ll know it was there.”

“Any idea where you want to go from here?”

“Don’t know where I’d s-stay at.”

“Cynthia and I talked about it; we’d like you to stay with us for a while. But we have a few house rules.”

Better lay it out upfront.

“No smoking. No cussing. Keep your room in order. If you leave, let us know where you’re going. Curfew—eleven o’clock.”

Sammy watched the guineas disappear around the smokehouse. The old scar on his face reddened.

“Did you hear me, son?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Interested?”

Sammy nodded. “Yeah.”

“How long since you were in school?”

“I ain’t been t’ school since eighth grade, an’ I ain’t goin’ back, neither.”

“How old are you?”

“S-s-sixteen.”

“When did you turn sixteen?”

Sammy shot him an aggrieved look.

“If you’re going to stay with us, and I hope you will, I need to know the score.”

“Last month.”

“March, then.”

“Yeah. Th’ fourteenth.”

In North Carolina, it was legally permissible to drop out of school at the age of sixteen.While that may not be the best of rulings, Father Tim was relieved; if they had to force Sammy to go to school, Sammy might be lost to them forever.

Father Tim sniffed the air; a wondrous aroma was wending its way through the kitchen door and out to the porch ...

It had a been a long time since Sammy had wolfed down his supper last night and crashed on Annie’s bed without removing his clothes.

“That muffin we had a while ago is history. Let’s go in and have some breakfast.”

Sammy shot to his feet; a grin tried to spread across his face. The vicar noted that Sammy caught it before it got very far. In any case, it was sunlight breaking through leaden clouds.

Good Friday was a fast day, and though Cynthia later vowed she’d asked for something “very simple,” Lily-who-cooks-for-parties had done herself proud.

Cheese grits, bacon, fried apples, scrambled eggs, drop biscuits, and cream gravy sat in bowls and platters on the pine table. She had also fried up half the sausage she’d toted as a gift from the sausage-making operation, and set out two jars of jam from the farm coffers.

His wife trotted in from the laundry room and gasped. “Is this a
dream
?
”

“Hallelujah and three amens!” said the vicar. He’d better call the Mitford Hospital and reserve a room. “What do you say, Sammy?”

Sammy appeared dumbfounded, unable to reply.

Lily was already elbow-deep in a sinkful of hot, soapy water, giving the pots and pans a thorough what for. She giggled. “Better not carry on like ’at ’til you see if it’s any good.”

The vicar pulled out a chair for his marveling wife. “We hear by the grapevine that you sing like Loretta Lynn!”

“Oh, no, sir, that’s Vi’let as sings like Loretta. If I was t’ sing a’tall, which I don’t, I’d sing more like Dolly.”

“Aha. And thank you for the sausage, Lily. A very thoughtful gift!”

“It’s th’ mild, not th’ hot; we didn’t think you‘uns looked th’ hot ’n’ spicy type.”

“Very thoughtful!” he said. How could he eat such a feast when his commitment was to fast?

“Anyhow, it ain’t from me; it’s from Daisy. Daisy does sausage. I don’t have
nothin’
to do with
sausage
makin’! No, sir, it’s way too messy. I’ll
never
make no
sausage ...”

“I believe Lily is the one who also sews, dear.”

“Oh, no ma’am, that’s Rose as sews. I’m not facilitated to do nothin’ but cook an’ clean.”

“Let’s pray,” he said.

Worn, they sat in the library by a waning fire. Sammy was watching a billiards competition on the TV in his room; Violet was curled on the lap of her mistress; the farm dogs snored in their accustomed places in the kitchen. Peace like a river ...

“Let me read to us,” he said. He believed his homily was nailed; the rest was up to the Holy Spirit.

He thumbed through the little volume of Longfellow’s poems that he’d found among Marge’s many books, and read from “Endymion.”

“Do you believe with Mr. Longfellow,” she asked, “that no one is so accursed by fate but some heart responds to his own?”

“I do believe it. It’s true for Dooley, and for Lace. It was true for Buck and Pauline ...” He could go on and on. “It was true for us.”

“For so many years I thought that no heart, however known or unknown, would ever respond to my own. I never dreamed of this happiness with you. And for you to read aloud to me is such a lavish gift; it’s above all I could ever ask or think.”

“Do you remember the time you came down to my study?” he asked. “It was in the middle of the night, and I was walking through the valley . . . you read the hundred and third psalm to me. I was so happy to see you, I felt I’d been rescued from drowning; your voice meant everything to me.”

They sat for a time, gazing at the crimson embers beneath the grate.

“Mother read to me,” he mused, “but not for entertainment. It was purely instructional, bless her soul! But I had Peggy, as you know. Peggy couldn’t read, but she told me stories. Lengthy, complex, wonderful stories of her childhood in the backcountry of Mississippi. Then, when I learned to read, I read to her.”

“I’m trying to remember—when did you see her last?”

“I was ten when she disappeared. Just vanished. I was stricken.” Where did she go? He never knew ...

He suddenly felt again the old sorrow, as if a door had opened somewhere, spilling a grim light into the corridor.

His truest friend had simply never come back to his mother’s kitchen, to cook with her and make her laugh; to slip him a forbidden sweet, and listen to his cares as if they were actually important.

After she’d gone, he often rode his bike down the narrow lane, and entered her cold cabin and called her name. The cabin looked as if she’d simply walked away and would soon return—a dress still hung on a nail, an apron was thrown over the back of a chair, wood for a cook fire had been brought in and placed by the hearth.

His mother, whom he believed to know everything, had appeared to know nothing about Peggy’s disappearance. More than once, he’d trekked to the barn—what if she’d been gathering eggs in the loft, and fallen through the rotten boards? For months, he looked for her on the streets of Holly Springs, and once went to her church on Wednesday night and stood in the road to see whether she came.

It occurred to him as he sat here, more than a half century later, that he’d looked for Peggy for most of his life. Or more truly, he’d looked for her particular warmth. In the divided, often-cold household of his childhood, Peggy’s warmth had ignited in him a kind of fire to love and be loved.

He gazed at his wife with quiet amazement. “I never thought of it before,” he said.

“What have you never thought before?”

“You remind me of Peggy.”

She leaned her head to one side and smiled. “I’m proud to remind you of Peggy,” she said. “Why don’t we go up now, darling—to clean sheets and swept corners?”

She took his hand and led him along the stairs, and once again he felt the happiness of these last weeks. He would do something wonderful for his wife one day. He’d do all in his power to give back what she had so generously given him.

He opened his eyes and looked out the window near their bed. In the cold first light, the distant tree line appeared rimmed with platinum.

“Are you awake?”

“I am.”

He rolled over and kissed her on the cheek. “He is risen!”

“He is risen, indeed!”

“Alleluia!” As ever on Easter morning, a certain heaviness departed his spirit.

“I’m excited about our first real service at Holy Trinity,” she said. “Wait, I take that back. Last Sunday was wonderfully real.”

“I like the way you think; you’ll always be my deacon.” He slid out of bed. “I’ll start the coffee; the ham’s ready to pop in the oven just before we leave.”

“I’ll make breakfast for Sammy and me. Are you having toast?”

“Just toast. And a little butter.” While a priest typically fasted before the Eucharist, his blasted diabetes wanted mollycoddling.

They made the sign to each other; it had become their new private liturgy.