Light From Heaven (35 page)

“Brilliant! I’ll schlep it up there today, in case.

“The Lord be with you, dearest!” She squinted at the stroke of color she was brushing onto the paper.

“And also with you!”

Nothing like a good, sound, liturgical send-off, he thought, noting a new spring in his step.

His mackintosh hung, dripping, on a nail as he stood and watched Sammy deftly tuck seeds into the black potting medium.

“‘Is here’s t’maters.”

“How many plants will we put in?”

“I figure eight.”

“There’ll be you, Dooley, Willie, Blake, Cynthia, and myself, and we all like tomatoes. Will eight plants be enough?”

“Way enough. This here’s p-peppers. An’ ’at’s eggplant. I s-sure ain’t eatin’ it, but Cynthia said you’uns do.”

“What about cucumbers and squash?”

“Th’ seed goes right in th’ ground.”

“Thank God for Lon Burtie. And for you, Sammy.”

“You know I got t’ bring all ’is stuff to th’ house an’ keep a grow light on it.Th’ f-furnace room would work. Got t’ have light ‘n’ heat.”

“You’re a wonder,” he said, meaning it.

Sammy shrugged.

“What do you remember about Kenny?”

Sammy recited the liturgy of the Barlowe family. “Mama give ‘im away f’r a g-gallon of whisky.”

“Anything else?”

“Dooley said th’ man that took ’im was n-named Ed Sikes.”

“Dooley thinks Kenny would be eighteen.”

“Kenny’s t-two years older’n me. So, y-y-yeah.”

“Anything special about his looks? Does he look like you and Dooley and Poo?”

“He 1-1-looks more like ... you know.”

“Your dad.”

“But he has hair like us.”

“What else?”

“He’s sh-shorter’n me.”

The vicar chuckled. “Who isn’t?”

“He’s got a big ol’ m-mole on ’is face ...” Sammy thought. “On ‘is left cheek. An’ ‘e’s got a big ol’ m-mole on ‘is back, too. He’d m-make me scratch ’is back an’ said he’d whip me good if I scratched ’is m-mole—but he didn’t mean it, he was jis’ jivin’.”

“You know what I believe?”

“What?”

“I believe Kenny will find us, or we’ll find him. I’m actually expecting that. But in the end, I have to let it all go to God; it’s really His job.”

“He ain’t doin’ too g-good, if y’ ask m-me.”

“Consider this. The Bible tells us that two sparrows once sold for a penny. Yet, one of them shall not fall to the ground without His knowing—and caring. If He cares about a sparrow, I’m inclined to believe He cares about me—and you—even more. How many hairs are on your head?”

Sammy made a face; he shrugged.

“God knows how many. Jesus says so, Himself—‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered.’”

“I ain’t believin’ ’at.”

“Here’s the deal. He made you. He cares about you. He loves you. He wants the best for you.” Father Tim was quiet for moment; this was a lot to take in, even, sometimes, for himself.

“And because of all that, He even has a plan for you, for your life. That’s why we can trust Him to do what’s best when we pray the prayer that never fails.”

“Wh-what prayer is ’at?”

“Thy will be done.”

Squawking, the guineas chased each other around the barn in their annual zeal to make keets.

“You mean jis’ let ‘im do whatever ’e w-wants t’ do?” Sammy was plenty irritated by the idea.

“That’s it.Whatever He wants to do. Because what He wants to do is what’s best for you. He can’t do things any other way—that’s how He’s wired, you might say.”

“Wh-what if I’d ask ‘im t’ f-find Kenny?”

“He knows exactly where Kenny is, of course.

“If ’e’s s’ good an’ all, s-seems like ‘e’d s-send ’im on.

“While we’re at it, let’s not forget what He’s already done—we’ve got Dooley; we found Jessie; we found Poo. We found you.”

He remembered his first sight of Sammy Barlowe, walking along a creek bed, his red hair a coronet of fire in the afternoon light.

“Four out of five, Sammy. Four out of five! Seems to me God has been very hard at work on the Barlowe case.”

Sammy tore open a package of seeds. “I ain’t prayin’ nothin’. I tried it one time; I didn’ g-git what I’d call a answer.”

“It may not be the answer you’re hoping for, but you can count on it to be the right answer.

Sammy looked at him, his eyes hard. “I ain’t goin’ t’ do it.”

“That’s OK,” said Father Tim. “I’ll do it. And Cynthia. And Dooley.” And Emma, he thought, and Buck and Pauline and Marian and Sam and Agnes and Clarence ...

They had set up the table and covered it with a rose-colored cloth, which gave an uplifting new look to the small nave.

“We’ll leave it there, rain or shine!” said the vicar. “Put our pew bulletins on it, and maybe a few books—start a lending library!”

“And won’t a vase of tulips look lovely on that old cloth? Jessie and I used it at the schoolhouse; it’s lain in a drawer these many years.” She looked around the simple room with pleasure. “It’s no venerable edifice with a Norman tower and stained glasswork, but it’s wonderful, isn’t it, Father?”

“It is, Agnes!” Indeed, he was ardently proud of Holy Trinity, though to some in his calling, it would be a mere crumb, an offense ...

“Ready for a cup of tea?”

“More than ready.”

The rain drummed steadily on the tin roof as Agnes withdrew the thermos from the basket, set two mugs on the seat of the front pew, and filled them with the steaming tea.

“I’ve been praying about it, Father, and I’m ready to tell you the rest of my story. If you’re ready to hear it.”

“Agnes, Agnes! Surely you jest.” Rain on a tin roof. The smell of evergreens and leaf mold, beeswax and lemon polish. All that and a story, too. “Your Town Car had given out,” he said, leaning back with the warm mug, “and you bought a truck.”

She sat beside him, inhaling the scent of the tea.

“I’m afraid we’d tried to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse! Our old Town Car was a pathetic sight when we finally sold it! It went for forty dollars to a family who removed the interior fittings and used it for a storage unit. In their front yard, I might add! Years later, they began stringing it with Christmas lights—it became quite a tradition in these hills.”

He chuckled. He could picture it as clearly as if he’d seen it with his own eyes.

“Quint Severs had never worked on trucks, so he sent me to a man who did. Rumor had it that he was something of a genius with all things mechanical; gifted, in a way. Unfortunately, our truck gave us many problems—we sometimes found ourselves as impoverished as our parishioners.

“I refused to ask my father for money; it was imperative to both Jessie and me that we depend upon the Lord for His providence. We were the poorest diocese in the state, and there was no reliable stream of funds coming from Asheville.

“Our new mechanic worked wonders. It was as if he’d joined our team, and was as eager as we to keep the truck going so we could ferry people to the doctor and the hospital—even to school.”

Agnes looked up to the window above the altar. “Ah, Father ...”

She turned to him and he saw, perhaps for the first time, the full span of years in her countenance. “I feel I should make a very long story short.

“I fell in love for the first time. With a man who was not a believer, and indeed, had ways about him which were ...”

He watched her select her words with some care.

“... coarse and cruel.

“We became ... intimate. What can I say to you to defend my behavior? Nothing. I lost my head; I lost my heart. I was forty-five years old.”

Agnes sat with her cup in her hands, as if turned to marble. Rain darkened the windows.

“I was devastated, of course, when I learned that I was ...”

Agnes Merton was of another world and time, in which such truths were scarcely uttered.

“I understand,” he said.

“John Newton wrote, ‘Guilt has untuned my voice; the serpent’s sin-envenomed sting has poisoned all my joys.’

“I could barely function. I felt that everything I stood for, everything I had done in His service, had come to less than nothing. I kept it from Jessie for as long as I possibly could, but my great distress could not be hidden. She demanded that I tell her everything. The news was in many ways as crushing to her as to me.

“She could not forgive me, Father.

“In the midst of all this, I was deeply concerned about my age. In those days, a woman in her forties was likely to be at risk in ... bearing a child. And then we learned that the church and schoolhouse would soon be closed. No funds were available to keep them open.

“The world quite literally crashed around us; I felt myself wholly responsible before God. I had failed Jessie and Little Bertie. I had failed this parish. And certainly I had failed the Savior. As church doors closed throughout these mountains, I even believed I had caused God to punish the church for my sins. That was nonsense, of course, but then I was beset by every guilt imaginable. I became the dry bones of Ezekiel’s field, with no one to prophesy His mercy and grace.”

She sipped her tea. “The fifty-first psalm. Do you know it well, Father?”

“Well, indeed. During a dark hour in my own life, I learned to recite it from memory.”

“Could we say it now?”

Together, they spoke the words of the psalmist.

Above the gorge, the clouds began to lift; a shaft of sunlight shone upon the ridge.

“During that long Lenten season,” she said, “those words were ever on my lips. What I couldn’t know then, is that He did all that I implored Him to do. But much time would pass before I could accept His love and forgiveness.

“My father knew how happy I’d been here. And when the diocese closed this and so many other church properties, he insisted on buying the schoolhouse for me, and the attached hundred acres.

“This posed yet another bitter conflict. I didn’t wish to remain on the ridge; I wished to flee this place forever.Yet I couldn’t refuse such a generous gift. I supposed that I might one day sell it, and be given the grace to forget all that had happened here.

“Jessie took Little Bertie and went back to her family. She was given a mission church in the west. The parting was almost unbearable—Jessie’s coldness toward me, and Little Bertie clinging to me as to life itself.”

He prayed for her silently as she paused, waiting to go on.

“I remembered hearing of a woman in Chicago who took in young women who ...

“Grace Monroe was willing to take me in. I locked up the schoolhouse and asked Quint to watch over it. The truck was sold. I never spoke of my condition to ... the father, and certainly not to my own father.

“I arrived in Chicago with three hundred and seventy-four dollars and a box of clothing.

“Grace was elderly and I was the last to enjoy the privilege of her wonderful compassion. I cooked for her and dusted her antique porcelains, and made myself as useful as I knew how.