Light From Heaven (58 page)

At the time of announcements, he looked out to his congregation with a certain gladness.

Given Sparkle’s increasing confidence with their hymnbook, Miss Martha’s flat-out volume, and Violet’s impressive vocal skills, the a cappella singing at Holy Trinity had picked up.

Way up.

“Our Lord has given us yet another day of perfection, and we’re going to do our part to savor every moment. After the offering, we’ll process into the churchyard and have Holy Communion at the wall. Then, at the close of our service, we’ll come back inside, finish up with chocolate cake ...”—he liked the approving murmur that rippled through the nave—“and learn Rooter’s new hand sign.

“Now. What’s different today about Holy Trinity?”

Rooter’s hand shot into the air.

“Rooter?”

“’At pianna.”

“Yes, the piano! As you’ll read in the bulletin, it’s a gift from God—via a thoughtful and generous lady in Mitford. And now we need but one other gift from the One Who is, Himself, the Perfect Gift: we need someone to play it.”

He looked at his parishioners; they looked at one another.

Much shaking of heads, followed by silence.

After a moment of sober introspection, Sparkle raised her hand.

Their vicar’s grin spread ear-to-ear.

This morning, he’d seen three parishioners sign last week’s greeting,
Peace be with you,
to Clarence.

“And also with you,” Clarence had signed back. Good medicine for their amiable and gifted crucifer, he reckoned, and very good medicine for them all.

Father Tim figured his own hand-signing vocabulary consisted roughly of most of the alphabet, Rooter’s installment of last Sunday,
How’s your work coming along?, A thousand thanks, I love you,
and, of course,
How are you doing, man
?

Enough right there to found a civilization!

He walked to the church door, looking for Rooter to come in and give his weekly demonstration. He saw four young Millwrights seated on the wall; Rooter stood facing them, and appeared to be holding forth with some zeal.

“’Bout half of ever’body in ’is church has kilt somebody,” he heard Rooter declaim.

The Millwrights were wide-eyed.

“Robert with th‘tattoos on ’is arm? He kilt ’is own granpaw.”

Mamie Millwright clapped both hands to her mouth.

“An’ Sissie’s granmaw? She shot Sissie’s granpaw dead.
Blam!
Square in th’ head. ‘Is brains gushed out all over ever’thing.”

Father Tim walked down the steps and crossed to the shady north corner of the church. “Rooter!” he said.

Rooter wheeled around, startled.

“Would you step over here, please?”

He sometimes felt as if he could soar over the gorge like the hawks. Standing with Cynthia and Dooley and Sammy as his parishioners filed through the church door and back to their lives above the clouds, he realized he was as eager as a child for all the Sundays to follow; Holy Trinity was his cake.

“Rooter, this is my son, Dooley Kavanagh.” His heart seemed to swell, quite literally, as he spoke these words.

Rooter furrowed his brow and looked at Dooley “How come if you ’n’ Sammy are brothers, he ain’t but one of y’all’s daddy?”

“I don’ see how he could be y’r
daddy,
” said Roy Dale.

Dooley grinned. Why not?”

“’E’s too
old
.”

The vicar winked at Dooley No rest for the wicked, he thought, and the righteous don’t need none.

Granny peered closely at Dooley, then at Father Tim. “He don’t look much like y’r ownself.”

“More hair,” he said.

“See ‘at bunion?” Granny pointed to her right foot, generously exposed by a bedroom slipper. “Hit’ll be took off t’morrow. Lord have mercy, I’m skeered of th’ knife! I’ll be jumpin’ out th’ winder an’ runnin’ clear t’ Ashe County”

Cynthia gave Granny a hug. “We’ll be praying for you, Granny And don’t worry, you’re going to be just fine.”

“Agnes,” he said, “what was in the bag I took from your freezer?”

“Wasn’t it squirrels?”

“No, ma’am, I’m afraid the squirrels are still where I left them.”

She laughed. “Which is where they’ll stay ’til someone other than myself removes them!”

“Jubal couldn’t identify what I took from the schoolhouse. I certainly apologize—and I’ll be glad to replace it!”

“I have no earthly idea what it might be.The turtle Jeff Stokes brought us made the most delicious soup. And the frog legs... I believe Clarence fried them last week while I planted asters. Come to think of it, there was something his sales representative gave him, but I never saw what it was.”

He didn’t know if his culinary inclinations would ever catch up to those of his parish.

Each and every Millwright filed past with a wordless nod or hesitant smile. He found the entire family to be as shy as deer—a characteristic generously compensated for by Sparkle Foster.

“I used t’ play th’ piano at church,” she confessed as she came through the line, “an’ got s’ wore out, I was kind of glad y’all didn’t have one. Then when you called for somebody this mornin’, I got this warm feelin’, kind of like choc‘late meltin’ if you leave it in th’ car when it’s hot, an’ I knew th’ Lord wanted me to do it.”

“And God bless you for it, Sparkle! It will make all the difference.”

“Somebody’ll have t’ get me some sheet music. Y’all sing really diff’rent stuff.”

“Consider it done!”

“An’ tunin’,” she said, “it’ll need tunin’.”

Miss Martha grasped his hand with both of hers and shook it mightily.

“Fine service, Father.Very fine.”

“Very fine!” said Miss Mary.

“And thank you, Cynthia, for the new Sunday School. I’ve always said, if you don’t go to Sunday School, you go home with
half
a load of bricks!”

Miss Mary nodded. “
Half
a load!”

“I really liked bein’ with y’all, said Violet. “It’s a good thing I can read music! Oh, an’ I put th’ dollar in th’ plate.”

“One of your better investments, I assure you. Bring her again and again, Lloyd.”

Lloyd shook the vicar’s hand, blushing furiously.

Father Tim liked to think that something in Robert Prichard might be lighter, freer. And yet, each time he looked into Robert’s eyes, the darkness held fast, he couldn’t find the light.

“Lead poisoning,” he told Donny when they stopped by the trailer after church.

“She’ll need to be at Mitford Hospital for at least three days, according to Dr. Harper. He wants her there first thing tomorrow morning, she’s dangerously anemic and undernourished. They’ll test her liver function; give her chelation therapy; start iron supplements; that sort of thing.”

“It ain’t depression?”

“Almost certainly some depression caused by her inability to be up and about. But no, depression isn’t the main issue.”

Donny kicked at a tree stump in the yard of the trailer. “How come they didn’t find it th’ other two times I took ’er?”

“Lead levels aren’t always part of a fatigue workup.”

A car sped along the gravel road, sending a flume of dust into the air.

“Any insurance?”

Donny gave him a hard look. “Lusters pay as they go.”

“What about Sissie? Who ... ?”

“Don’know who she’ll stay with. I’ll be cut-tin’ pines of a mornin‘and runnin’ ’em th’ough th’ mill of a e’nin’. Granny’s goin’ down th’ mountain to have a bunion took off t’morrow. I’ll figure out somethin’.”

“Doctor Harper says Dovey can’t come back to the trailer for a while.”

Donny glowered. “Why not?”

“The state environmental people need to come in and check the pipes, and any other potential lead sites. You and Sissie will need to get out, too.”

“F’r how long?”

“I don’t know”

Donny uttered an oath. “Now I got t’ git out of m’ own house?”

“I’ll meet you at Mitford Hospital at seven in the morning, help you get her checked in.”

“I don‘know whose goin’t’pay f’r all ’is mess.”

“Tell you what,” said the rector. “Let’s pray about it.”

“Pray about it? I’ve prayed about th’ whole deal ’til I’m blue in th’ face. He don’t hear me n’more.”

Donny turned away and took a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and lit it with a book match. He inhaled, and angrily flipped the dead match into the bushes.

“You pray,” he told the vicar.

They were headed toward Meadowgate with Sissie, a grocery bag stuffed with pajamas, a derelict toy bear, and a change of clothes. Dooley and Sammy drove ahead in the Jeep.

Father Tim glanced down at Sissie, who was looking glum. “Can you tell me what you learned today in Sunday School?”

Sissie kicked at the dashboard with the toe of a yellow shoe. “Sammy, he give us a seed apiece an’ a little pot with dirt in it. I went off an’ f’rgot mine.”

“We’ll give you another one. Did he say anything about the seed?”