These High, Green Hills (44 page)

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Authors: Jan Karon

BOOK: These High, Green Hills
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“I was thinking of something more ... within driving distance.”
“Of course. You didn’t say you were going to get over your fear of flying, just your fear of having fun.”
“Right.”
“How about Mississippi? You could show me where you lived when you raised rabbits!”
“Mississippi in August? I don’t think so.”
“How about Massachusetts, then, and I’ll show you where I lived when I learned to whistle.”
“You may be on to something, Kavanagh. And while we’re at it, I’ve been meaning to ask you another question.”
“What’s that?”
He cleared his throat. Could he actually talk about this? Yes. Yes, he could. In fact, he felt a small tremor of excitement. “Where would you like to live when we ... retire?”
The faint ticking of the clock merged with the sound of the rain.
“Goodness! I’ve steeled myself not to think about it, so now I don’t have a clue,” she said. “Somewhere warm in winter?”
“That’s for sissies.”
She peered at him. “So you like having your face blistered by the wind, and your feet go numb on the short walk between our house and The Local?”
“Crazy about it.”
“So am I, actually.”
He laughed. “So we’re both keen on four distinct seasons.... ”
“Quite.”
“Possibly somewhere near water?” he mused.
“Possibly.”
“But nothing flat.”
“No! Absolutely nothing flat.”
They listened to the rain for a time, and felt the ravishing coolness of the breeze on their faces.
“Something rather small,” she said happily.
“Right. Fine. But with a big yard.”
“Small house, big yard. OK. I plant, you mow.”
“No way. We plant, we mow.”
They shook hands, grinning.
“Well,” he said, “we have lots of time to think about it.”
“Really?” she inquired. “How much time, do you imagine? Just asking, of course.”
“Oh. Maybe a couple of years.”
“Ummm. Yes. A couple of years sounds perfect to me.”
“Good! Then it’s settled.”
“What’s settled?”
“It’s settled that we have a future,” he said. “Don’t you like having a future?”
“Like it?” she exclaimed. “I love it!”
Holding her close, he drifted into sleep as peacefully as a child.
The cave had been about forgiveness. And because of that, it had also been about freedom.
He glanced at the clock when the phone rang. Three in the morning. “Hello?” he answered, dreading the news.
“Miss Sadie done fell ag‘in,” moaned Louella. “Come quick.”
He increased the speed of the windshield wipers.
Thank heaven they’d given the party, and not a moment too soon. But if God’s timing had been perfect for the party, he had to believe it had been perfect, as well, for allowing this hard thing. Like it or lump it, nothing happened to a child of God by accident, and scripture inarguably proved that out.
“For all things work together for good ... ” he murmured, quoting from the book of Romans. “Use this for good,” he prayed.
As he turned onto Lilac Road, he saw the attendants carrying the stretcher to the ambulance. He heard his heart beating as they closed the doors, and he followed them up the hill in the rain.
How many times had he received grim news from Hoppy Harper?
“Bad break,” said the doctor, shaking his head. “Very bad. We’re taking her into surgery, but ...” He paused and ran his fingers through disheveled hair. “I didn’t want to tell you this.”
“I didn’t want to hear it.”
Sadie Baxter would be among the first to need the nursing home she was building.
During surgery, he sat in Hoppy’s lamp-lit office with Louella and Cynthia and Olivia Harper.
“She say she spill a little drinkin‘ water goin’ out of her bathroom to her bedroom, an‘ when she went to th’ toilet in th‘ night, her foot hit that little patch of water and she went down.”
Miss Sadie’s friend and companion since childhood hugged herself as if she felt a chill. “This is a bad thing, honey, a bad thing. I can feel it in m‘ bones.”
Olivia put her arm around Louella. “This strikes us all at the marrow,” she said, trying to appear calm. Not long ago, Olivia had discovered Miss Sadie to be her great-aunt and only living relative. The bond had been, for both of them, one of the great joys of their lives.
They held hands and took turns praying as the clock ticked toward daylight.
He swallowed hard before he went into Intensive Care, and could scarcely believe what he saw. It was Sadie Baxter with the light gone from her countenance; it was someone gray and suffering and very, very old.
He had to force down the cry that welled up in him, a cry that said,
This can’t be, I can’t accept this, this is wrong.
He stood at the study window and looked out to a drenching rain that made the rhododendron leaves glisten and dance. Beyond the hedge lay Baxter Park, a green pool of quiet and solitude in the summer dusk.
Cynthia came to him and put her arm around his waist. “What is it, my dearest?”
He clenched his jaw and spoke hoarsely. “It’s Dooley. And Lace. And Sadie Baxter. And Sophia and Liza. And all the others.”
“I’ll go to the hospital tonight. You’ve had only three or four hours sleep.”
“Thanks, but—”
“I’m your deacon, Timothy, you said so. Give me a chance to do my job.”
He wanted to weep, he wanted to wail, he heard sounds forming somewhere in him that were unrecognizable, sounds of grieving he could never express.
“We’ll go together,” he said.
She went off to the kitchen. “I’ll make us a cup of tea.”
Sadie Baxter was tough, she was resilient, she was made of strong stuff, and last but not least, her faith was up to the job. She could live to be a hundred. Still, he could not shake the dread he felt.
“And many more,” he whispered urgently into the gathering dusk outside the window.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Loving Back
“OK,” SAID PUNY, giving him a mischievous look, “which one is Sissy and which one is Sassy?”
“Now, Puny ...”
“Oh, jis’ try!”
He didn’t have a clue, but figured the odds were pretty good. “This one is Sissy!”
“Wrong! That’s Sassy!”
He was resting on the study sofa, under what he felt to be a veritable pile of fat, squirming babies, stuffed ducks, squashy monkeys, a rubber pig that squealed when he sat on it, and a stack of folded diapers.
“Blast,” he said. “How do you tell?” As far as he could see, both had red hair, both had the same eye color, both were the same size, and they smelled exactly alike.
“See this?” said Puny, pointing to a fat cheek. “Sissy has a dimple on the left side, Sassy has a dimple on the right side.”
Sissy, Sassy, left, right. He could hardly wait until they were walking and talking, at which time he would simply speak a name, and whoever came running, well, that’s how he would know which was which.

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