A Light in the Window (46 page)

“I don’t deserve her honesty,” he said.

“Well, of course you don’t. You hardly deserve the time of day from her the way you keep yanking her feelings around. But it seems to me this relationship is grace, if it’s anything at all, so what’s to deserve? The good Lord plunked her down practically on your doorstep, while the single people I’ve talked with at church go scrambling over hill and dale just to find a dinner companion!”

Katherine could give you an earful, all right.

“I definitely think you should stop moaning about how you don’t deserve this or that. Men who’re scared silly always say that, thinking they sound gallant or modest. Well, they don’t. They sound pompous and artificial.”

“Katherine, is this friendly counseling or a bloodletting?”

“You wanted the truth. And the other thing I think is, you need to get out of this retreat mode. Tell her you needed time with the idea of going steady, and you need time with this. Why back off when she’s not pushing you? She didn’t even ask you to marry her!”

“Yes, well.” It was true. Cynthia hadn’t asked him, but the implications were... numbing.

“Maybe I should go into the city and take her to lunch.”

Good grief! “Please,” he implored, “don’t even think such a thing.” If he thought he was in trouble now...

Hoping to improve his heart rate before he made the call, he ran in place in front of his desk, causing the old building to rumble on its moorings. He thought it sounded like Meg Patrick composing an index to her book.

Stop saying I don’t deserve...

Ask for time...

But first, thank her for the roses...

He had broken a light sweat when he sat down and dialed her number.

“Hello?”

“Cynthia?”

“Timothy?”

“Yes.”

“What’s... up?” she asked.

“Oh, lots of things. A few green leaves on your double hollyhocks...”

“I spoke to your cousin earlier.”

“Aha.”

“She sounds quite... settled in.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause that he wanted to dive into but couldn’t.

“You’re out of breath,” she said.

“I’ve ... been running.”

“Oh.”

“... to thank you for the roses. They’re even lovelier than the ones you sent before. I ... can’t tell you how ... I hardly know what to say ...” He desperately wanted to say he didn’t deserve them, for that was the complete and utter truth.

“Cynthia, you are ... so gracious and thoughtful, always ...” He could hardly bear to go on. Why had he forgotten to pray before he called? He was positively babbling. “... and so, I thank you again and again. They have transformed this room ...”

There was an empty silence on the other end.

“Cynthia? Are you there?”

“Timothy,” she said in a voice he hardly recognized. “I didn’t send you roses.”

“You ...?”

“The thought wouldn’t have occurred to me,” she said in that unfamiliar voice.

He was aware only that his chest hurt.

“Nor will it ever occur to me, Timothy.”

After the click and the dial tone, he sat at his desk in an agony he could hardly endure.

The Lord’s Chapel bells chimed two o’clock. He had never heard them sound so mournful, as if they were ringing for the dead.

Dazed, he reached into his pocket and removed the small florist’s envelope that he’d wanted to save until evening. He drew out the card and read:

Dooley had wolfed down his dinner and run upstairs to his homework, leaving the rector to eat alone at the kitchen counter. He hadn’t knocked on the guest room door and offered a bite of dinner—frankly, he’d forgotten that anyone else was in the house.

He went to the study and crashed on the sofa, the pain still gripping his chest, when he heard the toilet flush. Immediately afterward, he heard the typewriter.

Thumpetythumpetythumpthumpthump
...

She was starting early tonight, about five hours early, by his calculations. Perhaps she was coming out of whatever jet lag she had suffered and returning to a normal schedule. Why jet lag would persist for more than two weeks, he didn’t have a clue. Perhaps there was a complication because of some medication she was taking.

Thumpetythumpthumpthumpthumpety
...

Where was the blasted thing sitting, anyway? On the little desk he had inherited with the rectory? Or on the floor? It sounded like she was typing on the floor, which was enough right there to injure someone’s back and keep them bedridden for days.

At seven-thirty, Dooley apparently finished his homework and turned on the jam box.

Barnabas stood at the foot of the stairs, howling, while the rector sat on the sofa, frozen.

His sandwich had turned to a rock in his digestive system.

He stared at the wooden tray in his lap and the stationery on which he’d written two words.

Dear Cynthia ...

“Cousin Meg!” At nine o’clock, he banged on the door like a federal agent, striving to be heard over the din.

“What is it?” she finally answered.

“Come to the door, please. I’d like to have a word with you.”

There was a long pause. “Right-o.”

After what seemed an eternity, she opened the door a full two inches and pressed her face to the opening. “What is it?” she said in the voice that slightly resembled the lower octaves of a French horn.

“I must tell you that your typewriter sounds like a construction crew working up here. Could you move it onto another surface, please?”

“Right-o,” she said, shutting the door.

“Whoa! Wait up. Open the door!”

She turned the knob and peered through the crack.

“Look here. I think you need to be getting around, getting some fresh air. I’ve had an idea. I’ll wake you at six in the morning and we’ll have breakfast at our Grill on Main Street. You’ll meet a lot of interesting people, very likely some Potato Famine descendants. No need to dress. It’s casual.”

He turned on his heel toward the stairs.

“I can’t possibly. I have a schedule I must keep to,” she called after him.

He didn’t turn around. “Haven’t we all? I expect you to be dressed and ready at seven—I’ll knock at six.”

When he knocked, she didn’t answer.

“Cousin Meg!” He could wake the dead when he put his mind to it.

He heard the bedsprings creak. “It’s six o’clock!” he shouted. “I’ll fetch you at seven!”

Silence.

He’d just looked in the refrigerator and found the squash casserole that Puny had made for the weekend. It appeared that a family of raccoons had gotten hold of it. Worse than that, her fresh lemon curd had been reduced to leftovers.

At seven o’clock, he was knocking again.

No answer.

“Cousin Meg! Either you come out or I’m coming in!” Blast if the words didn’t roll out of their own accord, and he meant every one of them.

He heard her stomp across the floor as if she were wearing combat boots.

She opened the door and slipped through sideways, then closed it, locked it, and dropped the key in her pocket.

“Good morning, Cousin,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ears.

On the sidewalk at the Grill, they met Buck Leeper. “Mr. Leeper, my cousin, Meg Patrick.”

“Pleased,” she said, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her trench coat.

The Hope House superintendent nodded and flipped his cigarette over the curb. “Miss Patrick.”

“Things are looking good on the hill,” said the rector.

“Not good enough.”

Leeper sauntered through the door ahead of them and went to his table at the window.

The rector greeted the Collar Button and Irish Woolen crowd who were sitting at the counter. He felt every head in the place turn as they walked to the rear booth.

After Velma poured their coffee, Percy came around, wide-eyed with curiosity. “Percy, meet my cousin, Meg Patrick. From Ireland.”

“Ireland, is it?” Percy peered into the booth as if into a cage containing a rare panda. “Mule Skinner claims t’ be Irish.”

“We’re distantly related to Skinners,” she said, adjusting her bifocals. “Very distantly.”

“This one ain’t so distant. Here he comes now. How d’you like your eggs?”

“Fried,” she said, “and a broiled tomato.”

“A what?”

“A broiled tomato.” Saying “tomahto” did not cut it with Percy Mosely.

“Grits or hash browns is all we got.” Percy appeared to say this through his teeth.

“Are your hash browns freshly peeled and cut, or are they ... packaged?”

Father Tim stirred his coffee, though there was nothing in it to stir.

“Packaged, like every other hash brown from here t’ California.”

“Is your cooking oil saturated?”

“You better believe it.”

“Just eggs, thank you, and whole-wheat toast. Unbuttered.”

“Better have you some of Percy’s good sausage t’ go with that,” said Mule, slipping into the booth.

Please don’t say it, thought the rector. But, of course, she did.

“I eat flesh foods only on Sunday.”

Percy Mosely would not let him forget this anytime soon.