These High, Green Hills (52 page)

“No one ever thinks the preacher might be sad at a funeral,” said Absalom Greer, who had come to the rector’s office.

“You’re right about that.”

“They don’t know we suffer, too.”

The two men grew silent for a moment, drinking their coffee.

“How did you get here?” asked the rector.

“Th‘ man that keeps my orchard, he brought me in his truck. He’ll bring me back for the memorial service.”

“After the service, we’ll take the urn to the churchyard. There’ll be just a few of us for that. Will you come?”

“Oh, I will,” said the old man. “I once told Sadie Baxter I’d love her to her grave, and I’m a man of my word.” His blue eyes twinkled. “Lottie told me this morning, she said, ‘Absalom, I forgive Sadie.’ It was all I could do to keep from saying, ‘This is a fine time to do it, after she’s dead and gone.’ If I was the Lord, I’d say that dog won’t hunt.”

“Thank heaven you’re not the Lord,” said the rector.

They laughed easily.

“I wonder who she left her money to,” wondered Absalom. “The church, I’d say.”

“That’s a good guess.”

“Sadie’s life will preach up a storm. You’ll have a fine subject and a big crowd. What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like you to sit with Louella and Olivia and Hoppy, as family.”

“I will, and glad to.”

“You sent Lacey Turner to see me,” said the rector.

“I knew you’d help her, if you could.”

“I want you to know we care about her. I reported the abuse, and the DA’s office is looking for her. They’ll put her in foster care if they can’t locate a relative.”

The old preacher nodded. “It’s a hard case, Brother, a hard case. God help you to do what you can.”

Louella would sing a hymn in her throaty mezzo soprano, which was as consoling as raisins in warm bread. No, she wouldn’t break down, she was wanting to do it! Hadn’t she sung with Miss Sadie since they were both little children?

The choir director, who was known for inventiveness, suggested Dooley sing with Louella, but no one thought he would. The rector called the boy, anyway.

“What’re we singing?” Dooley asked, already persuaded.

“ ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.’ ”

“No problem. What instruments?”

“Organ and trumpets.”

“I can’t sing over trumpets,” said Dooley.

“You don’t have to sing when the trumpets are playing.”

“When is rehearsal?”

“Tomorrow at three o‘clock. I’ll see you at Meadowgate around two.”

“I’m sorry she died,” he said. “It seemed like she’d live a long time.”

That, he thought, is the way it always seems with someone we love.

He raced to the hospital to see LM. Who had sat with her after the last dressing change? How was the morphine doing? Any signs of infection? A few hours away from a desperate situation could seem interminable; he felt out of the loop.

“So far, so good,” said Nurse Gilbert. “They start grafting in the morning. Dr. Wyatt got in last night with his nurse.”

He let himself into the room and stood by her bed.

“Hey, there,” he said, softly.

It appeared she had not moved since he first saw her. Still the great, swollen mass of wet dressings and the odor that stung the nostrils. Still the eye looking desperately into his, and the air pumping mechanically from the respirator into the green tube.

He didn’t know why, but as he looked down at her, something in him connected with a new reality. It suddenly became real to him that Sadie Baxter was where the gospel had promised a redeemed soul would be—in Paradise. If he believed that so fully and completely, why was he grieving? Because it had taken time for such supernal knowledge to make its way from his heart to his head. Or was it from his head to his heart?

He realized that he was smiling uncontrollably, as he had smiled in those first months of his marriage. Tears sprang to his eyes, tears of joy, and he felt he should turn away from the woman lying there who felt no joy, whose tears were born of an agony he couldn’t possibly know. But he couldn’t turn away. He felt riveted there, beaming, as if his face were not his own.

He reached out to touch her right hand, the one that was completely and wholly well, and saw that he took it, and held it, and wept and did not turn away.

“Father! It’s Scott Murphy!”

“I needed to hear your voice, my friend.”

“I’m excited about coming to Hope House, sir. September is only two months away, and I’ve already given my notice. How are things in Mitford?”

“Sadie Baxter has died. The memorial service is tomorrow.” That was precisely how things were in Mitford—that one event had, for him, obscured all others.

“Miss Baxter? She died? She was ... so alive when I saw her!”

“She fell, and couldn’t recover from the shock of what came with it. I want you to know how heartily she approved of you.”

“I’ll do my best to honor that, sir.”

There was a comfortable silence.

“I’d like you to know what I’ve been thinking, Father, if it’s not too premature to talk about it.”

“Never too soon.”

“I was wondering ... I’ve seen how positively the elderly respond to animals—rabbits, dogs, kittens, I’ve even worked with ponies. I was just wondering, sir, if there might be anything left in the Hope House budget to build a small ... kennel.”

“A
kennel
?”

“Too rash?” asked Scott, concerned.

“You must admit it’s not the ordinary line of thinking.”

“But that’s just it, Father. Ordinary lines of thinking don’t extend far enough when reaching into the lives of people who’re often losing touch.”

“Keep talking.”

“Only a small kennel, so the animals could visit on a regular basis. It’s awkward to round up people who’ll bring their dogs and cats in. As I recall, that area behind the parking garage might work for a kennel and a run. But it’s just a thought, sir, only a thought. Actually, we have the greatest resource of all, right down the street from Hope House.”

“We do?”

“At Lord’s Chapel. The children, sir.”

“Aha.”

“I don’t have to tell you what a positive influence children and old people can have on each other.”

Where had his own enthusiasm gone? Had it flown with his youth?

“I’m also thinking of a garden. There’s a plot behind the dining hall that would be perfect for the residents because it’s easy to get to. A little digging in the dirt can be good for the soul.”

“Absolutely!”

“Anyway, Father, I just wanted you to know that I’m very excited about my future in Mitford, and I thank you—and Miss Baxter—for asking me to come.”

“It will be a fine thing, Scott, I know it in my bones.”

“Speaking of bones, Luke and Lizzie send their regards.”

He laughed when he hung up. Scott Murphy’s new blood would be good, indeed, for this old rector, not to mention the forty residents of Hope House who, whether they liked it or not, would be forced to enjoy their last years.

On his way down Main Street from Lew Boyd’s, he saw the Independence Day parade forming behind the police station.

The Mitford School Chorus was at the front, as always, carrying the banner inscribed with the mayor’s longtime political platform.
Mitford Takes Care of Its Own.

Next came Coot Hendrick’s truck, loaded with hay, and kids waving American flags.

The truck was followed by Fancy Skinner’s pink Cadillac, with Mule’s real estate sign on the hood and a Hair House sign on the rear. He saw Fancy, dressed in a pink sweater and Capri pants, polishing the hood ornament with a rag.

Still jockeying for position, it appeared, was a woman in a cowboy hat, leading two llamas. He heard the Presbyterian brass band strike up somewhere, and caught a glimpse of a drum majorette who, he presumed, was borrowed from Wesley.

As he drove down Main Street, already lined with spectators, he saw cars turning into the Lord’s Chapel parking lot.

To other eyes, perhaps, the north end of Main was getting ready to celebrate while the south end was in mourning.

But he didn’t see it that way. Not at all.

While the trumpets sounded the good news of Sadie Baxter’s presence in a glorious Heaven, the electric cheese slicer would sound LM’s entry into a living Hell.

“Pray for LM,” he said to Marge and Olivia before the memorial service.

Ron Malcolm overhead the request. “I’ll pray, too,” he said.

A priest was thankful for people who didn’t need all the details, but took the smallest request to heart, and acted.