A brother in the cloth, somebody to hammer things out with. The camel caravan from Gilead appeared on the horizon, saddlebags filled. Balm galore.

•   •   •

HE WAS GOING TO CALL HOPE when she rang the store.

‘Are you all right?’ he said.

‘A little bleeding, but Dr. Wilson isn’t worried. All appears to be well, though I’m not to be up and doing.’

‘What about your sister, Louise? Can she come for a visit?’

‘Her work schedule is frightful. Soon, she says. I miss her.’

‘Family can be good medicine.’

‘I’m thankful for my Mitford family. Avette Harris is knitting an entire layette. With her left eye wandering as it does, she says she wouldn’t trouble herself with such vexation if she weren’t certain our baby will make it.’

‘Good on Avette.’

‘I must tell you that lying here has given me an awful burden of thinking.

‘The first thing, Father—will you pray for where I’ll stay during the month in Charlotte, before the baby comes? I’ve hesitated to ask because we ask so much of you already.’

‘Prayer is never too much to ask. Consider it done.’

‘Thank you from my heart. The other thing is . . . I’d like to do something for someone. People do so much for me that I can never repay their kindness. Scott has been given a wonderful raise at Hope House and I’d like to hire Coot. Three days a week, four hours a day.’

‘Ah!’ There was a beaming face if he ever saw it. ‘To do what, exactly?’

‘To do anything you wish . . . clean, carry out the trash, go to the store, take packages to the post office. And I’m sure the display windows could use a good washing. It would give a bit of relief to you and Marcie and Miss Pringle, but mostly, Father, it would give Coot the chance to be around books. He loves books.’

‘Very useful thinking!’ he said. ‘Yes, indeed. We should all take to bed for a dose of useful thinking!’

•   •   •

THE SIDEWALKS WERE SHOVELED, the town crew was on it. The snow, however, was still coming down. He arrived home with a box of organic popcorn, to find preparations under way in the study.

The DVD player had its own remote, a notion he didn’t take to.

‘See this button?’ said Puny. ‘It says On. Now, see this button? It says Play.’

‘One thing at a time, please.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, see this button? What does it say?’

The type was minuscule and on a black background, no less. Did the maker not consider the buying power of the senior citizen? Was this stuff produced chiefly for small children with 20/20?

‘My glasses,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get my glasses.’

‘They’re on your head,’ she said. ‘Okay, what does it say?’

‘On.’

‘Great! Push it.’

He pushed it. A green light.

‘It works!’ said his wife.

‘Next, you’ll hit Play.’

‘Let’s see, where is Play?’

‘Right here, right next to On.’

No wonder he never did this stuff, it was humiliating.

‘And here’s Pause. If you want to, you know, let Barnabas out or anything.’

‘We’ll never use Pause,’ he said, decisive. ‘And maybe you should leave it on so all we have to do is hit Play?’

‘If you say so. Lord help!’

‘Where’s the movie?’

‘Here,’ she said, handing him the thing. ‘Put it in right there.’

‘Where?’

‘Hit Open.’

A tray slid out.

‘Now put the disc in.’

‘Which side up?’

Puny was ready to pack up and go home, possibly for good. His wife appeared to be taking a nap with Truman.

•   •   •

THIS WAS THE COOLEST THING they’d done ‘in ever,’ as Sassy might say.

A forty-two-inch screen was a lot of real estate, and Kim Dorsay knew how to occupy it. They lounged on the sofa, mesmerized. How could they have just had dinner with this person who had shucked garlic like a pro?

The phone rang. He leaned to the end table and checked the caller ID. Georgia. But he didn’t know how to work the Pause thing.

‘Hit Pause,’ he told his wife.

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere around Off and On. Hey, buddy.’

‘Hey, Dad, I found your truck. Two years old, long bed, stick shift, leather seats, nineteen thousand miles, and you’re not going to believe this . . .’

‘Try me.’

‘It’s red.’

‘Man!’

‘Everything you wanted but crank windows. The windows are automatic.’ Dooley told him the price. ‘I checked that with the Blue Book. On the money.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘The Internet. It’s about sixty miles from you, in Hendersonville. You could ride over with Harley. But you need to move fast—the price is right, it’s clean, it won’t last long. I’ll email photos, the owner’s contacts, everything.’

‘Good job,’ he said. ‘Maybe next week. First thing.’

The thought of buying a truck was a whole other feeling from that of buying a car. He was grinning like a mule eatin’ briars.

‘What did I miss?’ he said to his wife, who had obviously not located Pause.

Chapter Twenty

Saturday.

He remembered how fraught his Saturdays had been when he was a full-time priest. Wrestling his sermon into acceptable form, trying to get over the week and rest for the morrow, hammering at his personal stuff.

Then he retired, and he remembered how he dreaded trying to fill Saturdays with something worthy, up to snuff, accountable. And now here he was, maybe for the first time, really liking this day, feeling the liberty of it, the broad possibilities. Harley had said he could borrow the truck. The roads had been scraped, they could leave after lunch and be at the nursery by three o’clock.

He opened the Old Testament at random. Ecclesiastes, aka Solomon or Ezra, God only knows, chapter three.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven . . . A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance . . . A time to be silent and a time to speak.

It was time to speak.

Would it be a waste of breath? That wasn’t for him to determine. He would speak from the heart. Let the chips fall where they may.

He looked out the study window. New snow was falling on the old, though nothing heavy.

He auto-dialed, made the sign of the cross.

‘Hey, Sam! I’ve got a little time this afternoon. Want to go buy a tree?’

•   •   •

HE ANSWERED THE DOORBELL and there was Jena Ivey, nearly hidden from view by a great bower of hydrangeas in a color he’d never seen.

‘Holy smoke!’ he said to the owner of Mitford Blossoms. ‘Come in, come in.’ He moved the candlesticks, the Delft bowl on the console. ‘Right here.’

‘Hard to get this bronze color. They would look better on the coffee table in your study, Father. Not enough light in here.’

Their voluptuous amber radiance was breathtaking against the background of falling snow.

His wife was ecstatic and, he had to confess, so was he.

Cynthia took the card from the envelope.

With grateful affection from one

who was lost and is now found

Kim

Having told Lace the backstory of the hydrangeas, they sat at the kitchen counter, Lace in the middle. Though they asked that she keep the twins’ story quiet for now, it would later be one to pass down through any family.

‘So tell us again,’ said Cynthia, ‘what you said to that pompous professor.’

‘I said, If you’uns wadn’t s’ full of yourself, you’d be a whole lot better at gettin’ people t’ pay attention.’

‘And what did the poor man have to say about that?’

‘He was completely startled, then he laughed. He thought I was joking.’

Whooping with laughter, the three of them.

‘When I get excited or happy or really, really angry, I start talkin’ like I did growin’ up. You know that Olivia hired a tutor to help me get over my old speech pattern. But when I went off to school, I guess I was still talkin’ like a hillbilly. For a long time, nobody would be my friend; people were ashamed to be with me.