Shepherds Abiding (21 page)

“Ah!”

“I nearly fell over, she’d never said anything like that. I said, ‘Mama, can I tell you somethin’?’ I just had this peace that it was right to say it—I said, ‘Mama, I am happy, I’m married to a wonderful man.’

“All this time I thought she’d drop over with a heart attack an’ everybody would blame me, but she just patted my arm.” Tears pooled in Earlene’s eyes.

“I said, ‘Mama, do you mind if I run down to North Carolina for a little bit?’ She said, ‘No, honey, you go on, I want you to be happy.’ Those were her exact words.

“So I got our neighbor to come in for five whole days.”

“Five whole days!” said Lew.

“I get my retirement in nine months, and after that, I’ll be movin’ to Mitford. I’m so excited!”

“We’ll be proud to have you,” said Father Tim.

“Lew said I could bring Mama with me.”

Lew’s Adam’s apple worked overtime. “We got an extra bedroom.”

“I wanted my visit to be a surprise, so when I got here yesterday evenin’, I parked behind th’ privet ’til Lew drove up. After he went in th’ house, I stuck my head in th’ door and hollered, ‘Anybody home?’ You nearly fell over, didn’t you, baby? Father, do you like surprises?”

“I must tell you, Earlene, I’m not much on being surprised, but my wife is!”

New arrivals pushed through the door, driving early arrivals to the rear.

“Did I hear you’re givin’ your boy a
rototiller?
” Bob Hartley asked his boothmate.

“That’s right.”

“He’s forty-two an’ workin’ a steady job. Why can’t he buy ’is own rototiller?”

“We like to be nice to Harry; he’ll choose our nursin’ home.”

Mitford’s former mayor had the coffeepot up and running and was pouring and serving as if she were campaigning for office. “Percy, you ol’ coot, where’m I supposed to get a decent bowl of grits for breakfast?”

“Beats me,” said Percy. “An’ don’t count on gettin’ grits in Wesley, they’re educated over there at th’ college an’ don’t eat grits.”

People were clearly happy to see their former mayor back in the thick of things, especially as their current mayor had been called to a social event at the governor’s mansion.

“Congratulations, you dog!” Omer Cunningham, aviator, bon vivant, and in-law of former mayor Esther Cunningham, waded through the crowd, his big teeth gleaming like a piano keyboard. “Where are you an’
Velma headed off to?” Omer gave a Percy a slap on the back that nearly knocked him into the drink box.

“After gettin’ up at four o’clock every mornin’ for a hundred years, I’m headed off t’ lay down an’ sleep ’til Groundhog Day. Velma, she’s headed off to th’ pet shelter for a dadblame cat.”

“Don’t get a cat, get a dog!” someone urged.

“Don’t get a dog, get a monkey!”

“Don’t get nothin’,” counseled the fire chief. “Animals strap you down—get somethin’ with four legs an’ you’ll never see th’ cherry blossoms, trust me.”

Percy eyed the room—the booths and stools had filled up, and there was standing room only. Where were these turkeys when business had gone south a couple of times last summer?

“Speech! Speech!” someone hollered from the rear.

“Hold it!” J. C. Hogan blew in the front door, ushering a blast of arctic air into the assembly. “Make way for the press!”

“Oh, law!” whispered Minnie Lomax, who had closed the Irish Woolen Shop for this event. “It’s J. C. Hogan—he wants to be th’ bride at every weddin’ and th’ corpse at every funeral.”

A blinding flash went off, then another, and another.

“Stand over there with Velma,” ordered the editor. “Velma, look here an’ give me a big grin! I know it’s hard for you to grin at me, but force yourself, there you go, Betty Grable lives. Okay, let’s have a shot of Percy at th’ grill. Hey, Mule, move your big rear out of this shot an’ let Percy flip somethin’ on the grill. . . .”

“His last flip!” said Coot Hendrick.

Lois Holshouser wrinkled her nose. “Who made this cake? Esther Bolick didn’t have anything to do with this cake, I can tell you that right now.”

“Store-bought,” said Winnie Ivey Kendall, who was not having any.

“Whose hat is this?” inquired Avis Packard. “Somebody handed me this hat. Is this your hat?”

“You’re supposed to put somethin’ in it.”

“Like what?”

“Money. For th’ cherry blossoms.”

“What cherry blossoms?”

Faye Tuttle announced a relative’s sad news to Esther Cunningham. “Multiple dystrophy,” said Faye, shaking her head.

J.C. mopped his brow with a paper napkin and handed off his Nikon to Lew Boyd. “Here you go, buddyroe, you won that big photo contest, crank off a
shot of th’ Turkey Club with Percy an’ Velma. Come on, Mule, come on, Father, get over here. That’s it, look right through there and push th’ button. . . .”

Flash. Flash.

“Speech! Speech!”

Hand clapping, foot stomping. A spoon ringing against a coffee mug.

“I’ve made plenty of speeches th’ last forty-four years,” said Percy, “an’ you’ve done forgot everything I said.

“So I ain’t makin’ a speech t’day except to say . . .”

In all his years as a regular, Father Tim had never seen Percy Mosely choke up. In case it was catching, he grabbed his handkerchief from his jacket pocket.

“ . . . except to say . . .”

“What’d he say?” asked someone in the rear.

“ . . . tosay. . .”

“Looks like he can’t say it.”

It was catching, all right. Father Tim peered around and saw several people wiping their eyes. Velma pushed forward from the crowd. “What he’s tryin’ to say is, thanks for th’ memories.”

“Right!” said Percy, blowing his nose.

Applause. Whistles.

“Great speech!” said Coot.

“You mustn’t miss your nap,” Cynthia reminded him.

They were slurping her Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup to a fare-thee-well. He could eat a potful of this stuff.

“I’ll lie on the sofa when we finish the tree, and look at the lights. I’m sure I’ll nod off.”

“I think you should nap for at least an hour. But do you really want to lie on
that
sofa? Ugh! It’s so Victorian, you can’t possibly be comfortable.”

“I’ll get a pillow from the bed.”

“I’ll bring you one, and a blanket, too.”

“Thanks. We’ve both been too blasted busy.”
Slurp.
It was hard not to slurp soup. “But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, my love!”

“Did you get through with you-know-what?”

“I did, by the skin of my teeth. And how about
your
you-know-what? The odor seeping from your workroom smells terrible. What’s the deal?”

She laughed. “You’ll see!” Leaning her head to one
side, she nailed him with her cornflower-blue eyes. “You know what I keep thinking about?”

“That you can think at all these days is a marvel to me.”

“Our trip to Ireland.”

“Ah.”

“We are going?”

“God willing, we
are
going!”

She beamed. “So is everything in order for the service tonight?”

“It is. I just need to step down to church around five o’clock and see how the greening party is coming along.” He pushed his chair back and rose from the table. “Killer soup, my dear!”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Absolutely. At midnight, make sure you’re in the front pew where you usually sit when I celebrate.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He leaned down and took her chin in his hand and kissed her, lingering. “I like to see your eyelashes go up and down and the little stars come out of you.”

It was a beautiful tree.

Over the years, he’d had white pine, cedar, blue spruce, and Fraser fir. Fraser fir was his favorite, by far, though he harbored a deep affection for cedar.

Neither he nor Cynthia had any special ornament collections, just the motley assortment that had come their way and escaped being smashed during their collective moves. But look at it! It was glorious, the best in years, and the colored lights were perfection; he was a sucker for colored lights.

The day had begun upside down, but God in His mercy had righted it, and he was a happy man. He lay back on the pillow, which was faintly scented with wisteria, pulled the blanket over him, and listened to his dog snoring under the wing chair. The smell in the room! That raw, green, living scent that the overcivilized got to relish only once a year. . . .

Closing his eyes, he inhaled the fragrance as if starved.

“Over yonder by th’ fence post—how ’bout that ’un?”

“It’s too bent on top. The star might fall off.”

“How ’bout this ’un right here? We ’bout t’ walk right into this ’un.”

The smell of woods and winter pasture, the crunch
of hoarfrost under their feet, the stinging cold on their faces, the feel of the sled rope in his hand, and Peggy with her head wrapped in a red kerchief . . .

“I like that one,” he said, pointing.

“Yo’ mama say don’t point.”

“How’m I supposed to show you where it’s at?”

“Don’t say ‘where it’s at,’ say ‘where it is.’ Talk to me ’bout how to reco’nize it.”

“See the one with the wide branches at the bottom and the broom sage growing around it? Over by that ol’ stump?”

“Oh, law, child, that cedar tree take two strong men t’ chop down—we jus’ a bony woman an’ a baby boy.”

“I’m
not
a
baby.
” He stomped his foot to drive this truth home. Would she never stop calling him that?

“Oh, you right, I forgot you ain’t a baby, an’ don’t stomp yo’ foot at me, little man. You hear what I say?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s better. Pick yo’self another tree.”

“But that’s the best one of any. Besides, Mama likes a big tree.”

“You right. She do.”

“It would make her smile.” That should do the trick;
Peggy wanted as much as he did to make his mother smile.

Peggy shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted at the tree.

He pulled on Peggy’s skirt. “Will Mama get well?” He’d been afraid to ask, afraid of the answer.

“She gettin’ well ever’ minute we stand here talkin’. Sure as you’re born, she goin’ to get well.”

Peggy laid her hand on his shoulder; he could tell by the way she touched him that she was telling the truth.

“We’ll get Rufe t’ chop it, then. I’ll see can I find ’im.”

He looked up at the tall, slender woman whom he knew to be capable of anything. “We could prob’bly do it ourselves, Peggy . . . just you an’ me.”

“You know what you is?”

“What?” He was relieved that she didn’t look angry with him.

“Th’ mos’ tryin’est little weasel I ever seen.”

Peggy stumped ahead with the axe in her hand. Her dress and apron were the same color as the winter gold of the broomstraw, her kerchief a slash of crimson against the gray and leafless trees.

“Pick up yo’ feet, then, let’s see can we
do
this thing!
Lord Jesus, you got t’ help us, that ol’ tree be a hun’erd foot tall!”