Shepherds Abiding (5 page)

I’m afraid I won’t make it but please don’t cry over me. You girls be good to each other.

Love, Mother

Dictated to Amanda Rush, R.N.

“I left my glasses back at th’ office,” said J.C. “Somebody read me what’s on this pink menu deal.”

“Let’s see.” Mule adjusted his glasses. “Chicken salad with grapes and nuts. That comes with toast points.”

“Toast points? I’m not eatin’ toast points, much less anything with grapes and nuts.”

“Here’s a crepe,” said Father Tim, pronouncing it in the French way. “It’s their house specialty.”

“What’s a krep?” asked Mule.

“A thin pancake rolled around a filling.”

“A filling of what?” J.C. wiped his forehead with a paper napkin.

“Shredded chicken, in this case.”

“A pancake rolled around shredded chicken? Why shred chicken? If God wanted chicken to be
shredded . . .
”
“I could gnaw a table leg,” said Mule. “Let’s get on with it.”

“I can’t eat this stuff. It’s against my religion.”

“Whoa! Here you go,” said Father Tim. “They’ve got flounder!”

“Flounder!” J.C. brightened.

“Fresh fillet of flounder rolled around a filling of Maine cranberries and baked. This is quite a menu.”

“I don’t trust this place. Everything’s rolled around somethin’ else. No way.”

“Look,” said Father Tim. “Aspic! With celery and onions. Hit that with a little mayo, it’d be mighty tasty.”

J.C. rolled his eyes.

“I was always fond of aspic,” said Father Tim.

“You would be,” snapped J.C. “Let’s cut to the chase. Is there a burger on there anywhere?”

“Nope. No burger. . . . Wait a minute . . .
organic turkey burger!
There you go, buddyroe.” Mule looked eminently pleased.

“I’m out of here,” said J.C., grabbing his briefcase.

“Wait a dadblame minute!” said Mule. “You’re th’ one said meet you here. It was your big idea.”

“I can’t eat this stuff.”

“Sure you can. Just order somethin’ an’ we’ll have th’ kitchen pour a bowl of grease over it.”

“This kitchen never saw a bowl of grease, but all right—just this once. I’m definitely not doin’ this again.”

“Fine!” said Mule. “Great! Tomorrow we’ll go back to th’ Grill, and everybody’ll be happy. I personally don’t take kindly to change. This is upsettin’ my stomach.”

“I’m not goin’ back and let that witch on a broom order me around.”

“Hey, y’all.”

They turned to see a young woman in an apron, holding an order pad. Father Tim thought her smile dazzling.

“Hey, yourself,” said Father Tim.

“I’m Lucy, and I’ll be your server today.”

“All
right!
” said Mule.

“What will you have, sir?” she asked J.C.

“I guess th’ flounder,” grunted the editor. “But only if you’ll scrape out th’ cranberries.”

“Yessir, be glad to. That comes with a nice salad and a roll. And since we’re taking out the cranberries, would you like a few buttered potatoes with that?”
Father Tim thought J.C. might burst into tears.

“I
would!
” exclaimed the
Muse
editor. “And could I have a little butter with th’
roll?
”

“Oh, yessir, it comes with butter.”

“Hallelujah!” exclaimed Mule. “An’ I’ll have th’ same, but no butter with th’ roll.”

“Ditto,” said Father Tim. “With a side of aspic.”

“No, wait,” said Mule. “Maybe I’ll try it with th’ cranberries. But only if they’re sweet, like at Thanksgiving. . . .”

“Don’t go there,” said J.C. “Bring ’im th’ same thing I ordered.”

Father Tim didn’t mention to his lunch partners that Hessie Mayhew and Esther Bolick were sitting on the other side of the room, staring at them with mouths agape.

“Seems to me,” said Mule as they hotfooted north on Main Street, “that if they’re goin’ for th’ male market, they’d change those pink curtains.”

He supposed he should begin with a sheep, maybe the one painted with the iniquitous grin. . . .
“Pink isn’t so bad, all things considered. We have a pink bedroom.”

“There’s no way I’m believin’ that.”

“Cynthia calls it Faded Terra-Cotta.” . . .
He could earn his wings with the small stuff. . . .

“Pink is pink,” said Mule. “Th’ least they could do is take th’ ruffles off.”

“That’s a thought.”
What kind of paint would they be using? And brushes? And where would they get such items? He had a yard-long list of questions. . . .

“An’ maybe change th’ color of th’ menu to, say, the color of my sweater.”

“Garage-sale brown? I don’t think so.”

 . . .
Or maybe he should begin with the shepherds, so they could be put in place the first day of Advent. . . .

“I thought th’ food was pretty good,” said Mule.

“Me, too.” . . .
He’d have to hustle. . . .

“But overpriced. Way overpriced. That’s why th’ male demographic has steered clear of th’ place. We’ve got more sense than to shell out six ninety-five for a piece of flounder.”

“We just did.”
He saw the look of amazement on Cynthia’s face—she was dazzled, she was thunderstruck. . . .

“Yeah, but I won’t be goin’ back, will you?”

“We’ll see.”

“So what’re you doin’ th’ rest of th’ day?”

What could he say? That he was starting work on the crèche? He couldn’t say that. Nor could he say that in the evening, he’d be working on his essays. Mule Skinner wouldn’t know an essay if he met it on the street.

“A little of this and a little of that. The usual.”

“Me, too,” said Mule, who certainly didn’t want it known that he was headed home for a long nap.

He looked at his watch. If he scurried, he could trot to Happy Endings and get back to the Oxford for an hour and a half before picking up Cynthia at the car dealership in Wesley.

“Any books with the Nativity scene, or about Nativity scenes in general, or . . . like that?”

“No, sir, not right now,” said Hope, “but our Christmas stock is starting to come in.”

Margaret Ann, who moused for her bed and board, stood up from the sales counter and stretched, then padded over to him and licked his hand. Though he wasn’t immensely fond of cats, they seemed to take to him with alacrity.

“I’d like to see, for example, what color the robes of
angels might be.” Hadn’t he received literally thousands of Christmas cards over the years, many featuring angels? Yes. But could he remember the fine particulars of their robes? No.

“Robes of angels,” Hope said aloud, taking notes. “What else, Father?”

“I’d like to see some wise men while I’m at it, and shepherds. A few camels and donkeys wouldn’t hurt, either.”

“You’re having a Christmas tableau at your church?”

“A tableau, yes, but not necessarily at church.” He could see, up front, that keeping this thing secret would have its pitfalls. He would have to be careful, always, to tell the truth, even while avoiding it.

“I think I know just what you need. It’s a beautiful picture book with lots of artists’ renderings of the Holy Family and the Nativity. In color! Shall I order it for you?”

Hope’s eyes were bright behind the lenses of her tortoiseshell-frame glasses.

“Please! Would you? I need it ASAP.”

“Consider it done!” she said, quoting one of his own lines. “I’ll have them ship it two-day air.”

“While we’re at it, Hope, let me tell you how much
Cynthia and I appreciate the great job you’re doing here. You’ve turned Happy Endings into a bookstore we’re all proud of.”

Her eyes suddenly flooded with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You and your sister, Louise, are faithfully in my prayers,” he assured her. “I’m sorry about the loss of your mother.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Let me pray for you.”

“Yes.”

He reached across the counter and took her hand, and held it.

He thumbed through his engagement calendar with his right hand while holding a mug of hot tea in his left. A cold wind had come up, causing a branch of the red maple to lash against the guttering.

Let’s see, he was celebrating at St. Paul’s on Sunday next, then at St. Stephen’s two weeks further. He could use a tad of help from his erstwhile secretary, but she was in Atlanta through Christmas, helping monitor her daughter’s high-risk pregnancy.

They were racing toward the holidays, into the time when Dooley would be home from the University of Georgia, and Dooley’s long-lost younger brother, Sammy, would join them at the yellow house for Thanksgiving dinner. He sat back and closed his eyes, and warmed both hands on the mug.

He remembered the first time he ever saw Dooley Barlowe—barefoot, unwashed, and looking for a place to “take a dump.” He chuckled. How could he ever have guessed that this thrown-away boy, then eleven years old and now twenty, would change his heart, his life, for all time? But Dooley wasn’t the only thrown-away Barlowe—three brothers and a sister had been let go by their mother, and it had long been his personal mission to find them all, to see the sundered nest made whole.

On Thanksgiving Day, four of the five siblings would break bread together at the Kavanagh board. Only Kenny remained lost to them, and only God knew where he might be found.