Part 2

Light from Heaven
by Jan Karon

(Page 2 of 6)

She thumped into the wing chair opposite him and took a sip from her coffee mug. "And what about you, dearest? Have you accomplished all your lifetime goals?"

Oddly, the question stung him. "I suppose I haven't thought about it." Maybe he hadn't wanted to think about having any further goals.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the wing chair. "I believe if I were charged with having a goal, it would be to live without fretting - to live more fully in the moment, not always huffing about as I've done in recent years ... to live humbly - and appreciatively - with whatever God furnishes."

He reflected for a moment and raised his head and looked at her. "Yes. That would be my goal."

"But aren't you doing that?"

"No. I feel obligated to get out there, to open myself to some new and worthwhile service. I've been a bump on a log these last weeks."

"It's OK to be a bump on a log once in a while. 'Be still,' He tells us, 'and know that I am God.' We must learn to wait on Him, Timothy. All those years of preaching and celebrating, and doing the interim at Whitecap - what a lovely legacy God allowed you to have there; and ministering to Louella and Miss Sadie and Hélène Pringle and Morris Love and George Gaynor and Edith Mallory and the Leepers ..." She took a deep breath. "On and on, an entire community, for heaven's sake, not to mention volunteering at the Children's Hospital and rounding up Dooley's little sister and brothers ..."

"One brother still missing," he said, "and what have I done about it?"

"There may be nothing you can do about it. There's absolutely nothing to go on, no leads of any kind. Maybe God alone can do something about it. Perhaps Kenny is God's job."

The fire crackled on the hearth; the dogs snored.

His wife had just preached him a sermon, and it was one he needed to hear. He had a mate who knew precisely what was what, especially when he didn't.

"'Let us then be up and doing,'" he quoted from Wordsworth, "'with a heart for any fate!' Where's the grocery list?"

"In my head at present, but let's get it out." She opened the small drawer in the lamp table and removed her notebook and pen.

"Steak!" She scribbled. "Same old cut?"

"Same old, same old. New York strip." This would be no Lenten fast, but a Lenten feast for a starving college boy who was seldom home.

"Russet potatoes," she said, continuing the litany.

"Always best for fries." His blood would soon get up for this cookathon, even if he couldn't eat much on the menu. While some theologians construed St. Paul's thorn to be any one of a variety of alarming dysfunctions, he'd been convinced for years that it was the same blasted affliction he'd ended up with - diabetes.

"Pie crusts," she said, scribbling on. "Oh, rats. For the life of me, I can't remember all the ingredients for his chocolate pie, and of course, I didn't bring my recipe box."

"I never liked the recipe we use," he said, suddenly confessional.

"You're not supposed to even touch chocolate pie, Timothy, so what difference does it make? Dooley loves it; it isn't half bad, really."

"It needs something."

"Like what?"

"Something more ... you know."

"Whipped cream!"

His wife loved whipped cream; with the slenderest of excuses, she would slather it on anything.

"Not whipped cream. Something more like ..." He threw up his hands; his culinary imagination had lately flown south.

"Meringue, then."

"Meringue!" he said, slapping his leg. "That's it!"

She bolted from her chair and trotted to the kitchen counter. "Marge's recipe box ... I was thumbing through it the other day and I vaguely remember ... Let's see ... Onions in Cream Sauce, Penne Pasta with Lump Crabmeat, that sounds good... ."

"Keep going."

"Pie!"

"Bingo."

"Buttermilk Pie ... Vinegar Pie ... Fresh Coconut ..."

"Mark that one!"

"Egg Custard ... Fresh Peach ... Deep-Dish Apple ..."

"Enough," he said. "I'm only human."

"Here it is. Chocolate Pie with Meringue."

"Finish that list, Kavanagh, and I'm out of here."

Ha! He'd denied himself as sternly as one of the Desert Fathers these last weeks; he would have the tiniest sliver of that pie, or else ...

"I know what you're thinking," she said.

He pulled on his jacket and foraged in the pockets for his knit cap, and kissed her warm mouth.

"You always know what I'm thinking," he said.

His hand was on the doorknob when the phone rang.

"Do try to find a haircut while you're in town," she said, picking up the receiver. "You've got that John-the-Baptist look again. Hello! Meadowgate Farm."

He watched her pause, listening, then grin from ear to ear.

"Thanks for calling, Joe Joe. That's wonderful! Congratulations! Give Puny our love. I'll be over on Thursday. Timothy's headed into Mitford now, I'm sure he'll stop by."

"So?" he asked, excited as a kid.

"Boys! Weighing in at fifteen pounds total! Thomas and ..." She paused, and looked all- knowing.

"And?"

"Thomas and Timothy!"

"No!"

"Yes! One named for Puny's grandfather and one named for you. Now there are two little boys in this world who're named for you, and I hope you realize that people don't go around naming little boys for a bump on a log."

Boys! And because Puny's father was long deceased, he would be their granpaw, just as he was granpaw to Puny and Joe Joe's twin girls.

His entire chest felt suffused with a warm and radiating light.

He turned onto the state road, which had already been scraped for the school buses, and headed south past the Baptist church and its snow-covered brush arbor. He glanced at the wayside pulpit, which was changed weekly.

If loving god were a crime, would you be in jail?

© 2006 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Jan Karon, born Janice Meredith Wilson in the foothills of North Carolina, was named after the title of a popular novel, Janice Meredith. Jan wrote her first novel at the age of ten. "The manuscript was written on Blue Horse notebook paper, and was, for good reason, kept hidden from my sister. When she found it, she discovered the one curse word I had, with pounding heart, included in someone's speech. For Pete's sake, hadn't Rhett Butler used that very same word and gotten away with it? After my grandmother's exceedingly focused reproof, I've written books without cussin' ever since."