Part 6

Light from Heaven
by Jan Karon

(Page 6 of 6)

A slow flush came to her cheeks. "It feels like ... home."

"Louise is working wonders with our mail-order business and has organized everything from A to Z."

"Well done, Louise!" He felt suddenly proud, as if she were one of his own.

"Here's Father Tim's list. We have only three of the nine. Could you order the others today?"

"Just regular shipping," he said, noting that Margaret Ann, the bookstore cat, was giving his pant legs a good coating of fur. "I'm about to be covered up, and not much time to read."

"Pleased to meet ..." said Louise.

By George, she did it again! If push came to shove, Emma Newland could get a curtsy demo right here on Main Street.

"Any plans?" he asked Hope.

"We'd like to talk with you about that; we're thinking October, when the leaves change. Would you marry us, Father?"

"I will!" he vowed.

"Though we attend Lord's Chapel, we're hoping to find a little mountain church somewhere. Something ..." She hesitated, thoughtful.

"Something soulful and charming?"

"Why, yes!"

"Completely unpretentious, with a magnificent view?"

"That's it!"

"I'll put my mind to it," he said.

He told her about the hospital staff that was blown away by its patient's delivery of a second set of twins; how the boys looked strong, healthy, and uncommonly like their paternal great-grandmother and Mitford's former mayor, Esther Cunningham; how Louella had apprised him of nine thousand dollars that she thought was hidden in Miss Sadie's car, and that so far, he had no clue what to do about it.

He reported that the snow on the roads was freezing fast; that Edith Mallory had spoken an intelligible, not to mention extraordinary, word for the first time since her grave head injury seven months ago; that J.C. Hogan was wearing aftershave again, for whatever this piece of news was worth; that Avis had given him a considerable bit of advice about perfecting oven fries; that Hope Winchester had an engagement ring and wanted him to marry them; that Louise Winchester promised to be a fine addition to Mitford; and last but certainly not least, that he'd seen a crocus blooming in the snow, hallelujah.

He was positively exhausted from the whole deal, both the doing of it and the talking about it; he felt as if he'd trekked to another planet and back again.

"Good heavens," said his wife, "I'm worn out just listening."

And how had her day gone?

Joyce Havner had called in sick.

Violet, the aging model for the cat books his wife was famous for writing and illustrating, had brought a dead mouse into the kitchen.

A pot of soup had boiled over on the stove while she did the watercolor sketch of Violet gazing out the window.

She had handed off the sketch to the UPS driver at one o'clock sharp; it was on its way to her editor in New York.

Olivia Harper had called, and Lace was arriving from UVA tomorrow.

"That's it?" he asked.

"Don't get high and mighty with me, Reverend, just because you've gone to the big city and bagged all the news, and your wife stayed home, barefoot."

He laughed. "Missed you."

"Missed you back," she said, laughing with him.

In the farmhouse library, an e-mail from Father Tim's former secretary, Emma Newland, joined the queue.

Dear Fr Tim

Last year, you told me to buy a black coat to go with my good navy dress for the trip to England.

To wear the dress, I was supposed to lose ten pounds. But now the trip is only weeks away and I've gained fourteen!!#)!!* Don't mention this to a soul.

Since there's no way I'm going to lose twenty-four pounds by June, I'll have to buy a new dress to go with my black coat.

So should I buy navy like I'd planned to wear all along? Or should I buy black, which will go with everything?

Love to all.

P.S. Advise ASAP, sales start next week.

P.P.S. Harold no longer forced to take own toilet paper to post office, economy clearly on upturn.

They had prayed their Lenten prayer, eaten their modest supper, and made the pie - which would doubtless improve by an overnight repose in the refrigerator.

Now, they drew close by the fire, to the sound of a lashing March wind; she with Mrs. Miniver and he with The Choice of Books, a late-nineteenth-century volume he'd found in their bedroom. He was vastly relieved that she'd made no more mention of his hair, what was left of it.

"Listen to this, Timothy."

Cynthia adjusted her glasses, squinting at the fine print. "'It's as important to marry the right life as it is the right person.'"

"Aha! Never thought of it that way."

"I considered that very thing when I married you."

"Whether I was the right person?"

"Whether it would be the right life," she said.

"And?"

"And it is. It's perfect for me."

His wife, who preferred to read dead authors, put her head down again.

"How dead, exactly, must they be?" he had once asked.

"Not very dead; I usually draw the line at the thirties and forties, before the mayhem began setting in like a worm. So ... moderately dead, I would say."

He tossed a small log onto the waning fire; it hissed and spit from the light powder of snow that had blown into the wood box by the door. A shutter on the pantry window made a rattling sound that was oddly consoling.

"And here's something else," she said.

"'This was the cream of marriage, this nightly turning out of the day's pocketful of memories, this deft, habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.'" He nodded slowly, feeling a surge of happiness.

"Yes," he said, meaning it. "Yes!"

© 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."