Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

We must do something for the lad, I say, something grand. A pony or such as that, shall we?

She is laughing. Oh, yes, she says, Yes! And Father Dominic, as well, we must have him out for the Christmas feast.

I move quickly about the room to disguise the trembling which comes from a terrible gladness & desire. I step to the window & look away to the lough bleached by a Winter moon & know I can no longer bear to contain such strong feeling. I go to her & lean down & kiss her yielding mouth & sink to my knees overcome with gratitude. I hold to her & we weep like children with a joy never before known to us.

Some time in the night, he dreamed of a pony.

‘Cassie Fletcher,’ she said, extending her hand.

‘Tim Kav’na,’ he said, taking it.

She eyed his collar. ‘Father or rev’rend?’

‘Father in the States, reverend here. Dr. Feeney says you’re the one for the job.’

‘I’ve done th’ same for my da and a few others.’

He liked this bony, wryly attractive woman with the dry palm and fierce handshake.

‘I hope you don’t mind th’ look of a hematoma, ’ she said. ‘We must keep the covers off it.’

‘I’ve seen a few.’

‘She rested well enough last night, but the pain is fierce even with th’ meds. She’s after seein’ you but it musn’t be long, Rev’rend.’

‘I won’t stay.’

‘She’s had a bad go, comin’ home only yesterday from hospital an’ all.’

‘Of course.’

‘Just a warnin’-the tremors have begun and th’ nausea. There’s worse ahead but we count our blessings today.’

She led him by Paddy’s closed door, and into the darkened room.

The sight of her was jarring-the splint, the cast, the grossly swollen leg with its hellish purpling, the anguished plea in a face grave with shock.

The old Lab came to him and sniffed his pant leg.

‘Mrs. Conor.’ He wanted to touch her, it was instinctive, he always touched the suffering, but her injuries were many. He stooped and scratched Cuch behind the ear.

‘Is it you, then, Rev’rend?’ Her voice a vapor.

‘It’s Tim Kav’na, yes.’ He pulled the chair close to the bed, sat down, saw the tremoring in her fingers where cast and splint gave way.

She did not look at him, but stared at the ceiling. ‘I have one question and one only.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Can I do this?’

‘You can do this,’ he said. ‘With God’s help.’

‘I do not seek nor expect help from God. Keep him out of it. Answer me. Can I do this?’

‘As for keeping God out of it, you’re asking the wrong person. With that in mind, however, my answer is yes. You can do this.’

‘Are you lying to make me feel cozy, as they say?’

‘I don’t believe anything could make you feel cozy just now, least of all a lie.’

She flinched, said something in Irish, licked her dry lips. ’Tis a brutal punishment being unable to lift one’s arms, unable to dress oneself. One must do one’s business in a pan and shout for another to scratch one’s nose.

‘Nor is there anybody to comb my hair in a sensible fashion. Think about it, Reverend, and tell me how you would feel in such a case.’

‘With so little to comb, Mrs. Conor, I’m hardly the one to ask.’

She closed her eyes against him. ‘You’re a difficult man.’

‘You’re a difficult woman, enormously stubborn, from all I’ve observed, and full of grit-just two of many reasons I believe you have what it takes to do this.’

She caught her breath. ‘A scalding pain,’ she said. ‘My God.’ Sweat shone on her face.

He stood to leave, whatever professional poise he had, shaken.

‘Water,’ she said.

A glass of water with its bent straw was on the bed table. His father, his mother, his Grandpa Yancey, his grandmother, all had sought the bent straw in their suffering. He held the straw to her lips, she sucked, and nodded it away.

‘One glass of gin and ’t would be over, this wretched nausea and trembling like an ould woman-they say it’s the instant cure…’

Her unbound hair was dark against the pillow, the streak of silver more startling than he remembered. She was panting now, her words hard-won.

‘… but I thought to combine all the torment into one living hell. One doesn’t wait for sunshine and roses to do a hard thing, Reverend. I know how to suffer; I have suffered all my life. Life is but one long suffering.’

‘Sometimes we grow too fond of our suffering, ’ he said. ‘We count it too dear and it becomes exquisite, the holy of holies.’

‘Answer me again.’

He met the pale ferocity of her gaze, measured his words. ‘You can do this.’

Fletcher was waiting near the door. ‘You’re white as any sheet,’ she said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Scary business.’

‘Oh, aye. Tell me about it. But that’s nothin’. That’s your comedy show you just had, compared to what we’ll see this evenin’.’

‘I wouldn’t have your job.’

She raised the other eyebrow, grinned. ‘Nor would I have yours, Rev’rend, believe me. Not with all th’ antics your Church is up to in th’ States.’

That was his laugh for the day.

Seamus was waiting in the kitchen.

‘I spoke hard to her, Seamus.’

‘Joseph an’ Mary,’ said Seamus, stung by this.

‘I don’t know why, exactly.’

‘What did ye say, for all that?’

‘I told her she was stubborn, enormously stubborn.’

‘Aye, an’ you told th’ God’s truth, it’s just that your timin’ was off.’

At Broughadoon, he changed clothes, ran along the lake path, but no time for the Mass rock expedition. Back at the lodge, he shared a late lunch with Cynthia, their bed a picnic blanket.

He gave her the full report from Catharmore. ‘Your turn now,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’

‘I’ve been thinking how we’ll never have this time again, that it’s come to us as a gift, though maybe we don’t know how to open it.’

‘I think we’ve opened it and we’re unsure of the contents,’ he said.

She laughed, spooned crème fraîche into her bowl of fruit.

‘You’re an amazing woman, Kav’na. But I worry about you. No tears, no lashing out at the unfairness of life. You’re a better man than I am.’

‘Oh, but I did go nuts, Timothy, the day you and Liam went to the lough I completely lost it, but there was no pleasure in it. Remember me, sweetheart? I’m the girl who tried to take her own life. Since then, life has looked pretty good-I’ve learned that, if nothing else. Besides, I’ll probably never do this again, loll about like the queen of the Nile. I’ve surrendered to it; it is what it is. I can’t even apologize anymore, to you or anyone else.’

‘That’s an achievement.’

‘And I’m not sorry at all to miss days of popping in and out of hotels, packing and unpacking. ’

‘It’s the long confinement I worry about. You’re not the woman for it.’

‘I have company all the time. Anna, Bella, and now Maureen, our honey in the rock, and Irish poets from the sixth century to Seamus Heaney-Between my fingers and my thumb, the squat pen rests…’

‘That’s everything you have to tell me?’

‘And there’s the wonderful view of the lough and the dear old beeches for company, and think of all the sleep I’m getting.’

‘Yes, but is that everything?’

‘As soon as we get home, I’m going to start another book.’

He took her hand and kissed it.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said.

When he delivered the tray to the kitchen, he heard the fiddle. Close by, he thought, listening. In the lodge. Yes. The music was coming from Ibiza.