PASTOR CHET CARTER, OF THE VALLEY GOSPEL CHAPEL, told his flock that, without the Lord, the condition of a man or a woman in this, our life, is utter solitude. We are born alone, we die alone—absent the Lord. He is present at our comings hither, and he is present at our goings hence: He and only He. Thus the doctrine of Pastor Chet.
Calpurnia Lincoln said Pastor Chet was full of it. “Born alone?” she said. “Nonsense.”
“You think?” Eli asked her. He had come by the Hospice for a visit with Calpurnia. She sat in the easy chair by the window of her little room. Eli perched on the windowsill.
“Bald-headed nonsense,” said Calpurnia. “I know. I was born at home. We all were, at the old place on Bible Hill. I helped my mother when my brothers and sisters were born; at least I was there. Were any of us born alone? Nonsense. Mother was there, after all.”
“That isn’t what Pastor Chet’s talking about, though, is it?” asked Eli. “I don’t think your mother counts.”
“She might have thought she did, in the circumstances,” said Calpurnia. “Being she was the one having the baby. But, come on. Alone? It was like a party. There were a couple of aunts, cousins, the midwife, mother’s canary bird—you know: first came the doctor, then came the nurse, then came the lady with the alligator purse. Quite a crowd. Born alone? I should say not.”
“All that help. Where was your father?”
“Out in the barn buying drinks for the cows, probably. That’s where he was whenever he could be.”
“I liked your father,” said Eli.
“My father died in 1940,” said Calpurnia. “You weren’t even born. But as for dying, dying alone, same thing. Nonsense. Look at this place. You can’t turn around without somebody coming along to bring you your meds, your lunch; coming to change your linen, wash your windows, clip your toenails, do your hair; somebody wants to play some Hearts, watch the ballgame, visit. Dying? Well, sure, I guess. That’s what this place is, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here. Dying alone? No. Far from it. Mind you, I’m not criticizing. It’s alright here. I like it fine. But alone? Phooey.”
“You’re right about that,” said Eli. “You’ve got everything in here. Even animals. I saw a dog downstairs.”
“That’s Ringo. Belongs to one of the girls. Cindy? I think he’s Cindy’s. She brings him in to see people, get us all cheered up. Works, too. It’s a new thing they do.”
“A dog in a clinic? A dog in a hospital? Is that sanitary? I don’t know if I approve of that.”
“I don’t know if anybody cares whether you approve of it or not,” said Calpurnia. “We’re glad to have him, Ringo. I’m glad. That’s one thing I miss about this place, is my dogs. Do you remember any of my dogs?”
“I remember your cat. I remember Snowflake.”
“Snowflake was a rabbit. He was Ruthie’s rabbit. That was later. The cat was Snowball, but she wasn’t mine. She lived in the barn.”
“Before my time.”
“Long before,” said Calpurnia. “No, I never wanted a cat. Cats made me feel bad. They still do. I feel sorry for cats. There was a thing, once, at home, I can’t have been more than seven, eight. The cat had kittens. That could have been Snowball, come to think, or a Snowball. We had a whole line of Snowballs. Barn cats. So, we had Mrs. Pierce, from over the hill, helping in the kitchen for some reason that day, and she brought the new kittens in a basket and put them on the porch, outside, asked me did I want to play with them. Well, sure. There were five or six of them, some white, some black. They couldn’t have been more than a couple of days old. They had these round blue eyes, like kittens do, with that surprised, shocked look that kittens have, like granny just broke wind, and they tussled around and rolled themselves into a ball, and crawled into my lap and all up and down of me. We had a fine old time out on the porch. But then the kittens got tired, and I guess so did I, and Mrs. Pierce asked me was I about done playing with them, and I said I was—thinking, you know, that they were mine now and I could play with them whenever I liked. But Mrs. Pierce said, ‘Alright, then, if you’re finished with them.’ And she put the kittens in a feed sack and took and drowned them in the cold spring. Just like that. Tossed the sack over the bank. Those kittens hadn’t any use any more, you see. So she got rid of them. How did she do that? Easy. She killed them. No, a farm’s a cruel place for animals, ask me. You might not think it would be, but it is.”
“For kittens, anyway,” said Eli. “That farm, anyway.”
“For anything,” said Calpurnia. “Any farm. The animals are there to be used. The way Father used to say: they’re tools. You use them up, you get rid of them. That’s unless you eat them. Either way, you kill them.”
“Well, but some you don’t kill, right? You raise them, you care for them, then you sell them. That’s not using them up and getting rid of them.”
“Sure, it is. Somebody else kills them, that’s all. Comes to the same thing, ask me.”
“You’re a bright ray of sunshine today, ain’t you?”
“Sure, I am,” said Calpurnia. “Like always. No: I am. I’m fine. I’m not down today, not any day. But it doesn’t do to be too sentimental about life, is what I’m saying. There are hard things. It doesn’t do to pour syrup over them and make believe they’re griddle cakes. That’s all.”
“Pastor Chet, tell you the same thing, I bet,” said Eli.
“Don’t give me Pastor Chet.”
“I’ll be sure and tell him what a high opinion you have of him.”
“He knows,” said Calpurnia. “And don’t be telling me you spend a lot of time in church, either, his or anybody else’s. I know different.”
“Oh, you do? How?”
“Polly. Polly Jefferson. She goes to Pastor Chet’s chapel. She says she’s never seen you there, not once.”
“So what if she hasn’t? Maybe I go to some other church.”
“No, you do not,” said Calpurnia. “Polly would have seen you.”
“What if I was going to a church she doesn’t go to?”
“There aren’t any,” said Calpurnia. “She goes to all of them. Takes more than one church to hold Polly.”
One of the Hospice housekeeping staff stood in the doorway to the sun porch. “You’re all set,” she told Calpurnia.
“Thank you, dear,” said Calpurnia. To Eli she said, “I know how busy you are. You probably want to get on your way.”
“No,” said Eli. “I’ve got nothing till late afternoon.”
“Well, then, get something,” said Calpurnia. Eli stood.
“Just switch on the TV on your way out, would you?” asked Calpurnia.
“What’s on?”
“Jeopardy.”
“That’s that quiz show,” said Eli. “I had to give up on that one. Lots of the questions, I know the answers, alright, but I have to think for a second. Then somebody else answers. They go too quick for me.”
“Me, too,” said Calpurnia. “I like the boss, though. He’s a gentleman. Plus, I think he’s good looking.”
“He don’t do it for me,” said Eli, and he left Calpurnia with the familiar lilting music coming up in the little room.