A Common Life (Random House Large Print) - Hardcover

Karon, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375431047 ISBN 13: 9780375431043

Verlag: Random House Large Print, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

The creator of the beloved Mitford stories takes readers back thorugh time to experience the wedding of Father Tim Kavanagh to Cynthia Coppersworth. 25,000 first printing. (General Fiction)

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Jan Karon, who lives in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, was an award-winning advertising executive before following her dream of writing books.  She is the author of five Mitford novels.  At Home in Mitford and Out of Canaan appeared on the New York Times and other bestseller lists.  At Home in Mitford was named am ABBY Honor Book by the American Booksellers Association in 1996, 1997, and 1998.

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rd's Chapel seats barely two hundred souls, yet millions of Jan Karon's fans will be there for the most joyful event in years: The wedding of Father Time Kavanagh and Cynthia Coppersmith.  Here at last is A Common Life, and the long-awaited answers to these deeply probing questions: Will Father Time fall apart when he takes his vows?  Will Cynthia make it to the church on time?  Who'll arrange the flowers and bake the wedding cake?  And will Uncle Billy's prayers for a great joke be answered in time for the reception?

All the beloved Mitford characters will be there: Dooley Barlowe, Miss Sadie and Louella, Emma Newland, the mayor; in short, everybody who's anybody in the little town with the big heart.

A Common Life is the perfect gift for Mother's Day, Father's Day, anniversaries, and for a bride or groom to give their beloved.  In truth, it's perfect for anyone who believes in laughter, relies on ho

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A Common Life

By Jan Karon

Random House Large Print Publishing

Copyright © 2001 Jan Karon
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780375431043

Chapter One

The Wedding Story

The Proposal

Father Timothy Kavanagh stood at the stone wall on the ridge above Mitford,watching the deepening blush of a late June sunset.

He conceded that it wasn't the worst way to celebrate a birthday, though he'dsecretly hoped to celebrate it with Cynthia. For years, he'd tried to foolhimself that his birthday meant very little or nothing, and so, if no cardsappeared, or cake or presents, that would be fine.

Indeed, there had been no card from Cynthia, though he'd received a stack fromhis parishioners, and certainly she'd given no promise of cake or candles thatdefinitively pronounced, This is it, Timothy, the day you appeared on earth, andthough I know you don't really care about such things, we're going to celebrate,anyway, because you're important to me. He was deeply ashamed to admit that he'dwaited for this from her; in truth, had expected it, hoped for it.

He'd known suffering in his thirty-eight years in the priesthood, though nearlyalways because of someone else's grief or affliction. Now he suffered forhimself, for his maddening inability to let his walls down with her, to cast offhis armor and simply and utterly love her. He had pled with God to consume hislonging and his love, to cast it out as ashes and let nothing interfere with thefulfillment of the vows he'd made years ago as an ordinand. Why should such aflame as this beat up in him now? He was sixty-two years old, he was beyondloving in the flesh! And yet, as desperately as he'd prayed for his longing tobe removed, he craved for it to be satisfied.

He remembered the times she had shut herself away from him, guarding her heart.The loss of her ravishing openness had left him cold as a stone, as if a greatcloud had gone over the sun.

What if she were to shut herself away from him once and for all? He paced besidethe low stone wall, forgetting the sunset over the valley.He'd never understood much about his feelings toward Cynthia, but he knew andunderstood this: He didn't want to keep teetering on the edge, afraid to stepforward, terrified to turn back.

The weight on his chest was palpable; he'd felt it often since she moved nextdoor and into his life. Yet it wasn't there because he loved her, it was therebecause he was afraid to love her completely.

Perhaps he would always have such a weight; perhaps there was no true liberationin love. And certainly he could not ask her to accept him as he was-flawed andfrightened, not knowing.

He sank to his knees by the stone wall, and looked up and opened his mouth tospeak, but instead caught his breath sharply.

A great flow of crimson and gold was spilling across the sky like lava, runningmolten from west to east. He watched, awestruck, as the pyre consumed the bluehaze of the firmament and bathed the heavens with a glory that shook and movedhim to his very depths.

"Please!" he whispered.

It was then that he felt a sensation of warmth welling in him, a kind of liquidinfilling he'd never experienced before. Something in his soul lifted up, asstartling as a covey of quail breaking from the underbrush, and his heartacknowledged, suddenly and finally, that his love for her could not, would notbe extinguished. He knew at last that no amount of effort, no amount of pleadingwith God would enable him to sustain any longer the desperate, wounding battlehe had launched against loving her.

In a way he couldn't explain, and in the space of the merest instant, he knewhe'd come fully awake for the first time in his life.

He also knew that he wanted nothing more than to be with her, at her side, andthat after all the wasted months, he couldn't afford to waste another moment.But what if he'd waited too long, come to his senses too late?

He sprang to his feet, as relieved as if he'd shaken off an approaching illness;then, animated by a power not his own, he found himself running. "There comes atime," his cousin Walter had said, "when there's no turning back."

He felt the motion of his legs and the breeze on his skin and the hammering inhis temples, as if he might somehow implode, all of it combusting into a sharpinner flame, a durable fire, a thousand hosannas.

Streaming with sweat, he raced down Old Church Lane and into the cool greenenclosure of Baxter Park, his body as weightless as a glider borne on wings ofether, though his heart was heavy with dread. She could have gone away as she'ddone before . . . and this time, she might never come back.

The dark silhouette of the hedge separating the park from Cynthia's house andthe rectory appeared far away, another country, a landmark he might never reach.As he drew closer, he saw that her house was dark, but his own was aglow withlight in every window, as if some wonderful thing might be happening.He bounded through the hedge; she was standing on his stoop. She held the dooropen, and the light from the kitchen gleamed behind her.

She stood there as if she'd known the very moment he turned into the park and,sensing the urgency of his heart, felt her own compelled to greet it.He ran up the steps, his chest heaving, as she stepped back and smiled at him."Happy birthday!" she said.

"I love you, Cynthia!" His lungs seemed to force the declaration onto the nightair as if by their own will. He stood with his mouth open, marveling, while sheraised her hand to her cheek in a way that made her appear dubious, somehow, oramused.

Did she think him mad? He felt mad, riotous, he wanted to climb on the roof,baying and whooping-a sixtysomething bachelor priest, mad with love for hisnext-door neighbor.

He didn't consider the consequences of this wild skidding out of control; it wasnow or never.

As she backed into the kitchen, he followed. He saw the cake on the breakfasttable and the card propped against a vase of flowers, and he fell to one kneebeside the table and gathered her hands in his.

"Will you?" he croaked, looking up at her.

"Will I what, dearest?"

"You know."

"No, I don't know."

He knew that she knew; why wouldn't she help him with this thing? He wasperfectly willing to bring the other knee down if only she would help him.And why was he crouching here on the linoleum, sweating like a prizefighter,when he might have been dressed in his best suit and doing this in the study, orin the Lord's Chapel garden by the French roses?

He tried to scramble to his feet and run upstairs, where he would take a showerand brush his teeth and get dressed and do this the right way, but his strengthfailed and he found he couldn't move; he might have been glued to the linoleum,one knee up and one knee down, frozen as a herring.

"Hurry, Timothy!" she said, whispering.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes! A thousand times yes!"

She was helping him to his feet, and then he was kissing her and she was kissinghim back. She drew away and looked at him with a kind of awe; he found herradiance dumbfounding. "I thought you'd never ask," she said.

It was done. He had jumped over the barbed wire.

He buried his face in her hair and held her close and bawled like a baby.He was a muddle of happiness and confusion, as if his brain had been stirredlike so much porridge. He was unable to think straight or put one thoughtlogically after another; he felt the magnitude of the thing he'd done, and knewhe should do something to carry through,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Large Print
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0375431047
• ISBN 13: 9780375431043
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 201
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien