Coming from Mother that was high praise indeed—her “perfectly adequate” was equivalent to someone else’s “fabulous.” From Minerva’s nod, I could tell she understood this.
“What he really wanted,” Mother went on, “was to get rid of the cleaning service altogether, to cut expenses, and have the ladies of St. Clotilda volunteer to do the cleaning. We straightened him out on that notion.”
“I should think so,” Minerva exclaimed.
“Wasn’t it him who tried to get the twelve-step groups banned from using the church building?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mother said. “He claimed they weren’t leaving enough change to cover the number of coffee packets they used during their meetings. I realize that in these difficult times we all have to keep expenses down, but to begrudge a few pots of coffee to people who are struggling to rebuild their lives!”
“I completely agree,” Minerva said. “If he keeps it up, tell him that the Baptist Ladies’ Auxiliary would be happy to donate as much coffee as the twelve-step groups could possibly need.”
“I think we’ve already squelched him on that one,” Mother said. “But thank you. And perhaps if I could mention your offer, it would shame him into abandoning that particular crusade.”
“Please do,” Minerva said.
We listened for a few more moments as Vess and Lightfoot bellowed at each other. Vess, predictably, was complaining about the unnecessary expense and trouble the choir was causing, while Lightfoot was bellowing that Vess was a philistine with no appreciation of art. They weren’t even arguing with each other, really, just venting.
“If Josh and Jamie were behaving like that, I’d put them both in a time-out,” I said.
“One of us should go in and break it up,” Minerva said, with a sigh.
“Or both of us,” Mother said, with a matching sigh.
“Let’s hold off for a few minutes,” I said. “At the rate they’re going, I think there’s a good chance that they’ll kill each other off, like the cats of Kilkenny.”
Mother and Minerva burst out laughing.
“Besides,” I added. “The choir can’t begin rehearsing until the Shiffleys have finished whatever it is they’re building, so maybe it’s a good thing someone’s keeping Mr. Lightfoot busy.”
“True, dear,” Mother said. “And it really isn’t funny: You should have seen that wretched Mr. Lightfoot carrying on! He was actually throwing things around in the sanctuary!”
“The Shiffleys’ tools and your vases and hymnals,” Minerva said. “It’s a disgrace!”
Then they looked at each other and burst out giggling again.
“Kilkenny cats!” Minerva spluttered.
“Well, obviously things can’t be so bad.” Dad appeared in the doorway, holding his trusty medical bag. “What seems to be the trouble?”
Dad agreed with my diagnosis of a possible dislocated shoulder, and he insisted on bustling me down to the Caerphilly Hospital. We nearly came to grief before we even left the parking lot. His van hit a patch of black ice and skidded to a stop against a mound of snow and his medical bag, which unlike us was not strapped in, launched itself out of the backseat into my shoulder, sending more waves of pain through my arm. By the time we reached the hospital, I was mutinous and refused to be taken down for X-rays until they gave me a painkiller of some kind.
Dad and the orthopedic surgeon whiled away the time waiting for the results by trading stories of dislocated joints they had seen in their careers. Since most of the stories involved ghastly complications rather than boringly successful outcomes, after the fourth or fifth story I told them what I thought of their bedside manner and shooed them out of my cubicle.
I was overjoyed when the X-rays finally showed that my shoulder wasn’t dislocated. Very badly bruised, but either it hadn’t been dislocated in the first place, or it was only partially dislocated and something had popped it back in. My money was on our close encounter with the snow mound in the parking lot.
Dad and the orthopedist were more restrained, cautioning me that there could still be muscle and tendon damage and insisting on an MRI. I found myself wondering, briefly, if they were disappointed that they weren’t getting a chance to perform a reduction on me, which I had by now figured out was a euphemism for forcibly shoving my dislocated shoulder back into place. But I had to admit that it was a relief when the MRI showed no serious damage.
Of course, my shoulder still hurt. And I would still need to wear a sling until the abused muscles healed a bit. And even in a small hospital, with Dad urging everyone on, the whole thing took quite a long time. Luckily, while I was waiting my turn in the MRI machine. Michael and the boys dropped by with my laptop. The boys were a little worried until I demonstrated that I had no visible wounds, after which they relaxed and began to explore all the exciting new opportunities for mischief that the ER provided. When they began fighting over who got to ride in the wheelchair and who had to push, Michael and I decided it was time for him to whisk them away to resume their Christmas shopping mission. I whiled away the long wait by finishing up a provisional schedule for relocating all the various church services, classes, pageants, rehearsals, dinners, brunches, and other events. It was a little annoying, having to type one-handed, but still—without my laptop and my cell phone, this would have been an impossible feat.