Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good

The tenth installment in Jan Karon's Mitford series follows Father Timothy Kavanagh, a retired Episcopal priest in his seventies, as he searches for renewed purpose in the small mountain town of Mitford, North Carolina. Recently returned from a trip to Ireland with his wife, Cynthia, a children's book author and illustrator, Tim finds himself restless and directionless. Retirement still troubles him; he feels the sting of losing his identity as priest of Lord's Chapel, the Episcopal church where he served for sixteen years. He manages his diabetes, worries over his aging dog, Barnabas, and dodges Cynthia's efforts to get him to a retirement party for their longtime doctor, Hoppy Harper.

Vanita Bentley, a reporter for the local weekly, the Mitford Muse, publishes an article about Tim and Cynthia's well-meaning intrusion into the home of a neighbor, Irene McGraw, whose front door was found standing open. The piece misspells Tim's name and reports that he fainted when confronted by police, then poses a question to the community: Does Mitford still take care of its own? The article launches an informal vote for the town's "Leading Citizen," with Tim accumulating votes week after week, a distinction he finds embarrassing. Former mayor Esther Cunningham, a formidable woman in her seventies, watches from the sidelines, seething over the town's declining standards and quietly considering a return to politics.

Tim visits key figures across his community. At Hope House, a local nursing facility, he confides for the first time that he has a half-brother named Henry Winchester, the son of Tim's late father and Peggy, the Black woman who helped raise Tim in Mississippi. Tim recently donated his own stem cells to save Henry from leukemia, a transplant given less than a five percent chance of succeeding. He also visits Pauline Leeper, biological mother of Tim's adopted son, Dooley Barlowe. Pauline is in recovery from alcohol addiction and works at Hope House. She deserted her children and traded one son to a stranger for a gallon of whisky. Though partial healing has occurred, Dooley remains reserved with his mother, and two of his brothers refuse to see her.

Tim receives a letter from Bishop Jack Martin requesting a private meeting. At the bishop's office in Asheville, Martin reveals that Henry Talbot, Tim's successor at Lord's Chapel, is leaving the priesthood amid infidelity and other serious misconduct. Martin asks Tim to serve as interim vicar, the temporary priest in charge, a commitment that could last six months to a year. Tim is stunned. Cynthia tells him she would hate sharing him again but promises to support whatever he decides. After days of intense prayer, Tim realizes he does not want to return. He calls the bishop and declines; Martin says he will contact Father Brad, a priest from Colorado, to serve instead.

Tim's sense of purpose arrives from an unexpected quarter. Hope Winchester Murphy, owner of Happy Endings Bookstore, is pregnant and has been diagnosed with placenta previa, a condition in which the placenta covers the cervical canal, creating life-threatening risks for both mother and child. Her husband, Scott Murphy, serves as chaplain at Hope House. When Hope's doctor orders complete bed rest, Tim volunteers to work at the bookstore for free, first one day a week, then expanding to Thursdays and Fridays. He discovers unexpected joy in the routine of opening the store, making coffee, and selling books. He hires Coot Hendrick, an elderly town fixture who cannot read, to clean and help around the store, and arranges for a schoolteacher, Miss Mooney, to give Coot reading lessons.

Simultaneously, Tim undertakes the restoration of the neglected rose garden behind Lord's Chapel, working alongside Sammy Barlowe, Dooley's volatile seventeen-year-old brother. Sammy lives in the basement of the old rectory next door with Harley Welch, a sixtysomething reformed moonshine runner who has become an informal guardian to the boys, and Kenny Barlowe, another of Dooley's brothers. Sammy's history of abuse and neglect has left him angry and self-destructive. He steals Tim's pool cue and returns it, then takes Tim's Mustang from the unlocked garage and wrecks it on the bypass. Tim declines to press charges. Instead, he purchases a high-quality replacement pool cue and lays it on Sammy's bed, an act of grace that bewilders the boy, who expects punishment. Tim tells Cynthia he is simply going to love Sammy, though she warns that this is the hard way. On a drive to buy a tree for the garden, Tim speaks plainly to Sammy about the choice between life and death: "The party's over, Sam. But the fun is just beginning" (354).

On a Saturday night, Mary Talbot, Henry's wife, calls Tim in distress. Henry left the house hours ago in his running clothes and has not returned. Tim and Dooley drive to the wooded trail where Talbot runs and find him on the ground, delirious, having ingested a dangerous combination of medications in a suicide attempt. They coordinate his transport by helicopter to Winston-Salem, arriving just within the critical window for the antidote to work. Talbot survives. The following Sunday, a rockslide prevents Bishop Martin from reaching Lord's Chapel, and Tim must deliver the news of Talbot's departure alone. He announces that Talbot's duties are ended, relays Talbot's message of repentance, and then breaks down weeping before the congregation for wounded clergy, for those who have lost faith, and for "the holiness of the mundane" (253). Most of the congregation weeps with him.

A mystery threading through the narrative resolves when the black limousine seen cruising through Mitford turns out to belong to Kim Dorsay, a famous film actress. Kim reveals to Tim that she and Irene McGraw are twin sisters, separated at twelve days old after their mother died in childbirth. Tim and Cynthia arrange a reunion at the bookstore, and the meeting is profoundly emotional. The discovery has major consequences for the local Children's Hospital, which is campaigning for a five-million-dollar new wing: Kim purchases Irene's oil paintings for one and a half million dollars and donates the full amount, while Irene matches the gift in memory of her late husband, Chester.

During the Christmas season, Tim's commitments converge. A network of volunteers keeps the bookstore running while Hope awaits delivery in Charlotte. Hélène Pringle, Tim's French-born neighbor, persuades the reluctant Tim to allow a Saint Nicholas display in one store window, with Harley donning a bishop's costume sewn from fabric remnants. Tim installs a restored Nativity scene in the other window, withholding the Christ child until Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, Edith Mallory, a wealthy former antagonist who uses a wheelchair after a severe head injury, hands Tim a check for five hundred thousand dollars to the hospital, writing, "You have given when no one asked. I have given only when pressed. This is a new avenue for me" (493). The campaign total surpasses $3.5 million.

Other threads reach resolution. Coot's elderly mother, Beulah Mae, dies peacefully after telling him for the first time that he is a good son. Tim rides a snowplow through a storm to sit with Coot through the night, and the funeral gathering at the Kavanagh house becomes a potluck embodiment of community care. Esther Cunningham suffers a stroke and abandons her plan to run for mayor. Cynthia is diagnosed with a macular hole, a small break in the central part of the retina that causes vision loss, requiring surgery, which she postpones until after Christmas. Hope and Scott decide to name their daughter Grace.

On Christmas Eve, Dooley calls to announce that the ring he gave his longtime girlfriend, Lace, is not a friendship ring but an engagement ring. Lace asks that they keep the news quiet; the couple plans to marry after Dooley finishes veterinary school. Tim, Cynthia, and Sammy walk through fifteen inches of snow to the darkened bookstore at midnight and place the Christ child in the manger. On Christmas night, Coot sits by his oil heater, reading his gift copy of Green Eggs and Ham aloud to his dead mother's empty bed, sounding out "I am Sam" with pride. On Christmas morning, Tim stands before the fire and looks up at a portrait Lace painted of Dooley wearing a T-shirt that reads LOVE IS AN ACT OF ENDLESS FORGIVENESS. "Take it from here, buddy," he says. "And God be with you" (511).