Faith (16 page)

T
he sun was setting as Mike ambled across Dot Ave. For the first time in years he'd spent an entire Sunday afternoon at the Banshee, bullshitting with the bartender and watching the Sox beat the Orioles, feeling that particular guilt that comes from spending a sunny afternoon in a gloomy bar. Even more than the drink, baseball had the power to soothe him. It was only at the commercial breaks that he remembered his degenerate brother, his angry wife. When the game ended he paid the bartender, his steepest tab in years. Then he drove across town to Dunster, where he had a house to show.

He drove with the windows open, enjoying the asphalt breeze. The day had finished hot and muggy. It happened a few times each spring: summer making a surprise appearance, like an actor who'd rushed his entrance. Mike didn't mind the heat. It felt good to sweat, and yet, as he parked at the curb, he felt suddenly gamy. He hadn't showered after the playground, hadn't even changed his shirt.

He parked on Fenno Street and got out of the truck, feeling the alcohol. He hadn't driven drunk in years.
Stupid
, he thought, but the thought was fleeting. He climbed the steps to Kath Conlon's porch. The two plastic chairs sat facing each other, as though someone had stretched out there. Beside them, on a table, was a bottle of nail polish. A cigarette burned in an ashtray like the climax of a magic trick, the pretty assistant vanished in a puff of smoke.

The front door was open. Mike tapped at the screen door and peered inside. The apartment was nearly dark. An electric fan hummed in one window. “Anybody home?” he called.

Kath came to the door in a tank top and denim cutoffs, a bottle of beer in her hand. She looked stunned to see him. “Jesus, you scared me.” The purple bra again, a strap wandering over her bare shoulder. Absently she tucked it back into place.

“Sorry,” Mike said.

“Open this, will you?” She pushed open the screen door and handed him the bottle, as though she'd been expecting him. As though they had known each other for years.

He took the bottle and gave it a twist.

“That one's yours,” she said, blowing on her nails. “Have a seat, okay? I'll be right back.”

Mike sat on one of the plastic chairs and waited. He took a long cold slug of beer and thought,
This is exactly what I need.

“Jesus, it's hot.” Kath stepped onto the porch, a beer bottle pressed to her forehead. Her feet were bare and suntanned. She sat and blew on her nails.

Mike watched her, amused. His wife never wore nail polish.
It looks cheap,
she said, and Mike had to agree. When he saw a woman with long red nails, he instantly imagined her hand on his dick.

“You shouldn't leave that burning,” he said as Kath dragged on her cigarette.

“Oh no?”

Mike reached for the nail polish. “This stuff is wicked flammable. It says so on the bottle, in tiny fucken print.” He felt warm and loose. The expletive rolled pleasingly off his tongue.
DO NOT USE NEAR OPEN FLAME.

“That's what you do when you're not selling houses? Read the tiny fucken print on nail polish?”

Mike grinned. He'd forgotten the pleasure of being teased by a girl, a flush from deep inside.

“You got sun,” Kath said.

“I took my kids to the playground.”

“Twins, right?”

“Plus one. Michael and Jamie are five. Ryan is seven.” Mike took a long pull on his beer. “How old is yours?” he asked casually.

“Nine in August. He's already planning his birthday. He wants to go to Six Flags. It's all I hear about.”

Mike groaned. “Jesus, I hate that place.”

“You hate it now. But when you were nine? It was awesome.”

“It was Riverside then. But I never went. My folks took us to Paragon.” Mike grinned. “You're too young to remember that. I'm an old man, you know. Pushing forty.”

“No way.” She looked genuinely surprised, and for some reason this pleased him immensely. He could remember feeling, not long ago, as she did: that forty was a foreign country, one he had no desire to visit.

“Okay, thirty-six. Class of eighty-five,” he said. “How about you? You went to Dunster?”

“Dot High.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “You?”

“BC High,” he said automatically—the answer he gave to colleagues, to clients. He saw that she was not impressed.

“Actually, they kicked me out,” he admitted. “I graduated from Grantham.”

Something in her face changed. “I know a guy from Grantham. He's older, though.”

“Try me,” he said. “I was a cop there. I knew the whole fucken town.”

“I knew it! You look like a cop. Anyway, he didn't go to school there. He's a priest.”

Mike felt a sudden jolt.
Don't blow it
, he told himself, watching her closely. “You hang out with priests, do you?”

“My mother does. She works at Sacred Heart. Practically lives there. She lives for that shit.”

“Mine, too. Hey, whatever gets them through the day, you know?” Mike reached for the medal at his neck, a nervous habit. His own tell, probably, the antsy way he raced St. Christopher back and forth on his chain. “So who's this priest?”

“Nobody,” she said abruptly. “I bet you go to church. I can just tell.”

Mike shrugged. “I got kids, you know? We do it for them.” As he said it he realized his mistake. He had lapsed into the marital
we.

There was a long silence. Mike could sense the moment fading. In a second his chance would be lost.

“Come on. Let me show you the house.” He patted his pocket. “I got the keys right here.”

“You always show houses loaded?”

I'm not loaded
, he started to say, but stopped himself. There was no reason to deny it. This girl wasn't Abby. Not even close.

“Whenever possible,” he said.

She laughed then, filling him with relief and something else, a strange ache. It was Lisa Morrison's laugh, smoky and sweet. “Yeah, well, you're wasting your time with me. Like I said, I don't have the money yet.”

“
Yet?
What are you going to do, knock over a liquor store?”

“Human trafficking,” she said, rising. “You want another one?”

Mike held up his empty bottle and followed her inside. The apartment was dark and stifling, loud with fans. He stumbled briefly over a wheeled something, a child's toy.

“Turn on a light, will you? I can't see a thing.”

“It's cooler this way.”

She led him by the hand.

I
T WAS
hard to say, in retrospect, when Kath Conlon slipped out of focus. In the glare of the porch light he saw her clearly, but in the dark apartment things became confused. For the first moments he was conscious of pretending; later it truly was Lisa Morrison he followed into the dim kitchen, her small hand in his. He felt boozy and heated, drifting out of time.

In the kitchen he held her shoulders. A single bulb burned over the sink. The refrigerator was decorated with childish drawings, alphabet magnets. In one corner was a Halloween photo, the kid in his Batman costume, held up by the letter
A.

“Where's your boy tonight?” Mike asked, suddenly remembering.

“Asleep,” she said. “He's sick. I gave him Benadryl.”

They stood a long moment staring at each other. A lick of sweat ran down his back.

“Hot as fuck in here,” he said. “You need an air conditioner.”

Kath opened the refrigerator, took out two more beers. “There's one in the basement.”

“What's it doing in the basement? I'm sweating my nuts off.”

That laugh again. “I can't get it up the stairs, idiot. It's fucken huge.”

“How heavy can it be?”

Again she took his hand, led him down a rickety staircase. The basement was unfinished, a cellar really, smelling of damp.

“There,” she said, pointing.

“That? It's not so big. Not for a strapping lass like yourself.” He grasped her arm then, the small, hard biceps fitting easily in his hand. She looked up at him, laughing, laughing. Her eyes—hers or Lisa's, what did it matter?—were level with his throat.

“Okay. Here goes.” He bent and grasped the thing, lifting with his legs.

“Careful,” she said.

“Nothing to it,” he said easily, though it was heavier than he'd expected. “Lead the way.”

He staggered upstairs and through the kitchen, down a dark hallway. The bedroom was shadowy. He spotted a window and propped the thing on the sill.

“Not there,” she said. “I don't want it blowing in my face all night. Here.” She bent to unplug one of the fans, the denim shorts climbing her thighs.

“Hurry up, will you? This fucker is heavy.”

She struggled a moment with the screen. Finally Mike bent and set the thing in the window.

“It's not going to fall out and crush my car?”

Mike glanced out the window, at the lime-green Buick parked at the curb. “If you're lucky.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Okay. The moment of truth.” He wiped his hands on his pants and looked for an outlet. They waited, a shared breath.

Nothing happened.

“Wait.” Mike fumbled briefly with the controls, and a moment later the thing rumbled to life. Kath squealed, gripped his arm. Her nails were red against his skin.

“Hallelujah,” she breathed, and it was a kind of celebration that brought their bodies together. A high-five, a loose embrace. She fell against him laughing. He lifted her—after the air conditioner, light as a child—into his arms.

Their mouths had barely touched when he heard a small voice behind him.

“What happened?”

He set her down. Aidan was standing in the doorway in short pajamas, squinting in the half light.

“It's okay, sweetie.” Kath went to him, ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “We were putting in the air conditioner. We made too much noise.”

“It's hot,” the boy wailed.

“I know, baby. But come and feel.” She walked him to the window and held out his hand. “See? It's cooling off now. You can sleep in here with me.” She turned to pull back the quilt from the bed.

“I need to put him down,” she murmured. She glanced quickly at Mike, but did not meet his eyes.

“Sure. I should be going, anyway,” he mumbled, heading for the door.

“Thanks for bringing that thing upstairs,” she said. “You saved us.”

“No problem,” Mike said.

D
onald Burke ran his law practice downtown, from a fine old house in the center of Quincy. A receptionist showed Art into the inner office. Attorney Burke sat behind a cluttered desk, a portly man with a leonine head.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Art said briskly.

“I'm glad you called,” said Burke. “Marilyn has been concerned. The parish council called an emergency meeting. The discussion was quite heated, from what I understand.”

“Thanks for what you said to the newspaper. Excuse me,” Art said, and coughed deeply.

Burke drew back, startled. Art felt contaminated and contagious, the carrier of some dreaded disease.

“Your support means a lot,” he said, recovering. “Frankly, it's why I came.”

As he told the story, Burke listened without comment. He made a few notes on a yellow pad.

“Where are you living now, Father?”

“They put me in an apartment complex in Braintree. Actually, that's partly why I'm here.” He took the folded flyer from his pocket and slid it across the desk. “Somebody posted this yesterday. Apparently they saw the article in the paper.”

“Apparently,” Burke said dryly.

“Can they do that?” Art demanded. “Isn't it . . . slander or something?”

“This is written communication, so technically it's libel. But only if it isn't true.” He took reading glasses from his pocket. “This is worded very carefully. Notice how they don't come out and say you actually
did
anything. Just that you've been accused.”

Art leaned forward in his chair. “My question, I guess, is this. If you were me—if you were accused of something like this—what would you do?”

Did he imagine it, or did Donald Burke flinch for an instant, a shudder of revulsion?
I'm not you
, Art imagined him thinking.
I would never be you.

But when he spoke his tone was neutral. “Let me contact the Archdiocese on your behalf. Inquire about the state of their investigation. It won't change anything in the short term, but at least they'll know you have counsel.”

“So you'll represent me?” Art smiled grimly. “A lot of people aren't going to like it. Marilyn's going to be very unpopular with the council.”

Burke chuckled. “From what I understand, that's hardly a new situation.”

“I have some savings,” Art said. “I can't pay you much, though.”

“You can pay me ten dollars. I'd happily do it for nothing, but some nominal sum has to change hands.” Burke rose. “We'll never forget what you did for Caitlin. You're a good priest, and there aren't many left.” He offered his hand. “Take care of that cough, Father. Let me get on the phone to Lake Street. I'll be in touch.”

“What about the posters?” Art demanded.

“If I were you,” said Burke, “I would take them down.”

A
t some point temporary becomes forever. There was a moment thirty years ago when Ma bought her first tube of Chinese Red, a day during the Nixon presidency when she covered the new sofa in vinyl, telling herself
Just for now.

By my last count, forty-eight priests have been expunged from the clergy directory of the Boston Archdiocese. The most egregious offenders, like the Street Priest, have been defrocked and brought to trial; but most were simply taken out of service. In another era they would have been quietly reassigned to unsuspecting new parishes, shuffled like jokers in a deck. Now public pressure has put that game to an end, and the accused are barred immediately from their rectories. Their official status is
Suspended
, and the term seems apt: left to swing over a precipice, dangled by an invisible hand.

How long would my brother be left hanging? Limbo, don't forget, is a Catholic invention. It's a shocking bit of doctrine, cruel and whimsical even by Church standards. I was an infant myself when the Church got rid of Limbo, and like many people I still wonder what became of all those babies, the countless infant souls consigned there over the centuries, for the unforgivable crime of dying before they could be baptized. Have their sentences been commuted?

The Church has never been quick about correcting its mistakes.