The Gospel of Winter (11 page)

Teresa got up to get more water for the table. “Whoa,” Candido boomed as he leaned back in his chair. “She lifts a finger!” She bumped him with her hip as she walked past him to the sink. He laughed.

When we were finished eating, Elena grabbed my plate and stacked it on top of hers. Candido leaned back in his chair, threw his napkin on the table, and picked his teeth with his tongue. Before Elena could reach for the others, I stood and asked if I could clear the plates. I couldn't stand the thought of Elena slipping on her rubber gloves in her own house. Everything seemed upside down anyway. Why couldn't I do the damn dishes for once? But Elena waved me off. “Please,” I said. “I want to. I want to do something.”

Candido sniffed.

“There's no need,” Elena began, but I ignored her. I stacked the rest of the plates and carried them over to the sink.

The phone rang. “Don't anybody answer it,” Candido said. “We're still eating. We haven't had dessert.”

Elena hung her head and sighed. The answering machine picked up after four rings. I snapped the rubber gloves over my hands as the message began. “Elena? It's Father Dooley again. I'm worried now.
Have you still not seen him? He's still missing. Please call me as soon as you get this. I'm with Gwen. She is about to call the police. Please, call me.”

My back was to the rest of the room, and I couldn't bring myself to turn around. I just stood against the sink, gripping the edge.

“What the hell is going on?” Teresa asked. She stepped back toward the table.

“This is what I was talking about,” Candido said. “I said something was seriously wrong.” His chair squeaked against the floor as he pushed it back and stood. “What did he mean,
again
? Again what?” His voice grew louder. “You knew about this?”

Elena shook her head. “I'm sorry. He wasn't here when Father Dooley called before. Then he came.” She wiped at her face. “He came to me.”

“Eh,
Mami
?” Teresa said. “You knew and kept it a secret from us? What?” She pushed my shoulder. “You think you can buy my
m
ami
, rich boy? Come in here with your flowers and your mopey-ass face. Go get your own
mami
, eh, rich boy.” She hit me again.

“Tere!” Elena yelled, but Candido stepped over and grabbed Teresa's arm. “Okay, okay. That's enough,” he said without much force. He stepped between us and pointed at me. “Are you bringing trouble into my home?”

“Please,” Elena said. “Please. He hasn't done anything,” she said in Spanish. “He wouldn't.”

“You don't know that,” Candido said.

“Yes I do!” Elena yelled back. “Yes I do.” She stepped between me and Candido. When I turned around, he reached beside her and grabbed the cordless from the wall. “He hasn't done anything,” Elena pleaded. “It's his parents. I've told you before. Look at him. What could he do?” She reached for the phone. “Let me call Mrs. Donovan.”

“Yes, you will,” Candido said. “And the priest.”

He handed the phone to Elena, and she stared at it absently for a moment. Then she turned to me and lifted her hand to my cheek. “
M'ijo.
It's okay. It's okay. You'll be okay.”

I slumped over her, letting her embrace me. Her kids stared at me.
Don't worry
, I wanted to tell them,
she has enough for all of us
, as if I knew and as if that wasn't an insult.

Elena called, and paced by the sink as she spoke on the phone. We could all hear Mother's shrill invectives screaming through the earpiece. “No, ma'am,” Elena got out occasionally.

Elena put the phone out to me, but I didn't want to take it. I held it in my hands and looked down at it. “Honey?” Mother squeaked across the distance. “Honey?” I put the phone to my ear. “Are you safe?”

“I'm with Elena.”

“I know that, but, honey, are you safe?” Her voice was raw. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” I said. “I'm with Elena.”

“I know. I know. You're with Elena now, but you were missing!”

“No. I left.”

“Can you imagine what I was thinking? Father Dooley has offered to come down to pick you up. I don't think I can drive—the state I'm in.” I didn't know what to say. I could hear Mother sniffling.

“Father Dooley?”

“I'm grateful. He has been so kind. I didn't realize how much I needed someone until he was here.” She breathed deeply. “I'm relieved.” She continued more calmly. “I'm glad you'll be coming home.”

I put Elena back on the phone. After she hung up, she went straight to Candido, and he wrapped her in his arms. “I was wrong,” she told him. “Please forgive me. I should have said something right away.”

“You don't need this,” he said. “You never needed this.”

“I don't understand,” I choked. “She barely noticed that I was gone. She probably didn't care.”

Elena pushed out of Candido's embrace. “She misses you,” she said to me.

“Why now?” I asked. “When has she ever missed me?”

“You came here. You left and you came right here, to me. She misses you,
m'ijo
. I know. Father Dooley will come pick you up,” she added. “He's driving down now.”

Candido shook his head. “God is looking out for you,” he said to me. “Always.”

I think he meant to inspire me, as if that invisible, omnipresent eye was protective, but I saw Father Greg's eyes, bloodshot from scotch, bleary with pain and rage. “No,” I said. “No, I'll take the train. I'll call for a car. I don't want to go back with him. Please.”

“I'm doing what he asked me,” Elena said. “You'll leave with him. You need help.”

“I can't. I don't want to.”

“Enough,” Candido interrupted me. “Stop yelling. You don't tell her what to do in this house.” He stepped to me and grabbed my arm. “You came to my house. And in my house, you will do by my rules.” He shook me and then calmed himself. He let go. “We will do as the priest has asked us, and you will go home with him tonight.”

A cold emptiness opened in my stomach and crept through my body. I rocked in place for a moment, and I heard my name but didn't know from where. It sounded familiar, as if Father Greg was in the room with us, saying my name, calling me to him.

Elena directed Candido to take Mateo upstairs, and she allowed me to help her with the rest of the dishes. Teresa hovered in the doorway, leaning on the molding. “You can't be that bad,” she said. “You're, like, barely in the room. You're like a ghost. How could you do anything that bad?”

“Tere! Upstairs. Now. Leave us alone.” Teresa caught the fright in her mother's voice and obeyed. She stormed upstairs. A door slammed.

“I'm sorry,” I finally said. “I didn't know where else to go. I had to leave.”

Elena held a dish under the water for too long, staring at it. “Your mother is very upset.” She shook her head. She turned off the water and passed me the last dish. “Your mother? She's not just upset with you,
m'ijo
,” she said. “With me, too.”

“I'm sorry,” I said again. “I thought it would be all right.”

“It is,” Elena said. “With me.” She mustered a smile, but one that wasn't genuine. It was imported from some dying expression I might see on one of my teacher's faces at CDA, or maybe one that a guest at Mother's parties might have offered me before she disappeared into the ever-circulating crowd.

“Please,” I said. “What if I didn't go home?”

“No. You have to go home.”

She led me into the living room and directed me to sit on the sofa. She stood by the foot of the stairs for a while, looking up to where she had banished the family. She seemed to be standing guard, or at least like that was what she wanted to be doing but she wasn't sure who needed protection from whom. I lolled my head on the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling and at the lumps and cracks in the paint, the touches of age and natural decay. Through the window, a streetlight below the house flickered, then went out. I felt Elena's eyes on me, and Mary's, too, casting down from the wall.

Upstairs, Mateo whined and complained that he didn't want to go to bed, but Candido had him quiet in less than a minute. He didn't yell at his son, but there was something resolute and demanding of respect in his voice. I don't think Candido hated me as much as he wondered why it was too easy for me to bust up his family's life. I wanted to tell him that I hadn't tried to. If I'd had anywhere else to go, I wouldn't have come into his house like a criminal, or I wouldn't have come to New York, but what else wouldn't I have done? Isn't it crazy to keep walking back in time and asking yourself to correct this choice and that choice? You could probably walk yourself all the way back to the beginning and say,
Fuck it, why get involved with this mess in the first place—look what's ahead?

When Father Dooley arrived, we heard his car doing a three-point turn. Elena walked me down the long staircase to the street. “We'll come to you, Father!” she shouted. He stood motionless beside the car, stooped forward onto his cane. The streetlight had come back on but it flickered and went out again. I could only make out his silhouette as his coat ruffled slightly in the breeze. I wanted to take the stairs two at a time and bust down the street to the elevated train. I couldn't see into the car, and I wondered if Father Greg had come too and, if they were together, what they would do to me. That familiar sense of inevitability swept through me, that sense that I was being guided down the stairs into the deeper darkness to a place where I had no control.

“God will help you,” Elena said as she brought me down the last few steps and ushered me ahead of her. “He will take care of you. Father Dooley will help you. You need him,
m'ijo
.”

Father Dooley stepped toward us and glared suspiciously. “Thank you,” he said to Elena. He stuck out his hand to shake hers, and he relaxed a little when she took it and spoke to him warmly. There was reverence in her voice, and it pleased him.

“Please, Father,” she said, “don't be upset with him.”

“He gave his mother quite a scare,” he said. “As I'm sure you can understand.”

“Yes, of course, Father.”

He urged me into the passenger seat, but before he could close the door, she pleaded with him again. “But, Father, you understand too, right? No one is to blame here. No one.”

He knew quite well that Elena had been the one to urge me to look for a job at Most Precious Blood. He knew a deeply committed Catholic when he met one. “We are all partly to blame, Elena, are we not? Now and always. God knows and God will do the forgiving. Let's pray for His guidance as we think about all this.” He turned to me, and with confidence he added, “You, too, Aidan.”

Elena nodded. Before she could say more, Father Dooley continued, “I'm to remind you what you discussed with Mrs. Donovan on the phone. Let her call you before you head back up.”

“Yes, Father.”

“She needs some time alone with her family.”

“I understand, Father.”

Father Dooley nodded, and I didn't like the condescension in his voice. “Hey,” I said. “Don't take it out on her. She didn't do anything!”

Father Dooley smiled. “Please, Aidan. No one's yelling. Elena understands. Isn't that right?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Yes, Father.” She backed up and then hesitated before retreating up her stairs. “
M'ijo
,” she said. “I'm glad you are okay. You will be.”

She stood her ground for a moment, but Father Dooley said good-bye and sent her back up the stairs. Her overcoat came down so close to her heels, it was as if she floated up the steps. She climbed and climbed and didn't look back. Father Dooley started the engine, and the streetlight flickered again and came back on, and it was impossible to see her behind it.

Father Dooley navigated the streets of the southwest Bronx and found his way to Route 95 quickly. As soon as we were on the highway he relaxed. His confidence scared me. He didn't look at me. He kept his pale, deeply wrinkled face pointed ahead. Nausea crept over me, and I cracked the window. The breeze filled the car with welcome noise. When I put my head against the window, I could feel my pulse thumping in my temple. At least he'd come alone.

“We expected you'd go there,” he said after some time. “She was the first person we called. I'm surprised she didn't call us as soon as you arrived. She should've known better.” He glanced at me. “I'm glad, however, that we can straighten this all out.”

“Are you taking me to Most Precious Blood?”

“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I'm taking you to your mother. Do you have any idea how she feels right now?”

“Did she call you?”

He took a breath and waited. “No. I called her, and we discovered you were missing.”

“Yeah.” I sniffed. “ ‘Discovered.' ”

He breathed through his nose and waited. “You hadn't shown up for work today, remember? You were expected at work, so I called to check on you. She was terrified. I offered to help. Why go to the police? Why start up the gossip?” He glanced at me again and continued with emphasis, “Especially after your father left home, Aidan. Your mother didn't need more of it. I could help. And with discretion, you understand.”

We passed effortlessly through the city limits up into a greener stretch of highway. I listened to the rhythm of the tires on the pavement. “I'd like for us to come to an understanding,” Father Dooley finally said.

My nausea worsened. Sweat stuck to me everywhere. “I've straightened things out at Most Precious Blood. Please listen to me, Aidan,” Father Dooley said, slowing down. I
looked out the window as we drove past a Mobil station along the highway, but I knew he glanced at me occasionally. “This was quite an act. Running down here. I can appreciate the pressures you're dealing with. It's too much for a young man. Too much. I want to help alleviate some of it. What I'm saying is, don't worry about coming to work on the campaign anymore. You've done enough.”