New Life
Father Mike stands in the hallway dressed in jeans and a plain blue shirt topped with his clerical collar. I’ve never seen him dressed so casually.
“Will Roger mind if I take you out for a cup of coffee?”
I look at my watch. If I drink coffee this late in the afternoon I’ll be up all night, but after my conversation with Sophie I probably won’t sleep anyway.
“He won’t even notice I’m gone. He’s buried in the Blue Book, researching what a used car is going to cost him.” Roger and I lived apart too long to change our established habit of not worrying about each other.
“Let’s go up to the coffee shop at Rancho.” On the short drive, Mike chitchats about the high school football game. I talk about Roger’s car search. He suggests that Roger should check out the new Ford Mustang.
“Oh no,” I tell him. “I get a Mustang before anyone else.”
Over coffee, Mike informs me that his group will not be meeting over the summer.
“I’m going to take a break. That will give you a break too.” I wonder if this is Mike’s effort to ease the tension in the neighborhood.
“Mike, there’s no reason you have to stop the meetings.”
“There is, but it’s not what you think.” Mike drums his fingers on the glossy wood table. The coffee in his half-filled cup is growing cold. He slaps the flat of his palm on the table sharply, twice, like he’s making up his mind as we are talking. “I’m taking a sabbatical. I’m going to move to Berkeley for six months and take some classes at the Graduate Theological Union. I think I need a new perspective on my career.”
I’m speechless. Why does everyone think they need to up and relocate? Sophie could make connections at Foothill. Laura could have figured out a way to stay in her house.
“What about Laura?”
“What about her?” Mike sounds all business-like and perplexed by the question, but his eyes are darting around for something to focus on, other than me asking a question he doesn’t want to answer.
“Father Mike, you have always been forthright with me.”
That’s not really true. He was pretty slow to divulge how much he knew about the secrets my mother hid from me.
“Now it’s my turn to call you on self-deception.” I lean across the table and lower my voice to a whisper. “You are in love with Laura.”
Mike looks like I slapped him. He levels a very un-Mike, Scottish warlord menacing glare at me, and then he drops his head in defeat.
“I am.” The face he raises to me is equally unfamiliar. It’s the face of a boy who never got a bicycle for Christmas.
I would reach for his hand, but I’m very aware that we are in a public place.
“Let’s head back.”
If he thinks I’m going to let this drop, he’s very mistaken. When we get to the car, I suggest that we drive out to the small memorial park that is all that remains of Saint Matthew’s. He heads the car toward the hills.
We sit at a picnic bench in front of the columbarium where my mother is interred. The stately olive trees cast their shadows over us as the sun plays hide and seek among their branches. How I miss Saint Matthew’s.
“Mike, why did you never get married?”
This man who is always so ready with words of comfort and challenge for others is surprisingly reticent to accept them himself. I wonder if the clerical collar is not a defense for Mike against the intimacy he challenged me to pursue with friends, with Roger, and with God after Leora died and left me an orphan.
“Would you believe me if I told you that in all the preparations I made to serve God I forgot to get married?”
I will not accept that answer, but I’m not going to make him explain when he so obviously doesn’t want to.
“Mike, I am sitting here before you as proof that God gives people second chances at love.”
Mike looks like he’s in pain. “Laura is a beautiful woman, on the inside and on the outside. If she were less attractive, I would have more of a chance with her.”
“Are you telling me you think an attractive woman would not be interested in you?”
“Laura could have any man she wants.”
“What if she wants you?”
“You want honesty? I’ve just spent five months with a group of adolescents, trying to get them to be honest with themselves and each other. I should know how to do this, but I don’t. The best way I know how to explain this is to tell you about my family.
“I come from a large family that emigrated from Scotland. Historically, the first son inherits the family wealth, of which we had little. The second son follows the call of God his parents tell him he has and goes to seminary. In some families, these old ways persist even though the reason behind the custom no longer exists. We own no family land we need to preserve. Dad’s treasure was the bindery and he wanted my older brother to have it. No matter, because I truly did feel a calling, first to teaching and later to the ministry.
“When a man pours his passion into the church, other passions don’t get served. I have disciplined myself over years to practice professional ethics when I wear this collar.”
“And you wear your collar all the time.”
“I do.” I hear the brogue of his stubborn ancestors.
“Times are changing, Father Mike. Maybe it’s time you remove your collar in Laura’s presence.”
“Dee. What would that look like? Me, walking off with the beautiful, grieving widow?”
“To me, it would look like love.”
R
We resolved nothing in our conversation in the olive grove. I urged Mike to confess his love to Laura before he goes. I chose that word carefully. Confession cleanses the soul of sin. To hide love is a sin. Leora died hiding the love she once had for my father, and the love and longing she felt for the baby she gave up. In life, I knew my mother as a disdainful woman with a short temper and a sharp-edged wit. In death, Father Mike helped me understand the fierce intelligence that drove her westward, the thirst for independence that fueled her successful career, and the price she paid for burying love. How blind people can be!
What will I say to Laura the next time I see her? I’m picking up in our room when Roger pokes his head around the door post.
“We’re all out on the patio. Andy is barbecuing hamburgers. Valerie asked me to come and get you.”
“Sounds like a party.”
I’m happy for the distraction. As we cross through the atrium, a shadow blocks the light that filters through the glass panel in the front door. Someone is standing there.
“A delivery at this hour?” Roger starts to turn toward the door, but I put a cautioning hand on his arm.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s probably Scott trying to decide whether to ring the doorbell or just go around to the patio. I really don’t want him here tonight. You go on out. I’ll go get rid of him.” Roger shrugs and heads for the patio. I move quickly to the front door and open it just in time to see Scott turn away. He turns back and gives me that practiced smile, but his eyes have an odd glitter.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Russell. I didn’t mean to bother you. I don’t need to come through the house. I’ll just go around to the back.”
This boy is like a cockroach exposed to light. He’s scuttling for a corner to get away from me. I swipe a hand across my forehead, trying to clear away my bad thoughts about Scott. He is such a pest!
“Scott, come here.” He turns toward me, balancing on one foot, the other foot poised to take a backward step. “Stop.” I say. “Just, stop.”
I want to say stop coming around, stop bothering the boys, stop making Sophie feel uncomfortable. I look into his wary eyes and see the child who has been told to go away too many times. Years of being shunned have immunized him so that he seems not to know or care how people feel about him. He only cares about what he wants.
I soften my tone. “Scott, we are having a family night tonight.”
I’m hoping I don’t have to say any more.
Scott stands in front of me. His eyes grow mean and cold, and then the smile comes on, like a delayed broadcast. “Sure, Mrs. Russell. Would you tell Sophie I’ll be by later? I have something I want to give her.” I raise an eyebrow. “It’s a book I borrowed from her.”
“I can give it to her, Scott.” I look at his empty hands.
“I left it in the car.”
I look up the driveway and see his old blue VW bus parked on the street. “I thought you lost your license, Scott.”
“Got it back.”
Roger is standing behind me in the doorway now. Scott reaches around me to shake Roger’s hand. “Hello Mr. Russell. Mrs. Russell tells me you are having a family party. What’s the occasion?”
Roger places his hands on my shoulders. “No occasion, Scott.”
“Okay, well, I don’t want to crash your party. Tell Sophie I’ll be by with her book later, will you, Mrs. Russell?” Scott turns and does a purposeful little jog up the driveway.
Roger pulls me back inside and closes the door, shaking his head. Taking my hand, we walk through the house out to the patio.
The kids are running in and out, pulling condiments out of the refrigerator and setting the picnic table. Nothing smells as good as a burger grilled outside. Puffy thinks so too. Her joints may be arthritic but her nose works just fine. Underneath the table, she twines around our legs and bats at our knees, hoping for a tidbit. How nice it is to sit down as a family and hear the noises of satisfaction; chewing, slurping, Danny’s big burp that sends Sophie into paroxysmal hooting. Across the table, Valerie looks serene.
Valerie pushes herself back from the table and stands up. Andy follows her lead, rising to his feet. They stand there, leaning into each other. Behind them, the birches that root by the creek dip their branches in the water and the leaves catch the first color of the setting sun. What a lovely picture these two make. I remove my napkin from my lap, preparing to help clear the dishes, but Valerie raises her hands in a signal that we are to stay in our seats. The patio door opens and Sophie comes through holding a sheet cake, one sparkler spitting stars into the sky.
“Tonight is a celebration.” Valerie takes a dramatic pause while Sophie sets the cake down on the table. Andy reaches over to pluck the burned out sparkler from the cream-colored frosting with pink and blue piping. Valerie’s eyes sparkle like the fireworks. “Andy and I are going to have a baby.”