I am holding my youngest on my chest, my plastered arm preventing her from falling off the bed, my unbroken arm’s hand wrapped tightly around her ankle.
My eldest is there as well, sitting in a chair beside the bed, swinging her feet, wearing her Sunday dress. The twins are beside, their hair slicked down, wearing tiny three-piece suits.
“When will you be out, Daddy?” my eldest asks.
“Soon,” I say. “Very soon. The twins have been good?”
She looks up, remembering. “They were pretty good, I guess,” she says.
“We were real good,” says Mark. “We listened the whole time.”
“Grandad spoke at the funeral?”
“Yeah,” says Jack. “But he forgot what he was saying.”
“He didn’t forget,” says my eldest. “He was crying.”
Jack shrugs. “Whatever,” he says.
“How did she look?” I ask.
“Grandma?”
“Mom.”
“How do I know,” she says. “They closed the lid.”
“They had a picture of her on the top,” says Mark. “The picture looked real good.”
I pull my youngest back as she topples off the bed.
“Aren’t you sad about it?” asks my eldest.
“Of course I am sad,” I say.
“You don’t seem very sad to me,” she says.
“They have me all shot up with drugs.”
“Drugs are bad for you, Dad,” says Mark.
“Don’t do drugs, Dad,” says Jack.
“Medicine,” I say. “It’s okay. I am so crammed with medicine I can’t think straight.”
“When are you getting out, Daddy?” my eldest asks.
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“A few days.”
The nurse comes and helps me get my legs out of bed and onto the floor. She helps me walk to the bathroom, leaves me inside for some time.
When she returns to retrieve me, she says, “You have a visitor.”
She helps me out of the bathroom. In the chair nearest the bed is the area rector.
“You’ve had quite a run of bad luck, Provost,” he says.
The nurse helps me to lie down, then goes out.
“You’re all right?” Rector Bates asks.
“Not bad,” I say. “Considering.”
“Who has the children?”
“My wife’s parents.”
He nods. We sit looking at one another until the telephone rings.
“Should I get that?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Please.”
He picks up the telephone. “Hello?” he says. “Yes. Who is calling, please?”
He holds the receiver toward me.
“Feshtig,” he says. “A Doctor Feshtig. He said you’d know him.”
I shake my head no. Bates pulls the receiver back to his own face.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “He is unable to take your call.”
I hear Feshtig frantically talking as the receiver leaves Bates’ ear and is slowly replaced in the cradle.
Bates sits there a moment, seemingly embarrassed.
“I have something to show you,” he says. “I don’t want to shock you.”
I nod.
He takes from his coat pocket a rolled newspaper, spreads it out, places it on the coverlet before me.
On the front page is the tree with my car wrapped around it. The car is folded thoroughly around the tree, the interior space reduced to nearly nothing. “Accused Molester Crashes, Wife Dead.”
“It’s a miracle you survived,” he says. “God’s looking out for you.”
“How did they find me?”
“A hiker found the car. He went to the main road to wave someone down. You must have been going fast,” he says. “Too fast obviously. How fast were you going?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Approximately, I mean,” he says. “Take a guess.”
“I don’t know.”
“Fast,” he says. “Too fast,” he says.
He stops a moment, pauses, then bows his head in a way that does not look genuine. I am much better at it than he.
“I am sorry about your wife, truly sorry.”
I don’t know what I should say, so I don’t say anything.
“Seatbelts,” he says. “Got to make sure they wear their seatbelts.”
“Seatbelts,” I say.
He points again to the article. “See what I circled?” he says.
I squint at the paper. “Yes,” I say.
“Two certain women have been very busy,” he says.
I begin to read the circled passage, slowly. I am being accused in it of all they have accused me of before. The speculation is made, on the behalf of the reporter, that perhaps when I wrecked I was trying “out of guilt and shame” to “commit suicide.”
“This is appalling,” I say. “I had no intention of committing suicide.”
“Shameless,” he says. “And so soon after the accident.”
“These women,” I say. “They don’t care about the truth, they don’t care about anything. They just want to get rid of me.”
“They want to hurt the Church,” Bates says, raising his voice. “The Church has been fair to them, you’ve been honest with them straight down the line, but they want everything their way.”
“Bitter,” I say.
“They take up the Devil’s cause,” he says.
He takes the article and folds it up, puts it into his suit pocket.
“You are the victim here, Provost,” he says. “The innocent victim.”
He stands up.
“I have to go,” he says. “Get well soon. We are praying for you.”
In a few weeks I am in a wheelchair. A few more and I crutch my way out the front door of the hospital.
The children are with my wife’s parents. I come into the empty house alone. I rest for some time in the living room, catching my breath. Everything about the room, I realize, was chosen by my wife. I have had no part in it.
I go into the kitchen and open drawers and cupboards until I find a roll of plastic trash bags. I tear a few off and begin to load the living room into them. I take down the pastel, neoimpressionist Jesus, the tole-painted bears, the cross-stitch of the temple we were married in, the family photographs that she demanded I sit for with her each year. The rustic, open wallbox containing scenes and objects which she felt captured the essence of our relationship, the sheet music strewn across the piano that no one in the family can play, the cassettes of the Church’s official hymns, plants with dead leaves, the best-selling books by church leaders and by those who wish to be church leaders, The Suffering Heart, a framed parchment depicting Jesus Christ’s Anglo-Saxon face and beneath it the words “I never promised that it would be easy, only that it would be worth it.”
I am shucking her whole.
There are three full trash bags and another started and the room is falling bare, but the furniture and the wallpaper still reveal hints of my wife’s face. I will have them changed. I will have the room as I want it, though I don’t know what I want yet.
But for now I must catch my breath.
I lie down on the couch, my damaged leg elevated. My broken arm pulses within the cast. I sleep a little.
When I awake, it is dark throughout the house. I feel better, some.
I crutch slowly through the ground floor, closing doors. In the kitchen I butter two slices of stale bread and eat them. The butter is on the verge of going rancid, slightly bitter and sharp to the taste. The rest of the fridge is empty.
I go through the newspapers piled on the table, stripping off the rubber bands, looking for news of myself. There is news of the accident, news of my wife’s death and of my survival, a follow-up article on the rape of the two boys—the Church’s public relations person unequivocally denying any involvement on my part, claiming, “We have investigated the matter thoroughly and see no evidence of wrongdoing.” The man has not spoken to me at all and, as far as I can tell, is only taking the area rector’s word on everything. There never has been—and I hope never will be—a legitimate investigation by the Church.
I spend the evening reading the newspapers backwards, I pick up the telephone and call my wife’s parents, speak briefly to my eldest daughter, tell her how much I am looking forward to seeing her and the rest of the family.
I leave my crutches at the base of the stairs and pull myself carefully up. It is as much as I can manage. At the top I lie down on the floor, rest for some time before pulling myself again to my feet and down the hallway to the bedroom.
Pushing the door slowly open, I stand there swaying, legs aching. I flick on the light.
On the bed, body extended, ankles crossed, stripped of his clothes, his body broken and angled, is the bloody-headed man.
“Fochs,” he says, drawing me toward him. “Welcome home.”