THEO
THE CHURCH LADIES, all donning funeral black, came over to me before Sunday service, their heads hung low. “Did you hear?” Sibbie asked.
“Hear what?” I asked.
“Mrs. Bouvre . . . Andréa’s mother, she died after a long fight with cancer. So sad.”
They all nodded, studying me for a reaction.
“We’re driving to Portland today for her funeral,” Ibbie said. “Would you like to go?”
“Go?” I said. “No, thank you. Please tell Andréa how sorry I am.”
“She might like to hear that from you—”
“No, ladies, I can’t go,” I said. “But I trust you to represent us all. Thank you.”
I never knew her mother much. A quiet woman, Jewish but not religious, always in the background. Andréa and she had their struggles, but still, poor Andréa. Even in a strained relationship, to lose a mother was a complex and painful thing. My showing up at her funeral would only make matters worse. This explained why she, they didn’t return for summer.
***
After Sunday service, after the Sunday school class decorated the rectory with Thanksgiving turkeys made from their hand prints on colored paper, and after the parking lot cleared, I headed up the back stairs to the rectory where at the top I was met with Toreck Sealy.
He dropped his cigarette to the floor and asked, “Where’s my family?”
“Gone,” I said pushing past him and opening the door. “I suggest you do the same.”
“Gone where?” He followed me inside the parsonage.
“Just gone, Sealy, and unless you’re here to confess something or spend some time in prayer, I think you need to leave.”
“I asked you where they are.” The vein along the right side of his shaved head pulsed.
I held out a prayer pamphlet for him and said, “Here, some light reading for your trip.”
He grabbed my robe, shoved me into the wall, and shouted, “Where the fuck are they?”
I stared back at him, smiled, and said, “Where they are, is gone.”
“I beat the shit outta you once,” he said, “I’ll do it again, make it permanent.” He backed away, then rammed his fist into my chin and hunched himself back, fists up, ready for a scrap.
“We’re done here,” I said straightening my sore jaw. “You’ve hit me, now hit the road.”
I turned to go upstairs. He grabbed the backside of my robes and yanked. I nearly lost my footing but turned in time to take another blow to the jaw. I sucker punched him, knocked the air out of his lungs. He gasped and bent over as I cuffed his nose. It cracked loudly.
“I said we’re done here.” He lay on the floor sneering at me, blood splayed across his face. I reached out my hand to pull him up. “Come on, we’re done with all this.”
“Fuck you, Riley!” he shouted, then stood, stomped up the stairs, and slammed the door.