Chapter 20

Elizabeth got back to the hotel well after dark. She was tired, not just from digging but from the past several days. She took a long, hot shower, washing away the desert soil and the sweat and the concrete from beneath her nails. As she lounged under the water, she thought about what it had cost her to come here—her car, her job, perhaps her marriage, as well as a certain image she had coveted of Luke. Maybe her own self-image. Was it all worth it, she wondered. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t help feeling something almost anticlimactic. When she got out, she toweled off and blow-dried her hair. She would have loved a drink but she thought she’d better not. She knew how easy it had been to cover up her pain with booze. Perhaps she felt the pain more acutely now that she was sober. She got dressed and sat on the bed. She looked up flights out of Albuquerque. Finally, she called Father Paul.

“Hey, stranger,” he said to her.

“Is your offer still available?” she asked.

“My offer?” he repeated, surprised. “Yes, it is.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Don’t you want to know the details first?”

“We can talk about that later.”

“When can you start?”

“Is right away okay?”

“Won’t you need to give your law firm some notice?”

“No,” she said with a bitter snort. Then she added, “On second thought, I might need a week before I can start. There are some things I need to sort out at home.”

“Is everything all right, Elizabeth?”

“Yeah. I guess. Zack and I need some time alone.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. But thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll get the paperwork ready then.”

She was about to hang up when she said, “Paul.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Fabiana?”

“She’s fine. She asks after you.”

“Tell her to hang in there.”

“I will.”

No sooner had she hung up than a knock interrupted her thoughts. Opening the door, she saw Gabe standing there. He was wearing a new straw cowboy hat.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Good.” Then she added, “Hard.”

“You knew it was going to be hard.”

“Ah huh. Where did you get the hat?”

“This store a couple of blocks over. And get this. The woman who makes ’em is from Knoxville. She’s cute. About thirty.”

She was going to say something when she saw he was holding an object in his hand down by his thigh. “What’s that?” she asked.

“I got a surprise for you.”

He extended his arm toward her, in his hand a small dark book. Part of her brain recognized it immediately, but another part thought, No freakin’ way.

“Where . . .” she began.

“After you left, I went over to the sheriff’s office and asked where they’d towed your son’s car. It turned out to be that junkyard we passed just south of here. Sheriff Crowder even gave me a lift. He’s not such a bad dude after all.”

“My God, Gabe! Where did you find it?”

“It was wedged down between the driver’s seat and the console. I don’t even think they looked. Here,” he said.

She hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know what to say,” she exclaimed, finally accepting the book. She thought she’d never see it again.

“Listen, you’re probably going to want some time to read it. Besides, I got some stuff to do.”

“Stuff?”

“I’m meeting a realtor for a beer.”

“Really?”

“Thought it wouldn’t hurt to check out what houses cost. We heading home tomorrow?”

“I guess so. I’m finished here. There’s a six-fifteen flight out of Albuquerque to New York.” Then she reached out and hugged him. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t worry about it. Besides, you’re paying me. How about if I pick you up for breakfast and we can hit the road.”

After he left, Elizabeth went over and sat on the bed. She lit a cigarette and for a long while didn’t open the book, just held it in her hands. She touched the gold embossed initials, the ones she’d had engraved: LJG. She was anxious, almost afraid to open it, of what it might contain. For a moment she actually wondered if it might be better if she didn’t read it, just threw it away and closed the door on that part of her life. But, of course, she knew she wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. When she finally did open it, she was struck by Luke’s familiar handwriting, the looping js and ps, the crabbed as, her son evident in every word and letter. Though she was tempted to skip to the end, she began at the beginning, taking her time, savoring it, letting his words reverberate in her mind. She could almost hear his voice behind them. Mostly he wrote about the same prosaic concerns she’d already read about: school assignments or errands to complete or upcoming events or reminders to himself. Once he mentioned TJ; he wrote a note to himself to send her a certain picture. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet, reading Luke’s words was enough of a make Elizabeth almost light-headed with joy.

It was in the last few months of the diary that she came across that word again: discernment. In one entry, her son had written, Father J says confusion is normal . . . He recommends a few weeks of discernment. Elizabeth assumed Father J was Father Jerome from St. Anselm, but she hadn’t a clue what this was referring to. Discernment? Confusion? She herself was confused. She continued reading. A few pages from the end she came upon an address. It was for a place called Blessed Mother of the Redeemer Monastery, in Silver City, New Mexico.

The name struck her as familiar. Where had she heard it before? What did it mean? Then all at once it came to her; it was where Luke had ordered some coffee for Father Jerome. She decided finally to call Father Jerome, see if he knew anything about this. She dialed the main St. Anselm number and was transferred to his office. He wasn’t in so she left a message. “Hi, Father Jerome. This is Elizabeth Gerlacher, Luke’s mom. Could you call me when you get a chance?”

She read on but the diary didn’t end so much as simply stop. In fact, in mid-sentence. Luke’s last words were Will have to . . . But his thought was left unfinished. It somehow seemed a metaphor for his life. She lay on the bed with the diary for a long time, thinking, remembering.

She must have dozed off for she was awakened by her phone. She found the diary on the bed beside her.

“Is this Mrs. Gerlacher?” asked a man’s voice.

“Yes, it is.”

“This is Father Jerome. From St. A’s.”

“Oh, hello, Father,” she said.

“How are you doing, Mrs. Gerlacher?”

“Better.”

“Luke’s death was such shock to all of us. He was such a brilliant student.” There was silence on the other end for several seconds. Then Father Jerome said, “I couldn’t help feeling a little responsible.”

It was what he’d said at the grave site. She didn’t understand it then, nor did she now.

“You had nothing to do with Luke’s accident.”

“But in a way I feel I did.”

“How?”

“I was the one who put him in touch with Brother Vincent.”

“Who’s Brother Vincent?” Elizabeth asked.

“He’s an old friend from my seminary days. Now he’s the spiritual director at the monastery down in Silver City.”

Elizabeth paused before asking, “I’m not following any of this, Father.”

“I see. I take it, you didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

Elizabeth heard Father Jerome sigh deeply.

“Luke was supposed to tell you. He promised he would. I told him it would be better for everybody if he told his parents.”

Elizabeth was starting to get a bad feeling about this. “Tell us what?” she cried.

“Luke wanted to spend some time at the monastery down there.”

“Why?”

“He was thinking about joining the Benedictines.”

For a moment, Elizabeth was rendered speechless. Only a frail laugh escaped her throat. “My son wanted to become . . . a monk?” she said. “You’re kidding me?”

“No, actually he was pretty serious. He’d been thinking about it for some time. He used to come in my office and talk to me. We used to pray together about it.”

“A monk?” Elizabeth repeated.

“Yes. I thought you and your husband knew, Mrs. Gerlacher. That’s why I didn’t mention anything at the funeral. I’m so sorry.”

“He didn’t say a thing to us. We just thought . . . that he was acting odd. A monk?”

“He’d been in touch with Brother Vincent. He was going to stay there for a few weeks. Like a retreat.”

She recalled then the word she’d come across in the diary. “Discernment. Is that what it means?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes. It’s a short stay at a monastery. A retreat that a young man goes away on to see if it’s the right fit for him.”

“Luke had mentioned that word in his diary. So that’s why he was headed down to New Mexico?”

“Yes. He was going to the Blessed Mother of the Redeemer monastery. Brother Vincent was going to be his spiritual advisor.”

Elizabeth’s head was swirling. Even more than it had when she’d spoken to TJ. She had more questions but instead she only said, “Thank you, Father Jerome,” and hung up.

She sat there, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d just learned: that her son had wanted to become a monk. It was preposterous. Her son, a monk! Yet in some strange way it made perfect sense. Everything, in fact, seemed to make sense now. That’s why he had grown so distant, so secretive. Why he’d drifted away from his friends. Why he’d lost interest in women. She had just begun to accept the fact that Luke might have been gay, and now she found herself having to adjust to the equally alien notion that he was going to be a monk. My God! That’s why he’d seemed in his own little world. He’d been slowly retreating from this world to prepare himself for another. Was that what Luke had wanted to tell her that night? That he was going to join a monastery? She wanted to laugh out loud at the strangeness of it all.

She called Zack and told him everything. When she finished, he was silent.

“Isn’t that just the weirdest thing?” Elizabeth said.

“I suppose.”

“You don’t seem that shocked.”

“I guess I’m not.”

“Did you . . . did you know anything about this?” She thought then of how the two of them, Zack and Luke, that night at the dinner table had been in such subtle agreement on his making this trip.

“No. Not really.”

“What does that mean, ‘not really’?”

“I mean, Luke never came out and said anything to me. But in a way it doesn’t surprise me that sort of life would suit him.”

“What sort of life?”

“A life of contemplation. The life of a monk.”

“You saw that in him?”

“In some ways.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“I had nothing to go on, Elizabeth. He never said anything to me either. It’s just a feeling I had. The way he acted in church sometimes.”

“Why do you think Luke didn’t tell us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think that he was afraid to? That we’d be disappointed?”

“Maybe. Are you coming home now?”

“Yes.” She paused, then said, “Zack.”

“Yes.”

“I just want you to know that whatever happens, whatever you decide, I’m sorry. For everything.”

The only thing he said was, “I know.”