I loved him, though he never really saw me unmasked. At least not until he flew away, but that is little comfort in my grief.
Melynda Laine
1918
Tens found a parking place along the Central Canal and we walked hand in hand toward the museum. The fountain of frolicking bronze deer frozen in midflight wasn’t working. I imagined water flowing through them like a stream in the height of summer. Set far back from the road, up a stone-block path, stood the museum.
Tens whistled through his teeth. “Impressive.”
“Yeah, wow.” Layers of apricot, beige, and red stone gave the impression that the museum had been carved out of the earth eons ago. The air seemed to still and grow warm the closer we got. Even at half past twilight the rock softly reflected the sun.
Tens held the door for me. I’m sure we seemed like wide-eyed tourists transported to the Old West. Native American and Western artifacts were artfully placed; I didn’t know where to look first. Tens tugged me toward the information desk.
“You look just like your grandfather.”
We turned in unison as a Robert De Niro look-alike strode toward us with his hand outstretched.
Tens’s grandfather, Tyee Kemp, met Auntie and Charles during World War II and stayed in contact. I’d snooped and found letters Tyee had written to Auntie throughout the fifty-plus years they’d known each other. Tens didn’t talk about him much and I still didn’t know how Tens went from living in Seattle with his grandfather to showing up at Auntie’s two years ago. He’d walked and worked his way across the country, but I wasn’t privy to many details.
“Excuse me?” Tens asked.
“Am I wrong? You have to be related to my friend Tyee.”
I smiled. This had to be our Father Anthony.
Tens’s nod was snuffed out by a bear hug. I’m not sure I’d ever seen such shock on Tens’s face, but he returned the embrace, albeit more conservatively. I was next. The man smelled of soap and a subtle aftershave that reminded me of my father’s.
“Father Anthony?” I asked.
He nodded but didn’t take his eyes off of Tens’s face, as if he was trying to memorize each feature. “Not anymore. It’s so good to see you. Last picture I got was your second—no, third, maybe—birthday.”
“You know me?” Tens asked.
“Tenskawtawa Kemp, grandson of Tyee and Rosie?”
“No. Yes, I’m their grandson, but my last name is Valdes.”
“Ah, that’s right. It’s been so long. How is your grandfather? I was sorry to hear about your grandmother’s passing.”
“I didn’t really know her. But my grandfather—” Tens broke off, linking his fingers with mine.
I finished, “He died.”
Father Anthony sagged, his eyes filled with sadness. “My condolences. He was a good man. One of the best.” He turned toward me. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ignore a pretty lady.”
I waved my hand at his apology. “I’m Meridian Sozu.”
“Are you two the friends of Joi’s looking for me, then?”
I nodded. “Yes, we need to speak with you.”
“I have to give a tour in a few minutes.”
The gal behind the information desk called out with more than a little curiosity, “Mr. Theobald, those are your only arrivals tonight.”
“Well, then, would you like a tour of the museum, or would you like to go get coffee?”
“We came to meet you,” Tens answered.
I felt like we needed to apologize for not being more interested in the artifacts. “But we’d love to see the museum at some point.”
Father Anthony’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at me. “Some other time, then. There’s a coffee shop right down the street, across from the hotel. Why don’t you meet me there in about ten minutes? I’ll check out of the museum for the night.”
I left Tens to his thoughts while we walked down the street. He clung to my hand, but seemed utterly bereft of words. I didn’t think either of us expected Father Anthony to have a real connection to us. My assumption had been that he knew Juliet, not that he knew Tens. How do we move forward with this? What are the right questions to ask? What did Auntie want us to talk to him about?
At Sacred Grounds, I sipped a frothy hot chocolate and Tens played with the straws in his Americano. We sat in our usual positions: Tens against the wall, watching the door, and me sitting in such a way I could see the room and watch Tens. Father Anthony strolled in, zeroing in on our table.
“Ah, friends.” He shrugged out of his navy wool pea-coat and hung it on the chair next to me. He ordered his drink and came back to our table. His average height, dark hair liberally salted with gray, and dark brown eyes complemented his carriage. He was the type of man I could easily walk by and not see, not because he faded away but because his serenity and assurance simply existed. He didn’t shout for attention in his dress or manner or personality. His was a steady fluidity.
“What brings you to me?” Father Anthony scooted his chair around the corner of the table so he could see both Tens and me.
Tens glanced at me, his expression helpless and confused.
“Is that too big a question?” Father Anthony asked.
Tens nodded.
I couldn’t handle Tens’s continued self-consciousness. “Will you tell us about how you knew Tens’s grandfather?”
“Sure. I’m happy to.” He sipped, holding his cup as if he could soak up the warmth of the coffee through his hands. “I served with Tyee in Vietnam, as a chaplain. I was a young priest, very green. He was one of the best field commanders. He cared about his men, and came to me when he worried for them. He also watched out for me. By that time he’d served in Europe during World War II, fought in Korea, and had three tours in Nam. He knew what to look for, how to see it, and how to teach us beginners to survive. War creates relationships, friendships thick as quicksand, with lightning speed. You watch men die, bleeding, and hold them while they do. On the other end of that you’re bonded. I can’t articulate the enormity, the speed and the steel that war builds.”
“You were friends after?” I asked.
“Sometime during that first tour and his last one, we became brothers. ‘Friends’ isn’t a big enough word. He was hurt—shot out his knee.”
“The left one?” Tens’s gaze sharpened.
“Yes.”
“You remember?” I asked.
“Some things you see are seared in. His knee was shattered, ground-up, turned inside out. I used a tourniquet, stopped the bleeding. Felt like hours I bent over that left leg. He was left-handed, told me he’d never dance again with a smile on his face.”
Tens nodded. “He limped, felt the weather change in that leg. I used to ask him about the scars crisscrossing it like a spiderweb, but he wouldn’t answer.”
“I’m sure he didn’t have the words. It can be hard to share things with people you love when you think telling them will hurt ’em. Protect them with secrets and silence. That’s the code. That’s what kills us from the inside out when the war is over.” Sadness clouded Father Anthony’s face. “We lost touch in the mid-eighties. By that time I had a parish in northern Indiana; he’d moved to the West Coast, I think.”
“Los Angeles.”
“That was the return address for a while. Then I got a letter from him, one with a postmark of Miami and a photograph of you. I’ve periodically Googled old friends, but I never saw anything about Tyee come up. It was like after Miami he fell off the world.”
“They moved to Seattle, for a particular hospital, when my grandmother got sick.”
“And your mother?”
“I—” Tens broke off. He shrugged and shook his head.
“Complicated?” Father Anthony’s lips twisted with sympathy and understanding.
Tens nodded.
“She broke Tyee’s heart when she ran off with your father. I remember that. He called me, distraught. Didn’t know what to do.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“What I counsel any parent—to love without condition and be there when their children are ready to come back. That’s all I ever knew happened.”
“So, you’re a Catholic priest?”
“No, not anymore. I came home from Vietnam and worked in a VA hospital outside of Chicago, then was finally assigned a parish in the northeast of the state, running an orphanage, group home, and school.”
“An orphanage?”
“And a K-through-twelve school that taught many students from families in the surrounds, as well as our kids. You’re too young to remember some of the scandals that rocked the church in the late 1990s. Allegations are still being presented about priests abusing children and their power in the communities. I wasn’t the only priest working and living there; I found out and put a stop to abuse in areas around us. I helped the victims go to the police and seek justice. I was asked to retire while it was all swept neatly under the rug.”
“I’m sorry, but I think you did the right thing.” I shuddered at the thought.
“Absolutely. No one has the right to abuse children, animals, or the elderly, and that the church could tolerate such behavior sickened me. By that time, I wasn’t the best politico either. As retribution of a sort the archdiocese closed our orphanage and school, although I can’t prove it of course. But even knowing I was leaving, they insisted on wiping out the family we’d built there.”
“What happened to the kids?”
“The students went to other parochial schools or to public ones, I’d imagine.”
“No, I mean the orphans.”
“It depended on the child. Most were sent to the Walker-Kinney group home in the southern part of the state. Others were placed with foster families. A few were adopted into parish families—that was always the goal, to match kids and place them with families. There was only so much parenting we could do. Never enough. Not like the real thing. But we did our best.”
“And now?”
“Well, I left here to help build the new government in South Africa. I came back to Indianapolis almost a year ago now. I volunteer at the museum, soup kitchens, tutoring. I stay busy. I’m just not in any official capacity. I’m simply Tony Theobald.”
Tens cleared his throat. “I don’t think God cares about a collar.”
Tony grinned. “Neither do I.”
* * *
We dropped Father Anthony—Tony—back at his car with promises to meet for dinner. He had photographs of Tyee he wanted to give Tens.
Tens was thoughtful and even stonier than normal on the ride home.
I kept playing the conversation back over and over in my head trying to understand why Auntie had pushed us to find Tony. He didn’t seem related at all to Juliet. The mention of the school and the orphans rang true for what we knew about Juliet, but maybe the pieces of Tens’s past were enough of a reason. It was like trying to do a crossword without clues. Frustrated, I sighed and followed Tens into the cottage, turning on every light and flipping the thermostat up to seventy-five. A chill froze my feet and hands.
“I think it’s time you know what’s in here.” Tens unloaded a duffel of firearms onto the kitchen table.
Where the hell did those come from? “Four?” I asked.
“We can’t rely on Josiah to show up every time we face a Nocti, and until we know how one of us can kill or incapacitate them, guns are our best shot.”
He cleaned and oiled all the guns with precision and concentration.
“What’s that one?”
He blinked as if surprised to see me standing there. “The little one I picked up for you. It’s the right size for your hand. You’d have to be up close, but it’ll protect you and you don’t have to be an expert marksman. We’ll practice tomorrow.”
Then, he pulled out several serious-looking knives and cleaned them until they reflected the light like glass.
I sat huddled in a blanket, fascinated. “You’re scaring me.”
His expression fierce and determined, he answered, “We’re not going to be unprepared for the Nocti again. Ever. That’s all.”
When he’d finished it was late, but I was itchy. Warmer, but not right. My skin felt wrong. “Let’s go check on Juliet.”
“Now?” He stretched.
I threw the blanket onto the bed, already heading for the door. “Now. I have a feeling.”
“A feeling?” He grabbed his coat, tucking a knife in its pocket and a gun in the back of his belt.
“Let’s just go,” I insisted.
“Okay.” Tens grabbed the keys and we drove through the night toward Dunklebarger and Juliet.
“Hurry.” I visualized the window fully open, willing the souls to me.