F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (25 page)

 
          
She
smiled. A pretty smile. "I'll bet. I'm looking for my uncle. He was a
priest here but he left. I need to find him."

 
          
Zev
felt a lightness in his chest. "His name wouldn't happen to be Cahill,
would it?"

 
          
Her
smile broadened. "Yeah. Father Joe Cahill. You know where he might
be?"

 
          
"I
believe I do." He turned and called into the nave. "Father Joe! You
have company!"

 
          
LACEY
. . .

 
          
Lacey
totally lost it when she recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man striding
toward her through the rubble of the church. He needed a shave, he needed a
haircut, and his faded jeans and flannel shirt were anything but priestly, but
she knew those blue eyes and the smile that lit his face when he saw her.

 
          
"Uncle
Joe!"

 
          
She
found herself running forward and flinging herself at him, sobbing unashamedly
and uncontrollably as she clung to him like a drowning sailor to a rock.

 
          
"Lacey,
Lacey," he cooed, holding her tight against him. "It's all right.
It's all right."

 
          
Finally
she got hold of herself and eased her deathgrip on him. She wiped her eyes.

 
          
"Sorry
about that. It's just..."

 
          
"I
know," he said, taking her hands in his.

 
          
Lacey
looked up at her uncle. Did he? Did he realize what she'd been through to get
here? She'd thought she was tough, but the trip from
Manhattan
had taken her longer than she could have
imagined, and put to shame every nightmare she'd ever had.

 
          
"How
are your mom and dad?" he asked.

 
          
She
saw the forlorn hope in his eyes—her mother was his older sister—but had to
shake her head.

 
          
"I
don't know. I tried to contact them when the shit hit the—I mean, when
everything went to hell, but the lines were down and everything was chaos. I got
to wondering if they'd even bothered trying to get in touch with me."

 
          
"I'm
sure they did," Uncle Joe said. "Of course they did."

 
          
"How
can you be so sure? They've refused to speak to me for years."

 
          
"But
they love you."

 
          
"Funny
way of showing it."

 
          
"They're
not rejecting you, Lacey, just your lifestyle."

 
          
"One's
pretty much wrapped up in the other, don't you think. At least you kept talking
to me."

 
          
She'd
been moved as a kid from
Brooklyn
to
New
Jersey
when her father landed a job with a big pharmaceutical company in
Florham
Park
, but
New York
had remained in her blood. When it came
time for college her first and last choice had been NYU, for reasons beyond
what it offered academically. Its location in
Greenwich Village
had been equally important.

 
          
Because
somewhere along her years in high school Lacey Flannery had realized she wasn't
like the other girls. She needed an accepting atmosphere, a place where
anything goes, to stretch her boundaries and find out about herself, learn who
she really was.

 
          
In
her second year at NYU she moved into an off-campus apartment with a senior
named Janey Birnbaum. At the time her folks thought they were just roommates.
Three years ago, right after her graduation with a BA in English, she came out.

 
          
And
that was when her folks stopped speaking to her. She'd tried to visit them,
tried to explain, but they hadn't wanted to see or speak to her.

 
          
The
one person in the family she'd found she could talk to was, of all people, her
uncle the Catholic priest. Uncle Joe hadn't approved but he didn't turn her
away. He'd tried to act as go-between but her folks stood firm: either get
counseling and get cured—like she was mentally ill or something!—or stay away.

 
          
She
had a feeling her father was behind the hard line, but she couldn't be sure.
Now she might never know.

 
          
The
rabbi said, "So may I ask, what is it, this lifestyle, that your parents
reject but a priest doesn't?"

 
          
"I'm
a dyke."

 
          
The
rabbi blinked. Probably the first time anyone had ever put it to him that
bluntly. She also noticed her uncle's grimace. Obviously he didn't like the
word. Lacey hadn't liked it either at first, but Janey and her more radical
friends encouraged her to use to it because they were taking it back.

 
          
That
was all fine back then, but now . . . take it back from whom?

 
          
"Doesn't
that mean a lesbian?" the rabbi said.

 
          
"Through
and through."

 
          
"Oh.
I see."

 
          
"Not
just a garden-variety lesbian," Uncle Joe said. His wry smile looked
forced. "A radical lesbian feminist, and an outspoken one at that."

 
          
"You
forgot to mention atheist."

 
          
His
smile faded a little. "I try to forget that part."

 
          
It
had taken Lacey awhile to come out, but when she did she decided not to be out
partway. She wasn't ashamed of who she was or how she felt and was ready to get
in the face of anyone who tried to give her grief about it.

 
          
She'd
started writing articles and reviews for the underground press—the radical, the
gay, even the entertainment freebies—with the hope of eventually moving above
ground. Her role model was Norah Vincent, who'd been writing a regular column
for the Village Voice—back when there'd been a Village Voice. Lacey didn't
always agree with her views but she envied her pulpit. She'd vowed that someday
she'd have a column like that.

 
          
But
that dream was gone now, along with so many others ...

 
          
"Anyway,"
she said, "I hadn't been able to contact Mom and Dad, so I decided to
check up on them."

 
          
She'd
been all alone then. Janey had gone out one day, scrounging for food, and never
come back. After spending a week looking for her, Lacey had to face the
unthinkable: Janey was either dead or had been turned into an undead. Crushed,
grieving, and with
New York
becoming more dangerous every day, she'd decided to go home. She fought
her way through the Holland Tunnel—the living collaborators hadn't closed it
off yet—and made it to her folks' place in
Union
,
New Jersey
.

 
          
"When
I got to their house, I found the front door smashed in and blood on the
living-room rug." She felt herself puddling up, her throat tightening like
a noose. "I don't think they made it."

 
          
She
hoped they were alive or dead, anything but in between. They'd rejected her,
they'd caused her untold pain—though she'd probably given as good as she got on
that score—but they were still her parents and the thought of her mother and
father prowling the night, sucking blood . . .

 
          
She'd
nurtured the hope that with time they'd have come to accept her as she was—she'd
never expected approval, but maybe just enough acceptance to invite her back
for dinner some night. It didn't look like that was ever going to happen now.

 
          
Uncle
Joe wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I..." His voice choked off
and the two of them stood still and silent.

 
          
"This
was your brother, Joe?" the rabbi said.

 
          
"My
big sister. Cathy."

 
          
"I'm
so sorry."

 
          
"Yeah,"
Uncle Joe said. "So am I." He cleared his throat. "But we can
hope for the best, can't we? And in the meantime, lunch is getting cold. Are
you hungry, Lacey?"

 
          
She
was famished.

 
          
ZEV
. . .

 
          
"Tastes
like Dinty Moore," Joe said around a mouthful of the stew.

 
          
"It
is," Lacey said. "I ate a lot of this before I turned vegan. I
recognize the little potatoes."

 
          
Zev
found the stew palatable but much too salty. He wasn't about to complain,
though.

 
          
They
were feasting in the sacristy, the small room off the sanctuary where the
priests had kept their vestments—a clerical Green Room, so to speak. Joe and
Lacey sat side by side. Carl and Zev sat apart.

 
          
"What's
vegan?" he asked.

 
          
"Someone
who eats only veggies," Lacey said.

 
          
"But—"

 
          
"I
know. Being a vegan was a luxury. Now I eat whatever I can find."

 
          
Carl
laughed. "Fadda, the ladies of the parish must be real excited about you
coming back to break into their canned goods like this."

 
          
Zev
said, "I don't believe I've ever had anything like this before."

 
          
"I'd
be surprised if you had," said Joe. "I doubt very much that something
that calls itself Dinty Moore is kosher."

 
          
Zev
smiled but inside he was suddenly filled with a great sadness. Kosher . . . how
meaningless now seemed all the observances that he had allowed to rule and
circumscribe his life. Such a fierce proponent of strict dietary laws he'd been
in the days before the
Lakewood
holocaust. But those days were gone, just as the
Lakewood
community was gone.

 
          
And
Zev was a changed man. If he hadn't changed, if he were still observing, he
couldn't sit here and sup with these two men and this young woman.

 
          
He'd
have to be elsewhere, eating special classes of ritually prepared foods off
separate sets of dishes. But really, hadn't division been the main thrust of
holding to the dietary laws in modern times? They served a purpose beyond mere
observance of tradition. They placed another wall between observant Jews and
outsiders, keeping them separate even from fellow Jews who didn't observe.

 
          
Zev
took another big bite of the stew. Time to break down all the walls between
people . . . while there was still enough time and people left alive to make it
matter.

 
          
"You
okay, Zev?" Joe asked.