Faith (13 page)

W
hen I knocked at Art's door it opened quickly, as though he'd been waiting behind it. He looked gaunt and stricken, distinctly unwell. He was unshaven, his chin bristling with silver. The last time I'd seen him, in Philadelphia, he'd looked fit and suntanned. In six months he'd aged ten years. He was dressed in lay clothing, dark pants and a checked shirt, but hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. His trousers were the kind he'd always worn, made of slick black fabric. The kind worn only by priests.

“You found me,” he said.

“The banners helped.”
NOW RENTING
: the bright green vinyl flapping in the wind. As always when I came back to Boston, I was struck by the touches of green everywhere. Was this some kind of marketing strategy? In my parents' neighborhood, parked behind Ma's Escort, the Morrison Electric truck was plastered with shamrock decals, an unsubtle appeal to the Irish-American consumer: We're for you.

Briefly we embraced, the A-frame hug, leaning forward from the waist. “Art, are you okay?”

He gave me a crooked smile, as though there were no short answer to that question, and waved me inside. The room was too large for his few possessions. Against one wall was a worn futon. At the far end sat an armchair and a portable television, huddled together as if for warmth.

“Have you seen Mike?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I haven't heard from him. Not since all this happened.”

“I know,” I said. “I gave him shit for it.”

Art looked down at his hands. “He has kids, Sheila. I understand.”

“He also has a brother. For Christ's sake.” I unzipped my jacket and tossed it on the floor. “Art, what the hell happened?”

He spoke haltingly, as if each word pained him. “That boy I told you about. Fran Conlon's grandson.”

I forced myself to meet his eyes.

“He got very attached to me,” Art said carefully. “I guess he was looking for a father.”

“Where
is
his father?”

“Gone. They never married. They were very young.” Art's face was flushed, his lips trembling with some high emotion. “It was Kathleen who made the accusation. That I—” His voice broke. “That I touched him. It isn't true,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “You know that, right?”

There was only one possible response.

“Of course,” I said quickly. “But
why
is she saying this? I don't understand.”

“I have no idea.” Art made a tour of the room. He seemed unable to stand still. “The boy—Aidan—has had a rough time. Out in California he was in foster care for a while. Kath had a problem with drugs. Methamphetamine. But she went through a rehab program, and she seemed to be doing well.” He stood at the window, opening and closing the blinds. “God, this is so mortifying. That anybody would believe I could do this. Sheila, it makes me sick even to say it. I hate saying these things to you.”

His back was to me, his neck flushed from collar to hairline.

“I know you,” I said simply. “Nobody who knows you could ever believe this.” Except our own brother, I thought but didn't say.

The words hung between us as though I'd spoken them. There was an awkward pause.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“An investigation, apparently. They didn't tell me much.” Art ran a hand through his hair—a long, delicate hand, strangely like my own. “I just want to tell my side of the story. So far nobody's even asked.” He smiled grimly. “Sitting there in the Cardinal's office, do you know what my first thought was?
How am I ever going to tell Ma?
”

“How did you?”

“I didn't.” He sat and crossed his legs; the shiny fabric made a scratching noise. “You know she always comes to my Masses on holidays. Well, she showed up Easter Sunday and there was a substitute. Apparently the parishioners were already whispering.” He reached into his breast pocket as if for a cigarette, then remembered he no longer smoked. “When I finally worked up the nerve to go over there—well, I've never seen her in such a state. ‘What's the matter, Arthur? Are you sick? You won't believe what people are saying.' And I had to tell her—” His voice broke again. “Sheila, it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.”

I tried to imagine it. Art was the pride of Ma's life. I'd heard her say it more than once, not caring that her other children were listening:
He's the only thing I ever did right.

“Poor Ma,” I said, and for once I meant it. None of my own sins—the divorce, my estrangement from the church, my failure to bear children—could have wounded her this gravely. Art had much, much farther to fall.

“Do you have a lawyer?” I asked.

“They said I don't need one.”

“They?”

“Bishop Gilman. Anyway, I don't want one.” Art spread his empty hands. “I have nothing to hide.”

“But you have to defend yourself.”

“It's out of my hands,” he said mildly. “What will be, will be.”

I stared at him in disbelief. Was this Christlike pacifism, or simple fatalism? Had Art's years in the priesthood robbed him of his spine? Later I would understand the reasons, that his passivity was more than simple habit; but at that moment I wanted to shake him.

“Get down off your cross,” I said.

I
HAVE
always admired Art's calm temperament; in our hotheaded family it seemed almost saintly, evidence of a more evolved nature. But at that moment—with his reputation in tatters, his life's work collapsing around him—I found it maddening. For the first time in years I thought of Father Frank Lynch, Art's first pastor. Was
this
the reason the old priest had tormented him? Had Art infuriated him in exactly this way?

I met Father Lynch only once, when I was home from college on spring break. While my classmates were flouting the Commandments in Fort Lauderdale, I'd been summoned back to Boston for a family gathering, a fiftieth birthday party for Aunt Clare Boyle. Art had no wheels—he had occasional use of the parish sedan—so I'd stopped by in Ma's car to give him a lift.

The pastor himself answered the door. I'd heard so much about him that it was like meeting a celebrity, and Frank Lynch lived up to the part. He was charming and surprisingly handsome—a fact that Art, in all his grousing, had neglected to mention. I remember piercing blue eyes, a full head of silver-gray hair. It sounds strange to say that a priest flirted with me, but he did, and skillfully, as though he'd had a lifetime of practice.

I knew from Art that Father Lynch was a bully. Later I found out that he was also a crook. His first Christmas at Holy Redeemer, Art had made a shocking discovery: the parish's entire holiday collection found its way into the priest's bank account. At one time, apparently, all pastors had done likewise. The practice had since fallen out of favor, but Lynch was old-school.

When Art told me this, I thought of my father and men like him, working hard for hourly wages; the shamed husbands of pious wives. How much of Dad's small Christmas bonus did Ma sneak into the collection basket?

You have to tell someone
, I said to Art.
A bishop, someone.

Oh, Sheila.
He seemed touched by my innocence.
They already know.

I
REMEMBERED
those words as Art and I rolled up to Sacred Heart in my father's truck. We went in through the back door, carrying empty boxes. “Thanks for doing this,” he said. “The locksmith is coming on Monday. It's my last chance.” Of course, nobody really
believed
he'd break into the rectory, he'd explained.
Pro forma tantum.

I followed him through a dark basement, past a washer and dryer, a hot-water heater. We went up a rickety staircase into the silent kitchen.

“Nothing we need to worry about in here,” said Art. “None of it is mine. A couple coffee mugs, maybe. The rest was here when I came.”

I thought of my own tiny kitchen, crammed with small treasures I'd acquired here and there, and imagined living as Art did, for ten years eating off the parish's dishes. Nothing in the world belonged to him, not even the rug beneath his feet.

We went into the parlor, filled with heavy furniture: an old-fashioned divan with a curved back, two stiff armchairs with ornately carved legs. Above the mantelpiece was a framed portrait of the Sacred Heart. Some forgotten part of me was still Catholic enough to be affected by these trappings, to feel chastened and respectful and curiously mute.

“It's like a cave in here,” I complained, parting the curtains. In a moment I saw why. The window behind them was made of stained glass.

“Ex umbra in solem,”
Art said, switching on a lamp. “On a sunny day it's beautiful. Of course, we haven't had a sunny day in weeks.”

I stared at the window. It was a biblical scene I recognized, the raising of Lazarus. Christ standing before the tomb, hands outstretched. The sisters, Mary and Martha, gazing in wonderment. Lazarus reaching toward them, surrounded by a golden light.

We divided the house by rooms. Art took the first floor, leaving me the bedroom and upstairs bath.

“Are you sure you want me going through your things?” I asked.

“Why not?” said Art. Then, in a flat voice I recognized, the voice Ma used when she was joking: “I keep the crack pipes and Uzis downstairs.”

Art's bedroom was small and square, crammed with the same sort of dark, claw-footed furniture as downstairs: dresser, nightstand, a high, stiff, twin bed. A faded Oriental rug covered the floor. There were layers of curtains at the windows, brocade drapes over lace panels. All of it was depressingly familiar: my mother's taste. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that she'd spent too many years in the orbit of priests.

The narrow closet was stuffed with black sport jackets, black shirts, black pants. I took them from their hangers and laid them on the bed.

“Art,” I called down the stairs. “The comforter is yours, right?”

“Correct,” he said.

I marveled to think we were shouting in the rectory. There was still enough parochial school in me to make me sweat.

The fat down comforter filled an entire bag. I was cheered by the sight of it, glad my brother had this one bit of luxury in his life, at the end of the day a soft place to land.

Under the bed I found a stack of record albums: the Who, the Doors,
Sergeant Pepper
, music popular in Art's seminary days. I know, from a few misguided attempts at dating older men, that this is not unusual. It may be unfair to say that an entire generation is besotted with the music of its youth, but that is how it seems.

Behind the records were several Thom McAn boxes, identically marked:
WNGTP BLK 10 WIDE
. I opened each one briefly. No sense in moving empty boxes across town.

The first box was full of paper: a Christmas card, some receipts, ticket stubs from Boston theaters, the American Repertory, the Publick. A paper program, professionally engraved:
Father Dennis Rickard, A Fiftieth Jubilee.

The second box was heavier. Inside were bundles of cards, bound with rubber bands. Prayer cards, the sort given out at funerals:
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.

I opened another box. On top, seeming to grant me permission, was by sheer stupid chance a photo of myself—in costume for a college theater production of
The Merchant of Venice
, smiling at curtain call, hand in hand with my castmates. Taken twenty years ago: my face rounder then, my eyes bright. How ridiculous I looked in my elaborate wig and makeup. How happy, and ridiculous, and young.

More photos. Myself and Art arm in arm, in long wool coats and mufflers, standing before the marquee at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Teenage Mike in graduation cap and gown, the blond fringe of his mullet visible beneath his mortarboard. An unfocused shot of my parents, Dad smiling, Ma with the fierce, tight-lipped look she always wore when approached by a camera:
Get that thing away from me.

I closed the lid and gathered up a tower of boxes, piled to my chin. As I got to my feet the topmost one tumbled over, scattering more photos to the ground. Scooping them up, I noticed the same two faces in every shot, a young woman and a little boy. At the bottom of the pile were the ones I have already mentioned, taken at Nantasket Beach.

What can a photograph mean? It seems to me, now, that it's not so much the image itself as the fact that it was kept. In my own bedroom closet are three large boxes I labeled—late one night, in a dark mood—
PLUTONIUM.
They are filled with my own keepsakes and very heavy, decades of living distilled down to a few potent sentiments: tenderness, longing, regret.

I studied the photos until I heard footsteps on the stairs. Quickly I swept them into the box and shoved it under the bed.

“I shoved all your Johnny Cash gear into trash bags,” I called. “Is that a sin?”

Art appeared in the doorway and looked around the room. “I feel like a fugitive. Like the Angel of Death is passing over.” Then, seeing my blank look: “The Israelites, remember?”

I frowned. Had I really spent twelve years in parochial school? Twelve solid years of religion classes—fifty minutes, five days a week. What I had retained would fit on an index card.

Art glanced around the room. “I guess we can load up the truck. All set here?”

I remembered the box of photos under the bed. I imagined it smoldering like hot coals.

“I'll be down in a minute,” I said.

T
he open house was poorly attended. The first hour brought plenty of foot traffic, but no serious buyers. It was easy to spot the difference. This crowd was mainly snoops and gossips, curious to see the inside of a neighbor's house. Nobody looked at the fact sheet Mike had piled near the entrance. Some hadn't even bothered to go upstairs.

Periodically he glanced out the front door, looking for signs of life at Kath Conlon's. The little boy resembled her distinctly, once you got past his dark hair. Her natural color, probably. Mike had always dated blondes, though he realized now that most had been fake. Even Lisa Morrison did something to her hair—highlights, something—though as a kid she'd been a towhead like her brothers. Abby had been his first brunette, a fact that had seemed significant.

“Open house today,” he'd told her over breakfast. He let himself sound irritated, as though he resented working on a Saturday afternoon.

“Where?” she asked.

Just making conversation, probably, but the question had made his heart race. Before he knew it, he'd made up a fake address in Quincy. The lie had rolled off his tongue smooth as butter. He hadn't lied in many years, not since Lisa.

Back then he'd had plenty to lie about. After hours, a drink in his hand, he'd been confident and aggressive. Having a girlfriend wasn't the same as being married. Cheating was a relative term. Of course, if Lisa had opened her legs for some guy, he would have screamed bloody murder. They were both suspicious, wildly jealous. They drank too much and were young. Every few months Lisa would catch him in a lie, or think she had. He'd complain that she didn't trust him, genuinely outraged. The breakup would last a month or two, until he spotted her at the Claddagh or the Banshee with some guy's hands all over her. One asshole kissing the tattoo Mike had bought her, the tiny heart on the back of her wrist. Mike had thrown a punch that time (usually he didn't). At the end of the night Lisa went home with him.

It seemed they'd go on that way forever, fighting in public, making up in private. He'd known her so long that their togetherness seemed inevitable. It still astonished him, sometimes, that they'd made their lives with other people, that she'd given birth to kids that weren't his.

“Hey, what are they asking?”

Mike turned. A young couple had just come in, the girl obviously pregnant.

“It's listed at three hundred, but I'd consider that a suggestion.” Mike grinned. “They're pretty motivated to sell.”

“We're just looking,” said the guy—Hispanic maybe, just a kid.

Mike had learned not to hover. “No problem,” he said easily. “Any questions, give a shout.”

He stepped out onto the porch. The sky was clearing; it was the first dry weekend in a month, the first clean breath of spring. Across the street there was still no sign of the girl.

He wanted only to talk to her: to hear her story, to watch her as she said the words. As a cop he'd learned that every liar had a tell.
The hands
, he'd told Dan Flanagan one night, when they were off duty and getting loaded at the Banshee.
They can't keep their hands still. I just keep an eye on their hands.

It was Flanagan who gave him the nickname. The Polygraph. He was always needling Mike, giving him shit; but Mike liked the name and took it to heart. He'd been right often enough to be proud of his instincts. It was harder with strangers, of course. He could be fooled—anyone could—by a stranger. But once he got to know them, Mike could always spot the tell.

B
Y THREE-THIRTY
the house was empty. He gave it another ten minutes, then began closing windows. Finally he locked the doors.

Outside the girl was sitting on her porch, eyes closed, basking in the afternoon sun. She was barefoot, in jeans and a tank top, bra straps showing. You couldn't miss it, a bright purple bra.

“Hey,” he called. “You didn't stop over.”

She opened one eye, turned her head slightly, like a preening cat.

Mike crossed the street and approached the porch. “Jesus, you must be freezing. It's not
that
warm.”

The girl smiled. “I like the sun.”

“I can show you the house another time.” He reached up, offered his hand. “I'm Mike, by the way.”

“Kath.” Her hand was small and cold, surprisingly strong.

“Some night this week, maybe.”

“I'm not ready to buy yet. Another month, I think.”

“What, you planning to win the lottery?”

Kath shrugged. “You never know.”

“Well, you should take a look. I doubt it'll be on the market in a month. It's a hell of a good deal.”

She scrabbled in her purse for a cigarette, menthol light. Her nail polish was chipped. Then, on her left wrist, he saw it: a heart-shaped tattoo.

Mike felt as though he'd been slapped, blood rushing to heat his face. In the exact same spot, yet. What were the odds?

He said, “I knew someone who had a tattoo like that.”

“Oh, yeah?” She examined it as though she'd forgotten it was there. “I've had that one forever. This one I just got.” She bent forward and pulled up her pant leg. A green vine curled around her anklebone.

Mike leaned forward to examine it. He caught a whiff of fragrance on her skin, fruity and sweetly synthetic, a smell not found in nature. Candy, he thought.

“Nice,” he said. “Got any more?”

“None I can show.”

At that moment a car pulled up in front of the house, a beat-up Camaro with a mangled bumper. The windows were down, rap music blaring. At the wheel sat a guy in sunglasses. Mike got a good look at him, dark hair, goatee, skinny arm hanging out the window. A real dirtbag. As if sensing his gaze, the driver rolled up the window.

“I gotta go.” Kath slipped on a pair of clogs, grabbed her leather jacket and purse. Her shoes were loud on the rickety steps.

“How about tomorrow morning?” Mike said, a last effort.

She frowned. “I might not be—around. In the evening maybe.”

“Sure,” Mike said.

He watched her get into the car, lean over to speak to the driver. The car squealed away from the curb.

•  •  •

H
E'D BOUGHT
Lisa the tattoo on her nineteenth birthday. With their fake IDs they'd stopped first at a bar in Providence.
Make sure I'm good and loaded
, she said. It was as close as he'd ever come to seeing her afraid. He understood later that this was why he'd loved her. Lisa had always been fearless. Being with her had made him brave.

For half an hour the guy had worked on her—a bald freak with a pierced eyebrow, his own arms covered with tattoos. Drunk himself, Mike sat beside her, their thighs touching. Together they watched the pulsing needle, the blood welling up from Lisa's skin. Lisa in a short denim skirt, her bare thigh warm under his hand.

He hadn't fucked her yet, not properly, though there had been some awkward groping years before. Back then she'd been Tim Morrison's baby sister, a skinny little thing, and there wasn't much to grope. She'd grown up since then, had more boyfriends than Mike cared to think of. He suspected she could teach him a few things. Later that night he'd find out it was true.

“Your turn,” she said when it was finished.

“No fucken way.” He had broken his nose playing hockey, dislocated a shoulder in jayvee football. He could handle pain if necessary, but he wasn't stupid enough to go looking for it.

There would be other tattoos, less visible. A detailed crucifix high on one shoulder; a bird at the base of her spine, its wings spread wide. A tiny flower blooming deep inside her left hipbone, a spot so private that even a bikini would hide it. That was a night Mike would remember forever, Lisa lying on the table, naked from the waist down. The same bald guy leaning over her, close enough to smell her.
When he's finished
, Mike thought,
I'll beat the shit out of him.
The thought was strangely arousing. He'd taken Lisa home and fucked her senseless. He had never been so turned on in his life.

He imagined her now, in the careless nudity of marriage: Lisa stepping out of the shower, her husband shaving at the sink. The pattern Mike would never forget, heart bird cross flower, her secret punctuation. Did her husband know who'd paid for the marks on her body? That it was Mike McGann who'd sat beside her, grasping her thigh, watching the needle do its work?

H
E DROVE
away from Dunster feeling restless. Saturday night, the first weekend of spring weather. The beachfront bars were filled, bands playing. Kath Conlon had been wearing perfume. Where was her kid on a Saturday night while she was riding around in some guy's Camaro? The driver had closed his window when he caught Mike looking. Something about that was unsettling. It gave him a bad feeling.

Accidentally maybe, he zoomed past his exit on the highway. He wasn't ready to go home. Instead he took the back way into Grantham. Abby would be expecting him, but then she was always expecting him. As he parked behind Ma's Escort, he turned off his cell phone.

The house was dead quiet inside. “Ma?” he called.

He heard noises below, the creaking of the stairs. The basement door opened. “Hello, there,” Dad said.

“Hey. Where's Ma?”

Dad hesitated only a moment. “Having her hair fixed,” he said pleasantly. “You know women and their hair.”

Mike glanced at the clock: six-thirty on a Saturday night. Probably she had gone to the evening Mass. She would leave Ted alone for an hour, not longer. For one hour he could manage on his own.

“What about Sheila?” said Mike. “Don't tell me Ma dragged her to church.”

“Not a word against your sister. She's a good girl. I'm having a Coke,” he announced. “Want one? There's cold ones in the fridge.”

“I'm good. I have to get going.”

“All right, then. Happy trails.”

It was, on balance, as satisfying a conversation as they'd had in many years.