Fatherless: A Novel (17 page)

Matthew looked around the room. “Temple of the Spirit? More like a collection of shacks.”

He felt a warm hand on his forearm. “Look at me, son,” Father Richard said earnestly. “You need to convince your mother that
a transition is not the answer. Tell her what I told Carolyn, that our heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air. I’m sure
he can take care of an overdue mortgage payment or two.” A slight pause. “He can also fund a young man’s college ambitions.”

Matthew tried to hide his annoyance at the implication and give Father Richard the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the priest
was ignorant, unlikely as it seemed, of the teachings of ancient Gnostics and modern professors like Dr. Vincent. Maybe he
had been so busy tending parishioners and preparing high school lesson plans that he had overlooked a form of spirituality
offering freedom from rather than imprisonment within failing bodies.

“I don’t know,” Matthew began. “I mean, she is deteriorating pretty fast. I’m not sure I can…”

“You can,” Father Richard interrupted. “You must. Transitions are nothing more than suicide by a different name. A mortal
sin. Satan’s attack on the very image of God.”

It was then that Matthew realized his mistake. He should not have sought the advice of Father Richard Tomberlin.

Julia retreated
to the guest room, eager to recover from one of the few fast-food meals she had eaten since graduating from college. She
felt a rumble in her stomach, not from the grease, but from the conversation with Troy Simmons. It had been quite some time
since an attractive man showed genuine interest in her that wasn’t motivated by alcohol or overheated hormones. She reprimanded
herself for a spark of chemistry she could not allow.

You could never be with a man like that
! Or could she?

Troy is another Kevin, stuck in the Dark Ages with archaic views of masculinity
. Or was he?

Of course he is!
How else could he attend a church filled with breeders and mindlessly parrot a creed written back when women were treated
like property?

And yet she found herself mysteriously drawn to his quiet strength. Troy Simmons carried himself with an unforced, natural
authority that invited a sense of belonging and safety Julia remembered feeling around Angie’s dad when they were teenagers.

Their conversation included none of the smooth one-liners or cocky self-obsession she had endured with other men. Troy had
seemed more like an apprehensive adolescent trying to avoid missteps while talking to a cute girl. She found herself flattered
by his nervous attempts, like the question he asked while they sat at the table waiting for Kevin and Angie to order their
food.

“Do they harass you about being single too?”

“Who?”

“You,” he said inadequately. “I mean, your friends and family. Do they prod you toward marriage?”

“I don’t have a
partner
, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she answered, emphasizing the more acceptable word.

“Partner. Right. Sorry.”

The word
marriage
had fallen out of favor, especially in the glossary used by Julia’s editors, ever since cohabitation became the new normal.
The mistake seemed to make Troy even more tongue-tied as he tried to make small talk with someone who held very different
assumptions about love and sex.

Julia decided to ease the tension. “I don’t get much prodding. Although a few rogue readers have asked me to soften my critique
of traditional unions.”

“Traditional unions?” he repeated. “You mean like Kevin and Angie’s?”

“I guess.”

“What, specifically, do you dislike about it…er…them? About marriage?”

And so it went. During their early conversation Troy seemed to tangle or butcher most of his sentences. She found it infuriatingly
charming.

Things got worse and better when Angie suggested Julia stand in line with Troy to retrieve three junior ice-cream cones, a
task he could easily have handled alone. Despite Julia’s glower, Angie winked at her not-so-subtle matchmaking effort.

“I noticed you stayed seated during that last bit in the service.” Julia felt she owed him her thanks. “I couldn’t parrot
the mantra so assumed I didn’t qualify. You?”

Troy winced at her choice of words. “I try to recite the creed, but I don’t have it down like Kevin, Angie, or the other members.”

“Have it down?”

“I usually stumble somewhere between ‘Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate’ and ‘right hand of the Father.’ And once I mess
up the cadence I can never find an easy reentry.”

Julia heard herself laugh, happy to learn she had not been the only one faking it during the service. “But you believe it?”
she asked.

“Most of the time,” he confessed. “I’m pretty new to Christianity.”

Julia reacted in surprise. She hadn’t expected Kevin’s closest friend to be a lapsed pagan. “How new?”

“You might say I’m still kicking the tires. I started attending Apostles’ Church with the Tolberts when I came to DC.” He
looked quickly at his watch, mentally calculating backward. “About a year now. It’s quite different from the churches I visited
with my grandma as a kid.”

“Tell me about it!” she agreed. “I expected something more like the church Angie bribed me into attending with her during
high school.”

“I never took to Christianity before.” He looked away for a moment. “Wish I had.”

“Had what?”

“Wish I had taken to it. You know, went all-in. It might have helped me make better choices.” His voice sagged, the sound
of a man living with regrets he would rather not describe. “How about you?”

“I’ve never wished I had,” she admitted. “My mom didn’t take us to church, and most of my churchgoing friends outgrew religion.
To be honest, I was surprised that a bright, popular kid like Angie stuck with it. She seems more religious now than she was
then.”

“More how?”

Julia thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I get the feeling she lets her religion spill over.”

Troy looked intrigued. “Spill over?”

“It’s hard to explain. The times I attended church with her she got pretty emotional. I remember how it would weird me out,
all the singing and tears and praying for this and that. But Angie was a very caring person. She was never ashamed that she
cried at the drop of a hat.”

“That’s Angie all right,” he agreed.

“I figured church was part of a package that included taking in stray cats and befriending lonely kids. I never expected religion
to spill onto her choices about”—Julia stopped short of mentioning motherhood—“real-world matters.”

“Were you one of those lonely kids she befriended?” Kevin asked.

The question smacked Julia’s memory. In truth, she had been. A brainy girl with no figure invited into the popular crowd by
a curvy cheerleader who seemed too eager to invite her to church but also too kind to let her eat alone in the cafeteria.
Julia was the fatherless girl who borrowed confidence from her friend’s daddy whenever invited to stay for a dinnertime ritual
unknown in her own house.

“How was your day, Julia?” Angie’s father always asked.

“You’ll do great,” he encouraged.

“Hold hands for grace,” he decreed.

Those were the fleeting moments of her youth when Julia felt at home. But they were also the times she resented whatever God
hadn’t cared enough to give her what he or she had given Angie. A God who she decided probably didn’t exist.

“Wasn’t every kid lonely at one time or another?” she answered.

“I guess so. I know I was,” Troy confessed.

“Anyway, like I said, I’ve never wished I were religious.”

The entire conversation lasted the time it took a pimply-faced teen to prepare three ice-cream cones. Julia received two of
the treats, grateful for the interruption. They walked toward the table, where Kevin was holding Leah while Angie relished
a mischievous smile.

Julia’s eyes shot a wipe-that-matchmaker-look-off-your-face warning toward Angie. Then she noticed her beckoning phone.

“Excuse me a second,” she said to Troy while tapping the glowing screen.

“Hi, Aunt Julia.”

“Jared? Is something wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” he began.

She remembered his message. “Oh, Jared, I’m so sorry. I got your message late last night. I intended to call first thing this
morning but…well…it doesn’t matter. Are you OK?”

Troy appeared embarrassed, standing too close to avoid eavesdropping.

Julia muted the call. “Sorry. My nephew. Minor domestic crisis.”

He nodded.

“Go on, I’m listening,” she said into the phone.

For the next sixty seconds Jared vented into Julia’s ear, prompting the occasional tidbit of perspective or wisdom he would
only take from his aunt.

“You don’t hate your mother, Jared. You’re just upset…She does care. She probably wasn’t thinking. Nothing more…You know that’s
not true. And what does it matter what they say anyway?…I promise to talk to her about that when I get home. OK?…Everything’s
gonna be fine, you’ll see…Listen, I’ve gotta run. We’ll talk when I get home. Your mom loves you, Jared. So do I.”

She ended the call.

“You seemed to handle that well,” Troy said, reminding Julia he had been listening. “You must be a terrific aunt.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said with some embarrassment. Julia raised her phone. “Julia’s crisis hotline, at your service.”

She felt admiration through his smile.

During the rest of the meal Julia managed to direct the conversation toward clues that might prove useful to her feature story.
Kevin let slip something about a Tuesday-afternoon subcommittee meeting. Troy cryptically mentioned a first-draft report that
would be on the congressman’s desk in the morning. No title was mentioned, just that it included “revised projections that
look better than expected.” For the most part, however, the conversation steered clear of politics or religion in order for
the adults to attend to cones threatening to drip and children needing a nap.

The house was wonderfully quiet as the Tolbert clan enjoyed its Sunday afternoon siesta. Julia debated whether to rest or
read. She chose both, slipping under the sheets with her tablet in hopes of drifting off between pages. She opened the Santos
journal. The next entry Jeremy had included picked up the story five years after Antonio’s diagnosis.

Julia thought about her nephew and Maria back home. What hope would Jared have if he were told he couldn’t attend school?
How would her sister have managed a career if Julia had not been her backup during Jared’s early years? What if Jared had
required twenty-four-hour attention year after year after year?

She continued reading, noting the next entry included a picture link, which she tapped. It was a shot of Sylvia and Jeremy
standing behind eight-year-old Antonio sitting in a tinsel-strewn wheelchair. Another woman knelt beside Antonio, probably
Aunt Nina.

Julia paused her reading, wondering why on earth a woman in Sylvia’s situation would go through the hassle of dragging two
boys to church at midnight on Christmas eve.

While other kids got the latest digital toy, Antonio got a wheelchair. Hardly a moment Julia would call wonderful. Certainly
not one for which she would express gratitude!

No longer sleepy, Julia continued reading confessions from a woman’s life that could not have been more different from her
own. For the next hour the years flew.