Songs in Ordinary Time (57 page)

Mooney came to the door. “That same guy’s here, that priest,” he said.

She looked out and waved. Father Gannon raised a hand to tell her to take her time. She could feel Mooney watching as she jammed the last dis-penser with napkins and wedged it onto the full tray. Before she could pick it up, he had the heavy tray balanced on his fingertips. The muscle in his arm bulged his American flag tattoo in and out.

“He a relative or something?” he asked, holding the door open with his foot.

“No, he’s just a…a friend,” she said, surprising herself.

“That’s weird,” Mooney said under his breath. “That’s really weird.”

Father Gannon’s clerical collar glowed under the passing streetlamps.

He hadn’t been able to help Father Krystecki with the wood because he’d been at the nursing home all night with an old woman who was dying. Her family, who lived in California, had asked the Monsignor to be there, but his gallbladder had kicked up.

“Did she die?” Alice asked uneasily.

“No.” He sighed. “As a matter of fact, she was having some broth when I left.”

Somehow, though, she didn’t believe him. He seemed too nervous. He kept sighing and rubbing his chin. The woman had died and she, Alice, was the tail end of a death mission.

When he turned at her corner she was surprised at her disappointment.

Lately it seemed she was always either working or getting ready for work.

“Tired, huh?” he asked.

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 277

“Not really. I had coffee right before I left, so I wouldn’t fall asleep.”

“You did?” He smiled at her. “How about a little ride, then?”

“Oh a ride’s fine,” she said and he headed back toward Main Street.

“I hope the coffee doesn’t keep you up all night,” he said.

“That’s one good thing about this job. I can sleep late in the morning.”

He groaned with envy and said he had the early Mass.

Feeling guilty, she pointed to the stop sign ahead and told him if he turned right, then he’d be back by her street.

“It’s okay.” He laughed and said he hadn’t been sleeping too well lately.

“This is good, getting out like this. Especially with someone under the age of forty. God,” he added, “thirty.”

“Twenty,” she said in a small voice, and he laughed.

“That’s even better,” he said, and he laughed again.

They seemed to be following the moon as they drove into the hills. The pastures looked wet in the moonlight, the trees of the bordering woods dense with shadows. The houses they passed were dark and still. In all this way they had only seen a single car, the one that seemed to be aiming straight at them on this narrow winding road. Father Gannon jerked the wheel, pulling onto the soft shoulder to let it by.

In the last few minutes they had been matching mother stories: holes in socks, burned toast, and for some reason tears right before Sunday Mass.

He pulled back onto the road.

“Maybe all mothers do it,” he said. “They just get so exhausted trying to get everything to go right.”

“Well, I won’t!” she said so sharply that he looked at her.

“Won’t what?” he asked. “Go to church?”

“Not if it means getting everyone all upset.” Actually she hadn’t meant that until she’d seen the look on his face. This was the same thing she’d done to Lester She’d enjoyed shocking him. But Lester’s reaction had always been so pained and personal, while Father Gannon seemed amused. “I mean,” she continued, “you go to Mass to be close to God, but then the whole time you’re sitting there a nervous wreck and you can’t concentrate on one single word the priest is saying, much less pray yourself, so what’s the point? I mean, wouldn’t it be better to just stay home and be quiet and calm and filled with good feelings instead of worrying what everyone around you is thinking!” Her voice had gone too high.

He glanced at her. “Is that a question?”

“Yes. Really, I mean it.” She took a deep breath, uneasy with his silence.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I guess it’s the good-feelings part. You can get good feelings from a lot of things, right? A big juicy steak? A funny movie? Being with someone you really like?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.

I don’t think that’s quite the commitment Christ had in mind.”

She looked out the window.

“Do you?” he asked after a moment, when she still hadn’t replied.

“I don’t know.” She felt young and stupid. She watched the fence along the road, its barbed wire glittering as they passed.

278 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“No, tell me. Tell me what you think,” he insisted.

She looked at him, shocked by what she was thinking and feeling right now.

“You meant what you were saying. Why won’t you explain it? Why won’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was just sounding off or something, I don’t know.”

“You can’t talk to me.” He sighed. “I make you feel uncomfortable, don’t I?”

“No, it’s not that. I just, I don’t know, I’m just starting to feel really tired, for one thing. I think my coffee’s wearing off, and gosh, it’s really getting late,” she said, studying the moon as if it were the bright face of a clock.

“You’ll never get up in time for the six.”

“I can turn here,” he said, pulling onto the soft shoulder. He sat so still, staring over the wheel, that she thought something was wrong with the car.

Or maybe with him. He spoke suddenly, in a faltering voice. “Alice, I’ve got this terrible feeling, this awful pain like an ache that goes from here,”

he said, gesturing at his throat, “right down into my stomach.” And then for a moment he didn’t say anything.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” she said hesitantly.

“That wouldn’t do any good,” he said with a long sigh. He turned and looked at her. “Besides, all the doctors I’ve seen don’t want to hear what’s really wrong.”

In the uneasy silence she began to twist the apron string around her wrist, binding it tighter and tighter. “What’s that?” she asked, though she already knew.

“I just want to touch you. That’s all I want. That’s all I think of every minute, all day long. And now here I am right next to you, and I can’t, because I’m not supposed to. Because it’s wrong. Because of who I am. Because you’re young. Because…because you might not even want me to.”

She unwound the apron string, pulling it up into the air. Her mouth was dry. She kept swallowing. She heard his breathing quicken.

“Alice! Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you?”

She looked up and nodded.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispered. “Is it all right?”

She closed her eyes as he moved toward her.

“Oh you sweet girl,” he kept whispering. “You sweet, sweet girl.” His entire body was trembling. His hands shook as they touched her face.

She told her mother she was getting rides home with different girls from work. Night after night he was there. Always on time, freshly shaven, cheeks slapped pink with spicy cologne, glowing when she appeared, grinning at her so often that he was always swerving away from parked cars, from oncoming cars, jerking the wheel back into the lane. She rode gripping the door handle. He wore a white T-shirt, his black clerical pants, black shoes.

His Roman collar and black shirt were in the glove compartment. The Monsignor was at Lake George with the Hinds family these last few days, SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 279

and there was a visiting priest helping out, so he could come and go as he pleased. Mrs. Arkaday went to bed early, and he always left a note on his door telling when he’d return in case there were any sick calls.

Even if there had been anything open this late at night, they really couldn’t be seen together in public, so they would drive around and talk; then, right before it was time to bring her home, he would stop on a back road and move across the long, deep seat to take her in his arms. He no longer trembled, but now his apprehension had taken the form of apology. Her back was against the door handle, he was sorry. She was rubbing her chin.

Had he hurt her mouth? Was it too hot in here for her? Too cool? Too buggy?

Was he too heavy? His hands too rough? His embrace too desperate? He was so afraid of hurting her, he said, afraid of forcing himself in any way on her.

“Just tell me to stop,” he whispered at her wet ear. “And I will. That’s all you have to do,” he panted. The choice was hers. He was kissing her throat, her shoulder.

Eyes closed, she shook her head, panting herself. Don’t talk, she wanted to say. His breathing was enough, his lungs, his heart against hers. The sound of his voice, his groaning, stirred her, blinded and deafened her.

Words ruined it. Words turned them back into Alice Fermoyle and Father Gannon, both in uniform, in the Monsignor’s car, on a dark road dense with brambles and guilt. “I’ll do anything, anything you want,” he pleaded at her breast.

She shook her head, her bra dangling loose.

“Tell me. Please tell me.”

Her eyes opened. Where were they? Was that a car coming? She raised her head to see, and he writhed with the sudden motion. She slid across the seat, half onto the floor. He was pulling down her pants and then she helped him with his.

“My God,” he groaned when she held him. “Oh my God, I’ll do anything for you. Anything!” he cried with the anguished fervor of prayer.

She pushed away and got back up on the seat. “No,” she whispered, pulling up her pants and reaching back awkwardly to hook her bra.

“I’m sorry. I hurt you, didn’t I?” He reached to touch her, then drew back.

“It’s all too fast, isn’t it? I’m sorry.” He covered his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m thinking of. You’re so young. My God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Alice.”

It was all right, she kept trying to tell him. She had gotten scared, that was all, afraid that someone might drive by and see them. She couldn’t explain it, but what she feared was this presence she felt, this sense of all that was between them. She said it again. “I guess I just panicked, that’s all.”

“Oh God, I’ve got to be careful,” he said, buttoning her shirtfront as if she were a child. He straightened her collar and smoothed back her hair. “I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise.”

As much as she believed him, she was still afraid.

280 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

N
orm sat up in bed when he heard Duvall’s car pull in. For the last two hours his mother had been pacing from room to room and up and down the stairs. At one point she had gotten into her car and roared off down the street, only to peel into the driveway soon after, slamming the car door, the back door, cupboard doors, as if doors both fueled and exor-cised her rage. He knew better than to offer to help or ask what the problem was. You, she would say. You are the problem. You are the cause of all my pain. Once my pride and my hope, you are now my greatest disappointment.

He was through battling with her. She was too shrewd, too quick to attack, and she was inexhaustible. And yet with Duvall she continued to be so passive, so gullible that it was not only bewildering, but, lately, frightening.

It was one-thirty and Duvall was just getting back. Alice had arrived awhile before with some lame story about going to a girl’s house after work.

His mother might believe it, but he didn’t. Whoever was driving Alice home was dropping her off at the corner. He’d look out the window and see his sister hurrying down the shadowy street, and he’d be filled with rage, wondering who the son of a bitch was who couldn’t even see her safely home. She denied it, but he was certain it was Lester. The fag probably had some weird rule about driving down a dead-end street after midnight.

Duvall came in the back door. Norm tiptoed to the top of the stairs.

“You said you’d be here by eight,” came his mother’s clipped voice as the light went on down in the kitchen. Glasses clinked. The refrigerator door squealed open.

“I know,” Duvall sighed. “I just got further and further behind with every appointment.”

“You could have called.”

“I should have.” The refrigerator door opened again. “You’re right, I should have.” Footsteps. A drawer opened. The silverware drawer rattled open. “You look tired, Marie.” Duvall was talking with food in his mouth.

Probably eating cold spaghetti, leering at her while he chewed, red sauce on his lips: the pig, the disgusting pig.

“I feel as if everything’s starting to cave in on me. The first payment’s due. It’s all going crazy with the kids. I can’t think straight at work. Mr.

Briscoe’s always on my back. ‘What’s wrong, what’s wrong,’ he keeps saying, as if I knew. As if I could tell him.”

“You’re just tired,” Duvall said over a clinking fork.

“No. No, I can feel it. Something’s going to happen. It’s like this big thing that keeps swelling up around me, and then you say you’ll be here no later than eight, so I count on that. I…I need that, do you understand?”

“Yes, I do,” Duvall sighed. “I most certainly do.”

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there? I can tell,” she said, her voice rising.

Duvall insisted there was nothing wrong. She insisted there was.

“Get him!” Norm said under his breath. He leaned over the railing. They SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 281

were still in the kitchen. Their long shadows faced each other on the living-room wall at the bottom of the stairs.

“I am just not accustomed to accounting for every waking moment of my day,” Duvall said.

He tensed with the abrupt silence. Okay, now, Duvall was finally going to get his ass kicked right through that front door. And if he said one word to her, one word…

“Of course you’re not. I’m sorry, Omar. I’m so sorry.”

He threw up his arms in disbelief. Jesus Christ, that was her chance!

Duvall sighed. “You see, it’s hard, Marie, hard being around a woman you…I don’t know how to put this…but it’s being here all the time and never being able to…You see, aside from being a very busy man right now, Marie, I’m a loving man, a robust man with a healthy appetite, and you can’t expect me to sit here night after night aching with desire. So I try to keep busy! Keep my mind off of…those kind of things, if you know what I mean.”