With the Father (6 page)

I sat down on the bench and found Aurora already sitting at my feet.
Apparently, there was a hidden turbo booster in her somewhere. I rummaged
through the plastic sack I’d brought and tossed a treat into the air above her
head. She opened her wide jaws and snagged out of the air perfectly.

“That’s quite a trick.”

I recognized the voice and scanned past jean clad legs and a Boston Red
Sox t-shirt to find myself looking into the eyes of Father Paul.
 

He looked abnormally normal again. His t-shirt was faded and
untucked
, his jeans worn and loose. A ball cap pulled low
over his emerald eyes hid his hair and topped off his average Joe look. I might
not have even recognized him had it not been for the thick accent.

“She’s a real beast,” I said.

“She’s awesome,” he said, bending to scratch Aurora’s head.
 
After only a second, she flopped onto
her back, exposing her belly for him. “What’s her name?”

“Aurora.”

“Like the Greek Goddess or the lights?” he asked.

“Neither. Her full name is Princess Aurora,” I mumbled, hoping he
wouldn’t ask how she’d gotten such an ill-fitting name.
 

He nodded and continued to scratch her stomach, and she snorted in
appreciation. “She sleeps a lot, huh?”
 

I almost laughed at his joke. Aurora did sleep a lot. She was my
napping buddy.

An equally out of shape basset hound wandered over, and Father Paul
smacked him roughly on the back. “Chubs, meet Princess Aurora. Aurora, Chubs.”
Without a shred of decency, Aurora remained on her back happy to let Chubs
sniff her girly bits. “Sorry. Obviously, she hasn’t been raised properly.
Though, I’m going to blame my dad for that.”

He laughed and nudged Chubs with his foot. “
Chubs,
cool it.” He gestured to Aurora. “She’s an English bulldog, right?”

“Yes,” I answered. “So I guess you two probably have a lot to talk
about.” He looked at me curiously and sat down on the bench beside me, leaving
space between us. “You with your Irish roots and her with her English lineage.”

He chuckled and the lines at the corner of his eyes became more
defined.

I gestured to the two dogs at our feet. Chubs was
laying
down and already snoring. Aurora was still lying on her back, hoping someone
would give her belly some more attention. “Aurora and I were just trying to
figure out why we are here.”

“Interaction with our peers is vital to survival.” He smiled and then
added, “Isn’t that right, Aurora?”

In total disagreement, Aurora grunted, and Chubs let out a long drawn
out snore that was so loud his own eyes opened in response. I couldn’t help but
laugh. I looked at Father Paul and felt a lightness that I hadn’t felt in months.
Maybe Kate was right. Maybe I could talk to him.

This revelation was immediately followed by a crippling sense of guilt.
I shouldn’t be feeling light. I didn’t need to talk my way through this. I
brought my attention back to the dogs. “She’s my dad’s dog. I bought her for
him after my mom died. He rarely got out of the house, and I didn’t know how to
help him. I spent hours trolling grief websites and message boards, looking for
answers. Several sites suggested that a pet would help him.”

He nodded. “Pets are good for the soul.”

“One day I was leaving the mall, and passed an SUV with the back door
up,” I continued. “A lady was sitting on the tailgate with a puppy in her lap.
I knew she was perfect so I bought her on the spot.” What I didn’t tell him was
that I wouldn’t have even noticed the lady if Isabelle hadn’t squealed drove
past and begged me to stop.

“Did it work?”

“I always had a hard time telling her no.” Father Paul looked confused,
and I realized he was asking about my dad while I was still thinking about
Isabelle. “Yeah, I think it worked. When she was a puppy, she was pretty
demanding. He took her for walks. It got him out of the house when he probably
wouldn’t have otherwise. And kept her from destroying everything.”

“And now?”

“My dad’s definitely doing better now. He gets out a lot more than she
does.”

“I was talking about you. Is Aurora helping you in the same way?”

I looked away and focused my attention on the older gentleman throwing
a Frisbee to the Collie. “I’m here,” I said quietly. He didn’t need to know
that this was the first time I’d actually taken Aurora further than the
backyard.
 

“She’s earning her keep then.”

“Chubs is huge,” I said, moving the conversation away from me.
  

“He’s eighty pounds of pure muscle. Engineered for speed and agility.”

I laughed. “I can see that.”

“Maybe we should take them for a walk,” he said. “I’m afraid if we sit
here, they may atrophy.”

Laughing, I stood. I took the leash in my hand and clipped it onto
Aurora’s collar.
 
She slowly pulled
up onto all fours. Chubs, who stretched out his back legs, also seemed game for
the new plan.

As we let ourselves out of the gate, I glanced around to see if anyone
was watching, cognizant of the fact that we lived in a very small town. Tongues
would wag if anyone saw us walking together. Bored people love to stir
controversy.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, shrugging it off.

As if he’d read my mind, he pointed in the direction that led away from
downtown. “Let’s go this way.” We walked along the sidewalk with the dogs
leading the way.
 
“I don’t know how
far we can go,” I said, looking up toward the sky. “It’s pretty hot already.
Aurora’s stamina is limited. I mean, look at her.”
 
The dog wheezed and panted as if to
prove my point.

“We’ll stick to the shady side. They’ll be all right.” We crossed to
the other side of the street where a canopy of trees hung overhead, creating
Pollock-like shadows on the sidewalk in front of us.
 

We walked in amiable silence. The dogs pulled us along, sniffing at things
along the way. It was nice to be with someone who didn’t feel the need to fill
every second with conversation. I was glad to have Kate around, but she talked
constantly.
 
About everything and
nothing. Trying to keep up with her was exhausting. Being with Father Paul,
however, was easy.

Birds and cicadas chattered in the trees overhead. In a few hours, the
west Texas sun would create a sweltering heat that would silence all of
them.
 
Every so often one of the
dogs would stop to check something out, and the other would come over as if
called. They would put their heads together and sniff and snort until they
decided it was time to move on. Then they would resume their walk side-by-side
at the same slow, meandering gait.

It occurred to me that the dog park wasn’t Aurora’s scene. It was kind
of the doggy equivalent of a speed-dating mixer, with dogs running around,
sniffing each other’s butts until they made a connection. Like me, Aurora
didn’t care for forced interaction.

After a couple of blocks, we turned around and headed back to the dog
park at the same lazy pace. When we reached the parking lot, Father Paul turned
to me. “Same time tomorrow?”
 
he
asked. “I can bring the coat drive stuff with me, and you
can take it home with you.” He looked so hopeful. I didn’t want to make any
promises. I might not feel up to an outing tomorrow.

I looked down at the dogs. They were sitting next to each other both
peering up at me with the same watchful and hopeful gaze as Father Paul. I was
tired of being the Debbie Downer in every group. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “It
looks like Princess Aurora found her soul mate. Who am I to stand in between
them?”

 
“Do you believe that?” he
asked, his voice solemn.

“What?”

“In soul mates.” He cocked his head to the side and looked genuinely
interested in my answer.

Of course, I believed in ‘the one.’ I also believed that I’d already
lost him. “I believe that there’s one special person who is the perfect fit and
that it’s no coincidence when we find them. You?”

“Certainly, some are better suited for each other than others,” he
said, nodding to the dogs sitting side-by-side at our feet. “But I don’t
believe in ‘the one.’” He leaned against the trunk of my car and eyed me as if he
thought I was made of glass, and his words would shatter me. He was right to
wonder.

Jonathan
had
been my soul mate. We’d been very young when we’d
met – just nineteen. Yet, I’d known immediately that he was it for me,
that he was
the
one. In fact, I’d called my mother the next day and told
her that I’d met the guy I was going to marry. There had never been anyone
else, and he’d felt the same way. If that wasn’t the definition of soul mates,
I didn’t know what was.

Father Paul seemed to sense my feelings on the subject but barged ahead
anyway. “Have you ever wondered where it comes from … the idea of there being
just ‘one’ perfect counterpart for every person?”

“Walt Disney?” I asked, pointing at Princess Aurora.
 

He shook his head. “Actually, it originated from the Greek philosophy
of Plato who believed that man and woman are made of one body and separated by
the gods, forced to spend their lives searching for each other so that they can
be complete.” He was silent for a moment before continuing, “Obviously that
goes against what I believe.”

“Each of us is a complete person all on our own. You are complete
person on your own, Grace. That was true five months ago, and it’s still true
today. You may not feel like it, but even without him, you are complete.”

I scuffed the toe of my shoe in the dirt while I considered his words,
noticing that he’d purposefully framed his argument without mentioning God.

Father Paul was walking a fine line with me, and he knew it. He was
being very careful not to say something that he knew would push me away; yet,
he’d still managed to get his message across.

He flipped his ball cap around so that it sat backwards on his head.
The act had the dual effect of revealing his face – and the utter
sincerity etched across it – and returning the Greek mythology-spewing
priest beside me to a mere mortal man again.

I crumbled just a bit.
 

His mouth turned
down as he squinted into the sun. “Of course, I’ve never been in love like you
have.”
He yanked on Chubs’ leash. “Let’s
go, Chubs, we’ve got lots to do today. We’ll see you ladies again tomorrow.”

The dog resisted momentarily and pulled against the leash. Chubs turned
to Aurora and slapped his wide tongue across the side of her face. She snorted
in response and then sat on her haunches and watched her new suitor follow
after Father Paul.

Maybe they weren’t
soul mates, but there was something special there
.

Kate

I sat at Jonathan’s desk and considered the stacks of papers in front
of me. I’d spent the past few days, organizing it into something manageable and
come to one conclusion: Jonathan’s organizational skills had been severely
lacking.

When I’d taken on the job, there’d been documents scattered across the
desk. I’d found more thrown haphazardly on the top of the horizontal filing
cabinet behind the desk. There’d been even more stuffed inside it. Jonathan had
probably known where everything was. However, to an outsider, it looked like a natural
disaster recovery sight.

After scratching my head for a bit, I had decided to pull everything
out and try to put like things with like things. For a while, it looked like I
was only making things worse, but I was finally starting to see some improvement.
I had piles for personal finances, personal correspondence, and business
correspondence.
 

Of course, the business pile was the largest and the one that I had no
immediate interest in. But the papers that I’d earmarked personal stood tall,
too.
 
It was apparent to me that his
beautiful home office had been just for show. I doubted now whether he’d kept
anything there at all.

“Hey,” Maddox said from the doorway. “You know, it’s okay to take a few
days to yourself. I didn’t intend for you to work yourself this hard. Take some
time to grieve, Kate.”

“I just want to get it over with, you know? I need to do something to
help.”

Sympathy washed over his face and seemed to highlight the dark circles
under his eyes. The situation had taken a toll on him, too. We were all in this
strange terrible place together.

I’d met Maddox almost four years ago when I’d come back for Trey’s
baptism. Jonathan and Grace had rented out the back room of a restaurant to
celebrate afterwards. I’d been poking sliced cantaloupe into my niece, who was
barely old enough to walk. We’d been deep in discussion about the pros and cons
of siblings when the man, who I’d known for all of an hour, sat down beside us.

Without further introduction, Maddox had boldly declared that, as
Trey’s godparents, we owed it to the kid to test out the chemistry between us.
‘Just in case,’ he’d said. The come-on had teetered on the line between
annoying and cute, falling harder on the annoying side. Now it twisted my heart
into a mangled mess.

Maddox walked into the room and sat down in the chair across from me.
He rubbed his hand down his face, seeming to grapple with something internally.
While I waited, I studied the man who’d somehow, despite the terrible pick-up
line, managed to lure me into his bed. His nose was a touch too large, but it
was flanked by the most beautiful set of blue eyes I’d ever seen. They reminded
me of the azure waters of the Maldives, which still ranked as my favorite
destination yet.

Though hard to get to, the
Malidives
had been
worth the effort, and I planned to go back someday on my own dime, when I could
lay on the beach for days and soak up the Arabian sun. It wasn’t going to
happen any time soon though. I had too many responsibilities now so I’d have to
make do with Maddox’s eyes.

“You’re doing a lot of good, Kate,” he finally said. “At home and
here.”

The adoration in his eyes was too much for me to bear. I knew he wanted
to finish what we’d started all those years ago. I’d come back to town, and it
was looking like I would be staying. But I’d never intended on settling down in
Merriville
, and doing so with Maddox was just too
prophesy
fulfilling. He was handsome, established, and
predictable. He was what everyone wanted for me.
 
What everyone expected for me. However,
I had no interest in the predictable. No matter how good he was in bed.

I stifled the urge to get up and run from this room, this town, and all
the misery that was holding me here. It was a stupid, irrelevant thought
anyway. I’d never be able to leave now. She was depending on me. “We went out
for burgers with Paul Sullivan yesterday,” I said changing the subject to
something more neutral.

“Who?” he asked.

“The priest from the Catholic Church.”

“Oh, that Paul Sullivan. That sounds like a barrel of laughs.” A bit of
sarcasm snuck out. Even though his subject didn’t deserve it, I was glad to see
a sliver of the old Maddox resurface. He’d been different since the fire, and
this new Maddox was missing the spark that I’d loved to hate for the past four
years.

I laughed. “Is there more than one? You know, you wouldn’t forget who
he was if you went to church occasionally. He’s actually pretty funny … and
very interesting.”

His eyes narrowed and fixed determinedly upon me. “Have dinner with
me
,”
he said, abruptly changing the subject.

“I can’t. I told
Paul that I’d work at the kitchen tonight.”
 

“So now you two are
getting all cozy?” he asked.

The showing of jealousy caused me to laugh. “He’s a priest, Maddox. You
don’t get cozy with the father.”

He smiled at me,
with a wicked gleam in his eye. “True. And everyone knows that Catholic priests
only like little boys, anyway.”

“Gross. You can go
now.” I pointed toward the door, only half kidding.

“I was just
joking,” he said, pushing out of the chair. “But, I’ll leave if you agree that
you’ll have dinner with me tomorrow.”

I considered it. He
was mostly harmless, and this tired, sad Maddox was wearing me down. He had
just as much on his plate as I did. Running the company by
himself
wasn’t something he expected to be doing, but here he was doing just that.
Strangely, we were in similar situations. “Okay, fine,” I said, relenting.
“Just friends though. I can’t do more than that right now.”

He fist pumped the
air. “Score!”

“No. Not
score.
 
I said ‘just friends.’”

He covered his ears
with his hands and sang, “La
la
la
la
la
. I can’t hear you.”

“You’re
impossible,” I said to his back.
 
“Oh, hey, would it be okay if I use Jonathan’s computer to check my
email?”

“Of course. It’s
all yours.
”
he said with a dismissive wave of his
hand. Even with his back to me, I could see his enthusiasm. I could feel it
reverberating around the room.

Still shaking my
head, I pivoted in the chair and pushed the power button on Jonathan’s laptop.
The screen immediately lit up. I scanned the desktop for the Internet icon and
clicked on it. While I waited for it to pull up, I noticed a chat icon in the
lower corner of the screen.
Did people still chat?
In this day of text
messaging and social media, it seemed almost archaic. If you sat at a desk and
stared at a computer all day, however, maybe it made sense.

I spent the next
twenty minutes checking my email. My roommate in New York City, who was also a
freelance writer, had checked in to let me know that all was well and that I
was missed. It was a courtesy email. We weren’t close. Our jobs caused us both
to travel a lot. We shared an apartment for the simple reason that we were
rarely there at the same time. Our interactions were limited to emails and
scrawled messages on a
chalk board
.

After firing off a
response to her, I read two emails from assignment editors at the magazine from
where I received most of my assignments. Both were inquiring as to my
availability for upcoming assignments. I sighed and clicked the ‘x’ in the
corner to close the window without responding. I would do it later. I would
probably never work for them again, but I wasn’t quite ready to burn those
bridges yet.

After closing the
internet
window, the chat box caught my attention again. My
curiosity got the better of me, and even though I knew it was wrong, I clicked
on it. The box took over the lower right corner of the screen and the last
message – a message Jonathan had never received – glared at me.

I can’t believe
you’re gone. I don’t even know what to do with myself. How ever am I going to
live without you, Jon?

I sucked in a
breath. To my knowledge, no one had ever called him ‘Jon.’
Our
family – Grace included – had always called him Jonathan.

My eyes flipped to
the top of the window. The conversation was with someone named Hope. I wracked
my brain but came up with nothing. I didn’t know a Hope. I reread the message
that had been delivered the day after he’d died, and then I began reading their
entire conversation in reverse.

More than a year’s
worth of messages, and I read every word of them, no longer feeling like I was
the dishonest one. Whatever wrong I was committing by prying into Jonathan’s
personal life was overshadowed by what he’d been doing behind my sister’s back.
Though there was only a year of his infidelity represented, the conversation
began in the middle, indicating that it started long before that.

When I finally
finished, I leaned back in the chair, expelled every last bit of the breath I’d
been holding, and questioned everything I’d ever known to be true about
Jonathan Northcutt.

_________________________

Paul ladled a spoonful of some mysterious and slightly nauseating soup
into a bowl, and I tried not to visibly shudder when he handed it to me.

“I take it you’re
not planning on eating tonight?” My disdain was obvious.

“Uh, no. What is
it?” I whispered, placing a piece of cornbread on the plate before handing it
across the serving line to
who
I presumed was our next
victim. Undeterred by the mystery dish, the woman smiled, turned, and walked
away.

“See you later,
Mrs. Green,” Paul said to her stooped back. “It’s an Irish stew. It will fill
you up and keep you warm. You’ll love it.”

“I don’t know,” I
said, eyeing the mixture with trepidation. “It looks like it’ll keep you warm
and everyone else around you, too,”

Paul smiled sadly
and scooped up another bowlful. “Your sister wasn’t sure about it either.”

“She’s always been
the smarter of the two of us. So if she had her doubts, I’m inclined to follow
her lead.”

“My grandmother
used to make it with Guinness and lamb but, obviously, we can’t do that here,
so I’ve made some modifications. There’s beef, cabbage, white beans, carrots,
potatoes, and a bunch of spices in it. You’ll like it. I promise.”

He looked so
forlorn that I reconsidered. “I’ll try some if there are any leftovers. It
seems to be a very popular dish.” The large canning pot was nearly empty. The
murky dish hadn’t turned away the diners.

“No pressure,” he
said. “I didn’t mean to guilt you into it. It’s just that Grace made a similar
joke.”

“You miss having
her here, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He admitted
it openly and without any reservation. “It’s not the same without her. And they
miss her, too,” he said, gesturing to the half full dining room.
 
“For some of these people, Karen’s
Kitchen is the only constant in their lives. They adored your mother. They’re
still reeling over losing her, and now Grace is gone too. Honestly, I wonder
how long we’ll last.”

His words made me
want to be a better person. They made me want to emulate the woman who’d always
been like a mother
to me and the daughter who’d always been
the better protégé
. “I can help.”

“If you can get
away, we can sure use your help.” He looked so appreciative that I didn’t even
regret that I’d just promised away three nights per week for the foreseeable
future. I didn’t mind the idea of spending more time with Paul though. “By the
way, how is our girl today?”

“I think every day
gets a little easier, but she’s still lost. I’m trying to do whatever I can to
reach her, but being the caretaker is a new role for me. I’m learning as I go.
It doesn’t come naturally to me.”
 

He nodded. “I’m
sure you’re doing a much better job than you think. It takes a special person
to step up and completely rearrange their life like you’ve done.”

I looked away so
that I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes and accept the accolade. As far as I
could tell, my efforts so far had produced meager results. I tried, but I was a
poor substitute for who she really needed.

“You know what? I
don’t usually eat here,” he said as he filled another bowl though there was no
one left in the serving line. “When we have leftovers, I like to send them home
with the Thompsons because they really need it, but I can’t resist tonight. I’m
going to have a small bowl. Come sit with me?” he asked, holding it out for me
to take it from him.

I took the bowl and
tried not to scowl. As apprehensive as I was about the meal itself, I couldn’t
pass up the opportunity to sit down and have dinner with Paul again. For one
thing, I really wanted to talk to someone about Jonathan.
 
I didn’t know if Paul was the right
person, but at least I knew that whatever I told him was in confidence. He was
a vestal vault.