by Ann McMan
“Okay.” Tim could see the shadow on the opposite side of the screen move as the young man shifted around on the bench. “It’s my brother. He’s . . . Look. I don’t know about this for sure. But I think one of the priests at our church is doing shit . . .” He caught himself. “Oh, man . . . I’m sorry. Stuff. To him.”
Tim felt sick inside. “Stuff? What kind of stuff?”
“You know. Stuff. Sexual stuff. I think it’s happened a couple of times.”
Dear God. “Has your brother confided in you about this?”
“No. And when I came right out and asked him about it, he wouldn’t answer me.”
Yeah. That’s not a surprise.“What makes you sure something happened?”
His next words made Tim’s blood run cold.
“Because he’s not the only one.”
Tim took a moment to try and compose himself. They’d all had training about how to handle revelations like this when they were brought forward. He knew what he was supposed to say. But the words just wouldn’t come.
The young man wasn’t finished talking. “The same thing happened to me.”
“I am so, so sorry.” Tim closed his eyes. What am I doing? They all had a script. This wasn’t part of it. He felt like he was swimming upstream in a surging river of broken promises. A universe of disjointed words and canned phrases rushed past him as he flailed and tried not to sink beneath this flood of failures. His flood of failures. The Church’s. It belonged to all of them. None of the words they’d been taught were right. None of them were enough. “Tell me what I can do to help you—and your brother,” he said.
“I don’t . . .” The young man hesitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean I want to help you. Help him. I want us to find a way to make this stop. Together.”
“I’m . . . I don’t know.”
“This should never have happened. Not to you, and not to him. It isn’t right. It isn’t what God wants and it isn’t what the Church wants.” Tim took a deep breath. “But we live in a real world surrounded by real people. Many of them are deeply flawed. And they do things they shouldn’t. They hurt other people. And sometimes, they succeed in that because of a compact of silence we keep without really understanding why we do it. Speaking the truth, as you have just done, takes great courage. To reach a place where we can come forward and throw off the fear and shame that hold us hostage is a gift from God—perhaps the greatest gift.” Tim stopped speaking and waited a moment to see if the young man would reply.
“What happened …does it make me queer?”
“Are you worried about that?” Tim asked.
“Yeah. I think that’s what people will say.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Tim chose his words carefully. “Nothing can make us be someone or something we aren’t. We just are who we are.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Did he believe it?“Yes,” Tim answered. “I more than believe it. I know it. I want you to know it, too—inside, where it matters. And maybe understanding that will help you to let go of some of your fear.”
“Okay. I can try.”
“You came here today to tell someone,” Tim suggested. “To tell me. Do you think you’re ready to come forward and try to change things?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe?” The young man shifted around inside the tiny space. “I don’t know.”
Tim knew his inquisition needed to end. He couldn’t pressure the young man any more—that was the last thing he needed. What he most needed was to leave here today believing he’d found a safe place.
A safe place in the Church? What a joke . . .
“Would you like to say a prayer?” Tim asked.
“That’s why I came here. To ask for forgiveness.”
“I won’t withhold a sacrament from you, but you have confessed to no wrongdoing.”
“Not telling anyone isn’t wrong?”
“Not when your silence proceeds from fear.”
There was another moment of silence. “Can I come back here and talk to you again?”
“Yes. Any time you want. My name is Father Tim Donovan. You may call the Church office to find out when I am next hearing confession. Or you can just call me directly and we can find another way to talk.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Would you like to pray together, now?” Tim asked.
“I guess so.”
Tim removed his purple stole and kissed it before setting it down on top of his breviary. “We will ask God to give you strength.” I am the one who needs forgiveness . . .
◊ ◊ ◊
Evan’s commuter flight landed in Erie a few minutes after 10 a.m. She’d lucked out and got a nonstop connection on American. There were only eight or ten people on the small regional jet. Most of them looked like tired, mid-level management types. She had no idea what kind of business venture would send anyone to a decaying rust-belt town, sagging into one of the bleakest spots on the lake.
It didn’t matter. The damn ticket still cost more than six hundred bucks.
But that was Dan’s problem, not hers.
After her plane landed, she made her way through the small airport to the Hertz counter located inside the terminal. The place was a shithole, but at least the rental cars were on-site. In thirty minutes, she was in her Ford Escape and heading east on I-86 toward Chautauqua Lake in New York State. From there, it was a straight shot south, back into Pennsylvania and the hospital campus in North Warren.
There was a fair amount of snow on the ground, so Evan paid the upcharge to switch to an SUV. It was a good decision. The roads in and around Erie were mostly clear, but the closer she got to Chautauqua, the sketchier conditions became. The sky was looking pretty ominous, too, and the temperatures were hovering right around the freezing mark. She hoped her 5:54 p.m. flight back to Philly didn’t get canceled. The last thing she wanted—after having to see Edwin Miller again—was getting stuck here overnight.
After she’d passed some clusters of little, rainbow-colored cottages dotting the access roads leading to the rarified waters of Chautauqua, she turned off the main highway and headed south on a two-lane road that had seen a lot of hard use. It was more potholes than pavement, which reminded her a lot of the streets in her old neighborhood.
What the hell is it with the roads in this part of the country? Evan veered around another crater that stretched across more than half of her lane. Somebody’s brother-in-law must be making a killing on all these half-assed repaving contracts.
It was spitting snow when she reached the Pennsylvania line and she discovered, too late, that the driver-side windshield wiper on her Ford Escape was for shit.
Great.
She pulled over at a TrueValue Hardware store located in a mostly abandoned strip center in a small town called Sugar Grove, to see if they might have a replacement set that would fit. While she was waiting on a tall man with a badly pockmarked face to “check in back,” she pulled out her phone to see if she had any messages.
She had three missed calls. One from Ben Rush and two from her daughter. It was unusual for Stevie to call her twice. Normally, she’d just text or leave a message. Evan walked to the front of the store, close to its grimy, plate-glass window, to return Stevie’s calls. She hated it when people in stores talked on their cell phones—always too loudly—and only made the exception to do so herself because she appeared to be the only customer in the bleak place, which, judging by the amount of dust collecting on most of its inventory, didn’t see much consumer traffic.
Stevie didn’t answer, so Evan left a message telling her she was traveling, but would leave her phone turned on while she was in the car.
She hoped nothing was wrong. As soon as she’d disconnected, her phone rang. Evan smiled.
“Hey, kiddo. What’s up?”
“Hey, Mama Uno. Not much,” Stevie said. “Sorry I didn’t get the phone before the voicemail kicked in. I’m doing laundry.”
“Is that why you’re calling? Did you run out of quarters?”
“As if. These machines take debit cards, now.”
“And I thought cultural progress peaked with microwave popcorn.”
“You’re such a nerd.” Evan could hear rumbling noises in the background. Probably dryers. “Hey,” Stevie continued, “I wanted to let you know my flight times changed. I got the alert from Southwest this morning.”
“Good change or bad change?” Evan asked.
“I guess that depends on your point of view. My flight now arrives in Philly at 2:45 instead of 5:20.”
“That’s a good change. Earlier is better.”
“Can you still pick me up?”
Could she? Evan had to think about it. If she drove to the airport and back at that time of day, they’d be eating dinner at midnight. “How about I see if Tim can get you? He’s coming for dinner Friday night, too.”
“That’d be cool. He owes me twenty bucks, anyway, so I’ll make him stop at Wawa and buy me a couple of Shorties.”
“You want twenty dollars’ worth of turkey sandwiches?”
“Duh,” Stevie said. “School in upstate New York.”
“Right. My bad. I consigned you to life in a food desert.”
“Besides . . . didn’t you say you were making dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“So I’ll need some real food to get me through whatever bizarre-o, free-range forage fest you have planned.”
“Remind me to cut your allowance in half.” Evan thought about something Stevie had said. “Why does Tim owe you twenty bucks?”
“It’s a Catholic thing. You wouldn’t get it.”
“Right. Of course, I wouldn’t.”
“Are Dad and Kayla coming, too?”
“For what?”
“Hello? Earth to Reed. For dinner on Friday night.”
“Nope. Just us. Meaning you, me, Tim—and Julia.”
“Nice.” Stevie’s voice resonated with that tone—the special one she reserved for Julia. It was downright . . . reverential.
“Is that okay with you?” Evan asked.
“Is what okay with me?”
“Julia? Dinner? With us?”
“You’re such a dork, Mom.” Evan heard a loud buzzing sound on the line. “That’s mine. I gotta go or my whites will get all wrinkled.”
Evan was proud of the finite list of things she’d somehow managed to get right about parenting—but Stevie’s keen load sense when it came to doing laundry had to rank as one of her greatest maternal successes.
“See you on Friday,” she said. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Mama Uno.” Stevie hung up.
Evan walked back toward the cash register just as the gangly man, who looked like an auto store version of Ichabod Crane, emerged from behind a tattered curtain carrying an elongated box, yellowed with age.
“Found some that might work,” he said. “I can put ’em on for you, but there ain’t no refunds if you try ’em and they’re wrong.”
“How will we know if they’re wrong?” Evan asked. She didn’t really care about a refund. Now she was just curious.
Ichabod scratched his chin. “They might scratch the windshield glass or fly off on the highway.”
That sounded like fun. Evan looked back out the dirty front window. The snow was gaining in intensity. An overnight stay in North Warren or, with luck, back in Erie was looking like a real possibility now.
What the hell?
“Let’s do it. They only need to last for about two hours.”
Ichabod nodded and pulled the ginormous wiper blades out of the tattered box. Evan thought they probably were designed to fit a ’56 Packard.
She paid for the purchase, and followed Ichabod out into the swirling snow.
◊ ◊ ◊
The small town of North Warren had all the earmarks of an afterthought.
It was nothing but an outpost on the Conewango Creek that had once welcomed the droves of low-wage laborers who flocked to the remote, northwestern county in search of work in the area’s booming lumber and oil drilling ventures. A couple of miles downstream, where the Conewango joined forces with the Allegheny River, mill owners and oil barons reposed in rarified Greek Italianate and Second Empire mansions that lined the broad avenues of Warren—the small borough’s wealthier namesake to the south. That economic line of demarcation remained in force until a couple of enterprising farm families in North Warren sold off several large tracts of land that, in 1880, became the site of the Warren State Hospital for the Insane. In its heyday, the hospital housed more than 2,500 inpatients. Today, more than a hundred years after the area’s once-thriving industries had played out and moved on, the asylum had only 215 residents—and Edwin Miller was one of them.
Evan navigated her way past the clusters of ramshackle houses and strip malls that peppered the small town to find the hospital’s imposing main entrance on North State Street. It fronted a pretty stretch of land that ran along the west bank of the Conewango Creek. She turned in and drove up the long, tree-lined drive that led to the main building—a gargantuan, twin-towered, stone and masonry Italianate creation that gave Evan the heebie jeebies. She recalled the apocryphal tales about this joint that Ping had hinted at. At the time, she had rejected it as hyper-sensationalized urban myth. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She found a parking space near the main entrance and walked toward a building that seemed to brood over its surroundings. She looked up through the swirling snow at its pair of dark towers that scratched at the sky like bony fingers.
Jesus Christ. If you weren’t crazy when you came in here, you sure as fuck would be before you got out.
Inside, the cavernous lobby was lavishly furnished with formal-looking settees and delicate antiques. There were a couple of hideous silk flower arrangements large enough to dominate the altar of a mega church. Gladiolus, snowball hydrangeas and lilies—all in vibrant colors that didn’t occur naturally in any garden environment she knew about.
She guessed that nobody spent much time tarrying out here.
Across the lobby, a flashy, middle-aged woman with platinum blond hair and a very perky set of boobs sat behind a large, antique mahogany desk. Evan walked across the polished parquet floor to greet her.
“May I help you?” the woman asked. She wore brightly colored, harlequin-style glasses and had unnaturally blue eyes. Her name tag read “Shirley.”
“Hello. Evan Reed to see Edwin Miller. I phoned ahead.”
The woman clicked through some screens on her computer monitor and stopped on one. “Yes. I see your name here. I’ll get an aide to take you to Mr. Miller. I just need you to sign in.” She pushed a thick, open logbook toward Evan. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“Thank you.” Evan signed her name to the log. The last visitor appeared to have signed in weeks earlier. Not much traffic at this joint. Shirley handed her an adhesive-backed visitor badge.
While she waited on the attendant to take her to Miller, she wandered away from the information desk and perused a bunch of framed photographs that dominated a narrow stretch of wall beside a set of double doors. Locked doors. The photos were all of middle-aged men. Generations of them—probably dating back to 1880, judging by some of the facial hair. She leaned closer to read some of the tiny plaques beneath the photos. Ahhhh. They were all the various directors of the hospital. The mostly black-and-white images stretched from mid-thigh height to near ceiling. She did a double-take and squinted when she noticed that one of the photographs looked strange. It was in its frame—sideways.
What the hell? This guy must’ve been a serious asshole . . .
She was about to ask Shirley about it when one of the locked double doors clicked open, and a young man wearing blue scrubs leaned around it to address her.
“Evan Reed?” he asked.
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Follow me, Miss Reed.” He held the door open for her. “I’ll take you to Mr. Miller.”
>
They entered a long corridor that led past a bunch of doors with small overhead signs. They all appeared to be offices. The corridor made a sharp dogleg to the right and terminated at another security door. The attendant wore an ID badge on a lanyard, and passed it over a proximity reader. The door unlocked and they entered the “male” unit. It looked much the same as the office wing. Most of the doors were open. There weren’t a lot of windows, except the ones she could see in the patient rooms—and none at the end of the hallway, which she thought was an odd architectural feature.
The attendant led her to a smallish lounge area that sat off to the left of the next dogleg, and another set of locked doors. Evan guessed those doors led to another patient unit. There were three men in the lounge. Two were watching Fixer Upper on HGTV, and the third man was sitting by himself at a small table, working a jigsaw puzzle.
Miller.
She nearly didn’t recognize him. His hair had gone completely white and he’d lost a ton of weight. He also had a nasty-looking scar that cut across his forehead like a badly stitched seam.
The attendant pointed him out. “That’s Mr. Miller,” he said. “When you’re finished with your visit, just pick up the phone over there by the water fountain. It’ll ring at the desk. Tell them you’ve been visiting with Miller and are ready to leave. Someone will come to escort you out.”
“That’s it?” Evan asked. “Anything else I need to know about him?”
“Not really. He’s pretty harmless. Mostly just mutters and works that puzzle he brought with him from prison. He finishes it, then takes it all apart and does it all over again.” He gave Evan a short nod. “You should be fine.”
Evan doubted that. She didn’t have the greatest track record with the former senator.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He turned and left her to her own devices.
She took a deep breath and approached the small table where Miller sat, staring at his piles of puzzle pieces.
“Hello, Eddie.”
Miller blinked up at her. Evan couldn’t tell if he recognized her or not. To be fair, they’d only met a couple of times, and two of those encounters hadn’t been very cordial. She remembered him having bright, hazel-colored eyes. But now they just looked dull, like all the color had bleached out.