by David Fulmer
He only got as far as, “I was…”
“Sir?”
“Nothing,” Joe said. “Something happened, that’s all. It’s over now.”
The reverend gazed at him for a final frank moment before returning to the business of pulling the creaking van to the curb in the middle of a quiet and empty block lined with vacant stores and a few ramshackle shotgun houses, all of them dark.
“This is it right here,” he said, tilting his head. “You’re welcome to step inside, get warm, have a cup of coffee.” He wrenched his door open and slid from the seat.
Mariel survived another half-hour of the party by sticking with Karen. They huddled in the kitchen, chatting about this and that, helping with the food and drinks, wandering into the living room just enough to be polite, and avoiding any mention of the night’s drama. It was Mariel’s good fortune that most of the other neighbors were too sloshed to pay her much mind. Betsy buzzed by to blabber for as long as she could fix her thoughts before careening back to her guests.
As soon as the clock ticked on eleven, Mariel figured she had done enough and stood at the top of the basement stairs to call down to the kids. She herded them through the crowd and out the front door with a gasp of relief that would have been audible except for all the loud tidings that followed in their wake.
Karen walked with them to the next corner. Pulling up the hood of her coat, she said, “People see me like this, they think I’m a fucking Eskimo.”
Mariel shook her head in a forlorn way. She thought Karen looked beautiful and serene, and longed to trade places with her. When they reached the corner, Karen wrapped her in a final hug and whispered, “Call me if you need to,” before trudging off down the middle of Leafmore Drive.
Mariel turned around to find Hannah eyeing her in a faintly accusing way, as if she suspected that something was wrong. It would have been no surprise if she did; the girl had always possessed antennae that could pick up the slightest tremor of trouble with either of her parents.
“Where’s Dad?” she said and when Mariel failed to produce a snappy reply, turned on a peeved heel and continued on her way.
Mariel felt her heart sink, even as another sob rose in her throat. They were good children, beautiful children, and did not deserve what was about to be visited upon them. It wasn’t fair and it was all her fault. She stood still and bit down hard to keep from coming undone in front of them.
Christian had stopped and was watching her. “Mom? You okay?”
She didn’t move. He and his sister exchanged a glance, then made their way back along the sidewalk. Hannah peered at her with Joe’s gray eyes, as if he was playing a long-distance prank on her, one that wasn’t funny.
Hannah saw her mother’s melancholy smile and touched her arm. “We should go home and wait for him,” she said.
The church was a converted storefront of concrete block with a flat roof upon which a sturdy cross had been erected and was now cast in the blue glow of a single spotlight.
Reverend Callum unlocked the front door and held it wide. Joe stepped inside to find six pairs of pews arranged along either side of the small room and facing a low platform with a lectern at its center. The street windows had been covered with patches of colored plastic to emulate stained glass with the odd touch of heavy steel mesh affixed to the frames. A reed organ that appeared to be a relic from the 1960s had been pushed into the corner next to the door through which the reverend now led Joe.
Joe gestured toward the windows. “You have to worry about break-ins?” he said.
Reverend Callum said, “About what? Oh. Yes, sir. Desperate people will do wrong, even at a church. These things happen. But don’t worry. We’re safe here.”
He led his guest into an office in the back of the building. It was as tidy as a space cramped with two desks, several sets of bookshelves, a credenza, a folding cot made up to military precision, and a trio of file cabinets could be. The lamps on each desk cast the room in shades of amber. A Christmas hymn played softly from an old radio in fake wood grain that was perched atop one of the file cabinets.
Reverend Callum dropped his gloves and keys and waved a hand to the desk in the corner. “Have a seat,” he said. “Warm yourself.” He peered at the telephone. “No calls,” he murmured. “That’s good. Thank God.”
He began puttering about his desk, shuffling papers. Joe settled into the chair and as the music whispered kindly from the radio, he rested his head on his folded arms and closed his eyes. An image of his house drifted into his mind, a postcard blown on a breeze, the outside lights glowing against the fallen snow and the tree that took up a whole corner of the front room visible through a misty window. Though a pleasant portrait, it seemed strange, as if from a foreign place. How odd it was that he would feel that way after so much time?
In the next frame, his children’s sweet faces appeared at the window and he felt a dark chill run through his bones, a sudden sickening notion that one or both weren’t his. Whose, then? Don’s? Some other long ago lover’s? Who knew how many there had been over there twelve years? He felt panic rise in his chest, his heart thumping so hard that he could—
“Mister Joe?”
Reverend Callum was standing before him, his brow stitched in concern. “You all right? You were making some noise over here.”
Joe raised his head, blinking blearily. “Sorry. I dozed off.”
The reverend was holding two butter cookies on a napkin in one hand and a cracked coffee cup in the other. “Thought you might like a little something,” he said.
Joe stared at the offering for a long moment. “Thank you.” He accepted the snack and went about nibbling and sipping dutifully.
The reverend stood back to regard him in a pensive way. He said, “You want me to call you a cab? Or you got some friend or family you want to come collect you?”
Joe thought about it. Mariel had not left a message on his cell phone and he wasn’t ready to talk to her anyway. He could try Billy again, but phoning a noisy saloon from such a hallowed place seemed somehow profane. Also, he still wasn’t sure he wanted his best friend to know of this night’s shame. So he said, “I’ll just stay for a while, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all,” Reverend Callum said. “You’re welcome here.” He ambled to his desk, sat down, and opened an old Bible, its spine broken and pages frayed.
Joe finished his cookies, aware of the reverend lifting his eyes from the scripture to glance his way, no doubt pondering what sort of tribulations had landed him on the cold Eastborough streets on Christmas Eve in the first place.
He imagined himself saying: I caught my wife. Her and our next-door neighbor. Caught them right as I was about to share the best news that’s come my way in years. That was God’s gift to me this night, Reverend.
The words remained unspoken and he pushed past a replay of the dining room scene. Now his brain switched to another show, this one featuring Don and Mariel and the kids from both households thrown together into one big happy family. (Joe and Caroline having been put out on the curb for pickup.) The new couple’s combined incomes would add up to serious money and the kids would have everything they ever wanted, every day. Caroline would go directly into spinsterhood and Joe would end up drinking himself to death on his movie money, a shaking wreck of a -
The phone jangled, jerking him out of the nightmare. Reverend Callum lifted the receiver, listened, spoke a few quiet words. He dropped the phone back in the cradle and stood up. “You ain’t in any hurry to leave?” he asked. Joe shook his head.
“Then you mind watching the phone while I go collect someone?” Joe said, “I can do that.”
The reverend took his coat down from the hook on the wall. Joe followed him into the chapel. “What happens if someone calls?” he said.
“Ain’t too likely that’ll happen this late,” Callum told him. “But just go ahead and get their location. If they’re outside, tell them to get indoors or under shelter and call back in jus
t a bit. Tell them I’ll be around soon as I can.” He was buttoning his coat. “I won’t be gone but twenty-five, thirty minutes.” He stepped out into the night and locked the door behind him.
Joe peered through a tear in one of the pieces of colored plastic. It had begun snowing again, though lightly, barely dusting what was already on the street. He watched the reverend climb in behind the wheel. The van stuttered off into the night trailing a billow of gray smoke.
Except for the reedy music from the office radio, the little church was quiet. Joe moved from the window and sat down in a front pew. He noticed that the cross on the wall behind the pulpit was made of a hardwood he didn’t recognize, the color of honey, but swirled with bands of deep black grain. It was starkly stirring, constructed in a way that announced an imperfect hand. Reverend Callum’s? It would not surprise him to find out that the cross was the preacher’s work.
Sitting there, he admitted to himself that he had taken advantage of that kind man’s errand to linger and avoid a decision. It was also true that there was nowhere he cared to go. A cab could carry him to a hotel downtown or a motel out on the interstate. He imagined greeting Christmas morning alone in an empty and antiseptic room while the rest of the world celebrated. Hannah and Christian would come downstairs to find him absent. What story would Mariel tell them? He couldn’t imagine; he was the one with all the grand fiction.
Crashing at Billy’s or his parents’ or one of his siblings’ was out of the question. No, he would be home for his children on Christmas morning. No matter what happened afterward. The thought cheered him until he began mulling what he’d say to Mariel when he saw her again. As for the kids, he’d concoct something. The carload of presents would distract them for a while. And he would make a point of announcing the news about the option and the money that was coming their way. He took a moment to picture Mariel’s face when she realized that she had picked the wrong time to destroy the family.
It was no good. Such imaginings wearied him and seemed a frankly cruel fit on someone taking grateful refuge in that sanctuary for the soul.
He turned back to wondering how much he could blame Mariel for what had happened. That he had never in his life committed a truly horrible act didn’t make him an innocent. She’d had every right to expect more from him and he had let her down. If for a certain actor stumbling on his book, nothing would have changed. That it had been so close a call was a humbling notion.
It was in this chastened mood that he rose from the pew and ambled back into the office to call home to make some kind of arrangement. Standing over the telephone, he hesitated, preparing a speech. It wouldn’t do to lose his temper. Cool and calm, he told himself. No shouts or curses or name-calling and no breaking down. Just get into it and see where they stood.
He was still working on his opening line when the phone chattered. There was an urgency to the ring tone that caused him to snatch up the receiver. “This is the… the Light of the World.” He stuttered over the words. The Light of the World?
Background noise and someone talking crowded a female voice. “This the shelter place?”
Joe said, “This is the church, yes. Can I help you?”
“We got put out.” The woman sounded a bit hoarse.
“Put out?”
“Put out on the street,” she said. “Malikah and me. We need help. Some place to stay.” Joe said, “I’m not—”
“Hello?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m here.”
“I got my child with me. She’s only seven.”
Joe rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Where are you?”
“Store on Butler Street. Corner of Sixth.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—”
“Can’t what?” The other voice muttered in the background. “The man says we need to leave.”
“I’m sorry? What man?”
“The manager here.”
Joe stared at the wall, feeling something come over him. The woman said, “Hello?”
“Put him on the phone.”
Clattering sounds were followed by a voice with a South Asian lilt. “Yes? May I help you?”
“This is Joe Kelly.” He reached for a tone of authority even as he ad-libbed the script. “I’m with the Light of the World Tabernacle.”
The voice came back, now more cautious. “Yes, sir?”
“You’re the manager of the store?”
“The night manager, yes, sir.”
“Well, a happy holiday to you.”
“And the same to you, sir.”
“I need to ask a favor. The woman and her child are not causing a problem, are they?”
“Problem?” The manager hesitated. “No, sir.”
“Then can you let them stay until I can get someone there?”
“Sir?”
“Somebody will come to get them. From the church. It’s below freezing outside. And it’s Christmas Eve. We would appreciate it.”
“And how long must they stay?”
“No more than a half-hour.”
“Oh…” The manager paused. “All right, then. Very good.”
“Butler at Sixth, right?”
“That’s right, yes, sir.”
“Thank you. Can I speak to the woman?”
The phone was passed back. “Hello?”
“He’s going to let you stay. Someone will come get you and your child. Probably the… Reverend Callum. He’s out on a call right now.”
“Okay, then. Thank you.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nicole. Weaver.”
“I’m Joe.”
“Okay, then.”
“You stay put, all right?”
The woman said, “We ain’t going anywhere. Got nowhere to go.”
With that, she clicked off. Joe dropped the phone in the cradle, then hurried into the chapel and poked his nose to the mesh-framed window. The van was not in sight.
He stood wondering if he was being touched by some stroke of magic. But such events didn’t really happen, did they? Except in movies and books, of course. What did happen was that a decent man who’d been a lifelong disappointment to himself and his family and friends came home with great news for the first time in forever only to find his wife coupled with the next-door neighbor, who happened to be a genuine prick.
Searching the street for headlights, he pulled his mind off his own problems and thought about the woman and child in need of a refuge on this frigid night. If the reverend wasn’t back in the next fifteen minutes, he’d have to try and call a cab to pick them up. But the woman wouldn’t have money to pay the driver. He wondered if they took credit cards over the phone. He was so absorbed in this happy confusion that it took a few seconds for the crunch of a metal door closing to register.
He was waiting when Reverend Callum stepped inside. “I got a call,” he said. “A woman was put out of her house. She’s at a convenience store on Butler Street. She has a kid with her. A
little girl.”
The reverend unbuttoned his coat. “Little girl? Oh, my.”
Joe followed him into the office. “The manager told her they had to leave,” he said. “I talked him into letting them stay. Only for a half-hour, though.” Callum sat down at his desk. “So, can you go get her?”
Reverend Callum stood at his desk to regard Joe for an absent moment, as if something else was occupying his thoughts. The announcer on the radio whispered that they were coming up on the midnight hour. The reverend smiled in a vague way at Joe’s fidgeting, then lifted his ring of keys from the desk, and dangled them in the air.
“Why don’t you go?” he said.
The van was a creaking hulk to drive. The engine wheezed and the suspension hobbled over the snow-crusted streets. But the heater blew mightily.
Joe steered his careful way west through town. The last thing he wanted was to end up wrapped around a pole and have the poor woman and her child waiting there, thinking he had abandoned them on this of all nig
hts.
It was right on top of the hour when he turned on to Butler Avenue and spied the lights of the store. The street lay dark and quiet under the blanket of snow. He swung into the lot, came to a stop next to a bank of pay phones, and cut off the lights. The wipers swept the windshield a last time and he saw the little girl gazing out at him from the other side of the glass with the kind of patience that only a child can muster - steady and without a hint of guile. She watched him climb out of the van and she stood motionless as he raised a gloved hand to wave at her.
He pushed through the glass door, nodded a greeting to the short, dusky man inside the glass booth, and turned down the first aisle. The woman didn’t rush at him in a desperate lunge. Instead, she drew her daughter to her side and stood somewhat stiffly against the backdrop of merchandise, as if waiting for a proper introduction. She was dark-skinned and too thin. Her face was made of sharp planes and there was something proud in her steady gaze and the tilt of her chin. Her hair was wound in braids and streaked with gold and her eyes were wide and deep, black pools.
Joe was relieved to see that the little girl looked healthy, with chubby cheeks at both ends of a shy smile. Her eyes were enormous and full of light and he was charmed.
Catching himself, he offered the mother his hand. “Nicole? I’m Joe. I’m the one you talked to.”
“Yes, sir.” Her fingers felt cold.
Joe smiled at the little girl. “And what’s your name?”
“Malikah.” It was just above a whisper.
“Okay,” he said and clapped his hands. “I guess we’re ready.”
He herded them to the front of the store, where he stopped to wave through the bulletproof glass at the manager. Malikah slowed her steps to cast her wide eyes upon the display of cookies and cakes on the end cap.
Joe said, “Would you like something?” He looked at her mother. “Is it all right?” Nicole nodded and he said,” Go ahead. Pick whatever you want.”
Joe and the manager traded a smile as the child agonized. After a moment, Joe leaned down to whisper, “You can pick two. One for now, one for later.” He turned to the mother. “And what about you? Please, get something.”