Irises

by Francisco X. Stork

  “Like you? You’re ambitious too?”

  “Sure, why not? You seem surprised.”

  “It’s just that I never imagined the Church of God attracting someone ambitious.”

  “There are different kinds of ambitions. The saints were ambitious.”

  “Are you a saint?” She pretended to be shocked.

  “Hardly.” He let go of her hand and gently stroked her cheek.

  She smiled. “How are you ambitious?”

  “I guess it started when I was a small boy. My mother used to watch these mega evangelists on TV. You know, the ones who preach to auditoriums and stadiums full of people, with choirs larger than most churches. I’d watch them with her, and then I’d stand in front of the mirror with a Bible in one hand and preach. I was pretty good at it too.”

  “You are good at it,” Kate acknowledged.

  “Thank you. So that’s how it started. I love to preach. I love the energy that you feel when a room full of people is silent, waiting on every word you say. I was called to it. I wanted to be like those preachers whose words moved people to tears. So I looked for opportunities to speak in public. I joined the speech club in high school. I got super involved with our church youth group. I couldn’t wait to have my own church. I went to college, got a master’s degree in four years when it usually takes six. Now I’m twenty-two and my dream of being pastor of my own church has been realized. These are things that I’ve wanted desperately, just like you want to go to Stanford. God works through our ambitions. He puts them there for a purpose, so we can do His will.”

  “Will you be happy at a place like the Church of God?”

  “For a while,” he said, looking at her. “You have to start someplace.”

  “Then after a while you’ll want a bigger church.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s part of your ambition, to move on to a bigger church?”

  “Yes. For me, it’s a question of finding a place where all of my potential is fulfilled, where all of my talent is tapped.”

  “And the Church of God doesn’t do that?”

  “It’s a beginning. But I wouldn’t be true to myself if I said that it’s enough. After a year or two, I’ll move on. We need to find the place where we can have the greatest impact. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Do the deacons know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That you plan to move on in a year or two?”

  “No. You need to keep that confidential, okay?”

  She thought of Mrs. Alvarado and her electric organ. The image made her sad.

  “In a way, me wanting to move on to a bigger church eventually is like you and Stanford,” he went on. “Why Stanford and not UTEP? You can study to be a doctor at UTEP. Why go all the way to California? The quality of the school, sure, but also the prestige, the status. I’ve come to terms with the side of myself that wants those things. They offer the opportunity to reach more people. People in a big church need a good pastor as well. That’s my calling. Some people are called to work with the poor, others are called to work with the rich. Am I shocking you?”

  “No.” He was not shocking her, but he was unsettling her somehow. His words were breaking through an inner shell, revealing an image of herself she had never known was there. To have something to say, she said, “It’s hot in here.”

  “Do you want to go inside? It’s not much of an apartment, but the air conditioner works really well.”

  “In a little while,” she said. “I like listening to the waves.”

  “What waves?”

  She cupped her ear to the sound of a semitruck speeding by on the interstate. He chuckled. She turned so that her back was leaning against the car door, and shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me what you were thinking,” he insisted.

  “I was just thinking that for someone who wants to work with the rich, you picked a bad place.”

  “It’s a start. I had an offer to be an assistant pastor at a church in Lubbock, but then this opportunity came up. It’s better to be a big fish in a small pond.” He stopped suddenly.

  “My father’s death was the opportunity,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. It was an opportunity for you.” There was a pause, then she continued, slowly, “His death was also an opportunity for me.” It made her sad to say the words out loud.

  “You and I are very much alike,” he said after a few moments of silence.

  She reflected and then said, “How?”

  “In so many ways. I’m an only child — my father died when I was twelve — and when the opportunity came to go to a good school in Dallas or stay in Lubbock, I chose Dallas even though I had to leave my mother alone. I didn’t think twice about it. We really are called to develop ourselves to our fullest potential, and that includes taking advantage of the opportunities that are offered to us, even if it’s not what others want. I went to Dallas even though it meant hardship for my mother. You need to go to Stanford even if it means it will be harder for your sister. So you see, you and I are not so different.”

  There was a long pause and then she said, “Maybe we are different.”

  “How do you think we’re different?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand how, but we are. Maybe it’s that you have faith in God and I seem to have lost it. At least you can say that your ambitions are part of His will. Maybe you thought you were following God’s will when you left your mother alone. I won’t be able to say that if I leave Mary. What can I say about my ambitions? Right now they seem so . . . selfish, so ugly.”

  “I’m like you, Kate. I’m groping in the dark when it comes to detecting God’s will. Maybe there are people like your sister who see God’s light. The rest of us live in darkness or in shadows, doing what we can. I give people hope through a body of scripture. But I have to be true to myself. I can’t pretend I’m someone I’m not.” She looked at him steadily. “Am I disappointing you?” he asked.

  “No.” She was not lying. Disappointment did not describe what she was feeling. Emptiness, a cold and new desolation, was more accurate.

  “We should go inside,” he said, looking around.

  She opened the door to the car and stepped outside. She waited for him to come to the front of the car and then they climbed the three front steps to the apartment. He held the door open for her as she went in. She saw the bed, unmade, and next to it a nightstand full of books. Near the door was a beige sofa and an old-looking television set. At the far end of the apartment stood a small Formica table with two chairs, a stove, and a refrigerator.

  “Can I get you some juice, soda, water?” he asked once he had closed and locked the door behind him.

  “No, thanks.” She took off her shoes and sat down on the sofa.

  “Will you excuse me for a second?”

  “No,” she teased.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She stretched her legs in front of her. She had a feeling of being in the wrong place, like an uninvited guest in a room full of people who had known each other since childhood. If they had come into the apartment as soon as they arrived, who knew what would have happened? But some new realization had taken place in the car that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, some revelation about him and about her that made her feel ashamed. She had no words for it.

  “Hi,” he said, sitting next to her. He held her hand, his eyes fixed on hers, and then he reached over and gently turned her face toward him. Their kiss was soft and tentative at first and only gradually yielded to hunger. When she started to let go, he held her tighter against himself. There was something that held her back, she realized. Some uneasiness, some lack of trust that kept her from being totally absorbed in his embrace.

  “This is probably not a good idea,” she whispered when they finally caught their breath. “All that happened today. I’m not really thinking straight.�
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  He sat up on the sofa. “I thought . . . I must have misunderstood . . .”

  “You didn’t misunderstand. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to be kissed by you. I’m sorry.”

  He slapped both of his cheeks as if to wake up. “I’m the one that’s sorry. What was I thinking? You were vulnerable and I took advantage of that.”

  “You didn’t take that much advantage,” she said, joking. “I held on to my virtue. Most of it.”

  “But I should have known better. You came to me for advice.”

  “And I gave you different signals. Besides, you did give me advice. I’m really glad we talked.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  She thought about it. “Can I rest here? It’s almost morning, I think. Do you have a pillow? I really need tomorrow to get here.”

  He brought her a pillow and the bedcover from his own bed.

  “Sweet dreams,” he said.

  “Good night, Andy. Thank you.”

  He turned off all the lights in the apartment and she heard him undress in the darkness. The air conditioner made a whirring sound and blew cold air directly on her feet. She lay down, covered herself, and listened to his movements across the room. He seemed as restless as she was. She could hear him turn one way in the bed and exhale and then turn the other way and do the same. The more he turned and tossed, the calmer she became. There was nothing to stop her from getting up, undressing, and sliding into bed next to him, flesh against flesh. She knew from their kiss that he would not reject her if she did.

  She waited for him to fall asleep and then she sat up on the sofa. She sat very still, thinking, remembering, feeling. Images whirled inside her head: Andy telling her that he planned to stay only a couple of years with the Church of God. Mrs. Alvarado playing the organ. Mr. Cisneros with his hand outstretched. Andy’s mother in a house all alone, watching television in a dark room. Then she suddenly turned into Mother, and Mother was telling her no one could keep her from her dream unless she let them. And why would she let them? “For love,” said Mother. There was Father saying that love made all burdens light, and Simon appeared to ask her if she loved him. Kate had the sensation that she was falling into an endless, dark pit and there was nothing to hold on to. She thought she was alone in the darkness. But she wasn’t. She heard a voice and it was Mary’s, calling Kate . . .

  Kate . . .

  Kate.

  Kate opened her eyes, surprised that she had fallen asleep. She sat up and willed herself to be fully awake. Around the edge of the curtain, there were streaks of rose and vermilion in the sky.

  Mary would like those colors, she thought. Of all of Mary’s paintings, the one Kate liked the most was her painting of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which she had done a few months before Mother’s accident. The mountains were painted from the perspective of someone looking up as if about to start the climb. When she first saw the painting, Kate thought it captured life: We could either live in shadow or climb to the sun-filled summit. Now she remembered the different shades of white and gray and black that made up the shadows in the painting. It must have taken Mary hours and hours to capture the subtle interplay of light and dark. Kate’s heart suddenly filled with love and pride. Her little sister! Mary’s gift to create beauty was as important as Kate’s powerful desire to be a doctor. Kate hadn’t always honored that, she knew.

  But what had Mary said about her painting earlier? I always imagined love to be like what I felt for painting once — comparing love to the tangled lights. But then she’d continued, I haven’t seen this light since Mama’s accident. The lights I used to see in and around everything are not there anymore. That was it. How painful it must be for Mary to be without light. How could it be that she hadn’t seen the darkness that enveloped Mary? Now she remembered the times she would find Mary alone in their room, a blank piece of drawing paper in front of her, and all the trouble she’d mentioned having with her latest canvas. Even when Mary told her how she felt, she didn’t listen. There she was, so consumed by her own ambition, her own dreams, that she had not noticed her sister’s pain. Mary needed to see that light again, to shine her own light again. What would bring that joy in painting back for her?

  In many ways, that ability to see the light in things and in people, that joy in painting came from Mother. But Mother was neither living nor dead, neither with them nor gone. Because they could not let her go, there was no opportunity to heal. And the need to care for her kept Mary from her painting. As long as Mother remained in a vegetative state, there would be no joy or light for Mary. Mother would not want that, Kate knew.

  And Mother wanted Kate herself to go to Stanford. But it couldn’t be that Stanford was more important than Mary. Her ambition must be different from Andy’s. Dreams must yield to love. She had an irresistible urge to cry, and so she did, softly at first and then biting her arm so her sobs would not wake Andy.

  When the tears ended, she felt exhausted. She swung her legs off the couch and cringed a little. The digital alarm clock blinked that it was 9:00 a.m. It was too late to make it home, jump in bed, and pretend that she’d spent the night there. All of her acts of carelessness came back to her. She’d left the letter from the insurance company in the bathroom. Mary would find it and worry that her absence was caused by desperation. She would no doubt call Bonnie and Simon. Kate needed to come up with a story — or she could just tell Mary what happened. And Aunt Julia? The last thing she felt like doing was lying. She was too tired to lie.

  She stood up slowly and went to the bathroom, wet the soap, and then scrubbed her face and dried it. The towel smelled like him. If she walked to Alameda Avenue, she could catch a bus. She wanted to be gone by the time he woke up. She didn’t want to talk to him this morning.

  She put her shoes on. Then she stood up and checked the pocket of her jeans to see if she had money for the bus. Oh, God, the church keys. She had probably left them at the church. Anyone who saw the keys would recognize her father’s key chain, with its medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of drivers. He had the same key chain when he crashed and Mother . . .

  Mother lost her life. Mother was not alive anymore. Mother would want Mary and her to live their lives. She needed to find the way for Mary and her to have their dreams, but it had to be done in a way that Mother would approve, with Mother’s blessing. That was the understanding she needed to save above all else.

  She decided she would worry about the keys some other day. They were probably in Andy’s office and she could get them later. They would need to talk about last night sooner or later anyway. She didn’t have any money, so she borrowed a dollar from his wallet. It was a brown wallet made of shiny leather. She dropped it on the floor and walked out of his apartment.

  Aunt Julia was waiting by the door ready to pounce. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick!” she exclaimed.

  Kate saw her backpack by the door where she had left it the night before. “Where’s Mary?” she asked.

  “She’s in school, where else would she be? She waited for you, called your boyfriend, your friends. No one knew where you were.”

  “I was out with someone from work. We had a few drinks. I stayed with her.”

  “Who? What friend?”

  “You’re not my mother!” Kate said forcefully. Her anger had nothing to do with Aunt Julia except that Aunt Julia was there.

  Aunt Julia took a step back, a shocked expression on her face. “Don’t talk to me that way. I’m here to help you and you talk to me that way? I don’t have to be here, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m very tired.” Kate reached out to touch Aunt Julia’s hand.

  “All I wanted to know was where you were. We were worried.” Aunt Julia’s voice quivered and her right eye twitched. She seemed suddenly very old and fragile.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said again. “I’m tired. You saw the letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was upset, that’s all. I went out. I . . . I
really need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Kate.” Aunt Julia sat down. It didn’t look like her shaking legs would hold her up. “I talked to Mary this morning. I don’t think I can stay here any longer. I need to go back home. There are . . . things I need to do.”

  “Oh?” Kate said. At that moment, there was nothing anyone could say that could make her feel worse.

  “I was going to leave at the end of the week.”

  “Whenever you think is right.” She saw Aunt Julia’s eyes redden. “Thank you for coming.”

  She walked into the bathroom, closed the door, and began to fill the tub with hot water. This state she was in, she was not going to let it last long. She would go out after the bath and hug Aunt Julia and apologize for her bad mood, and then she would go about trying to make things right for Mary. She undressed and eased herself into the cleansing water.

  After her bath, she slipped into her blue terry-cloth bathrobe. It sounded like Aunt Julia was doing something with her things, like she was packing. Kate had a choice when she left the bathroom: to turn right and talk to Aunt Julia or turn left to her room. She turned left. It would be better to talk to Aunt Julia when she was dressed. She sat on the bed and then she lay down on it. She needed to close her eyes for just one minute. Only one minute to subdue the anger and sadness and whatever else was in there.

  She woke up three hours later.

  Hi,” Mary said when Kate opened her eyes. “Are you all right?” She was sitting on the edge of Kate’s bed.

  “Yes.” Kate shook her head slightly. “Sorry to make you worry.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Kate sat up on the bed and propped a pillow behind her back. Mary waited for her to speak. “I had a terrible night. First Simon and I broke up, and then I read the insurance letter. I . . . needed to go out,” Kate said without looking at Mary.

  “I told people that you probably stayed with Stephanie,” Mary said.

  “How’s Aunt Julia doing?” Kate asked, changing the subject.