Two Statues

by Kevin Kennelly

  “They didn’t say, probably weren’t allowed to tell me. But the church up there was apparently called Our Lady of the Sea, just like my church. I guess that’s your connection. But also, they told me Edisto wasn’t the first place they’d visited. I reckon they’d been to a few other places before coming here.”

  I stood up and took my plate to the sink. After I had washed and dried it, I returned to the table and rubbed my face. “I feel like this is some sign, like something’s about to happen. God, I hope this ain’t the rapture. I suppose the news will want to cover this. You think they’ll be coming to report on it soon?”

  “Can’t say for sure. Father Paul and Father Peter said the parish in Rhode Island was keeping quiet about what was going on, and we’re doing the same here, at least for now. People will find out about it eventually, though. Stuff like this doesn’t stay secret for long.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I’m meeting with Paul and Peter in the morning, over at the church. But I’m supposed to go get my local priest and they’re going to fill him in on everything. I guess we’ll try and go back in the church again. If it’s still as hot as it was tonight, I think more people will be coming here to investigate.”

  Walt and I decided we needed a few drinks to settle our nerves. I grabbed my cooler and filled it up with beer and ice while he walked over to his place and got Sam. I put on an easy listening, brass instrument record from the forties that we’d grown accustomed to listening to, turning my speakers up just loud enough so the music could reach our ears on my back porch. Dawn wasn’t far off in the horizon, but for now we could still enjoy the glittering constellations above as an autumn wind chilled us through our Corduroy coats. This situation normally lent itself to a game of checkers, but our minds were too busy for that. We spoke more about the statues and the visiting priests, and tossed around a few theories we had. But we both knew we were only taking stabs in the dark.

  When I thought we’d all but exhausted the topic, I recalled something else about the evening that I had intended to ask Walt about.

  “Say Walt, why’d you go outside and speak with one of those priests while the other one stayed inside with me?”

  Walt thought for a moment before answering. “I forgot about that with everything else going on.”

  “Well?”

  Walt took a swig of his beer. “As the three of us sat in your den, I began to notice something about one of those priests, the one named Peter.”

  “Sure, I remember which one he was. He seemed a little downtrodden compared to the other one. And he snapped at me when I asked where he grew up.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “So did you figure out what was wrong?”

  “In some ways, yes. I didn’t talk to him but ten minutes, though; you can’t learn all there is to know about someone in that short a time. But he told me he was leaving the priesthood.”

  “Really? I always figured if someone became a priest, he did it for life.”

  “Most do, but I guess some go on to do other things. And I told him if he felt God was calling him to do something else with his life, then so be it, but I still lectured him a good bit.”

  “You lectured him? About what?”

  “That boy had a lot of scorn for God.”

  “Scorn for God, ya’ say? From a priest?”

  “I know it sounds strange, but as they sat telling me about the statue in Rhode Island and their investigation, Paul figured that statue heating up was some kind of miracle. That’s the way I feel, too, I think. But Peter seemed angered by it all, or maybe he was just angry in general, I don’t know. He questioned why God would do such a thing, keeping parishioners out of their church and scaring people like this. Course I have to admit, I don’t have an answer for why this is happening, but I wouldn’t let him sit there and say the things he was saying, so I took him outside and spoke with him. I don’t really know what came over me. I just felt the need to set him straight.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “To tell you the truth, I doubt I helped him a bit. It’s just, he said he’d been through a lot in his life, and seen a lot of pain. He said he was through trying to make peace with God for all that had happened to him. Anytime I tried to ask about his past he told me to leave it alone, ’cause there was no way I could understand what he’d been through. He was probably right. After all, he’s only a bit more than a stranger to me. But I told him that wasn’t important, because no matter what life throws at him, or me, or you, or anyone else, all we can do is just keep carrying our cross.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I leaned up in my rocking chair.

  “We all got a cross to bear, Buck, a cross of suffering, confusion, addiction, anger, jealousy, loneliness, illness, and all the like. Maybe I’ve done more thinking on this than most because of Olivia and my boy, but the way I see it, some people lay that cross upon their shoulders by their own doing, like I did, with the decisions I made that led to my guilt. Others probably don’t deserve the cross they received, like those born real poor or sick, but it doesn’t matter which one of these people we are, because what else can we do except keep movin’ up that hill? We all got our own Calvary to climb; and you know what the kicker is?”

  “What’s that?”

  “We aren’t carrying that cross by ourselves. You know he’s right there alongside us. This was all stuff I didn’t realize until recently, and I have you to thank for that, Buck. In a strange way your friendship helped me understand all this, understand our life struggles are something we just have to deal with no matter the cost. I figured I’d share that secret with Peter before he gets to be my age and realizes he’s wasted his whole life thinking he’s lugging that cross by himself. You’d think he’d know that as a priest, but I guess everybody needs reminding.”

  I appreciated Walt’s gratitude but was too embarrassed to acknowledge it.

  “Peter said he got what I was trying to say, but that he still didn’t understand why God gave some people a cross when they didn’t deserve it. The way he was talkin’ made me think of that little girl in Costa Rica I help, ya’ know, the one I have a picture of over at my place?”

  “Oh yeah, I remember her.”

  “Lord knows she doesn’t deserve to suffer like she does, and when I told Peter about her, he said that’s exactly the kind of grief he was talking about, the kind that weighs on him so heavy. He asked how she could be given that life.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “I told him don’t nobody truly know the answer to that question, but you know who else didn’t deserve the cross he was given?”

  We both knew.

  “It’s not whether or not we deserve our cross. It’s how we carry it. I tried my hardest to help Peter see that.”

  I looked out over the sea. Everything was dark except for the salty foam of each tumbling wave. “I think I know what you mean,” I said looking back to him, “about us all having a cross to bear. I suppose if Jesus can come down here and carry his, we shouldn’t expect not to have one, too.”

  “That’s the way I see it. I told him it was his life to live, but the worst thing he could do is shut himself off from God altogether. When they left, he didn’t seem to be thinking any differently, so I don’t think I did a bit a’ good.” Walt shrugged and took a swig of beer. “Truth is, we all struggle, the only difference is what we struggle with. But if you turn away from God you got no chance. I fight depression and regret everyday, but there wouldn’t even be a fight to speak of if I didn’t keep God on my side; I’d just be overrun by my demons. I wanted to help that boy, and let him know he’s not fighting his struggles alone. You think I gave him some good advice, Buck?”

  “I sure do, Walt. All that stuff you said was real profound. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “I didn’t either. It felt like it wasn’t even me talking to him.”

  I didn’t know what else to say about the matter, so I held o
ut my bottle of beer, prompting him to tap it with his own bottle.

  “Cheers,” we said in unison.

  We both polished off the last of our lagers before Walt got up to walk back to his place for the evening. As usual, Sam followed him without being told to. As I rose from my rocker and reached for the screen door, I heard Walt from twenty yards away.

  “Hey, Buck?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just a couple weeks ago would’ve been my boy’s birthday.” I stared into the darkness where his voice was coming from. “What do you make of that?”

  I thought for a second before responding. “Not sure what you’re gettin’ at, neighbor.”

  Silence came from the darkness, until he said, “Yeah, I don’t know either.” I then heard his feet shuffle away towards his home, over the grass and sand.

  24

  WHEN MY alarm clock went off at seven o’clock the next morning, I felt like my body had sunk inside the mattress. There was a brief period when I couldn’t remember where I was or what I was supposed to be doing. But when I smelled the distinct odor and felt the glossy touch of the hotel covers, it all came back to me. I remembered we had made plans to meet Walt at the church this morning, along with his local priest.

  Peter slept in a bit longer, while I went out and got us breakfast. As I tooled around Edisto searching for food and my morning newspaper, I wondered what Peter could be thinking now that we had found the second statue. It seemed like his feelings toward Donald’s claims and this phenomenon should’ve changed, considering what we now knew. But when we hopped in the car at eight-fifteen to head across town, I had something else on my mind that took precedence over the statues. I couldn’t help wondering what Walt and Peter had spoken about on Buck’s back porch. Peter didn’t seem to be acting any differently since returning from their talk, and he didn’t reveal what the talk had been about. Every bone in my body wanted to ask him about it, but I decided I should concentrate on one thing at a time, for we were only minutes away from pulling into the parking lot of Our Lady of the Sea.

  “There’s something I want to say before we get there,” Peter suddenly said.

  “All right.”

  “Pull over for a second.”

  I navigated the car to the side of the dirt road, just before the wooden sign directing people towards the church. We both sat still for a moment as the dust particles floating around our car became illuminated by rays of sunlight.

  “I’ve been pretty hardheaded with this whole thing over the last few days. I realize that now, and I’m sorry.”

  When Peter didn’t continue I felt the need to respond. “It’s a hard thing to make sense of.”

  He looked out the window, toward the coastal, Carolina brush. “If we go in that church and there really is a statue of Mary giving off heat, I don’t see how I can deny anymore that this is something beyond us, beyond our world. It may not cure my doubt and bitterness, but I know sometimes things happen for a reason. I have to admit that, whether I like it or not. Maybe there is a purpose behind these heated statues, and maybe it’s a purpose that’s meant to do good. I suppose that will all play itself out, and hopefully one day we’ll know for sure, maybe even today”

  I nodded and shifted the car into drive, wondering in the back of my mind if I owed Walt a great debt of gratitude.

  As we came around a bend in the oak trees, we saw the church for the first time in the light of day. Out front we saw Walt standing by his pick-up truck, along with a young priest with sandy, blond hair. We parked near them and unhooked our seatbelts. “You ready for this?” I asked Peter.

  “I think I have to be, don’t I?”

  We introduced ourselves to Father Harris, a younger priest with a soft face and deep, brown eyes. It wasn’t often that Peter and I were in the position of being the “veteran” priest, but it was evident from the onset that Father Harris was shaken by what was unfolding at his parish. I assumed Edisto was normally a quiet place, a town where excitement was as absent to the residents here as their palmetto trees were to us in Massachusetts. These last few weeks seemed to have taken their toll on the young, jittery priest.

  “Have you contacted anyone about the statue?” I asked him.

  “Not yet. I had planned to call the Bishop in Charleston today, but … but when Walt showed up this morning and told me about all this, about you two and the other statue, I decided to wait and see what happens today.”

  “Why don’t we head inside,” I said. “We need to see this statue for ourselves if we are going to report this back to our superiors.”

  “Sure,” Father Harris replied as he reached into his pocket for the key. “I understand.”

  “Only if it’s safe enough,” Walt interjected. “Don’t forget what happened to Buck last night. They went into the church in Rhode Island with the fire department, Father Harris. Remember how I told you that?”

  Father Harris glared at Walt. We knew Walt had confessed to everything from last night. The tension between them made it awkward for everyone, but I could understand why Father Harris didn’t want people breaking into his church at all hours of the night, especially with what was going on.

  “Well,” he said, “if I recall their story correctly, they had a parishioner in the local fire department. We don’t have that luxury here. For now, I’d like to keep the rest of the town away. Calling the authorities would ruin that. Do you mind us going in by ourselves?”

  “Not at all,” I answered. “I’d prefer that, actually. We won’t stay long if it’s as hot as you and Walt say it is.”

  Father Harris nodded and turned the key over, shifting the deadbolt and unlocking the doors. He walked in first, slowly and cautiously, with me behind him and Walt and Peter in the rear. As we entered the dark narthex, apprehension crept over me. I wanted so badly for the statue to be as hot as Walt had described, to help confirm the phenomenon and strengthen Peter’s feelings about believing in this. But if the statue was hot, there was still the matter of why this was happening and what event would “come to pass” before this would all be over. On the surface I was captivated by what I had witnessed, even inspired. But like so many of the parishioners at Our Lady of the Sea in Jamestown and here in Edisto, I was frightened. What if some of the things people had feared were becoming a reality? What if this really was a sign of the apocalypse? What if God was angry with us and the Virgin Mary was trying to warn us? What if Peter was right and this phenomenon was going to start happening all over the world? What if thousands of people were going to be kept out of their church? Why would God want that?

  Despite my fear, I moved forward without hesitation. We hadn’t taken five steps when I realized the similarities between the two churches didn’t just apply to the outside of the structures. Much of the inside of this church looked like a replica of the one in Jamestown, including the artwork, stained-glass windows, light fixtures, and general layout of the pews. The only difference I noticed was the area where the statue of Mary stood. While the one in Rhode Island was tucked away in an enclave right above our line of sight, this one rested on a podium jutting out from the wall some ten feet off the ground.

  As we moved up the center aisle, I waited for my body to be suffocated by a blanket of heat. But there was nothing. I turned around and glanced at Peter and Walt; their expressions also showed they felt nothing out of the ordinary. “Should we have felt something by now?” I asked Father Harris.

  He stopped walking and put his hands on his hips, prompting the rest of us to halt midway up the church’s center aisle. His eyes stared up at the statue, now twenty feet away. “We could barely walk ten steps up this aisle yesterday.”

  We walked forward some more as my heart sank deep into a gloomy part of my chest. With each step and breath I took, I prayed that a wave of heat would engulf us all. But within another minute, we were standing directly under the statue and still all was normal. Father Harris mounted a chair from the choir and felt the feet of Mary.

 
“It’s completely fine, feels about like room temperature.” He looked down at me, his eyes stretched wide. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.”

  He climbed down and began to speak with Walt about the sudden change, while I did my best to avoid eye contact with Peter. After several minutes of discussion with Walt and Father Harris, I couldn’t fight the temptation any longer. I looked toward Peter. I didn’t see what I expected, his anger or his frustration, but rather a great sadness within him. It was as if he truly wanted the statue to be as hot as Walt had described, no matter how much confusion it would’ve caused. Peter turned and slowly walked out of the church without saying anything. Walt’s eyes followed Peter all the way to the doors. After a few more minutes of studying the various parts of the church, the three of walked back outside as well.

  Peter sat in the passenger seat of the car with his head turned out toward the woods, away from the church. He gave no sign he would get back out to say goodbye to Father Harris and Walt. I tried to do it on his behalf.

  “Thanks for meeting us here,” I began. “I’m at a loss for words at this point.”

  “You believe us, don’t you?” Walt asked. “You know that statue was as hot as fire, right?” Father Harris’s expression bore the same questions.

  “Yes,” I finally responded. “I believe you. There’s no way you would have been able to fabricate this on a whim, and we knew, or, I knew there was a second statue out there somewhere. I can’t tell you how I knew that quite yet, but I’m sure I’ll be able to eventually. I’ll contact the church in Rhode Island and see what’s going on there. Who knows what I’ll find?”

  “Do you think it will have cooled off too?” Walt asked.

  “I won’t be surprised if it has.”

  Father Harris frowned. “Why do you think they all of a sudden returned to normal?” The three of us stood still, our thoughts tangled with the sounds of the distant waves.

  “Maybe the purpose of the heated statues has been fulfilled,” Walt said. “Whatever it was.”