In This Life

by Christine Brae

  “But we’ve waited so long, Mom. He needs me. Please, please let me go with him!” she pleaded with the woman who had turned her head to look at me.

  “Jude, please leave. Get up and go. She can’t go with you. Take your suitcases and leave us be,” she ordered.

  And then without so much as another word, I stood up and walked out the door.

  The door? Was that what I had just heard? Instinctively, I reached my arm out to feel for her, but I found myself alone in the middle of the bed. I jerked up in surprise and looked around the room. There were two dirty wine glasses and an empty bottle of wine on the floor. The covers were hanging off the side of the bed, and the pillows were neatly piled on top of one another occupying the space where she had slept.

  “Anna!” I yelled. No. She couldn’t have left me. Why did she leave?

  Frantically, I sprang out of bed and pulled my jeans on. I didn’t care that all I had on was a t-shirt as I ran out the door and flew down the five flights of stairs to the main entrance. My feet felt numb against the freshly fallen snow, but I felt no pain. I had to find her. I ran down the sidewalk until I spotted her walking on the opposite side of the road, head down, shoulders hunched, one hand holding her hat onto her head.

  “Anna! Anna, wait!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  She stopped when she saw that it was me. I ran across the road as fast as my frozen feet would take me. The neighborhood was slowly waking up, people were just about to start their day.

  And as we faced each other, I knew that I would live out my days with her. I wanted to touch her but didn’t want to scare her off any further. The snow began to fall lightly. Dance with me, I wanted to say. Who cares if the rain has frozen into snow? The music in our hearts will warm it right up.

  “Where are your shoes?” she asked, one hand still on her head, the other in her coat pocket. The morning wind was biting; it stuck to the skin, sharp little pins all over your body.

  “It doesn’t matter. Why did you leave? Why are you leaving me?” I tried to form the words in my mouth while trying to stop my teeth from chattering.

  “Dante will be home to drop Mike off, and I want to see him before he leaves for Germany.”

  “What about us?” I asked nervously. “I just found you, Anna. What about us?”

  “There is no us, Jude.”

  Tears were about to fall from her tortured, weary eyes. Darkness took me over. I was angry, I was hungry. For her. I grabbed her shoulders, hoping to shake some sense into her.

  “No. Fuck no! What happened to last night? What was that? No. We’re going to talk about this, figure this all out together. Go back home, get rid of your fucking guilt, and I’ll see you later!”

  Her head bobbed up and down like a puppet. The feistiness was gone; she didn’t want to fight. Slowly she turned around and walked away.

  I SAT ON the edge of the tub, soaking my feet in hot water. If I hadn’t looked down to find them black and blue, I wouldn’t have noticed how painfully numb they had become. I was too distraught, too intent on finding a way to make her come back to the apartment with me. I knew that once we crossed this line, once I got my fix, there was no coming back down from this high. That morning, there wasn’t any of the guilt or repentance that one would have expected to feel. After all, I was still under the obligation to remain celibate as a deacon on the way to becoming ordained as a priest. I was no longer considered a lay person; as far as I was concerned I was Judas, the man who had betrayed his master for thirty pieces of silver. Only she was worth far more than that. To me, she was worth the damnation of my soul. A lapse in judgment can be forgiven. That was not my intention. I didn’t want forgiveness. I wanted to bury myself deep into this sin.

  Despite the pull of my conscience, all I felt, all I wanted, all I was determined to do was to be with her again.

  Thirty minutes later, my feet felt better and my head was clearer. As I lifted them out of the water and wrapped them in a towel, there was another knock at my door. He saw the look of surprise on my face as soon as I recognized him.

  “Monsignor Ralph!” I uttered respectfully as I kissed his hand. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop by. How are you, Patrick?” he asked as he surveyed the apartment with a peculiar look on his face. He proceeded directly to the kitchen. “Put on your shirt, Patrick, and join me for a cup of coffee.”

  Quickly I nodded my head, disappearing into my bedroom, and appeared moments later with a collared shirt neatly tucked into my faded jeans.

  “Decaf or regular?” I asked, pulling out the coffee filters from the cupboard.

  “I’d really rather have a scotch but coffee will do.” He smiled warmly at me. “Come, let’s sit.”

  I pulled the chair out across from him, and we sat face to face at the kitchen table. The gurgling sound of the coffeemaker helped to mask the awkward silence between us.

  I voiced my thoughts about his visit. “Your neighborhood is forty-five minutes away.”

  “Ah, I expected no less from you,” he said with a laugh. “How are you? I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Figuring things out.”

  “When do you go back?” he asked. I knew we were going to get to this eventually, I just thought he would engage in small talk first.

  “I have roughly two more months. I’m still on the list for the May ceremony in Rome.” I wanted to please him, and this alone should do it, to let him know that I still intended to follow in his footsteps.

  “Have you been keeping in touch with Father Scott? He’s your spiritual adviser, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I call him once every few days.”

  “Does he know why you asked for this leave of absence?”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Does he know that it’s all about a woman?” He looked straight into my eyes.

  I stood up to retrieve the coffeepot and poured some into his cup. He kept his eyes on my face with no intention of letting up. When I didn’t answer his question at first, he rephrased it.

  “Do your parents know that it’s all about a woman?”

  “No,” I answered quietly. “No, Uncle Ralph, they don’t.”

  My father’s brother was my inspiration, my role model, and the man who made we want to serve God. And here he was reminding me of why he was such a special person. He could read minds, could see through to the bottom of a person’s soul. He was compassionate and understanding, mindful of the freedom of choice.

  He took a sip of his coffee before addressing me. “I remember when you were younger and you told your family that you wanted to enter the priesthood. I went to your father and told him to stop you from pursuing it. I told him that you were too intelligent, too outspoken, too perceptive of the falsehoods of the world, and that you would make a better doctor, or a lawyer, or a father.”

  Of all the words he had said, I heard only the last one. God. I could devote my life to having children with Anna.

  “A father?” I encouraged him to explain this to me.

  “Not all men are born to be fathers. They say that we’re hunters, we’re here to provide. But you, the love that you have for your siblings, the way that you are with children, you have that innate gift of being a nurturer.” His face broke out in a huge grin. “And the reaction you just had gave away your thoughts. You’re thinking of a future with this woman.”

  “No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I intend to push through with my plan. I’m here to get her out of my system.”

  He stopped listening only to glance around the kitchen in search of something else. “Scratch the coffee. I’m ready for scotch. And peanuts. Do you have peanuts?”

  I nodded my head eagerly and leapt to my feet to get him what he had asked for. A bottle of Johnnie Walker that I’d purchased a few nights ago was going to be my diversion if she hadn’t come over the day before. Thankfully, there was one clean glass left in the cupboard.
After scooping up some ice and pouring him his drink, I proceeded to peel open the top of a can of roasted peanuts.

  “This is more like it.” He smiled, satisfied, and then continued to speak. “I remember the first few years, when you had just started out. You were so outspoken, always questioning doctrine as being so outdated. Move with the times, you would say during the family dinners we had at your place. And you never accepted anything on pure faith. Do you remember the time you and I argued about contraception?”

  “Yes, I was going to quit right then and there. I just couldn’t accept the fact that we would condemn those who used contraception due to financial and medical difficulties.”

  “What happened to you? Why did you stay around all these years?”

  “I decided that a good priest is one who doesn’t accept the word on blind faith. A good priest is one who questions, who incessantly strives for answers. Christ became a man for this purpose. He was here to experience firsthand the frailties of being human. He had worries and fears, he felt enmity and anger. A good priest is Christ embodied with a human soul.”

  I saw the look of pride on his face. “So when do you come back?” he asked, his eyes searching mine, trying hard to assess what my response would be.

  “By the end of February, something like that.”

  “So you’re coming back?”

  “Of course I am.”

  What he said next shook me to my core.

  “Jude, lying to yourself might be your greatest sin yet. No one will hate you, no one will punish you if you decide that this is not for you. Use these next two months to the fullest extent possible. Have fun. Go out. And if it involves this woman, love her and be with her. This is all being thrown in front of you so that you can make the right decision. Okay, so we thought that your stint in Thailand was precisely for that. But if you have to do it all over again, five years later, no one will hold that against you.”

  “With freedom of choice comes the freedom to sin,” I muttered, my eyes gravely searching for his.

  He responded by placing his hands on mine. They felt soft yet steady, strong and protective. “Unfortunately, that is true,” he said with a sad smile.

  “Uncle Ralph, I thought I was fine. It took me years to forget. And then last year, my mind started to play games with me. I started to get lost in my thoughts about her. They turned from daydreams to sheer obsession.”

  He let go of my hands and focused his attention on his drink. I remained engrossed in the depth of compassion in his words. “A wise old man, one of the few who had a bigger belly than I do, once said, ‘It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.’ Remember that the mind is a powerful thing. You can convince yourself of anything. But at the end of the day, it’s your heart that you have to contend with. It doesn’t bend as easily as your mind.” He tipped the glass over and finished the drink to its last drop. “I have to visit Mrs. Albano now. She’s waiting to give me some fern cuttings for my greenhouse,” he said as he smoothed down his cassock before he stood up to leave. He pushed the chair back in its place and started shuffling towards the front door. “Jude, do me a favor. Talk to your parents. Your mom is worried sick about you. Tell them the reason, explain it to them. Your mom and dad embody true and lasting love. They will understand.”

  “Yes, Uncle Ralph,” I answered. I walked side by side with him until we reached the door.

  He placed his arms around me before letting go and hobbling gingerly towards the elevator bank.

  “ANNA?” I CALLED out as I pushed open the front door of her apartment. It was five in the afternoon by the time I’d made it to her place. Even if I had her phone number, I wasn’t stupid enough to think she would take my call.

  I got it. She was angry, maybe even a bit confused. That made the two us.

  I took the chance and stopped over directly after completing my shift at the homeless shelter. The door to her apartment was unlocked, and its slight creaking was the only sound that I heard as I stepped into her place and was met with total darkness. I stretched out my arm, sliding it against the wall until I hit the light switch. She was fast asleep on the couch, bundled up in a blue and white blanket, facing away from me. All I could see were her hair and her feet. I set the paper bag in my hand on the floor and laid my coat on top of it.

  “Anna?” I whispered quietly as I tiptoed over to where she rested. I knelt down in the tiny space between the couch and coffee table. A cup of something on the table was surrounded by scattered pieces of Kleenex.

  “Go away,” she said with her head still buried inside the blanket.

  I leaned back and sat on my heels without saying a word. I could stay here forever if it meant having her this close to me all the time.

  “Why are you still here? I said, go away,” she repeated.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I leaned my back on the couch and stretched out my legs on the floor. I figured it was safe to turn around once I felt her move behind me. She sat up reluctantly. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, her face resplendent with not a single trace of make up on it. Her skin was the pale golden sand and the freckles on her nose were the little tiny shells that lined up along the shore. She reminded me of Grace Kelly, regal with fine features, milky white skin, and beautiful wide eyes.

  “He left today,” she said sadly. “He said goodbye and left.”

  “What about your brother?” I asked. “Is he here?”

  She shook her head. “No, he went back to the dorm for a couple of days. He’ll be back next week,” she answered. Her face was sad, despondent, almost.

  I looked around and scrutinized the telling little bits of her life sprinkled around the room. Among the mismatched furniture, there were picture frames filled with smiling faces. Her father and brother. A spotted English bulldog. She and Dante in their graduation gowns. Another picture of her and a blond girl her age holding champagne glasses and wearing skimpy black dresses. And then a picture of the woman in my dream. There was a stethoscope on the kitchen table alongside a pile of large, heavy textbooks. Like all other rentals, there was nothing unique about this place. It was a far cry from the digs she shared with Dante.

  She remained cloaked in the blanket draped like a shawl over her shoulders. I got up and sat next to her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You know what’s wrong,” she grumbled under her breath. “He’s gone. I still can’t believe how easy it was for him to leave!” Her voice broke, and I knew she was on the verge of tears again.

  “Blue. It wasn’t easy for him. And he’ll be back.”

  “Well, I’m not going to wait for him,” she said as she crossed her legs underneath the blanket.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I’m going to fly to Germany to be with him once I can get time off from work,” she said decisively. She settled her legs back on the floor and stood up, still wrapped in the blanket. I could see that she was wearing a red long-sleeved t-shirt and red and black checkered pajama pants. My mind started to wander before going into cruise control. I was getting excited just being in the same room as her.

  “Okay,” I acceded. I wasn’t about to argue with her.

  “What do you want, Gray?” She sounded exhausted. She moved along the kitchen lazily, pouring a cup of hot water over a tea bag in a mug.

  “I’d like a cup of tea too, please,” I answered.

  “No! What do you want? Why are you here?” she barked testily. “We just made things a thousand times more complicated.”

  “You. I want you.” I followed her into the kitchen and took my place close behind her. She stepped backwards and bumped right into me before huffing crossly and walking away.

  “Ugh. You’re driving me crazy right now. Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Apparently she found it aggravating to have me lapping around her like a lovesick puppy. “And get your own tea. The tea bags are right there, and there are cups in the cupboard.”


  An uncomfortable hush fell over us while I made myself a cup of tea and she poked around some logs and lit up the fireplace. She parked herself directly in front of it and I settled myself beside her.

  “Not quite Thailand, huh?” I joked.

  Her disposition changed as she gave me a half-hearted smile. “I guess not.”

  “I want to talk about last night. Why you left. What happened between us,” I said.

  She dipped her head downward and settled her chin on her knees. “Not tonight. I’m not ready. This is all too much for me right now.”

  “You know, Blue, there’s really nothing complicated about all of this,” I said, tilting my body towards her. Our elbows touched.

  “Oh yeah? Why do you say that?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “You love two men and two men love you.”

  She closed her eyes as if accepting her reality. No quick comeback from her usual self, she didn’t deny it. There was a chance that she loved me and I wanted to hear her say it.

  “Have you left?” she asked. “The priesthood.”

  “Not yet. I’m on leave, and on a mission to spend all the time I can with you. All in.”

  Her eyes lit up with a sudden realization and she turned to face me. “I’m still angry, you know.”

  “I know.”

  She returned her aim in the direction of the fire. “How much time do we have?”

  “Exactly fifty-eight days.” She looked beautiful in the glow of the light. The warmth of the fire brought color to her cheeks.

  “And then what?” Still talking to the fire.

  “Whatever I decide, I have to go back and let them know.”

  She sighed. “What is it with you and deadlines, Gray? Ten days, fifty-eight days, I’m always running against the clock, always in a time crunch. With Dante, there are no constraints. He promises me forever.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Silence filled the room. And then finally, she turned to me.

  “What did you do, Gray? What did you do for five years? If you felt the same way about us, how did you get through it?”