“But what if I helped them? What if the signs were there and I didn’t see them because I didn’t want to?”
She expected Gutierrez to give her a standard line that would, if only in grammatical structure, absolve her of the inadvertent role she feared she might have played. But he didn’t. Instead, he bluntly told her about being in high school back in Baltimore and about a charismatic young priest who did things differently. They didn’t spend all their time at retreats talking about what it meant to be religious. This priest got them out working every weekend—repainting a building off the Belair Road corridor, tutoring kids, and teaching ESL classes. It was refreshing.
“My parents were traditional. Back in Cuba, you were supposed to spend more time in Mass than on these kinds of projects. But I thought it was great. I was devastated when he left. We all were. A number of years later, I learned he’d been transferred to Peru, and an accusation from one of my classmates was the cause. It didn’t lessen the impact of what I learned from him. But it removed the wool from my eyes, there’s no doubt about that. You can’t know everything about a person, Ally. The best you can do is keep your eyes open.”
She had spent a lot of time asking him for advice while she tried to settle into her new life in DC. If he tired of babysitting her, he never said so. It hadn’t occurred to her that someone like Father Gutierrez could be dragged into a situation not of his own making, the way she felt dragged into the sexual-abuse scandal by nature of being Catholic. But that’s exactly what ended up happening.
On the day the memo on withholding Communion was issued, Milton Casey gave the staff strict instructions not to discuss it outside of the office or a structured press conference. “Look, I’m not going to lie. Is this a good thing for Wyncott? Sure. But it’s got nothing to do with him and, as you can see, it’s stirring up a lot of controversy. So the best thing we can say about it is nothing. Or reiterate that Wyncott respects the rights of churches and how they care for parishioners.”
So Ally hadn’t discussed it with Father Gutierrez, even though she was deeply curious about his thoughts on the command. She didn’t even ask what he thought of the archbishop in Colorado, when she could probably have gotten away with it and was sure he’d have had something interesting to say. Some months after he gave her the pep talk about priests, the memo controversy flared up again. This time it was over the archbishop of Saint Louis, Cardinal Keane. He’d publicly stated that he would not deny Communion to anyone in his archdiocese, pro-choice or not, unless they had been formally excommunicated. “While I defer to the knowledge of the Holy See and its commitment to protecting the faithful, I cannot, as a servant of God first and foremost, politicize a ritual as sacred as the Eucharist. If we are to promote the tenets of confession, we must trust that those who have sinned will seek their penance to preserve that relationship, not to avoid public humiliation.”
That he spoke out about it was a shock. Nearly two months had passed since the memo’s release, and according to the research firm Casey had hired, during a sampling of services, eight out of ten priests had reiterated at least once that Catholics were obligated to vote for a pro-life candidate. It was just assumed that everyone else in the American Church was doing the same or, if they weren’t, their silence was tacit support. Keane’s public challenge of the memo was definitely unexpected.
Shortly after Keane’s announcement, a writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch penned an article announcing that the archbishop had received notification that he was concluding his appointment in Saint Louis and moving to the South Pacific to assume a role within the Archdiocese of Agana. The following day, a columnist questioned the connection between Keane’s removal and his outspoken refusal to “play politics with people’s faith,” as he had been quoted describing the memo. “Does the Vatican Want to Control the American Election?” screamed the headline.
It was a ridiculous suggestion, Ally told Mark when he put a copy of the article on her desk. She spotted where he was going with it and decided she’d had enough. “I get it, Mark. You read The Da Vinci Code and you think the halls of the Vatican are teeming with sinister puppet masters. But it’s not. Maybe your life is a little more interesting when you can cling to the idea that it is, but the Church has entirely too much on its plate to worry this much about an American election. What would they get out of it? Nothing. So what’s the point?”
Mark clapped his hands. “Finally! After two years you’re finally thinking like a true politician. This is a proud moment, Ally.”
Ally grinned back at him. “Or a sign I need to get out of here.”
“Not until after November, you don’t.”
Hours later, she was still thinking about their conversation and the article. Mark was right. Maybe it was a weirdly Catholic tic, but intention and motive were cornerstones of her judgment.
But she would have to wait for another day to continue the debate with Mark. Casey had announced he was redirecting even more staffing resources to get Wyncott’s bill on tort reform the support it needed. And that included Ally. She’d have to get up to speed with the team, which she did by staying at the office all night.
It was close to six o’clock in the morning when she finally got home. Only three of them, Mark, Ally, and Steve, had been left by five thirty. Even though he had (wisely) been avoiding any direct contact with her for nearly two months, Steve finally turned to her and said it was time for them all to go home.
From the Metro escalator, she started in the direction of home. Her body ached with fatigue. Pulling all-nighters in college had been stressful, but nothing compared to the aura of panicked preparation the office had been in since Casey announced the last push for the bill. She’d been walking for more than ten minutes before she noticed she was going the wrong way. Her dazed wandering had brought her to Father Gutierrez’s rectory.
She stumbled back from the garden pathway in the front and had already turned to go back to her apartment when the door opened behind her.
“Ally? Is everything okay?”
She was embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. I got off the train and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. I’m fine. Just exhausted.”
“Let me give you a ride home.”
She nodded gratefully. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said through a yawn as she crawled into his modest hatchback.
“No, no. I’m up this time every morning. I saw a shadow move through the window and thought you were an enormous bird.”
“I guess it’s a sign I spend too much time here, huh?”
He laughed. “Not at all. And I hope you’ll continue to come even after I’m gone.”
The words startled her awake.
“Gone? What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath and turned to focus on the streets ahead of him. They were the only car around.
“I’ll be leaving. In the next month or so.”
“Leaving? To go where?”
“Alaska,” he said slowly.
She blinked at him. “Alaska?” she said, incredulous. “There are Catholics in Alaska?”
He smiled patiently. “Evidently. I’ve heard it’s beautiful there.”
“It’s a meat locker covered in darkness for most of the year.”
He cracked a smile. “Thanks for the encouragement. Where’s that optimist I know and love?”
“That optimist disappeared around four a.m., Father. But seriously,” she said, “who did you upset to get shipped off there?”
She knew as soon she said the words that she’d hit a nerve. His smile dropped and he turned back to the steering wheel.
“Wait. That’s not what really happened, is it?”
“It’s not appropriate for me to discuss such matters with you.”
“I don’t care,” she protested. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He turned the car down Maple Avenue and pulled up to the curb across from her building.
“It’s complicated, Ally. I don’t think there
’s any way I could explain it and do it justice.”
“Try me.”
He wasn’t, he explained, the right match for this parish, and it was perhaps for the best that he was going to be moving on. His ideas didn’t match the expectations here.
“What are you talking about? Everyone here loves you. Takoma Park is about the crunchiest place on earth, and you’re the crunchiest priest I’ve ever known.”
He laughed. “I’m not supposed to be crunchy, Ally. And I’m not supposed to win a popularity contest among my parishioners. I’m supposed to serve my church and, through it, God.”
She understood immediately. “Your homilies are too liberal, huh?”
“You could say that,” he said.
“So tell them how conservative I am and that I never miss your services.”
“It’s not so much what I say that’s the problem. It’s what I don’t say.”
She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face him. “What does that mean?” she asked. He didn’t respond. “Just tell me,” she ordered. Reluctantly, he gave in.
After the memo on the worthiness to receive Communion was issued, his monsignor met with him and others about following its order. “I had reservations about it,” Father Gutierrez said. “And I told him that. I wasn’t the only one. A lot of us were uncomfortable with it. I mean, look around you, Ally. Look at the signs on the front lawns here. It’s obvious where people stand politically. If I had to deny Communion to the ones who are pro-choice or the ones who think Jack Kevorkian’s a hero . . . Well, I don’t know who would be left.” He cast her a sideways glance. “Other than you.”
The monsignor told them they didn’t have to single people out. He suggested they compromise. Insert a well-timed and well-placed reminder into the sermon that a vote for Thomas Archer was a vote for sin.
Ally cocked her head. “But I don’t remember you ever saying anything,” she said.
“That’s because I didn’t. I chose not to address it at all.”
A few weeks after that meeting with his monsignor, he was writing notes for his next sermon when he received an unexpected visit from the archbishop of Washington, DC, Cardinal Curran. “He was polite,” Gutierrez told Ally. “But there was no doubt about it. I was being ordered to campaign from the pulpit.”
Ally felt that same tug of discomfort she’d felt that morning at Casey’s office when Mark turned on the TV for coverage of the memo’s release.
The meeting with his archbishop had ended with mutual dissatisfaction. Gutierrez refused to agree to endorse Wyncott over Archer.
“I’ve given you an order and I expect you to obey it,” Curran told him. He didn’t. The notice of his transfer arrived at the rectory several weeks later. He took in the look of shock on Ally’s face.
“Don’t be sad. I knew what I was doing. And I’d do it again.”
It didn’t matter. She hunched over and covered her face with her hands, muttering a string of profanities that continued for several seconds before she stopped and looked up at him.
“I’m not sad,” she said between fast breaths. “I’m angry, Father. I’m so mad I can’t think straight. I can’t—I can’t even talk.”
He got out of the car and came over to her side. “Come on,” he said, pulling her out and walking her up to the apartment door. “You’re exhausted. Get in and get some sleep. All this—work, life, the world even, will look different when you wake up.”
He was right. A few hours later when she pushed back the blankets and looked out the window, the world did look different. But for Ally, it held more questions than ever before.
CHAPTER 14
On the drive back to Mitchell International Airport from Olmsted, Peter kept swerving onto the soft shoulder. His behavior fit every bad driver tactic in the book. He thumbed words into the search engine of his iPhone, his eyes darting from the keyboard to the road to the screen to his rearview mirror. He scrawled in a notebook resting on the beverage tray while steering with one hand. He chatted on his phone without the headset, which he’d left on his desk, forgotten in the aftermath of an argument with Emma that started in the bathroom the morning he left.
“You’re going where?” Emma had asked.
“Wiff-kahnshun,” Peter shouted past the whirring of the electric toothbrush she’d gotten him for Christmas, the one that seemed to attack his mouth every time he used it, battering his teeth if he didn’t hold it firmly the entire time. Given the war raging in his mouth, he thought he’d managed to pronounce it pretty clearly. Demosthenes he wasn’t, but nor was he Elmer Fudd.
Emma popped her head back into the bathroom.
“Where?”
He removed the toothbrush long enough to say the word again. “Wisconsin.”
The brush’s head had continued to spin, spraying everything in front of him with a smattering of white film, and Emma tried to duck the splash. She was wearing his favorite bra. The pale blue one with maroon flowers embroidered on the trim. Her arms were in the sleeves of a shirt and she paused to give him A Look before cramming her head into the neck hole and letting the fabric shimmy down her torso.
“What article is this for?”
Peter should have answered immediately, said the first thing that came to mind. But he waited too long and she pounced.
“This isn’t for an article, is it?” she said.
He switched off the toothbrush. That was enough carnage for one morning. He spat into the sink, wiping his mouth with his arm. Emma looked vaguely disgusted.
“It could be. I don’t know yet. I have to get more information.”
She didn’t look irritated anymore, but she didn’t look absolutely happy, either. “And this information requires you to fly to Milwaukee at the last minute, when we’re supposed to spend the weekend with my parents?”
It certainly wasn’t going to look good. He knew Emma’s sister thought he’d lost his mind since returning from Kashmir. She’d told him as much, and he imagined that a similar lecture from his father-in-law couldn’t be far behind. Especially if he skipped out on visiting them to chase what might turn out to be nothing.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. And he was, in a manner of speaking. “It’s taken me a while to track down this contact, and I can’t get an answer when I call.”
It was the wrong detail to share. She erupted. “Let me get this straight. You’re blowing us off to show up at someone’s house because they won’t answer the phone? How do you know anyone’s even there?”
“He paid his taxes on time last year according to the city records.”
Emma flipped the toilet cover down and sat. “Peter, what is this? What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing. I just need to get some information.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“Emma, honey. It’s not a big deal. I’ll be gone two days, max.”
“I’m trying, Peter. I am. I know you need to work through this stuff on your own time and in your own way, but you have to help me out here.”
He hated that. He hated the way she assumed every single thing he did or said was motivated by the explosion in Jammu. When he stayed up all night working on his article about Ingram for the Hartford Courant, Emma told him not sleeping wasn’t going to make the nightmares go away. When he made small talk with the Yemeni shop girl at the local supermarket, she asked if she reminded him of Sheeraza Akhtar.
“Not everything in this world is about tragedy, Emma,” he snapped. “I’m not some wounded bird you need to fix with a self-help book. I’m doing fine.”
“What you’re doing is shutting me out.”
The back-and-forth was all so frustrating. “You’re blowing this out of proportion. Seriously, hon. I just need to get some work done.”
She didn’t budge. “Why won’t you tell me what this is about?”
“Because.” He adopted a belligerent pose.
“Because why?”
“What, are we six? Because I don’t want to rig
ht now.”
Emma wasn’t going to let him get away with that. She stood up and walked closer to him.
“Not good enough. Try again.”
“Not now. Let me see what I can find out.”
“Tell me,” she pleaded again.
“Let it go, Emma.”
“I won’t!” The shout took him by surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so angry. She stepped right up to him, yelling the words in his face. “I won’t let it go, Peter. What the hell is going on that you keep hiding everything from me? Why won’t you tell me?”
Peter lost it. “Because he was a pedophile!” he screamed. The roar came out of nowhere, and he felt disembodied as he shouted the words.
“He sent letters to his victims, Emma. Ingram did. Apologizing for what he did to them. Okay? And maybe I’m not hiding everything from you. Maybe I’m trying to figure out what to do about learning the man I respected most in this world was a child molester the entire time I knew him. I’m very sorry that my schedule for mourning the desecration of his memory has been so incredibly difficult for you to deal with.” She shrank from him as if he’d hit her.
“I’m tired of holding your hand, Emma. Leave me alone to do what I need to do. Can’t you do that? Just leave me alone until I figure it out!”
Emma crumpled onto the edge of the tub. Peter stormed out and slammed the door, bounding down the stairs and out the door to his car.
He drove around for an hour to clear his head. Turning down the street to his house, he paused a few doors away and left the car idling while he got out and peeked at the house to see if her car was still there. It wasn’t.
He parked in the driveway and walked in the front door. The first thing he noticed was that Grady wasn’t there.
“Grady?” he called out. “Gradeser?”
In the kitchen he picked up a box of dog treats and shook it. “Come on, G-Man! Come get a snack!” He paused to listen for the jangle of dog tags but heard only silence.
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