Uncross My Heart

by Andrews

  “I’d like to rephrase that. Any soul would be blessed to have you care about it. Mine, it just so happens, is recently…taken.”

  “Really? The woman who was here—?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very attractive.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Binoculars,” she said seriously, and I broke into laughter. “Well. You look better. And now that I’ve done my good deed for the week, I’m going back home to get ready to go to dinner with my husband this evening.”

  I thanked her again before she left, only slightly less coquettish than when she’d arrived. As her pretty form receded from view across the pasture, I whistled to Ketch and gave him the last bite of toast.

  “Have you noticed how many really gorgeous women God created?”

  Ketch dropped to my feet and ignored me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Monday morning I rang Vivienne and got no answer. I was certain she had caller ID and was screening my call, so I grabbed my car keys and headed for town, pulling into a shopping area with a pay phone and dialing her number. It worked—she answered.

  “Don’t hang up.” I realized most of my conversations with her began with those words. “You can’t give up on me now. You’re someone I never let myself dream I could have. Something I never knew existed.

  And you’ve admitted you love me, I have it in writing.”

  “Loving you and being able to be with you are two different things, Alex.”

  “Please, Viv.” But she had already hung up. My head clanged back against the wall next to the phone booth, and the person beside me stared at me.

  I jumped back into the car and drove at high speed to her house, pulling into the driveway so fast and stopping so abruptly that my tires squealed, startling even me at the adolescence of my behavior.

  I bounded up the porch steps and banged on her door. I could see her inside but she wouldn’t open it. I pounded on it louder and shouted for her to let me in. What the neighbors might think of a grown woman beating down another woman’s door must have crossed Viv’s mind, because she stepped out on the porch to silence me.

  “I’m done, Alex.”

  “You can’t be done, we haven’t even started.”

  “And we never will. Between your Father in heaven and your father from hell—”

  “We got into a fight after you left and he collapsed on the front steps. I thought he’d had a heart attack and I rushed him to the ER.”

  She stopped her tirade. “I’m sorry. But I don’t see that his physical condition has any bearing on our issue. If anything, it just gives you more guilt to go with the inexhaustible load you already carry.”

  “Is that all you think about me? A guilt-ridden person—”

  “I think very highly of you, obviously. And I don’t want to continue this discussion and ruin that.”

  “One disagreement would ruin that? If people are passionate about something, about each other, shouldn’t they fight it out? What do you want from me? Just tell me and I’ll—”

  “I want nothing from you except for you to go away and leave me alone.”

  “Oh, that’s so damned contained. You want nothing from me? I thought you wanted my love, my body, my soul in a relationship?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Just like that? What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me? You’re the one with the complexes.

  Let me tell you something, Alex. You’re eaten up with it. Whenever religious people have a book, they beat you to death with it—only you’ve done them all one better. You’re beating yourself to death with it. Well, you won’t beat me with it. My God is fucking smarter than to hate people for who they love. And I like my God better than yours.”

  I reached under the collar of my shirt and pulled out the black onyx cross, yanked it from my neck, and threw it onto the ground. “Is this what you want? To know that I’ll give up anything for you?”

  “Very dramatic and frankly beneath you.” She turned to go. “And by the way, if He died for your sins, you no longer have any. That must make you completely insane—nothing to be guilty over.” She slammed the door in my face.

  I got in my car and just sat, staring up at her house, wondering if she was staring back at me from behind the blinds. This would be my last trip to her door, that much I knew.

  I drove to the hospital to see my father. He had been moved to a room and was complaining that he needed his own pajamas, a toothbrush, shaving cream and razor, and a dozen other items from his house. I told him I’d go get them, wishing with all my might I hadn’t been an only child and had someone else to share these errands with.

  We didn’t discuss the fight that had landed him in the hospital. In fact, his tone was dispassionate and distant.

  “What’s the temperature outside?”

  “About fifty today. Sunny.”

  “Hmm.” He mused as if he thought he might be going outside for a stroll. “Are the Bears playing?”

  “It’s Monday. They played yesterday.” I picked up the remote and scanned through the channels since the set didn’t have a program guide.

  I finally found a replay of a ball game—not the Bears, but he seemed satisfied. I told him I would check in with him tomorrow. As I kissed his forehead he remarked, “Do me a favor, Alexandra. Say a mass for me, for my health.”

  “I’m not a celebrant at mass anymore, Father. You know that.”

  “Do it for me.” His tone was flat, as if asking me to pick up bread at the store.

  A dozen things popped into my head, among them that he was requesting this to torture me, to see if he could still command me as he had when I turned on the radio and turned off Vivienne. But I said only, “Sleep well and call if you need me.”

  I fumed all the way to the car. It’s as if he knows how it hurts my heart, all of it, and he just keeps pounding away at an old wound. He knows I haven’t celebrated mass in years, and now he thinks he’s killed my relationship again and so mass should return. How paranoid can I be? Of course he doesn’t think that. The poor man is just asking for healing.

  I drove to my father’s house and used the key I kept on my key chain for emergencies. It was a brick colonial two-story with each room clearly defined. Dining took place only in the dining room, people were entertained in the parlor, and breakfast was served in the breakfast nook. No wonder my mother had always loved her family farmhouse with its ramshackle rooms.

  I retrieved all the requested items as quickly as possible from his house, which was disturbingly immaculate—military tidy with a housekeeper to boot. It didn’t feel like anyone lived there. I looked around and for a moment tried to remember what it had looked like when I was little and my mother was alive. All I could see through the haze of time were lace doilies and cookie dough on the counter. And I could hear the radio playing the Andrews Sisters and my beautiful mother singing like an angel when just the two of us were together, and shutting down, silent and guarded, when his critical eye fell on us.

  I could almost see her soft, fair face lit by the golden sunlight coming through the kitchen window, and a tear trickled down my cheek.

  She must not have been very happy, I thought for perhaps the first time in my life. I’d never stopped to let the image of her overtake my activities. Never stopped to ask what her life was like. All I remembered were fragments of suppression and fear and duty and tradition. And then she was gone.

  I shook my head to loosen the grip those thoughts had on my brain, closed the door, and locked it behind me—locking away all those memories that I could do nothing about now. Like dust trapped in a corner of the closet no one can reach, better to leave it than move all the luggage.

  I stashed my father’s items in the backseat of my car for a later delivery and drove straight to school to pick up my mail and check my phone messages and prepare for the next day’s lecture. The mere act of striding across campus among the familiar buildings brought me comfort,
and I breathed in and felt better. Sally, my effervescent student, spotted me and fell briefly in stride with me.

  “I’m Sally Jackson from your Sexuality and the Church class.”

  “I know who you are, Sally.”

  “How’s your dad? Father O’Shane put him on the campus prayer list.”

  “He’s doing better, thank you.”

  “I was in your class when Roger Thurgood asked you if that’s what dykes thought. Remember that?”

  “How could I forget,” I said flatly, and kept walking.

  “I didn’t like the way he talked to you. And I, uh…just wanted you to know that I really think you’re…cool,” she said quickly, and peeled off to her next class before I zeroed in too closely on her reddening cheeks.

  “Thank you, Sally,” I said to her departing back and climbed the short stack of steps up to the McGuire Building and headed to my office. I unlocked the door and cracked the blinds open so I could see the courtyard, then scooped up the mail. A letter from the chancellor’s office was on top, which I opened immediately. It seemed the e-mail of my termination had been inadvertently sent because of a clerical error.

  Hightower was apologetic and wanted me to know that no decision had been made either for or against my tenure with the school, but I would be notified in due time. And now I too have a job based on serving in silence.

  I glanced up to see Dennis standing in the archway. “How you doing?” he asked wearily.

  “I think I’m better off than you. What’s up?”

  “They got him…Hightower.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He got drunk and told someone he thought he could trust and it’s all out. The board stepped in and removed him an hour ago, rather than letting him retire gracefully at the end of the year.”

  I tried to think of something profound to say but couldn’t. Cultural mores were what each country was built on. There might be a planet where a man could drive around wearing women’s underwear and it was fine, even expected and revered, but it wasn’t this planet.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, seeing how hard Dennis was taking it.

  “It’s just another nail in our collective coffin. It will hit the papers, ruin him further, and drag down seminaries and religion and God.”

  “Religion demands a perfection mankind can never live up to.

  Like a beach ball held too long under water, our humanness pops up in astounding ways.”

  “Your dad going to be okay?” He seemed to think there was nothing more to be said about Hightower’s fate.

  “I think so.”

  “Did you get together with Vivienne Wilde?”

  “That’s over.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “You’re talking to her? She won’t talk to me but she talks to you? Are you friends?”

  “I’m a priest. People talk to priests.”

  “I’m a priest.”

  “No, you’re a beach ball.” He grinned at me and chuckled as I wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at him, hitting him in the chest as he tried to duck.

  “What did she say?” I pressed him.

  “She spoke to me in confidence.”

  “Dennis.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Forget it. I don’t care anyway.” I went back to the papers on my desk.

  “Ignoring her won’t make the feelings go away.”

  “When I think of her, I can’t think of anything else, and I must think of other things or I will simply go mad.”

  In the serious tone he used when giving priestly advice, Dennis said, “You’re at Frost’s fork in the road in the yellow wood. The roads diverge…and you can’t take them both.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I ripped open a letter as I walked across campus Wednesday morning. It was another thank-you and update from Angela about baby Maria Estrella and how well she was doing. Written in Angela’s careful cursive style, the last two sentences said, Rev. Westbrooke, I have prayed God to do something very special for you since you did something special for me and my baby. Not that God would listen to me above you, but then I did not think you would ask for yourself. I smiled at the simplicity of the thought and tucked the card away.

  I climbed into the front seat of the car, and Ketch hopped in beside me. I’d bathed him last Saturday, and even though it was only midweek he was starting to emit that doggie smell.

  “Let’s get ourselves a really good cup of coffee and maybe a donut before class, whataya say?” Ketch licked his lips, no doubt already envisioning sugary bread bites coming his way.

  We headed down a side street near the campus and past the shops bustling with a pre-lunch crowd. Suddenly Ketch began to whine. I ignored him, but the whining grew louder.

  “I thought I saw you go before we got in the car. There’s no place around here.” I slowed to look for a tree. He barked twice. “Okay, okay.

  Hold it. I’ll park.” I whipped into an open space and he was over the top of the car and out of it before I could shout his name. I hurried after him and suddenly there she was, her golden hair with the orange glow blowing in the wind and Ketch with his paws up on her accepting a large hug. She looked over the top of his big furry body and made eye contact with me and my heart stopped.

  Thank God my dog is smarter than I am. He’d spotted her at Cavendar’s, the little deli near campus, the place we’d agreed to meet and then never had.

  Ketch licked her face and she pulled back and laughed.

  “How have you been?” I asked.

  “Busy. How’s your dad?”

  “Okay. I’m completely unable to focus on anything because all I can think about is you. Viv, I have to see you.”

  “Here I am.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I want you to take your clothes off,” I said flatly, and grinned at her, reminding her of her first contact with me. “We’re two consenting adults, right?” She actually blushed and ducked her head, suppressing a chuckle. I moved closer to her. “I want to make love to you. And in my current state I would do it right here on the sidewalk.”

  “That sounds very interesting, Reverend. But when the lovemaking is over there’s still your punitive church, God, and genetic father to contend with, and I’m not—”

  “Wrong. I’ve put that aside. You are all I—”

  “In a moment of lust. But later, we would both live with all those ghosts—holy and otherwise.”

  “What can I possibly do to convince you I’ve changed, or am willing to change, or in the process of changing?” I spun on one heel and did a complete 360 like an angsting teenager.

  “That’s a good question. I don’t know,” she said softly. “I guess it’s a matter of trust. I don’t trust that you can change at this point.”

  “Implying I’m an old dog? What can I do? Name it.”

  “I don’t know,” she repeated, and seemed to really be thinking about that idea, and I noticed the fellow wiping down the bar area watching us with a smirk.

  “While you’re thinking, could Ketch and I have coffee with you?”She paused and I held my breath. “Okay, sure. Coffee would be fine.”

  I leapt ahead of her like some knight in shining armor and personally placed her order with the bartender, who gave me a wink, and I realized he was gay.

  We sat down on the patio and her hand trailed across Ketch’s fur and he fell at her feet. Her eyes trailed across my soul in the same way and I too fell. “You want me, I can see it,” I breathed.

  The silence was filled with traffic sounds and the buzz of conversations around us and several pigeons fluttering past, their wings whipping the air.

  “Yes, I do want you in a very primal way. But you’re dangerous. I realized that night with your father that you have the power to hurt me, which shows I care too much about you. I would have to want you in my soul, not just in my bed. And I guard my soul.”

  “Ironic that I, a
woman in the business of saving souls, have found someone who guards hers from me.”

  My remarks seemed to make her more withdrawn and shy. “It would take some time for me to trust you.”

  “Come back to my farm with me. Take all the time you need.”

  “I just told you—”

  “For dinner, that’s all. I give you my word I won’t touch you. If you want something more from me, you’ll have to let me know. We’ll start over. If anyone pulls up in the driveway while you’re there, I’ll simply kill them.”

  “Maybe—”

  “Tomorrow night. Please.” I gave her a teenage grin. “My place, six p.m.…or earlier.”

  “And what do I bring?”

  “You. Just you.” I sighed.

  She didn’t answer but downed the last of her coffee and patted Ketch before giving me a long, hard look, no doubt assessing me for signs of change, then walked off. I watched her until she drove away.

  * * *

  I headed back to campus ebullient and praising my tracker dog, Ketch. “I owe you everything. You found her. I got to talk to her because of you. Good job, great job.” Ketch didn’t respond to my pats and hugs and thank yous, seemingly bored with my personal love life.

  The day had never seemed so bright, so happy, so full of possibilities. I parked and leapt over the car door, along with Ketch, not even bothering to open it as Robbie, the Unitarian kid, walked by.

  “Little spring in your step there, Rev, you must be high on life.

  Love will do that to you,” he said knowingly.

  “And I assume you’re cognizant of that because you have a lady in your life?”

  “I’m trying to, but she won’t go out with me.”

  I was feeling happy enough that I was willing to take five minutes with a teenage boy and hear his woes.

  “Why not? You’re smart and handsome and personable.”

  “Thanks, but she ignores me.” As we walked together across campus he poured out his heart—telling me how beautiful she was, how he got paralyzed and tongue-tied whenever he saw her—and I could definitely relate. “Got any suggestions on how to approach her?”