“I’ve got people scheduled to pose for the next day or two. How about if we leave it loose. I’ll give you a call when I can take a day.”
Filled with the promise of that day, I lingered on the phone for no more than five more minutes and then hung up before the miracle of the call disintegrated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
For the next five days, I woke with an unfamiliar feeling I could not identify that lingered on into the day.
As I walked across town to the studio, I thought about it. The emotion was not hope or anything even close to approaching happiness. Certainly not that. It was more an absence, a lack of something that had been part of me for months, more neutral. An unfeeling of a sort, though not unpleasant. I recalled my last conversation with Sophie. You sound different, she’d said. Lighter.
The sky had been steadily darkening all morning, and I heard the rumble of thunder in the near distance. I quickened my steps and reached the studio minutes before the rain started, hard, pelting drops that struck the pavement and the drought-hardened earth like shrapnel, causing steam to curl up from the sidewalk. I was grateful for the rain, as we needed it. Lawns were turning brown and brittle; gardens were parched. Inside, I flicked on the lights against the encroaching darkness. Overhead, the rain pinged against the skylights with such force it could be mistaken for hail. There were no models scheduled for the day, and my plan was to finalize the scheme for the three panels for the south wall. After Lucy died, work had been no more than an escape from a life grown bleak and intolerable, but in the past weeks, it had become something more. I welcomed the discipline, one that seemed to flow into other aspects of my life. My desire for drink had waned. I ate simply. Days were spent either in research or working on the panels. At night I slept deeply, the hours disturbed not by visions of violence but by dreams peopled with saints. Later, I would come to think of these brief weeks as a kind of walking dream, an escape from reality, although reality would return soon enough. But for that time I found that life, so austere and monk-like, oddly satisfying and wondered if this paring down, this simplification, was what Sophie was finding so appealing about the Maine farmhouse, why she had sounded so content when we had talked. Nearly a week had passed since that conversation. Initially I’d planned on driving up the following Saturday for the lunch she had suggested, but the weekend came and went and I remained in Port Fortune. I told myself I needed to work, but I knew it was actually fear that kept me from driving north. Sophie hadn’t phoned again, and I had resisted calling her, reluctant to test the reconnection we seemed to have arrived at during our last call, the fragile promise of beginning anew. Next week, I told myself. I’ll drive up next week, but I still held back, afraid to test the hope that Sophie and I would somehow make our way back to each other. I couldn’t believe that no matter how badly we had been devastated and pulled apart by our separate ships of grief and, as trite as it may sound, that love would find a way. I hoped my drawings of the saints might be part of forging that path.
I settled in at the worktable, pulled a sketch pad from the pile, and again contemplated the architecture of the first grouping. Brendan, the thick-bearded Irish abbot, face shadowed by the hood of his robe; Rose of Lima, the young and slender virgin, eyes lifted to the heavens; Peter, the bearded, old fisherman; Paul, the thin and fiery-eyed Jew; Maurice, the black-skinned soldier; Ambrose, the wise bishop of Milan, his face clean shaven beneath the miter. And lastly, the curly-coifed Crispin. The group was diverse, and their robes, appropriate to the era and geography of the individual saints, added to the distinction. Overhead, the lights flickered, and I swore softly at the threat of a power loss. A sound at the door drew my attention. A figure stood there in the shadow.
“Mr. Light?”
“Yes.”
The voice seemed uncertain. Young.
I remained at the bench. “Can I help you?”
Again the lights flickered. The figure froze at the door, and then a second figure appeared. I could make out the form—a woman—could see the umbrella she stood beneath but little else in the shadow. The woman lowered the umbrella and shook rain from the fabric, spattering the floorboards, then snapped it shut.
“Hello,” she said. “It’s Beth. Beth LaBrea.”
Beth LaBrea. In spite of the fact that our daughters had been best friends, that friendship had never expanded to involve our families. I could only recall a couple of times over the years that we had spoken, mostly on the phone to check on some plan the girls had cooked up. Permission for one to stay for dinner or overnight. That kind of thing. We never socialized, but as I have said, I’d never encouraged a social life, had, in fact, discouraged it. I had been completely satisfied with a life comprised of my family and my work. I dimly remembered a time just before Lucy and Rain were to start high school when Sophie had arranged a mother-daughter dinner out for the four of them, but if she had said anything about it after, I hadn’t paid enough attention to recall it now. “Hello.”
“You know my son, Duane.” She pushed the boy forward.
I nodded.
She barreled on. “Your wife got in touch with us several days ago. She said you wanted to talk to Duane about posing as a saint for the mural. Of course we are absolutely thrilled with the idea.” The boy stared at the floor, refusing to meet my eyes. The last thing Duane looked was thrilled.
“Is this something that might interest you, Duane?” I asked.
“Of course it would,” his mother said and pushed the boy a few more steps forward.
Duane shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at the floor.
“Duane,” she said, her voice sharper. “Mr. Light has asked you a question.”
“I guess. I mean, I’m not sure.”
Thunder rolled, closer now, and again the lights flickered off, leaving the building dark for a moment before switching on again.
“Duane—” the mother began.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “I mean, I have to go to work.”
“You could come after work,” his mother said. She turned to me. “Will you still be here later today?” she asked. “At four? He gets off work at four.”
I studied the boy, could see some of the mother in his features. The heart-shaped face tapering to the chin, the narrow shoulders. “I expect to be here. Unless we lose power.”
“Oh, the storm is just passing through,” she declared with certainty, as if she were personally charged with controlling the weather. “This will all clear up by noon.”
I found myself disliking her. The boy looked miserable, and as much as I would have liked him to pose I wanted to let him off the hook. “You don’t have to decide now,” I said. “If you want to take a few days to think it over, you can let me know.”
“Oh, no need for that,” Beth LaBrea declared. “It’s settled then.” Duane remained silent, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
I was puzzled by my reaction to the woman, my aversion. Even her bullying of her son didn’t explain it. I remembered that it had been Beth LaBrea who had initiated the idea of tying the green ribbons on tree trunks and utility poles, green being the color of hope, she had told Sophie. It had also been Beth who had taken up a collection for us, as if money could possibly compensate for the loss of a daughter. I had been furious when she had appeared at our door with an envelope thick with cash. “She means well,” Sophie had said. That night I’d tossed the envelope on our barbeque grill, soaked it with liquid fire starter, and set it aflame. I’d been aware of Sophie watching from the kitchen window, but when I went back inside she hadn’t said a word.
“You can expect him at four,” Beth said, and then they were gone as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only a puddle on the floor where they had stood as proof they had ever been there.
For the remainder of the morning, I occupied myself by sketching variations of the panel until I arrived at a scheme that satisfied. At noon, I locked up and, as had become my habit, walked over to the deli on Prospect for a quick lunch. As B
eth LaBrea had forecast, the rain had ceased, and I found myself childishly pissed that she had been correct. Inside the deli, there was a long line at the counter, and I was resigning myself to a lengthy wait when the counter girl called my name.
“You here to pick up your order?” she asked with a wink.
I had no idea what “my order” was but recognized the gambit as her way of serving a resident before attending to the tourists on line, an acting out of the confliction many tradespeople felt at the influx of tourists each summer. On one hand they were grateful for the business. On the other, they resented the disruption in daily lives, the traffic jams and long waits at every restaurant in town, the squeal of air brakes on the tour buses that crowded the streets. The girl disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a brown bag. “Here ya go,” she said as she handed me the bag, then gave me change for my twenty, which I dropped in the tip jar.
“Hope you enjoy,” she sang out as I left.
“I’m sure I will,” I said, even as I wondered what she had given me.
The morning’s rain had soaked everything, covering benches and puddling walks, and although I often spent my lunch break at the park or by the beach, that day I headed back to the studio. I chuckled when I opened the bag. The clerk had been paying attention to my choices over the past weeks. A veggie wrap with ginger dressing.
At three, although it would be another hour before Duane was due, I pulled out the first book of saints Father Gervase had left for me and flipped through it until I found the portrait of Sebastian. I checked the index of another book. I located the page for the saint and compared it to the first. In each of the paintings, the boy was clad in a loincloth-like garment. I wondered if it would skew the composition if only one saint in the panels was not garbed in a robe.
At four, I put the books aside, oddly antsy. Four fifteen came and passed. And then four thirty. By five, I resigned myself that Duane was not coming and was disappointed beyond what I might have expected. I carefully stored my work in the folders and placed them on the worktable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The last of the women had left the church following the four o’clock Mass, and Father Gervase carefully slid his surplice on a hanger and placed it in the alcove closet.
He was fairly certain that the remainder of the day was free of obligations, but recently his memory was proving unreliable, and so he returned to the rectory office to check his schedule. He was relieved to find that it was indeed open. For the past several days, he had stayed inside, sheltered from the intense heat that had blanketed the town, heat that bothered him in a way it never had before (as a child he’d delighted in the warmest of summer days), but the thunderstorm had brought with it at least a temporary relief from soaring temperatures. Eager for some mild exercise after the spell of inactivity, he set out, skirting groups of boisterous tourists as he made his way down to the center of the town, relieved to find his hip was giving him a little less trouble today. There was a sense of celebration in the air, as if the rain had awakened and revived not only plants but people. Impulsively, and thinking of the prospect of Mrs. Jessup’s canned-tuna-and-macaroni salad that sat on the first shelf of the rectory refrigerator marinating in a pool of mayonnaise, he decided to treat himself to an early dinner out. But first he detoured by Will Light’s studio to see how the project was progressing. He enjoyed seeing the townspeople come to life under the power of the artist’s hand and reflected on how Will had captured Tracy Ramos, the teenage girl who worked part-time at the coffee shop and an unwed mother with bold eyes, black-dyed hair, and a chippy attitude that hadn’t been diminished in the least by the shame of her circumstances. In truth, Father Gervase had always found the girl a bit daunting. Yet caught by Will’s camera and, later, by his initial sketches, Tracy had metamorphosed into a demure and innocent Rose of Lima. Now, whenever he walked by the coffee shop, he slowed his step to peer inside to catch a glimpse of her and could see her as Will saw her. Transfigured. And then there was Leon Newell. Aged beyond his years by drink, hard living, and harder work, the fisherman too had been transformed through Will’s vision so that the lines in his face spoke more of sorrow than whiskey and windburn, and those rheumy, yellowed eyes held an unexpected wisdom.
Through his choices, Will was testing assumptions, encouraging others to see ordinary people anew. And yet there remained in each of his renderings a hint of shadow, of another past. How would the world change, Father Gervase wondered, if one could look for and see goodness, whatever human guise it was cloaked in, if one could see that potential in everyone and acknowledge not only the piousness of the saints but the complications of their past, the potential in sinners before they became saints. He thought of the gossips and warmongers, the venal and cranky, the gamblers and con men who stood among the ranks of the canonized. An idea occurred to him for a homily, but before he could reflect further, he arrived at Will’s studio. The barn doors were open, but he stopped at the threshold as he always did before entering the studio and prayed for guidance. Will seemed steadier, less angry, these days, but still Father Gervase was concerned. He knew anger such as Will’s did not magically evaporate, and one’s need for vengeance could turn to violence, a violence that only begat more violence. Although he had not shared this with anyone, in fact had struggled with the call and tried to deny responsibility, he’d come to believe he was being asked to stand by Will as he walked the ground of grief until the artist was out of danger.
“Might as well come in, Father.” Will’s voice reached him from the far end of the studio.
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“What’s up? Am I to receive another directive from His Grace?”
Father Gervase smiled at the edge of mockery. “No. No message. I just was taking a walk and thought I’d stop by. I don’t want to disturb you if you’re working.”
“No problem. In fact, I’m done for the day. My last model didn’t show up, and I’m about to head home.”
“Oh. Yes. I see. Well, I won’t be keeping you then.” He lingered at the door.
“Is there anything else, Father?”
“No. That is unless—”
Will waited.
“Well, I was on my way to High Tide Café and—” He paused, suddenly awkward. “I know it’s a bit early and all, but I wondered if perhaps you’d like to join me for dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Unless you’ve already made plans.”
“No,” Will said. “No plans.”
“I know it’s early,” Father Gervase repeated.
“No. Not at all. Just give me a minute to lock up.”
While Will closed the doors and secured the lock, it occurred to Father Gervase that implicit in the invitation to join him for dinner was the understanding that he would treat, and he hoped he had enough cash with him to cover the bill. Well, now there was no way he could check, and he hoped he would be spared the embarrassment of having to ask Will to pay for his own meal.
Other than one older couple at a table in the rear and a father with his young son who perched on stools at the counter, they had the café to themselves. The waitress led them to a four-top by the front window. “Specials are on the board,” she said.
Father Gervase would have preferred a table less visible to those passing by on the street but was reluctant to make a fuss by requesting another. He stared up at the board. Cod Reuben Sandwich. Fish Stew. Lobster Roll. Clam Chowder. Seared Tuna on a Bed of Greens. Except for the occasional Sunday evening with Father Burns, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a meal out with anyone. When he’d first arrived in Port Fortune he’d received a number of invitations from the parishioners, but uncomfortable in their homes, he had begged off, offering various excuses, and gradually the requests had stopped. In truth, he was most at ease in the rectory, reading or writing or working in the garden.
Once, sitting on the garden bench, he had overheard three women discussing him.
“It�
��s like pulling teeth to have a conversation with Father Gervase,” one had said.
A second had offered a defense for him. “Oh, I think he’s just shy. And a little forgetful. It’s kind of sweet.”
“Sweet?” said the third. “Try socially awkward. He’s either tongue-tied or rambling on and on about something.”
He’d been mortified at their assessment. Was that how people saw him? He hadn’t recognized the voices and remained grateful for that. He hoped they were not regular members of the congregation and comforted himself by thinking they were summer residents. Still, he found himself replaying the conversation. Rambles on and on. Socially awkward. Such a cold indictment. Had people always seen him that way? During high school and his first years at university he had dated, and his memories of those distant times were pleasant. One girl in particular came to mind. Cynthia Gibbons. A brunette with a frank and open face who played oboe in the high school orchestra. He remembered a kiss they had shared in the small room off the auditorium where the instruments were stored. That summer she had moved away. He couldn’t remember if they had exchanged letters.
The truth was, he didn’t mind being alone, preferred it actually, though he might have enjoyed having an animal. A small dog or cat. Even a bird. Oddly, the one person he had felt drawn to, the one person who didn’t want something from him or seek his company because he was a priest and might bring a person one step closer to their Savior was Will Light. Again he worried about the bill.
“What can I get you to drink?” the waitress asked, pencil posed over pad.
“Do you have iced coffee?” Will asked.
“We have iced coffee and iced tea. The tea comes sweetened and unsweetened.”
“I’ll have the coffee. No cream.”
She turned to Father Gervase. “And what can I get for you, Father?”
Coffee would keep him up all night. How did one drink coffee this late in the day and still manage to sleep? He really would have liked a glass of wine, but since Will hadn’t ordered one, he refrained. “Just water, thank you,” he said.
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