by Ann Bauer
“I suppose you’re right.” I leaned back and summoned the courage to meet her eyes. “What brings you to me today, Ms. Wright?”
“I’m dying.” She laughed, a rumbling croak. “I mean, not specifically, but I’m eighty-six. So I figure it’s time to sort through all the evil, the mistakes.”
“All right.” I was uncertain what to ask.
“My first husband, he was a drinker,” she said. “He said it was the war that did it to him, but I always doubted that.” She checked my face. “World War II.”
“I assumed.”
“He was ten years older than me and quite good looking. But by the time our second was born, I already hated him.” She sighed. “Him, our house, our marriage. But not those babies. So I moved out, and I took them.”
“That sounds wise.”
“You think so? Because I don’t. Especially not back then. I did what I wanted, but it was terrible for my kids. Better I should’ve stayed and been unhappy for a while. Let them grow up with their dad. He wasn’t a mean drunk, just a stupid one.” Georgia Wright rolled her eyes on the word “stupid.” “It was mostly my pride, you know. I couldn’t stand to be associated with a man like that.”
“Many of us make bad choices in young adulthood,” I said, then repeated the phrase to myself. It sounded stilted and weird.
“Uh-huh. Only my bad choices didn’t just affect me. I had a son, a daughter.”
“And what happened to them?”
“My daughter is fine. She lives in California. She’s an accountant.” Georgia Wright looked at me a little bug-eyed. “And a grandmother, would you believe?”
“And your son?”
“He died almost forty years ago. Drowned. He was twenty-four.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
She waved a large hand. “By that time, I had a whole new family, with my second husband. Three more girls. He went wild, that boy. And he got lost. I let him get lost. Biggest regret of my life.”
We were quiet for a moment. “There were women, you know.”
I looked up, puzzled.
“Between my husbands, I was with some women.” She sat very still, watching me. This was the first confession that seemed to discomfit Georgia Wright.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said.
She shifted in her chair. “Maybe.” There was a long pause.
“Ms. Wright?”
“Yes?”
“What can I do for you? I’m hearing you talk about things you didn’t cause, or that didn’t matter—at least not where God and your conscience are concerned. My job is to forgive people their sins but I need something … I’ve got nothing to absolve here. It seems like you’ve just lived life the best way you could.”
I saw those gold teeth flash. Then Georgia Wright leaned forward and gathered my hands in both of hers. “Isn’t that what all people do?” she asked. “We just knock around in this world, one careless thing to another? And we never know until later how it’s all going to come out. Well, I’m here to tell you: I’m an old lady. And nothing happens the way you plan. I wake up now and think: This? This is what I’ve done? Phptt.” Again she showed me the clamped, disapproving lips.
“It is nothing,” she whispered. “And it’s over.”
I sat with her hands grasping mine, and you might think this was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t in the least. “Georgia Wright?” I asked, using her full name because that’s how I’d been thinking of her all along.
“Yes?” she said for a second time.
“You are forgiven for all errors and sins and hidden faults. Your life is lifted by the sanctity of God and of our savior Jesus Christ.” I stopped, confused. I had not uttered that name in two years.
“Thank you,” she said, starting to draw her large hands away from mine.
I caught them, reversing the grip so I now held her. “You are loved,” I said.
I don’t know what I expected: solemnity, or perhaps tears. But instead Georgia Wright winked at me broadly, her face breaking out in a crocodile grin.
“You too, Father,” she said, swaying our joined hands and rocking a little. “I think you may be a righteous man after all.”
“Some days,” I said, then repeated it to myself silently. Some days, I am.
URGENT MEMO
Subject: All-staff meeting of the Forgiveness team
Time: 6 p.m. CST—dinner will be provided
Location: Executive conference room
Required: M. Madeline Murray, CEO
Isaac Beckwith, PR consultant
Ted Romans, Interactive Media Specialist
Scott Hicks, Art Director
Abel Dodd, copywriter
Rabbi Nathan Kahn, spiritual forgiveness counselor (Jewish)
Yoshii Adrami, spiritual forgiveness counselor (Buddhist-Hindu)
Roberta Fox, lay forgiveness counselor (atheist, non-religious)
Father Gabriel McKenna, Forgiveness founder
Jim Lynch, founder of Red Oak Private Equity (ROPE)
Bob Green, VP and equity partner at ROPE
Amy See, business analyst for ROPE
Rick Seaton, equity partner at ROPE
Due to this morning’s newspaper story about Forgiveness4You and Father Gabe McKenna, we’re convening a special session of the entire Forgiveness team to discuss issues of timing, staffing, and process going forward. THIS IS A MANDATORY MEETING!!! We expect your utmost confidentiality and look forward to seeing you there.
XV
SAYING GOODBYE TO GEORGIA WRIGHT WAS HARD. BUT THE THIRD time Ted knocked on the door she winked and said, “I think they’re beginning to suspect us of something.” Then before I could stop her she called, “Come in!”
That’s how he found us hunched together, my hands clasped in hers. “It’s, uh, 12:15,” he said, averting his eyes as if we were also naked. “I’m supposed to take you downstairs.”
“All right,” she told him, all the while looking at me. “I’ll be needing a taxi.”
“Yes, I called a cab. He’s waiting.”
“Well then …” she stood regally, dragging me up with her. “I’d better be going.”
“God goes with you,” I said.
“And with you, Father.” Her golden eyes narrowed, and I had one more image of Georgia Wright prowling on large leopard paws. “He walks alongside you, too, Father. Remember that.”
After she left, I felt motherless. I had not told Georgia Wright about Aidan, though the impulse had been great to lay my head on her hands and confess everything. It wouldn’t have been professional, but I’m not confident that’s what stopped me. She was a woman who had lost a child. Aidan’s mother and Laura Larimar’s, Georgia Wright and the Blessed Virgin. They made up a vast sorority of women that cowed me with their suffering. Nothing could compare. I had no right to complain.
It was 12:30 by the time I could locate Isaac to tell him I was due at work in half an hour.
“But you’re at work,” he said, craning up from the table where he’d been going over layouts with Scott.
“No, the bookstore. My shift starts at one. Every Thursday, one to close.”
Isaac blinked repeatedly, as if he were trying to swallow this information with his eyes.
“Dude, you’re still working there?” Scott asked. Dude. Getting high with him had been a grave mistake in so many ways.
“Isaac thought it would be a good idea,” I said stiffly. “Wholesome, I believe he said.”
“Christ, I did, didn’t I?” Isaac rubbed one hand over his forehead. “Okay, fine. But we’re supposed to have a meeting at six. Can you maybe get off a little early?”
“I close the shop. Alone.” There was a clock on the wall, and I glanced up. Twenty-five minutes to one, and there was no way I could make it to Brooks by bus. “I hate to ask, Isaac. But could I use your car?”
“Aw, Father, please don’t ask me that. According to the rental contract I’m the only one who can drive it. I know, I sho
uldn’t have asked you to this morning. But, Christ, you ground the shit out of those gears.”
“Here.” Scott rummaged in the pocket of his baggy cargo pants and pulled out a set of keys that he pushed into my hand. “Truck’s downstairs, Level B. I’m gonna be here all night so you may as well take it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Scott shrugged. “It’s an automatic. Gas tank is full. Go for it.”
Finding Scott’s SUV wasn’t difficult. It dwarfed every other vehicle on Level B. I swung up into the driver’s seat and inserted the key, then spent five precious minutes moving the seat, steering wheel and mirrors so I could see over the car’s ludicrous hood. I’ll admit, I prayed out loud as I started it and the radio blared on. “God, please watch over me,” I said under the heart-thumping bass. “Don’t let me kill anyone with this beast of a car.”
I inched it backward, one foot on the accelerator the other on the brake. There was so much power in this engine, I was terrified of pressing down too hard and plowing backward into another car—or worse, through the garage wall. When I reached the gate, it seemed impossible that I should be able to drive this enormous thing—far larger than my little church van—through the opening. Sweating, barely breathing, I eased my way between two metal posts and out onto the milling street.
There were people walking across the intersection a hundred feet in front of me. This made me nervous. I stayed back, watching. When the light turned green, I hesitated long enough that drivers started honking. I cruised through on yellow, leaving the others stranded. In my mind, I reversed the route Isaac and I had taken that morning. At the next light I checked the digital clock on Scott’s dashboard; it said 3:42 a.m. That was no help.
The crowds thinned as I reached the edge of the city, and once I crossed 35th, it was like I’d entered a different world—broken-down and unpopulated. But ten blocks farther south, there were people congregating—not the people one usually saw in this area but men in suits and women dressed like librarians. There were maybe thirty of them, and they were all walking in the direction I was driving, which made me nervous, because every once in a while someone would step off the curb into the street. I slowed nearly to their pace, and we proceeded like a parade to the front door of Brooks Books.
It had never occurred to me that I’d have to worry about where to park Scott’s truck. Oren had a small parking lot that I’d never used, which typically had fewer than six cars in its ten spots. Today, however, there were cars and minivans and motorcycles parked randomly—at least thirty packed into the tiny space. The street was lined with cars, as well. And in front of the bookstore, there was a table set up with two people sitting behind it, handing out coffee and flyers. Protesters, many with children, stood in front of the shop holding signs on sticks. As I passed, I read the banner that hung above them all: CATHOLICS UNITED TO PRESERVE THE CHURCH.
This explained all the people walking. They’d parked a half-mile back in a neighborhood most of them had probably never seen before. I kept driving seven blocks until I found a spot large enough for the SUV. I ran back toward the bookstore, slowing as I approached the crowd. Chances were good one of my former parishioners was there and would recognize me. I made a sharp left and headed to the back entrance, jumping onto the loading platform where the UPS man dropped cases of books. But when I tried the door, it was locked.
I removed my confusing phone from my pocket and, after a few failed attempts, managed to dial the bookstore number. It took nine rings for Oren to answer. “I’m in back,” I said. “Can you let me in?”
“Sure thing,” Oren said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable request. “I’ll be right there.”
Inside, the shop was eerily quiet, despite all the activity out front. “Hello,” I said, shaking Oren’s hand. Something about this occasion felt formal to me. “I assume all this is my fault?”
“Seems to be,” Oren said cheerfully. We walked toward the chairs where Madeline and I had once sat. There was a new display on a table next to them: Maritime Literature with Moby-Dick—Oren’s all-time favorite—in the center. Around the Melville, Oren had arranged Treasure Island, The Old Man and the Sea, and Heart of Darkness. I’d worked at Brooks long enough to know this table would never be touched by a customer.
“They started off in front of that advertising company of yours, that’s what one of them told me,” Oren said as we sat. “But security chased them off. So I guess they thought they’d come here instead. Started showing up about ten.”
“I’m really sorry, Oren. I was hoping the publicity would be good for business.”
“Well, you never know.” Oren leaned back and tented his hands. “Things change. Could be tomorrow all the people who want forgiving will come in and buy books.”
We sat for a few moments listening to the buzz and clamor of the people outside. Someone named Barbara had arrived, to the delight of the assembled crowd. Calls of “Barb!” echoed in a chain.
“So it’s an odd thing you’re doing, Gabe,” said Oren. “Forgiving people for money. How does that work?”
“I’m not sure it does,” I said. “So far, all it’s yielded is …” I pointed toward the front window where we could see a bald man shaking someone’s hand. “This.”
“People don’t really buy books anymore,” Oren went on. “But they’ll pay for someone to take away their guilt?”
“Yes, that pretty much sums it up.” I thought for a minute. “Read anything good lately?” I asked.
“Ah, just you wait!” Oren’s old, hooded eyes glittered for a second. “It comes out in summer. I just finished the galley, and I’d give it to you, but Ruby is reading it right now. Story about a young widow who time travels back and meets the people who caused her husband’s death. But better than that sounds.”
“Does Ruby like it?” Ruby Brooks—Oren’s wife—could identify a great story within twenty-five pages. For the year of my employment I’d been reading directly behind her.
“Ruby loves it. You will, too. Tell you what. I’ll send you a copy when it comes out.”
I shifted in my chair. “That sounds like a message, Oren.”
“You don’t need this job anymore, Gabe. Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
While Oren got up and ambled into the back room with his cup, I looked outside. The people in front were five or six thick. They were socializing, mostly. Two women had set up lawn chairs on the sidewalk. At one point, they tried to flag down a teenager who was walking past, but he just crossed to the other side of the street.
“They’re waiting for the news guys,” Oren said from behind me. “One of ’em told me earlier. As soon as they get some coverage they’ll go home.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to happen,” I said. “I don’t think I’m very big news.”
“Oh, they’ll make sure it does.” Oren seated himself carefully, holding the cup out from his large body. “If this goes on another hour or two, they’ll pull out something more dramatic. Set up a confessional out front or release fifty doves or something.” He winked at me. “I might have even recommended it myself.”
“You’re coaching your own protesters?” I laughed.
“Well, if a thing’s going to be done, you know. May as well be done right.”
“So are you firing me, Oren?”
This was the first time he’d looked uncomfortable all morning, his broad brown face wrinkled up with concern. “No, no, Gabe. If you insist on staying, I’ll make a place for you. I always have.”
“Is that what it’s been?” I asked. “You making a place?”
“It’s the reality of running a bookstore these days. You’re not doing it because it’s good business. You’re doing it because you want to. And if you hire someone, well …” Oren shrugged. “That’s really more of the same. It doesn’t take many people to sell books no one’s buying.”
“So why did you hire me?”
“I like you, Gabe. You’r
e interesting; I appreciate your opinions. When you came in to apply, Ruby and I hadn’t been on a vacation in three years. So I thought, ‘Here’s a sign.’”
“From God?”
Oren looked at me over his cup, eyes lit from deep inside. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
“But you really don’t need me?”
“I think,” he said slowly, “it’s also that you really don’t need me anymore. You don’t need this. You have plenty to keep you busy.”
“That’s true.” I sat for a minute then got up and poured a cup of the Folger’s that Oren had made, half-decaf and extra-weak. “Mind if I sit for a while before I leave?” I asked when I came back.
Oren looked up and nodded. “It would be my privilege, Father,” he said, though he had only ever called me Gabe.
• • •
It was midafternoon when I left the bookstore through the back door. I walked around the building to peek out front and grew more brazen when a white-haired woman waved me over. “Are you here to join us?” she asked.
“I’m just … here to see. I’m Catholic. Or, I used to be.”
“Plenty of people leave the church for a while,” she said taking my arm. Hers was plump and powdery. It was the year’s first spring-like day, and she and a couple other people had shed their coats, even though the temperature was a brisk fifty degrees. “But if you were baptized, you’re always a Catholic. It’s like a tattoo. You can cover it up or have one of those surgeries to erase it, but it’s always going to be there. Under your skin.”
Instinctively, the fingers of my right hand—the one that wasn’t clamped under her elbow—went to my chest. She smiled and tightened her grip further. It was like she knew.
“People,” she announced in a loud voice as we approached the group, “this is …?” She turned to me with a questioning look.