“I was supposed to be watching her. I didn’t. She died.”
“People die. People also go on.”
It was then that the irony suddenly struck me. I was just like Marbury. Our lives, without us even knowing it, had intersected. But not at this moment. Not even twenty years ago in seminary. They had intersected way before that, when we both were pulled into a place where we didn’t expect to be or ever remain.
I said, “Like you I killed a man. Two if you count my sister.”
Marbury shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I was in the caboose. Not Sandra. If I hadn’t walked in—”
“None of this would have happened.”
“Yes.”
“I told myself the same thing. But it’s worthless, guilt.”
Guilt. The worst of sins.
I often wondered how my family would have reacted to the truth. Maybe they would have ostracized me, sent me away and never spoken to me again, or maybe they would have embraced me. Maybe we even would have discussed it instead of erasing the event like so much dust on a chalkboard. But I didn’t blame them. What I gave them was a death without any connection. It was just something random, this death, no meaning at all except for the lives it devoured.
“I never told anyone this before, Marbury.”
“Why did you tell me?”
I didn’t know. A part of me thought that he would understand and maybe that was the reason. Or maybe I had no reason at all.
“At least you came here to tell me, Peter.”
“I came here to find out what was happening with you.”
“But the reports helped, didn’t they?”
I gave him a look and he smiled.
“You know that I wrote them,” said Marbury.
“You wrote them? Why would you do that?”
“Call them my bait. You wouldn’t have come without persuasion.”
I was shocked and angry. Marbury had sent me the reports all along. I began to wonder what was true and what wasn’t, whether anything he was saying was true.
And he sensed that.
“Everything I wrote down happened. It all happened,” he said.
“What about your voice?”
“Gone.”
“You won’t even try?”
Marbury just shrugged.
“So you still believe God will help you?”
“I believe you will, Peter.”
I was shocked. “Me? You’re giving me nothing to work with.”
“You’ve just been given a second chance.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you plugging your ears in church.”
I was trying to imagine what it was like to be deaf, he knew that. My world had been so closely aligned with silence all my life, except that I didn’t recognize it. Silence with Sandra. Silence with the lie that I told. Silence with the peace that I wanted to make with my family. Everything revolved around it.
“You’re already halfway there,” said Marbury.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. Then he handed it to me, folded.
He said, “Do it to honor your sister. Do it also for yourself.”
I read it and shook my head.
“I can’t do this, Marbury.”
“You can. Trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Then trust God.”
“And what about you? What happens next?”
“I’ll wander, think. Maybe live on the beach. I like the sea.”
“No cavalry?”
“You were the cavalry, Peter. I always thought you knew that.”
I looked at Marbury but he just turned away from me. The sunlight beamed in and through the flowers, the soft glow of Easter lilies around the altar. I could see the simplicity of this place, with its pine pews and cross, and I felt, if for only a moment, that this is what that first Easter must have been like. Rare and perfect. Uncomplicated except for that one thought.
The tomb was empty.
I looked at the piece of paper again.
I said, “I’ll speak with the Bishop.”
“On God’s green earth, what about?”
“Your assignment. It’s obvious you can’t heal. You can’t even heal me. Now if only you spoke.”
Marbury seemed surprised.
He said, “But you have documents. The tribunal.”
I stood up and walked over to the nearest trash can.
“What documents? I don’t see anything.”
And they went into the trash.
“Besides, we need a good priest here. And you’re the best we have.”
Marbury just smiled and followed me to the door. I walked out into the streaming sunlight, the world was all lit up. I went down the chipped concrete stairs and waved to Marbury as he waved back. One of thanks and missing, saying, come back, old friend, life is short and the very best is yet to come.
And then I heard it. A voice as clear as a bell.
It was Marbury.
“Thank you, Peter.”
And I didn’t turn back.
Milwaukee. Our Lady of Blessing, a school for the deaf.
Present day.
A room full of faces. Bodies in chairs. Books open.
I glance at the piece of paper in my hand, which is old and wrinkled, as if it’s been fingered a thousand times. Ancient folds.
My voice:
“I’m Father Whitmore, your teacher here. I’m not deaf but I learned sign language because of my sister, who was. She was about your age.”
Eyes back down at the paper.
Marbury’s handwriting. A name, an address, a new beginning.
Maybe that’s healing someone after all.
About the Author
CHARLES LAIRD CALIA lives in Connecticut with his wife and two daughters. The Unspeakable is his first novel.
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Copyright
THE UNSPEAKABLE. Copyright © 1998 by Charles Laird Calia. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Calia, Charles Laird.
The unspeakable : a novel / by Charles Laird Calia.
p. cm.
I. Title
PS3553.A39867U5 1998
813’.54—dc21
97-36049
CIP
ISBN 978-0-688-16710-3
EPub Edition June 2014 ISBN 9780062365279
FIRST EDITION
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