by Jenni Moen
“Well, it wasn’t that easy.”
“It was pretty easy,” Father Russell interjected. “In a moment of well-timed clarity, Paul realized that his options weren’t looking all that good.”
“True,” Paul said, laughing. “I really didn’t want to lose any fingers.” He wiggled them at us.
“So you moved in with him and that’s how you ended up as a priest,” I said, thinking that I was probably still missing a few details of the story.
“Something like that,” Paul said, looking intently at Father Russell. I watched as they had an entire conversation without speaking – a conversation to which I wasn’t privy.
“We better head back,” Paul said, pushing his chair away from the iron table. “It’s getting late and Russell’s conducting mass for me tomorrow. He needs to make a good impression on the good people of Merriville. Just in case he ever needs to come back.”
“True,” Father Russell said.
I stood, and the last two glasses of wine hit me, causing me to list slightly on my high-heeled feet. Paul placed a hand on each of my arms. “Whoa,” he said. I looked down at his hands and then up into his eyes and could’ve sworn that the heavens parted and a ray of light shown down upon us. If, in that moment, a chorus of angels had began a melodic rendition of hallelujahs I wouldn’t have been surprised.
The air around us was charged as he ran his hands up to my shoulders. He gave my shoulders a light squeeze, and I halfway expected his fingers to leave burn marks. “Looks like I’d better drive us home,” he said. His green eyes glistened in the moonlight and caused my knees to go weak again.
I nodded, conceding that he should drive. “Sorry, I guess I should have listened to their warnings.”
“It’s been a long day. Maybe three wineries was one too many. Even superheroes have an Achilles heel. Maybe yours is cheap moscato.” I smiled weakly at his joke. I already knew what my Achilles heel was, and it wasn’t cheap moscato.
I was filled with shame. I didn’t know if I was more ashamed that I’d spent the morning in the arms of a man I didn’t want or that I’d spent the evening wanting a man I shouldn’t.
ACCEPTANCE
Grace
“Did you find anything?”
I looked up at Kate and shoved it all back into the box. “I can’t focus. I can’t figure out what was going on his head. Nothing makes sense. It just looks like random withdrawals here and there.”
“Like what?” she asked, settling onto the couch. She watched me eye the glass of wine in her hand. “Do you want one? Apparently, I bought ten bottles yesterday.”
“How is it possible that you weren’t hung-over this morning?”
She shrugged. “It’s my super power. Don’t try to understand it.”
I stood with the box in my hands. “What I don’t understand is why Jonathan would make a payment to the school two days after I did. He gave me the check to give to the school secretary so it’s not like he didn’t know that I’d already paid them for the month. But then two days later, he paid them again, and what’s really strange is that the second payment wasn’t for the full amount.” I slid the box under the coffee table to get it out of my sight and then collapsed again in the chair across from her.
“Yeah, that’s weird. Maybe he just forgot.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself, but why not all of it? It makes absolutely no sense.”
“Maybe it was a donation. What else?” she said.
“Well, he wrote several checks for fifty-five dollars but left the ‘to line’ blank.”
“Who cashed them?”
“I can’t tell. I can’t read the signature.”
“And they didn’t write it in on the front?”
“Nope.”
“Can you even do that? Cash a check without filling it out?” she asked.
“Apparently.”
She looked deep in thought for a moment. “Do you think the checks were for Hope?”
“The thought has occurred to me. But if fifty-five dollars was all she was getting, she wasn’t much of a kept woman.” I was amazed at the level of detachment with which I delivered the words. The fact that I could talk about this so easily – that I had now accepted the affair – when just four days ago I’d been a basket case over it – felt like a real accomplishment. Anyone who’d seen me grieve for the past five months wouldn’t have believed the transformation. However, my transformation was the direct result of another transformation.
Over the past week, the love I’d felt for my husband had morphed into something that I no longer recognized. The face that I’d been so afraid of slipping away, the face that I’d always looked upon with nothing but adoration – because I had adored my husband – was once again first and forefront in my mind. Only, as I remembered it, the raging ball of fury that was now nestled into my gut roared to life, permanently decimating any remaining love I had for him. I wasn’t worried about not remembering him any more. At this point, I barely wanted to remember him at all.
How did someone go from being completely and totally in love with someone – so in love that she didn’t believe she could go on without him – to hating him in a manner of days? Easy. Learning that your entire life had been a lie will do that to you.
She sipped her wine, deep in thought, and then shook her head. “I’ll ask Maddox again.”
I groaned and threw my head against the back of the chair. “You talked to Maddox about it?” I asked.
“Of course, I did. He was Jonathan’s best friend. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be Maddox, right?”
“I know,” I said. “What if her name isn’t Hope? What if she was his hope?” The thought made me ill.
“I thought of that, too. But it’s just too cheesy for Jonathan. Don’t you think?”
I groaned. “I’ve been such a fool. He had a girlfriend, Kate. He probably paraded all over town with her.”
“No you weren’t. Jonathan covered his tracks well. How could you have known?”
“I don’t know,” I said in defeat. “But I feel like an idiot.”
“Don’t you want to know who she was? How can you stand not knowing?”
“Because I just want to move on.”
“Well, I’m all for that,” she said, sitting her glass of wine down on the coffee table and leaning forward as if she meant business, “but I don’t know if I believe you. I know you, and I know how much you adored your family.”
I shrugged. “It’s pretty clear that I was the only one.”
“But I also know that Jonathan wasn’t present in it for a long time before he died, and I think you’re realizing that now, too.”
As usual, Kate was right. She had the ability to crawl into my head like no one else could. No one, not even Jonathan, knew me as well as my sister. “Okay, ask Maddox, but don’t make a big deal of it. I really don’t want this getting out around town.”
“I’ll try. I feel like Maddox is holding out on me. But Grace,” she said, pausing for a moment. “This is Merriville. You know when the word of this hits the street, there’ll be no stopping it. You need to prepare yourself for that. But my thought is that someone out there – possibly everyone – already knows. Better for you to be on the front end of it than the back end of it.”
I nodded in silent acquiescence.
She gestured to the box that I’d stowed under the coffee table. “The bank stuff … do you want me to go through it with you again? Maybe I’ll catch something you didn’t.”
“No. I’ve done nothing but stare at it for two days now. Will you look through it tomorrow though?”
“Sure.” She was quiet for a few minutes, playing with the fringe on the throw pillow in her lap. “So what do you want to do tonight then?” she finally asked, looking up.
“I thought you had a date with Maddox.”
“I did, but I’m not feeling well.” She took a sip of her wine, which was nearly empty.
“Could have fooled me,” I sai
d, laughing.
“Well, I would have had to get up, get dressed, and try to make myself pretty … blah, blah, blah. I’m just not feeling it. I rain-checked him again.”
“You know it hasn’t rained in months.”
“Yes, smart ass. I’m well aware. It’s the fucking seventh layer of hell out there. I don’t know why anyone would choose to live here.”
I ignored her jab at our hometown. There was no mistaking Kate’s disgust for the town where we’d grown up. I didn’t share her sentiment or her repulsion of it, but I certainly understood it. She’d been owed a different life and had been given this one as a consolation prize. She’d never resented my parents for what had happened to her own; instead she’d taken it out on the town.
“I don’t know why you’re hesitating with him, Kate. Stop fighting it. He’s good-looking, he has a decent job, and you guys have total chemistry. You can’t deny that.”
“Nope. Can’t deny it. I had sex with him yesterday,” she said, ducking her head. “In his office. During business hours. With his secretary right outside.” Remorse didn’t look good on Kate, and it was something I’d seen only a handful of times.
“So?” Though the guilt was out of place for her, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that she’d had sex with Maddox. Kate had probably done things that would curl every last hair on my head if I knew about them.
Of course, I’d kissed a priest in a veterinarian’s office two days ago so maybe she didn’t have anything on me this week.
Kate’s shoulders raised in a non-committal shrug. “It was so-so.”
“Sounds to me like you’re out of practice. Try, try again, as Mom would say.”
“I’m not sure Mom would approve in this particular situation.” She took another sip of wine and looked down at the floor thoughtfully. “He makes perfect sense. I should want him, right?”
“But you don’t?”
“I don’t know.” She returned her attention to the pillow in her lap, picking apart the fringe. Finally, she looked up, her eyes clear and determined. “You know what I want?”
“What?”
A wicked smile accompanied her answer, “More wine.”
I stood up to get her a refill. After the day I’d had, I wanted a glass, too. “Give me your glass.”
I reached out to take it from her, but she curled the nearly empty glass into her chest as if to protect the last drops from me. “Just bring the whole bottle. We’re going to annihilate it anyway.” She made the sound of a bomb exploding, and I laughed my way to the kitchen.
“I love hearing you laugh. You should do it more,” she said when I returned.
I snapped my fingers. “That reminds me. I have a movie for us to watch.” I walked to the table by the front door and retrieved the yellow bubble envelope that had arrived earlier that day.
“Is it porn?” she asked. “Please tell me that it’s porn.”
I rolled my eyes and threw it at her. “No, it’s not porn. Besides, I would never watch porn with you.”
“You would never never watch porn with anyone,” she muttered under her breath while digging through the envelope. When she pulled out the plastic DVD case, she looked at it like it might be contaminated with leprosy. “Seriously, Grace? Keeping the Faith?”
“Have you seen it?”
“No. And, I’m pretty sure there’s a reason. I think it’s on the C-list of movies. Maybe D.” She scanned the back cover. “Let me guess. A rabbi and a priest enter a bar …”
I giggled. “Ummmm, that’s why I bought it. Father Paul said it’s one of his favorite movies. I was curious.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight,” she said, her eyes narrowing on me. “You’re still calling him ‘Father Paul’ but you’re ordering movies online because it’s one of his favorites?”
I let out an exasperated huff. “Just stick it in.”
“That’s what the rabbi said,” she said, walking to the cabinet that held the television and DVD player. “Do you know why? Because the priest couldn’t.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, despite all of the inappropriate thoughts I’d been having about Paul. “I can’t believe that I was worried about my room in hell. You’ll already be there to keep me company.”
“Whatever,” she said, waving me off. “Your do-gooding ass won’t get anywhere near hell.”
“That’s comforting to hear,” I said, laughing.
“You’re doing it again,” she sang, returning to her couch and nestling back into it.
“What?”
“Laughing.”
“I’ll try to stop.”
“Please don’t,” she said just as the movie opened with a drunken priest stumbling into a bar. “See I told you. A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar …”
“Shut up,” I said, already engrossed.
We spent the next two hours watching the rabbi and the priest unknowingly fight against each other for the love of the beautiful blonde that they’d known since childhood. In the end, the priest risked it all and still came up empty-handed.
“Why would that be a priest’s favorite movie?” Kate asked. She seemed angry about what had felt like an inevitable outcome to me.
That was the difference between Kate and me. She was the dreamer, and I was the realist.
There was no conceivable way that the priest could’ve ended up with the girl in the end. The story wouldn’t work that way. The fact that the girl fell in love with the rabbi rather than the priest was the safer, more convenient ending. She could change for him and become a Jew without having to rearrange her entire life. However, if the movie had played out differently, if Father Brian had won Anna’s heart, he would have had to give up everything and … well … all hell would’ve broken loose. Literally, perhaps.
“It ended the way it should,” I said, even though I wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending either.
“Horseshit and if you’re thinking that has to be your ending, double horseshit. Let’s get real for a second, because that was a fucking movie, and this is real life. Real. Life. Grace.”
“The Resplendent Rector is hot as hell. And if you ask me, he’s teetering on the edge. If you’re not going to try to push him over, I might give it a try myself.”
Something in her tone of voice made me think it was more than a dare. It was a threat. Even if it was an empty one, it put me on edge. I’d been jealous because she’d gone to Fredericksburg with Paul when I’d refused. Now, I wondered if I had good reason to be. It may not be right for me to want him, but I certainly didn’t want my sister to have him either.
“I need to think about it,” I said, staking a temporary claim to him. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“But it doesn’t feel wrong either, does it?”
“I don’t know, Kate!” I was completely frustrated now. “I said I need to think.”
“Don’t think. Feel. You’ve spent your entire life thinking. Just go with it. See where it takes you. I think great things are in still in store for you, Graceful Ann.”
“We’ll see. I’m going to bed.” The look on her face was triumphant, and I hid the smile on my face as I went up the stairs to my room.
I wasn’t going to let her know that she’d gotten to me. That the movie had gotten to me.
That Paul had gotten to me.
_________________________
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and though it felt like I hadn’t slept at all, I had an uncontrollable urge to get up and run. I crawled out of bed, dressed, and was on the street shortly after 5:30 AM.
I hadn’t made the conscious decision to run to the cemetery. I hadn’t even realized that’s where my feet were taking me until I rounded the corner on Gulliver Lane and the black iron gates loomed ahead. I hadn’t come yesterday, which was the second day this week I hadn’t visited.
The first had been an accident. I’d simply forgotten. Yesterday, though, I just hadn’t wanted to. Still angry and confused over the trail of lies that Jon
athan had left me to sift through, I hadn’t wanted to face him. However, it was now as if a magnetic force pulled my steeling heart toward the partially open gates.
The sun was rising over the treetops as I made my way through the familiar stones. The dry grass crunched under my feet, and I wondered if it would ever rain again. The last time it had rained in Merriville was the afternoon of the funeral.
When the procession of mourners walked from the church to the cemetery, the sun had been shiny and bright without a cloud in the sky. However, at some point during the second half of a ceremony I couldn’t remember a single word of, the skies suddenly began to pour, dousing the crowd who gathered to bid farewell to my family. Unprepared, the crowd ran for the cover of the trees, leaving only a few of us to hear Paul’s last words. I’d remained, of course. With my dad, Kate, Arden, and a handful of others that I couldn’t name now.
Like anyone would, I had very tritely convinced myself that it had been the angels, or possibly even God himself, crying for the three people we were laying to rest that day. I’d found some comfort in it. However, having been left to cry by myself every day since, I’d long since decided that our tears had been nothing more than a coincidence.
As I neared the graves, I realized that I wasn’t alone today. A truck, the kind that carried a tank of water on its flat bed, was parked on the nearby maintenance path. A hose ran across the ground spanning between it and the graves where a man stood, watering the grass.
I stopped in my tracks, still a quarter of a football field away, as I observed the scene in front of me. I turned, looking around me. The grass everywhere was brown and dead. Summer had taken its toll, and the only green I could find was the plastic artificial leaves of the discount store flowers stuffed into the urns around me.
There was no green grass.
There was no sign of life, whatsoever. The only exception was the one patch of grass covering my family.
My feet began to move involuntarily toward the figure. The morning sun shone at an angle perfectly orchestrated to obscure him from my vision. As I got closer though, I could see that the man was wearing athletic shorts. They hung low on his hips, and the t-shirt that he’d been wearing was now slung over one shoulder. With the efficiency of an automatic sprinkler, he sprayed water at the patch of grass with which I was so familiar.