With the Father

by Jenni Moen

“How about I follow you instead?” he asked. “I’ll pick out some wine and grab something for dessert while you get whatever you need.”

  “Sounds great.” I pushed the button to start my car. While the engine came to life, I watched Maddox’s retreating backside as he jogged back to his car with his suit coat thrown over his arm.

  It really was a nice backside.

  Twenty minutes later, we were laden with grocery bags as we walked through the maze of his complex. Voices drifted down the open stairway that led to Maddox’s second floor apartment. I stopped before rounding the corner in an effort to avoid the head-on collision that seemed imminent only to be hit from the backside by Maddox. A grocery sack that had been hanging precariously from my wrist spilled onto the landing. Right in front of a pair of very familiar flip flops.

  I leapt forward to gather it all. “Here let me help you with that,” Paul said, squatting in front of me.

  I reached out to grab whatever I could, as fast as I could, barely paying attention to what I was picking up. A box of pasta. Chicken breasts because, apparently, the tiny grocery store in Merriville had never heard of veal scallops. Paul picked up a jar of capers and looked it over to see if it was cracked. Two sets of eyes landed on the box between his feet at the same time. Mine and his.

  “Oh, man,” I muttered, reaching for the box of condoms at the same time as he did. He beat me to it, but our hands brushed before he dropped the box into the sack. It had to be this sack that spilled.

  Inside, I was dying a long torturous death though in reality it lasted only seconds – the two long seconds it took for him to raise his eyes to mine. His gaze was intense. Disappointed? Disheartened? I cringed.

  “I was just getting ready to call you girls, but it looks like you have dinner plans.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a weak smile that didn’t match his eyes.

  Paul wasn’t judgmental. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being judged. Or maybe I just thought I deserved to be judged.

  A chuckle behind me reminded me that we weren’t alone on the stairs. “Yeah, any chance that you blessed my dinner as you touched it, Father Paul?” Maddox coughed as he said it, as if to let Paul in on a joke.

  My head spun around as I realized that the dinner Maddox was referring to was me. I glared at him and swiped his hand off my back to let him know that I was not happy with him.

  Paul, who was also standing upright again, ignored Maddox but shifted from one foot to the other. I hated Maddox for making him uncomfortable. I hated myself for putting us in this situation. I was here to try to distract myself. Nothing more. It wasn’t what I really wanted.

  “I better get going,” Paul said, completely ignoring Maddox’ question.

  The woman standing just behind Paul spoke for the first time. “Yes, I need to get back to the office. I have to show another unit.” She wore high heels, a pencil skirt, and a cardigan sweater despite the fact that it was hotter than the surface of the sun outside. Or maybe it was just my cheeks that were that hot.

  “Goodnight, Paul.” With sad eyes, I watched the man I desperately wanted but could never have move past me and continue down the stairs.

  Maddox watched me closely and then pressed his hand into the small of my back again, urging me to continue up the stairs. “Stop touching me, Maddox,” I said, swatting his hand away again.

  “I’m hungry, and it’s been far too long since I had you in my apartment.” Thankfully, his voice was quieter and didn’t travel as far as mine had.

  I had news for Maddox. He wasn’t going to have me in his apartment. Not the way he wanted. He’d embarrassed and enlightened me. I no longer had any desire to have dinner or do anything else with him. Using Maddox to try to forget Paul had been a terrible mistake – one that I wasn’t going to make again.

  I would have to get over my silly infatuation with Paul on my own.

  CONSOLATION

  GRACE

  “You snuck in late last night.” Kate’s hair was still in a towel from the shower.

  She leaned into the mirror over her dresser and applied a layer of some fancy mascara that probably cost more than all of the contents of my make-up bag combined. Her hip jutted out in defiance, and reflective Kate gave me a sly smile in the mirror. “I don’t sneak. I swagger.”

  It was annoying and true.

  Kate had never felt the need to hide her comings and goings. Even as a teenager, when she’d tested all of our parents’ rules and pushed every boundary, she had been an open book. So while I, at the age of thirty-two, probably would have pulled my shoes off and crept up the stairs like a thief, Kate clomped up her way up the stairs as if our dad wasn’t sleeping downstairs. Who was I kidding, though? Even if she had been a thief, she probably would have operated in exactly the same way.

  “I feel like I haven’t seen you in days. What have you been doing?” I said while silently chanting to myself, Please say Maddox! Please say Maddox!

  The fact that I was rooting for Maddox was a definite sign that times had changed. It was no secret that I’d never truly liked him. He’d been Jonathan’s best friend since grade school and that had made him a permanent fixture in my life, but we’d never seen eye to eye on anything.

  He’d come back to our hometown after partying his way through an Ivy League education with nothing to show for it but a mediocre transcript and a healthy chunk missing from his trust fund, and I’d been less than impressed. When Jonathan had offered him my former job, I’d been irritated but had kept my cool. However, when he’d begun talking of making him a partner last year, I’d about lost my mind. Afterwards, he’d given me the silent treatment for a few days, but he’d never mentioned it again.

  My opinion of Maddox had changed, however, after Jonathan’s death. Without even being asked, he’d stepped right into Jonathan’s role. The hours he’d put in during the last few months were more than I could’ve or would’ve ever asked of him. Despite his still unvested interest in the company, he seemed as determined as ever to see it continue to succeed. I was ready to concede that I might have misjudged him, or at the very least, sold him short in the past. In fact, I was even considering selling him the business altogether. It wasn’t like I could or would ever go back there.

  However, even during his smarmier days, I’d never doubted his feelings for, or rather his fascination with, my sister. After their little fling a few years ago, he’d pestered me for months, cornering me every chance he got to pump me for information about where she was and who she was with. Despite my general annoyance with him, I couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t a perfect fit for her. They were both a little wild, a little crazy, and a whole lot of fun when it was on their terms. The truth of it was, though, my restless sister was a flight risk, and I desperately wanted him to tame her.

  She hadn’t said anything about leaving town again, but she’d been here for more than five months. My dad and I wouldn’t be enough to hold her here for too much longer. Every morning, I half expected to wake up and find her already gone. If something, or someone, didn’t tie her down soon, she’d be gone again. I honestly didn’t know if I could handle losing her again. Not now. Not after everything that had happened.

  She turned around and batted her freshly-caked eyelashes at me. “I spent the last two days at the office and then had dinner with Maddox last night. Afterwards, I went out and had some drinks. I needed to think.”

  Instead of the reprimand she was expecting, I clapped my hands together and flopped down on her bed. “Yay! Come sit and tell me.”

  She flinched and staggered backwards into the dresser. Wide eyes openly stared at me. “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?”

  I picked up a high-heeled shoe, lying on the bed, and chucked it at her. “You’re so funny.”

  “Seriously. Where did Dad take you for dinner last night because I think that maybe your meal was laced with crack? Haven’t you heard, Grace?”

  “What?”

  “Crack is w
hack,” she said before bursting into a fit of giggles.

  “You would probably know.” I ducked my head, knowing that she was going to be mad at me for lying about where I’d been. “I didn’t exactly have dinner with Dad last night. He had plans. You know, he hasn’t been around here much lately. Do you think he’s dating somebody?”

  “He is dating somebody. He didn’t want you to know.” She waved her hand in the air as to dismiss his concern.

  “Did he think I’d be mad? Because of Mom?” It had been less than two years since we’d lost her. In fact, I probably would have been upset if I’d found out a few weeks ago. But I couldn’t really cast any stones now – my situation being what it was.

  “That. And because you are such a hater of love now?”

  “Hater of love? I’m not a hater of love. Who’s been smoking the crack pipe now?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me and nodded, clearly impressed that I knew that crack required a pipe.

  “I’m not a hater of love. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Sure you are. You turn off any sappy love song that comes on. Other than that one terrible movie that you made me sit through the other night, any movie with romance in it is strictly forbidden. I’m actually surprised that you haven’t organized a bonfire to burn all of Mom’s old bodice-ripper novels. It’s completely understandable, though. Why wouldn’t you be a hater of love?”

  “I’m not a hater of love, and I don’t want to burn Mom’s books,” I admitted in a squeaky voice. “I’ve actually been reading them.” Her laughter echoed through the room.

  “Well, if you wanted some tips, all you had to do was ask,” she said in between snorts.

  “Kate! I was married for ten years. I don’t think I really need tips from you or Mom’s regency books.”

  She continued to laugh at me, and I took a second to just enjoy this moment with her. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d laughed like this. Even before our lives were laced with tragedy, moments like this one had become rare. I wanted to wrap it up and guard it close to my heart. “I actually do want to talk to you about something though,” I said, more serious now.

  “Okay, well, let’s see … we were sitting at his kitchen table, and then he slung me over his shoulder and threw me on his hard, black leather couch. Seriously, that apartment is so cold and sterile. There’s no way I could ever live there. I swear I felt a northerly blow through about the time he ripped my underwear off – ”

  “God, Kate! Stop. I don’t want to hear that shit.”

  Her head swiveled on her neck, and she stared at me with bulging eyes. “Did you just say ‘shit’?”

  “Yeah, I did. I do not want to hear about your panties being ripped off.”

  Confusion took over as Kate caught up. “Well, I was kidding anyway. None of that really happened. So what did you want to hear about last night?”

  “I don’t want to hear about your date. I want to tell you about mine.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “What did you do?”

  “I went to San Antonio with Paul on Monday.” I was back to wanting to spill my guts. Like after the

  kiss at the vet’s office, I wanted to tell her all about it. However, this time it wasn’t because I’d shocked and humiliated myself. This time I wanted to share – needed to share – how completely, supremely blissfully happy the night before had made me. More than that, I needed someone to tell me that it was okay to be happy when I still felt like I owed it to the people I loved to be sad.

  Her mouth made a perfect ‘O’. “For real?”

  She looked happy. There was a big toothy smile on her face, but there was something off about her reaction. I’d expected her to jump up and down and squeal like I had when she’d told me about having dinner with Maddox. Instead, she was subtly wringing her hands in her lap, and she’d stopped bouncing. “So what did you think of Father Russell? He was nice, right?”

  “Absolutely.” I was still trying to gauge Kate’s temperature and wondering why she was asking about Father Russell instead of Paul. “You wanted me to take a chance, right?”

  “Of course. Did you have fun?” Again, what little enthusiasm she showed didn’t reach her eyes.

  I forged ahead anyway. “Kate, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like him. Like … like him, like him. And, I can’t figure out how I can feel so great about him and so bad about being around him. I’m giving myself whiplash.” I was gushing but I couldn’t help myself.

  “You’re sort of giving me whiplash, too.” The air left my lungs and the room at the same time.

  I wasn’t imagining it. Kate was irritated. Was she irritated with me? “I could say the same thing. What’s gotten into you? Two days ago, you were all, ‘Don’t think, Grace.’ ‘Just feel, Grace.’ ‘Paul is so hot, Grace.’”

  She sighed loudly. “I meant it. He is hot.”

  It couldn’t have hit me any harder if I’d actually run into a wall with the writing graffiti’d across it. “Oh. My. God. You like him, too.”

  “Please. He’s way too nice for me.”

  I wasn’t buying it. Her eyes were darting here and there, and she was squirming on the bed. “Are you kidding me? Seriously, Kate. During my life – my entire life – I’ve only really liked two men. Two men. And you’ve liked both of them.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Grace. For the one hundred thousandth time, I was not interested in Jonathan. Except for that one day when I was eighteen and your friends plied me with beer and got me drunk for the very first time in my life. Yeah, that one day I thought he was cute. But give me a break. He was yours that day and every day afterward. I had no interest in stealing him from you.”

  “What about Paul? Do you think he’s cute, too?” I really didn’t care how she felt about my husband any more. All I cared about were the weird vibes she was putting off about Paul. “Oh, wait, I believe you said that he’s hot as hell.”

  “He is hot as hell. And funny. And smart. And thoughtful. And quiet. And a bit mysterious, too.” she said, listing off all of the things that drew me to him, too. ,

  I narrowed my eyes at her and sat up, my back straighter. All of the playfulness of a few minutes before had been squeezed from the room by the ugly truth now looming over our heads. The reason that Kate was hesitating with Maddox was because she was interested in someone else. But not just anyone else. She was interested in Paul.

  “But what does it matter, Grace?” she continued. “He’s in love with you.”

  “No, he’s not. We barely know each other.”

  She snorted. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve watched him hang onto your every word. Maybe you’re just getting to know him. But he’s in love with you. Maybe he doesn’t even realize it yet. But I swear to you. If you want that man, all you have to do is claim him.”

  Could she be right? I mean, yes, we had spent last night pretending that there could be something more, but a part of me still thought that’s all it was. Pretend. I let her words roll around in my head for a minute. “He waters the grass,” I finally said.

  Her forehead scrunched in confusion, and she shrugged in exasperation. “He does what?”

  “He waters the grass. At the cemetery. He waters the grass in the early morning, before anyone gets there. He rents a truck from Deluge Power-Washing.”

  “So what? He also locks the cemetery at night, too. It’s part of his job.”

  “No,” I whispered. “It’s not, Kate. He’s a priest, not a maintenance man. He only waters my family’s plots.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He said he couldn’t stand to see me watch something else die.”

  She threw her hands up in exasperation. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. He’s in love with you. In. Love. Do you really not see it? I’m sure he was in love with you before … ”

  My head snapped up, and I met her eyes. “Do you think so?”

  She rolled her eyes and stood. She walked to th
e closet and began rummaging through her clothes. The sound of hangers scraping across the metal bar was the only sound in the room. That and my explosive heart.

  Could she be right? Was it possible that Paul had loved me even before everything had happened?

  Or was she just trying to distract me? “But you’re in love with him?”

  “Heavens no. I barely know him,” she said with her back to me.

  “But you’d like to get to know him?”

  She turned to face me. Her face twisted in irritation. “You know, what? Yes, if he looked at me like I was worth giving up the only life he’s ever known … if he thought I was worth the wrath that he’s going to receive from this town, the bishop, and maybe God himself … then, yes, I would definitely want to get to know him better.” Her face softened before she continued, “But he wants you, Grace. I know it.”

  She pulled the towel off her head and began patting her hair dry. Her expression was hidden by a mound of dark curls, but her usually straight shoulders sagged. Remorse didn’t look good on Kate, and it was something I’d seen only a handful of times. She acted without apology, and regret was not a word in her vocabulary. “And I want him for you. You deserve to be happy. Not just content, but truly happy.”

  I wanted that, too. There had to be a reason that I’d been left behind, and it couldn’t possibly be to be miserable for the rest of my life. “So I should go for it?”

  “You should go for it.”

  “I think Maddox is good for you,” I said, hoping it sounded encouraging rather than like I was offering a consolation prize.

  “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about Maddox right now.” She returned to the bed dressed now. “I want to hear more about your trip.”

  Our conversation had stripped away some of my excitement, but I still needed to talk to someone. However, Kate no longer felt like the right person. “We just went to dinner on the river. It was no big deal.”

  “With Father Russell?”

  “No, he had to take an early flight. It was just the two of us.”