The Way It Happens In Novels

by Kathleen O'Connor

  Monsignor Tarisi came out of the vestry, made his way in obvious pain around the altar, then limped down the three marble steps leading to the middle aisle. The janitor, carrying two folded chairs, met him there. The monsignor sat on one chair and rested his injured foot on the other. The janitor reappeared carrying a portable confessional. It had a burgundy kneeler and a window with a black curtain as thin as a nun’s veil.

  Al decided he might as well leave. Only the pure of heart could approach such openness. He stood, then began to rush up the aisle toward the confessional as if his very survival depended on it.

  He just couldn’t live with this burden anymore. It wasn’t because he was afraid of missing out on heaven. He didn’t expect that much—just a place like a dentist’s waiting room where the saved spent eternity reading back issues of Newsweek. He had to confess and be forgiven because he couldn’t breathe. Forcing himself on Rose left him suffocated. If he didn’t soon get more oxygen, he would die.

  The monsignor’s injured leg appeared to hang suspended from the confessional’s side. His black knit sock and priestly loafer made an innocent picture. How could Al trespass on it? He didn’t know. He just had to do it.

  “Bless me, Father.” He spoke low and thrust his head forward so his nose brushed against the curtain. “… and in June I raped my wife.” He said it so quickly the words all blurred together.

  “Why?”

  Al’s heart leapt in fright. There weren’t supposed to be questions, especially out in the open like this. He gulped and repeated, parrotlike, “Why?” He forced himself to remember that day in the kitchen. Rose had been scrubbing on a counter stain. “I was hurting and she wouldn’t pay any attention. She acted as if cleaning or watering the flowers were more important than me.” His voice broke pitifully.

  The monsignor appeared to understand that he had become too weak for extended speech. He asked simple questions. “Have you forgiven her?”

  “Yes.” Al wanted to leave so badly he would have agreed to anything.

  “Do you want to harm her again?”

  “No.”

  “I want you to call Catholic Family Services and make an appointment with the counselor. Now make a good act of contrition for your penance and say three decades of the rosary.”

  “Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for my sins because I, I …” He couldn’t remember. He had been praying it all his life and now he couldn’t remember. The father gently prompted him, and somehow he was able to finish.

  “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

  Al was forgiven but he didn’t feel any better. He felt hot and sweaty, as if the fires of hell weren’t burning all that far away. His head still ached as if it were acutely oxygen-starved.

  He had expected immediate relief. After all, it was a valid confession. He said his penance in the cab of his truck, counting out the decades on his fingers and adding five extra Hail Marys just to be sure. He had remorse for his sins. He had been sorry immediately for hurting Rose.

  She had been so meek and compliant. He had thought it meant she still loved him. Then he had run downstairs and seen Richard sleeping. She had not struggled or cried out because she didn’t want to frighten Richard. While he, who was supposed to be Richard’s best friend, had totally forgotten about him or had been too drunk to care.

  Now Richard was lost to him forever.

  He switched on the ignition and headed toward Main Street. “It doesn’t matter,” he told himself. “I wasn’t a real friend. I was a convenience.” He tried to convince himself that Richard had used him as a beast of burden the same way his brothers had. But the memory of Richard at his mother’s funeral kept interfering. He could remember Richard sitting in the restaurant. Pale, his eyes glazed. He had been too weak to come and had come anyway. There was no denying what his friendship had been. It was a big loss.

  Al turned off Main and headed toward Constitution Square. He had never been one to ask for favors because he hated getting turned down. He still remembered the humiliation of asking his first-grade teacher if he could be excused and having her say “No. Go back to your seat” loud enough for the whole class to hear. Being refused had shamed him more than wetting himself.

  However, in this one particular instance, he didn’t have much to lose. He would ask Cheryl if he could visit Richard. If she turned him down, which she undoubtedly would, he was no worse off than he was already.

  No. That wasn’t quite true. If she was truly frightened of him and thought he had come to harm her, she might call the police. He did have something to lose.

  Later on he admitted to himself that he never would have stopped at their condominium. Two brave acts in a row were more than he was capable of. But he saw the blinking lights of the rescue squad from the street, so he jerked in and parked by Cheryl’s Vega.

  He sat there too stunned to move while they brought Richard out on a stretcher. He was getting oxygen, but Al could tell from the leisurely pace of the medics that it was far from a life-and-death situation. The ambulance also left at a reasonable speed without the siren.

  In haste everyone had gone off and left the condo’s screen door wide open. Since there was nothing else he could do, he ran up to close it.

  Cheryl was standing in the hallway. “I can’t find my purse,” she said to him, as if his appearance at her door was both normal and expected. “All my insurance information is in it.” She stood there motionless.

  Al decided she must be in shock. He walked through the living room, then looked in the kitchen. No purse. He intended to go upstairs but found a woman’s black canvas bag at the foot of the staircase. He handed it to her.

  “I just have to dig out my keys.”

  He looked at her shaking hands and commanded, “Don’t drive. Come with me.”

  She obediently followed him to the truck. On the short trip to the hospital she explained what was wrong with Richard. “He was at a day-care center and there was another man there with a bad cold. Richard caught it and then this morning he was having trouble breathing. He looked blue, so I called the rescue squad.”

  He stood by her while she gave the necessary information to the desk clerk. “We don’t have a family doctor,” she told the woman apologetically.

  Al steered her toward the long wooden bench. Her hair was uncurled and hung in thick straight sheaths. She didn’t have on any makeup. Al thought she looked terribly young—a freckled child with invisible eyelashes.

  He knew to beware of her, though. At any moment she might realize this wasn’t a crisis and remember what he had done to her mother. He tried to steel himself for it.

  She stared down at her red sandals. “My feet are dirty,” she said softly. “I was up all night with Richard and never got to shower this morning.” She snapped her fingers. “I bet this is how it happens. One day you’re middle-class and respectable, then something happens. The next day you’re in the emergency room and you’re dirty and downtrodden.” She smiled sadly.

  “He’s going to be all right.”

  “I sure hope so. We had an awful fight. Awful. And we really haven’t been able to talk since. He doesn’t even know I’m pregnant.”

  He didn’t respond to her confidences. Sometime she was going to emerge from her shock, remember who he was, and hate him for knowing these secrets. If he didn’t acknowledge hearing them, perhaps she would hate him less.

  He studied her profile. Lately she had become pretty. Not beautiful like her mother, but still pretty. She had lost her pudgy, pouting face. Or maybe he found her more attractive because his opinion of her had changed. He used to think her marrying Richard was not much different from a prospective pet owner buying a parakeet because a dog or cat would be too much trouble. But he had been dead wrong. She put a lot of effort into her marriage and gave every appearance of loving her husband.

  A nurse emerged to tell them that Richard was having a chest X-ray. Cheryl shifted restlessly, then turned to Al.
“You don’t need to stay. It sounds like it will be a while and I’m better now. I can get a ride. If they send Richard home, I’ll ride in the ambulance. If not, I’ll grab a cab.”

  “I want to stay. In a little while we’ll go get some lunch.”

  She patted his shoulder gratefully. “You’ve been so good to us, Al.”

  How could she say that after what he had done? Then it hit him like a thunderbolt. She didn’t know. But then, why was he so surprised about that? A woman who couldn’t admit to plucking her eyebrows every week could hardly be expected to tell her daughter she had been raped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Cheryl patted the dog’s silky head. She then let Heinz nuzzle up against the skirt of her new white linen suit. “You’re really falling upon hard times when I’m your best friend.” She gave the dog’s head one final pat, then looked back before opening the screen door. “I’ll be back so we can go for a walk,” she whispered. “We women have to stick together.”

  Al was in the kitchen preparing a tomato and garlic concoction. She hadn’t wanted him to cook. It was enough that he had moved in with them to care for Richard. But when Al had shown so much excitement over recovering his cooking abilities, she had not interfered in the meal preparations.

  “Want a little wine or something?” He gave her a deferential smile, aware that he had made her a guest in her own kitchen.

  “Not yet, thanks. I’m going to change first and then take Heinz for a constitutional.” In case that sounded like a reproach for Al’s paying so little attention to the dog, she added, “I’ve been sitting all day.” She clamped hands on hips and added, “I’m about to get programmer’s spread.”

  After a week of classes she had taken to calling herself a systems analyst. But she didn’t feel that exalting her embryonic career was necessary in front of Al, who didn’t have one.

  Richard had been diagnosed as having severe bronchitis. Cheryl felt Al was equally infirm in some mysterious way and was careful what she said to him.

  She trudged up the stairs still carrying her briefcase. She dumped its contents on her yellow bedspread.

  During the first day of her class Mr. Zishen, the instructor, had mentioned capturing data and she had been frightened, immediately deciding that programming must be difficult as catching butterflies with a net. Then Mr. Zishen had her key data into a terminal and it was no more mysterious than statistical typing. In fact, it was easier.

  She understood that charting and coding would demand more of her. Still, the process was more straightforward than anything she had studied in college. She had gone to her freshman literature course terrified of symbols. How could the other students find them? She never could. She must lack the equipment necessary to analyze literature. Age had not helped. Just last month she and Richard had read the same book about a woman whose husband was going insane. “Isn’t it clever,” Richard remarked, “the way she talks about her husband while all the time she’s the one who’s going crazy?”

  She had opened the book and demanded, “Where does it say that?”

  He had given her a sympathetic, almost pitying look. “It was just a feeling I got,” he answered with exaggerated casualness.

  She sat on her bed and touched her plastic flowcharting template. There was no guesswork here. These symbols were tangible and real. The decision block was shaped like a diamond lying sideways. The terminal (start-stop) symbol had the form of a cold capsule. And the off-page connector reminded her of a Boy Scout’s badge.

  Cheryl was looking forward to doing her homework. She mentally ticked off the things that needed to be done first: change clothes, walk dog, eat dinner with Al.

  She threw on jeans and a tentlike madras blouse bought during her high school days. It occurred to her that maternity clothes weren’t going to be an enormous expense. After thirteen years of dieting, she already had clothes in all shapes and sizes.

  She led the waiting dog to the schoolyard across the street. When they got to the football field, she let Heinz off the leash. The dog streaked away. At first she had begun walking Heinz out of guilt, ashamed of the abominable way she had treated her in the spring. Now she found herself looking forward to these nightly outings. Besides, the fresh air and exercise were good for the baby.

  After ten minutes, Heinz dutifully trotted back to her. Cheryl gave the dog a nod of approval. “You’re right. We’d better go back. Al likes to eat early.”

  The conversation at meals was awkward. Some nights it was as difficult as a blind date. Simply to end the silence, they often talked about Richard.

  “I thought he did a little better today. He had some soup around four.”

  “Good.” Cheryl spent very little time with Richard. Al rarely went out, but when he did, she checked on Richard and brought him cold drinks. On those occasions she was reserved and studiedly cheerful, like a substitute attendant.

  Richard had said he did not want to be married to her anymore. Until he was well enough to reconsider, she was not going to force herself on him. If Al weren’t here, she would have had no choice, would have had to see to Richard’s every need. That might have ended her marriage. It certainly would have ended her career. She stared at her little garnet wedding ring and said, perhaps for the twentieth time, “I’m so grateful you’re here, Al. Without your help, I would have been forced to quit work. We would have gone under.”

  He never acknowledged her gratitude. Tonight he stared over at the half-eaten stuffed shells on her plate. “Is my cooking too spicy for you?” he asked apologetically.

  He was obliquely referring to her pregnancy. She smiled. “No. I’m in tip-top shape. I can eat anything. But even with eating for two, this was a huge portion.”

  He shook his head. “You’re under too much stress. It’s not right.”

  She didn’t feel all that stressed. She knew Richard was taking a vacation from marriage. But it had stopped hurting her so much. She wasn’t enjoying this limbo situation; but it wasn’t all that unpleasant either. Going to school and having a stepfather to take care of things made her feel like a child again. There was something especially sweet about being allowed a second childhood right before becoming a parent.

  It couldn’t have been all that pleasant for Al, though, acting as a male attendant to Richard and sleeping on the couch every night. Though the lack of privacy didn’t seem to bother him. And twice a week he did go somewhere. At first she thought he might be dating someone, because he showered and wore a suit coat. But he was always back in an hour and a half—too soon for a date. She would love to know where it was he went. Could he be visiting Rose? She hoped so. She would like her mother back. They’d always had their differences, but at least they used to converse on the phone every day. If Rose got back together with Al, surely she would give up her hermit ways. Cheryl looked hopefully at Al. “Going out tonight?”

  “Thought I might.”

  “Go for as long as you wish. I’ll be here doing my homework.”

  “Won’t be gone long.”

  It was hopeless trying to extract information from him. Defeated, she got up and spooned up raspberry sherbet. Though Al prepared dinner, dessert was still her department. She always had some. It had been months since she had counted calories. But all those mental computations had left her well prepared for calculating print positions. In fact, this mathematical prowess, along with her typing speed, had given her a slight edge over the rest of the programming class. And she wanted desperately to stay at the top of her class. But every day she could feel the others gaining on her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  With Al present, Richard found the task hard to accomplish. He had to get the drawer open, pull the bottle out, and take a healthy swig of the pinkish cough syrup without being noticed. He had been pulling it off for four days, but this afternoon Al heard the door open, whipped around, and caught him with the codeine in his hand.

  “What the hell! So that’s why you’ve been so sluggish and sleeping all t
he time.”

  Richard gripped the bottle protectively. He needed it. The drug was an escape from a battle he wasn’t ready to fight.

  “That’s a heck of a way to treat your wife.”

  “I haven’t heard you being nominated for husband of the year.”

  Al lunged forward, grabbed Richard’s hand, and tried to pull the bottle from him. It shattered from the pressure of their combined grasp and a mixture of cough syrup and blood spilled on Richard’s lap.

  “You’re cut!”

  “I’m okay.”

  Al ran to the kitchen, then returned and immersed the sticky, bleeding hand in a plastic bowl. “It’s okay,” he said as Al carefully removed the glass-covered top sheet and dumped it into a paper bag. Startled and frightened, he again repeated “I’m okay” when Al approached with a towel to dry the wounded hand.

  “I guess you don’t need stitches. But you’ve got to get up.” Al’s voice broke pitifully and he took a jagged breath before continuing. “There’s glass still in the bed.”

  “Okay.”

  Al shoved his wheelchair close to the bed, got one brake locked, and helped him hoist himself into it. Richard watched Al closely. Right now he considered him capable of anything, even tears. What had he said to make him act like this? Something about husband of the year. A failed marriage was never a joking matter. He should have known better.

  It occurred to him that he was becoming something worse than an invalid; he was becoming a creep. He tried to remember the name of that sniveling, crippled creature in Wuthering Heights who was such a pitiful excuse for a man. Linton. Was he becoming a Linton? Probably.