It Burns a Lovely Light (12 page)

The leather and metal bracelet slid to a stop at Farley's feet, the words "Brave and Daring" clearly visible through the steam.

Claire sat on the edge of Ryan's stiff sofa. She had never liked the decorations in his house, the plastic plants, floor-to-ceiling
mirrored walls, and the monochromatic alarmingly-beige-colored carpets and drapes. It wasn't right for a priest to have such a vain house, and it was downright criminal to force all that beige-ness on an otherwise innocent
historic stone cottage.

"More coffee?" asked Ryan.

"No, thank you." Claire put her cup down on its matching china saucer. The man could use some mugs. "Now, why don't you
tell me what is so urgent on a Saturday morning."

Ryan stood in the center of the room, arms folded, pelvis forward. He pointed toward the kitchen where William, having already worked up a sketch of a human leg, was sitting at Ryan's small table, filling in the
veins with a red crayon.

"Do you have any idea what that boy has been up to?"

Claire didn't answer. There was no good answer to a question like that.

"He's been looking into people's windows," said
Ryan. "Peeking into their homes."

Clicking his tongue, William tried to concentrate on his coloring.

"To make matters worse," Ryan continued, "I
have to hear about it from one of my parishioners."

"William isn't
peeking
at anyone," said Claire, straightening her spine. "He likes to sit on the hillside after school. It makes him happy. And as far as I know, those steps are still public
property."

Ryan paced the room, taking slow, deliberate steps.

"Apparently he's been doing this since..." he swallowed. Almost a year and he was still unable to mention Pauline's death.
"That's not the point and you know it, Claire. You'd hit the roof if a man in a cape was lurking around, peeking in the windows of your precious Bridge Manor."

"Cloak."

"What?"

"William wears
cloaks
. Not
capes
. And he doesn't lurk."

"Damn it, Claire!"

William put his crayon down and rubbed his happiness cloak
against his cheek.

Ryan whispered through clenched teeth. "I'm only thinking of the boy, here. One of these days, someone's going to call the police."

Standing, Claire willed her voice not to shake.

"The boy's name is William," she said, "And this has nothing to do with him; it's about you. God forbid a member of your precious flock
...
"

"Aunt Claire?" William appeared around the corner,
his eyes round. "Why are you talking like that?"

"It's your Aunt's sorry attempt at sarcasm," said Ryan, glaring at his sister. "Not very attractive, is it?"

"Father Ryan is mad at me," said William, as he and Claire started up the road.

"Don't be silly. You shouldn't listen to private conversations."

"I didn't listen. I just heard."

That evening Farley heated a glass of warm milk to bring up to bed with her.

"How was work, lovey?" called Veda Marie,
searching for a hammer in the pantry.

Yawning, Farley stuck her head in the pantry. "They want me to wear zany buttons on my suspenders. Apparently zany waiters are all the rage."

"Who knew?" said Veda Marie, hooking the hammer in
her belt loop and turning off the pantry light. "Hey, Psycho is the Creature Feature tonight. Want to watch it with me?"

She wasn't a fan of being scared to death, but she had to do
something before Farley went back up to that hidey-hole of hers.

"Not tonight. I'm too tired."

Holding her glass of milk, she turned to go upstairs.

"Farley, wait." Veda Marie paused, then pushed on.
"Unfelt feelings don't go away, you know. They stay down inside of you, working themselves up into a frenzy." She pressed her hands together. "You've got your whole life in front of you, lovey. But you've got to
acknowledge your pain before you can move beyond it."

Farley held her breath and tried to calm the pounding in her chest. Her voice was calm, but Veda Marie could see the anguish in her eyes.

"Goodnight, Veda Marie," she said. "I'll check on William."

Cracking William's door, Farley peeked in. He wasn't in his bed. And his open drawers were empty.

Careful not to trip in the dark, Farley made her way down the hillside steps. As she drew closer, she heard her brother singing quietly to himself.

"You don't tug on superman's cape; you don't spit
into the wind..."

Her brother's undersized frame began to emerge in the darkness. He had his legs pulled up and his cloak wrapped around him. Beside him sat his suitcase and a brown paper bag with a roll of toilet paper sticking
out of the top.

"It's awfully late," said Farley, sitting next to him.

Silence.

"You hate the dark, kiddo."

He raised his chin and pulled his cloak tighter around him.
"You're not allowed to call me kiddo anymore. That's Mom and Dad's word."

"Okay."

They watched as someone wandered through a house, turning off the lights. First the cellar went black, then the main level...then
upstairs.

"I hear Saint Ryan got his collar all up in a twist," said Farley, still staring at the now dark house.

William's eyes watered, the corners of his mouth puckering
downward. "Father Ryan was being cruel and unusual."

"Maybe we should go back to Bridge Manor and talk about it."

"Maybe we
shouldn't
," he said, tears
spilling onto his cloak, "since I don't want to live there anymore. Everybody is too busy for me. Nobody tucks me in like a taco or sits down to dinner. And lots of times I have to eat by myself."

Farley felt her heart catch. "Oh, honey..."

He buried his face in his cloak. "I'm trying so hard to be good. I modulate my voice whenever I remember and I say all my prayers, even the bad one about dying before I wake." His voice grew louder and his tiny
shoulders heaved. "Nobody even checks to be sure I have a well-rounded lunch. Someone keeps putting
candy bars
in my pail." He gasped. "And you don't like me anymore!"

"Of course I like you! I
love
you."

He shook his head. "People don't hide from people they love."

For a moment Farley couldn't speak. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears. "I swear to God, I'm not..."

"Yes you are, too!" he screamed. "If you're not working, you're up there in your room with the door closed up tight. You're so busy hiding and not eating and getting all skeletal you forgot how to be a
sister. I know it's not 'us four' any more, but what about us
two
? What about me? I'm still here!"

"William..." Farley reached for him.

"Get off of me!" He sobbed, shoving her hand away.
"I might not be smart when it comes to real life, but even I know nothing good comes from
being mad forever
!"

The lights from the houses threw shadows across the hillside as he wiped his glasses with his cloak. Tears continued to drip from his chin.

"I'm sorry." Farley could barely breathe. "I'm trying to shut out all the hurt, and I don't know any other way to make it stop. I'm barely hanging on, William. I'm afraid..."

"Afraid of what?" he said, hiccoughing. "What's left to be afraid of? Everything bad already happened."

Farley unrolled a stretch of toilet paper and wiped her
eyes. Not everything, she thought. I'm afraid for you and for me and for the emptiness in my life. The aching in my heart terrifies me because it never stops. Every hour of the day I want to scream because it isn't fair. It isn't fair.

"It's like all of the happiness in the world went over
that cliff, William. In that one moment, my childhood ended and my life became completely unsprung."

"I'm unspring too," he mumbled.

"I know." She blew her nose. "We used to fit
in anywhere, us four. We belonged. I don't know how to move on anymore, William. I'm like an interloper, pretending to be alive."

"You're not doing a very good job with pretending. And
you could start moving on by being my sister again."

Except for with the occasional back-deck light, the houses had all gone dark. Standing, William wiped the dirt off his cloak and picked up
his suitcase.

"I guess we might as well go back," he said. "You can still call me 'kiddo' if you want to."

Farley hoisted the paper bag onto her hip. "Are you
sure?"

"I'm sure. My heart was already starting to miss it."

The following morning there was a large note on the chalkboard wall, written in Claire's messy handwriting:

From now on dinner will be served family-style

At 7:00 p.m.

If you are here, please try to attend.

"You look awfully distinguished with that walking
stick."

"Why, thank you, Veda Marie," said Mr. Winston, bowing slightly. "I find slipping on a public street to be quite humbling."

Tapping his cane on the first stair-step leading to the
upper floors, he hesitated, "Thank you for another delightful meal this evening. I hope we'll be continuing with the 'family style' dinners."

Veda Marie was pleased. Only a few weeks of sitting down to
dinner together, and she could already see a change in the camaraderie of the residents. "We'll definitely keep it going."

"Good." He clutched the railing and slowly began
his ascent. "You know what they say: 'A sit-down dinner can take an average meal and turn it into a feast.'"

"An
average
meal, can you believe that?" said Veda Marie as she helped Claire bail out the clogged mudroom sink.
"He's a hoot, that one."

"I just hope he doesn't break his neck on those stairs."

"Still. It's nice of him to reach out to Farley."

They bailed in silence for a while. Tomorrow would be the first anniversary of Jack and Pauline's death. One year since their ashes were sprinkled over the Smithfield Street Bridge. Claire had to smile as she pictured the two of them, kicking up their heels and shrieking with laughter as
they rode the Monongahela to the Ohio... hell, all the way to the ocean.

Mr. Winston had never been to the upper floors. He adored
his room on the first floor, just down the hall from the kitchen. He loved its hardwood floors and deep windows, the faded quilt on the old mahogany bed, and the ancient cool blue painted wardrobe in the corner. There was even a freestanding claw foot bathtub in his private lavatory.

His room was extremely private, since the wall separating his room from the kitchen was made of solid brick. Sometimes when the house was quiet, though, he heard footsteps on the floor above him. Claire and Veda Marie
each had rooms on the second floor. Now and then he wondered which woman's footsteps he was hearing as she prepared for bed. He rather hoped they were Veda Marie's.

When he finally reached the top of the third floor landing,
he stopped to rest for a few moments.

"Man on the hall," he said, tapping his walking cane against an open door as he shuffled passed September's room.

He found it interesting that September - the painter - had
chosen plain whitewashed walls for her room, which gave the room an instant sense of cleanliness. Only the wooden, slatted closet door was painted a faded green. A green and white quilt covered the bed. Next to the bed stood a small nineteenth century table, and there was a colorful braided rug in the center of the room. September was sitting in the window seat, reading a book and smoking a rustic looking cigarette. Looking up from her book, she smiled.

"Hi, Mr. Winston."

He gave his 'man on the hall' warning again as he neared Resa's open door. She was on the floor doing some sort of stretching exercises, legs spread, nose pressed against one knee. She waved as she switched knees.
Her entire bedroom was black. Black painted walls and a black dresser. It might have been cave-like, except for the large windowpanes, a stark white rug, and a white-framed photograph of Resa and an attractive blonde woman, grinning at the camera. From a radio on the nightstand, Mick Jagger wailed,
'Look at me! I'm
in tatters!'

If Farley was surprised to see Mr. Winston at her door, she didn't let on.

"Hi."

"Miss Farley." He held out his elbow. "I was hoping you would be so kind as to accompany me on my evening walk."

There was a sweet breeze in the air as they approached Grady Square.

"Did you know that Grady was named for the steep slope
on which it was built?" he asked.

"I never knew that."

"This community was originally a series of shanties and tenant shacks," he said, naturally falling into his lecturer's voice. "Mostly Irish and Polish immigrants that worked in the mines and factories."

They stopped to watch two young boys in pajamas wrestling on their front lawn. Their parents watched from the porch, laughing and clapping.

"William thinks you should be a radio star," said Farley. "He says your voice sounds like thunder."

Mr. Winston laughed a deep belly laugh, his white teeth
gleaming. "That brother of yours is an extraordinary young man. I envy his innocence."

"He'll never grow up. No matter how old he is, he'll always be a little boy."

"Like Peter Pan."

Farley smiled. "I never thought about it like that."

They approached Rosemary's Market.

"Are you up for a Nutty Buddy?" he said.

"Now you're talking."

They chose a bench facing St. Xavier's. The full moon hovered above the church's stately stone bell tower. Mr. Winston took his time unraveling the paper wrapping on his ice cream cone, as if he found enjoyment
even in that most insignificant act. For a while, they enjoyed their cones in comfortable silence.