Mortal Sin (46 page)

His bags were packed, the detritus of thirty-five years of living packaged tidily in four cardboard boxes that barely weighted down the trunk of his Saturn. He didn’t have much to show for those thirty-five years. Just his clothes, his stereo, a few books and personal items. He’d never been one to accumulate material possessions. After a while, things came to own you, instead of the other way around. Having few belongings made it simpler to move on.

On Sunday, he’d conducted his final Mass at Saint Bart’s. In the intervening days, he’d tied up all his loose ends, said his farewells. He’d resigned from a multitude of committees, had found somebody to take over his coaching duties, had made sure parish affairs were in order for a smooth transition to his wet-behind-the-ears successor. He’d given Fred and Barney to Melissa. The goldfish would never have survived the seven-hundred-mile trip, and she’d been ridiculously pleased by the gesture. Afterward, he’d patted her hand and kept her supplied with tissues until her tears dried up.

Yesterday afternoon, he’d driven Jamal over to Huntington Avenue where, amid the whine of electric saws and the incessant hammering of nails, he’d introduced the kid to Ruth. It was a marriage made in heaven. She needed warm bodies to help with her new project, and Jamal needed something to keep him off the streets. Spending his days with Ruth and his nights with Fiona, Jamal would be too busy to stray from the straight and narrow. And if he did, there’d be two unhappy women to contend with instead of one.

His last night in Boston, Clancy had eaten dinner with the Raffertys. There’d been laughter and tears, tender reminiscences and good-natured ribbing. When he’d gone to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of after-dinner coffee, Fiona had cornered him. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” she said.

He stirred sugar into his coffee, lifted the cup and took a sip. “No,” he said.

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because I have to. Because if I don’t, I’ll never know. I have a great deal of thinking to do, and I have to do it away from Boston. Away from Sarah. It’s the only way I can maintain any kind of objectivity.”

“Have you told her that?”

“What am I supposed to say to her? Please wait for me, just in case Detroit doesn’t work out?” He dropped his spoon into the sink. “That’s a little too much like stacking the deck. I have to proceed under the assumption I’ve made the right decision. Asking her to wait would be grossly unfair to her. She needs to move on with her life. And so do I.”

Now, on this bright, sunny May morning, he had just one more stop to make. He pulled into the Northgate Mall and parked the car. As he approached Bookmark, he could see Sarah and Josie inside. He tried the door and found it locked, checked his watch and realized the store wouldn’t open for another forty-five minutes. He rapped on the glass with his car key, and Sarah looked up and saw him.

For what seemed an eternity, they stared at each other through the window. Then she came to the door and opened it. “Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi.”

He had no idea what was going on behind those blue eyes, couldn’t tell whether she wanted to kiss him or kick him.

“May I come in?” he said. “I couldn’t leave without saying—” He stopped, unable to make his lips form the word
goodbye
.

She stepped aside so he could enter, then led him wordlessly to her office at the back of the store. “How’s Kit?” he asked.

Sarah sat on the edge of her cluttered desk. “Quiet,” she said. “Polite. She spends a lot of time alone in her room.” She folded her arms across her chest, absently rubbed her elbow, and sighed. “I don’t seem to be getting through to her.”

“Give it time. She’s been through something immensely traumatic. She needs time to process it. Time to heal. I brought you something.” He fumbled in the pocket of his suit coat, pulled out the paper he’d had Melissa type up for him. “It’s a list of family therapists,” he said, handing it to her. “I know each of them personally, and they’re all good at what they do.”

“Thank you.” Sarah unfolded the list, quickly skimmed the names, then dropped it on the desk and raised her eyes to his. “How’s Tom?”

“The esteemed Senator Adams has suddenly and inexplicably dropped out of the congressional race.” He drank her in greedily, memorizing her eyes, blue as a summer sky, her smooth, milky complexion, all that wavy brown hair that fell wild and loose around her face. This was the picture he would carry with him, the mental snapshot of Sarah that he would pull out to comfort himself with when he missed her so much he ached with it. The heartache was inevitable. He hadn’t even left yet, and already he missed her.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and began a slow slide down her cheek. “Damn it all,” she said, “I swore on Momma’s grave that I wouldn’t cry.”

He took a step forward, lay a hand on her damp cheek. She leaned into his caress, pressed her cheek against his palm. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for giving me back my daughter.”

“No,” he said. “I should thank you for giving me back my life.”

“No regrets?”

“Not a one.”

“Me neither.” She straightened, took his face between her palms, and kissed him tenderly. “Get on out of here,” she whispered, “before I make a damn fool of myself and beg you not to go.”

“I love you,” he said. “It was never a matter of not loving you.”

“I know that, sugar.”

“You’re a strong woman. You have Kit to worry about now. You’ll get past this.”

“I know that, too. Go. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

He backstepped, away from her. “See you around,” he said.

“Sure thing,” she said. “Next time you’re in town, give me a call. We’ll have dinner or something.”

“Or something,” he echoed.

He walked away without looking back, afraid that if he did, he would change his mind. Sarah Connelly was tough and strong and resourceful. A survivor. Smart enough to realize that what they’d shared couldn’t possibly last. She would put this behind her and move on with her life. And when she thought of him—if she ever thought of him—it would be with affection instead of bitterness.

The door swung closed behind him and the lock snicked into place. On the sidewalk outside the bookstore, he took a long, deep breath to steady himself. He hadn’t expected it to be this difficult. Hadn’t expected that as he walked away from her, every atom in his body would scream at him to stay.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, a perfect day for a new start. He’d made a promise to God and the Church. He had responsibilities, commitments. A parish in Detroit that waited for him. He couldn’t screw it up now. It didn’t matter that his gut was twisted and his hands were shaking. It didn’t matter that with each step he took closer to his car, drawing breath became increasingly difficult. No matter how much he wanted her, no matter how difficult it was to leave her behind, he had to face the truth like a man:
It’s not going to happen
.

He unlocked the Saturn, sat in the driver’s seat, and closed the door. Fastened his seat belt and slid the key into the ignition. His fingers hesitated as he struggled with the panic that lay low in his belly. “You can do this,” he said aloud, and turned the key. The engine roared to life, and he put his hand on the gearshift and prayed to God for the strength to walk away from her.

With renewed determination, he shifted the car into Drive.

And drove away.

December 2003

New Orleans, Louisiana

When the plane touched down at New Orleans International, she breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a long flight. Kit hadn’t uttered more than three words since they’d left Boston. These days, that was standard behavior. The sullen, antagonistic Kit who’d run away from home had disappeared, replaced by one who was polite, distant, and for the most part silent. Sarah wasn’t sure which was worse. After seven months of family counseling, she still hadn’t been able to breach that wall of silence, and she’d begun to despair of ever getting through to the girl.

Three weeks ago, she’d talked it over with their counselor, Dr. Ferguson. He had agreed that she couldn’t begin to move forward with her life until she unburdened herself. He’d also agreed that Kit was strong enough at this point to hear the truth. Sarah knew the risks, knew there was a chance it might drive a permanent wedge between them. But she couldn’t live a lie any longer. Seventeen years was long enough. It was time to tell Kit the truth.

But she couldn’t do it in Boston. Their story had begun in Bayou Rouillard, and that was where it should end. Full circle. Back to the beginning. So she’d called Remy, asked if he’d be willing to put them up for a few days. “Of course I
will,” he’d said. “It’s high time you told her the truth. It’s been eating at you for years. Come for Christmas, sugar. Stay a few days. It’ll be like old times.”

He was wrong about that. It couldn’t ever again be like old times. She and Remy would never again share a bed. That aspect of their relationship was history. But she still loved him dearly, still considered him her oldest and dearest friend. So she’d packed up Kit and a suitcase full of Christmas gifts, and here they were.

She rented a car, and they silently loaded their luggage into the trunk. She left the airport and got on the highway heading west, away from the city. Kit glanced at a passing road sign and said, “I thought we were going to Remy’s.”

“We are, sugar. But there’s somewhere else we need to go first.”

Kit didn’t question her further, just hunkered down in the passenger seat and stared out the window. They drove for an hour in a weighty silence. Sarah’s stomach grew increasingly queasy as she drew nearer to her destination. Homecomings were often difficult. But the homecoming of this prodigal daughter was more poignant than most, for nobody was left to greet her except the ghost of a frightened seventeen-year-old girl who had grasped desperately at the only route she was offered out of a hopeless situation.

She glanced over at Kit, who stared wordlessly at the passing scenery. Would her daughter understand what she’d done, and why? Or would her confession simply drive Kit farther away from her?

Her knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel, she took the familiar exit off the highway and began the trek down a two-lane blacktop road leading deep into the heart of bayou country. She passed a cluster of rusted trailers, a ramshackle store with long-defunct gas pumps. Near the little wooden Baptist Church perched at the crossroads that passed for the center of town, she turned left, onto a dirt road that plunged her into a forest so dense that little light managed to penetrate the overhead canopy. What light did come through was a murky, grayish-green.

She almost missed the driveway, it was so overgrown with vegetation. She clicked on her blinker and eased the rental car over a series of grassy ruts, then came to a stop in a small clearing.

The little house still stood at the edge of the bayou. Weathered by time and the elements, it tilted precariously on posts driven into the boggy ground decades earlier. The roof shingles were nearly gone, and the window glass had all been shattered, most likely by kids with nothing better to do. “What’s this place?” Kit said.

She gripped the steering wheel tightly and threw back her shoulders. “This is where I grew up. sugar.”

Kit took a second look at the decaying shack and said, “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Mmm. Didn’t look like much when I was growing up here, either. You lived here for the first four years of your life.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

Kit shook her head. “Is this where I lived with Momma?”

Pain was a bright, hard thing fluttering in her chest. Or maybe that was her heart. Either way, it hurt like hell. “Yes,” she said. “And that’s why we’re here. I have a story to tell you. But first, I wanted you to see this place. I wanted to see it again myself. I wanted to remind us both just how far we’ve come. And exactly where it is we’re coming from.”

“Okay,” Kit said, in that tone teenagers reserve for particularly moronic adults.

“Bear with me, sugar. It’ll all make sense to you in good time.” She clicked her fingernails against the steering wheel and took a deep, cleansing breath. “Once upon a time,” she began, “there was this young girl. She came from nothing, just a little tar-paper shack at the edge of the bayou. She was a bit of a wild child. Headstrong and willful, and absolutely sure she had all the answers. If her Momma said green, she’d say red, just because she could. One day, when she was sixteen, she met a boy and fell in love with him. He was tall and good-looking and everything her Momma found vile and detestable. So of course, she ran away from home to be with him. Everything was peachy keen until she got pregnant and her Prince Charming turned out to be a frog. He told her she couldn’t prove the baby was his. Why, she could have been fooling around with all kinds of other boys behind his back. So he threw her out on the street.”