The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two (2 page)

2:3

The snowdrifts made their way several feet up the sides of the cottage, while the pine trees groaned under their white mantle. Beyond the front porch, at the foot of the hill, the frozen lake gleamed like a crumpled sheet of aluminum foil. All told it was the stuff of a holiday engraving, except that Christmas had come and gone, and today a new year was beginning with its ambiguous promise of joy and sorrow.

Hannah and Father Jimmy stood in front of the crackling fireplace in his parents’ New Hampshire cottage. The protective shrouds had been stripped from the colorful rattan furniture and the heat from the fire made the homely room quite pleasant. It was an incongruous venue for a marriage, but so cheerful in the afternoon sun, it was easy to overlook the odd circumstances that had brought together this handful of people.

Father Messina searched for his place in the Bible, cleared his throat several times, glanced nervously at the man and woman on either side of him and prepared to begin the ceremony. He was the first person Father Jimmy had thought to call. They had been roommates in seminary and had maintained close bonds of friendship ever since. Sam – for he was Sam first, and Father Messina second - had always come through in the past, and Jimmy knew he would again, once the initial shock had worn off. Sam had only shaken his head and said, “Well, it isn’t everyday your best friend leaves the priesthood to marry a young woman.” But when Jimmy had added that the young woman had just given birth to a baby boy, Sam momentarily found himself struck dumb.

After a long pause, he said, “You don’t have to explain anything. Just tell me when and where.”

So here he was, dressed in a black suit, a white stole around his neck, and looking just as fresh as the couple he was about to marry.

The child lay in a rustic bassinet that Jimmy had improvised out of a wicker laundry basket, flowered cushions and the satin pillowcases that were his mother’s one indulgence on summer vacations. There were only two other witnesses to events in the cozy living room. Teri Rizzo had managed to wangle two days leave from the Blue Dawn Diner in Fall River, where she and Hannah had worked side by side. Even in her Sunday best, the harried waitress in her shone through. Twelve hours a day on your feet took their toll, when you were also a 29-year-old mother with two young kids to care for and a trucker for a husband, who was always on the road. Teri glanced down at the bassinet and thought how much the infant looked like Father Jimmy (no just plain
Jimmy
, she would have to get used to calling him that). Then she promptly dismissed the resemblance, reminding herself there was no biological connection between the two. The deep blue eyes and the shock of dark hair were no proof of anything.

The other witness, Jimmy’s brother Billy, seemed to avoid eye contact with the rest of the company. He was not nearly so fine-featured as his younger sibling and when he spoke, it was usually in grunts and monosyllables. What Teri could make out from their halting conversation was that Billy was a policeman and was representing the family at the wedding. The parents were still deeply distraught by the situation, and had pleaded with Jimmy to consider the implications for his future. When Jimmy had told them there was no changing his mind, they had replied that they wanted no part of it, none at all. They could not in good conscience,
would not
, attend such a wedding. Nor would anyone else!

Teri had to hand it to Billy. He looked like one of the everyday schmos she and Hannah used to serve at the Blue Dawn Diner. It must have taken backbone to buck the family decision and stand by his younger brother. “Our mother… is pretty upset,” is all he mumbled, when Teri enquired politely where she was. “You see, Jimmy was always the perfect one.” The strain showed on his face.

Father Messina cleared his throat again, louder this time, cast a friendly eye over the sorry assembly gathered in the remote cottage and said, “Dearly beloved…”

No, this was certainly not going to be your ordinary wedding, the waitress thought. Everything seemed to have happened so quickly. She looked over at Hannah and for a second, it was as if she failed to recognize her. She had always appeared so…so vulnerable with her long wheat-colored hair, the slightly turned up nose and eyes as clear as a child’s. She had seemed incapable of deception. From the start, Teri had felt protective toward the girl who could have been her younger sister. Always ready with an older sister’s advice, she’d more than once taken Hannah aside and advised her to “slap a little make-up on that face of yours,” if she wanted to attract a boyfriend. Teri glanced at herself in the mirror over the fireplace and thought that, compared to Hannah, she looked like a painted harlot.

Even after Hannah had revealed that she was pregnant at 19 – and a surrogate mother at that! - Teri still thought she had all the answers, but now she realized she hadn’t had a single one. The girl possessed something that she, Teri, had yet to acquire: the guts to lead her own life. So when Hannah had called her, and asked her to be her bridesmaid, Teri had accepted enthusiastically. Who was she to bring up the question of appropriateness, let alone morality? So what if the baby in the bassinet on the cottage floor wasn’t Father Jimmy’s. (No,
Jimmy’s
, she repeated under her breath.)

Technically, it wasn’t Hannah’s, either, although she’d carried it in her womb for nine months. But that was a whole other issue that newly weds would have to resolve for themselves, if they hadn’t already. Teri noticed that whatever discussion there was about the child, there was no mention of its curious origins. Was the brother even aware of the situation? Well, it was certainly not her place to bring up the subject.

Hannah was a grown woman now, soon to be a married woman, and her face shone with a newfound purpose. “It’s always the quiet ones who amaze you in the end,” she thought. “The rest of us are so busy flapping our mouths we never do anything extraordinary.” Suddenly, Teri realized she was crying – not just because her friend was embarking on a complicated new life, but because she and Hannah would probably never again be as close as they had been during those hectic weekend shifts at the Blue Dawn Diner. Another glance in the mirror told her the special eye make-up she’d bought for the wedding, Mischievous Minx, was running badly, which made her weep even more.

Surreptitiously, Billy slipped her a handkerchief. Perhaps he wasn’t such a schmo, after all.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” announced Father Messina, as if to an entire church congregation, and Teri and Billy clapped long and loudly. Seemingly unaware of their two guests, Hannah and Jimmy gazed at one another, until Father Messina finally whispered to the groom, “Uh hum, you may kiss the bride now, Jimmy.” Jimmy leaned forward and pressed his lips against Hannah’s so gently that Teri found herself thinking it was their first kiss ever.

There followed toasts with apple cider and then Hannah cut a day-old crumb cake that Teri had pinched from the diner that morning.

“To the newlyweds,” mumbled Billy, dribbling a little cider down his plaid shirt.

When Jimmy walked his brother to his car a little later, Teri finally had a few moments alone with Hannah, who was cradling the child in her arms.

“You haven’t told me his name.”

“I know this sounds silly, but…we haven’t named him yet. We decided to wait until the ceremony was over.”

“Well, it’s over.”

“I know” was all Hannah said.

“I guess there’s still plenty of time.” She watched Billy’s car bounce down the gutted road. “It was all over the news, you know.”

“What?”

“The minivan crashing through the ice and into the lake. They called it an accident. It was so much worse in person than they reported on television.”

“You saw it all happen, Teri?”

“I was standing there on the shore, praying for you and Father Jimmy to reach the other side first. All of a sudden, there was this … well, it was like a crack of thunder, and the ice opened up and swallowed the minivan that was chasing you. It was pretty horrible.”

Hannah shivered and pulled the baby closer to her. “Jimmy told me not to turn around and look, but I knew what was happening. I heard the noise…I suppose they all drowned.”

Teri glanced down evasively at the embers in the fireplace. “That’s what they thought, anyway.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s what they thought?’”

“On the television. They said there were only two victims.”

Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “But there were three people in that car.”

“Don’t I know it? I’m not sure you want to hear this now, but the driver survived. The doctor. Somehow he managed to get out of the minivan before it sank. I saw him crawl back onto the ice. I didn’t stick around to see what happened next and the news reports have made no mention of survivors. But I think he’s still alive, Hannah.”

Disbelief came over the girl’s features and a chalky white color replaced the flush of her cheeks. “No, that can’t be! He wants the baby. He’ll try to take away the baby.”

“I know he will, hon. That’s why I thought you and Jimmy ought to know. Doctor Johanson never drowned that afternoon in Lake Wintucket.”

It was all still so recent. The escape from those crazy people Hannah was carrying the baby for, then the terrifying events on the frozen lake. With a shudder, Teri recalled all that had happened just a week ago. “I hope we never lay eyes on that sick fuck again.”

2:4

Dear Monsignor Gallagher,

It was never my intention to deceive you. Deception is not part of my character and I hope it never will be. All of my life I have felt inexorably pulled toward the Church, my life choice. My older brother once said to me, “How lucky you are to know what you want to do with yourself. I doubt myself every day.” I was surprised to realize he thought me lucky. But perhaps I am. I have always known where I wanted to go.

I am not sure where that certainty came from. My family is not religious. The attraction to the Church was my own from such an early age that my parents saw it as a “hobby,” a phase I would outgrow. Like long hair and guitar lessons. (Yes, I went through that stage, too!) But I loved every moment of seminary and from the first day I stepped into Our Lady of Perpetual Light and worked under your guidance, I felt a strength and a comfort that I only wish my older brother could experience. I have never known what it is like to be without that feeling. Even now, in spite of all that has happened.

I want you to know…no, I need for you to know that, although I will not be returning to my ministry at Our Lady of Perpetual Light, I have not forsaken my path. I simply came to a fork in the road and a choice had to be made. How often does that happen to all of us? And how often do we continue to stumble blindly along the same path, failing to recognize that the right choice, made in good conscience, can change our lives forever, can change the world we live in. I have always rejoiced in this possibility and considered it a gift from God.

So as I write you now of my choice to leave the priesthood and Our Lady of the Perpetual Light, it is with full conscience of the consequences. And still I rejoice. I do not know why this new path has been put before me, but you must know that I take it with a sure step and unalloyed confidence. Hannah and I were married yesterday and together we will bring up the child. Our child, which is what he will be in the eyes of the world. And, yes, it is a boy. I ask for your blessing upon our marriage and upon the union of the three of us.

How quickly and unexpectedly a family has been formed! If, for some reason, I am unable to stay in contact with you, I know you will understand why. How I would like for you to be a part of this! But you know that I must do what I think best to protect Hannah. My family. And, most of all, the child.

I hesitate to say that this is God’s plan for me. Who can pretend to know His ways? But it is what I feel in my heart.

May peace be with you always.

I hope we meet again in this lifetime.

Pray for us.

Your devoted friend,

James Wilde

2:5

In the days following the wedding, the sun disappeared behind a bank of low-lying clouds that hovered over the lake from morning until late afternoon, when nightfall came early to New Hampshire. The fir trees, imprisoned in their carapace of ice, no longer glittered. And the lake looked gray and lifeless, like a dirty blanket cast over the landscape. The couple turned their attentions to life within the cottage. The electrical heaters provided little warmth, but there was a copious supply of logs in the wood shed, and upon rising, Jimmy coaxed a roaring fire out of the embers in the fireplace grate. Hannah sat in a rocking chair nearby, nursing the baby, and watching the flames leap upwards, as if trying to escape the confines of the chimney. Once the baby had finished nursing, Hannah lay him in the wicker basket, where he gurgled contentedly or fell back to sleep.

The name of Dr. Johanson never came up nor did the sect that he headed. Even the trauma of the chase across Lake Wintucket eased with each passing day. Dr. Johanson and his minions belonged to the past, and Hannah and Jimmy were determined to forge a new life. Conversation came tentatively at first, but Jimmy’s natural buoyancy was like a salve, healing old hurts. The night of their marriage, they made love for the first time and they felt warmed and protected by this new bond between them.

“How is our son?” Jimmy asked each morning. They still had no name for him, as if naming him would impose a destiny upon him, limit his future somehow and deprive him of the infinite possibilities that were his birthright. “Son” served just fine for now and seemed to underscore the family ties that were so new, and yet so natural to them.

By five the light would start to drain out of the sky and Jimmy would turn on a few lamps. Sometimes he read one of the dusty books that had gathered over the years on the shelves. Hannah recorded the day’s events in a notebook she was keeping for their son. “I think your brother is happy for you,” she said to Jimmy.

“With time, the whole family will be. They’re good people.”

Hannah got up from the rocking chair and stretched out her lower back. A baby weighed so little and yet she sometimes felt she had been carrying a large suitcase all day long. The lake was barely visible now and the light from the cottage cast little squares of gold on the snow. The trees were slowly blending into one undifferentiated mass of darkness.

A sudden movement outside made her jump.

“What is it? A deer?”

Another movement several feet away caught her eye.

“I don’t think so. Come quick, Jimmy.”

There were people, emerging slowly from the falling darkness into the parameter of light around the house. Two or three, at first. Then several more. Standing there like sentinels paralyzed by the cold. They kept coming, slowly, not talking, hardly moving, until more than a dozen had gathered in front of the house. Their faces bore no emotion, or rather an expression of dull curiosity, as if the temperature had robbed their features of their natural mobility.

Jimmy grasped his wife’s hand and quietly slipped the bolt on the front door. For what seemed like minutes, the silent stand off continued – the strange visitors staring at the cottage with hollow eyes, as if awaiting orders to advance. “Who are they? What are they doing here?” Hannah’s whisper could not conceal the fear in her voice. Then a sharp moan wracked her body. “Oh, no! It’s him!”

One of the figures had stepped forward, so that the front porch fixture clearly illuminated his face. It was Dr. Johanson. Teri had been right. He hadn’t died in the car accident. A deep scar now ran across his forehead, very nearly from ear to ear. But what distorted his features, normally so elegant and worldly, was the sense of desperate exaltation that burned in his eyes.

How had she been taken in by him? The kindly obstetrician. Always ready with a quip or a compliment. He’d seemed so gentle and understanding, whenever she went for one of her checkups. But it had all been an act to fool her, and when she’d discovered the truth, he’d turned overnight into a murderous zealot. She realized she had never known this man, she’d known a performer. They were all performers, who’d tricked her into believing in a fraudulent world of home and motherhood.

As Hannah’s eyes accustomed to the dimming light, she recognized the middle-aged woman with the braids piled on her head – Olga was what people called her. There was Dr. Johanson’s receptionist, always so welcoming, and the spiky haired man she’d met at the art gallery. Her heart skipped a beat. The women with the brown scarf wrapped tightly around her neck was Judith Kowalski, the one who recruited Hannah in the first place. She was supposed to be dead, too. Hadn’t she fallen and cracked her head on the icy porch steps in East Acton? Or had that been a performance, too, and the pool of dark blood, just so much stage blood? How easily she had been misled!

And here they all were, together again, silent zombies, staring motionless, as if in a trance. Hannah knew instantly what they wanted. They wanted the baby that was sleeping peacefully in the wicker basket by the fireplace. It would be nothing for them to break down the door and kidnap the child. “Call the police, Jimmy,” she urged.

“I don’t think we want to have to explain this to the police right now, if we don’t have to.”

“But there are more than a dozen of them. They’re going to try to take him.”

Jimmy slipped into the bedroom, reached into the back closet and pulled out the double-barreled shotgun his father had kept there ever since they’d started coming to the lake. It hadn’t been used in years, but he assumed it still worked. He slipped a couple of cartridges into the barrels.

“No more dying, Jimmy, please,” Hannah pleaded.

“It’s just a precaution.”

Dr. Johanson had approached to within feet of the front steps. Jimmy cracked the front door and pointed the shotgun through the opening. Dr. Johanson stepped back.

“What do you want?” called out Jimmy.

“We want to see him,” replied the doctor. “We mean no harm. We just want to know that he has entered the world, that he is all right.”

“He has. He is fine. Now, go.”

Dr. Johanson hesitated. “May we see him first?”

“No,” screamed Hannah.

“Then how will we know? For so many years, all these people, all these lives,” he gestured to the motionless group surrounding him, “have been focused on this one moment. Show us only that he is here and that he is safe. Then we will leave, knowing that our work is done.”

“I don’t want them near him,” Hannah whispered to Jimmy. “He is our child now, not theirs. He takes milk from my breast. He sleeps next to us in a wicker basket. We bathe him and change him like any other child. They don’t understand that.”

“Let us just see him once,” insisted Dr. Johanson. “Then we will leave.”

“They have no right,” said Hannah, gazing up into Jimmy’s eyes. He was the first man she had ever trusted in her life. The eyes told her to step back and get the child. With one hand on the shotgun, Jimmy slowly opened the door, until it revealed Hannah with the child clasped to her breast. At that moment, the final rays of the setting sun broke through the cloud cover, illuminating the three figures in the doorway.

As if trying to grab the last ray of daylight, the child opened his fist and stretched out his arm.

An audible expression of wonderment rose from the cluster of dark figures. Then, one by one, they fell to their knees. The silence was broken by the sound of a woman weeping. Jimmy couldn’t tell which one. The sky was too obscure now.

Finally, he said, “We would like you all to leave now. And not come back.”

“Whatever you wish,” said Dr. Johanson, struggling to his feet and backing away from the cottage. “Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to behold him.” Firmly, Jimmy closed the door and extinguished the porch light.

One by one, heads bent, the visitors trudged down the hill, their boots making crunching noises in the snow. There was much embracing. A strange sobbing – recognizable as neither joy nor sorrow - had spread through the group. A few people looked back over their shoulders at the cottage they were so reluctant to leave, then forced themselves to move on.

Jimmy watched through the window until the last figure had finally disappeared and the sound of car motors could no longer be heard. He said nothing for several minutes. Then he turned to Hannah and said what both of them had been thinking all along.

“We can’t stay here any longer.”