Uncross My Heart (24 page)

Several people watched, grinning as he took huge superhero strides out of the café. I finished my coffee and picked up the tab, which he’d forgotten in his dramatic moment. Then I stepped outside, looking around at the day and thinking perhaps it was the most glorious one I’d ever experienced.

I drove with the top down and the wind in my hair and the radio blaring, feeling nearly nineteen again and arriving in my own driveway at such high speed that dust sprayed the air and Ketch howled, no doubt fearful I would park the car right in the living room.

In my rearview mirror, a mirage appeared in the road behind me.

She honked and waved and my heart nearly blew out of my chest. I got out and leaned back against my Mustang for support, wearing a silly grin. She pulled up, slammed on the brakes, threw the car in park, and leapt from it as if she had amazing news.

“Viv.” I embraced her for the longest time, feeling her melt, surrendering any pressure that might signal she wanted me to let her go.

When I unclasped her slightly only to get a tighter hold, she rested her head in the hollow of my neck and this woman, standing on the ground of my ancestors in an old farm in Illinois, became the world to me—the sun in my own personal solar system. The exotic aroma of her perfume made my heart beat faster, the smooth silkiness of her skin shortened the amount of air I could breathe in, and the proximity of her lips to mine made my knees tremble. In short, I could not think, or breathe, or move, and didn’t care if those capabilities ever returned—I wouldn’t need them. I would spend the remainder of my life braced up against my old Mustang holding Viv up against my body and breathing her breath, smelling her scent, loving the feeling of her body next to mine.

“Maybe we should go in,” she whispered.

“I was afraid you were going to ask me to take you on a tour of the farm again.”

I walked her up the steps, one arm around her waist, and got no farther than the couch before nearly tackling her. I’d locked Ketch out back to avoid his standard greeting of nearly mounting her—an act I now fully appreciated to the point of imitation. My arms surrounded her, and I kissed her with so much heat that my body quivered and I broke out in a sweat, having reached some internal boiling point beyond which my skin was literally forced to let off steam.
How have I survived
without this feeling and how can this woman evoke it?

“You’re so hot, are you all right?”

“I just need unfettered access to every inch of you,” I whispered, and leapt up, dragging her with me to the bedroom, both of us giggling as we tripped over our discarded shirts and shoes shed like the cocoons of butterflies as they struggle to become freer and more beautiful.

“A movable feast.” I sighed and pulled her down beside me on the bed, taking off the remainder of her clothes. Naked in the light, her body was magnificent—the narrow curvature of her waist sweeping up to the mountains of her breasts and back down into an orange-gold valley where the beginnings of a river ran. I moved quickly, not giving myself time to let my head get in the way of my body, which, driven by my soul, wanted to rid me of the inexorable ache that only she could heal—a pain that only the pressure of her lips against every part of me could ease.

“I lied to you when I told you if you’d come out here, I wouldn’t touch you unless you wanted me to.”

“I want you to,” she whispered, and her naked flesh against mine reshaped my soul. Our forms became sweat-sealed and seamless, perfumes blended into an erotic scent that drove me mad as I moved across her skin in a hot sea of insatiable lust. And when finally we gave ourselves to one another in an explosive expression of intense longing, I knew, in that moment, I held heaven in my hands.

To say I was in love was an understatement. She had robbed me of my sanity, replacing it with a strange, peaceful lust. I had no more questions about my life, only actions I would need to take to achieve my goal of Wilde bliss. I was going to be with her, that much I’d decided.

When we awoke early to a beautiful Sunday morning, she had to get up and leave before sunrise. Stretched out in my arms, she explained that her sister planned to come to her house this morning for some legal documents, which she would take to the hospital where their brother was recuperating. As soon as she’d handled that duty, she would return.

“It’s nice that you have a sister, but not nice that she’s meeting you on this particular morning.”

“I know, darling, bad timing. But it’s just the three of us now and we try to take care of each other.”

“What do you talk about with your sister?”

“Everything.”

“So you’ll tell her about me?”

“Already have. She knows the entire saga.”

“Omigosh. What has she said?”

“That you sound dense when it comes to emotional issues, like her husband.”

“That sets me up nicely for family dinners.”

“So you think you’re invited to family dinners?” She rolled over on me and placed her sensational breasts against mine.

“I have news for you. If you keep that up, in about two more seconds, you won’t be going anywhere.”

“Hold my place,” she teased, dipping into me as if I were a bite of dessert and then dashing out of bed, leaving me wanting.

I watched her shower, marveling that I would want to watch anyone shower, but then deciding it was because she was so beautiful—

like a sculpture, a piece of art set in motion. As she transformed her tousled hair into controlled magnificence and put her makeup on like a theatrical performer, I realized by contrast I looked like a vagabond.

She slung her jacket on, grabbed her car keys, and headed for the door, giving me one last kiss that left me begging her to come back tonight and stay with me. She said she would try and I watched her walk slowly to the car, where I caught up with her and held her again and kissed her sweet neck.

“This leads to things,” she whispered.

“A heavenly path.”

She got in, rolled the window down, and sighed, smiling at me.

Our eyes met and I had nothing more to say. She had shifted my world.

I wanted only to know when I would see her next.

“Soon,” she said to my unspoken question. As she drove down the driveway the phone rang in the house. I didn’t move to answer it, not wanting to miss a moment of even seeing her leave. Ketch sat at my side and, when her car disappeared, fell to the ground, letting all tension out.

The phone rang again and I took my time getting to it, not really wanting anyone or anything to break the spell. When I finally picked it up, a voice on the other end of the line asked if I was Alexandra Westbrooke.

“This is the nursing station at the hospital. Your father’s had a setback and we’ve moved him to critical care. The doctors are with him now and they’ve asked that you come as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course. What happened?”

“He seemed agitated and then his heart became arrhythmic.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I thought about calling Vivienne or alerting Dennis, but then I quickly decided I’d better throw food down for Ketch and just go.

I pressed the gas pedal as close to the floorboard as I dared and sped through the dawn thinking of the highs and lows of life. Vivienne, whom I adored, craved, loved, coming into my life and now perhaps the man I had the most complex relationship with leaving my life.

Tears floated near the edge of my eyelids. My last conversation with my father was about Vivienne’s coming to see me. He had seemed confused and was watching TV.
Did I walk off as he was about to have
an attack? Did I cause his heart trouble?
I said a silent prayer that his life be spared and, if that was not possible, that God care for him, love him, and give him peace.

Moments later, I pulled into the ER and parked in a doctors’ and clergy space, jumped out of the car, and jogged through the automatic doors at the entrance and down the green corridor to the elevators. I tapped my foot nervously as I waited for the slow metal box to hoist me up to ICU and was out before the door was fully open, charging down to the nurses’ station.

He was barely coherent, gray and pasty, but he reached for my hand and I took his, thinking he looked awful.

“Love you, Father.”

He tried a weak smile. “Did you say my mass?”

My mind raced. No, I had not said his mass and it was Sunday morning. “This morning, Dad, at 11 a.m., I say your mass.” I realized for the first time in my life, I had called him Dad.

I stepped out into the hallway and rang Dennis. He answered almost immediately, priests having to start Sunday morning at dawn. I explained what had happened and he asked how he could help.

“Who’s giving the eleven a.m. mass?”

“I’ll check and have them say a prayer—”

“I need to be the celebrant at that mass. Can you arrange that, Dennis, please?”

“I’m sure I can.” His voice surprisingly held no shock.

“And would you phone Vivienne for me? I don’t think I can talk to her right now.”

“Sure.” I hung up and went back inside the ICU cubicle where my father lay, looking as if he might be dying.

The nurse at his side barely spoke, occupied with checking his vitals and reading the monitors. Dr. Achison appeared and greeted me with a solemn expression, asking if I’d like to step out into hallway.

“Your father suffered a myocardial infarction of the right coronary artery. Nothing showed up in the earlier tests, so we were all caught off guard. We’ve tried to stabilize him and we’re assessing the damage. It may require bypass to give him quality of life, but right now he couldn’t withstand surgery.” His tone was perfunctory, as if he were telling me the condition of the engine in the car and the cost to repair it.

“You don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“You never know.” His tone was brusque and uncaring, as if people asked him this boring question all the time and he’d distilled his personal emotions down to this single sound bite.

“He’s asked me to conduct mass for him this morning, so I’ll have to be gone for a while.” I handed him a card with my cell phone on it and asked him to call me immediately if my father became worse.

“You’re a priest.” His voice indicated he was slightly amazed.

“I am.”

“Then you’ve seen a lot of this.”

“I teach at a seminary, so I don’t see nearly as much as you.”

His eyes momentarily unmasked, revealing a deep, weary sorrow, as if for an instant he could let his guard down, stash his ego, and connect with someone who might understand what it’s like to be in a business where clients look to you for help as they linger and die. “I’ll call you,” he said, turned, and walked away.

I glanced back into the ICU cubicle but nothing had changed. My father’s eyes were open and either focused on the ceiling tiles or the world to come.

* * *

Dennis was standing by when I entered the back of the chapel at ten thirty and went immediately to the closet where the vestments hung.

I had stashed a few of mine there, tagged with my name, when I’d first arrived at Claridge. I glanced at the tiny mirror that revealed only my head and realized my hair looked rumpled and my face weary, but the spark in my eye, the fire in my expression were new to me. Even my long strides across campus these days seemed less about timely arrival and more about the joy of the journey.

“You look beat up and…good.” Dennis too seemed to notice.

“Not exactly what I was striving for.”

“Are you doing the—”

“Just the sermon—more of a homily, actually. Would Mark cover the rest?” Thinking of the short, curly-haired priest new to Claridge, I was certain he would, if only to honor the ecclesiastic pecking order.

“This sermon is having an obligatory feel about it.” Dennis’s voice was a tiny bit chastising, and I paused in my mad rush to get ready.

“My father asked me to do it for him. He could be dying, so you’re right, it’s not born of passion but of duty and honor. And you’re right, I need to correct that.”

“You’ll do fine.”

I finished dressing and said a silent prayer that whatever I had to say today would help my father and have meaning to those who had taken the trouble to show up this morning.

The sound of the old pipe organ drew everyone to silence, giving us time to move around the side of the chapel and enter from the front in a processional. The altar boy held the large crucifix high overhead as the bells rang and people bowed at its passing. We processed through the nave, down the red-carpeted aisle, up the three chancel steps that separated the congregation from the clergy, past the high altar, and into our ornately carved seats. Eleven o’clock was the seminary’s more formal mass, and the beautiful chapel was built on an historic floor plan complete with a pulpit for the gospel and sermon and a lectern on the opposite side for a reading of the Old Testament and Epistle lessons.

In the smooth oak pews two hundred people, at least half of them students, sat silently awaiting the message and the blessing from God.

And then it began, the chants and responses and prayers. The service was a modified high mass with color and drama but a spoken, rather than sung, liturgy.

“Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth…”

“Lord have mercy on us,” Mark intoned.

“Christ have mercy on us,” the congregation replied, the chanting repeated in triplicate.

I spotted her in the front row—Viv, looking exquisite—her dark suit magnificently tailored and her hair angelic. She tilted her head up toward me, and for a moment I saw her naked as she was last night, lying in my arms and looking up at me, and I couldn’t deflect a look of utter longing in her direction. She blushed and looked down at her lap.

“Let us bow our heads in prayer.” Mark led the worshippers in the Lord’s Prayer.

And finally, it was time for me to speak. I could see several students’ quizzical expressions as I took the podium, welcomed everyone, and glanced at Vivienne one more time before I apologized to those who had come specifically to hear Mark preach.

“When I was a seminary student, I was a radical. I protested against the church, and my father was not happy about that. I thought I was in love with someone more radical than I. And my father was certainly not happy about that. I became a priest and my father got happier.” Several polite titters rippled across the congregation.