With the Father (15 page)

“Don’t think. Feel. You’ve spent your entire life
thinking. Just go with it. See where it takes you. I think great things are in
still in store for you, Graceful Ann.”

“We’ll see. I’m going to bed.” The look on her face
was triumphant, and I hid the smile on my face as I went up the stairs to my
room.

I wasn’t going to let her know that she’d gotten to
me. That the movie had gotten to me.

That Paul had gotten to me.
 

_________________________

I
woke up early on Sunday morning, and though it felt like I hadn’t slept at all,
I had an uncontrollable urge to get up and run. I crawled out of bed, dressed,
and was on the street shortly after 5:30 AM.

I hadn’t made the conscious decision to run to the
cemetery. I hadn’t even realized that’s where my feet were taking me until I
rounded the corner on Gulliver Lane and the black iron gates loomed ahead. I
hadn’t come yesterday, which was the second day this week I hadn’t visited.

The first had been an accident. I’d simply
forgotten.
 
Yesterday, though, I just
hadn’t wanted to. Still angry and confused over the trail of lies that Jonathan
had left me to sift through, I hadn’t wanted to face him. However, it was now
as if a magnetic force pulled my steeling heart toward the partially open
gates.

The sun was rising over the treetops as I made my way
through the familiar stones. The dry grass crunched under my feet, and I
wondered if it would ever rain again. The last time it had rained in
Merriville
was the afternoon of the funeral.

When the procession of mourners walked from the church
to the cemetery, the sun had been shiny and bright without a cloud in the sky.
However, at some point during the second half of a ceremony I couldn’t remember
a single word of, the skies suddenly began to pour, dousing the crowd who
gathered to bid farewell to my family. Unprepared, the crowd ran for the cover
of the trees, leaving only a few of us to hear Paul’s last words. I’d remained,
of course. With my dad, Kate, Arden, and a handful of others that I couldn’t
name now.

Like anyone would, I had very tritely convinced myself
that it had been the angels, or possibly even God himself, crying for the three
people we were laying to rest that day. I’d found some comfort in it. However,
having been left to cry by myself every day since, I’d long since decided that
our tears had been nothing more than a coincidence.

As I neared the graves, I realized that I wasn’t alone
today. A truck, the kind that carried a tank of water on its flat bed, was
parked on the nearby maintenance path. A hose ran across the ground spanning
between it and the graves where a man stood, watering the grass.

I stopped in my tracks, still a quarter of a football
field away, as I observed the scene in front of me. I turned, looking around
me. The grass everywhere was brown and dead. Summer had taken its toll, and the
only green I could find was the plastic artificial leaves of the discount store
flowers stuffed into the urns around me.

There was no green grass.
 

There was no sign of life, whatsoever. The only
exception was the one patch of grass covering my family.

My feet began to move involuntarily toward the figure.
The morning sun shone at an angle perfectly orchestrated to obscure him from my
vision. As I got closer though, I could see that the man was wearing athletic
shorts. They hung low on his hips, and the t-shirt that he’d been wearing was
now slung over one shoulder. With the efficiency of an automatic sprinkler, he
sprayed water at the patch of grass with which I was so familiar.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He spun on his heels, his expression that of a child
who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, full of remorse and guilt
– emotions of which I had intimate knowledge. He dropped the hose and
quickly threw the shirt over his head, pulling it down to cover himself.
However, he hadn’t been quick enough. I’d already seen all I needed to see.

His body wasn’t that of a man who spent time in the
gym for the purpose of seeking the attention and approval of others. There was
nothing bulky or overstated about it. He was tight and trim, strong and sleek.
His physique defied his age, which I now knew to be nearing forty.

As soon as his shirt was in place, he retrieved the
hose that he’d dropped and turned his back to me again to finish the job he’d
started. He still hadn’t spoken, but there was nothing I could do to keep my
mouth shut. “Do you do this every day?”

A few long seconds passed before he answered. His
voice was quiet and smooth in direct contradiction to his flustered appearance.
“Not every day. I try to get here a few days each week though.”

“Do you always come this early?” I’d never been here
at this time of the day.
 
Even
during the worst part of the summer, I didn’t usually come until mid afternoon.

“Yes,” he mumbled.

“But you don’t do any of the others?” I asked, both
breathless and accusatory. I could look around and see the answer for myself
– I already had – but I wanted to hear it from his lips.

“No. Unfortunately, we can’t really afford to water
the whole property.” He continued to look straight ahead, purposefully refusing
to look at me though I was still staring at him with my mouth agape.

“But they can afford to water here?”

“No.” Without further explanation, he walked to the
truck.

I had no option but to follow him. “Do you do this on
your own then?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he began reeling up the
hose.

“Paul.”

He abruptly stopped, turned, looked at me, and wiped
the sweat from his brow. “Grace.”

“I just want to know why.”

He scratched his chin for a second and then sighed. “I
didn’t want you to sit in the dirt.”

I blinked at him, trying to stave off the tears. It
was pointless.

His voice was quiet but sure.
His
eyes echoing their sentiment.
“You were here every day. I watched you
sit there. I watched you lay your face against the ground because you wanted to
be as close to them as you could get. But I hated seeing you like that. I
couldn’t bear it. So I did what I could to make it as comfortable as I could.”

It was my turn to be silent.

“The grass would have died without water. I couldn’t
stand to watch you lose anything else. Every time I watch your heart break, I
feel it, too.”

Nothing else needed to be said. I understood now what
Kate had been trying to tell me. Paul’s feelings for me were deeper than
anything I’d been able to comprehend before this moment. Maybe I hadn’t seen it
before because I’d been so lost in my own misery. Maybe I hadn’t seen it
because I was incapable of returning them. But standing next to the man who’d
been quietly taking care of me for months, looking after me with no expectation
that he would ever receive anything in return, I knew what I wanted.

And I realized that I had the power to change
everything.
The power to make my life into something
different, something better than my current miserable existence.

Whether I crashed into him or fell into him was
irrelevant, but a fraction of a second later I was in his arms, kissing him
with
an intensity
I’d never felt before. Not with
Jonathan. Not with the few boyfriends I’d had before him. It was as raw and
emotional as Paul was pure and irresistible. His hand found its way into my
hair, clutching it as if he was afraid that I would suddenly slip away. To
prove otherwise, I wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling myself against him
as hard as I possibly could.
 

I didn’t know what any of it meant. I couldn’t qualify
what I was feeling or so much as put a name to it. I didn’t know if it was real
or another singular moment of madness. But I knew what I wanted in this
instance, and it was
him
. I wanted him.

I wanted Paul.

Feeling more daring, I ran my tongue along his bottom
lip. The hand in my hair relaxed as he focused all of his efforts on my mouth,
matching my every move. I poured everything I was, everything I was feeling,
everything
I wished I could say but couldn’t, into that
kiss. He matched my fervor, and we reveled together in mutual desire with the
taste of my tears mingling between us.

I realized then that for the first time in what seemed
like forever that I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I wasn’t crying because
life had punched me in the gut. I was crying because it was Paul, rather than
life, that left me breathless. I was crying because I was overcome with relief
that I was finally allowing myself to admit what I’d been trying to deny.

I wanted Paul.

And I wanted him to want me, too, no matter the cost.
More than that.
Though it was completely and utterly
selfish, I wanted him to love me. I didn’t know whether I’d ever be able to
return the feelings. I didn’t know if my mangled heart was even capable of
doing so after everything it had been through, but I still wanted him to love
me. I wanted him to love me because he was good and pure and perfect. I wanted
him to love me because I wasn’t sure anymore whether my husband ever had.

He covered my face with
feather-light kisses that were both reverent and shameless. After kissing away
my tears, he finally pulled his mouth away from mine. I immediately felt the
loss of him, but his arms tightened around me as if to dispel any doubts the
act might have created. I tucked my head into the crook of his neck, not ready
to let go quite yet.

He kissed the top of my head
and drew in a long breath. We stood here silently until the morning church bell
finally tolled.
It’s
melancholy tone reminded me that
we would not be alone for much longer. My eyes traveled across the ground until
they found the grey stone structure of St. Mark’s. They followed the line of
the bell tower to the top where the sun was shining over
it’s
peak now. Soon people would be getting out of their cars and walking inside for
mass. Yet, here I stood with the town priest wrapped around me. “What now?”

“Spend the day with me
tomorrow,” he said into my hair. “There’s someone you need to meet.”

Grace

I
opened the door to find Paul, grinning like a fool. He looked exactly like I
felt, and my heart fluttered in my chest.

I’d spent the last twenty-four hours, wondering what
to expect today, not about the trip itself, but from Paul. After our first
kiss, nothing had changed between us. When we’d seen each other the next day,
neither of us had said a word about it. But this time felt different. At least,
it felt different to me.

I’d come home with my head in the clouds. I hadn’t
shared my confusion, elation, worry, shame,
utter
happiness with Kate. Unlike the kiss that Kate and I now frequently referred to
as the ‘black widow attack’, I didn’t feel the need to spill my guts to her
this time.

I ignored her curious glances as I floated around the
house, content even in a now seemingly perpetual state of bewilderment. She did
nothing more than roll her eyes when I put the movie in and watched it a second
time. But, like a silly teenager in love, I just wanted to immerse myself in
all things Paul.

I took a day off from thinking about the mess Jonathan
had left behind, and it was a relief not to feel like I should be sifting
through bank documents or agonizing over the insurance policies again. It was a
relief not to want to hole up in my room so that I could re-inventory my
losses. Instead, I lounged in the living room with Aurora’s head in my lap,
still swoony from the day before.

I wasn’t delusional enough to think that this thing
with Paul could last. The things he’d done for me without expecting anything in
return left no doubt in my mind that he had feelings for me. However that
didn’t change our circumstances. At the end of the best day I’d had in months,
I’d still gone to bed a widow, and on the other side of town, he’d still gone
to bed a priest.

I worried though my concerns weren’t about me. I no
longer cared what anyone would think about me moving on after having just
buried my husband. I had Jonathan to thank for that. He’d unwittingly given me
a get out of jail free card. The guilt I felt for being alive when he wasn’t
was slowly subsiding though I knew it would never fully dissipate. I’d do
anything to trade places with my kids. The loss of them negated any possibility
of ever being whole again. However, Paul made me feel like survival might be
possible even without my heart intact.

I worried for Paul and what would happen to him if
anyone found out. I imagined the archbishop sending him away. I imagined him
losing his parish. I imagined him being excommunicated. Regardless of how he
felt about me, regardless of what happened between us, I knew he didn’t want
that. He’d devoted his life to the church, and there was no going back from
that.
 

And then there was our small-minded town. If word got
out, he would be hung by public opinion. So even though I trusted Kate with my
life, I didn’t tell her about Paul or the water truck or his admission of how
my grief had affected him. I tucked the memory away so that it was all mine …
to keep it unsullied by everyone who would try to destroy it like all of my
others.

Yet despite my concerns, I felt alive. Not only that,
but I felt glad to be alive, and I knew I had Paul to thank for it. His words
and his touch gave me courage, and I could now admit, even if only to myself,
that I also had feelings for him.
 
So even though I didn’t know what to expect from him on this trip,
seeing him standing on the porch in the t-shirt and jeans to which I’d now
become accustomed with a foolish smile on his face that was so contrary to the
reserved man I’d thought I’d known, the few expectations I had about the trip
were already exceeded.

As I pulled the door shut behind me, his arm slipped
around my waist, and he pulled me into his side. His breath on my neck caused
my own to hitch, and my already pounding heart to race. “If I could kiss you, I
would. But since I can’t, I’m going to settle for this.” His voice was low and
husky, and his nose brushed lightly against my neck.

Standing on my parents’ porch with
goosebumps
racing up my back, my heart battered haphazardly around my chest, ignoring the
warnings that I’d issued to it during the last twenty-four hours.
Don’t
expect anything
, I’d told it.
Don’t wish for an impossibility
, I’d
cautioned. Despite my begging, my heart had no intention of listening to the
utterings of my more practical side.

Keeping his hand on my back, he guided me down the
porch steps and didn’t remove it until we were next to his car. He held the car
door open for me and, as if he could hear it beating in my chest, told me not
to be nervous.

The directive fell on deaf ears as I crawled into the
small backseat of Paul’s car to find a portly grey-haired man in the front
seat. He had turned in his seat to face me. His eyes were warm and welcoming,
but I was instantly anxious. Unlike Paul, the man wore his priest clerics
proudly, and it was a stark reminder of the impossible obstacle between Paul
and I.

 
“It is so
good to finally meet you,” he said, extending his hand between the two front
seats. The gesture dispelled a small portion of the unease that had me already
wanting to bolt from the car. His eyes twinkled warmly at me as he introduced
himself, “Father Russell Schmidt. You can call me Father Russell or just
Russell. Whichever you’re more comfortable with.”

The man’s Bostonian accent was even thicker than
Paul’s, and the words tumbled out of his mouth at a rate that caused me to
strain to understand him.
  

“Father Russell,” I said, nodding. “Grace Northcutt.” He took my hand,
but instead of shaking it, he squeezed it.

“I have heard so much about you. I met your sister the other day, but I
was beginning to think I wasn’t going to have the pleasure of meeting you
before I left town.”

Butterflies beat their wings mercilessly on the walls of my stomach.
“You’ve heard a lot about me?”

“Of course.” His knowing tone made me squirm on my
seat and wonder what exactly Paul had told him. I looked at Paul, who’d taken
his place in the driver’s seat, but he remained silent.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about you.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry dear. By the time we get to where we are
going, I promise you’ll know more about me than you need or want to. I have a
tendency to
overshare
, I’m afraid.”

“Remember, you wanted to get to know
her
, old man.” Paul grinned
at Father Russell, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes appeared. The
sight of his smile made me swoon again. The effect he had on
me
 
continued
to take me by surprise.

The two men bantered back and forth for a few minutes. From the easy
familiar way they had with each other, I could tell that they had a long
history together. As Paul pulled out onto the highway that would take us to the
city, it hit me that Father Russell was the priest from the story – the
one who’d found him eating a grinder in the confessional. I had a sudden urge
to reach forward and hug the man who’d saved him from whatever awfulness he’d
been trying to escape.

Being in the car with someone who knew Paul so well put a million
questions in my head, but Father Russell had other ideas of how we should spend
the forty-five minute drive to San Antonio. He used the time to very sneakily
pull as much information as possible from me. Though his questions were nearly
non-stop, he sprinkled in little tidbits about himself
and
 
gave
me glimpses of Paul’s life
before he’d come to
Merriville
. He never asked about
my family, leading me to believe that Paul had already told him my story.

It made me wonder if he also knew that I was the cause of Paul’s recent
disobedience to the church. That unasked question was answered when I asked
another instead. “So what brings you to Texas, Father Russell?”

“You, of course.” He said it definitively. Though there was no apparent
disapproval in his answer, the abruptness of it silenced me. Even if it hadn’t,
Paul’s response would have.

He shot Father Russell a sharp look. “Later.” The reprimand made me
anxious, but more than anything it made me curious. What had Paul told Father
Russell about me, and why was I the reason he’d come to visit? Had my
disruption to Paul’s life caused him to seek the counsel of his older and wiser
friend?

“Speaking of later,” Father Russell said, seemingly un-phased by Paul’s
disapproving glare. “I checked my flight before we got on the road, and it’s
been cancelled. However, there’s an earlier flight that leaves at 4:30. I
called, and it looks like there’s a good chance that I can get on that one. So
I’m afraid all I have time for is the Alamo. You two are going to have to do
the
Riverwalk
without me.”

“I wish you’d told me,” Paul said. “We could have left earlier.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Father
Russell
answered.
“I can see it next time. However, I
am
excited to see the church before
I go. It dates back to the late 1700s, and it’s a piece of U.S. history.”

“Russell is a history buff,” he explained as he parked the car.

Since I’d grown up 50 miles away, I’d been to the Alamo more times than
I could count. I’d always thought of it as more of a battlefield than anything
else, but looking up at the stone structure with its ancient yet impressive
entrance, its history was undeniable.

My unease grew. I hadn’t been in a church since the funeral.
Sightseeing with two priests didn’t change the fact that I had no desire to set
foot in one, even one with a past but no future. As we joined the line to get
into the complex, I was already planning my escape.

Father Russell refused any kind of tour, preferring to meander through
the Barrack Museum at his own pace.
 
By the time we reached the last part of the museum, the walls were
caving in on me.

Even though it was a Monday morning and the temperature outside was
about a million degrees, the crowd was dense. It was summer, and vacationing
families were out in abundance. Mothers chased their children through the
throng of people. Fathers carried toddlers on their shoulders. The parents
laughed at their kids. They scolded them for their minor infractions. It was
all so very normal.
For them.

A little boy who could have been no more than five popped out from
behind a display case containing a musket. Shockingly blonde hair stuck out
from his behind his mask, and crystal blue eyes shone bright through the small
holes. He bore no resemblance at all to Trey, who’d had light mousey brown hair
and rich, saddle brown eyes. It was the costume that ripped me to the core.

“I’m Batman,” he said. He stuck his arm out and flung his cape
dramatically. His laughter stilled my heart.

His mother smiled meekly at me. “I’m so sorry. He got away from me.”
She turned toward her son and took him by the arm. “Come on, Caped Crusader.
Leave this nice lady alone.”

She whisked him away, and I was left standing frozen in the museum. I
could feel myself spiraling.

“Are you okay?” Paul asked. “You don’t look well.” Though I could hear
his voice, my vision was grainy, and I could barely make out his form though he
was standing right next to me.
 

“I have to get out of here,” I said, dashing in what I hoped was the
direction of an exit. I didn’t stop running until I was standing in front of
the parking lot across the street. Faced with nowhere to go and no way to
leave, I walked toward the line of trees that surrounded the perimeter of the
parking lot and collapsed beneath the first one I came to. I slid to the ground
and leaned back against the tree. Closing my eyes, I focused on taking deep
breaths.

“Grace?” I opened my eyes to find Paul squatting in front of me. Father
Russell was nowhere in sight. “Was it too much?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

He nodded. “Lots of families, yeah?” His head cocked to the side, and
his brow wrinkled.

“It was Batman.”

 
“
Ahhhh
,” Paul
said, sitting down on the grass beside me. “And he reminded you of your
favorite little Spiderman, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t look
anything like him, but yeah …”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about all of the families that would be
here. I should’ve realized it would be hard for you.”

My breathing had slowed, and I was feeling more myself again. I looked
back across the street toward the crowded grounds. This was my life now. I
couldn’t have a panic attack every time I saw a child that was close in age to
mine. I’d never be able to go out in public. “It’s not your fault. I don’t
expect you to give me special treatment.”

“But I’d like to.” My head snapped up to find him watching me with a
cautious and sincere look on his face. “I can’t help it, Grace. I have this
crazy, unexplainable desire to take care of you. I want you to run to me, not
away from me. I don’t expect you
to be okay all of the time. We’ll find
ways for you to move sideways if you’re not ready to move forward.”