Dark Debts (20 page)

“The operative death percentage is high. For someone your grandfather's age, as high as thirty percent. And you should keep in mind, it's only a palliative procedure, to prolong life and reduce pain. My best educated guess is that it would give him a couple more months.”

That day the words had been horrifying. Today, a couple of months seemed like an extra lifetime.

Vincent was the only “parent” Michael had ever known. His mother and father had died when he was a toddler, and Vincent had raised him until he'd left home to join the Jesuits. After that, Vincent had been an advisor, a mentor, a friend. Michael couldn't imagine his life without Vincent in it. He tried not to. The reality of it would be here soon enough.

“How about a homemade honey bun?” She was back. He smiled again and shook his head.

“I don't think so.”

“You need to eat something. You don't have a bit of color in your face.”

“I don't think it's from hunger.”

She sat down in the chair next to him. “How about a hug from a fat old lady?” She put her arms around him without waiting for a reply. She smelled like a mixture of roses and cheap hand cream. She pulled herself away and looked at him. The pain in her eyes was not forced; it touched him.

“My father was a Methodist minister,” she said. “I used to think, everyone cries on his shoulder, but whose does he cry on?”

Michael could only nod.

“Let me know if you change your mind about the honey bun.”

“I will,” he said through a tight throat. She smiled and was gone. He stood and made his way down the stark hospital corridor. He couldn't stand another minute of fluorescent light.

T
he tiny chapel was dimly lit, which in and of itself was a great relief. He sat in the back pew. There was no place to kneel, as most of the chapel's visitors were Protestant, but this was his only option. He sat for a while and stared at the cross on the stained-glass window above the altar, wondering what to pray for. For Vincent to survive the operation? Why? To die a slow and torturous death, spending his last days helpless and in unimaginable pain? For Vincent to die now and be spared all that? For God's will? Wouldn't that happen anyway?

For the strength to handle whatever lies ahead.

That was it. All he could really hope for.

And considerably more than I deserve.

All day he'd been thinking about something he and Vincent used to do—an old routine, from as far back as he could remember. Every Friday, as soon as they sat down to dinner, Vincent would announce the date, and then ask Michael, “Where are you today?” Michael would give an assessment, recounting the highlights of the week and working them into the context of his life. Vincent would never comment, except for an occasional nod or smile. Scrutiny was unnecessary. The point was to make Michael take a focused look at the big picture. After he'd moved away from home, Michael had continued the practice mentally, by force of habit. For a long time, it had been a comfort—a psychological deep breath. Lately, it seemed more like a type of self-inflicted torture.

How would he answer that question, if Vincent were to ask him today?

I'm a parish priest—the last thing I ever wanted to be—in rural Georgia—the last
place
I ever wanted to be—because I was stupid enough to pick a fight with my provincial
and
a vindictive bishop. And I'm mourning things you don't even know about.

It had been a year of losses. Vincent would be the greatest loss by far, but there were a slew of close seconds. New York was a huge loss, encompassing many smaller ones. He missed everything about the city—even the things he hadn't particularly liked: the crowds; the subway; the ill-tempered cab drivers. Waking every morning to the familiar sound of the Con Ed “Dig We Must” jackhammers. He missed his work, his friends, and the feeling of having a purpose.

The intensity with which Michael had loved New York was paralleled by the intensity with which he hated Barton, Georgia. He hated the isolation—both the isolation of being the only priest in a tiny parish, and the isolation of being an hour's drive from a decent bookstore. He didn't like the work at all. In fact, it was hard to think of what he did as work: endless—and pointless—committee meetings. Listening for hours on end to people confessing to the exact number of
damn
s and
hell
s they'd uttered that week. And then there was the wide assortment of for-this-I-took-Advanced-Greek paperwork that should have been handled by the staff that the parish couldn't afford. Most of his time this week had been eaten up by a plumbing problem, in the form of a good ol' boy in bib overalls who wanted $3,500 to hook the rectory's septic tank up to the county sewer line. Inflamed by Michael's uncalled-for comment (
“That sounds a little steep”
), Plumber Jim-Bob had accused Michael of trying to “Jew” him down. Delivered with the appropriate “that ain't how we do things 'round here” tone, and followed by:

“Maybe y'all can find a Catholic plumber in this county who'll do the job for free.”

(A snort)

“Hell, if y'all find a Catholic plumber in this county,
I'll
do the job for free.”

Even when he managed to block out the surroundings, it was impossible to ignore the fact that there was no one to talk to, no one to have dinner with, no one who might drop by unannounced with an existential crisis and a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch.

Supposedly this torment was only going to last for another month, but he didn't have a lot of hope that the next assignment would be any better. The powers that be were just keeping him quiet temporarily until they could find a way to keep him quiet permanently. They knew Michael wasn't going to make a career out of one flaky issue, but he had broken their trust. As one auxiliary bishop had put it, “The last thing we need right now is a loose cannon Jesuit with a fan club.”

And then there was Tess. The fact that she wasn't first on his list of losses only proved how brutal the list was. With the clarity of hindsight, he knew now he should never have agreed to work with her. He'd told himself it would be okay because it was a short-term assignment. When the assignment had turned into a friendship, he'd ignored the warning voice in the back of his head in favor of the voice in the foreground—the one that said “nothing will happen.” The one that kept saying “nothing will happen” until the morning he woke up in her bed.

When inclined to give himself a break, he remembered there was no coincidence in the timing that connected his fall off the celibacy wagon to the aftermath of the article. The first night he'd stayed at Tess's apartment was the night he'd found out he was being sent to Deep-in-the-Sticks, Georgia.

His last days in New York had not been pleasant. He and Tess had bickered incessantly. She couldn't understand why he felt so guilty about his relationship with her, since he'd told her that he thought celibacy was a stupid and antiquated concept. And the big one: Why couldn't Michael leave the priesthood so they could be together? Couldn't he accomplish anything he wanted just as easily in a secular context? Michael hadn't done a very good job of explaining it to her. These weren't things he could explain on some logical level. He didn't understand them very well himself.

“You know what it is, Michael? You just have zero interest in living in the real world.”

“Mine is as real as yours. In fact, mine is
more
real than yours.”

“Well, I'm not allowed on your lofty plane, so how is this going to work?”

When he'd left for Georgia, they'd agreed to three months with no contact, to give him some time and space in which to make a decision. Since then, he'd talked to her only once. He'd called her when Vincent was diagnosed. After the initial awkwardness, she'd been sympathetic and concerned about him. She offered to come down for a few days, but he told her it wasn't a good idea. It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed.

He'd been tempted to tell Vincent about Tess, but he'd decided against it. Vincent considered his grandson the Jesuit to be the greatest accomplishment of his life. In fact, no matter what he decided, Michael knew he could never resign while Vincent was still alive. He'd been coasting on that rationalization for months now, but it wouldn't be available much longer.

God, You know where I am. Please help.

He sighed from somewhere deeper than bone marrow, and willed himself to his feet, to return to the waiting room.

He'd begun to have second thoughts about coffee and a honey bun, but the nurse wasn't at her station. He looked down the hallway and saw her in front of the door to the operating room, talking to someone . . . the doctor . . . why was the doctor in the hallway, when the operation wasn't supposed to be over until . . .

Oh, God, no . . . not yet.

The doctor looked up and saw him . . . said something to the nurse. She looked at him, too, and the look on her face told him everything. He nodded to them, slightly; reached into his pocket for the vial of holy oil he'd brought with him, just in case. He felt himself shift into autopilot. Things to do. Rituals to hide behind.

I
t was early afternoon by the time he was done with all the hospital paperwork and necessary phone calls. He'd gone through it in a daze. Even though he'd known the odds, it had never really hit him he might be doing all this today. By the time everything was wrapped up, the doctors and nurses had moved on to other priorities. He left the hospital alone, unceremoniously.

He was already in the parking lot when he heard the nurse behind him.

“Father Kinney!”

He stopped, turned to her. She was hurrying toward him with an envelope in her hand. Surely there weren't more papers to sign.

“I promised your grandfather I'd give you this if . . . if he didn't make it . . .”

“What is it?”

“I don't know. I didn't open it.”

He took the envelope and thanked her, then accepted her condolences one last time. He waited until she was gone and he was encased in the relative privacy of his car before he opened the envelope. There was no paper, but something solid at the bottom. He turned it over and a microcassette player spilled out. No note, so he assumed the tape inside would explain itself.

So typical of Vincent. He couldn't leave a note or, God forbid, have an actual conversation. Michael knew what the tape was: Vincent's assurance that he'd have the last word. A few last pearls of wisdom. Advice. Admonitions (for things it was probably too late to avoid). Michael put the recorder back in the envelope and laid it on the passenger seat. He wasn't about to listen to it right now. The drive to Vincent's house already felt like an insurmountable task.

Vincent still owned the house where Michael had grown up. Vincent had designed it himself, in 1945—a year or two before he became the most sought-after architect in the city. He had designed almost a third of the houses in their neighborhood, Branwyn Park, a suburb due north of downtown Atlanta. By now Vincent had restored most of the houses he hadn't built. In fact, anyone who lived in Branwyn Park and had not had their house restored by Vincent Kinney was announcing the fact that they couldn't afford it—not the kind of announcement people who lived in Branwyn Park liked to make. Vincent had also designed several of the buildings prominent on the downtown skyline, a couple of churches, and a gorgeous retreat center in the north Georgia mountains. His name was well-known and highly respected in the state, the region, and even the country, among people who knew anything about architecture.

Vincent's style was clean-lined and no-nonsense. His buildings were an eclectic mix, though all classically inspired. They were variations of his basic prototype, a pared-down Victorian. Vincent's theory was that Victorian houses had beautiful lines, which were betrayed by “curlicues and jelly-bean colors” that kept them from being taken seriously. Vincent always said he built Victorian houses that didn't look as if Jack and Jill should live there.

Vincent's own house was white with black shutters. There were white Brumby rockers on the front porch, and flower boxes filled with red begonias; the overall effect was classic and dignified. Michael used to joke that the house looked as if it had been designed by Calvin Klein. Vincent couldn't decide whether to take it as a compliment or an insult, so he'd just give Michael his best ambiguous “hmph” and change the subject.

Vincent had begun construction of his house in 1945. It had taken almost two years to build because Vincent had to scrutinize every nail that went into it. It was supposed to have been finished by Christmas of 1946, but Vincent had made some last-minute structural changes that had thrown everything off schedule. Having sold their former house, Vincent and his wife, Claire, had found themselves homeless for the month of December. There was an additional problem: Michael's parents (Vincent's son, Matthew, and daughter-in-law, Laura) had planned to come up from Savannah to spend all of December in Vincent and Claire's new house so that Michael—who had just turned one—could spend some time with his grandparents. Vincent had come up with a solution: they would all check into adjoining rooms at a nice downtown hotel. It wouldn't be as comfortable as Christmas in the new house, but in those days, downtown Atlanta was an exciting place to be during the Christmas season. The plan was agreed upon, and on the fifth of December, they'd all checked into a suite on the eleventh floor of the Winecoff Hotel.

At the time, the Winecoff was one of the city's nicest hotels, located in the heart of the shopping/theater/restaurant district. It was right across the street from Davison-Paxon, the largest department store in Atlanta, where the women could shop and Michael could visit with Santa. Michael had always suspected that Vincent had chosen the Winecoff as much for its architecture as for its location. It was a beautiful building: red brick, Beaux Arts–inspired, crowned by a white concrete facing that covered the bricks on the first three and upper two floors. Elegant and simple. Vincent could have designed it himself.