Dark Debts (31 page)

“Like I said,” Edna continued, “she didn't want to talk about the father. She said she didn't even want to think about it.”

“How old is she?”

Edna shrugged. “I don't know. Old.”

Was Vincent fourteen when it happened? Or was he twenty-five? It makes a hell of a lot of difference! Assuming any of this is true.

It can't be true!

“What happened to the child?” he asked with forced steadiness.

“What do you mean?”

“Is he still alive? Do you know where he is?”

Edna shook her head. “She said he killed hisself, years ago.”

Jesus. Did Vincent know? Did he ever meet his son?

Edna returned her attention to the soup. “Now, that's all I know.”

Why didn't he tell me? How could he keep it a secret all these years?

“Everything's paid for till the end of the month,” she added. “You better call County and warn them she's comin' back.”

“No,” Michael said, almost automatically. “Vincent wouldn't want that.”

Vincent knew he was dying. He knew I'd end up here. Why didn't he tell me?

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'll set something up . . .” Robot voice. He couldn't force an inflection. “So you'll keep getting checks for as long as she's alive. A trust fund or something.”

She stopped stirring the soup and looked at him.

“You mean it?”

Michael nodded. “Just keep doing what you're doing.”

Suddenly Edna saw him in a new light. “Bless your heart! 'Cause I ain't in
no
mood to be job huntin' right now.”

Maybe it's not true. This is all based on Edna's math. No one involved has said that it's true.

“Could I talk to her?” he asked, trying not to sound like his life depended on it.

Edna shook her head. “She's takin' her nap, and if I wake her up she'll make my life hell for a month. Besides, it wouldn't do no good. She don't hardly talk to me, and I know she ain't gonna talk to no stranger. And if I told her who you was, she'd throw your tail out and mine right behind it.”

“Then maybe I could come back later. You could set it up.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I'm your Red Cross supervisor and I need to talk to her to make sure you're doing a good job.”

“Uh-huh. And why does my Red Cross supervisor need to talk about something that happened sixty-some years ago?”

She was right. It needed work. They exchanged phone numbers and she started to walk him out.

He stopped in the living room, having noticed a crucifix hanging on the wall by the door. Impossible not to notice it; it was at least a foot high. A severe-looking cross, made of some kind of dark wood. It sported a full-color Jesus wearing a crown of vicious black thorns, eyes rolled heavenward in agony, blood everywhere the “artist” could find an excuse to paint blood.

“Is she Catholic?” Michael asked. He already knew the answer. No Protestant on earth would have that thing hanging in the living room.

“Hmph,” Edna said, rolling her eyes. “She makes the pope look like a Presbyterian.”

“Really?” Michael said, though he didn't know why it would matter.

“I tried to get her to put it in her room,” Edna said, making no effort to conceal her distaste, “but she said it had to go by the door. I don't know, maybe they got some rule that it's gotta be by the door. I hang my dust rag over it when I'm in here watching my stories. She'd have a hissy fit if she knew that.”

It felt somehow very odd to Michael that Edna didn't even know he was Catholic, much less that he was a priest. He just nodded and let it go, gave her the paycheck, and left. He'd call tomorrow and start working on wearing her down.

Barton was only another fifteen minutes along I-75, and Michael felt obligated to put in an appearance at the church. A priest from the nearest town had been covering for him, but he was starting to feel guilty about not having checked in.

He drove on autopilot and replayed the conversation with Edna, trying to make some sense of it. Too many holes. No place to look for answers, unless he could talk to Rebecca. Even then, Edna didn't make her sound like someone who'd be at all forthcoming. But if he hadn't inherited another thing from Vincent, Michael certainly possessed Vincent's tenacity. He had complete faith in his ability to break through to whatever information remained available.

He reached Barton and pulled into the church's small parking lot. It was empty except for an ancient Buick owned by his ancient volunteer secretary, Annie Poteet. Annie put in four hours a day, five days a week, if her rheumatism wasn't bothering her and she didn't get a better offer. The fact that she was holding down the fort did not comfort him, since Annie generally caused more problems than she solved.

He opened the door to find the rectory filled with flower arrangements and sympathy cards from parishioners, which caught him off guard. It hadn't dawned on him that they'd have any reaction to his grandfather's death. He stopped to take it in, and to fend off another wave of guilt.

Annie fairly leaped from her chair the minute she saw him and made a tremendous fuss over him, calling him “Father” about fifteen times in three sentences. Then she went to work giving him the rundown on each flower arrangement and planted basket: who'd sent what, which of the town's two florists was responsible for each, and a couple of editorial comments about flowers that did not properly reflect the income brackets of the families from which they'd come. From there, she moved on to other late-breaking developments.

“The toilets are backed up again,” she said, in a tone that said
this is the blow that's gonna sink us.
“I called the plumber and he said he's on his way, but you know how they are. He said we're just going to keep having this problem if we don't hook up to the county. I know you think it's too expensive, I'm just repeating what he told me. And Father Hennessey called and said he can take the two morning Masses on Sunday, but not the five o'clock because he's got the five o'clock at his own church—”

Annie continued, rattling off a list of problems that went on for ten minutes. Michael flipped through a stack of mail and hoped she'd take the hint, but she just prattled on. He heard about half of it.

“—and that charismatic group, whatever they call themselves, wants to know when you can come to one of their meetings.”

“Twelve years after I'm dead,” Michael said, handing her a stack of bills.

Annie stared blankly at him. Decoding sarcasm wasn't in her job description. Michael tried again.

“Tell them I appreciate the invitation and I'd go to war for their right to exist, but I'm wholeheartedly uninterested in participating.”

Not knowing what to do with that, Annie mumbled something about needing to water the flowers and left the room.

Michael went upstairs and threw some clothes into what used to be his gym bag. (He could still remember the look he'd gotten from Annie when he'd asked her if there was a racquetball court in Barton.) When he came back downstairs, the plumber was there. He and Annie were intensely bemoaning the rectory's bleak plumbing prognosis. Michael snuck out the back door, unnoticed.

Before heading back to Atlanta, he decided to duck into Tillie's Good Food Coffee Shop. He needed caffeine if he was going to survive the drive home. He went to the takeout counter and ordered a large coffee from the perky redheaded waitress.

He looked around to make sure he wasn't snubbing any parishioners. The place was packed with the usual dinner crowd, but he didn't see anyone from his flock. He was thankful for that. He was completely out of “everything is fine” energy.

The waitress returned to tell him a new pot was brewing and would be ready in a few minutes. He paid her, then sat at the counter, stared at the napkin holder, and resumed his attempt to make some sense out of Edna's story.

Why hadn't Vincent told him? How could he have kept such a huge secret all those years?

The same way you kept your secret from him.

It's not the same thing.

It's pretty damned close.

What else didn't Vincent tell me? Was all that saintliness just an act?

No. He spent all those years tracking her down. That means something, doesn't it? At least he felt guilty.

The irony of it. The two of them suffering in silence, each determined not to disillusion the other. Faking the intimacy they were actually shutting out. It was sad. Sad, and stupid.

He emerged from his reverie to notice someone sitting down on the only empty stool, the one beside him. He glanced over, then wished he hadn't. It was the weird guy. Michael turned away from him without speaking. He'd made that mistake before, and the hermit had decided Michael was trying to pick him up. But then, he'd probably brought that on himself by spending too much time staring at the guy, trying to figure him out. Michael had heard enough coffee shop gossip to know he lived alone in a boardinghouse and worked as a day laborer. Michael had seen him standing in front of Western Auto, looking out of place among the blacks and Hispanics competing for unskilled employment. It wasn't just his ethnicity that made him stand out. There was also the look on his face—a look of sharp, angry intelligence. There was something in that look that called out to Michael. Maybe just the fact that he saw the same look every day, every time he looked in the mirror.

The waitress finally appeared with Michael's coffee. She was gone again before he could ask her for cream. He saw a small pitcher on the counter, an arm's reach in front of the weird guy.

“I'm not making a pass,” he said as he leaned over the guy. “I need the cream.”

The guy shoved the pitcher over; then, to Michael's surprise, he handed him a spoon.

“Need this?”

“Thanks.” Michael was careful not to say anything else, although he did detect a subtle change in the energy. At least the guy wasn't sending the usual death vibes. As had always been the case, Michael felt a strange compulsion to talk to him. Even now, when he knew what a waste of time it was.

Michael stirred his coffee, then handed the spoon back. On impulse, he leaned over and spoke quietly.

“For the record, I'm not gay and I'm not interested in saving you. I don't believe in that.”

“Which?”

Michael was amazed. He hadn't expected a response, let alone a response that invited further conversation.

“Saving people,” he said, trying to hide his shock.

“You don't think people can be saved?”

“Not by other people.”

“Then what's your job?”

“These days, I'm not very sure.”

The guy was completely thrown by that and didn't speak. Michael felt a sense of victory far beyond the accomplishment.

Michael picked up his coffee and left. Quickly, while he still had the advantage.

A
t Vincent's house, he found a note from Barbara lying on the kitchen counter.

Michael—

You got calls from every Jesuit in North America. They all send condolences, they all want you to call them back, a guy named Larry said to tell you that you're a jerk for not calling him. Let me know what you found out about Edna Foley. I'm around if you need me.

Michael crumpled the note and tossed it into the trash. He didn't even look at the phone list. It would still be there in the morning.

He went into the den and poured himself a couple of fingers of Maker's Mark. He stared at the phone for a few minutes, then finally picked it up and dialed Tess's number. The machine answered on the first ring.

“Hi. I'm not here. Leave a message after the beep.”

“It's Jesus,” he said. “There's some talk going around that you don't think I exist, so I thought I'd call and set the record straight. I've heard a few other things about you, but we can get into all that later.”

He started to hang up, then remembered something.

“Thanks for the wreath, it was lovely. I'm about to drink heavily and go to sleep. I'll call you tomorrow. I love you.”

He sipped the bourbon and flipped through an issue of
Commonweal
until he realized he couldn't care less about the future of Northern Ireland or the interpretation of the Catholic vote in the '92 election. It was hard to believe he'd ever care about anything like that again. Such musings were a luxury for people to whom life made some degree of sense.

He put the magazine down. He was going to have to find some way to pass the time. He noticed something in the pile of junk that had been accumulating on the coffee table: the tape recorder Vincent had left him. He'd put it there when he came home from the hospital and hadn't thought about it since. He was going to have to listen to it sooner or later, but the thought of hearing Vincent's voice was not inviting. Especially tonight.

But . . .

But what if the tape was a confession, of sorts? Was that how Vincent had decided to tell him about Rebecca? Michael picked up the recorder, rewound the tape, and let it play. He braced himself.

“Well . . . if you're listening to this, it means I've moved on to the Big Time. Pour yourself a stiff drink, if you haven't already.”

Michael smiled at that, even though the sound of Vincent's voice stung like an icy wind; it was frail, and groggy with pain medication.

“Michael . . . you've been the joy of my life, and I can leave here knowing I did at least one thing right. It might be the only thing. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of what you've done, and I'm proud of what I know you'll go on to do. God got Himself a priceless ally the day you signed up.”