Forgive Me Father For I Have Loved (6 page)

The huge area boasted scenic sights, long picturesque bike trails, discrete picnic areas and plenty of space for children and lovers to play. Sometimes he’d come, sit on his favorite bench under an old oak tree and read his Bible or write out his sermon. Other times, he’d just daydream. Every day here, he found something extraordinary, beautiful or whimsical to sink one or more of his five senses into—something that moved his soul and spirit, making them slow dance to the natural music of the gifted day. Today, he came to escape his own worries. Josh had been admitted into the hospital and was sliding further down into a dark chasm, which caused grief to all that loved him. Since their dinner, Dane had kept in constant contact with his ill friend on a daily basis, trying to not become a nuisance, but he was driven to hear the man’s voice. The more time passed, the weaker Josh seemed. Dane tried to offer words of encouragement, refusing to admit that he, too, sometimes felt angry with God about the recent turn of events. He hung on to his optimism, hoping that this was truly one of those moments when things grew increasingly gloomier before bursting like a star storm of energy and bestowing a blessing in the nick of time.

Dane sat back on the bench, legs slightly parted, and crossed his arms over his chest as he drifted into his memories. He was briefly distracted when one of the priests from his parish walked past in the near distance.

“Hi, Dane!” Fr. Sinclair called out, waving.

“Hey, Stewart!” Dane waved and forced a grin, though he wasn’t in a smiling mood, and the man kept on his way.

Dane could see Josh clearly in his mind—the two of them cutting across the high-school field, laughing and goofing off during football practice, only to be reprimanded again and again. They were bad influences on each other, but couldn’t help themselves and were hitched at the hip. Twin souls, the best of friends, more like brothers. It started in the third grade, and never stopped. You couldn’t find one without the other; their lives were intertwined and they’d experienced so much together.

He remembered how devastated Josh had been after his parents divorced but soon after, a new exciting chapter arrived in his life, saving him from his own hopelessness. His first love, Marilyn Lopez blew the lid off of the seemingly quiet, suburban life the two young men had grown accustomed to. The sexy Latina siren from Massachusetts moved to Lavonia from Canada with her father. She, too, was a product of divorced parents and lent Josh an ear, as well as her heart.

The new girl with waist length jet black hair, alluring green eyes and a Spanish accent made the boys’ toes curl. All the junior guys wanted a chance at her, and Dane and Josh played a bit of rivalry to get her attention, but Dane could see that Josh
really
dug her, so he stepped back and let it all play out. After a while, they both had steady girlfriends and were living it up—football, dates, parties. Life was a blast. But then, Marilyn was gone, just as quickly as she’d arrived. She moved away after less than a year, when her father was transferred to managerial job in New Mexico.

Josh had tried to play it cool, but inside the poor guy was fading. Despite Dane’s support, he did what anyone would do for a guy that was dumped by the chic he’d lost his virginity to—drown him in a bottle of illegally acquired booze. Dane quickly obtained a fake I.D. and purchased them both some beers to get them both completely plastered the night she pulled out of her driveway for the final time. He nonchalantly told him to forget about her, that she wasn’t worth it, but they were just words, something to pacify the deep crater inside his best friend’s fractured heart.

Josh had been there for Dane, too. Though Dane’s childhood had been by all outward appearances good—damn near great—with a mom at all her children’s games and events, a father who showed up to open houses and PTA meetings and played ball with his boys in the backyard. Yet, there were still
things
, feelings...those deep, dark nightmares he’d suppressed and hadn’t told a soul about...except for Josh. The ones that caused him to sneak and drink in back of the bleachers, nursing his woes away until the morning, after which he’d feel a sense of shame that paled in comparison to his throbbing hangover. He wrestled with the newfound alcohol addiction, fought it whenever the ugliness came to the light. He did eventually win that daunting battle, stopped altogether, but the nasty, sticky crap that clogged his heart was still there in the morning, and the morning after that...

It ate at him so badly, he’d lock himself in his room, pretending to be doing homework when in fact he was writing angry words across his math class notebook and listening to Black Sabbath on his old portable CD player, the headphones blasting so loudly that if the entire house collapsed, he wouldn’t have heard it or gave a damn. His mother discovered the CDs, worn and scratched with repeated wear, and threw them out, but the twisted lyrics still danced in his sordid, tortured mind for months, even years later. He couldn’t talk to her, to the woman with unfaltering faith who insisted that nothing unpleasant be discussed in her home, despite her role in the whole ordeal.

Ugly emotions? Who had them? Surely not her sons and daughter and especially not Dane, her coveted ‘human heirloom’ child that was the spitting image of his grandfather. The man was even too good for a golden pedestal; she’d declared him a saint.

Dane was the only one of his siblings to have a widow’s peak. He was also the only one to have dark sable hair that glowed in shades of gold, russet and tawny under bright light—an unusual shade, which many women seemed to take notice of with him, as with his grandfather. It was one of the things he recalled—the women and his mother going on and on about his mysteriously romantic looks...and his eyes—so blue, they said, you could swim in their vastness and declare them ocean-rich. And they told stories, said so much, crystal clear, forcing him to at times, not look life in the eye. Then, there was the matter of his tan; people were certain he’d been going to the tanning booth, baking himself to an ochre crisp. Jokes from even his closest associates never ceased. But no, it was all due to the strong Southern Italian blood surging through his veins.

All in all, his mother said he appeared honest, and had actor good looks—but an even more attractive heart. She wanted him to be a person of moral character, an example of discipline, just like her very own father—a man held in high regard who, according to her, had run a strict but loving Catholic home.

Dane’s thoughts drifted back to the here and now. Family was important, yet in the face of disease, illness and frailty, what did it matter? Fate showed neither allegiance nor concern in either direction and laughed at pity, turning away in disgust from the emotional display. Josh had a family—a wife, two twin daughters, Isabella and Abigail, and a newborn son, Leo—and now they all suffered from the cruelty of their father’s body and spirit’s lost resolve.

Dane gripped his jacket and pulled it closed as the breeze picked up, giving him a chill. Sighing, he leaned forward, rocking his body, and stared down at the grass beneath his white and navy Reeboks. In the distance, a child laughed, and intelligible words floated on the air.

Two men jogged past, their feet pounding the pavement as they each clutched their cellphone. After a few more moments, he convinced himself to stand, walk back to his hail beaten black Nissan Altima, go get a bite to eat, then head back to the rectory. As he made his slow steps toward the parked vehicle, still drowning in isolated, painful thoughts of his ailing friend, he caught an image out of the corner of his eye. Stopping, he watched the woman bend slightly as she stretched. Her elegant swanlike neck arched as she moved gently in the breeze, her form kissed by rays of sunlight. It seemed almost as if the sun had slowed down from setting, just to get a few more seconds with her. She’d wrapped her hair in thickly wound black fabric, and suddenly he wanted to know what those tresses looked like. Wearing a black leotard, she moved with grace, like poetry in motion.

As if aware of his presence, she slowly turned toward him, her arms outstretched as if she were a ballerina frozen in time. Their eyes locked. Caught, he simply offered a smile and gentle wave. She smiled back, then continued with her calisthenics. He sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets and proceeded on his way, hoping he could shake the nasty mood he was in—but seeing the loving, elderly couple and the beautiful woman had at least given his heart a break from the recent emotional stab wounds that refused to heal...

“Well, that is just unbelievable.” Daisy scoffed as she crossed her long, pale, skinny, legs and blew her reddened nose. She shot an angry sky blue glare at her brother, Dane, causing him to grimace and turn away from her before he said something he may regret. Everyone sat or stood huddled close together in the stifling lawyer’s office. Attorney Dawson licked his finger tip and nonchalantly turned the next page in the stack of papers, peering at the Caruso family from over his thin-framed dark glasses.

“Now.” The older man with graying temples cleared his throat as the stuffy dust-filled place made Dane’s nose itch. “Mr. Rossi made it plain as day about this. He left the bulk of his money to his grandson, Fr. Dane Caruso, in hopes that i
t would be used for the church.” Coughing, he glanced around then turned back to the papers.

“Why are we just now hearing about this? The man has been dead for almost two years,” Daisy asked, her tone pockmarked with jealousy and a dollop of animosity. She looked around the room, more than likely searching for support. Her gaze settled on Dane, who, however, couldn’t humor her.

He was still in shock himself, unable to utter so much as a word. But his heart swelled with warmth as he contemplated what the church could do with dough like that...

$4,237,374.78

My God!

Fact of the matter was, Grandpa Rossi was miserly. According to family rumor and speculation, the man always claimed to be destitute, especially after his wife, Angelina, Dane’s grandmother, had passed away long before he’d been born. The money was locked away in
Italy, away from curious eyes and greedy hands, to ensure that the nursing home didn’t get their claws on it and no fights would be had. A devout Catholic, he proved to be an astute yet slightly paranoid businessman that owned several dry cleaning stores, large plots of land for building real estate in prestigious suburban areas across the country, a grand rental house in Italy and two thriving foreign luxury pre-owned car dealerships, which he always pretended were on their way under. In reality, he’d made money while others went broke and had become a self-made millionaire, without anyone being the wiser. When his grandson had entered the seminary, the man accused of rarely showing a grin, smiled so much it may have hurt.

Dane had an agreeable relationship with his grandfather, but nothing, in his mind that warranted such a gift. Matter of fact, they rarely spoke apart from sharing pleasantries. Despite him being a spitting image of the man, they seemed to share little in common. As the shock mounted, he began to plan out things in his mind...

I can get Josh the best treatments in the world now! I’ll fly him wherever he needs to go, get the best doctors and medicines around! Someone will cure him; someone out there knows how to stop this!

The church can really use this money. It’s too small to accommodate everyone that attends now. The food pantries, my charities...what a blessing! We can add on, without worry of the financial burden, and build the daycare center. And, I can help other churches, too, Catholic churches all around the country...around the world.

Daisy does need money for the kids. Her husband’s job doesn’t pay enough. I’ll help...no need for the children to suffer because they keep making bad choices...

Time to pay off Mom and Dad’s loans...the medical bills and the house refinancing, get that all out of the way...I can get a new car, mine is always in the shop. There are so many people I can help with this...

“So, you see, he did let me know about the money, but it took this long for me to find the correct paperwork and get permission to have access to the corroborating documents and accounts. He had not provided it all before it was too late. He left the money to Dane, your son here, Mrs. Caruso, versus directly to the Church, because he wanted his grandson to actually manage it, to ensure it was utilized in the proper manner. I’ve been hassling with two banks in Europe—Rome was the worst.” Attorney Dawson sighed and shook his long head. “And I finally have the information as well as the check.”

Attorney
Dawson cleared his throat again and shuffled through an envelope. He stood from behind his desk and handed a cut check to Dane. Daisy’s glare hit the passing piece of pale yellow paper like a ton of bricks and she made no attempt to hide her review of the dollars and cents. Dane frowned at her, and snatched it past her, his patience running thin. Settling back in his seat, he smiled and shook his head in disbelief.

“Wow...this is...this is just amazing.” He stared at the check, then looked over his shoulder at his parents, noting the smiles on their faces and a sheen over his mother’s eyes. His two brothers, Joseph and Anthony sat straight-faced, devoid of much outward emotion. Dane got along pretty well with all of his siblings overall; regardless, he expected everyone to behave just as they were, after receiving such an announcement. Joseph, the eldest, was quiet and not easily ruffled though inside he knew a least at small smattering of suspicion swarmed. Still, Joseph wouldn’t make a fuss. He was the eldest, had sometimes acted like a surrogate father to them. Like Dane, he tended to bury his emotions, and this was one of those times when he’d never allow his true thoughts to color his words.