She drew back suddenly, sucked in a rattling breath, and stared up at him. “Muh-Mom didn’t call my father. She puh-promised, and then she didn’t call him.”
For a split second, all Francis felt was relief.
Tears squeezed past her lashes, fell one after another in a muddy smear down her pale cheeks. “I don’t know why I believed she would.”
“He walked out on you guys. Maybe it’s best if you don’t think about him.”
’Tell me who he is,” she asked quietly.
There would be no going back from this moment on; he knew it. Fear tightened in a band around his chest. Defeat rounded his shoulders, slipped from his mouth in a ragged sigh. He plucked a single tear from her cheek. “Oh, Lina-ballerina…”
“Don’t do this to me, Francis, not you, too.”
He felt shame welling up, spilling through him. “I can’t tell you his name.”
“Can’t?” The word was a whisper of breath. “Or won’t?”
“Lina—”
“Don’t.” She stared at him, and he saw, in that instant that felt like an eternity, he saw that she hated him. It hurt. Sweet Jesus above, it hurt.
“I used to watch the ‘Brady Bunch’ reruns when I was a kid.” She bit her lip and looked past him. It was a long, long time before she spoke again. “It used to make me cry. That silly, stupid sitcom used to make me cry.”
Francis understood. Even as a child, she’d wanted that sense of family, of belonging. But he and Madelaine hadn’t given it to her. They’d wanted to protect her with their silence, but it had only hurt her more. “I’m sorry, Lina.”
She gave a bitter, trilling laugh. “Yeah, well, so am I.” She got to her feet and snagged her backpack. Slinging it over her shoulder, she pushed past him and headed for the door.
He lurched to his feet. “Lina, wait—” He knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, that there was no right thing left, and the words echoed in the room and fell into a frightening silence.
She gave him a hard, cold look. “What for?”
He moved toward her. She didn’t move, just stood there, staring at him through those hurt blue eyes. Gently he took her face in his hands, brushed the tears away with his thumbs. “I love you, Lina. Always remember that.”
“Yeah, sure you do.” Her voice broke. “You and Mom both love me. But neither of you will tell me the truth.”
Lina screeched to a stop in front of Savemore Drugs. The store stared silently back at her; its big, sprawling, well-lit face invited her in. She tossed her bike into the bushes.
Excitement pushed past the anger and heartbreak. She needed that excitement now, needed another emotion to sweep her up, embrace her. She swiped at her eyes, trying to erase the last of the useless tears. With the touch, she knew she had no mascara left on her eyelashes, knew it was all on her cheeks in a caked, blue-black smear. Probably all that was left of her “Oregon Cherry” blusher was two streaks of war paint on either side of the blurred mascara.
Yeah, she had to look hot.
Sniffing, Lina jerked her chin up and narrowed her eyes. Just let someone say something. In fact, the way she was feeling, she wished they would.
She didn’t even care enough to call him. A lousy seven numbers, fifteen minutes out of her day …
And Francis, the closest thing to a dad she’d ever known, betraying her. I can’t tell you his name.
Lina felt the horrifying sting of fresh tears and she spun away from the store. Stumbling sideways, she slipped behind a holly tree and sat down on a pile of wooden pallets. Curling forward, she pressed her damp face into her knees and cried.
Her mother knew how important this was to her. She had to know. And yet, she was too busy to make a phone call.
Lina had always bent over backward to accommodate her mother’s schedule. She was proud of her mother’s job—it was way cooler than anyone else’s mom. Lina had put up with all of the missed dates, the lonely nights, the rushed family meals. But enough was enough; she couldn’t put up with any more.
She reached into her book bag and pulled out a Cover Girl compact. Flipping it open, she stared at the small reflection of herself. Electric blue eyes, slashing black eyebrows, small, bow-shaped lips.
“Who are you?” she whispered to the girl in the glass. And who was he—this father who had left his mark on her face, her thoughts, her personality, and then moved on? He was the answer to it all. The loudness, the dissatisfaction, the anger—they were all personality traits that must have come from him, must be his living legacy.
She kept remembering her question. Am I like him?
And her mother’s sad, reminiscing smile, the one that excluded Lina from her birthright, from the memories that should have belonged to her. You’re exactly like him.
Her fantasies spun out again, capturing her in a silken web. They were alike, she and her daddy—her mom had said so. She was like her father. They would be more than just father/daughter. They would be best friends. Her father wouldn’t lie to her or discipline her. He wouldn’t work all hours and come home tired or care if her homework wasn’t done on time.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, dreaming about him. Long enough for her tears to dry, for her bleeding sadness to harden into anger. Her mother had no right to keep this information from her. Not this.
Tired, depressed, she got to her feet and emerged from the bushes.
There was the store. She thought about turning away, just going home to think, but the store was so close.
She needed the jolt of adrenaline that came from outsmarting everyone. With a quick look in both directions, she repositioned her backpack over one shoulder and headed toward the store, down the wide, azalea-lined cement walkway.
Twin glass doors whooshed open in an electronic greeting. She slipped into the bright lights of the super-drugstore, feeling glaringly noticeable. A punk kid in ratty clothes in yuppie Heaven.
She grinned, knowing they were watching her, cataloging her, making a note of her for their detectives. She followed her own routine. First thing she did was buy a newspaper—it looked good to spend money right off the bat. She put two quarters in the slot and eased the front plate open, grabbing the newest edition of the small community newspaper. Tucking it under one arm, she strolled down the main aisle, then she turned off, glided down the makeup aisle. She touched everything that interested her, weighing it, feeling how it fit in her palm. Looking.
She touched a dozen things, putting each one back in its proper place.
Then she saw it, touched it, and her heart sped up. Excitement brought a quick, furtive smile.
A thin tube of Lash Intensifier in a clear plastic package.
Lina glanced around, saw no one. Her heart sped up even more, started thundering in her chest. A damp, itchy sweat broke out on her palms. The first, niggling sense of fear crept in, muttered that she couldn’t do it, that she wasn’t good enough.
Then came the other emotions—the cocky self-confidence she could only find in the overlit aisle of a drugstore, the pulse-pounding jolt of adrenaline.
Can you do it, can you?
She walked around for a while, just casually holding the mascara. Her fingers were so slick with sweat, she had to change hands three or four times. Once or twice she pretended to replace the mascara on the shelves—once with the deodorants, once with the aspirins.
In the toothpaste aisle she made her move.
She slipped the makeup in her pocket and yanked her hand back out.
It was done.
Breathing hard, heart pounding, she forced herself to keep moving casually down the store. She paused in front of the videos, flipped through a few horror books. The magazines captured her interest, so she stood there, leafing through the current issue of Rolling Stone.
Then, very calmly, she walked down the aisle, past the checkout counter toward the door. With a quick sideways glance, she saw that she was alone, and a grin broke across her face as the automatic doors whooshed open.
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At the last second, a hand grabbed her shoulder and squeezed hard. A loud male voice said, “Just a minute, miss.”
Chapter Nine
Francis walked slowly along the cracked stone path that led to the Fiorellis’ modest white home. He couldn’t help noticing the weeds and grass that furred the walkway and crept stubbornly through the autumn flowers.
Last summer this garden had been elegant and tended; now it ran wild, the rosebushes clinging to their dead and dying blossoms, the ground stained with multicolored petals, their edges curled and brown and split.
He reached the front door and paused. A small overhang blocked the midday sun from his eyes and cast him in the welcoming cool of shadow. In a niche on the right side of the door stood an old, weathered statue of Christ, His mildew-stained palms outstretched in greeting.
For a second, Francis was reluctant to go in. He felt the statue’s painted eyes on him, silently condemning his cowardice. The Fiorellis had been friends for as long as he could remember. Back when he and Angel were kids, they had played in this yard, thrown a thousand baseballs back and forth with the Fiorellis’ grandsons.
But those days were gone, and he was back for another reason. He took a long, last breath of the rose-scented air and finally knocked.
There was a rustle of sound from within, and then the plain white door swung open, revealing a thin, stoop-shouldered old man in the entryway. His creased face split in a wide, toothy grin. “Hello, Father Francis. Come in, come in.” The old man stepped aside.
Francis plunged into the cool, dark interior. The first thing he noticed was the smell—the vague, musty scent of a house in disrepair, a house in which the roof needed tending as badly as the rose garden. The tiny entry gave way immediately to a small, oval front room, defined on three sides by once-elegant plaster arches. Dozens of family pictures hung, cockeyed and dusty, from sagging nails, school photographs of children who now had children of their own. An old RCA television was tucked in the corner, its sound a dull, muted hush in the otherwise silent room.
Just last year, a beautiful Victorian settee and table had graced this room; they were gone now. In their place a hospital bed stood stark and threatening in the tiny space. A wheelchair huddled in the corner, waiting for use.
Ah, but even the time for that had passed.
Francis felt it again, the reluctance to intrude on their grief. “Hello.” It was all he could say past the lump in his throat
The old man looked up, his face pinched and pale. For a split second Francis remembered the man who’d once lived behind those dark eyes. He used to laugh all the time, even had difficulty keeping a smile off his face when he took Communion. And he’d always had a joke for Francis in the confessional, a “sin” that could be counted on to cause a young priest to grin behind the safety of the wooden shield. Bless me, Father, for I put tuna in the chicken salad.
“Can I get you something to drink, Father?” Mr. Fiorelli asked in a respectful voice. No smile now.
Francis shook his head, pressing a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, noticing how rail-thin he’d become. “No, thanks, Edward. How is she today?”
Edward looked up again, and in the pale light his face seemed to cave in on itself, collapse in a morass of folds. “Not good.”
Francis came up to the side of the bed and sat down on the creaky wooden stool, scooting close. His knees hit the metal frame with a dull clang.
The woman in the bed, Ilya Fiorelli, blinked slowly awake. At the sight of him, she smiled. “Father Francis.”
Edward moved to the other side of the bed and sat down, curling his age-spotted, big-knuckled hand around his wife’s.
“I knew you would come today,” she whispered, starting to say more, but then a rattling, phlegmy cough shuddered through her chest.
Francis stared down at the pale, withered old woman. Her white hair, brushed and combed to salon perfection, curled against the grayed pillow like wisps of goose down. He took hold of her other hand, so slim and fragile, and squeezed gently.
Dull, watery blue eyes blinked at him, the corners tucked into folds of wrinkled flesh. Even now, in the last, pain-riddled days of her life, she exuded a calm gentleness that touched his heart.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
She spoke so softly, he had to lean forward to hear the words.
“It has been two weeks since my last confession. I accuse myself of—”
Francis squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the lump that lodged like old dust in his throat. When was the last time you truly sinned, Ilya? When?
How could a benevolent God heap such misery on a woman like this? A loving, caring woman who’d never harmed a soul. All her life she’d helped people, and now here she lay, cancer eating through her bones, hopelessness spreading like a virus through her blood.
And what of Edward, her husband of fifty-seven years? What would he do after her death, how would he go on in this home that she had created for them?
“Edward,” she said softly, “get Father Francis a cup of tea.”
Edward let go of his wife’s hand and left the bedside, disappearing into the kitchen.
She waited for the quiet click of the kitchen door before she spoke. “Father …” She paused, drew in a deep, shaking breath, her hand curling within his grasp into a tight fist. “I am afraid for him, Father. The look in his eyes lately … He isn’t ready for me to die.”
Francis touched her face, gently stroked the velvety wrinkles. “I’ll help him, Ilya. I’ll be here for him.”
“I can’t stay much longer. The pain …” Tears slid down her temples. She squeezed his hand. “Take care of him, Father. Please …”
Francis brushed the moist trail from her skin and tried to smile. “God will watch out for Edward, and He is infinitely more capable than I. God always has a—”
Plan.
He couldn’t finish. He’d said the same thing a million times, but now he couldn’t speak. He needed to say something that mattered, something that would ease this gentle woman’s pain, and there was nothing. Nothing.
“Of course He has a plan,” she whispered, making it painfully easy on him. “It’s just… my Edward …”
Tears blurred Francis’s vision. He tried to think of something meaningful to say, but in the end, he found nothing, so he lapsed into the ordinary, the rote, absolving her of her sins—although he knew there were none, not really—and blessing her soul for the thousandth time.
“Thank you, Father.”
He stared into Ilya’s blue eyes, seeing the sharpness of life in all its wondrous, pain-filled beauty reflected in her gaze. He saw all the things he’d denied himself, all the roads he hadn’t taken. And suddenly he was thinking things he shouldn’t….
For thirty-five years Francis had slept alone, crawled into his narrow wooden bed on sheets that smelled of his own aftershave. Just once, he wanted to sleep on pillows that smelled of perfume.
It used to be enough to watch the world go by, loving other people’s children, talking to other men’s wives. But now, sitting here beside Mrs. Fiorelli, holding her withered hand, he knew how much he’d given up. He could baptize a million children, and not one of them would ever call him daddy.
He’d been a bystander to life. He still loved God, but sometimes, in the middle of a cold, dark night, he positively ached for human contact. For Madelaine. A hundred times in the past few years, he’d hauled himself out of bed, kneeled on the hard floor, and prayed for guidance and strength.
Courage. That’s what he needed, for Mrs. Fiorelli right now, and for himself. It was what he’d needed all his life and never really had. Angel had gotten all the courage in their family, and Francis had gotten all the faith.
If he’d had courage, just a little bit of it a long time ago, maybe he would have made different choices, taken a different turn.
But he’d taken the easy road many years ago. Back when Madelaine was pregnant and alone, Francis had
offered to marry her. Only, he hadn’t wanted to marry her, not really, and she’d known that, just as she’d always known everything about him. She knew that his love for God was the defining passion of his life and always would be.
No, Francis, she’d said quietly, crying. Be my best friend, be my baby’s best friend. Please…
And they’d never spoken of it again.
There were so many things they’d never spoken of….
He closed his eyes and prayed aloud, as much for himself as for Ilya. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.” The words spilled through his mind like water from a bucket, one after another, soothing, cleansing, and he lost himself in them.
Ilya’s voice joined his. “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”
The forgiveness of sins.
The shame came back, left Francis no place to hide. He should have encouraged Madelaine to tell Lina the truth about her father, or he should have told Lina the truth.
He knew there could be no true forgiveness until he made things right.
“Father?” Mrs. Fiorelli’s voice jerked him back to the present.
He shook the thoughts away and smiled down at the old woman. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fiorelli.”
“You looked sad for a second, Father,” Ilya said. “What could a handsome young priest like yourself have to be sad about?”
He should lie to her, should don the mantle of distant perfection that was required of him, but he had no stomach for it. “Regrets, maybe,” he answered quietly.
She reached out a withered, shaking hand and touched his chin in a flitting gesture of affection. “Take it from me, Father. Life is over quickly, and you only regret what you didn’t do.”
“Sometimes it’s too late.”
“Never,” she breathed. “It’s never too late.”
Angel lay in his uncomfortable hospital bed, staring up at the acoustical tile ceiling.
God, he felt bad. Worse than bad. He hurt almost everywhere, and in the few places he didn’t hurt, he was weak. Breathing had become a painful, unsatisfying chore. His fingers had started to turn cold. At first he’d thought it was nothing, then his toes had become blue.