The Prodigal: A Ragamuffin Story

  “We need just another minute,” Tom told him.

  “Okeydoke,” he said, smiled tightly, and backed away.

  “I’ll talk to the lawyers in Seattle,” she said, resignation in her voice. “I know you’ve got a right to see Alison. We’ll talk it over. Set it up. I’ll have them contact your lawyers.”

  “Tom’s lawyers,” Jack said. “Actually.”

  The table fell silent, broken only by Alison setting down a blue crayon and picking up a green one.

  “I’m sorry, Tom,” Tracy said at last, looking across the table at him. “Sorry for everything. If I’d known, I would have done things differently. It’s not fair—”

  “I’m happy to be sitting here right now,” Tom said, and he certainly seemed to be. Despite the tension, he had been smiling since the moment he sat down across from his granddaughter.

  “And—” She paused for a moment and looked over her shoulder to make sure the server wasn’t returning. “Jack. I guess I’m wondering. What do you want, actually? Why are you here after all this time?”

  Jack took a big breath. Go big or go home.

  “I want you back,” he said. “I want us to be a family again.”

  Tracy looked at him like some interesting species of bug that had crawled out from beneath a rock.

  “Just think about it,” he said. “Please, Tray. I’d like another chance.”

  “I’m sure you would,” she said.

  And then the server was back, looking hopeful and, now, a little desperate. The lunch rush was getting ready to start, and they had yet to order.

  “We’ll have the duck gyoza for a starter,” Tracy said. “I’ll have the mandarin sesame salad.” She smiled at Alison, who was looking up at her with a grin, and Jack saw that her eyes still crinkled when she did this. “Mini ramen with shrimp for the chimp.”

  “And more apple juice,” Alison said.

  “One more apple juice,” Tracy agreed.

  “Gentlemen?” the server asked.

  “Nothing,” Jack said sourly.

  “No dessert for you,” Alison said.

  “You can eat some of the duck dumplings,” Tracy said. “You should eat something.”

  “Yakisoba,” Tom said brightly. He had clearly been thinking about this. “Extra shrimp. Extra spicy.”

  “Are you—” Their server looked at him dubiously, this pale, skinny old man. “Are you sure, sir? That will be very spicy indeed.”

  Tom looked at him—just looked at him—and smiled. “Young man,” he said, “I am a citizen of the great state of Texas. The day you can out-spice me—”

  He stopped, smiled again, and chuckled.

  “Well,” he said, looking across the table at his granddaughter. “That day ain’t here yet.”

  They ate. If Tom was overwhelmed by the spice, he gave no indication. And at last, they all pushed back from the table. The dining room had grown crowded, their server’s frequent visits suggested that they were beginning to overstay their welcome. And while Jack felt like he could sit and watch Alison color expertly all afternoon, he doubted that Tracy shared that sentiment.

  They got up from the table, walked out into the now-crowded pedestrian walkway, and Alison looked up at Jack and then to Tom. “Thanks for sending detectives to find us,” she told him. “That was cool.”

  “You’re welcome,” Tom said.

  “Anytime,” Jack said. “I’ll see you really soon, okay?”

  Alison looked up to her mom, who gave her an imperceptible nod.

  “Okay,” she said. She leaned across and hugged him around the waist. He closed his eyes, didn’t dare breathe. And then she stepped away.

  Jack didn’t know the protocol for departing your estranged wife. A hug or kiss was clearly out. And while a handshake seemed ridiculously perfunctory, Tracy didn’t seem to want any contact with him, so that was probably impossible as well.

  “I missed you,” Jack told her.

  Nothing.

  “I called you every day.”

  Her lips pursed. Almost against her will she formed a sad smile. “I know you did,” she said. “It took forever to delete them all.”

  “Just think about what I said.” Jack seemed to be asking that of a lot of people lately. He wondered for a moment if Tracy was also passing off her front foot.

  “I missed you too,” Tom said to her, but unlike with Jack, she seemed to be more than willing to hug him.

  “I’ll be praying for you, Tom,” she said when their hug ended. “I’m sorry for your pain.”

  “I’ll be praying for you,” he returned. “Take good care of my granddaughter.”

  They stepped back from each other.

  “Good-bye, Tom,” Tracy told him.

  He nodded. “Good-bye, Tracy,” he said. “Come and see us real soon,” he told Alison, who shook his hand formally.

  “I will most certainly do that,” she said.

  Jack checked his watch. “We gotta get to the airport.”

  Tom glanced at the time. “So we do.”

  Jack raised a hand. A Texas wave.

  Tracy did the same.

  Alison waved wildly for a moment, returning to her mother’s side.

  Tom and Jack turned away, stepping into the rush of people passing through Prudential Center. It was like getting swept into rapids. When Jack turned for a moment to look back, he couldn’t see either one of them. They were just gone. Vanished.

  12.

  I hate this new year,” Jack said once they had landed safely in Austin and were taxiing to the gate. Tom had been sleeping—had slept even through the bump of their landing—and for a moment Jack was filled with the fear that his dad might not wake up. But he opened a bleary eye now, and Jack could see how tired he was, how the trip had drained what little strength he had. “I want another one.”

  “What’s that?” he said. “Hate what?”

  “I thought this New Year’s Day would be the start of something big,” Jack said. “Not the beginning of the end.”

  “Now, now,” Tom said, raising a hand and sounding like the old man he actually was. “We don’t know what will be. And Tracy said that Alison could come.”

  “I know,” Jack said as they pulled to the gate and people got to their feet. “I know.”

  The flight home had been a long one, not helped by the flight attendant who recognized Jack—and seemed a little put out that the people’s pastor insisted on a Jack and Coke. Or that his elderly father was paying for it.

  When they landed, Jack turned on his phone—force of habit, he knew perfectly well he’d have no messages—and his message light beeped.

  “What the—” he began. He checked the first number. Seattle.

  Danny.

  He should have waited until they were off the plane, at least listened to the message first.

  But he couldn’t.

  “Hey,” he said as soon as Danny picked up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Did you find them?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “We talked to them today.”

  “How did it go?”

  Jack looked around, gauged the attention level of his father, the proximity of his neighbors. “It could have been—better. But great to see Alison.” He checked his watch. It was late here, not quite as late in Seattle, but still later than he ever stayed in the office. “Are you still at work?”

  “I have to preach this weekend,” Danny said. “It’s—what is it called?—Epiphany. The wise men.” He paused—Jack guessed he was drinking from his ever-present cup of coffee. “The elders voted to start following the liturgical calendar this year. I’ve never preached this before. I don’t even know what it means.”

  “Epiphany,” Jack said, thinking and watching people a couple of rows up step into the aisle. “Well. That’s Greek. It means ‘showing forth.’ When we see things revealed as they truly are.” He’d learned that in a literature course on James Joyce, not in a class on the Bible or preaching or Greek, none
of which he had ever taken anyway. “The wise men are seeing the thing they sought, after their long journey. That’ll preach.”

  “I just don’t know how you did this week after week,” he said. “Everybody wants it to be so good. They want to laugh and cry and who knows what all. You spoiled things for me.”

  Jack looked out at the runway, into the dark, dark Texas night.

  You spoiled things.

  “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Jack asked.

  Silence. Taking a drink of coffee. But the pause went on too long. At last, Danny’s voice came, subdued. “We’re down three thousand in Sunday attendance since you left.”

  “Wow. And contributions?”

  “Down by almost half.”

  Jack whistled. “Lieber Gott,” he whispered. He knew what Grace Cathedral needed to take in just to keep the lights on, let alone to do any good in the world, and it was a lot more than that.

  “I can’t do this on my own,” Danny whispered back. “I keep telling them they’ve got to bring you back. And that’s what they’re hearing from a lot of the folks who’ve left. He made a mistake. Big deal. Bring him back.”

  “Why are you whispering?” Jack asked.

  Danny didn’t respond.

  “Are you calling from an elders’ meeting? Because you really shouldn’t oughta do that.”

  Danny snickered. “Nah. I just—it feels like a lot of people are watching me all the time now.”

  “You’re a terrific pastor, Danny,” Jack said. “Things will calm down. You can make this work.” He stood up.

  “The elders are terrified,” Danny whispered again. “But not half as much as me. You’ve got to come back. Just apologize, do whatever they tell you, and come back. Please, Jack.”

  “Hey,” Jack said. It was their turn to step into the aisle, and he needed to reach up and pull down both their carry-ons. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll call you later.”

  “Soon,” Danny said. “Please, Jack.”

  “Wow,” Jack said after he disconnected. He manhandled their bags down from the overhead, began carrying them both off the plane.

  Tom was a little wobbly—he put out a hand to steady himself as they walked up the aisle—but they made it out to the car. After Jack loaded the bags and headed out of the parking lot, he checked his other messages.

  Three of them, all from the 325 area code. Mayfield.

  “It’s those reporters,” he said. “Calling from their posh Mayfield hotels.”

  Which would be the Nite Inn, a line of sad little motel rooms on the highway headed south out of town. Or the Redbud B and B, a three-suite establishment run by Philip and Eric, whom Mayfield suspected of being too friendly, but loved too much to find out for sure.

  He listened to the first message—Nora Calhoun. Reporters had been all over her place, trampled her grass, asked her a bunch of questions. She hadn’t told them a thing.

  “Pretended I was deaf,” she said, and she was laughing like she’d been at the red wine again.

  The next one was from Mr. Rodriguez, of all people. “Hey,” he said. “Home Ec boy.” Jack could almost see him grinning wickedly through the phone. “You know, that was a pretty good thing we did on Sunday. Father Frank asked me to look into building a ramp for Alice Gutierrez. She’s in that wheelchair now, you know, hombre, and she needs some help. Are you in?”

  “Oh yeah,” he muttered. They were leaving the Austin airport, pulling onto 290 headed west toward the Hill Country. He checked traffic and merged before listening to the last message.

  The third and final call was from Bill Hall. He sounded as stiff and uncomfortable as if he’d been tied head to toe with new rope. “The board of deacons asked me to call,” he said in a low voice, “and see if you’d be willing to say a few words on Sunday. I told them I didn’t believe you would. So there’s your out. But I told them I’d call, and now I’ve done it.” He didn’t say good-bye.

  “Crazy, Dad,” Jack said, setting the phone on the dashboard. “I haven’t had that many messages in seven weeks. Unless you count calls from the media. Which I don’t.” He looked over at Tom and found him gently snoring.

  Jack shook his head. “Dad, you shouldn’t have made this trip.” He reached across, patted him gently on the shoulder so as not to wake him, let his hand linger there.

  When they got home two hours later, Jack got his father up and into the house, unloaded the car, then paused for a bit in the driveway to look up at the stars. He was not used to seeing them, and especially not so many and so close. The moon was a waning full moon, and the stars were so numerous it was as if someone had taken a brush full of white paint and spattered a black canvas.

  “Never saw anything like this in Seattle,” he muttered, settling into a chair on the front porch and looking up.

  “Ah,” came a familiar voice. “But you did have the coffee, at least.”

  “Father Frank,” Jack said. “A voice from the darkness.”

  “I was actually hoping to catch you,” he said from the yard. “Was milling about and trying not to be mistaken for a burglar.” He came up to the front steps. “May I?”

  “Come on up.” Jack indicated the chair next to him.

  “How’s your father?” he asked, likewise leaning over the railing and looking up at the stars. “I was a wee bit concerned for him.”

  “Tired,” Jack said. “Exhausted might be more true. I hope this trip—”

  “It is the trip he hoped to make,” Frank said. “He saw your daughter?”

  “Alison,” Jack said. “Yes. I don’t remember the last time I saw him so happy.”

  Frank nodded. “Good. And you?”

  “Ah. Well.” He looked at those low-hanging stars. “It had high points and low points.”

  “Give me the high. I’ve had a long day.”

  “I got to tell my wife I’m sorry. I think. I’m not sure she heard me.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure if she knew what I was apologizing for. But I felt better for it.”

  “Step Five,” Father Frank said.

  “What?” He looked across at him. Frank was still looking up at the stars.

  “Ah,” Frank said. “I sometimes forget we’re not all formally in recovery. ‘Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.’ From Twelve Step spirituality.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. “Right. Serenity and all that.”

  “And all that. So, did you confess to God and to yourself as well?”

  Jack looked over at him again. “You know, you’re a monumental pain. Why do you care what I do or don’t do?” He was surprised at the heat in his voice, but it had been a long, hard day for him too. Week. Month.

  But Frank took no notice of his tone. “I can never find the North Star,” he said, still looking upward. “I would dearly love to know where it is. Then I would never be lost again.”

  “Seriously, Father Frank,” Jack said. “You’re loitering around my house. I thought you were a reporter.”

  “The news media are all at the bar,” Frank said. “Which is actually why I left, went for a stroll. All of them here covering a religion story, and yet not a decently religious person amongst them.”

  Jack put out a hand, patted Frank on the shoulder to shut him up. “Seriously. Why. Do. You. Care?”

  Frank raised his hands. “To answer that, I have to tell a story.”

  “Of course you do,” Jack said. “Wait. Did I just say that out loud?”

  “About eight years ago, I suffered what became known in Mayfield as one of my most famous relapses. The way people talk about storms: The Blizzard of ‘61. Father Frank’s Drunk of 2004. I couldn’t remember why I stopped drinking.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t even remember why I’d become a priest. My whole life, all I’d given up. What was it for? So I drank more and more. I became a nuisance to others and a danger to myself, and my calling was in danger of being lost forevermore.”

  “I never heard—” Jack began,
before remembering that he’d not been home in ten years.

  “And then,” Frank said, and he paused for a moment before he could go on, “I had a visit from a man I barely knew, could barely tolerate. And what he said to me turned me around.”

  “Who was it?” Jack said. “Tell me it was the mayor.”

  Frank chuckled, shook his head. “The mayor and I have never engaged in much dialogue. Or fisticuffs, unlike some people. No.” He grew serious again. “Late one night someone knocked on the pastorage door. I staggered over and opened it. It was John Heinrich.”

  “No,” Jack said.

  Frank nodded.

  “Pastor John, the modern-day Martin Luther?”

  “The very same. I invited him in, offered him a drink. He said I’d already had enough for both of us. I thought I might punch him in the nose, then and there. Then he said it, and I felt sure I was going to.”

  “Said what?”

  “He leaned forward across the table and he said, ‘Francis, I do believe you have lost your call.’“ Frank did a very credible Pastor John, German-tinged accent and all. “Have” came out as “haff.”

  “Wow,” Jack said.

  “‘Francis,’ he says to me, ‘I’m just back from Fredericksburg hospital. Two dead babies. I am tired to mein very bones, but when I saw your light on, I knew I had to talk to you.’ Pastor John looked down at the table, then back at me. ‘You and me, we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything.’

  “‘On anything,’ I told him. Not completely true, but I was in no shape for civil discourse.

  “He kind of worried with his hands a little bit, and then I realized that he really didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want to be saying any of this. ‘God will not let me sit idly by and watch. You will not know this, but I went through this very same thing nine years ago.’ He smiled at my bottle, and it was a knowing smile, boyo. He went on.

  “‘Schnapps unstead of Bushmills, but the very same thing. I had forgotten why I became a pastor. I had forgotten the joy. I had lost my way.’”

  “Wow,” Jack repeated. He couldn’t imagine Pastor John saying this. Any of it.

  Couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have it said to you.

  Father Frank was looking down at his hands. “He was right. I hated to even admit it. But he was right.” He smiled. “I still wanted to punch him. But then he said the second thing that caught me in my tracks.” He looked over at Jack, smile growing.