Ashes (33 page)

Jennifer looked at the CD case. Barber’s
Adagio for Strings.

“This is what it’s like. Doesn’t matter if you’re saying Mass for five hundred people or if there’s no one but you in the church. You feel God’s presence, like a hand held over you, ready to touch you if you need comforting or help you up if you fall.” He closed his eyes. “And not a day goes by that I don’t remember what that was like.”

Jennifer sat, listening to the music, watched Mr. Bradbury. She felt tears sting her eyes, for he had been happy then, she could tell. A rare sort of happiness that she could only guess at. And he had left it behind.

“A year before I left, I was transferred to a parish in Toronto. The other priest there had recently been transferred as well. It was an older parish, the other priests were retiring. It was busy there, quite a lot going on. I was working with the older churchgoers, running the administrative end of things. The other priest was interested in youth work. Very interested. Particularly with the grade-school children.” He shook his head, gave her a grim smile. “You can probably see where this is heading.”

She nodded.

“I was busy, but not so busy that I didn’t put things together eventually. And when I did, I went to see the bishop, told him what I knew. It turned out that he already knew. In fact, this priest had been transferred twice after similar knowledge had come to light. And they simply moved him along. Out of sight, out of mind.

“I remember feeling so angry. For a man who is God’s servant to do that. It destroys so many things. How can a child love God when...” He shook his head. “I said as much to the archbishop, who reminded me that this priest’s family was very wealthy. Very powerful contributors to the Church, and if I didn’t want to end up in some parish on an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, I’d do well to remember that.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I went through the other priest’s things. I found some...well, let’s just say it was pictorial material of a certain sort, and I don’t mean
Playboy
magazine. I made two phone calls. One to the police and another to the archbishop. You see, I could have stayed, if this had been that priest’s first time caught at this. But I couldn’t be part of a system that would deliberately put children at risk, just to cover up scandal and keep a rich family’s contributions rolling in. And so I left, with not much money other than what I borrowed from my family, and the clothes on my back.”

“Vow of poverty?”

He nodded. “Caught a train heading west and ended up in Vancouver. Made my way up here and the former librarian, a lovely woman by the name of Louisa Rose King, took pity on me and hired me despite having no qualifications whatsoever other than a love of books.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jennifer said, feeling her mouth twist as it tried to decide whether to be sorry for Mr. Bradbury or amused by the way fate had worked for them.

He smiled, surprised. “Why yes, doesn’t it? I never realized that before.”

Her mouth decided, turned down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

“It’s...” She reached over and turned off the CD player, unable to bear the ecstatic, melancholy crescendo she knew was coming. “I don’t know. I’m not really much on God or religion, but I can tell that it must have hurt you so much, leaving all that behind.”

He shook his head. “No, no dear. All I left was the building. The bureaucracy. And that’s not to say I don’t miss it terribly, being able to say Mass. But that feeling of God watching over me? Nothing can take that away from me.”

Jennifer looked at him, envied his surety. His belief. How could he still hold on to that, when the ministry he’d devoted his life to had turned out to be corrupt?
Oh, I would love to believe as he does, to feel that hand ready to hold you up. But I can’t, not when I know I’m alive because a photocopier was broken, and that all those people who died just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where was God’s hand in that? If it was there, why me and not Carrie? Or Mr. Danvers? Carlos? Those little kids in the day care on the first floor? If I were to ask Mr. Bradbury I’m sure he’d say it’s all for a reason, but right now I don’t see what that reason could be. I don’t know if I ever will.

“It must have been hard,” she said. “Deciding to leave what you’d wanted your whole life.”

“It was. But you know, I still have what I’ve always wanted. To do my best to be a good man and a good servant of God, in my own way. And now that you’ve heard my tale, let me ask you this, Ms. Jennifer Thomson. What do
you
want?”

What indeed? “I guess...just to be me. Whoever that is.” She blushed, looked down at her hands. “Pretty low aspiration, right?”

“Not as much as you might think. Do you know who you are?”

“I’m getting there.”

“Good,” he said, with a smile like benediction. “That’s more than most people know.”

* * *

T
he afternoon went by uncommonly fast, she thought. Surely it couldn’t be tea-time, and yet the light in the library was dim. Had the clocks been set back? she wondered as she put psychology books back on the shelves. Spring forward, fall back, every year it seemed to sneak up on her.

Then she heard Mr. Bradbury say, “Oh, holy Christ.”

Startled, she dropped her books. Mr. Bradbury’s swears were all words like
balderdash
and
fiddlesticks,
and made her giggle every time. Only once had she heard him say
shit,
and that was when he’d slammed his thumb in a file drawer. She’d never heard him take God’s name in vain. Jennifer peered around the stacks, saw him standing by the window with a peculiar, fixed stance. It was a heart attack or something, she was sure, and ran to his side. “Mr. Bradbury? Are you all right?”

His gaze didn’t leave the window. “I’m fine, Jennifer. But I think Haven Cove is in for some trouble.”

So focused had she been on Mr. Bradbury that she hadn’t spared a glance outside. And now when she did, her heart gave a great leap and then began hammering away. The news had said there might be rain, but nothing like this. This morning had been chilly but clear; now the blue sky was being quickly swallowed up by a great bank of cloud, so dark and heavy with rain it was almost black. She knew it was a storm, a hell of a storm but just that, only weather, but she could not help but think of another cloud, this one made of dust, reeking of destruction, seizing her in its hungry embrace and choking the life out of her.

“What is it?” she managed to ask. Weather, only weather.

“Which way is the wind blowing?” He craned his head around, looked out the window at the flagpole, where the maple leaf was blowing in the wind, straight out as if it was strung with wires. “From the south. Come on, Jennifer, we’re closing up the library.”

“Why? What is it? I thought Haven Cove was a safe place in storms.”

“It is, most of the time,” Mr. Bradbury said, walking to the desk and gathering his things, a determination in his stride that she would not have expected. “But every ten years or so we get a very bad storm out of the south. Angus, the harbormaster, told me they call it the Southern Hammer. The last one was twelve years ago, and it took out half a dozen businesses and homes by the water. The boats all have to be taken out of harbor, back around the point to where they can get shelter. They lost three fishing boats as well, were able to rescue all the men except Denny Gunderson and his son, they were swept off the
Maiden Fair
and never found. Denny Junior had just graduated from high school, too.”

Gene. Oh God, she hoped nothing would happen to Gene. “What can we do?” As if in answer to her question she heard a sound she had never heard in real life but still recognized. A siren, like in the old war movies.

“We can’t do anything here. I was going to go to the hospital, if you could drop me there?”

“Not a problem.”

“I’ve done some volunteer work in my day, they may need some help.”

“What should I do?” she asked, feeling helpless and stupid.

He smiled, patted her on the shoulder. “Go home. Keep your neighbor and any of those kids she watches company. It’s a storm and there’s nothing we can do but wait it out and clean things up in the morning.”

* * *

S
he would never forget that drive home after dropping Mr. Bradbury at the hospital. The sky black overhead, the wind coming strong and cold from its unaccustomed direction. No rain yet, that was the strange thing. Lightning flashed and thunder groaned, but no rain fell. As if the storm was biding its time, waiting. Teasing.

A few fat drops were falling when she got home. She got out of her car and ran, not to her house but to Suzanne’s. The door opened and Suzanne stood there, her smile tight around the edges. “Jen, I’m glad you’re here.”

Jennifer stepped inside and saw Matthew Tally there, going through Suzanne’s DVDs. She pulled Suzanne aside. “Where’s Gene?”

“You just missed him. He was looking for you, wanted to leave Matthew with you but you weren’t home. Then he took off for the harbor. Poor Gene, most of the others managed to get a head start on the storm but he was stuck out on the point for most of —”

“You mean he hasn’t gone out yet? My God, Suze, he’ll be heading out in the thick of it!”

“Shhhh!” Suzanne glanced back at Matthew. He seemed to be occupied with the DVDs but Jennifer knew better. He hadn’t made one “Oh cool!” exclamation, not even for the special edition of
Tron.
“I know. Gene knows, too. He said that if anything—”

Jennifer didn’t stay to hear the rest of it. She ran outside and next door to her own house. The rain was beginning to fall now but she barely felt the drops. She ran inside and quickly changed. Hiking boots, wool socks, jeans, two sweaters, her raincoat. In less than a minute she was back outside, heading for her car.

Suzanne stood, braced against the wind and the steadily increasing rain. “Jen, you don’t know what you’re getting into. Don’t do anything dumb.”

“I’m not going to let him go out there alone,” she said. “Take care of Matthew. I’ll see you later.”

Suzanne looked into her eyes for a long moment. If she had a question, it was answered. She nodded, then put her arms around Jennifer. “Come back safe, Jen.”

“I will.”

She felt sure of it at the time. But when she got to the harbor and stood in the rain — she’d forgotten a hat, how dumb could you get? — looking up into the sky, so dark though it was still only afternoon, her heart quailed within her. So huge the storm, bigger than any federal building, the power of it greater than any bomb. So big, and she so small. What could she really do here? Nothing at all.

She stepped outside herself and saw a woman sneaking up on thirty, dishwater blonde hair already soaked. Whose greatest accomplishments to date were escaping and surviving. She could do that now. Go back home. No one would hold it against her. Tell Suzanne that she’d missed Gene. Wait with Suzanne for the storm to end, wait with Matthew for news of his father. Wait in warmth and safety, and shelter the life she’d been awarded.

Shelter it. Or earn it.

Stepped back inside herself, stepped forward. She ran to the harbormaster’s shack, where old Angus was bellowing something into the radio. “The
Tally-ho!”
she yelled over the storm. “Is it still here?”

“Gene’s just heading out now and — hey! Come back here!”

Angus yelled something more but she didn’t stay to hear it. She ran down the docks as fast as she could, feeling the pier vibrate under her feet. Ran down to the
Tally-ho’s
slip, remembering when she’d come to talk to Gene about Matthew not being able to read. And the day he’d taken her to see the whales.

The boat was pulling out of the slip as she got there. Jennifer yelled Gene’s name but the storm and the boat were too loud. She ran, trying to catch up with the boat. It was out of the slip just as she neared the end, and with a recklessness she would never be able to understand later, she leaped.

She caught hold of the back cleats and hung on, then with a shoulder-straining effort managed to pull herself up onto the boat. Her first impulse was to run into the cabin where Gene was, but she knew he’d just turn around, dump her back on the dock, and be that much later getting around the point. Jennifer waited, crouched by the boat’s stern, hanging on to whatever she could find. She didn’t dare look back at the harbor because if she saw the safety of land she’d regret her choice, and it was too late to go back.

She waited until the boat was in open water and then ran into the cabin; she didn’t know if it was too late for Gene to turn around and bring her back, but the storm frightened her too much to stay out there any longer. Gene’s back was to her, his hands tight on the wheel, and on the cabin wall was a new picture — she and Matthew sitting at the dining room table, reading
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
. “Gene,” she called out.

He jumped, the boat pitched queasily. He turned and stared at her, white-faced. “Jesus God almighty damn,” he whispered, and before she could answer he roared: “You...you...” He groped for the right word. Found it. “You nutbar! Bad enough I’m this late, now I gotta turn around and put you back.”

“Bullshit. I’m going with you.”

He turned back to the controls for a moment, muttering something she couldn't understand – probably some horrible Newfoundland swear words. Then he looked back at her. “Like hell you are. Do you know how dangerous this is?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“What? There’s a very good chance we could wreck out here. You know what that means?”

She clenched her hands into fists, trying to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing, of course. Just her. “I know. And I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

“Jen, no—”

“God damn it!” She slammed her fist into the wall, making pictures rattle. “I am done leaving people behind! I won’t do it any more. You understand?”

He turned to look back at her. “Jen, I understand. But there’s nothing you can do. You don’t even know port from starboard.”