Confessions (18 page)

I never finish, nor get the chance to tear the sheet from the notebook, much less hand it to her. Her words cut me off.

“You’re a priest…”

It is statement and question, both of which I deal with with a simple nod. For a moment she eyes me as thunder cracks in the near distance, rolling in from the lake like a plodding wave. Neither of us have seen the lightning, but it happened.

“Why would you need to talk to my husband about your sister who died years ago?”

“She was
murdered
years ago,” I say, almost spitting the words.

She absorbs my correction. Behind the sky is opening up, the deluge just missing me where I stand beneath the porch overhang. “Regardless, I don’t see what speaking to my husband will—”

“What sort of relationship did they have?”

My interruption jars the both of us. Whatever line I have crossed with her in the moments before, I have obliterated it now. Where there was steel before in her gaze, there now is ice. The painful kind that burns any foolish enough to expose themselves to it.

“I have packing to do.” There is no rancorous confrontation as to what my question implies. She simply steps to the side to close the door. I take half a step forward.

“Please,” I say, force in the singular plea I choose. “I need to know.”

She never responds, and I am left to stand, still wanting, watching as Michelle disappears behind the door, closing and locking it.

Shutting me out.

Chapter Twenty

Boxes

I have little memory of it, but after Katie’s death, in the days that followed her funeral and burial, it was left to me to do away with the tangibles of her life.

‘Do away with.’ I use that phrase precisely, for that is what it was. What I did. Over several days, and in a daze, I filled boxes with the contents of her apartment and taped each shut, with hardly a glance at what went into each. I put no mark on the outside of the containers as one might when moving, to identify their placement in some new house or apartment. Kitchen, bedroom, living room. They became a bland stack of anonymous cardboard cubes carted off from her building and deposited in my parents’ basement.

I stand now at the top of the stairs looking down into that dark space beneath the house I grew up in. My parents are not home, which, in any other situation, would not be unusual. But here, as my mother is, I suspect that my father has her out at some doctor’s appointment. Until two years ago the breadth of reasons to expect my mother’s absence from home was greater, but that list has grown smaller as her ability to interact with friends whom her mind has made strangers became less an annoyance and more a trigger for anxious outbursts. Her favorite hairdresser, Vera, has even taken to coming by the house once every two weeks for a simple cut and style as my mother regales her with stories beyond familiar, mostly about Katie.

It is best, though, that they are not here now. My father would wonder what it is I need from storage in the basement, and I would have to concoct some story. Possibly that an old photo album from my seminary days held some image a friend had asked about. I would rather not lie. I have done enough of that.

The light below comes of with a flip of the switch at the top of the stairs, spreading a weak, flickering glow about the space. I descend, the fluorescent fixtures humming above as I move toward the back corner. Out the window high on the wall I can just glimpse the old playset. There is enough breeze today that one of its makeshift swings creaks lightly as it twists on rusting chains.

‘
I’m higher than you, Michael! I’m higher!
’

It is Katie proclaiming her superiority in our swing contests. Just a memory now, her determination a soft, odd echo in my thoughts. Doing all she could to—

…
did what she had to
…

—win.

The memories mix. Katie long ago, and Chris not yet a full day in the past. Both speaking to the same fire, that can warm the self or burn those who are close and blind to its being.

I reach the rough cube of stacked boxes that are what my sister left in this world. The furniture and car and various appliances were donated to local groups and charities, leaving mementos and papers and all manner of small items which I stuffed and taped within the things I see before me.

Her body rots in mahogany under a yard of freezing Chicago earth. Her life fades in cardboard before me.

No more. I lift the topmost box and set it on the floor, tearing the slick brown tape that seals it as I kneel. For the next two hours I sift through the contents.

*  *  *

Life, sometimes, is like the movies. With timing so impeccable it might have been managed by a director guiding actors to their marks, my father and mother step through the front door as I emerge from the basement. My father puzzles at me, while an apoplectic flash widens my mother’s gaze.

“Gus who is—”

My father gently cuts off her worry before it rises to frantic, as it has in the past when spotting their longtime mailman approaching up the walk, or the chimney sweep who has come twice a year since before I can remember. Strangers to her, one and all.

As am I.

“Sweetie, this is Michael,” he begins, a hand laid gently atop her arm, every muscle beneath his touch tensed. For some reason I think, when I see the connection before me, it is how Chris assured me as we sat parked beneath her building. “I asked him to stop by. He fixed something for me last week.”

She calms so quickly it is almost frightening. My father’s words, his tone, seem to flip some switch within my mother, turning her from frightened to carefree. A smile blooms on her face, and she eyes me brightly.

“Will you stay for dinner? I’m planning on making stew.”

I smile at her invitation. “I wish I could. That sounds wonderful.”

“Alicia, let’s get you in the living room to rest those feet.” My father eases an arm around her. She beams at him, childlike, as he guides her from the entry hall. I hear her settle into a rocker, maple runners creaking against pine  floorboards as she begins to gently sway back and forth. I cannot see it, but I know that he has given her the old Nikon which surely rests on her lap as he leaves her and joins me again.

“I should have called,” I say when he returns. I note the shift in his stoic countenance, a tinge of surprise telegraphed by a slight dive of his brow. The rock that he is moves in increments akin to glaciers carving valleys. No other might notice, but I am no other. I am his son.

“No worry,” he says. “Did you need something?”

And the lie comes, despite my hope that it would not be required. In the realm of falsehoods it lands among the whitest of lies. But how long ago was it that such rationalization was alien to me? Six days? Seven?

“There was an old paper I did in seminary. I thought it might have something for the homily this Sunday. I had to dig it out of that old file cabinet in the basement.”

His chin rises a bit in a quick nod. “So you found what you needed.”

Oddly, the lie stops here. “I did.”

There is that awkward quiet now between us. I have long suspected that in families not afflicted as ours, silence does not hold the same dread that it does in moments such as this. There is no pleasant banter. No easy transition. There is just the next thing to do. The next step to take on a bleak journey.

“I’m going to go say goodbye to mom.” It is the easy way out. Embrace the obligatory.

My father nods. Glances through the dining room to the kitchen. “I’ve got supper to get ready.” Obligation.

He steps forward and lays a quick hug on me. That fleeting connection punctuated with a tap on my back.

But this time his embrace lingers beyond its signaled end. For a second, maybe two, he holds on to me, then finally eases back. He turns and moves away, through the dining room and into the kitchen, avoiding my gaze as he leaves me watching him. Watching. Wondering. Worrying.

I turn away and face the living room. The slow grate of wood on wood pulses from within in metronomic precision. A few steps bring me there, to my mother, comfortable in her rocker, hands gently gripping the camera on her lap. She looks up as I approach.

“Did you decide to stay for dinner?” she asks expectantly. “It’s only fair if you do work for us that we feed you.”

I slide an ottoman over and sit facing her. “I wish I could.”

She stops rocking for a moment and leans toward me. “That’s a shame. My daughter is joining us for dinner. Katherine. A lovely girl. She’s going to give us some gorgeous grandchildren soon.” She leans back and begins rocking again, smiling. That smile. When I see the expression, I know where this is going even before she says what she does. “Have you met my daughter?”

The needle has been placed on the groove cut in vinyl. I smile back at my mother. “No, I haven’t. Tell me about her.”

“Oh, she’s a darling girl,” my mother begins. “She has the blondest hair…”

For the next few minutes I listen. I play my part. Though now, as she describes Katie in rich and loving detail, I wonder how much beyond the physical, which I had accepted as gospel myself, is but a charade that my sister crafted for our benefit.

Chapter Twenty One

News

I sit on the edge of my bed, the collection of what I found spread on the bunching comforter. Envelopes of various colors, mostly reds and whites, each approximating the size of the card within. In the basement of my parents’ home I opened every last one, all found bundled together as one might mementos of birthdays or anniversaries.

Or love. That theme was pronounced in both visual and verse on these. Sayings cute and serious, mixed among images of flowers and puppy dogs. All saved by my sister, to whom they were presumably given. That they were in her possession allows me to assume this, but lacking any mark identifying either giver or recipient I am left to suppose.

The giver. One concerned about leaving their mark. Their name. Anonymity was a necessity in this relationship, revelation an unacceptable risk, and thus any token of love exchanged would outwardly seem sterile. What type of person would demand such an arrangement?

A person with something to lose.

Beyond my door I hear slow, shuffling footsteps, the soft tap of a cane interspersed with the scrape of sturdy shoes on old wood. I glance at the clock. It is about that time, Father Taylor’s sojourn to Lawson’s Liquor reaching its end. In a few seconds the footsteps will quiet and a door will close. Beyond it his nightly ritual of medicated escape will commence.

So I am surprised when the tap-shuffle-tap continues, clearly passing his room and nearing mine where a soft knock sounds on my door. “Michael, might I speak with you?”

I look to the cards scattered about the foot of my bed, quickly gathering them in a rough pile and slipping them in a dresser drawer as I cross the room.

“Father Taylor,” I greet him as I open the door, instantly aware that my expectations, though sound in light of our history, are not correct. Not this evening. His arms, which have nightly cradled a paper sack, twin bottles of five dollar Cabernet within, hold nothing as he stands in the hallway. There is a clear, quiet serenity about him. Something beyond the general pleasantness which is his nature.

“Michael, I was hoping I might—”

Behind, my cell phone rings and vibrates, each pulse jostling it closer to the edge of the nightstand where I have laid it. “Pardon me.” I dash the few steps and grab the phone before it topples to the floor, eyeing its display. The caller ID flashes the number and name—Christine Wheeler. Giving a ‘one sec’ gesture to Father Taylor I answer the call. “Hello?”

“Michael, what are you doing right now?” There is an urgency to her voice.

“I’m not sure,” I say, fixing on Father Taylor. “Hold on.” I lower the phone and move back toward the door. Before I can address him, Father Taylor continues.

“I was hoping I might speak with you,” he says. Almost as soon as he is finished, he reconsiders his words and amends them. “That we might speak.”

“Of course. Could we do this in the morning?”

It is hardly late, and the hour has nothing to do with my request. His wish, and the calm that carries it, I weigh against the nature of Chris’ call. Her manner. One, to me, clearly warrants my immediate attention.

Still, despite his relaxed surety, I detect the barest tinge of disappointment in Father Taylor, if not his words. “The morning will be fine. Fine, Michael.”

He smiles and turns, moving down the hallway toward his room with effort. I close my door and bring the phone up again. “Chris…”

“Can you come here now?” At this hour, for most people, ‘here’ would home. For Chris I know it is not.

“To your work?”

“Do you know where the studio is? At State and Lake?”

“I can find it. But what’s going on?”

“Just come, okay?”

A few days ago she wanted me gone from her life. Now some imperative has arisen making my presence a necessity. I am unnerved. “Why won’t you just tell me?”

The is no pause. Her reply comes fast and forceful. “Because I want to look in your eyes when you see this.”

*  *  *

A sea of wide cubicles stretches out behind an elevated update desk, news anchor smiling at a robocam, reading a tease for the 11 o’clock news just twenty minutes away. Chris ushers me across the space, skirting points where the camera might catch us among the background action designed to make the news seem alive. Illusion is everywhere in life, be it crafted to enliven the factual, or dressed by the self to shutter a true nature.

We pass briskly through two doors, stopping in a room with no outlet, sets of pricey monitors arrayed around a workstation. A piece of video hangs frozen on the largest monitor, paused at some specific cue, yellow tape and the multicolored strobes of police lightbars in fuzzy stasis.

“This is raw footage,” Chris says, reaching for a green button on the workstation console. “It never made it into a package for air. Too much death for one broadcast already.” She presses the button but never looks at the monitor, her gaze fixed hard on me as I watch.