Faith (15 page)

I
n Mike's neighborhood nobody parks on the street. It is the oldest section of a very old town whose proportions predate the automobile. Each large house has a tiny garage behind it, built more or less as an afterthought, a tight fit for the hulking vehicles modern suburbanites drive. When I arrived I noticed Abby's Explorer parked in the back alley, as wide as the garage and nearly as long.

She answered my knock with twinkling eyes, a smile in her voice. I could hear it through the closed door:
Ryan, you're being silly!
Her smile died when she saw my face through the screen.

“Oh. Sheila. Hiy.”

She hesitated a moment before manners kicked in. I could see her calculating: however objectionable, I was her husband's sister, and she hadn't seen me in four years. She was thus obliged to invite me in.

“Mike's not home yet. He's out showing a house.”

“I called his office. They said he was on his way home.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, you're welcome to wait,” she said, in a tone that meant I was anything but.

“Where are the boys?” I said, making an effort. “I'd love to see them.”

“I'd rather not disturb them. They're doing homework.”

It was a Saturday night. Ryan was in second grade, the twins in kindergarten.

In the kitchen we drank iced tea, unsweetened. The minutes ticked by. “Your parents must be glad to see you,” Abby said.

“I haven't seen much of them, actually. I'm staying at Art's apartment.”

The mask fell. “He has an apartment?”

“Temporarily. Until this mess gets straightened out.”

A screen door slammed at the rear of the house.

“That's Mike,” said Abby, with audible relief. She slipped out from behind the table. “Excuse me, Sheila. I need to go check on the boys.”

B
EFORE THE
wedding I'd met Abby just once, a brief hello at a crowded family gathering. From the first they seemed mismatched, but that may have been my own bias. I had loved Lisa Morrison like a devilish little sister; I'd never imagined Mike marrying anyone else. Abigail Nelson: it was a name to which I could attach nothing, no private jokes or shared laughter, no memory of hijinks. If Mike had married Lisa, there would have been no pricy flight to Chicago, no rental car I couldn't afford. The wedding Mass would have been held at St. Dymphna's in Grantham, the church crowded with friends.

What did my brother see in Abby? It's a question I still can't answer. Equally mysterious: what did she see in him?

They married in June, a summer weekend packed with festivities. The event unfolded according to its own daft logic, inexorably, like a madwoman's dream. By someone's insistence—Mike's, I guess, though it's hard to imagine him caring—I was included in the wedding party, along with five of Abby's sorority sisters from Northwestern, slender, lovely girls who seemed comfortable in the strapless gowns she'd chosen, all rustling silk and glossy hair and velvet skin. Each came packaged with a boyfriend or husband, and these men filled out the wedding party. Mike's cop buddies, one by one, had sent their regrets, and so a best man was assigned to him: Abby's younger brother, Robert Jr.

We were seated together at the interminable rehearsal dinner—at the far end of a long table, the two forgotten siblings. Abby, I assume, placed us there; she'd planned the weekend like an invading general, and such a detail couldn't have escaped her notice. More than once I have pondered this fact, though I know it's a weak defense for what happened next.

Robby and I drank a great deal at dinner, a fact that went unnoticed; we were seated so far down the noisy table that we could have been plotting to bomb the Sears Tower for all anyone knew. We continued later at the hotel bar. I blushed when the bartender asked to see his license. Robby was old enough to drink legally, but just barely. He'd flunked out of Lake Forest and now caddied at his parents' golf course. I had known a few Robbies at Villanova: sweet, cherished boys unfazed by failure; blessedly blind to their own inadequacies, having been their whole lives guided, flattered and loved.

He was handsome, I remember, tall and dark-haired, with absurdly long eyelashes. In my drunken state he reminded me of someone, though to save my life I couldn't say whom. I was newly divorced, and wore the scars like jewelry. In bed he was curiously passive, less experienced, perhaps, than I'd imagined. Then again, I was nine years older. Nine years of boyfriends and love affairs and a failed marriage will teach you a few tricks.

We spent several hours in Robby's room—noisily, I was later told; for a posh hotel its walls were surprisingly thin. Somewhere in the course of our couplings, it came to me in a flash. Robby resembled no man I'd ever known. In the dim light he looked strikingly like his sister.

Suddenly everything seemed distorted, reversed as in a mirror, the world flipped around backward. We finished; I dressed quickly.

“Robby,” I whispered. “I have to go.”

I crept out quietly, shoes in my hand. Who saw me leave his room? What sort of person would feel it necessary to mention such a thing to Abby? I never found out, and after that weekend I never saw Robby again. I've wondered, often, what became of him. Did he ever finish college? Does he still live and golf in Naperville, with someone else's flunky son to carry his clubs? I wonder, too, what became of me. Am I still that wounded and vindictive girl who wanted to put things even? To make myself known to this Abigail Nelson, who had taken my brother. To show her just how easily I could take hers.

M
IKE CAME
into the kitchen whistling, his tie loose. When he saw me he looked stricken, as if caught in some misdeed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to say goodbye. I'm heading back tomorrow. I need to get back to school.”

Mike nodded.

“There's nothing more I can do here,” I said, as though I had done anything at all. “Art can take me to the airport. He's got nothing else to do.”

“All right, then.”

We stared at each other a long moment.

“I have to know,” Mike said slowly, “whether or not he did it.”

“Well, he didn't. Now you know.”

“Not good enough. I need proof.”

“Good luck with that. What are you going to do, dust the kid for fingerprints?” I felt my pulse quicken. “Sorry, Mike, but sooner or later you have to decide what you believe.” It was a thing I'd always known but until recently had forgotten: that faith is a decision. In its most basic form, it is a choice.

“You're worse than Ma,” Mike said. “She'd never believe he was guilty. Not if he knelt and confessed at her feet. But
you—
” He glared at me. “If he did it, you'd forgive him.”

I could not deny this.

“You're not my only brother,” I said.

I
HAVE
gone over this conversation many times in my head, my recollection colored, no doubt, by what I later discovered. When I replay it now, I see something in Mike's face, furtive and oblique, stubborn as a closed fist.

This isn't just hindsight. As I drove away from his house that day, I remember thinking that my brother had a secret.

O
n Sunday morning Mike and Abby took the boys to Mass, followed by Bickford's pancakes, a rare treat. “They'll be sugared up for hours,” Abby protested, but Mike secretly loved Bickford's and joined in their wheedling.

“I'll take them to the slides after,” he said. “I'll wear them out, I promise.”

It was that rare thing in New England, a balmy afternoon in springtime. At Abby's insistence he coated the boys in sunscreen, but forgot to cover himself. Driving back to the house he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror, his nose and cheeks red, even the part in his hair.

“Sunburns give you cancer,” Jamie told him as they crossed the lawn. “Mom said so.”

Cancer
, Mike thought.
Jesus, Abby. He's five.

They found Abby sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper.

“It's never going to end,” she said through her teeth.

Mike felt a flash of panic. “Another one?”

Jamie glanced from his mother to his father.

“Don't worry, buddy.” Mike gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Mom's mad at the president.”

It was parental shorthand, code for any adult ranting about the state of the world, any argument too abstract for a child to comprehend. Until recently it had been roughly accurate, but now Abby liked the president a lot more than she used to, and liked Mike's relatives a lot less.

“Go play in your room,” Mike said.

He read over Abby's shoulder, the front page of the Local section. He was careful not to touch her. Outrage rose from her like fumes.

 

A PARISH DIVIDED

 

Beneath the headline were two photographs. The first showed Art with the parish council. The second was a familiar portrait, identical to the framed one that hung on Ma's Altar: young Father Breen in his Roman collar, at his seminary graduation, half a lifetime ago.

The reporter had done her homework. Nearly a dozen parishioners were quoted. Some were angry, some defensive, some merely confused.

They're making an example of him, said Donald Burke, a local attorney and father of two. They've been covering up these crimes for years. Now they're using Father Art to send a message, that they're not letting this happen anymore.

“Jesus,” Mike said finally. “Poor Ma.”

Abby looked at him as though he'd belched or farted. “That's all you have to say?”

“What else do you want?”

“It's all about the
parish
,” she said, exasperated. “Losing their priest at Easter, and so on. As if you'd want a pedophile on the altar at Easter! Honestly, what's the matter with people?”

Mike looked again at the paper. “Well, some of them don't believe it,” he pointed out—reasonably, he thought. “Some of them think he's innocent.”

“Some people don't
think
at all.”

Stupid brainwashed Catholics
, he could hear her thinking. She didn't say it—not this time—but Mike heard it all the same.

“Did you notice that they barely mention the child who was molested?”

“They can't mention him,” Mike said. He read
: “—whose name is being withheld to protect the privacy of the family.”

“Well, of course! If it were Ryan who'd been abused, would you want his name in the papers?”

“Of course not. My point is—” He stopped. There was no hope of reasoning with her when she was like this, no fucking hope.

“Honey, stop. You're just winding yourself up.” He took away the paper, folded it closed. “I know you're upset. But this has nothing to do with us.”

Something in her face changed. “Oh, really? We have three children, last time I checked. Three
boys
, Mike. Do you really want to raise them in this kind of church?”

“Don't start,” Mike said. “We already decided that, remember? When we had them baptized.”

“I gave in,” she said. “I shouldn't have. That was my mistake. I'm serious,” she added, somewhat unnecessarily. Abby was always serious.

He inhaled deeply, staying cool. “Maybe so, but what's done is done. They're baptized. End of story.”

Abby closed one eye.

“Wait a minute. We have
options
here. Just because we made one bad decision—” She broke off. “What I'm saying is, let's not go any further down that road than we already have.”

It took him a moment to grasp her meaning.

“Oh, not
that.
” He felt his pulse. “Jesus, Ab, it's next month. He's been preparing since September. It's a big deal for a kid.” (Was it really? He didn't know, could scarcely remember his own First Communion. But they had
agreed.
)

“Please. He doesn't even understand it.”

“Sure he does,” said Mike.

“In Communion we consume the Body and Blood of Christ,” she recited. “I know: I've been quizzing him for weeks. He can regurgitate what
Sister
says”—she spat the word angrily—“but he has no clue what it means.”

Nobody does, Mike could have said, but it wouldn't have helped his case. He'd been taught in childhood that transubstantiation was a mystery he would never understand and shouldn't expect to, an article of faith. Mike accepted this explanation. He still received Communion every Sunday, usually—he had to admit—giving it little thought.

“You knew the deal when we got married,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “The kids are Catholic. When they grow up, if they want to, they can choose something else. Abby, look at me.” He waited until she did. “We agreed on this.”

“We didn't know then.”
She stood, her eyes flashing. “If I'd had any idea that this was happening—priests molesting kids! And Mike, they all knew about it. The Cardinal, all of them. Your
Church.
” The words seem to be choking her. “If I had any idea it was so corrupt, so
morally bankrupt—
no way would I have agreed to raise my kids Catholic. No way in hell.”

Mike took his keys from the table. “Ryan is making his First Communion,” he said. “You can be there or not. That's up to you.”

T
hat Sunday evening, after dropping me at the airport, Art went on a mysterious errand. Months later I would learn that, in clear violation of Bishop Gilman's orders, he stopped at Fran Conlon's duplex.

She looked stricken when she answered the door.

“Father, what are you doing here?” Her voice a whisper. She looked over his shoulder, up and down the street, as though afraid of being seen.

“I had to come.” His eyes scanned her face, half afraid of what they'd find there. Fran's broad, open face, her blue eyes that hid nothing. Why wouldn't she look at him? Did she believe what they'd said?

“Can I come in?”

“That isn't a good idea. Aidan's here,” she lied.

(
I confessed it the very next day,
she told me later.
Can you imagine? Lying to a priest.
)

At the name Art's pulse quickened. “Aidan? Where? Inside?”

“He's playing in the backyard. He spent the night.”

“Can I see him? Forget I said that,” he said, seeing her expression. “I just want to know—is he all right? Does he understand any of this?”

“I don't know what he understands.”

An awkward silence. Down the street a screen door opened, a dog barked. Again Fran glanced over his shoulder.

“This is a terrible idea, Father. You shouldn't have come here. If anybody found out—” She paused. “I'm not to have any contact with you.”

“Who says so?”

“Kathleen's lawyer.”

He took a moment to digest this.

“You look awful, Father.” She eyed him anxiously. “You've lost weight. I hate to think what you're eating.”

“Not much.”

She smiled then, the Fran smile. They stared at each other a long moment.

“For Pete's sake,” she said.

He nodded in agreement. That about covers it, he thought.

“I'll go,” he said quietly. “But first I want to tell you myself. I want you to hear it from me. I never laid a hand on Aidan. Not in a million years would I hurt that child.”

I
T WAS
nearly dark when Art returned to Divorce Court. The parking lot was dead at that hour. He approached the empty playground. The slide and climbing bars cast odd shadows in the floodlights; the swings blew, creaking, in the wind. At the foot of the slide lay a child-size Red Sox cap, like the one Aidan wore. Art picked it up and tucked it into his pocket.

Furtively he crossed the parking lot. He had never stolen anything in his life. At the front door he stopped short.

A handbill had been taped to the front door.

The flyer was laser-printed, lettered in bold capitals:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

The photo had been cribbed from the newspaper, Art with the parish council, his face circled in fat black marker.

This ACCUSED SEX OFFENDER
is living at Dover Court!!!

Father Arthur Breen, a priest at Sacred Heart Church,
has been accused of molesting an 8-year-old boy.

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

DO YOU WANT THEM HAVING CONTACT
WITH A SUSPECTED PEDOPHILE?

Keep them away from THIS MAN.