Well, that was quite a breakthrough Church and Shawn made. Church is lucky to have a husband like Shawn to share everything with. I wonder what this chapter will hold for the dedicated couple. Let's have a look.
I hope you enjoy this installment! Drop me a line if you want. I'd be happy to hear from you.
If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.
Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
34
A Long Saturday and an Unexpected Reunion
The breakthrough Shawn had achieved with me the night before had been wonderful, liberating. When I woke up Saturday morning, though, I still had to deal with the reality of being on Earth, in my family's house, with my brother and my sister and their `stuff.' I still had to deal with Joe and his decision and his sneering. I still had to worry about Father Miller and his research and his decision.
Because of all that, Saturday was excruciating. I had to dodge a ton of questions about where I'd been the day before, and to make things even worse, I once again found myself without an occupation. I tried to spend the day in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning up all three meals, but with the dishwasher and other conveniences, even that couldn't pass all the time.
The only real diversion I had was an after-breakfast chat around the table with Bem and Mary as they recounted their `down the shore' trip from the previous day. I'd asked about it as a way to start small-talk and found myself inundated with details from Bem.
"It was SO COOL!" He gushed from Mary's side as she grinned at his child-like enthusiasm. "The ocean here...it...it moves so much!" Bem held his hands up and undulated them in approximation of waves crashing on the beach while he made ocean sounds with his voice. "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh then ppssssshhh...lap, lap, lap, lap. It never stops. The way the tide comes in and out...it's incredible! I can't believe that your moon moves all that water!"
Joe stared at Bem as he expressed his fascination with the Atlantic Ocean, then turned his face to me. "What am I missing?" Joe asked.
"Solum had no moon and no tides," I explained, "so the ocean is like a big lake."
Bem interrupted with more enthusiasm. "I saw a guy surfing! It looked super fun. I wish I could have tried it."
"I bet you would have been great at it." I commented to Bem. With his compact body and lightning reflexes, I presumed he would be a master with little effort.
"Wait!" Joe jumped back into the discussion. "What do you mean Solum has no moon?"
"No moon." I said again. "No moon means no tides and no tides means no waves. If there's a storm, the wind will blow the ocean and waves will form, but most of the time, it's flat and calm."
Joe rubbed his neck and shook his head. "That's weird."
"I thought so at first," I agreed," but after a while I stopped noticing the difference."
Mary took Bem's hand on top of the table and held it. "We had a lovely day." She said and planted a kiss on the side of Bem's face, just above his beard line. "The girls had fun collecting seashells and feeding the seagulls. We went through two whole orders of French fries."
Bem's face creased into another huge smile. He stuck his hand in the air with his thumb and forefinger holding an imaginary fry. "You just hold it up and they swoop in." He snapped the fingers he had in the air and dropped his arm. "And it's gone!"
Mary's face creased to match Bem's smile. Her's was one of amusement at him. "Hannah and Leah AND Bem had fun. I did too. It was a great day. One I won't ever forget. Bem...he makes things fun."
Bem turned his face toward Mary's and kissed her on the mouth. It was a quick kiss, but still had a flash of passionate tongue in it. Mary's cheeks pinked as she and Bem separated. "We had a really great day." Bem added.
I was pleased that Bem and Mary were getting along so well. I was also happy to see Bem so happy. I hadn't seen him that bubbly in a long while. That thought led me to another that I filed away for later. The Bem that was `whoosh, whoosh, whoosing' in front of me seemed very like the Bem I'd known for a long time. That either meant that he was still acting, or the Bem I was with was the actual Bem. If it was the actual Bem, which is what I suspected, then Bem hadn't been acting with me for a long time, he only thought that he was.
I set that aside to ponder the next time I was pondering things and tried to savor the peace of the moment. Seeing my sister and my friend enjoy themselves, and each other, made me freshly happy that Mary had already decided to come to Solum with us. After my successful chat with Paul...Father Miller the night before, I had some hope that I'd be able to add Joe and Andy to that list as well. That thought reminded me of what I was waiting for and that sent my mood crashing down from pleased amusement to worried anxiety. I left the table and the conversation to work on the breakfast clean up.
I cleaned and cooked and cleaned and cooked and brooded for most of the day until dinner time. After we ate and I cleaned up the kitchen again, Shawn announced that he and I were taking a walk. I barely had time to agree to go with him when he physically dragged me from the house.
"You're driving me crazy!" He complained as we strolled toward Coles Avenue.
"How? I've just been cooking."
"Physically you've been cooking, mentally you're brooding. I can't take drowning in your anxiety anymore."
"I'm sorry. I'm worried..."
"I know." Shawn cut me off with a whisper of exasperation.
Shawn's whisper, and the complete absurdity of the situation struck my sense of humor. I laughed and Shawn joined me. "Alright," I said when the laughter had subsided, "let's take a nice long walk and not think about it."
A little less than an hour later, Shawn and I stood on the corner of Main Street and Fellowship Road. The building we faced was the church. "So much for not thinking about it." Shawn chided.
"I didn't mean to." I objected pointlessly as I guided us around the corner and down Fellowship Road. "My feet just walked here."
"Ah huh," Shawn shook his head at me, "I have to watch mine every minute or I wind up in the strangest places."
I was in the middle of being amazed at Shawn's rare use of sarcasm when, as we rounded the corner, Father Miller came into view. He was hustling across the parking lot from the church to the rectory. He wore full vestments, and they flapped behind him as he hurried. Something seemed wrong, so we followed him. "Father." I called.
He tossed an order over his shoulder and didn't break stride. "Keep up!"
Father Miller led us into the rear door of the rectory, down a hall, and into a brown and harvest-gold kitchen from the 1970s. He ripped a cabinet open, snatched a plastic bear full of honey off a shelf, and squirted some in his mouth. He staggered to a kitchen chair, the bear still clutched in his hand, and flopped down. "Sorry. I lost track of time researching your problem and forgot to eat. My sugar crashed right at the end of mass. I didn't even have candy in my pocket. It seems I forgot everything today. That's why I was running when you saw me."
"Can I do anything?" I asked.
"I'll be alright when I eat something." He pointed the plastic bear at a harvest-gold refrigerator with wood grain handles. "See if Stewart left a sandwich or a plate in the fridge."
I found a beautifully made sandwich wrapped in cellophane. It was roast turkey and cheddar cheese on rye with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. I plated it and set it in front of Father Miller with a diet soda and some chips. He ate with gusto but found time to chat between mouthfuls. "Sorry, diabetes. I'm usually very careful but your special problem has me distracted. If not for the personal connection, this would be a compelling theological discussion starter."
Shawn entered the conversation with a softly spoken question. "How bad is the diabetes, Father?"
Father Miller swallowed a bite and took a sip of soda before he answered. "Not as bad as it was. I was very overweight for a time. When I was first diagnosed, they had to put me on insulin injections. I lost weight and try to take care of myself. Now, I get by on pills. The injections were more precise but came with their own set of problems." He explained and took another big bite of sandwich.
"Would you let me examine you?" Shawn asked.
The priest rested his eyes on Shawn while he chewed and swallowed. He set the remaining portion of his sandwich on his plate and wiped his mouth. He scrutinized Shawn some more, looking at him from head to toe and back again. "Shawn the physician." He spoke his realization. "You're very young to be a doctor, aren't you?"
"Average for Solum." Shawn remarked to deprecate the priest's implied praise. "I started my schooling when I was sixteen and received my certification when I was twenty."
"That's very impressive." Father Miller scrubbed his hands on his napkin, rested them on the table, and looked expectantly at Shawn. "Do you think you can do something for my condition? Do they even have diabetes on your world?"
Shawn had slipped into his clinical tone as he spoke. His normally excellent posture softened slightly, like he wanted to seem more accessible for the older man. "It occurs rarely." He explained. "Our diet is generally healthier than the first-world Earth diet. We don't use any artificial sweeteners, colors, or preservatives, so many of these diet related diseases are a thing of the distant past."
Father Miller leaned back in his chair like he was about to push it away from the table. He seemed to think about Shawn's offer, then he nodded. "I would consider it a very kind gesture if you would examine me, Shawn. Should we go to my office, or would the bedroom be more appropriate?"
"Here is fine. You won't need to disrobe. Please push your chair back from the table so I can stand in front of you."
"Father." I interrupted as he slid his chair back. "This is an indescribable experience. I've said it's both the least and most invasive examination you will ever have. Just stay calm and still. It won't hurt, but it's...uh...strange."
The priest rubbed a sideways palm from his forehead to his chin and shook his head at me. "Thank you for that warning, Church. I thought I was apprehensive a moment ago, now I'm terrified."
"Don't worry, Father." Shawn reassured as he adjusted his clinical voice to be more soothing. He jerked his head at me. "Church's first experience with one of my exams was unusual, so he's a bit apprehensive about them. You'll be fine. Now, please relax and close your eyes."
Shawn gave Father Miller a basic explanation of the process and instructed him to relax and stay calm. When it seemed that the priest was as calm as he was likely to get, Shawn leaned in and made the connection. They were linked for about five minutes, which is on the longer end of the average length for one of Shawn's exams. When he was finished, Shawn stood back and rubbed his temples.
"Father, how do you feel?" I asked.
He seemed a little out of it. I assumed he was in shock at the oddness of the experience. He regained himself gradually and started talking. "That was the most physically intimate I've been with anyone since I started wearing this collar." He reached for his neck to touch the article he mentioned. "Are all medical check-ups on your world that...personal?"
Shawn finished his temple massage and took over the conversation. "Most are not that thorough. I had to check everything because you've never really been examined before. You're in very good health for a man your age on this world. I'd say you're fifty-eight."
The priest nodded. "Last May, the fifteenth, but how did you know?"
"I could tell by the condition of your body and a few other factors. Now, no more pills and no more injections. Maintain your current diet and you won't have any more trouble with blood sugar."
The older man was stunned. "What do you mean? Just like that," he snapped his fingers in the air, "you press your forehead to mine, mentally explore my insides, and that's it? Cured...of diabetes?"
Shawn nodded and his clinical tone continued to explain. "Yes, I also took care of a kidney stone that was about to become a painful problem." Shawn's professionalism cracked and he grinned, proud and a little embarrassed at the ease of the cure. "I understand how difficult it is for you to believe me. Please, continue to monitor your sugar for as long as you need to convince yourself. It will never be over one hundred."
Father Miller's expressive face stretched downwards, into a look of real fear. That was the last thing I expected, and it made me nervous. "Father." I moved next to him and put what I hoped would be a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Father Miller, are you OK?"
The priest's voice came out in a breathy whisper. His gaze stayed firmly on Shawn. "Ah, yes. Fine. I'm just...it's incredible. I was just thinking...do you know what would happen if you stayed here? They would worship you. If you and Church wanted to be the kings of this world, you could be with your combined powers. Shawn the healer and Church the powerful." He pointed to Shawn and raised his eyes to me. "Could you make him appear to walk on water?"
"Very easily." I nodded.
"Not water to wine or a staff to snakes though?" He asked me.
"No, that's beyond us."
"If you were people of no morals, you could put Shawn over as the second coming." Father Miller said and fell silent. He stared into space with an expression that grimaced with what I took to be increasing worry. Suddenly he was animated like he'd received a jolt of high voltage.
The priest jumped from his chair and grabbed a handful of my shirt with his left hand. He pulled our faces together violently. "What if...what if all this is a lie?" He held up a long rosary from the folds of his robes in his right hand and shook it next to my head. "What if Christ was just a visitor from the other world?"
OH MY GOD!' My mind shouted. WE'VE SHAKEN HIS FAITH!' I rushed to reassure him. "No, NO, FATHER! It can't be! The miracles don't line up. The fish and the loaves, the resurrection, it's not possible."
"IT'S COMPLETELY POSSIBLE!" Father Miller shouted in my face, then he seemed to wrestle control over his voice. "That book is two-thousand years old. It was translated from languages that don't even exist anymore. Anything could be embellishment or errors in translation." He released me with a shove that made me step back. The man was solid and strong in spite of his years and sedentary profession. He waved his arms around the kitchen. "WHAT IF ALL OF THIS IS BULLSHIT AND I'VE WASTED MY LIFE?"
I grabbed Father Miller's shoulders and shook him. "FATHER MILLER! PAUL, LISTEN TO ME!" He settled for a moment and turned his horrified face to mine. I spoke with deliberate calm. I hoped it would relax him. I reached into my memory for whatever catechism I could find to throw at him.
"Father, this is real. It's your calling. Do you know how lucky you are to have a calling? Christ was the son of God. Do you think someone from Solum, a visitor, would allow himself to be crucified? Why, to maintain a fraud? No, Christ was a real man, of this world and not of this world. He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again. He ascended to heaven, flesh, blood, body, and spirit, to sit at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. Jesus Christ was the savior of all sinners, all of us. He was not a charlatan from a parallel dimension. Please, Father. Please."
The horror left the priest's face as I pleaded with him, and his regular, neutral expression returned. He released the rosary clenched in his right hand and his left patted my chest in a gesture of surrender. "I'm sorry, my son. You're right, I know you're right. All of this, these last two days, it's been...unsettling. The story you told and the research I've been doing, it's reminded me of questions I thought I'd answered a long, long time ago. Most times...most times I wear these vestments as a symbol of my faith. Rarely, when I feel like a lost little boy, they're all I have when my faith abandons me."
I released Father Miller, and he went back to his seat at the kitchen table. He looked up at me. "I suppose it surprises you to see a man dressed like me have a crisis of faith. I hate to disabuse you of a myth, young man, but no one's faith is unshakable. Mine can be as fragile as an infant's smile." Father Miller seemed to look within himself. "Maybe...maybe I should have chosen a different profession. Who's to say? Only God, I suppose."
I sat next to the priest who was staring into his plate. "Father." I said and laid my hand on his meaty shoulder.
"You're a good man, Church, to help me keep my faith." He raised his eyes to Shawn to include him. "You're both good men. I'll be fine. Sometimes a brief crisis is helpful to remind us...to remind us how important it is to have something to believe in." He shifted his eyes back to me and smiled a shallow smile.
"You did well to remember the Nicene Creed. That was very fitting to the moment. You're right, young man. I believe in God, the maker of heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I just needed someone to remind me. Thank you, Church. Thank you, Shawn. I need to get back to work now. Somehow, we have to get Joe to Solum."
The violence of the emotion that Father Miller displayed had scared the hell out of me. I worried about leaving him alone. "Are you sure you'll be OK, Father. We can stay. Maybe we could help you research."
"No, please." He shook his head at the table and at the remains of his sandwich. "I'm fine now. I just stared into the gaping, black maw of atheism and you, an atheist, pulled me back from the precipice. Now who has some thinking to do?" He reached up and patted my arm. We stayed until he finished his lunch and escorted us out.
"That was scary." I said when we were outside and strolling down the Main Street sidewalk. "I wish he would have let us stay."
"Maybe it's better we didn't." Shawn reasoned. "Seeing us might make it worse."
I felt terrible about what happened and said as much to Shawn. "I hope we didn't ruin him. There's probably a special hell for people that destroy a priest's faith. I shouldn't have asked him to help me. Why did I have to stir him up? He would've been better off if he never met me."
"You're doing it again." Shawn scolded in an urgent whisper. "Please, Church. You had a great, big, important breakthrough last night. Can you try to hold onto that energy? Try to remember how good it felt to feel good. I can't take much more anxiety today."
Shawn seemed to get a flash of inspiration. "Let's get angry at something. How about that tree?" He pointed enthusiastically along the block at an ornamental tree that was growing in a spot of dirt that had been deliberately left out of the Main Street sidewalk. "Let's hate that tree. Look at it, growing there like it owns the place. It's probably getting ready to push the sidewalk up and crack it. Old ladies will be tripping, kids falling off their bikes. That tree is a sadistic bastard!"
"You're right!" I shouted to play along. I held my finger up and pointed at the tree. I sighted along my arm like it was a rifle. "Should I blast it? Think of all the bike riding old ladies and tripping kids I'll be protecting if I eliminate that horrible tree."
I turned to look at Shawn over the top of my rifle arm. When our eyes met, we broke up laughing. "Thanks Shawn." I hugged him sideways for knowing just the right thing to do.
He grabbed my hand and held it as we walked. "I loved the `bike riding old ladies' touch." He said through his smile. "It's nice to know you're still out of your mind."
We strolled down Main Street, towards Coles Avenue, while I pointed out places I remembered and places that weren't there anymore. When we got to the ice-cream place on the corner of Coles and Main, I detoured us into the parking lot and got in line for one of the windows.
The stand was known locally as the Custard Stand' but that wasn't its real name, and it didn't serve custard. The building was a fragile-looking, single-story, white structure that sat angled toward the corner of the asphalt lot that surrounded it. It had a red mansard roof and three serving windows in the front that were surrounded by fixed glass panes. The panes showed off the stand's wares. On top of the roof, was a light-up sign that read DRIVE IN' in red, block capitals, with each letter three feet tall by two feet wide. The stand was open annually from March to November and boasted the best-tasting soft-serve ice cream I'd ever had.
The place was busy but not crowded. All three serving windows were operating, and the lines were no more than three or four deep. Shawn and I had time to chat before it was our turn to order. I introduced Shawn to the stand. "I don't know if the soft-serve here is really good, or if it just tastes better because this is the first place I ever had it."
"What do you recommend?" Shawn asked as he read the menu that was painted on the glass.
I shrugged his question off. "You know I always get the same thing, a medium size vanilla in a cup, hot fudge, and rainbow jimmies. When I was a kid, I used to like the chocolate dipped ice cream cones. They fill a sugar cone with soft serve and dip the ice cream end into a pot of melted chocolate. When they pull it out, the chocolate hardens into a shell around the ice cream. It's delicious, but a complete mess. The ice cream drips down your hand almost as fast as you can eat it."
We got to the window, and I ordered my usual. Shawn decided to be adventurous and asked for a sherbet concoction with more colors than I could count. It looked like a television test pattern in a Styrofoam bowl. I paid and we wandered to the rear of the stand.
Around back, we found three sticky picnic tables of plain wood with benches attached. They were covered with drips, drops, and splats of that season's ice-cream and were surrounded by gravel that was held back by staked-in railroad ties. Yellow fifty-five-gallon drums served as trashcans and attracted swarms of flies and solitary yellow-jacket wasps. Everything was exactly the same as it was when I was a kid.
The tables were crowded with families and the occasional young couple. Shawn and I drifted to the last table where some spots were open and sat. I looked around as I ate, people watching, until my eyes landed on a woman who looked vaguely familiar. She was tall, about five ten, mid-forties, with light brown hair that was just starting to grey. She wore her hair straight down and it fell a little passed her shoulders.
The woman had a nice hour-glass shape with some extra weight but not much. Her oval face held a good set of pretty features. She was wearing tight blue jeans, a black short-sleeve top, and red-framed plastic sunglasses. Two teenagers kept her company, one girl who resembled her, and one boy that looked nothing like either of them.
I finished my ice cream and got up to throw the cup away. On the way back from the trash barrel, I stopped near the woman. The familiarity increased as I got closer, but I couldn't place her. I decided to ask. "Excuse me, miss." I called to her from enough distance that I hoped she wouldn't feel threatened. "You look very familiar, have we met?"
The woman shoved her sunglasses down to reveal a pair of lead-grey eyes surrounded by long black lashes. She looked at me over the top of the glasses before she removed them completely. "I think I'd remember you." She said with blatant appraisal.
"Did you go to school here?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What graduating class?"
"1997."
"Same as mine. Would you tell me your name?" I asked and hoped I wasn't coming off as creepy.
"You first."
"I'm Church Philips." I said to use the version of my name that she was likely to know. I took a step forward and offered my hand to her.
She laughed a dramatic laugh and threw her head back to shake it at me. "That's a name I haven't heard in a very long time." She said when she finished. "You're not him, can't be. Church is my age if he's still alive. The last I heard he was a lush but that was years ago."
"Please, what's your name?" I begged.
"Sarah Harris, Burke was my maiden-name." She finally acknowledged my outstretched hand with a careful shake.
Her name brought back a flood of memories. She and I hadn't dated, but we `saw' each other for a while. I'd even taken her to the senior prom. Of the three sexual encounters I'd had before Shawn, the one with her was the most successful.
The teenage version of the woman that sat in front of me had been very forward. She knew what she wanted and wasn't bashful about going after it. After the prom, we'd taken the Vic down the shore for a party. In the wee hours of the morning, she'd shoved me onto a boardwalk park bench, lifted the skirt on her sun dress to show off that she wasn't wearing panties, and mounted me like I was a merry-go-round horse. That was the only ten or so minutes of my young life that I actually thought I could pretend to be straight.
"I can't believe it's you. You really do look great." I said and meant it. "It really is me, Church. We're the same age."
"I wish." Sarah tossed the words at me bitterly. "I haven't been thirty-four in a long time."
I smiled involuntarily. "That's a nice compliment, but I can prove it if you'll let me whisper something to you."
"Sure." She picked up a too-large set of keys from the table and wrapped her hand around a thin, white metal cylinder. She held the cylinder up with the keys tinkling against each other, to make certain I saw it. "If you stick your tongue in my ear, I'm gonna soak you in pepper spray."
I leaned in close and whispered. "Sea Isle City, on the promenade, two AM after our senior prom, you were wearing a yellow sun dress and no panties. It was just you, me, and a park bench."
I straightened up and stepped back. Sarah stood and moved well inside my personal space. She pushed some hair out of my face, and let her fingers comb through it as she tucked it behind my ear. She looked right in my eyes. "There you are." She said quietly as a slight flush rose in her face at the memory. "I haven't seen you since we graduated. You look good."
"So, do you."
"You said that already."
"You're right. Are these your kids?" I asked and indicated the teenagers on the other side of the table.
"Yeah," she took a step away from me, "well, one of them is. Ashley, she's my youngest, sixteen and her boyfriend Keith." She introduced me to the young people. "This is Church, an old friend."
The young people grunted acknowledgement and Sarah returned her focus to me. "What are you doing here?" She asked. As she asked her question, Shawn walked up as if her words had cued him. "Who's this?"
"I'm visiting my brother Joe. He still lives in the old house on Arlington." I introduced Shawn without pausing. "Sarah, this is Shawn Summas, my husband. Shawn, this is Sarah Harris, once Sarah Burke. I knew her in high school."
Shawn and Sarah shook hands without speaking. "I'm sorry," Sarah did a double take between Shawn and me. "Shawn is your...?"
"Husband." I said. I thought about the name I'd used when I introduced myself to Sarah and wanted to correct myself. "Actually, his name is mine now...Summas I mean. I'm not a Philips anymore."
"Well, fuck." Sarah said coarsely as she seemed to ignore my name explanation. She threw her hands up and let them fall against her denim clad-thighs with a slap. "I've been saying for years all the good ones are married or gay. You're both."
"I was one of the `good ones?'" I asked in surprise.
Sarah paused, I assumed for a look into the past. "Sort-of. You always tried hard to be whatever I wanted you to be. I don't think I ever really knew who you were." She cocked her head at Shawn, "now, maybe I understand why."
Sarah's face scrunched, and she looked like she'd tasted something foul. She marched passed me with her low heels clacking as she stepped from the gravel to the asphalt parking lot. She moved to the sidewalk on the Coles Avenue side of the corner lot and stopped, hands on her hips. She glared at me and waited. I went to join her. Shawn remained by her table.
"What the hell happened to you?" She demanded when I got close. "Ashley and your brother's kid are in the same grade. I've seen Joe at parent-teacher stuff. I just remembered what he told me. He told me you disappeared, presumed dead. He told me how you'd been living, that it wouldn't surprise him to learn that you killed yourself. Obviously, you didn't and here you are all long hair and muscle." She grabbed my upper arm and leaned on me hard enough that I had to tense my bicep under her grip. "Oh, my." She murmured.
Sarah released me and spun toward the street only to turn back with fresh questions. "And who is this `Shawn' guy? Where did you find him? He's younger than you, looks younger than you look and must be a lot younger than you really are. You're my age, he's what, twenty-two? What the hell is going on?"
I rubbed my neck and sighed. I wasn't under any obligation to answer Sarah's questions, but it seemed rude to ignore her. We had known each other once upon a time. She'd obviously cared enough about me to inquire. I couldn't tell her the whole parallel world story. I didn't have time, and she'd think I'd lost my mind or was lying to make fun of her. My mind raced with ideas.
`I left, why...nervous breakdown, no...walked away, couldn't take it anymore...that's not too far from the truth. I don't think I would have lasted much longer if Shawn hadn't come along. Flipped out...yeah, got laid off and left. Just got in the car and drove and drove. Met Shawn along the way. Cleveland...his bullshit license says he's from Cleveland. I flipped out, left, wound up in Cleveland, saw him getting beat up, and helped him out. Yeah. That's not too far from what actually happened. I'll say we both decided to run away together. West coast. Anything can happen out there. Sure.'
I told Sarah Shawn's true age and spun out my tale of escape from my old life in a few sentences with no detail. Sarah nodded shallowly in a non-committal way, like she didn't want to believe me, but wasn't willing to call me a liar either.
"What about the way you look?" She asked.
I lifted my left arm to gesture in Shawn's direction. "I did that for him."
Sarah nodded more deeply and seemed to shrug. "Sure, you did." She said, sadly I thought. "That's the Church I remember. I've thought about you, you know, more often the older I get. I fell for you. I bet you didn't know that did you?"
It was my turn to shake my head. "I had no idea."
"How could you know?" She shrugged. "We graduated, I went to spend the summer with my grandmother in Florida, then I went to college. You went right to work. By the time I came back here, you were living in Philly. We never even really ended our relationship. One day we were a thing, the next day we weren't. Did I mean anything at all to you?"
I reached for Sarah. I wanted to hug her or hold her hand to prove that I had cared, but I forced my arm to my side. I was acutely aware of her daughter, potentially watching and analyzing the interaction between her mother and this stranger from the past. I told Sarah what came into my mind about that time of my life.
"You meant a great deal to me, Sarah. You were kind to me. I tried to be what you wanted me to be, so you'd like me. I wanted to feel like a regular person. If I could be straight, have a girlfriend, then I'd be OK. I couldn't be a `godless queer,' as my mother would say. In the back of my mind, I knew that wasn't fair to you. I didn't know how to tell you we couldn't be together without telling you the truth or hurting you. When you went to Florida, I figured I was off the hook. Did I hurt you?"
Shawn appeared next to me before Sarah could answer. He wrapped his arm around my waist and looked up at me. "Are you OK?" He asked, worry in his tone and his heart.
"Sorry," I said, "Sarah just told me something I should have known but didn't. I hurt her...I was selfish, and I hurt her." I felt terrible and my mind reproached me for not considering Sarah's feelings all those years ago.
"Still so sad," Sarah said to no one, "still desperate for approval, still putting everyone else first. You didn't hurt me, Church. Even if you did, it was almost thirty years ago. I'm happily married, and I have three great kids. I like the life I built. I'm glad I was able to make it a little easier for you, even for a little while."
Sarah's eyes tracked behind me. "The kids are ready to go." She announced. "I guess that means the reunion is over. It was great seeing you, Church. Shawn, nice to meet you." She shook our hands and walked toward the waiting teenagers. We turned to watch her go. She stopped mid stride and came back. She stood on her toes and kissed my cheek. "Tell you a secret," she said, "that time on the boardwalk, one of the top five fucks of my life." She did an about face, gathered the kids into a minivan, and left.
"Sarah Burke, huh?" Shawn asked.
"Yeah, she still looks good." I said as I continued to watch the spot where her van had been.
"How does it feel knowing she enjoyed you?"
"Feels good. Nice to know she got something out of her time with me."
"More proof you make everyone better."
"Yeah, sure." I shrugged and let my shoulders hang. `More proof everyone can see how fucked up I am.' I thought.
I glanced at the sky. It was orange and purple with deepening twilight. "Come on...it's getting late, and the mosquitos will be out soon."
Shawn and I strolled along Coles Avenue toward Alden Park while thoughts of the past swirled in my head like angry storm clouds. Flashes of memory struck like heat lightning. The experiences of the day, being at the church, walking down Main Street, ice cream from the `Custard Stand,' returning to my childhood home, seeing Sarah and finding out she'd fallen for me, all these things dredged up shit long buried in the river bottom muck of my memories. The guilt I felt at the time, when I thought I was using Sarah, came back full force. Even though she'd just told me it was OK, I still hated myself for doing it in the first place.
Shawn took my hand and laced his fingers into mine. "Church, please." He begged, his face was pained with the anxiety I was pouring into him.
I stopped so I could look at him. He looked so sad, and his sadness was for me, and it broke my heart. "I don't know what's wrong with me." I said with a fresh shrug. "I'm married to a gorgeous man who loves me, but all I can do it flood him with old bullshit that doesn't matter to anyone. I should have my head examined to see if there's anything in it."
Shawn smirked with rare mischief. "You want your head examined?" He asked. "And what else?"
Lust and excitement sparked along our connection. It felt like electricity across my skin. I grinned as the force of his emotions tried to displace the negativity from my mind. "Maybe I need a very thorough and invasive physical examination." I teased. "I wonder where I could get one. Do you know any doctors? Any good ones?"
Shawn shook his free hand at me in a mock-threatening fist. "You're lucky I don't examine you with this."
"Ooooohhhhh...I've never tried that before." I baited him. "What's it like?"
"It's like this, and this, and this!" He shouted and punched me over and over but with no power in the hits.
"Ow, Ow, brutality, elder abuse, RAPE!" I yelled and ran down the street like I was trying to escape. Shawn chased me for two long blocks and was gaining when I threw the brakes on.
"YOU...ARE...A...SILLY...ASS!" He gasped when he caught up.
I spun my back to him and slapped the object he referred to. "Yes, but you love my silly ass." I mocked over my shoulder.
"Come on." Shawn ignored my teasing and led the way. "Let's get back. I was hoping to have an adult conversation tonight. I guess I'll have to have it with Andy."
We walked the rest of the way to Joe's while we teased and baited each other. Shawn wasn't often a child, but when he was, he did it all the way.
I was in a good mood when we came bursting through the front door to Joe's. Mary and Bem were in the dining room with the Family Bible open, Andy was in his room, the twins were playing in the family room, and Joe was watching TV in the living room.
Rather than risk ruining my mood and flooding Shawn with another ocean of anxiety, we wished everyone a good night and hurried toward our room. Joe called to me when I was half-way up the stairs. "Church, mass tomorrow, ten thirty, no nonsense, OK?"
"OK, Joe. I won't fuss anymore." I agreed but tried to sound defeated as I said it, like I was giving in. I didn't want Joe to know I was secretly wishing the night away so we could get there. Joe seemed to buy the verbal posture I was selling and didn't say anything else.
I wasn't one-hundred-percent certain that Father Miller would side with me, but I was betting on it. I was even counting on it and the strain of not knowing for sure was preying on my mind. The sooner the next day came and the sooner we got to mass, the sooner I'd have my answer and the sooner I could deal with whatever that meant.
Shawn and I went up to our room, cleaned up, undressed, and got in bed. "Do you want to...anything?" Shawn asked when he had settled. "I don't mean any magic or anything, maybe just sex if you want it."
"Do you want to?"
"Yes and no, I don't have to."
"Maybe just sleep tonight. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be interesting."
We kissed goodnight and slept.