In this chapter, Church and Joe finally manage to have a conversation without hurting each other. We also get to see Father Miller again. There's little else I can tell you without spoiling the story, so let's have a look and see how the guys get along. We're getting close to the end now.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
43 A Delayed Apology I Didn't Accept and Another Reunion
Everyone was quiet through dinner and dessert. As part of dessert, we ate the watermelon that Shawn had picked out. He'd done a good job with the selection. The fruits were juicy and very sweet.
Things stayed calm after dinner and well into the evening. Even the twins seemed to have finally run out of gas and were barely awake in front of the flickering glow of the family room television. Joe spoke just enough to say that he'd called Father Miller and the priest would join us for dinner the following day. I volunteered to handle the meal as a way to keep my idle hands occupied and to make certain Shawn would have plenty of vegan meal options.
I checked with Andy to make certain he was OK. He said that Bem and Shawn had spoken to him privately after I stormed out of the house. They had explained that, aside from some friction between Joe and me, the plan for all of us to depart for Solum that Saturday morning was still in force. Andy obviously wanted more explanation, but he didn't push for it, and I didn't offer.
Finally satisfied that whatever stress the day held was already spent, Shawn and I made an early night of it. Shawn stripped to his skin and got in bed. He did that sometimes when he was feeling ambivalent about making love. His nudity was not an invitation or an enticement. It was sort of like saying `I'm here if you need me' without words. I appreciated the thought as I wasn't sure what I wanted. Part of me wanted to seek refuge in his body and part of me just wanted to be held.
I got between the sheets, and Shawn snuggled against me. I pulled him close and turned to kiss his mouth. I settled on my back and thought about the day without focusing on a particular event. It had been a fucking nightmare of a day and I was glad to have it behind me.
I felt I owed Shawn an apology and I offered it to him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry shit's still so fucked up. I really thought that once we got Father Miller's blessing, all this nonsense would smooth out. If anything, it's gotten worse. I've been a nervous wreck and I'm sorry it hurts you. I want to say `thank you' for being there for me, for helping me with all this, but the words seem so hollow. There isn't anything I can say to express how much I owe you for hanging in there with me through this meat-grinder of a family reunion. If there's anything I can ever do for you, maybe a foot rub or a major organ, just say the word and it's yours."
"Silly ass." Shawn breathed to the dark.
"What?" I asked and tried to tease Shawn a little to lighten the seriousness of what I'd said. "You've got no use for a third kidney?"
Shawn rolled toward me and propped himself on an elbow. "That's not why I called you a silly ass. You're a silly ass for thinking you needed to thank me. I told you, we're full partners, Church. Any trouble you have is my trouble and my trouble is yours."
The selfless caring of Shawn's words made me feel all the worse for everything that had happened. I felt the tears streaming and rolled away to hide my face from him. It was a useless gesture because he felt my sadness almost as strongly as I did. I curled into a fetal ball and wept. Shawn wrapped around my back and held me. "What's wrong?" He asked in his softest, kindest, sweetest voice.
"I h-hate this...all this anger and hate. I hate being here. I hate needing help. I hate hurting you. I hate being a burden." I gasped between sobs.
Shawn climbed around in front of me so he could hold my head against his chest while I wept. His emotions were a dense cocktail of grief, love, frustration, and worry. He stroked my hair and repeated his mantra of caring. "I'm here and you're safe. You're safe with me. I love you and that will never change."
Shawn held me until I cried myself out, then I apologized some more. He shut me down before I got out a full `sorry.' "When we get back, you and me are going to deal with this." He said like it was a statement of fact instead of a suggestion. "I even know who I want to go see, the psychologist I told you about."
I agreed to do whatever Shawn wanted. "Anything...I'll do anything you say. I hate hurting and I hate that it hurts you."
"We'll deal with it when we get back. Just two more days; tomorrow and Friday and then we're on our way. It'll be easier when we're home. We're going to dump this whole crew on my uncle and we're going home to the apartment for a week...two weeks."
"But..."
Shawn cut me off. "That's not negotiable."
I took my hands that were uselessly covering my face and used them and the arms they're attached to, to pull Shawn against me as tightly as I could. "Yes, sir."
"I like the sound of that." He teased. "I know this trip has been more difficult than it needed to be but look on the bright side. Mary and Bem are happy, Andy is excited, and Joe promised he wouldn't fight us. It's not perfect, but it's better than you thought it would be. We can do this. We will do this, and everything will be fine."
"I trust you. If you say it will be so, I believe you."
"I'm glad. Let's get some rest, OK?"
I agreed and relaxed against him. Sleep found me in minutes.
I opened my eyes in the dark room. It was morning, but well before dawn. I wondered what fresh hell the day had to offer me. No, don't be that way.' I scolded myself. Shawn would want you to think positive thoughts...and if you can't manage that, at least try not to be negative. Maybe today, focus on the tasks. Gotta plan dinner, gotta go shopping, gotta go to the liquor store for the PC Auto guys, gotta get the car, gotta cook, gotta see Father Miller. That'll be good anyway. Joe should behave as long as the priest is around. Put one foot in front of the other and we'll get through the day.'
I got up, got ready, and went downstairs. The house was dark. There were no signs of life. I flipped the kitchen light on and almost leapt out of my skin when Joe wished me a grumbled `morning' from the dining room. "You scared the crap out of me." I complained.
I made a pot of coffee, filled two mugs, left one black for me, and added cream and sugar to the other one for him. I carried the coffee into the dining room and set it at Joe's elbow. He picked the mug up, took a sip, and nodded his approval over it. "You want breakfast?" I asked.
"You want to cook for me?" Joe asked, incredulity evident in his tone.
"Don't read too much into the gesture. I assure you it's mostly a selfish one. If I eat now, I can have meat. If I wait till Shawn wakes up, I can't. He's still freaked out over what we saw at the Lambertville market, and I've been avoiding meat to be a good husband. This morning, I'm thinking scrambled eggs, home fries, thick-cut scrapple, and white toast."
Joe looked up at me like he was trying to figure out if I had an ulterior motive for cooking breakfast, a motive beyond the one I'd stated. I didn't. I just wanted to be civil. I didn't have the emotional capacity to stay angry at my brother, actively angry anyway. I wasn't happy about how he'd treated Shawn, and Andy, and me, but it took so much energy to hate that I couldn't keep it up. Besides, I didn't hate him, I was just pissed. I wanted an acknowledgement of what Shawn did for him and I wanted Joe to admit that there was nothing wrong with me or the way I lived.
Joe nodded again and stood up. "Sounds good. You want help?"
I didn't. Two plates of breakfast hardly required a team effort, but Joe wanted to help, so I decided to let him help. The Joe I knew never did anything for no reason. I assumed helping with breakfast was his version of an olive branch. Maybe not even a branch, but a gesture that could lead to a branch.
"Sure." I lied. We went in the kitchen where I set Joe up with a cutting board, a couple potatoes and a small onion. He went to work peeling and chopping while I got out the eggs and other things and set a pair of pans on the stove. Joe opened a cabinet, took out a can of cooking spray, and coated one of the pans to receive the results of his chopping.
I snatched the pan away from him and wiped the mess out of it with a paper towel. I checked the fridge and found the plastic container of bacon grease I'd saved from the other breakfasts that I'd cooked. I scooped a generous dollop into the pan and set it on the burner. I put a second scoop in the other pan. Joe scowled at the melting white fat. "Are you trying to kill me?" He griped.
"Can't fry without fat, Joe." I said as flippantly as I could. "Don't worry," I soothed, "dinner will be meatless. Just let yourself enjoy some pork fat while you can."
Joe surprised me and didn't argue. He pushed the potatoes and onions into one of the pans, on top of the melted fat, and shoved them around while they sizzled. I added the scrapple slices to the other pan and asked Joe to watch them while I beat the eggs. The potatoes browned, the scrapple browned, and Joe transferred them both to his pan on reduced heat while we waited for the toast and the eggs. I grabbed two plates, we split the food between us, and sat to eat. I topped up our coffees and grabbed the ketchup on my way from the kitchen to the table.
Joe hummed his appreciation of the meal as he tucked in. "Tell me you'd rather have those home fries in cooking spray now." I said around a mouth full of the potatoes I was defending.
"You win." He said and shoveled more of them into his face.
We ate in near silence and were sitting over refilled coffee mugs when the first hint of sunlight streaked the sky and changed the black of night to the dark purple of dawn. "You want to watch it come up?" Joe asked.
I stood up as an answer to Joe's question and moved to the sliding door. I opened it as Joe approached and held it for him to pass through. We went outside and stood in the yard, facing east to watch the miracle of a new day.
"Does it look like this," Joe asked as he watched the sky, "where you live now? Does the sun rise like it does here? Is it beautiful and wonderful and full of promise and possibilities like it is here? Do people watch the sun rise and think about all their hopes and dreams and about everything they want and everything they have and wonder how long they'll live and what their life will hold and if they'll succeed or if they'll fail and if they'll ultimately die alone and see the sun rise no more?"
My eyes, that had been tracking the light's progress across the sky, crawled sideways to look at Joe. He'd asked a question that I had no idea how to answer. He'd asked a question that I couldn't even grasp. It was like he wanted me to tell him his life would work out for the best in the best of all possible worlds. I didn't know that to be the case. I did know what was behind his question though. It was an emotion I recognized; one I was intimately familiar with. I let him know that I knew. "Shawn said you were scared. I wasn't sure I believed him. I do now."
"I am so scared." Joe whispered.
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand." He sighed.
I pressed him. "Make me understand."
Joe kept his eyes on the sky and seemed to have an argument with himself about explaining his fear to me. I'm not sure which half of him won, but it was the half that wanted to talk. "My whole life is in this house. Everything from the day I came home from being born at Garden State Hospital to right now, this house has seen my entire life. I never moved out like you and Mary, never broke with Mom and Dad, never stood on my own. Now I'm getting ready to walk away from all that and start fresh. What will I do there? Can I get a job, or will I wind up living on your money? How can I be an example to my son? What if it all blows up in my face? What if I have to come back here and Andy doesn't want to come with me? What if you regret bringing me with you?"
"Wow." I said and didn't know what else to say.
Joe turned to face me. "Wow, what?"
"We're more alike than I thought." I explained. "You're afraid of the unknown. Maybe life inside these walls hasn't always been happy, but it's familiar. Now you're faced with wrenching change, and you don't know if you'll be equal to it. Here, you're someone, a pillar of the community. There, you don't know what you'll be. I understand debilitating self-doubt far better than I'd like to admit. I understand being afraid. I am too."
I unpacked some of my own worries and held them up for Joe to see. "What if Solum doesn't measure up to your expectations? I painted a picture with my stories, but Shawn and I have led adventurous lives because of his uncle. Our experiences are not the norm. What if all of you hate it there and all I've done in coming here is stir up what should have been left alone? What if Bem and Mary get married and it turns out to be a huge mistake? What if my brother can't come to terms with who I am now? What if my husband feels suffocated by my family and starts to drift away from me? What if the alcohol rotted my brain and none of this is real, just the complex hallucination of a diseased mind?"
"WOW!" Joe replied to my list of fears. "I thought I had the anxiety market cornered. You're worried about stuff I haven't even imagined. I've never met anyone who took doubt to an existential level before. I'm impressed."
I shrugged off his comments. They didn't help address the issues. "I don't know if it will work out, Joe, but I want it too. You're my family and I want you to be happy, no matter where you choose to live."
I'd said my piece and went back to watching the sunrise. It was particularly pretty that morning. The high humidity made the violets richer and smoothed the streaks of color like an artist would a pastel drawing. Slowly, but faster than I expected, the entire shining ball of orange breached the horizon, and the show was over. The sky was pale blue and dotted with fluffy white clouds and the sun was officially up.
I put my coffee cup to my lips for a sip and found it empty. I turned toward the house. I planned to go inside for a refill and to get ready for the other hungry people who would be up soon. Joe grabbed my arm as I moved passed him and turned me to look his way.
"I'm sorry." He blurted. "I really am sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I love you. I promise to accept you and your husband and everything about you. I promise to love my son the way a father should. I promise to thank Shawn for saving my life. Give me another chance...please. You won't regret it."
My first impulse was to accept Joe's apology and crush him in a hug, but I fought against it. I was skeptical. I assumed Joe had been awake for a while, long enough to think about what I'd said to him the previous afternoon. I'd said what I had to make him think, so in that area, my speech was a success, but I refused to allow myself to be hurt again. I refused to forgive so readily. I'd done that several times and Joe always managed to throw it back in my face. I didn't refuse his apology, but I didn't accept it either.
"Prove it." I challenged.
"What do you mean?"
"Prove you're sorry. You apologized...OK, thank you, but that doesn't wipe out what you did. If you're really sorry, then prove it. Start by apologizing to Shawn and mean it when you do it. Thank him for what he did for you. After that, apologize to Mary and Bem and mean it. Then give your son back his pride button, and apologize for taking it from him, and mean it. Show us you're sorry by taking a real interest in how we live. Engage with your boy. I'm betting you missed a lot since you got sick. Maybe try to catch up with him. Find out who he is and what he likes. Thank him for sticking with you. I want to accept your apology, but I can't until you prove you're sorry."
I could tell from the confusion on Joe's face that I'd brought him up short. Joe didn't expect me to say what I said. I don't know what he expected. Maybe he thought he'd apologize, and all would be forgiven. It might have been, if it had been the first incident, or even the second or the third, but he'd pushed me too far for me to make it that easy for him.
Joe inclined his head toward me and spoke. "That's fair." He said, like he wasn't certain it actually was.
I held my mug up. "I need more coffee. Are you coming in? Do you want another cup?" "Yes, to both." He said and followed me in.
Everyone woke in their own time, and I cooked for and fed everyone, including Shawn. "What time is Father Miller coming over?" I asked Joe from the kitchen while I cleaned up after the meal. "He'll be here later in the evening, at 6:30. I want to eat dinner at 7."
"Perfect, we'll be ready."
I finished the breakfast clean up and thought about dinner. I had an idea for meatless baked ziti. The variety of heavy ingredients in a dense dish would make it easier to hide any off flavors of the vegan `stuff.' I figured a very thick, slow-cooked, heavily seasoned tomato sauce would be the best base. I found a dusty cookbook to use as a guide and made a shopping list. Shawn joined me for a quick run to the Zenith to gather ingredients.
I thought about telling Shawn about the discussion I'd had with Joe that morning, but I decided not to. I wanted Joe to have to work for Shawn's forgiveness even if all that meant was approaching my husband cold. I didn't want to help my brother by priming Shawn for the discussion. Joe owed a real apology and a heartfelt thank you. I didn't want Shawn preprogrammed into being gracious.
Back at Joe's, Shawn and I spent an hour chopping garlic, onions, parsley, basil, and oregano. We added that to crushed red pepper, and a splash of red wine, in a pot of crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, and tomato paste, and put it on the stove to simmer for several hours. I double checked the recipe and the ingredients to make sure everything that I was going to need was in the fridge and ran out with Shawn to shop for some last-minute items.
Dessert was on my mind. We found a specialty shop on Main Street and picked up some vegan confections and normal' choices and ran those back to the house. We watched the sauce and killed time until lunch. We cooked lunch and ate it and killed some more time while the sauce simmered. At three-thirty, I shut off the burner under the sauce and left the pot on the stove to cool while the flavors melded. Shawn and I went out again to gather the thank you' that I had planned for the staff at PC Automotive.
We stopped at the liquor store, unloaded the Town Car trunk into the backseat, and reloaded the trunk with ice, cold beer, bottles of wine, whiskey, vodka, gin, tequila, mixers, and a big bag of cups. I also picked out a selection of nice cigars. We got to PC Automotive almost exactly at four thirty and had the pleasure of seeing the Vic pull out of the main repair bay under its own power.
The old beast looked almost brand new. Seeing it that way brought a tear to my eye. I walked over to it and traced my fingers over the smooth white paint and crisp body lines of the old car. Anthony came out of the office and approached me to gloat while I was distracted. "Just as I promised, Mister Philips; all finished. We even had time to road test it earlier today. It was just inside getting some final adjustments. She's as brand new as she can be."
"It's great, Anthony, thanks." I said and shook his hand. "I brought something for the whole staff, it's in the trunk of the Town Car."
I pushed the trunk-release button on the key fob and the big slab of steel that was the trunk lid creaked open to reveal the cornucopia of chilled alcoholic beverages. Anthony opened the first beer and called the rest of the mechanics and one hard-looking secretary out to indulge. A parade of a dozen, tired mechanics, all dressed in the same style of filthy blue coveralls, shook hands with me as they filed past the open trunk and made their selections. The smokers lit cigars and drank while the non-smokers just drank. They were all appreciative. It didn't take twelve men to work on the Vic, but the whole shop had been working overtime to keep up with the normal business volume while the `time-hog' special project was being worked on.
I enjoyed the banter of coarse, hard-working men as the mechanics loitered around the Town Car trunk and drank. I didn't miss my life as an industrial welder but being around the worn-out mechanics brought back memories of what it was like to be part of a team like that. I remembered working together with a gang of guys who, outside of work I wouldn't have even been friends with. I remembered working with them to achieve what we all thought was impossible. I remembered working with them through heat and cold and smoke and grease and pain and fatigue to earn the right to say, `fuck anyone who said we couldn't.'
The successful completion of each plant shut down that we worked was a hard-fought victory, and for the men who pulled it off, it was a hollow one. It's not like we ever `won' anything except a paycheck, and we certainly never received accolades or a medal of any kind. Typically, at the end of one shutdown, we would receive orders of where to report the next working day. There was no other pat-on-the-back than continued employment. There was an honor in it though, some kind of perverse dignity in working right up to the edge of physical endurance and sneering at that effort like it was nothing.
The mechanics around the Town Car trunk were having just the type of conversation I would have had with my former peers. Ball-breaking each other about who didn't pull their weight or how many smoke breaks each took or how long each spent leaning on the print table not doin' a fuckin' goddamned thing.' In this case, the print table was replaced with the tool chest or the fender of that piece of shit import.' The chest-beating, because that's what it was, made me laugh to myself that I was ever a part of it.
I brushed the nostalgia away from my face in time to notice one of the younger mechanics. He was in especially good shape and had shed his coveralls down to his waist. He was drinking beers with just a sweaty white tank-top undershirt stretched over his rippling torso. His undershirt was so sweaty, it was soaked almost transparent.
I had a wicked idea to have some teasing fun with Shawn. I focused on the mechanic and enjoyed a lusty fantasy until Shawn came over, saw what I was admiring, and stuck an elbow in my ribs. "You want to hold his coveralls?" Shawn asked through a smirk.
"Oh, yeah. Don't you?"
"I don't have the same sweat lust that you do. I would, but only after a shower."
We chuckled over our mutual teasing, but the episode left me thinking. With Bem out of my sex life for the foreseeable future, maybe it was time to find another third wheel. I filed that thought away for when we got back to Solum, and I moved my mind in other directions. Anthony and I went into the office where I paid the balance of the bill and received a full statement of all the repairs that had been done. It wasn't quite as long as my arm, but close.
We didn't loiter after I paid off. I still had to get to Joe's and assemble the ziti. Shawn and I loaded the contents of the Town Car's back seat into the trunk of the Vic, shook hands all around, and left. It was the start of rush hour, so I didn't bother trying for a high-speed highway run to shake down the Vic's new driveline. Instead, I enjoyed the slow cruise across town and savored the reunion with the only irreplaceable partner I'd had before I met Shawn.
The Vic was the only car I'd ever owned, and it was as familiar as if it was part of my body. There wasn't a ding, dent, blemish, or cigarette burn that I didn't recognize and remember where it came from. In my mind, I knew that the car was just a thing, an inanimate object with no feelings, but over the long years of ownership and the racking up of hundreds of thousands of miles, I'd developed an emotional bond with it like some people have with pets. I trusted that car, believed in it, and I imagined it trusted me.
It also helped that I thought it would make Grandmom Helen happy if she knew I still had it and had lavished over thirty-thousand-dollars on its restoration. The fact that those dollars were someone else's would have amused her to no end. Having the car back and getting to drive it in the open in regular traffic was a genuine pleasure. I knew that Shawn and I had a lot to do before dinner, but I hated pulling up to Joe's and shutting it off.
Shawn went into the house ahead of me, like he knew I'd want a moment alone with the car. I lingered with it and walked around it and touched its sharply styled panels and straightened its hood ornament. I went around in front of the car and squatted down next to the egg crate grille. I ran my thumb over the smooth blue-oval grille emblem and felt the tactile Ford script in the plastic. "I'm glad you're back." I said to the car, patted the hood, and went in the house.
Shawn and I spent the next hour assembling the ziti and cooking dinner. Once the main course was in the oven, I filled a stoneware dish with broccoli, olive oil, and garlic, and stuck that in the oven as well. Shawn prepped a loaf of Italian bread with olive oil, vegetable spread, garlic, and roasted paprika and set it aside, ready to go in the oven right before dinner.
Father Miller arrived a little early, dropped off by Stewart. He greeted Joe and me with friendly familiarity. Joe called the priest aside to discuss the arrangements for the house and assets while I finished getting dinner ready. Bem and Mary set the table while Shawn and I put the finishing touches on the meal and slid the garlic bread in the oven.
A little later, Joe led a very surprised Father Miller to the dining room table while I finished putting the food out. After grace, the honors done by Joe, and passing the food around, the conversation started.
"I never expected anything like this, Joe." Father Miller said while he scooped out a generous serving of ziti. "The potential donation of your house, the contents, and all your assets is staggering."
Joe re-explained what he'd already told the priest for the benefit of everyone else at the table. "If no one comes back in a year and a week, title of everything automatically transfers to the church. If someone does come back, a donation of fifty thousand dollars will be made in consideration of all your help during the last week and for watching over the property for that year."
The priest frowned deeply, seemingly in thought. "You know you don't have to pay for my help, Joe. It's always free and happily given."
"I know," Joe agreed, "but you've gone out of your way for this family, and this is more a token of appreciation than payment of a debt."
"I'll look at it in that light." Father Miller nodded in acceptance of Joe's logic and turned a smile to Shawn. "And I'll thank you again doctor. I stopped checking my blood sugar yesterday. It's been steady as a rock since your visit. I admit that each time I checked it, I felt like Moses striking the stone twice. I apologize for doubting you."
Shawn dismissed the priest's concern. "I take no offense, Father. It's difficult for anyone to accept what they can't see as the truth."
"That's very true. The trouble with me not accepting, is that my calling is to persuade people to accept what they cannot see. I should have put my faith in your kindness in the same way I ask my congregation to put its faith in God."
Shawn tried to minimize the feelings behind the priest's apology. "You said it yourself; the events surrounding our visit last Saturday were `unsettling.' I agree that faith is important, but blind faith is dangerous."
"That's very good." Father Miller agreed. "I may use that in a lesson."
"Father," I asked and hoped to take advantage of an unguarded moment, "last Sunday, when you were coming back up the center aisle after the church emptied, were you humming `Spirit in the Sky?'"
The priest's expressive face contorted into a sheepish grin. "It's entirely possible." He admitted. "I have a bad habit of whistling or humming that tune when I'm in a very good mood. Usually, I'm careful enough not to get caught. That's another of my qualities that I fear would not sit well with the congregation at large. I don't consider it a blasphemous act. Norman Greenbaum was worshipping the Lord in his own way, though I fear the more conservative members of the church would not see it in that light. For them, I may as well be whistling `One Toke Over the Line.'"
Those of us who were aware of the tune, and its repeated reference to `sweet Jesus,' chuckled at the reference. Lighter topics took over the conversation and remained through dinner and desert. After the sweets were consumed and the dishwasher loaded, the children were banished to the family room, and I took out a bottle of good bourbon and several cigars I'd held back from the PC Automotive staff.
"Does anyone care to indulge with me?" I asked.
Father Miller, Bem, and Joe accepted, and we went to the backyard. Joe's acceptance surprised me, but Bem shocked me. I supposed he was interested in trying new things. Shawn came out with us and accepted a drink to be companionable. Four of us lit up. I got Father Miller to explain the art of cigar smoking to Bem. After he seemed adjusted to the process, we sipped our whiskey and smoked in mellowing silence for a few moments. Joe sat on the yard swing and Father Miller joined him, the big man settled his bulk on the chain-mounted bench with ginger caution. Bem, Shawn, and I gathered to the swing and stood roughly facing it.
Father Miller drew on his cigar and broke the silence with some quiet words directed to my friend. "Bem, you interest me. I get the impression your story is a fascinating one."
Bem answered Father Miller's statement with a question. "Why's that?"
"Something indescribable in your eyes tells me it's so. I've seen that...shadow if you like...in others...people I knew long ago. Once I thought I saw it in myself. You remind me of them. Would it be too forward of me to ask you who you are?"
Bem hesitated. I almost jumped in to redirect the attention of the discussion, but I held my tongue out of respect for Bem. It was up to him to either answer or refuse to answer Father Miller's question. He took the middle path and evaded. "I've lived a lot, Father. I've done things that I am proud of, and things that I'm not proud of."
Father Miller's expressive face showed shame for barely a moment. "I apologize, I have no right to pry around in anyone's past. Mine has not been as innocent as I would like."
Silence returned to the group for several minutes, until Bem's oversized voice, squeezed down to a low monotone, broke it. "I was a problem solver for the special forces branch of my country's military for most of my life. I've...I've done things...things I don't want to talk about. I haven't been that...haven't been a problem solver since I met Church and Shawn. They made it possible for me to put that behind me. I'm trying to start over. I am starting over. Does that make me the type of man you knew, Father?"
No one said anything for a second until Joe wanted more information, like Joe always wanted more information. "What things' did you do?" Joe asked with clear emphasis on things.'
Bem flicked his eyes at me, then put all of his attention on Joe to answer my brother directly. "I infiltrated terrorist and criminal organizations and did what I needed to do to protect the country from their actions."
Joe wasn't satisfied by Bem's partial description of his former career. "You did what you had too?" Joe pressed.
"Yes." Bem agreed.
"What were some of the things you `had to' do?" Joe pressed some more.
Bem got angry at Joe's prying. I watched the building hostility color my friend's face. He took a breath to calm himself, then exposed his past without apologizing for it. "I killed people, Joe. Are you happy now? That's what you've been trying to get me to admit to, isn't it? Most of the time, I turned living people...criminals, over to the courts and let the process work. Sometimes, when I had no other choice, when the option was between them or me, or worse, when it was between their lives and the lives of an innocent, I killed. Are you happy now, Joe? Are you happy for getting to the truth about me?" Bem demanded in a firm, even voice with no emotion in it.
I was stunned that Bem had given into Joe's prying, stunned that he'd exposed his secret so readily. Shawn was beside himself with shock but kept it inside. Joe was the first to speak, and as usual, he spoke with an objection. "You're a killer?" He demanded back at Bem. "You're a killer and you want to marry my sister?"
"I'm not a killer." Bem insisted. He tried to define what he was by using some of the words that I'd used when Bem first told me about his past. "I have taken life, but that doesn't make me a `killer.'" Bem raised his fingers in air quotes. "Not the way you're using the word."
"That's just semantics," Joe countered as his all-too-familiar high-horse clomped into the conversation, "murder is murder. The end result is the same. How could you propose to Mary without telling her? You're a murderer and a liar."
Bem stood tall and proud and defiantly contradicted Joe. "Mary knows! I told her about it. I didn't want her to find out later and hate me for lying. I'd rather give her the option to hate me for what I was, than to start a relationship with her based on a lie. She accepted me...and my past."
Joe stayed true to his character and refused to believe even when the facts were presented. "There's no way! You must be lying. I know my sister. She would never accept you. You're a monster."
Bem bit his lip, pushed his drink and cigar into my hands, and turned to walk away. "BEM, STOP!" I barked. He halted but didn't look at us. I was enraged at my brother, but I knew shouting wouldn't solve anything and would only make Bem feel worse. I thought hard and fast and came up with something to tell Joe that would explain Bem. Joe would either accept it, or I would slug him. I asked my brother a leading question. "Joe, do you remember the handyman Dad used to have help with projects around the house?"
"Old Dan?" Joe cocked his head, either with the effort of remembering or in confusion over why I'd bring up the long-dead carpenter at that moment.
"Yeah, Old Dan. He was a nice man, wasn't he? You remember, when he came over, he always brought little fun stuff for us; coloring books or comics, or those little cardboard games where you have to get the ball-bearing in the hole. He used to talk to us like we were human beings instead of little pains in the ass. He was a very nice man." I related my version of the memory.
Joe didn't see what I was getting at and said as much. "He was great, so what?"
"When Old Dan died, I found out he was in the Korean War. He was a Marine. Old Dan killed people. He killed people with a gun and probably with his hands. Old Dan killed with the same hands that built the closet in the laundry room in this house. He killed with the same hands that brought us coloring books and crayons. Does that taint your memory of him? Does that make him a monster, or a soldier? Should our father have protected us from him? WELL, JOE?" I demanded.
I watched the implications of what I'd said sink into Joe. My brother was nothing if not logical. I knew he couldn't draw the comparison between Old Dan and Bem without either hating the memory of the dead veteran or embracing Bem as the man his sister loved. Luckily for Joe, he made the correct choice. He didn't answer my question directly. Instead, he got up from the swing and approached Bem.
"I'm sorry." Joe said to my friend's back. "I keep measuring people with my own ruler. I need to realize my ruler isn't the only one. My sister has good judgement, and it seems I don't. Please, stay and drink with us. I won't ask for your forgiveness. I have no right to hope for it, but I'd like a chance to earn it if you'll let me."
"It's fine." Bem turned back toward us. "We're going to be brothers soon, so I forgive you for trying to protect your sister and her kids. You need to know that I care about them and will never let anything, or anyone, threaten them."
"Please, have another drink." Joe begged.
Bem stepped back into the group and accepted his drink and still-smoldering cigar from my hands. "You OK?" I asked him and hugged him sideways.
"Yeah." Bem sighed. "Thanks...for everything."
The moment was over, and silence returned. The only sound was the occasional clink of ice in glasses as they were lifted up or set back down. Everything settled except for Shawn's emotions. I felt his turmoil as he thought about what Bem had admitted to us. I figured that, mixed in with his swirling emotions, was the question of how I already knew about Bem's old career, how long I knew it, and why I didn't tell him. There was nothing I could do about the way he felt until we were alone, so I didn't address the matter at all.
I shifted my attention away from my husband and used my telekinesis to float the whiskey bottle from where I'd set it on the ground and offer everyone a refill. Father Miller clapped his hands to celebrate the floating bottle and held his glass out to be filled to the brim. He seemed to be pulling the amber fluid down with gusto. A few minutes later he turned a pair of glassy eyes to the group, flicked a cigar ash away and started a story.