“Too much growing,” said the man who called him grasso, laughing and looking at Elsie for approval. Her back was turned, so Moses couldn’t tell if she gave it.
“Moses, I want to apologize on behalf of us all,” said Marianne, grinning at him. She was so pretty it was hard for him to determine the sincerity with which she said this, her beauty redacting all other data. “This is your house, and we’re being rude.”
“Where’s Harriet?” asked the director, and Moses felt betrayed. Why did the director know his nanny’s name?
“She took the weekend off,” said Elsie at last. Although he couldn’t see her face, he could tell that she was gazing into a tumbler of amber liquid. “Abandoned us during our busiest time of year for some kind of funeral. She’s in Kansas. Maybe Wyoming. I don’t remember. Somewhere flat.”
“I’m—j-j-just—th-th-th-thirsty,” said Moses, rooted to his stair.
“He’s thirsty,” said Marianne. “Did you hear that? Let’s get him some water, for God’s sake.” She stood and turned toward the kitchen, but the director grabbed her hand.
“Marianne, you just act nice because you don’t have a personality. That’s your problem,” he said. “And it’s not your fault—it’s the fault of society. No one ever asked you to develop a personality because you always looked so heavenly. Who can blame you for being nothing but nice? Who among us would have done the hard work of developing a personality if we weren’t forced to?” His language was precise, but he slurred the delivery, his tongue heavy with booze. “But you should admit that there’s nothing virtuous about niceness, Marianne, especially niceness unaccompanied by a personality.”
“Cheers,” said the other man.
Marianne yanked her hand free from his grasp, flipped him off, then marched to the kitchen. Moses felt sorry for her, although even at twelve he knew that he could not trust feelings inspired by the beautiful. He felt tears advancing and scrambled to construct a blockade.
“Elsie, you must do something,” said Sabine. “Look, your child is hurt. We have hurt your child.”
“My child?” said Elsie. She turned and looked at Moses for the first time, her face closed up like a shop after hours. “I’ve never seen this boy before.”
“She got addicted from her lupus—had all these surgeries, and the doctors kept prescribing morphine. That was before they had the restrictions, you know. Not her fault, but she waited to get help until it was almost too late. She had a billion people around; she knew exactly where to go; she had the money; she had the time. I mean, eventually, she went to rehab, but she could have gotten help quicker than she did.”
“Addiction alters the brain. It—”
“So does motherhood, they say.”
Moses has no idea how long he’s been in this confessional booth; he guesses somewhere between ten and forty minutes.
“There’s room for your anger, even if you don’t blame her for the addiction,” Father Tim says softly.
“But instead of asking for help,” continues Moses, “she asked for more and more and more morphine. The sick truth is that she loved being addicted, loved being a victim, loved feeling oppressed, loved losing control. She loved any excuse to spiral. She wanted to—to leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get out of here. This. Herself.”
“You think she wanted to die?”
“No, not exactly—death was too boring for her. She wanted the opposite of death. Which ended up looking a lot like death, to me, but she thought she’d reached some kind of nirvana.”
“Many people would argue that death is a prerequisite of nirvana.”
“I would argue that basic human decency is, too.”
“What do you think your mother was trying to escape?” asks Father Tim. “The same thing she was trying to protect you from?”
“There are also multicolored fibers that burst from my pores,” announces Moses. He understands that this conversation is a mess, but he doesn’t know how to have clean ones anymore.
By now, Father Tim doesn’t miss a beat. “What do they feel like?”
“You really have a way of rolling with the punches.”
“Yes,” he replies, coughing. “So I’ve been told.”
“They feel like fake grass,” says Moses. “Plastic grass growing out of you. Imagine that.”
“I’m imagining it.”
A pause.
“What do you think is the cause?” says Father Tim. “Of the fibers?”
“I don’t tell people my theory unless they feel it, too,” says Moses.
“Because you don’t think people will believe you?”
“Because I know they won’t believe me. They can’t. They lack the capacity.”
“Try me.”
“Do multicolored fibers burst from your pores?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not telling you my theory.”
“Fine.” Father Tim sighs. “Let’s return to your mother. Why do you think she—”
“Look, I already have a psychotherapist, a psychiatrist, a counselor, and the internet. I don’t need some priest from Nowheresville, Indiana, to analyze me, or my mother, or whatever. Truth be told, I had no intention of confessing today. I’m not convinced I’ve done anything wrong in the first place.”
“Neither am I,” replies Father Tim. “But you began this confession by saying that you thought you were a bad person. I’m just trying to help you see yourself.”
“You want to confirm that I’m a bad person.”
“On the contrary, I’d like to show you that you are good.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know if I’m good or bad.”
“You’re good.”
Moses scoffs, then makes a deal with himself: if Father Tim says something about being created in God’s image, he will leave the church at once.
“The Church teaches that we’re born with original sin,” says Father Tim. “The temptation to behave selfishly is something that we have to negotiate throughout our lives. But as we grow up, we also develop a capacity to override our temptations. That’s what differentiates human beings from every other animal, as far as I can tell. If you had no choice but to obey every impulse, we wouldn’t call it a ‘sin’—we’d just call it an instinct. We don’t call a dolphin sinful when he commits infanticide.”
“Dolphins do that?”
“It’s been observed.”
“Well maybe we should call it—”
“A dolphin lacks choice. But you’re free.”
“Just because I don’t commit infanticide doesn’t mean I’m good. Or free.”
“I didn’t say you were good,” says Father Tim.
“You just said I was good!”
“Did I?”
“Yes!”
“Well.” Father Tim sighs. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it. You’re right. I don’t know you at all. I haven’t had coffee yet. I tend to make irresponsible claims before I’ve had my coffee.”
Moses is surprised by his disappointment—what it reveals.
“Honestly,” adds Father Tim, “I think this might be my last day.”
“What?”
“Of the priesthood.”
Moses feels the roles of listener and talker trade places, feels it like a change of a current. “Well—”
“There’s a rot at the center of the Catholic Church,” murmurs Father Tim, “and I thought I could effect change from the inside, but instead, all I feel is infection. I’m starting to smell the rot on myself. Especially when I’m alone. This collar is starting to choke me. Physically choke me. I feel cold, and damp, and gone, and God won’t talk to me. God never talks to me. In all my years of prayer, God has never once called me back.”
A weak bird cry from above. Moses listens so hard, he can’t see what’s in front of him.
“I want to travel,” continues Father Tim. “I want to fall in love again. I want to meet someone who’s suffering and talk with them as myself, not as some representative for a boss I’ve never met. If the boss is worth his salt, and he saw the data, he’d be pretty disappointed with the way we’ve been running his business. Women should be priests. Priests should get married if they want, have kids if they want. Folks of all genders and sexualities should be welcomed exactly as they are. Abuse should be condemned. Birth control should be encouraged. I mean, the last thing our burning planet needs right now is a population boom of industrial appetites. These are easy things, obvious things, unavoidably right and good, and yet I’ve come to believe that they’re never going to happen within this decaying institution. I’m sick of following orders, meekly playing the game, waiting for the rules to change themselves. It’s going to be hell to get free of this collar. But that’s life, isn’t it?”
It takes a moment for Moses to realize that he’s nodding. “Yes,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “Yes.”
“Anyway, I’m surprised I called you good not because I think you’re bad. It would be absurd to describe a whole person as good or bad. You’re just a series of messy, contradicting behaviors, like everyone else. Those behaviors can become patterns, or instincts, and some are better than others. But as long as you’re alive, the jury’s out.”
Moses scratches his calves gently. “What was so great about Dorothy the First?”