“That meeting. How awkward I made it. Hunter leaving early. All of it.”
“Seemed pretty normal to me,” he says, moving down the row to the next rack.
“That was normal?”
“It’s always difficult to bring up sensitive topics. And grooms can be harder to engage in this kind of thing.”
He clearly doesn’t want to talk about the counseling session, the unease remaining from last night still lingering. I feel it, too, but if one of us doesn’t step up and force an interaction, the tension will only get worse. I sit in the front pew and lean over the back of it on folded arms.
“I totally forgot to tell you about a new development with the ‘my mom’ stuff.” I refrain from referencing the conversation in the car, hoping we can get back to normal. “I confronted her when she got into town, and you wouldn’t believe what I found in her purse . . .”
I take a breath to tell him about the picture album and the DNA test, but he drops a hymnal into the rack on the opposite end of the pew and then moves to the next aisle, two rows away now.
“No thank you,” he says, overlapping my explanation.
“What?”
“I’m not available to counsel with you right now,” he says, not breaking his serious priest persona.
“What, do I have to sign up for office hours or something?” I look around for any cameras or hidden mics but see nothing obvious. “You know you’re not on camera, right?”
He moves closer to my end of the pew; though he’s still two rows away, he’s close enough I can see his face more clearly. His lips are taut and white, his brows pinched together like he’s concentrating. I move directly in front of him, the back of the pew the only thing between us. He steps back and sighs and then moves to the next row.
“What the hell is up with you?” I ask, his cool responses beginning to hurt my feelings.
“Nothing.” The books make a rhythmic thump, thump, thump as he works. “I have work to do, that’s all.” He steps down the pew, and I don’t follow him because I can’t pretend to not comprehend. He needs space—from me. The balloon of warmth that fills me whenever we talk deflates. I respect him too much to try to change his mind.
“I understand,” I respond, gathering my things. “Have a good evening, Father,” I say, tripping on the braided edge of the runner protecting the wood-paneled main aisle.
“God be with you,” he says, moving to the next row, the thump, thump, thump echoing off the vaulted ceilings. On the verge of tears, I rush down the front steps to where I parked my Ford Explorer, the twilight dimmed further by a cool mist that kisses my cheeks like it knows they’ll soon be wet with my tears.
It’s grief I feel—not the paralyzing heartbreak that comes with the death of a loved one but a uniquely tragic sorrow, the loss of something still alive and yet wholly unavailable.
Total Intimacy.
That phrase runs through my mind again as I rush into my car and slam the door, breaking down as soon as I’m alone and the mist has stopped its gentle caresses. Sure, I’ll never have total intimacy with Hunter, but it’s possible that’s why I said yes to him three months ago. Because intimacy equals vulnerability, and vulnerability leaves me wide open for loss. That’s where I messed up with Father Patrick—I believed it was safe to let him in, to be vulnerable, intimate. But I was wrong. And as a result, I risked my heart, and I’m sure he feels he’s risked his soul.
I put the car into drive and pull away from the church on the hill, watching as it fades in the rearview mirror, the sound of tires over damp asphalt muting my troubled breathing. As much as it hurts to give up our friendship, he’s right. We must walk away now—before we get in too deep and lose more than we ever bargained for.
CHAPTER 26
Vivian
Saturday, June 12, 1943
Santini Home
“Wear the red,” Aria says, admiring the contraband lip color lined up on our shared dresser. Tom is due any moment.
“You should try it, Ari,” I say, uncapping the tube and holding her delicate chin in place.
“No, no. Papà will be mad.” She wiggles away from my attempted makeover, the fear in her eyes familiar and frustrating.
“We’ll take it off right away. He’ll never know.”
“He’ll know,” she says, sitting on the bed, her legs crossed like a pretzel and wearing mamma’s old brown gardening trousers.
“He won’t,” I say as I pin back a rogue curl that keeps falling onto my forehead.
“You don’t know that, and I’m stuck here with him, so . . .” She shrugs and disappears inside papà’s tattered old flannel. “I don’t want to rock the boat.”
“I’ll be home at ten at the latest; I swear. Tom has to be back on base by then anyway. It’s not forever.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?” I spin around and look at my baby sister sitting on our neatly made double bed, the faded brass frame mamma and papà brought from Italy when they immigrated. It’s the bed we were both born in.
We used to sleep on a hard mattress papà found in an old, abandoned house on Vista Drive, but around my ninth birthday, mamma got it in her mind her girls should have a pretty bed with a white cast-iron frame and a soft-as-clouds feather mattress. So papà saved and saved till he could afford a mail-order one from the Sears catalog.
“Yeah, not yet but soon. I mean, you’re gonna leave one day.”
She picks at the scratch on the bar across the foot of the bed, part of the bronze finish dulled from the rub of bedding and my mother’s restless feet in the night. I plop down next to Aria and pull her to my side.
“I’m only going out for a few hours. I promise. Nothing will change.” I pet her hair and kiss the crown of her head, glad I’m not wearing any lip color yet.
“Things always change,” she says into my shoulder like she’s breaking bad news.
“Of course, but it’s not always bad.” I hold her out in front of me, her dark lashes framing eyes that look just like mamma’s. “Think about the seasons. Your garden brings many harvests for our family. Sweet strawberries in the spring. Watermelon, tomatoes, and beans in the summer. Pumpkins, corn, and sunflowers in the fall.”
“It’s not the same,” she says, touching her upside-down reflection in the bed frame.
Bronze, not white like the cute little frame papà ordered. When it was finally delivered, it was exactly what mamma wanted, ornate white iron posts and a soft-as-feathers mattress. But it was half the size she’d expected. To save money, papà had ordered the twin instead of the double, and he didn’t seem to understand her gasp of surprise.
“Our little birds have a little nest,” papà said as Aria and I squeezed our small bodies into the twin-sized bed. Mamma bounced Tony as he nursed. She smiled and said nothing about her secret disappointment, but I picked up on it. I’d seen that look on my mamma’s face before, but my father never seemed to notice.