Even through the veil of rage, I could picture this nonsensical image, saw them partnered in a glass-fronted pastry case. Pairs of chocolate-covered rings and irregularly shaped halos with dustings of cinnamon and sugar or coated with coconut. Chopped nuts. Plump glazed ones. Crullers. I could almost smell the grease, taste the coating on my tongue, as if I were standing in the Italian bakery on Prospect that Lucy and I would walk to on Saturday mornings and take our time selecting cannoli or ricotta tarts from the case to bring back home for a late breakfast. Our weekly father-daughter tradition.
Of course, I had misheard the priest. But what could he have said? I played with the phrase, came up with another possibility. Doughnuts in air. That made no sense either, but I saw them rise up out of the case, floating past until the ether was dense with them, dancing and twirling and tumbling, each pair linked by stick cartoon arms. A scene from Fantasia. Lucy’s favorite movie. Land mine. Land mine. My head buzzed with memory. On the second-floor landing, a thought ambushed me and stilled my step. Maybe it wasn’t that I was going deaf but that I was going crazy. Losing my mind, not my hearing. Going round the bend. Loony tunes. Daft. Nuts. Bonkers. A finger of fear shot through my chest, and I considered the idea that my hearing loss was psychosomatic, some kind of PTSD symptom. I wondered if Sophie was right, if I should talk to someone, but instantly a cone of self-protection snapped in place. I thought of how she would drag me around from doctor to doctor with that determined, take-charge look on her face. Let’s get some answers, see what we’re dealing with here. Physicians and psychiatrists. Otologists and audiologists and neurologists. Hell, maybe even proctologists. She would cover all her bases. Corporal and emotional. Spiritual. I saw her kneeling in a pew, lighting candles, praying. To whom? Was there a patron saint of loose screws? I wouldn’t have bet against it.
Early on, when we’d been at that mad and ardent state of courtship that trembled near a welcome madness, when everything she’d said struck me as either endearing or terribly clever, when if she had suggested I crush a goblet and eat the shards I would have happily agreed, when any weakness or flaw was not so much forgiven as unseen, when I could barely trust—let alone test—the miracle of her love for me, she’d told me that for every condition there was a saint who could intercede on one’s behalf. We’d gone out for beer and pizza. Hawaiian, I remembered. Pineapple and ham. Her choice. She’d cut her slice neatly using a knife and fork, the first time I’d seen anyone eat pizza with such precision, and I had thought that this was a person who could be relied on to organize one’s life. I trusted, too, the way she spoke with such certainty. Lately it seemed to me that women had begun to talk like children, their declarative sentences rising at the end as if in question. I bought a new pair of boots today? Didn’t they know if they purchased shoes? That new restaurant just got a rave review in the Globe? Did they think this verbal tic in some way charming? Or did they believe it made them appear less threatening, the way an animal would roll over in submission to reveal a soft underside? It unnerved me. I liked people to be straightforward.
Saints, Sophie had told me in her confident tone, could be invoked for most afflictions or important life situations. I’d laughed, of course, unable to believe she wasn’t joking, that a bright and educated woman who seemed savvy about people in ways I wasn’t would seriously buy into such shite. (Shite. Now there is a word. Proof positive that a semester in London could upgrade one’s vocabulary.) Useless superstition, I’d teased and slid another piece of pizza on her plate, refilled her glass from the pitcher. Is not, she’d insisted with an earnestness I had found enchanting and a certainty I could almost envy. Saints for every vocation, she’d said, sipping her beer. And every country. Saints to protect the innocent and the criminal.
Which am I?
She had taken a sip of beer and gazed at me, considering. You’re an artist, she’d said. Patron saint: Luke. How had she known this? Had she had to memorize a roster of them along the way? Some kind of catechism of the saints required of Catholics? Or had she looked it up before our date the way another girl might check a man’s astrological sign? There are saints for arthritis and gout, Sophie had continued. Headaches and earaches. Heartaches? I’d said. A premonition? She’d laughed. Even the plague. Everything is covered. Dandruff? I’d teased. Acne? Hangnails? Hangovers? Knock-knees and nose hair? Lost pets, she’d countered. And lost causes.
Well, I thought that morning as I stood on the landing, now we know better.
Unlike Sophie, who continued to believe, believed even after all we had lost, I didn’t believe in saints or in their power to intercede or comfort, and I certainly didn’t need them at that instant. What I needed was a drink. I was overtaken with a desire that shot through thirst and went directly to craving. I could almost feel the heft of the bottle, almost see the pleasure of amber liquor in a tumbler, nearly taste the raw jolt of the first swallow, followed by a curling heat that could warm places nothing else could touch. Booze. I craved booze. I checked my watch. Eleven o’clock. Not even noon. Noon I might justify. Mac, my college housemate, had rationalized an early drink by saying, “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” grinning as if he had invented the phrase. I pushed the desire down, not from self-control but fear. I’d been down that slope earlier in the winter and had fought my way up. Best not to ski that trail again. Who was to say if this time I would find my way back? Plus, I’d promised Sophie. There would be hell to pay if she stopped by and found me drinking this early in the day. I started up the next flight of stairs, each step a victory over temptation.