Stranger, Father, Beloved (23 page)

Michael walked back to the cabin in which they all were staying and looked in the window to John's room. The curtain was half drawn, and he could see John in deep sleep curled on his side, the room shadowy in the first light. The walls of his room were light blue, and there was a crucifix on one side. Michael looked down modestly at his own hands that he held together, not in prayer but as people do with each other, palm to palm. They were nice hands, he thought, as his mother had always told him. He looked in the room at John's hands, which were folded in front of his chest. More gnarly, more character, those hands had.

Michael walked through the grass by the lake that had clear emerald green water in it, shimmering in the early dawn light. He would recommend swimming in it to his family. He walked up the steps to the old wooden chapel beside it and tried the handle. It opened, and he entered. Bill was sitting in the first pew, his eyes closed and his hands at his sides. Several candles were lit on the altar before him, and other than the candles and the light streaming in through the stained glass, reds, greens, oranges, and blues, creating a swirl of color on the church walls, the room was mostly dark. Michael sat next to Bill, a few feet away, and when the man didn't open his eyes, Michael closed his as well, joining him in full darkness. His hands were shaking lightly, but he allowed them to buzz at the end of his long arms.

He remembered his father's constant looks of disapproval and his irritation when the two would find themselves alone in the hall
way. “Oh . . . ” his father would always say when he found himself confronted with his son at the other end of the hallway, and then his father would force a smile when he remembered his manners. Michael would smile back politely and then look down, to show respect, to show reverence. But now, he was aware, the smile had been coated in shame. The two bone marrows had had a conversation while they both slept in the house, father and son, and the father had not liked what was in his son. His father was proud of how he loved women, loved their bodies, loved their style, and he had been most proud of the wife he had selected for himself, the embodiment of femininity and grace and style. He must have hoped he could have at least shared that appreciation with his son, the womanizing trait, the desire to devour the female flesh that walked the earth.

Michael allowed the thoughts of his father to slip away in the silent church, and thankfully, Alex slipped away too. He remembered his mother in her bed at home, and he knew he must see her soon. He had to see how she was doing and to be under her kind gaze again. He opened his eyes and saw that Bill was staring at him and smiling. Bill didn't say anything, he only waited.

“I'd love some counsel,” Michael began.

Bill nodded. “I would be happy to help, Michael.”

“I am having issues delivering on my obligations as head of the household.”

“A family needs a strong leader. Are you having issues with fidelity?”

“Not exactly that.”

“Well, that's good. That type of betrayal is hard to fix. I'm so glad it's not that. What can you not follow through on? You are obviously feeling troubled, and your family looks to you to be their leader. Women are the weaker sex, more powerful in some ways since they
are creators of life, but they look to us for strength and leadership, to show them the way, not to mention the children.”

“I know,” Michael said and looked down, sighing wearily. “It's being married that's hard.”

“Marriage is hard. It's a long road. There are times when you hate the other person. Every couple experiences this. But you have to stay the course. Remember why you fell in love with your wife, and let that glue bind you back to her.”

“I was never in love with her, Bill.” The words just came out, and both men were shocked and silenced by the hideous, helpless reality that they created.

Bill struggled for something to say. “Can you fall in love with her now?” He turned to look at Michael. Michael saw that his face was desperate and that he truly cared about Michael's ­predicament. A kind man, devoted to helping others. But Michael and Nancy could not be helped.

“No, Bill, I can never fall in love with her.”

Bill seemed to accept that after a minute of sitting. “Okay, then, if you can't honor her, you need to let her go and let Christ take her in his arms for comfort. She at least needs that.”

Michael spent the day swimming. The water was deliciously cold, and there was a wooden floating dock that the girls swam to and lay across. Ryan even swam Max out to the dock, holding him in her arms, laughing. Nancy sat on the shore with her cover-up on, wearing a large sun hat, but at a certain point she took out a book and seemed to relax. Michael had taken one of his pills, so his hands had stopped shaking and he was getting that familiar foggy feeling in his mind, the thoughts were dispersing, and everything was slowing
down to place him in the moment. He swam halfway around the lake, occasionally darting down to the bottom, where round granite rocks and a few lone dark fish sat, and swimming back up to the surface. It was a beautiful, sunny day, not the slaughtering kind of heat but merciful, with a breeze. He remembered swimming this way a few times as a child, with his father watching from the shore. He would show off and dive dramatically down to the bottom in order to attract his father's attention. His father had smiled at his brazen swimming, especially when he was younger.

He saw John waving to him, and then John entered the water and swam out to him.

“I'd like to swim around the lake too, if you don't mind,” John called out, his face gleeful as he paddled to keep his head above water. So the two thin male forms moved through the water toward the other side of the lake with Michael leading, and when they rounded the bend, Michael saw that there was a small private beach, attached to a little yellow house. No one was around, and the house seemed to be shut down for the time being.

They lay down in the grass just above the little beach with their feet in the dazzling gold sand. John's chest was thin, but it was attractive—pale, not too much hair, with nice trim arm and shoulder muscles. He realized that John's body was not too different from his own. He could get used to this company, he remarked to himself as he had so many times about John. His silence helped Michael make it through this life because the crowded thoughts dissipated with no additional chatter. The wind picked up and made little ripples on the water and sent a small stream rushing to the shore.

Again Alex's solemn young face appeared in Michael's mind, causing his heart to flutter. He cleared his throat. “John, you've come to mean a lot to our family.”

“I feel the same. You guys have brought me back to life. It's so nice to be around children, too. I always wanted kids, but it might be too late for me now.”

“If anything should happen to me, I want you to help out and be part of things—whatever's needed . . . would you consider that?”

John sat up, alarmed. “Are you sick? Did your doctor say something?”

The word “sick” stabbed Michael like a knife, but then he realized that John didn't mean it in an accusatory manner. He was only concerned about Michael's health.

“I don't want to get into the details,” Michael replied, “but if anything should happen to me, I would need to know that Nancy and the children are taken care of. I need to know that.”

“What are you talking about? You are sick, aren't you? Does Nancy know?”

The word “sick” could mean so many things, Michael mused. He was sick, in a sense. “I might be sick,” and when the words escaped his mouth, it was such a relief to say them. “I have a malignancy—”

“The doctor found a malignancy?”

“Yes, they found it. It had been there for a while.” Off in the distance on the other side of the lake, a red kayak drifted by with a young couple paddling—the woman paddling in ineffectual strokes, hitting the water with little chops. The man was trying to paddle forward in smooth strokes and he was carrying them forward.

“Oh, Michael, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“Nancy doesn't know anything, and I would like to keep it that way.”

John sat stunned. “Okay.”

It was such a relief to tell John of his inabilities, to tell him that something was wrong. This conversation felt entirely honest, though
it was not technically true. It felt truer than much of what he said to other people, and it was as far as he could get with the truth.

“That's why you brought me here to the retreat center, isn't it?” John said. “To tell me this?”

“Yes, John.” Sleepiness was flooding his mind, and the day before him seemed real and then not real. “John, can we just sleep for a little bit? The sun is so nice—”

“Yes, let's take a nap. I didn't sleep so well. Let's rest. You will need your strength, so let's rest.”

Michael smiled to himself and sank into sleep. He was being treated with sympathy now . . . something was wrong with him, and he needed the sympathetic response of a kind person, which he was being given. When he awoke, it was cloudy and John was lying on his back with his hand over his face, not asleep but trying to be. Michael tapped him on the shoulder, and the two eased themselves into the cold water.

Swimming back, at around the halfway point, Michael's body felt heavy again. It was hard to move his arms through the water. The tiredness was creeping back into his bones. He realized that it might be nice to fall asleep in the water, be pulled under, and allow the water to seep down his throat. He could slip to the bottom of the lake, life could leave him, and he could be food for those sleepy black fish that surely hadn't had a good nibble for a while. It would be a peaceful way to go. He stopped moving and opened his mouth slightly. The water started to go in, and his body fought him instantly and he began to cough out the water, preserving himself. He did the slow crawl through the darkening water, as more and more clouds formed overhead. Drops of rain hit the top of his head and the water around him, but he barely noticed. Eventually his feet hit the sand. John exited the water behind him. The rain was coming down hard now, and the two men ran up the side of the hill laughing, getting
their feet muddy. They had no towels, and they ran across a field to the cabin and sprinted inside.

After showering and wrapping himself in a towel, Michael heard the shower turn off downstairs, too. The two men were mirroring each other in different parts of the house. He felt they were the same person, almost; different versions of the same man, and one day the one below would be the one above. John would be showering and climbing into bed with Nancy. John would rub her back at night while she fell asleep. It would be better, and her time with Michael would fade away as if it had never really happened at all. Michael slid into bed beside Nancy for the last time. She was asleep, enjoying her nap. He fell asleep, too, with his arm slung over her. She nestled in closer to him without waking.

After dinner there was evening prayer, and everyone looked happy during it, quite a change from when they had arrived at the church. Nancy was relaxed, and the kids were sun-kissed. Ryan was getting the freckles she got when her face tanned. John was solemn and gave Michael loving, sympathetic looks. Other than that, the group was a portrait of happiness. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave, Michael realized. It had been a relief to tell John that something was wrong with him, but it had also set forces into motion. He would be leaving the family, and as much as he had desired it for years, now that it was here, he realized he loved Nancy's dear face, he loved to see his children beside her. But he had to leave. He had never belonged here. His hands began to shake, and his heart pounded. Again the face of Alex and his lips saying “I don't know” and again his father's disapproving eyes as he studied Michael. He must leave, or he would never be able to rip himself away. He must go now.

Michael bent forward in the pew and whispered to Nancy, “I'm not feeling well, sweetie—I need to lie down.”

“Let me come with you.” She moved as if to get up.

“No, please stay here—don't cause a scene. Just let me slip out, okay?” He rose to his feet and shuffled past the two girls and Max and John, ignoring their inquiries, and made his way out the door and into the night.

He staggered to his room and lay on the bunk but sprang up instantly. Someone would come find him. They would surely be back soon.

He gathered up his leather travel bag and left a note with the woman in the office, trying to word it with special fervor: “I need to be alone right now, Nancy. I'm not feeling well and just need to rest. I am going home. Please don't come after me. Please stay as everything is already paid for.”

“Please don't let them leave—tell them to enjoy the trip. I just need to lie down.” Michael walked down to sit by the water of the lake behind the chapel. He was shaking, and he knew he had to leave immediately. His stomach was growling with hunger, yet he felt nauseated at the same time. He wrote a note that he taped to the door of the closed office door of the Dovers: “Make sure John and Nancy get married.” Then he found his car in the darkness and began the drive back to his house.

As he drove, he thought about Alex. If he could have only gotten one kiss, one kiss from those full lips, perhaps he could have had one moment of passion in his life and died a happy man. It would have been so easy for Alex to have given him that one moment, something true he could have savored.

The tiredness began to set in. His eyes kept closing as he drove. He stopped at a parking lot at a beach he used to go to with his family, turned off his car, and crawled into the backseat to sleep. His dreams were twisted all night. He saw candles lit by a bed and a man and wife in it. Joy Dover lay under her husband, Bill, as he moved over her. In nakedness, their bodies were exactly the same size, thick and rotund, the only differences being the two parts that were now engaged in this tender battle, interlocked as they worked slowly into each other. Bill would lower his head occasionally to kiss his wife, but they never stopped their rocking movements.