Read The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel Online
Authors: Patry Francis
G
us had been at St. Benedict’s
for six years, assisting in the parish and serving as chaplain in the hospital, when the woman showed up. Normally, he would have been downstairs watching the Red Sox game with his pastor, Jack, and their housekeeper’s daughter. Julia, who turned fifteen that year, claimed she didn’t like sports, but she seemed to enjoy the blare and hum from the TV and the grumbling banter between the two priests as she studied. But on this particular Monday, Gus announced he was going to bed early and headed for his room.
“
You
—miss a game against the Yankees? What’s the matter? You pick up a bug at the hospital or something?” Jack said, following him to the bottom of the stairs. Gus’s dogs were confused, too. When she realized he wasn’t coming down again, Jane, a Lab mix with dolorous eyes and an overprotective streak, crept up the stairs loyally, while Stella, the rat terrier, tucked in her tail and clattered off toward the familiar drone of the game. Both dogs had been inherited from terminal patients Gus met during his rounds at the hospital.
“You might say that. But don’t worry; it’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure,” Gus said, stroking Jane’s ears as he avoided Jack’s eyes.
In his room, Gus lay down, arms folded behind his head, and studied the ceiling. His old friend Neil Gallagher had called earlier to say he was in Wellfleet, playing in summer stock again, and he was planning a reunion of their old high school crowd. Would Gus be there? After all this time, it shouldn’t have bothered him, but somehow the call derailed his day.
For eight years after Neil left for New York and Gus entered the seminary, they had kept their distance. But when Neil’s brother, Liam, took a job in Emergency Services at Cape Cod Hospital, he began to pass news between the two former friends.
Neil’s in a play Off Broadway . . . an amazing performance . . . He’s waiting to hear about a part he really wants. Something big . . . He worked with this prestigious director (whom Gus had never heard of) . . . that well-known actor (ditto.) He was nominated for a Tony in a supporting role.
There were a dizzying series of girlfriends, a tall redhead, a gorgeous Colombian, a dancer who promised to leave her husband but didn’t.
Sometimes he wondered what Liam said about him. That he ran on the beach and swam all year? He said mass? He comforted the sick and the dying? He watched sports with Jack and played touch football on the lawn outside the rectory with Julia? And then, the next day, he did the same thing again? There were no awards. No triumphs. No stunning announcements or crushing disappointments. Yet his life had never been fuller. How could he explain that to Neil?
Gus picked up
The Rule of St. Benedict
, which Jack had given him for a recent birthday. He was usually too exhausted in the evenings to read, but now he opened it to the prologue. His eyes settled on the words
Run while you have the light of life lest the darkness of death overtake you.
They described the urgency that had driven him since he was a child, and the reason he felt so used up at the end of the day.
He’d only got through a few paragraphs when he heard a knock at the front door, first so light that Gus thought he might have imagined it, and then more resolute. The sound of someone who wouldn’t disappear until they were heard.
He listened for Jack’s predictable grumbling as he headed for the door. “They just won’t leave me alone, will they? Even when the bases are loaded. Julia, let me know if they score.”
Gus waited for Jack to invite whoever it might be into the living room to watch the game. There in the middle of his usual sports talk, they would manage to get to the heart of whatever the visitor had come to share.
He could almost see Julia frowning in annoyance that her family time had been interrupted. Then she would gather her books and scurry back up to the apartment she shared with her mother above the garage.
“Night, Dad,” she teased before she retreated up the back stairway.
Detecting the susurrus of a female murmuring, Gus got up and pushed open his door.
“I’m sorry, but Father Gus wasn’t feeling well tonight. He’s already gone to bed,” Jack explained.
Gus stepped into the hallway. “I’m still awake, Monsignor,” he said, formally.
“You have a visitor,” Jack said, when he saw him. “
A young lady.
” An arch of his unruly white eyebrows conveyed all he needed to say about the matter. “Says she has an
appointment
, too.”
Jack stepped back so that Gus could see the woman standing by the door.
His first impression of the stranger was that she was indeed
young
—perhaps still in her teens, and ethereally pale. No makeup, with a scarf wound around her head and neck, she was wearing a sweater although it had been a hot day and the air was still close. His first thought was that she must be Muslim.
As he walked down the stairs, Gus quickly realized that all he’d gotten right was her pallor and the incongruity of her sweater. The long ponytail that protruded from beneath her scarf indicated that it wasn’t a
hijab.
“I’m Father Gus,” he said, extending his hands. “Have we met?”
“Don’t you remember? I spoke to you after the noon mass on Sunday,” she said, in heavily accented English. “I asked if you might have time to talk with me about a—about a personal issue.”
“It’s Miss Cilento, right?” Jack said, slyly watching both of them.
“
Mrs.
,” the woman corrected, addressing Gus. “But, please—call me Ava.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I
don’t
remember.” Though he was certain they’d never spoken, there was something familiar about her. Up close, it was also clear that she was older than he’d first guessed—probably around his own age: thirty-one. “In any case, Monsignor does most of the pastoral counseling here. Usually in the afternoon.”
“If it’s important, we can talk now—as long as you don’t mind a little baseball in the background,” Jack offered.
But Ava continued to speak to Gus as she pressed her lie. “I told you I could only come in the evenings—when my husband is out. You suggested tonight.”
If they had met, Gus knew it couldn’t have been on Sunday. He’d been in New Bedford for the funeral of a former parishioner the previous weekend. Politely, he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Obviously, I’ve knocked on the wrong door. Please forgive me for the . . .” She searched for the right word, then pronounced it with emphasis.
“Intrusion.”
“If you’d like to schedule an appointment, I have my calendar in the other room,” Jack said.
Still looking at Gus, Ava replied curtly. “No, thank you. Obviously, I made a mistake coming here.” She turned to Jack and gave him a taciturn nod. “Goodnight, Father.”
Later, Gus thought how easily that might have been the end of it. But as she turned to go, she bit down on her lip so fiercely that blood pearled at its edge. Instinctively, Gus pulled out the handkerchief he carried with him everywhere.
When he’d first arrived and asked for advice on his hospital ministry, Jack had told him simply, “Always carry a handkerchief, and make sure it’s clean.” Gus had nodded politely, but he laughed inwardly.
A handkerchief? Did they even sell them anymore?
Over the years, however, it had proven remarkably useful.
Appearing embarrassed, Ava accepted the white cloth and blotted her lip. “I’m sorry . . .” she muttered, looking down at the smear of blood, her disdain transformed into palpable despair. “I didn’t know I—”
“How could I have forgotten?” Gus said. “Last week after the noon mass, you stopped me. You said you could only come in the evening when your husband was out.”
As Gus repeated her lie almost verbatim, Ava Cilento closed her eyes, expressing a mixture of gratitude and anguish. “I knew you would remember.”
“We can talk in the kitchen,” Gus said, directing Ava to the right.
As he made a move to follow her, he felt Jack grasp his arm. “Mind if we have a word?”
“Make yourself comfortable,” Gus said to Ava. “I’ll be right there.”
“We both know where you were last weekend,” Jack began when they were alone. “Exactly what—”
“Weren’t you the one who told me to regard anyone who came through that door as Christ?” Gus interrupted.
“Don’t use my pious quotes against me. You know what I meant.”
“So you’re saying those are nice words in theory, but in practice—”
“I meant those words literally, and you know it, Gus. But when Christ comes in the form of a good-looking broad, you’ve got to be careful.”
“A good-looking broad? What I see is a woman on the edge. Did you catch what happened out there? She’s so distraught she didn’t even know she’d bitten her lip.”
“Now you’re really starting to make me nervous.”
“Why?” Gus peered in the direction of the kitchen. Whatever had driven the visitor here, it had taken her an extraordinary amount of courage to come; and he knew she might bolt at any moment.
“Because whenever you get that sympathetic look in your eye, someone or something else moves into the house.” Jack gestured at the dogs. “Exhibit A. And we won’t even talk about the girl who just called me ‘Dad.’ What’s next?”
“Tell me Sandra’s not the best housekeeper we’ve ever had,” he said, speaking of the woman he had first met when she was in the hospital, trying to outrun her addictions, a lifetime of bad relationships, and the health issues that had resulted from both. Since then, she had licked two out of three.
“You know I love Sandra and Julia; hell, even the mutts have grown on me, but that’s not the point. In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the MSPCA, or the shelter in Hyannis. This is a parish rectory, Gus.”
“Okay, I promise not to offer the woman your room. Feel better now?”
“Let me leave you with one word,” Jack said sternly.
Gus cocked his chin in the old priest’s direction.
“Detachment.
Detachment with love
. It’s an old AA slogan.”
“That’s three words,” Gus said as he started toward the kitchen. “Do I get to choose the one I want?”
“Nobody likes a wiseass, Gus. You hear me. Nobody likes a wiseass.”
Ava Cilento was seated at the table, her hands folded, when Gus entered. He began the ritual of making coffee, attempting to make her comfortable with small talk.
“Nothing to drink—please,” she said, nervously glancing at the door. She got up and began to pace. “This is not a . . . social visit.”
“If you want reconciliation, we can close that.”
“Reconciliation? You mean
confession
?”
“Whatever you prefer to call it—”
To Gus’s surprise, tears appeared in Ava’s eyes. “With all my heart, I wish I still believed a man had that power. A long time ago, when I was a little girl in my First Communion dress, I felt that kind of trust, but no more, Father.”
Gus sat down at the table. “Then why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here. How can the Church help you?”
“Not the Church, Father.
You.
”
“But we’re strangers,” Gus said though he was increasingly convinced he had seen her somewhere before. “Why did you lie about having an appointment with me tonight?”
“You lied, too. Does that mean we both need to do penance now?” There was a new hint of defiance in her voice—and something else, perhaps the determination he’d sensed in the foyer.
“I need penance every day, but this isn’t about me. You obviously needed to talk to someone pretty bad. Why you chose me, I don’t know—”
“
Talk
,” Ava said with obvious scorn. “You Americans think that talk—
words
—can fix everything. Sometimes you are so naïve.”
Gus raked a hand through his black hair in frustration. “Let’s make a deal, okay? You don’t stereotype me or tell me what I believe and I’ll extend you the same courtesy. Now, if you want to—”
Instead of responding, Ava lowered her eyes in shame, and pulled the scarf from her head and neck, revealing a necklace of purple thumbprints around her throat. “This, Father,” she said, still unable to meet his eyes. “This is why I came to you.”
It felt as if the oxygen had been sucked from the room. Gus could almost hear the Portuguese rhyming song his mother had taught him as it mixed with the sound of his father’s rising voice. Even on the nights when Codfish didn’t touch her, the violence of his movements, his steps, his intonations had made mother and son quake. Until this moment, Gus had almost forgotten how it felt.
He got up and closed the door, sealing himself and Ava in the kitchen that Sandra had already set for breakfast. The cracked coffee cups and mismatched spoons mocked him with their promise of semi-predictable days as he took in her bruised neck.
“Your husband?” he asked, attempting to mask his own reaction as he rejoined her at the table.
Ava barely nodded.
“Bastard—” Gus snapped before he could stop himself. “Do you need a place to stay?”
Despite his promise to Jack, Gus was already thinking of Sandra’s crowded apartment above the garage. Ava could even sleep on the couch in the living room—at least until morning, when he would find a shelter for her.
“Don’t you understand?” she said, her voice both tremulous and vehement. “There is no
safe place
for me. Not here. Not anywhere on this earth. I’ve made my peace with that.”
“The man tried to kill you. You don’t make
peace
with something like that.”
“You are the hospital chaplain, Father. Surely, you see terminal cases. Diseases that have no cure. Patients who wait too long . . .”
“But you don’t have a
disease
.”
“Disease isn’t the only terminal condition, Father. But I didn’t come here to talk about myself.” She rifled through her purse, her hands trembling more violently as she pulled out a small photograph. She shoved it in his direction. “She’s the only one who matters now.”
Gus stared into the bright face of a girl who looked to be about six or seven. The resemblance to Ava was unmistakable. The same green eyes. The same thick chestnut hair, though the child’s was divided into two ponytails. He turned the photo over and read the name written in pencil on the back: Mila. “
Milla?
” Gus pronounced.