Life was catching up with Miles Coverdale. His career was in the hands of three people who hardly knew him. He hadn’t heard from Rachel in nearly a month. His relationship with Brian was warmer than usual, but he was coldly aware of the price at which such warmth had been purchased. The ennui that characterized his parish ministry was getting slowly worse, not better. His adjustment to widowhood was fraught with ambivalence. Six months after her death, there were times when he missed
Then there was the matter of his recent erotic interlude with Oksanna Brown, which was turning more and more, apparently, into just that—an interlude. They had not had any contact with each other since their Sunday afternoon telephone conversation following their Saturday tryst. The memory of their encounter was beginning to lose its vividness, taking on a surreal quality, as if it were a particularly intense dream rather than something that really happened. Once he’d had the opportunity to mentally and emotionally process the meeting with the Sexual Misconduct Investigation Team and his and Brian’s exchange with Vince Piaseki, Miles began to properly stew about what had transpired between him and Oksanna. He certainly felt appropriate shame over what was, by the light of his honestly-acquired orthodox Christian moral principles, sinful behavior on his part—simply on the objective basis of it being sexual intercourse between two persons not married to one another, compounded by the fact that Oksanna was married, thus making Hugh Brown an unwitting aggrieved third party. At the same time, it was difficult not to give fantasies free rein. “What ifs” abounded. What if Hugh decided to ask her for a divorce? What if the two of them started properly dating—openly, without any concern over who might see them together in public, or whose car might be spotted in whose driveway? What if what they felt between them during that now mist-shrouded weekend turned out to be the genuine article? What if there turned out to be a solid basis for an enduring relationship? What if they got married and he once again had the kind of daily companion that made him feel whole? There was, however, one “what if” that he failed to consider.
It was on a Monday morning, twenty-three days after they had last laid eyes on another, that the phone rang in the St Alban’s rectory, and the caller ID display read “Hugh Brown.” Miles knew right away that it was not indeed Hugh Brown on the other end of the line, but his estranged wife. It felt like his pulse and rate of respiration suddenly doubled. Preserving a vestigial habit of an earlier era in technology, he pretended not to know who was calling, and answered “Coverdale residence.”
“Miles, hello, it’s Oksanna.” Her voice was low and soft, and it seemed to Miles intensely erotic. Why was she calling? What might she want? Would she suggest a rendezvous? In the same moment, he knew he would be crushed if she did not, yet hoped that would be the case. If this relationship was going to develop into something—and, there was no use in pretending; he desperately hoped it would—he wanted it to be proper, within the rules, able to survive in the light of day. So he steeled himself to resist any overtures on her part that might put them again into a compromising situation. Avoiding the occasion of potential sin is one of the foundational principles of Christian spirituality and moral behavior.
“Yes, Oksanna. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear from you.” He hesitated, and then added, “I’ve missed you.”
The presumptively correct response, of course, would have been along the lines of “And I’ve missed you, too—so much.” Instead, what Miles heard from the other end of the telephone connection was more prosaic. “Look…”—hesitation betrayed uneasiness, but the signal was lost on him—“we’ve got to talk.” He overlooked the miscue. He was smitten blind.
“I completely agree!” Great. This was playing out as he had hoped. They were thinking alike: Keep it going, but make it legitimate. “What did you have in mind? Shall we have lunch? I could meet you somewhere.”
Once again, there was a delay in Oksanna’s response. “Miles, I’m not sure what I want to discuss with you is exactly lunch-worthy.” What could that possibly mean? “But we do need to talk. In person. Can you come down to Woodfield? Meet me in the parking lot? Maybe near the entrance for Sears and Rainforest Café? Do you know where that is?”
Miles knew exactly where she meant. It was the precise area where
“Can we make it one-ish instead? There’s something I need to take care of…there’s something I need to do first.” This time there was a tentativeness in her voice, and a flattened affect, that aroused Miles’ conscious concern. “Oksanna,” he inquired directly, “What’s the matter?”
Oksanna exhaled audibly. “That matter is…the matter is, I think I may be pregnant.”
“Pregnant,” Miles echoed in a voice barely above a whisper. It was a wholly inadequate response, he realized, but he didn’t quite know what else to say.
“Yes, pregnant.” This time there was more expression in her voice, a tone of mock levity in a darkly ironic vein. Then she added, “And just so you don’t have to ask any awkward questions, Miles—yes, if I am, it’s yours. I’ve been…whatever, you know…there’s been nobody else in the relevant time frame.”
“I see,” was Miles’ only slightly more substantive reply. He congratulated himself tacitly for resisting the impulse to ask, “Are you sure?” but did gently inquire, “And just what is the relevant time frame, if I may be so indelicate?”
Oksanna took a breath and collected herself. “Well, it’s like this. For whatever reason—just lucky, I guess—my ovaries perform like they’re hard-wired to an atomic clock. I’m an every twenty-eight days kinda girl. That’s just the way it is. Only, it’s now been thirty-seven days. I was due a week ago last Saturday, Miles. I’m nine days late. That just doesn’t happen. Plus, there are other things. So something’s going on.”
“Other things?”
“Yes, other things. Symptoms. Hey, don’t make me get too clinical, OK, Miles?”
Miles was again temporarily at a loss for words. The best he could manage was, “Something is going on, I guess. That much is apparent.”
Oksanna overlooked his ineptitude. “So, we need to talk, right?”
This time he was able to sound confident and assured. “Yes. Definitely. We need to talk. One o’clock, you said?”
“Yes, one, thank-you.” She sensed that she owed him some explanation for the delay. “I’m not …I haven’t been to the doctor…I haven’t really had a test, you know. I’m going to go down to Walgreen’s and get one of those home pregnancy tests. God, I feel like a teenager who’s been bad, or something!” Miles thought to himself that she was not the only one who felt that way. “So, when I see you, I’ll have something more definite to report, OK?”
“Yes. Good idea. Thank-you.” They had reached that awkward point in the conversation when it was clearly time to break it off, but difficult to find a way of doing so felicitously. Miles broke the silence. “One o’clock, then. I’ll look for your car, eh? In the lot, near the Sears entrance, right?”
“Right. I’ll see you then. Thank-you, Miles.” Then she hung up.
This would take some time to absorb, Miles knew. Yet, he had, in fact, very little time in which to do so before his meeting with Oksanna. Even so, the two-and-a-half hour wait until he saw her would seem unbearably long. He set himself to the task of analyzing the available information and the possible options in a disciplined manner. It seemed prudent to begin with what was at the same time the “worst case scenario” and also the most likely, that is, that Oksanna was indeed pregnant and that he was indeed the father. If the facts eventually proved otherwise, it would be nothing but a relief from this cold assumption. There was no way it would not be awkward and embarrassing for everyone concerned—Oksanna, himself, Brian and Rachel, Chase Landry, and the leaders and members of St Alban’s, to say nothing of Hugh Brown, to whom the news would come as the only justification he would need to end what was left of his marriage to Oksanna. To be fair to Oksanna, Miles would have to acknowledge responsibility, and do so in an appropriately public manner. There would be no question of allowing her to cover for him in some misguided act of self-sacrificing nobility; he had more integrity—more chivalry, actually—than that. It was certainly worthy of hope, however, that any announcements could be delayed until after Leland Rowell’s review committee published its findings, which, in fact, were overdue, and to be expected at any time. (It was no comfort at all for Miles to reflect that if that process were to end badly, the consequences of this more recent crisis might scarcely be noticed.) Would he be able to hang on to his cure at St Alban’s? Depending on how he managed the process of public disclosure, perhaps so. But it would doubtless be a relatively temporary stability, predicated on an unspoken assumption on everyone’s part that he would promptly be moving on to something else and, more to the point, some place else—probably some distance away, probably in another diocese. This was big. This was really big. This would change his life.
It was not long, however, before his speculations turned in an even more sobering direction. If Oksanna was pregnant, and he was the other responsible party, then, nearly a quarter century after he had last done so, Miles Coverdale was about to become a new father. A new human life had been procreated in the blissful but foolish passion to which he and Oksanna had succumbed. By the time the child Oksanna would bear him was the age of his current adult children, he would be in his mid-seventies. There would be all the stages in child-rearing that he had long since sent to the archives of his memory: from diapers to toilet training to first steps and first words to birthday parties to the first day of school and all manner of graduations and other watershed events. It was definitely “Plan B.” It was not how he had envisioned his life unfolding. Then again, very little in the last year had happened according to plan.
But in the midst of the distressing realities, there was a concomitant brightness, their grim veracity suffused with an aura of hope, a glimmer of joy. If Oksanna was to bear a child, and if Miles was the child’s father, then it would only be right that he also be Oksanna’s husband. This is how things like this were supposed to be; a child must have a home, and mother and a father, who love one another. He would ask Oksanna to marry him. There was no affronted father holding a shotgun on him; he needed no such motivation. There was obviously chemistry between the two of them; she was carrying the product of their chemical reaction around in her womb. Could that erotic energy reshape itself into connubial love? Why not? He could think of a handful of other thriving marriages that had been anchored to as flimsy a foundation as the one he was contemplating. (Of course, he could also think of a much greater number of similarly ill-founded unions that littered the bottom of the matrimonial sea, but those did not occur to him at the moment.) Why should it not work? They would certainly have ample encouragement—a child—to do all in their power to make it work. It was simply the right thing to do. He would marry Oksanna. Of course, his plan relied on the presumption that Hugh would cooperate in a quick and quiet divorce. But why wouldn’t he? A rare man indeed can with equanimity bear the prospect of raising another man’s child as his own; it is an aversion the origins of which are lost in the mists of human evolution. It was unimaginable that Hugh Brown would decide to be an impediment. Other impediments, however, would present themselves, albeit temporarily. It may be that they would have to settle for a quiet civil ceremony, and then have their marriage blessed by the church at a later date, since, by canon law, the Bishop of Chicago would have to give his consent to the re-marriage of a divorced person, and there would be a minimum waiting period after the divorce decree was finalized.
These things would work themselves out, however. He and Oksanna would be married.
When the noon hour rolled around, Miles instinctively considered making himself a sandwich—sliced turkey on whole wheat was his default—but realized he was not the least bit hungry. So he fretted—and fantasized. He allowed his fantasies to run completely wild, completely unchecked. He imagined Oksanna’s relief at his willingness to marry her. He imagined them sitting in his car, holding one another in tears of joy. He imagined telling his children, and his parents, and having them share his happiness. He imagined being with Oksanna at the birth of their baby—when would it be? next June sometime—and bonding with his own flesh and blood in the delivery room.
Miles pulled into the Woodfield Mall parking lot at precisely 12:47 PM, according to his car’s clock. He drove to the predetermined area of their rendezvous and began scanning for Oksanna’s BMW. After what seemed like an hour, but was in fact less than ten minutes, he spotted it, just turning into an empty space. The adjacent spots were occupied, but he noticed someone pulling out of a space a few yards away, so he approached slowly and laid claim to it by activating his turn signal, honking his horn briefly as he passed Oksanna, just to let her know he was there. As the other vehicle departed and he occupied the space, he noticed in his side view mirror that Oksanna was out of her car and heading toward him. In the few seconds it took her to reach the passenger door of the Grand Marquis, the sky, which had been drooping with moisture all morning, finally broke, and deposited what seemed like the entire contents of
Oksanna averted her eyes momentarily, then looked at him squarely with a feigned grin. “Hi, Daddy!” she chirped. So that was it. She was pregnant. Miles could not compose himself enough to say anything even rational, let along profound. “So…you…took the test…and…?”
“Yes, Miles, I took the test. I peed on the stick, and the stick turned blue. But I didn’t need any damn stick. I knew already.”
“I know,” he assured her softly. “I believed you when you told me over the phone.”
“That’s incredibly sweet of you, Miles.” She paused and held her breath. “Which makes what I want to say, what I have to say, that much harder.” Miles felt his stomach suddenly turn sour, but he resisted the impulse to respond verbally, giving Oksanna the space to continue. “I’m not going to have this baby. I know there are plenty of reasons why I should, not the least of which is that I’m 38 years old. But not this way. Not like this. A child deserves a stable home, with two parents who love each other and are committed to each other. So I’m not going to go through with it. I’m going to end it.”
Miles was breathing normally, but he nonetheless felt like the wind had been sucked clean out of his lungs. He was verbally paralyzed. In his mind, he wanted to cry out, “It’s OK! I love you! We’ll give our baby exactly the kind of home you’re talking about!” But he was unable to bring the words from his brain to his lips.
“Plus,” Oksanna continued, “I can’t do it to you. Having a baby would certainly complicate my life, but it would be disastrous for you, Miles, if it got out, which it would. You know how people are. Somebody would eventually put two and two together. And it could ruin you, which you don’t deserve. It was so completely my fault.”
At this provocation, Miles was finally able to articulate something resembling a coherent thought. “It’s not like I wasn’t in the room. I did contribute something to your condition, didn’t I?”
“I’m sorry, Miles, of course you did! What I meant was that it’s not up to you to know what’s going on in my body. I’m the idiot who had unprotected sex knowing full well that I was ovulating. An eighth grade science student should have been able to figure out that I would get pregnant! I took advantage of you. I got drunk, and I made you drive me home, and I took advantage of you.”
“Look, Oksanna, you know that’s a distortion of what actually happened. I was there, remember? But even if I let you get away with that, it doesn’t explain what happened the next day. Nobody was drunk then. We both knew exactly what we were doing.”
“Drunk with adolescent passion, maybe!” She smiled gently as she said this, briefly reaching out and stroking the nape of his neck. Then she resumed a serious demeanor, looking past him at nothing in particular. “Yes, I know. That was different. Deliciously different. But still stupid. I should have known better. Maybe you should have, too—I’m not going to lay a guilt trip on you. But I definitely should have known better. One of us should have at least made a trip to the drugstore, if you know what I mean.”
Miles knew what she meant, but her observation did not merit a response. Both encounters were unpremeditated.
Oksanna drew a breath and looked away before breaking the brief silence. “There’s more.”
Reverting by instinct to his pastoral counseling mode, Miles simply urged her on. “More?”
Oksanna was palpably uncomfortable. “I’ve been talking to Hugh.” In an instant, Miles did a mental scan of the possible implications of such a statement. It was too much to hold together, but his gut told him he wasn’t going to like where this road led. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told him about us, and I haven’t told him I’m pregnant. And I won’t tell him. Either one.”
She paused, as if to leave him space in which to ask a question. But he remained silent, so she continued. “We’ve talked about getting back together. Nothing definite yet. We haven’t made any decisions. But I thought it only fair that you should know that this is something we’re considering, something we’re talking about.”
Now Miles felt his temples begin to throb. He was short of breath, and his jaws began to tremble. He managed to push out a question in a tone barely above a whisper, “Is this what you want, Oksanna?”
“Oh, God, Miles, I don’t know. I’m not sure what I want. A month ago I would have said that I probably want to want to reconcile, to save my marriage, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I couldn’t see how it was going to happen. Then you came along…”—she smiled warmly as she spoke these words, a smile that for a moment lifted the black cloud that hung over Miles Coverdale’s soul—“you came along, and everything felt like it was up for grabs. Up was down and down was up and straight lines were crooked.” She reached into her purse to retrieve a piece of tissue with which to wipe away the tears that were beginning to flow from both her eyes. “But I’ve been thinking. I’ve been doing so much thinking. My problems with Hugh are certainly not all his fault. I’ve contributed my fair share. We have a lot of years invested in one another. It just doesn’t seem right to cash it all in without giving it another try. I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I got a divorce just because of a fantastic one-night stand—or, one night and one morning, as they case may be!” Once again, her words were accompanied by a smile. This time, though, there was no perceptible reciprocal response from her conversation partner. Miles was uncharacteristically impassive. “Does this make any sense to you, Miles?”
It was only with the greatest inner effort that Miles was able to summon the resources required to engage Oksanna’s question coherently. He was trying to say, “Yes, it makes sense,” and he eventually got the words out, but he could not conceal how difficult it was for him to do so. Nor could he very well conceal that fact that he was not at all certain he even meant what he was saying. Yes, as Oksanna explained herself, it made sense. Yes, as a Christian pastor, he had labored many times to heal marriages that were worse off than that between Hugh Brown and his wife, and sometimes even succeeded. Yes, it made sense that such healing would not be possible if she were to produce a baby not conceived in that union. It also made sense that his life and ministry—his “career,” to put it in baldly secular terms—should not be derailed (at best, if not utterly destroyed) by what had transpired; in time, he would be quite clear in his gratitude that Oskanna had chosen to spare him such agony and humiliation. Yes, it all made sense. Perfect sense. But his heart was ruptured with grief because he desperately wanted the companionship and love of the woman who was presently so proximate, but would soon be distant, and permanently so. His heart was ruptured with grief for the child he had helped conceive, but who would never realize the form already dictated by a unique genetic blueprint. His heart was ruptured with grief over his own lack of integrity in the moment, for his failure to marshal even a minimal amount of courage with which to challenge Oksanna’s decision to end her pregnancy. Miles had always taken what might be described as a “quiet pro-life” position. He was never a crusader, but had been consistent throughout his adult life in advocating for the questionable morality of abortion, and in trying to provide women with unwanted pregnancies with readily available and workable alternatives. Through his leadership, St Alban’s was a major contributor to the
Oksanna could no longer contain the expression of her feelings. “I’m so sorry, Miles,” she exclaimed through her tears as she collapsed in his arms, sobbing. Rain pounded the roof of the car and the windows were completely fogged. Miles himself wept profusely as he held her; he wept as he never had during the whole ordeal of losing his wife. They rocked each other, gently and wordlessly, for the next ten minutes. As if cued by the cessation of the rainfall, they loosened their grip and pulled apart. Oksanna wiped the residual tears from Miles’ face with her bare hand. Then she pulled the hood of her raincoat over her head and got out of the car. Miles watched her, frozen, as she walked briskly back to her own vehicle, entered it, and drove off.
He knew he was in no condition to drive safely. He walked the 150 feet or so between where he was parked and the mall entrance. In a stunned reverie, he wandered through Woodfield Mall, trying to recover some sense of himself that he recognized. The debacle between him and Oksanna was a miserable enough turn of events in its own right. Slowly, he became increasingly aware that what had just transpired was emblematic of his whole life. It was as if his present intense grief somehow unlocked the enormity of everything else about which he might legitimately grieve. To this point, he had managed to hold these difficulties each in its own compartment, in isolation from the others. Considered individually, each was manageable by the repertoire of emotional and mental resources at his disposal. Now, in his hazy mall walk, their synergistic power was evident to him for the first time, and for the first time he felt his burden to be unbearable. It was uncharted territory for Miles Coverdale. He had always carried his load, pulled his weight. He could do so no longer. A tidal wave had been breaking over his head for the last eleven months. Now it was finally crashing down on him and he was terrified of drowning in it. The present instrument of his drowning was a sweet South American concoction called a mojito, featured in the bar of the first mall restaurant he happened across.
In an ironic twist, he called Brian to drive him home.
