When he had sufficiently recovered his composure, Miles started the Mercury’s engine, fastened his seat belt, and turned his cell phone back on. A few seconds later, as he was braking for the stop sign at the end of the block, he heard the familiar sequence of tones from his phone indicating that it was searching for, and then finding a signal, only this time followed immediately by a distinctive alert nofifying him of a voice mail message. While at the stop sign, he pressed the buttons necessary to retrieve his message, and listened to it as he continued the short drive back to St Alban’s. “Hi, Dad, it’s Rachel.” Immediately, he felt his pulse quicken and blood drain from his cheeks. He started to breathe more rapidly. In an instant, he realized that, given the absence of routine communication between them of late, Rachel’s call was significant. He may like what she had to say, or he may be horrified by it. Either way, though, it would be significant. “I was hoping we could get together.” That was probably a good sign. He could not fathom how she could possibly have another devastating bomb to drop on him of the sort she had delivered some months earlier. Whatever was on her mind this time had to be better than that. “Why don’t we do dinner? I know you don’t exactly do a weekly menu plan, so I hope I wouldn’t be wrecking anything if I brought over something from
With that, the message was complete, and Miles was, if there could be such a thing, cautiously overjoyed. There is something preciously unique about a father’s love for his firstborn, he reflected. It doesn’t differ in magnitude or intensity from his love of any subsequent children, but there is an undeniable qualitative distinction. There had been a chronic ache in the pit of his soul since his falling out with Rachel, and the mere prospect of that rift being healed was so inebriating that he probably shouldn’t have been driving. Nonetheless, he managed to make it safely back to the church, where, before returning to the office, he placed his pyx back in the tabernacle and recorded his home communion visit in the service register—with the date, time, and number present duly noted in the proper columns, and the note “E. Johnson” in the far right memo field. Future historians perusing the volume for hints of the quality of life at St Alban’s at the turn of the twenty-first century would never know the significance of that particular pastoral call made by the rector.
Miles spent the rest of the afternoon until Evening Prayer with relatively mindless administrtative chores: signing payroll checks, reviewing the Accounts Payable list that Donna had left on his desk, proofing the draft hard copy of the coming Sunday’s liturgy booklets, and balancing the bank statement for the Rector’s Discretionary Fund (a small account from which he could provide confidential assistance to people in need, whether they were parishioners or wanderers in from the street). Although they demanded some attention to detail, none of these tasks was a burden on the creative or synthetic side of his mental faculties, allowing him to muse on his relationship with Rachel, and what the evening might bring. He was filled to his emotional capacity with anticipation.
Miles arrived at the rectory shortly after 5:30, changed into a pair of jeans and sweater, and then proceeded to bustle about the kitchen and family room throwing dirty dishes into the sink and consigning obsolete newspapers to the recycling bin in the garage. There was no sign of Brian, and Miles had long since stopped letting such occurrences concern him. In any case, he didn’t want his daughter to think that he and her brother lived like a couple of frat boys, which they, in fact, did not, despite some superficial similarities.
Just as the entry way grandfather clock was chiming the hour, Rachel drove up, bearing a sack full of Chinese takeout. Belle alerted Miles to her arrival—it seemed, while the car will still half a block away—enabling him to greet his daughter in the driveway. “My goodness, sweetheart, it’s great to see you! Look at me—I’m so nervous I’ve got sweaty palms!” He wasn’t joking. He did have sweaty palms.
Rachel held the bag of food away from her with her left hand and embraced her father with her right. “I’m so glad to see you too, Dad. Here, can you carry this for me?” Miles took the bag from his daughter, led her into the kitchen, and laid it on the table. Rachel did the same with the remaining bag, then retrieved a couple of plates from the cabinet over the dishwasher.
Miles announced, “I think I’m going to have a beer with this, but I have some white wine in the fridge that Brian opened last night. Would you like some of that?”
“That sounds good, Dad. Thanks.”
He poured the beverages while Rachel dished out the dinner. Then they both sat. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Even if you didn’t say another word tonight, I would be happy that we were here, doing this.” His demeanor was one of unaffected sweetness.
She smiled back at him. “Well, then I’m almost afraid to break the spell. But I think you’ll pretty much like what I have to say!”
Miles maneuvered his plastic chopsticks to take a bite out of a fried dumpling, first dipping it in hot mustard. While he chewed, he pointed to his ears, signaling his availability to listen.
Rachel laughed. “OK, I guess I’m on. But let me have a bite first!” She stuck her fork into some General Tso’s chicken (having never become comfortable with chopsticks). When she was ready, she took a deeper-than-usual breath and proceeded. “I’ve been continuing to see Audrey. I didn’t know if you knew that.”
“I didn’t. Not for sure, at least. I suspected you might be.”
“I know you were pissed at her. She told me about your little tirade in her office!” This was offered with a sympathetic smile.
“She did, did she? Yeah, I was pissed.”
“Well, she’s been really great. And she hasn’t charged me, I hope you know.”
“I did not. That’s very kind of her.”
“Anyway…first…I am so, so sorry for the way I treated you the last time we talked, and I’m so, so sorry that it has taken me this long to come to this point. It was totally unfair of me to dump on you the way I did. I hurt you in ways you didn’t deserve. Please forgive me, Dad.”
Miles did not even try to hold back his tears (having been already primed by his earlier encounter with Elmer Johnson). He got up and knelt beside his daughter’s chair and held her as she sat. Rachel wept as well, but, after a few seconds, pushed her father away. “Now go back and sit down. Eat your dinner! I’m not finished yet.”
Miles gave her a mock salute as he retreated.”Yes, ma’am.”
Rachel continued, “I’ve never been a parent. I will be someday; at least I hope so, I plan on it. That would mean patching things up with Greg, which hasn’t happened yet, I’m sorry to say, but I have hope; I really do. But that’s not what I came here to talk about. I’ve never been a parent, so I cannot possibly understand what it must be like. I can’t possibly know what it was like for you and Mom. I mean, there I was, on the verge of becoming a teenager, complaining about my piano teacher. Within the universe of parental experience, that has got to fall well within the range of normal, am I right? Yes, there was some very serious shit going on with me, but I didn’t tell you. Now, I was eleven years old, so I’m not going to beat myself up for not chiming in at the dinner table, ‘Mr Ewald is molesting me’ when you and Mom ask, ‘And how was your day today, Rachel?’ But if it’s hard for an eleven year old to say something like that, it’s also hard for a parent, I would think, to just read an eleven year old’s mind. So, I’ve had to learn to forgive myself for not speaking up and letting you know what was going on.” Here she paused, and took in a slow deep breath. “And I’ve had to learn to forgive you and Mom for not figuring it all out and putting a stop to it. Dad, you haven’t asked for it, and Mom is no longer in a position to ask for it, but I forgive you. I forgive you both. We all did the best we could. We’re just human beings, flawed human beings, not anyting more. We all did the best we could.”
Miles exhaled, then gulped in a new breath, not aware that he had been, in fact, holding his breath during his daughter’s absolving soliloquy. He picked up a napkin to dab his eyes, still welling with tears. “How often have you seen your preacher-man father speechless, huh? This can’t ever get out, OK?” They both laughed, and squeezed hands across the table. “First off, there’s nothing for me to forgive, nothing at all. The amazing thing is not that you yelled at me a little that day, but that you didn’t come at me with a butcher knife! And I was an ass to Audrey the next day, and I still have to apologize to her for that. But I was a derelict parent, and if I had paid the kind of attention to you I should have, I would have figured it all out. Or, not figured it out, maybe, but at least had my curiosity aroused, enough to probe a little.”
“Oh, like that would have gotten you anywhere! Remember, Dad, I was eleven years old. I didn’t even have a vocabulary to describe what was happening to me.”
“You’re right, I know. But…”
“But why don’t you just shut up and accept forgiveness? Isn’t that what you would tell anyone else, Father Coverdale? Hey, remember, I’m not God. God’s forgiveness may be infinite. Mine is definitely a limited time offer!”
“OK, OK, I surrender!” He threw up his hands to reinforce his words.
“Good!” Rachel sealed that affirmation with a smile so luminous that Miles wished he could freeze the moment and savor it at his leisure, relishing every aspect of this radiant young woman who was the fruit of his own being, who had been lost to him, and was now found.
Father and daughter gazed at one another wordlessly for what was surely no longer than fifteen seconds, though it seemed to them veritably outside the dimension of time itself. Their reverie was broken by Brian’s arrival, about which there was nothing actually abnormal, though, to Miles, it seemed—subliminally—abrupt, loud, annoyingly uncouth. “Hey, is that Chinese food I smell? There’s an unmistakable aroma of MSG in the air.” He threw his jacket across the back of the family room couch as he made his way toward the kitchen table. “And what’s this? My very own sister. Rachel, what’s up?”
“I’m good, Brian. Grab yourself a plate and I’ll fill it with the mealtime delights of your childhood.”
“You mean there’s pork fried rice?”
“There is indeed.”
“Cool.” After getting his plate, he helped himself to a bottle of beer from the refrigerator before settling into a chair between his father and his sister. Rachel scooped out some fried rice for him, along with the remaining two pot stickers that Miles had not yet eaten.
“So, little brother, what’s new and exciting in your life?”
“It’s still pretty much in the toilet. No job. It’s pretty much pointless to even look for one until I put this legal shit behind me.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Rachel affirmed. “How’s that all going, by the way?”
Miles decided to lie low on this conversation for the time being. It was informative. He had honestly not known how much his children had been in communication with one another. By the indicators that were becoming apparent, it was not very much.
Brian needed no encouragement to take up his narrative. “I have a court date, you know. It’s this coming Monday, actually.”
“Really? It’s about time, isn’t it? I mean, it takes so damn long for the wheels of justice to, you know, do whatever they do. Are you feeling ready for the trial?”
“Oh, this isn’t even the trial yet. It’s just the preliminary hearing. If things go the way I hope they do, there will never be a trial. The whole thing will get thrown out of court. Those cheeseheads don’t even have a case, and they know it. They’re running scared. They even offered me a plea bargain, but Dad and I told the lawyer to tell them to go to hell.” Miles inwardly winced at being so directly implicated in that unfortunate decision, but he held his peace.
Rachel took sip from her glass of wine. She was managing to treat the discussion as if it concerned a routine trip to the grocery store. “A plea bargain, huh? What were they offering?”
“Can you believe it? They wanted me to go to rehab! Residential rehab. Two months locked up with a bunch of loser dopeheads and boozers. No fucking way!”
Rachel persevered in her cool affect while Miles continued to observe tacitly. “Hmm. Rehab. Grim. And what sort of jail time were they talking about?”
“Jail time? You don’t think two months of Narcotics Anonymous meetings is enough of a sentence? God, I feel creepy just thinking about it.”
At this Rachel simply cocked her head to one side, genuinely flummoxed. Miles came to her rescue, continuing her low-key tone, though he was considerably more churned up inwardly. “There was no jail time in the plea offer. Just the rehab. No jail time.”
“God, Brian, you must have one hell of a lawyer to work out a sweet deal like that!”
“Sweet deal, my ass! Piaseki didn’t work it out. He was just a messenger boy. Anyway, I’m not taking it. It’s bullshit.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is, Brian. I totally understand. But I’m just curious. What did they want you to plead guilty to in exchange for not going to jail?”
“Shit, I don’t even remember. Dad, what was it?”
Miles replied promtply and factually. “Felony possession of a controlled substance.”
Rachel responded, “Well, then I can see where you’re coming from, Brian. A felony conviction can dog you for a long time.”
Brian seemed momentarily distracted. “Whatever. I guess it can. I hadn’t really given it much thought. But I’m sure I could still come out on top. I could still find a way to make a living. I could still have a life. But it’s that damn rehab that’s the deal breaker. I don’t need it. I’m not an addict. It would be a complete waste of time, not to mention money. Do you want Dad to have to sell the lake cabin in order to pay for it?”
“Hey, I’m not advocating anything here. I’m just a curious question asker. So, I take it you’re confident you can beat the charges straight up. Just what is it they’re charging you with—that is, if you don’t take the deal, which, yes, I know, you’re not taking?” She punctuated her query with a smile that was intended to be disarming.
Brian paused, and seemed to be getting both bored and irritated with the conversation, so, once again, Miles stepped in. “They’re charging him with the felony possession, of course, but also with dealing. I don’t know what the technical language is, but they seem to think your brother is a drug dealer, that he sells cocaine.”
Brian took a quick breath that Rachel correctly intuited was only going to serve as fuel for another protestation of bitterness, so she pre-empted him. “And we know, of course, that Brian is not a drug dealer. Do I have that one right, Brian?”
“Damn straight! I was hauling down almost a quarter of a million dollars a year at the bank, and I could be doing it again now if it weren’t for this monkey on my back. So why would I need to deal coke? I’m capable of making a pretty good living legally.”
“Geesh. I guess so. That’s more than Greg’s dad nets in three years in the dry cleaning business.”
Brian siezed the opportunity to change the subject. “Ah, Greg. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but what’s up there? Anything to report?”
Once again, Miles made an intentional decision to keep quiet. He was learning more about his children that way than he ever would by direct interrogation. Rachel looked down and sighed. Yet, her affect was more pensive than anxious. “Actually, some. Not as much as I might have hoped for by now, but some. We’ve made some progress. We’re still talking, and the word ‘divorce’ still hasn’t been mentioned.” Miles offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving. “But I still need to win him back. I need to give him a reason to trust that I’m not going to ice him out emotionally.”
“God, it sounds like a role reversal,” Brian observed, somewhat bluntly. “Isn’t it usually the guy who has that issue and the woman who wants to be all kissy feely?”
“Maybe. I guess. But it’s probably just more of an ethnic thing. It looks like I get my emotional wiring from the uptight English on Dad’s side of the family, instead of the more hang-loose Irish on Mom’s side.” With this remark, she flashed a shy smile at her father that conveyed absolution for any implied genetic responsibility he may bear for her marital woes. “Anyway, Dad, I didn’t get a chance to tell you. Greg has agreed to come with me to see Audrey. We have an appointment next week.”
Miles was elated. “Sweetheart, that’s wonderful! That’s just great!”
Rachel began to sob through a broad grin. “It is. I’m just…Dad, I love him so much. I want him back to much. I want him to take me and get me pregnant and have us give you a grandchild!”
Brian held up the standard athletic hand signal for Time Out. “Whoa there, I don’t want to be getting a visual of anything here!”
Rachel threw a wadded-up paper napkin at her brother. “God, Brian, who knew you were such a prude?” she retorted, continuing to smile through her tears.
“Hey, I’m not…whatever…whatever…forget it, OK? Listen, I’m happy for you. I really am. I hope your big meeting with Audrey, you know, seals the deal.”
“Me too. I don’t know if it can really happen in one meeting, but thanks.”
For the first time since Brian entered the room, there was a lull in the conversation. It was Rachel who broke the silence. “Would you two excuse me? I need to go upstairs and use the bathroom.”
Suddenly it was clear to Miles that he was presented with an opportunity that he would deeply regret squandering, if he indeed did so. He was alone with Brian, and Brian was relatively stationary, still very much working on his dinner. The subject of Brian’s legal predicament in general, and the plea bargain offer for addiction treatment in specific, had been recently broached. Here was a chance to atone for the parental passivity he had displayed in Vince Piaseki’s office. He would rather not go down this road at this time, of course. It was already a day of monumental sigificance. Between the scarcely believable encounter with Elmer Johnson, and the immensely relieving news that Rachel had brought him, he had plenty of raw material that needed to be emotionally processed. No, he had not asked for the moment. One rarely does. But the moment was here, and it would be a long time before he regained any semblance of self-respect if he let it pass.
“Listen, Brian, I’m glad we have this moment. I hadn’t planned on this, but there’s something I need to come clean with you about.”
“Oh my! Does Father Coverdale want to make his confession? I hope it’s a juicy one!”
“Well, I’m afraid it probably isn’t. And I do wish this were a sacramental confession. At least then you would be under some obligation to control your reaction to what I say and to not talk about it again to me or to anybody else unless I bring it up!”
“OK, I just bought a clue. I’m not going to like what you have to say, am I?
“No, you’re not. Brian, I have to say this, just in order to live with myself. It’s probably too late, it’s probably a moot point by now. But I think you should have taken the plea bargain. I wish you had. I wish I had encouraged you to do it.”
Brian stared at his father, his mouth agape, for a few seconds. “OK, color me dazed and confused. I thought we were on the same page here. At least that’s the impression I got in Piaseki’s office. What’s changed since then?”
Miles sighed, and tried to
Brian grimaced. “And just what the hell does that mean?”
“It means I deceived you by not being true to my own convictions. It means I was more concerned with your approval in the moment than I was with speaking the truth. I’m sorry, son. I let you down.”
Brian got up from his seat and walked toward the family room, replying with his back to his father. “You let me down, all right, Dad. But it wasn’t then. It’s now! This is right when I need you, and you’re suddenly going AWOL. I can’t believe this! Jesus Christ, Dad!”
Miles was not prudish about coarse language, but he did object strongly to the vulgarization of the most sacred name in the universe of his faith, and he knew Brian was aware of his sensitivity in that regard, so he could only construe the explitive as an intentional attempt to hurt him. Nonetheless, he was determined to remain focused, and not be diverted from the task at hand. “Hey, I knew you wouldn’t be thrilled about this.”
Brian turned and responded with a wordless but penetrating expression of disdain.
Miles continued, “First…”—his delivery was halting but firm—“I want you to know that I believe you when you say you’re not dealing. They busted you on the amount you had with you at the time, but since I’m your father, I’m in a position to assume the best and just figure you were bringing enough to share with your buddies.”
“Duh! Ya think?”
“OK…” Miles was temporarily flustered.
“OK, what? If you don’t think I’m guilty of dealing, why do you think I should have taken their bullshit plea bargain? Why not just get behind me and help me win straight out?”
Then Miles got up, and walked to the other end of the kitchen in order to look his son straight in the eye. “Because I think the rehab would do you good. Because I think…because I think there’s a good chance you are addicted, and the rehab would do you good. That’s why!”
They both heard the sound of the toilet flushing upstairs and knew that Rachel would be joining their company imminently. Miles instantly regreted his timing in confronting Brian when he did. Surely he should have known that Rachel’s trip upstairs would not be long enough to cover whatever exchange he and Brian needed to have on the matter. Is this something he really wanted to drag her into? In the second or two it took him to mentally process the question, he realized he was of a divided mind. At one level, it was evidently unfair to Rachel, and might even—and this fear was paranoid, he realized—set back the recent progress he she had made in their relationship. At another level, though, he would welcome some support for his brittle backbone.
But if there was any question of ending or postponing what he had initiated with his son, Brian explosively foreclosed the possibility. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Goddammit, Dad, you can’t be serious!”
Rachel started down the stairs as Miles formed his reply, trying to keep the volume of his voice down in compensation for Brian’s noisy angst. “Look, Brian, this is hard for me to say…”
“Puh-leez, just cut the crap, will you? I’m the one whose ass is getting nailed here. You don’t get to say anything about what’s hard for you!”
“I’m just…all I’m trying to say is that I have a little bit of experience in these things. I’ve known my share of addicts. I know what the signs are, and I have to tell you, Brian, you fit the profile, OK? You fit the profile. Shit, I hate to say it…” He was now beginning to raise his voice, as Rachel rounded the corner from the entry way staircase into the family room, into which the men had drifted. “I hate to say it, but the way you’re acting right now just confirms my suspicions. It’s called Denial.”
Brian sneered as he countered, “Well I guess I’m just fucked, then, huh? The All-Wise Father Coverdale has just pronounced his diagnosis. The Holy One has spoken; who can argue?”
Rachel returned the volley on her father’s behalf (for which he was tacitly grateful). “Geez, Brian, don’t you think that’s a little over the top? I mean, get a grip, OK?”
Brian simply plopped himself down on the couch, put his head down toward his knees, and beat on it with his fists as he emitted a three-second scream. Rachel and Miles just stood staring at him, stunned. Miles bitterly remonstrated with himself, not so much for bringing up the subject, but for handling it so ineptly. He intended this to be an “intervention,” but an intervention requires planning and cooperation and even rehearsal, all steps he had neglected to take. Instead, all he could do was throw up his hands in a symbolic gesture of helplessness. “God, Brian, I’m sorry.” He immediately thought better of that statement and proceeded to qualify it. “No, I’m not. I’m not sorry for telling you the truth. I’m sorry for doing such a piss poor job of it. This was not good timing. I should have set it up better.” He paused. This was something he had to get right. He needed to nail it, with no ambiguity. “I know you think I’m betraying you, Brian, but I’m not. I love you. I love you more than I can say. I’m doing this because I love you. You need to go into treatment. We need to call Vince Piaseki tonight and ask him to contact the
What followed felt to Miles and Rachel as if it were happening in slow motion. In the space of three seconds, Brian stood and flipped the coffee table upside down, strewing three days worth of newspapers and three months worth of four different magazines all over the family room. Then he was out the door and loudly donating a layer of his Porsche’s tires to the pavement of
Miles went to bed aching for his son, but at peace with himself.
