Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  She didn’t see any sign that Greer had followed her.

  Good. He was doing his job and staying out of sight.

  * * *

  +++

  Our wine arrived.

  In keeping with Christie’s tradition, we ordered dessert first while we considered our entrée options. I chose the Délices d’amande, which the translation app on my phone told me was “almond delight.” The menu described it as Roasted almond mousse, whipped vanilla cream, shaved almond, and tuile.

  I didn’t know what “tuile” was, but everything else sounded good, and I figured that at this price, whatever tuile was, it would fit in there with those other items in a tasty way.

  Christie chose La douce évasion, the “sweet escape,” which the menu told us was Warm chocolate ganache, brandied cherries, and Tahitian vanilla ice cream.

  Benjamin looked a bit confused. “And you are saying that you wish for me to bring the dessert out before the main dish?”

  “Yes. Please,” Christie told him.

  “And no appetizers?”

  “If we have room we’ll order them after our meal.”

  “Yes, of course.” He spoke respectfully but was clearly curious about our backward ordering process. “As you wish.”

  After he left, I offered a toast. “To our future together.”

  Christie paused slightly, but then she smiled and tapped her wineglass against mine. “To our future together.”

  After we’d both taken a drink, I said, “Well?”

  “Well?”

  “The wine. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s worth the price.”

  I wasn’t entirely convinced, but she was much more of a wine connoisseur than I was, so I took her word for it.

  “Oh.” She took out her phone. “I wanted to show you some pictures from the monastery.”

  She scrolled to them and was about to hand the phone across the table when she must have realized that it would be easier to describe the photos if she was seated next to me, because she scooted her chair around the edge of the table until she was by my side.

  The first picture showed the inside of the church—a simple, vacant space with an area up front designated for the monks and another, farther back, for parishioners or those who might be worshipping with them.

  “Did you join the monks in their chanting and prayer times?” I asked her.

  “Not too much.”

  “Were they in Latin?”

  “Sometimes, yes. But even when the words were in English I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Everything seemed to be in a minor key, even when they were singing about the joy of the Lord. It was as if they were somberly going through words that should have elicited the exact opposite response. For me, there was a disconnect between the mood of the service and the words of Scripture.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’m not trying to be too critical or judgmental. Some of it just didn’t feel appropriate to me. I longed for more joy.”

  “I hear you.”

  The next photo showed a two-meter-high rock wall encircling a courtyard, and it brought to mind the paradox inherent in the ministry of these contemplative monks: they close themselves off from the world but then welcome the world in, one visitor at a time.

  One by one, she explained each picture to me—the gardens and the statues, the Stations of the Cross, the meditation room, and the tranquil ponds across the road from the retreat center itself.

  “I went to confession for the first time in my life,” she told me.

  “Confession? Really?” I couldn’t think of a whole lot of sins that she might need to confess. “How did that go?”

  “Good, I suppose.” She hesitated a long time, and I had the sense that she had more to say, but she chose not to, and I didn’t press her.

  She returned her chair to the other side of the table. “Over the weekend, I was reading a book about memories and meditation, and it mentioned that people’s clearest memories often revolve around the first time they did something, the last time they did it, or the most unique time. So, for example, we don’t remember all of the thousands of times we’ve brushed our teeth, but most people would remember the last time they did, or a time when they were brushing their teeth and something unusual happened to interrupt them.”

  “Memory conflation,” I said. “Yes. It often comes into play in eyewitness accounts and—”

  She put her hand on mine. “Pat, let’s not talk about work tonight.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. I just . . . It just came out.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She didn’t take her hand away, and that was fine by me.

  “You were saying? Memories?”

  “Something I want to do tonight. Something to share.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Think of the three most special memories you have of us being together.”

  “How do I choose only three?”

  “Keep talking like that and you never know where this evening might lead.”

  I had some ideas. I liked them.

  “I’ll go first,” she said. She lifted her hand to take a drink of wine. “The first time we met has to be on my list.”

  “Under the umbrella. In the cool April rain.”

  “Mm-hmm. My knees went weak when I first saw that scruffy face of yours.”

  “I had no idea the power of scruff.”

  “It’s what was underneath—but the scruff didn’t hurt. You let me take your arm, even though we didn’t know each other.”

  “I remember.”

  She let out a slightly dreamy breath. “A woman likes a man with enough strength to make her feel safe. I like the strength in your arms, Pat.”

  “Thank you.”

  Benjamin brought our dessert and pleasantly asked if we were ready to order our meals. I told him we needed a little more time to decide.

  After he left us, Christie told me it was my turn.

  “Our first kiss,” I said. “That night by the riverfront.”

  “Mmm. Yes. The taste of your lips. Shimmering city lights reflecting off the river. Very romantic.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “It was a good kiss.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It was.”

  “I was nervous.”

  “Nervous? Why?”

  “I hadn’t been dating much over the last few years,” she told me. “Kissing much, either.”

  “You didn’t seem out of practice to me.”

  “And once again, that was the right thing to say.”

  We both tried our desserts.

  I realized that I would be content just ordering a couple more of these tuiles and calling it a night.

  “What’s memory number two?” I asked.

  “This may sound strange, but it was the time I first introduced you to Tessa.”

  “Really?”

  “She’d never had a dad involved in her life, and I’d never found a man who I thought would be good enough as a role model or a father figure to her. But then I found you. You’re the two most important people in the world to me, and I was happy she didn’t hate you.”

  “So was I.”

  “You know how she can be.”

  “Being opinionated is just part of her charm.”

  “Okay, now you. Number two.”

  “Our wedding.”

  Once we’d decided to get married, we hadn’t waited long to do it. Neither of us could think of any reason to put it off—we didn’t need to finish graduate school or find a job or move to a new part of the country. We were ready to tie the knot, and Christie pulled the planning for the wedding together faster than I’d ever seen anyone do, except, I suppose, for those who elope.

  As far as the da
nce, we made a deal that Christie would choose two songs, and Tessa and Azaliya could work out the rest. So apart from two eighties love songs—“Desert Moon” by Dennis DeYoung and “Lovesong” by The Cure—we had a night of Russian dance tunes and screamer bands.

  But, as Ralph’s wife, Brineesha, pointed out, the goal of a wedding isn’t to have everything go by without a hitch but to create memories that last a lifetime. “No one is going to forget seeing Ralph out there doing a Russian Cossack dance.”

  That was true.

  Oh yes, that was very true.

  Now, I said to Christie, “Over the years, I haven’t always known the right thing to say, but the two easiest words I ever said were ‘I do.’”

  “Pat, you know how to make a woman feel loved.”

  There was an odd finality to her words that left me momentarily unsettled.

  I felt her foot nudge against mine, and at first I wondered if she was simply repositioning her leg underneath the table, but by her smile, I knew it was more than that.

  “Alright, what’s your third one?” I asked.

  “The night you proposed. Central Park. We’d been walking for almost an hour.”

  “Yes.”

  “I noticed that your shoe was untied, and when I pointed it out, you knelt down, pulled out the ring, and . . . You were so earnest when you proposed. Were you nervous?”

  “Naw.”

  “Thought so.” She took a delicate bite of her dessert. “I never asked, did you plan to have your shoe untied?”

  “I’d read that scientists have discovered that the force of impact when a foot hits the ground causes the shoelace to stretch, which loosens the knot, and then when you swing your foot backward, the string relaxes because of the inertial force and loosens. They’re studying it to understand how complex structures—such as DNA—fail when—”

  “Eh-hem. You were doing so well with being a romantic.”

  “Ah. Right. Sorry.”

  “So, the shoelace?”

  “Why do you think we walked around so long beforehand? I’d left it loose on purpose. I needed it to come all the way undone and for you to notice.”

  “Alright, Pat. What’s your third memory?”

  I entwined her fingers in mine. “The one that’s unfolding here, tonight.”

  I saw the glint of a single tear sneak out of her right eye.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “I’ve never been more okay than I am right now.”

  * * *

  +++

  Timothy read to the silent, attentive crowd.

  Emily was not sad that her father was gone. After what she had seen him do, she was glad he wasn’t around. But she always wondered if he might return and find her.

  And so, as she grew up and was shuffled from one foster family to another, she learned to sleep with her desk light on and her shades drawn, so that she wouldn’t see the darkness staring in at her from outside the house.

  She was caught between loving him and hating him. Everything she knew about right and wrong told her to hate him, but everything she knew about being a daughter told her to love him.

  How do you sort through feelings like that, especially when you’re a kid? How can you be expected to know right from wrong? How can you be certain you won’t grow up to become just like the one who terrifies you the most?

  And as Timothy went on from there, he wasn’t sure how much he was reading Emily’s story and how much he was recounting his own.

  * * *

  +++

  We ordered our meals—Christie went with the pan-fried caramelized Chilean sea bass and I chose a medium-rare T-bone steak, a safe choice from a menu filled with dishes I couldn’t pronounce and had no idea what they actually contained.

  As we talked, time faded away into nothingness. Love is not just a gift of the heart; it also has a way of harnessing moments and allowing time to become subject to your lover’s smile.

  It made me feel like nothing could go wrong tonight and that nothing could ever sever the strong cord of love that held us together.

  * * *

  +++

  As whatever drug Blake had given her kicked in, Sasha felt more and more bleary, as if the air around her were liquid and everything was beginning to move in slow motion.

  Blake strode toward her and welcomed her with a kiss. “Hello, my dear.”

  The man in the car had taken her phone from her, but she knew Greer had been tracking her. He should be here any minute.

  He should be here already.

  “Listen, babe,” she said to Blake. “I need to use the washroom.”

  “Of course. It’s this way.”

  53

  To Christie, the night was all she had hoped it would be. Now she watched as their server returned, carrying a single rose along with their entrées.

  “This is from your thoughtful date,” he told her, then asked if they needed anything else.

  When she told him that she was good and Pat echoed the sentiment, Benjamin bowed slightly before stepping away.

  She smelled the aromatic rose and then laid it softly on the table beside her plate. “That is so sweet of you, Pat.”

  “You mean the world to me. I don’t slow down often enough to let you know that.”

  Tell him now. This is the perfect moment.

  No! Don’t ruin this. Let this night be something special. He told you it’s one of his favorite memories. Don’t turn it into one of his worst.

  “What is it?” Pat gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay?”

  Don’t say it.

  “Yes. I’m just a little overwhelmed. Tessa mentioned that you took her to church yesterday.”

  He tilted his head with curiosity as if to say, “That’s quite a transition.”

  “Tell me about it,” Christie said, then took a bite of her sea bass. “About church.”

  “Um. Well, the sermon was about casting our burdens onto Jesus.”

  “I understand it was Dr. Williams.”

  “Tessa again?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it like, though?” Pat asked. “Dr. Williams had a lot to say about the benefits, but I didn’t really catch hold of how it’s done.”

  “How?”

  “A person lets Jesus carry his burdens. In theory, it sounds great, Elysian even, but in practice, I’m not sure I understand how it plays out, especially since Christ told his disciples that they had to take up their crosses to follow him. How do you do both at the same time? Let go of a burden and lift one up?”

  Although Christie believed that sometimes God worked in mysterious and even ironic ways, the fact that he would lead Pat to ask her such a question—one that she herself needed an answer to—was almost too much.

  “You look deep in thought,” Pat said.

  “Yeah, it’s just . . . It’s nothing. I’m not sure what to tell you. I think God wants us to bring him our cares and burdens, but”—she tapped the rose stem—“he’s also saying that it won’t be a bed of roses to follow his ways.”

  “All too often, this world turns on its saviors.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “And their followers.”

  “In some cases. Yes,” she agreed. “Even casting our cares onto Jesus doesn’t mean we won’t feel pain. This is a fractured planet. Too much grief. Too much death.”

  “I can’t argue with you about that.”

  * * *

  +++

  I waited.

  Christie said nothing in reply. Both of us ate in silence for a few minutes, then found somewhat obligatory compliments for the meal, but it was like something significant had shifted, like an invisible wall had settled in between us.

  I wondered if she’d taken my questions about Jesus the wrong way and if maybe I’d offended her
. I was trying to come up with a way to address that when she said, “Did I ever tell you about the turtles struggling to get to shore?”

  “The turtles?”

  “When I was maybe eight years old, I loved turtles more than any other animal. For most of my friends it was dogs or kittens or ponies, but for me it was always turtles.”

  “I knew you liked them. I didn’t know you liked them that much.”

  She nodded. “Well, one night I was watching a documentary on sea turtles and how hard it is for them to survive, to get safely to the waterline after they hatch on shore.”

  She paused.

  “What happened?”

  “The filmmakers showed a shoreline spread out with hundreds of sea turtle hatchlings. Seagulls were circling around them, I believe, or carrion birds of some kind. They were swooping down and snatching up the baby turtles as they tried to make their way to the water. I had a stuffed turtle with me that I’d been watching the documentary with, and I held my hand over his eyes so he wouldn’t see, and I screamed, ‘Why don’t they stop them?!’ ‘Who?’ my mother asked. ‘The people filming it! Why don’t they stop the birds and help the turtles!’”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She tried to reassure me, telling me that there were so many turtles that many of them were going to make it to the seashore, but then the man narrating the documentary started talking about all the dangers in the sea, including sharks that liked to eat baby turtles, and my mom shut off the television. I was crying and clinging to my stuffed turtle, and all I could think of was all those baby turtles getting eaten by the gulls or making it to the water and thinking they were finally going to be okay, that they were finally safe, and then getting gobbled up by a shark who was prowling that area of the beach, eating turtle after turtle after turtle.”

  “It must have been terrible to think those things as a little girl.”

  “I’ll never forget how upset I was. Then, after I became a mother myself, when Tessa was little, I watched a documentary on global warming with her, and the filmmakers showed a polar bear cub stranded on an ice floe. She slid into the water to try to swim to the mainland. She struggled more and more to make it, until finally she disappeared beneath the water. Tessa gripped my arm and gasped. ‘Did they help her?’ I remembered the turtles, so I lied and reassured her. ‘Yes. They wouldn’t have let her get hurt.’ ‘Or drown?’ ‘Yes. Or drown. Once they turned off the cameras, they helped her find her mommy.’ She nodded and said, ‘Oh. Okay.’”