by Sally Quinn
“That was quite a speech. Have you been saving it up?”
“Yes, actually. It’s taken me a while to get my courage up.”
They could hear Des coming down the stairs.
“We’ll talk more later,” said Jenny.
“Promise?” said Allison.
Jenny looked as if Allison had slapped her in the face and Allison realized that she had sounded sarcastic. She hadn’t intended to.
She looked up at Jenny and gave her a reassuring smile just as Des walked into the room.
“Uh oh,” he said. “What are you two girls cooking up? I’m not so sure I’m in favor of this renewed friendship anymore. It could be dangerous for me.”
“It will be if you keep calling us girls,” said Allison.
“God you’re tough, both of you. I’m outnumbered and I haven’t even had a drink. What chance do I have?”
“Not much if you don’t take us out to eat,” said Jenny. “I’m starved.”
* * *
Allison was practically blotto when they got home. She staggered around the bathroom struggling to get undressed, get her nightgown on, and get her makeup off. Finally she gave up, stripped down, and collapsed into the bed, the merciful bed, and completely gave herself up to it.
Des climbed in and snuggled up behind her reaching his arm around her waist. This had always been their usual sleeping position until Kay Kay had died. After that she didn’t want to be near him, near to anyone, and she had been making excuses every night about why she needed space on her side of the bed. She had even put pillows between them to prevent him from touching her. She could tell it upset him and hurt him but she couldn’t help it. She simply couldn’t bear the idea of being close to him. Part of it was her anger and her need to take it out on someone. Des was convenient because he was there and he believed in God. But there was a much more compelling reason. She had decided she couldn’t allow herself to be close to anyone, ever again. The pain of losing them was too great. She had loved Des and she had let herself become dependent on him, physically, psychologically, emotionally. She had allowed herself to have faith in their love. It had not been easy for her. She had had to learn to trust. Trust that the person she loved wouldn’t die, wouldn’t desert her. She had had to overcome her fear. Letting herself love completely was like the old acting class exercise where you have to fall backward and trust the person behind you to catch you. She had done that, first with Des, then by getting pregnant. That was the greatest act of faith of all. To have a child was surely to open yourself up to the possibility of more pain than anyone could imagine. Yet she had done it willingly, believing that fate couldn’t possibly deal her another blow, that if there was a God he had already punished her enough. She had been wrong. She had suffered the worst anguish a person could suffer. She had lost her child. Now she had to discover a way to survive. And she had. She would never love again. That meant, of course, that she had to start distancing herself from Des. This was painful because she needed him now more than ever. It was exactly that need that sent her into a state of terror. It was even more painful watching Des suffer. First over the loss of Kay Kay, now over losing her. It broke her heart watching him, night after night, trying to hold her, comfort her, and comfort himself. Night after night she rejected him. She knew he thought she was just having a difficult time, that eventually things would get better. He didn’t realize and she couldn’t tell him that things would only get worse. She was strong, but not strong enough to do it all at once. That’s why it was gradual. She needed time to wean herself away from his love, his touch, her need.
It surprised her, then, that it felt so good having his arms around her like that. It must be because she was so drunk. She hadn’t made love to him, hadn’t even been naked in bed with him, since Kay Kay died. Three months now. It had been a cold winter, a good excuse to wear long nightgowns, a good way to keep a barrier between them. She knew he had wanted to make love to her but he had not made a move. For the first two months she had not been completely free of pain. In the last few weeks he had tried to press up against her and she could feel him getting hard. Sometimes he disappeared into the bathroom and stayed for a while and she knew he was taking care of his need. She tried to pretend she didn’t notice. She didn’t want to notice because then she would have to do something about it.
Now she felt him very hard against the back of her thighs. His hand had begun to move, first up to her breasts, cupping them, caressing them, then down her stomach, between her legs, stroking her, then back up to her breasts. He continued this circular motion, rotating his hand back and forth, up and down. It was so soothing, so comforting, so wonderful to be held like that again, to be enveloped like that. In her drunkenness she wondered how she could have wanted to reject him. She was overwhelmed with a sudden need to be loved. She seemed to have been temporarily stripped of her protective armor. Her eyes were closed and the room was pitch black and she lay there in a half-drunken, half-dream-like state letting herself be stroked. If she could only just die like that, right now. If only they could both just die like that together, lying there, loving each other, then she would never have to worry about pain again.
He began to kiss her. He kissed her shoulders and her neck, then pulled her over so that she was lying on her back and kissed her mouth.
She raised her arms up over her head and spread her legs slightly. She didn’t have the energy to actively participate. All she wanted to do was submit, succumb, to lie there and receive his love. It was an odd feeling for her. She wasn’t exactly sexually aroused. It was more like she was spiritually aroused. When he eased his body on top of hers and reached up to take her hands in his, she thought she must be having a religious experience. She felt warm and soft and adored and completely cherished for the first time in her life.
He had his mouth on hers and he was moaning.
“Des, oh Des,” she whispered.
“My God, how I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice almost a sob. “Baby, baby, baby. I love you so. So much, I love you so much,” he kept saying over and over as he covered her body completely with his. She felt him hard between her legs and she opened herself to him, wanting nothing more than to be engulfed by him, absorbed.
Then he entered her and shock waves coursed through her whole body.
“No! No!” she shrieked.
She pulled her face away from his and tried to push his shoulders away from her.
“Please, no! I can’t do this! I can’t do this!”
She pulled herself up so that he slid out of her and she slithered her body out from under him.
She was overcome with terror. Not only was she allowing herself to be close to him, to love him again, but she was risking getting pregnant again, risking that most ultimate of pains. It was out of the question. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let it happen.
In the darkness she could make out the shadows of Des’s face, stunned and anguished.
“Sonny, what…?”
But she wouldn’t let him speak.
“No, Des. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You must understand. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. I can’t bear it.”
She was gasping for air, the fear having robbed her of her breath.
“Sonny, my baby, my precious, I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Oh God, I should have realized. The scars haven’t had a chance to heal yet. Oh Sonny, forgive me. I would rather die than cause you any pain.”
It was her turn to be stunned. He thought he had physically hurt her. He had totally misunderstood.
When she spoke she spoke very quietly, very carefully.
“No, Des. That isn’t it. The scars have healed. It’s my heart that hasn’t. I can’t love you anymore. I can’t let you love me. I can’t love anyone. That’s what hurts too much.”
She had moved to the edge of the bed and she sat with her arms hugging her knees. She was cold and she had begun to shiver. She could see the outline of Des’s body crouched on the othe
r side of the bed. She watched his posture, saw the signs of defeat.
“Jesus, Mary, Mother of God,” he said finally, under his breath. “She’s had enough. Can’t you grant her some peace. For Christ’s sake.”
She realized that he was praying. For her.
“Don’t you dare pray for me!” She practically screamed, the rage welling up in her. “Don’t you dare pray to your fucking God. He took my child away from me. He took everyone away from me. Now He’s taking you away from me, too. You’re turning into some kind of weirdo. The next thing you’ll be walking around in robes, chanting and waving incense. Well, He must be having a great laugh right now up there in heaven. He’s got you by the balls and it’s pathetic. You’re completely brainwashed. I don’t even know you anymore. But I do know this. I hate him. And I’m beginning to hate you.”
The rage had given her strength, had propelled her out of her grief. It felt good and comfortable. She had come so close to losing it when she let Des love her. Now she felt better, more in control. It was such a relief. She wasn’t at all sure, though, that she would be able to sustain it if she stayed there in the same bed, in the same room with him. She had to get out.
She grabbed a pillow and started to walk out, but then she remembered her bathrobe, which was lying at the foot of the bed. When she turned to pick it up she saw Des in the gloom, sitting on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched over, his head buried in his hands.
* * *
It was Holy Week. Easter had never been her favorite holiday. To her it was never about resurrection. It was about death. She had never bought the resurrection thing. Even as a child. She stopped believing in the resurrection before she stopped believing in the Easter Bunny.
The only thing she really liked was getting a new dress every year. Nana always took her to pick it out. She remembered her favorite dress when she was about seven. It was a beautiful pale peach cotton with smocking on the front, little puffed sleeves, and a sash in the back. She got peach-colored socks to match and black patent leather Mary Janes. Nana bought her a gorgeous pale beige gabardine flared coat with a brown taffeta bow and she had a straw hat with a peach grosgrain band. Nana said that the color combination was very smart. It was important, Nana said, not to look like an Easter egg.
The big problem with Easter was that it was always such a disappointment. The Easter Bunny came and brought you a basket with a bunch of dumb candies in it and a few little toys. Then you had to go out and hunt for all the eggs, which always seemed incredibly stupid to Allison because you had already dyed them, so who cared. Besides, what did anyone want with a bunch of hard-boiled eggs? The eggs were beautiful, that was true. Only she wasn’t very artistic and never got the dye on right and she hated the little stickers with Easter lilies and Christ on the cross. Then there was Sunday school, which was really boring and made no sense to her at all. What was really maddening was that Sam didn’t ever go to church, so Nana would take her and drop her off. No matter how much she complained Sam still made her go. This was her first real experience with hypocrisy, which she never ceased to throw up to Sam long after she grew up. She had to swallow hard when she sang “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” She didn’t know.
As if Sunday school weren’t bad enough, there was the inevitable Easter egg hunt. In the inevitable cold, damp drizzle. Since she couldn’t stand to be cold, didn’t really care, couldn’t bear the aggressive competitiveness and never tried that hard, she often came away with no eggs at all. None. She had figured out quite early on that there were always two prizes given. One for the person who found the most eggs and a consolation prize for the one who found the least. Every Easter Allison got the consolation prize. For doing nothing.
This was her view of Easter and to this day she still hadn’t quite figured out how it all tied in with Christ getting crucified and rolling away the stone. Behind all the pink and blue and eggs and chicks and bunnies was all this pain and blood and gore. Friday the thirteenth with Gidget. It hadn’t been hard for her, much to Sam’s chagrin, to make the leap from Episcopalian to atheist.
“Can’t you just call yourself an agnostic?” he would say with exasperation.
“It’s all a matter of semantics, Sam,” she told him when she was thirteen. “We’re all agnostics because nobody can know for sure if there’s a God. My belief that there is no God is just as legitimate as for those who believe there is a God. If they don’t call themselves agnostics, if they claim a belief, then why shouldn’t I claim a disbelief? It’s really just being a little more specific. A theist is someone who believes in a deity. A deity is something you worship. I don’t worship any thing or any person. Therefore I am a-theistic. Furthermore, I haven’t devoted my life to antireligion the way some people devote their lives to religion. You aren’t contemptuous; in fact, you are respectful of priests, and nuns, and clerics. Yet they have chosen to give their lives to something they can’t possibly know for sure even exists. That’s what I call absurd.”
It drove Sam bananas. He couldn’t argue with her. She really had him with her newly discovered techniques of debate. It made her feel even more grownup than the smart color combination of her peach and beige and brown Easter outfit.
* * *
Father Herlihy had been extremely receptive on the telephone. It was Holy Week, he reminded her. Easter was the coming Sunday and he was terribly busy, but he would certainly be happy to make some time to see her. He didn’t seem surprised that she had called.
She was the one who was surprised. She hadn’t ever intended to call him, although it did seem to be appropriate timing. She and Des had been working long hours, barely speaking the rare times they saw each other. She certainly didn’t need religious counseling. She did need to talk to someone about Des. Someone who would understand what he was doing. Even though she knew she could talk to Rachel and Jenny, they were Jewish and wouldn’t understand the Catholic thing any more than she did. Why not just go to the source?
Walking over to his office near Georgetown University on this beautiful spring day full of buds and blossoms and hope, she tried to collect her thoughts. She felt very scattered and unsure of her approach. She was angry, she was confused, she was sad. More than any of those things she felt empty, lost, and defeated. She didn’t know what she wanted of this man. Did she just want to attack him for being Catholic, for believing in this horrible God? Did she want to confront him, assert herself as an atheist, challenge him? Did she want to find a way to understand Des in hopes of keeping their marriage together or did she want a way out of the marriage by trying to justify her rage? Maybe she was jealous of Des for being able to find something that could comfort him, something she clearly did not have. Was she just curious? Did she only want to know what it was Des talked with him about or was it more? Did she hope to discover what gave Des the solace he got from his visits with the priest? Was there possibly something there for her, too? Something that might salve the pain?
* * *
The first thing she noticed were his eyes. They were deep and dark and penetrating. Though his name was Irish he looked more Latin, with his pale skin, slim body, slicked-back black hair, and aquiline nose. Without the black shirt and white collar he might have passed for a Spanish bullfighter.
It didn’t matter what he looked like. His eyes virtually obliterated everything else about him. It was all she saw when she walked into his small, sunny, book-lined office. He rose to welcome her and she became locked into his gaze. The only word she could think of to describe the look, the expression, the emotion in his eyes was understanding. He didn’t know her but he understood. He was accepting. He was without judgment. She sat down and began to feel her anger dissipate. Usually she got scared when that happened. Her anger was her armor. This time, however, she felt relieved. Relieved and immediately comfortable. It was ironic. She was used to feeling relief when the rage welled up.
They sat down. He waited for her to speak.
“You didn�
��t sound particularly surprised when I called.”
He didn’t respond. He just smiled. Smart. It would have been wrong for him to have demurred. Arrogant to have agreed.
“I wanted to see you,” she began again, “because of Des. Because of Des and me, I guess would be more honest. I don’t know what you talk about but I can’t imagine you don’t know about our baby.”
He nodded.
“Since Kay Kay… the baby died, we’ve both seemed to deal with it in very different ways and it’s driving us apart.”
She might as well get to the point.
“Des has turned to the Church, or returned to the Church, I should say. He’s gotten more and more religious in the past few months and I find it terrifying. When we first got together he told me he was a lapsed Catholic. He never went to church, never prayed, actually made fun of religion. It was just never an issue with us. Now I’m told there’s no such thing as a lapsed Catholic. Now he’s practically surgically joined to his rosary. For me, it’s like having him behave irrationally and discovering he has a brain tumor. I’m sure he’s told you that I’m an atheist. I don’t think I would be honest if I didn’t tell you that I don’t understand how an intelligent person can believe in God. Especially a God who would be capable of such evil.”
He nodded again, unfazed.
“I feel that Des is changing. That he will end up being someone I don’t know, someone I can’t communicate with. I’m afraid I’ll end up losing him, that we’ll end up losing each other.”
He had been listening carefully. Now he responded for the first time. His face was full of sympathy.
“I understand how much pain you’re in and I want to tell you how sorry I am about your daughter’s death. I would like to try to help you if I can.”
