When he reached the bottom of the hill, he crawled to a stop. He dismounted and ran, breathless, to where Aggie was lying on the ground. Snow dusted her dark hair, making her appear suddenly older. A few feet away, her sled had smashed into the wall and now was upright, pushed against it. The remaining children from Our Lady were off at some distance—he could hear them somewhere in the swirls of whiteness, but when he went to call out for help, his mouth was too dry for him to yell. He fell to his knees. He pushed Aggie’s shoulder. “Get up,” he said, softly, lifting her arm, but it was heavy and fell as soon as he released it. He waited and felt his jaw tighten, and then he yelled again, “Get up!”
For a moment, everything seemed muted by the snow, except for his heart, which thumped wildly. He was aware of his shallow breath. His hand rested on Aggie. Her eyes suddenly flew open. She turned her head and laughed. She moved her legs in an amused way, writhing on the ground. “What a ride!” she yipped. She held her stomach. “Holy! I wiped out. I wiped out hard. I’ve never wiped out!”
Morty got up and spit on the ground. “That wasn’t funny,” he yelled. He clenched his fists.
Still laughing, but less so now, Aggie sat up. “Oh, Morty,” she said. “But it was fun! I’ve never gone so fast. I beat you down the hill! I won!”
“You did that on purpose,” he said. “To make me think—”
“Me? You almost killed me, pushing me like that!” She paused suddenly when Morty began to cry. She stood up and bit her bottom lip. “Morty?”
Morty was too flabbergasted to respond. He spit on the ground again. He wiped his face with his sleeve. His entire body was shaking.
Aggie brushed snow from her jeans and coat before coming closer to him. She looked around, but there was only whiteness, and children somewhere off in the distance, laughing, unaware of what had happened. She stared at Morty in an earnest way. “No one saw,” she said. Then, before he realized what was about to happen, before he could think to say anything, Aggie stepped so close to him he could smell her strawberry shampoo. She kissed him on the mouth. Her lips were cold and soft and she kept them pressed to his. His heart swelled, and it was as if everything in that moment were perfect, every fear soothed, every hurt alleviated, every burden lifted. He felt light, deliriously happy. He wanted the kiss to last forever.
When Aggie stepped back, she smiled shyly, and Morty put his sleeve to his mouth. He watched as Aggie retrieved her sled and then ran to find her hat. She glanced back. “I’m sorry, Morty,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
MORTY WALKED HOME, mindful of cars that moved slowly along the icy streets. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to talk about. How foolish he felt now, thinking of accidents and seeing blood. It wasn’t like that day with his mother, the day Morty had cracked a joke and she’d turned her head at the wrong moment. It wasn’t like that day at all. Nothing bad had happened. Aggie kissed him, and the kiss was wonderful. Was God behind that, too?
At the house, he took off his boots and left them next to his father’s on the porch. Inside, he hung up his coat. In the living room, he found his father sleeping upright on the couch. Generally, after Morty Sr. had said his own personal contrition and after half the bottle of Jack was gone, he fell blissfully asleep each night. Morty pried the bottle from his father’s hand and replaced the cap before returning it to the kitchen cupboard, next to the glasses. “Dad,” he said, going back, nudging his father. He sat down next to him. “Are you okay?”
His father opened his eyes slightly and yawned. “Oh, Morty,” he said. “You’re such a good kid.”
“Hard day?”
“The hardest.”
“Because of the snow? Because of Mom?”
“Not now, Morty,” his father said. He patted Morty’s thigh.
“Dad,” he said finally, “can we talk?”
“Tomorrow,” his father said, drifting more. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Morty thought his father might say more but there was nothing else, just the dinging sound from the television game show on television.
He found the hoagie his father had made for him in the refrigerator, along with pop and chips, but he felt too sick to eat, and too confused to jiggle off again. He envisioned Aggie lying in the snow and then opening her eyes to look at him. He thought of the kiss again, and his chest tightened. After a while, Morty slipped on his coat and went back outside.
It was dark now, and colder, though the snow had stopped and the sky appeared clear and black, the moon low and full. Morty walked the ten blocks back toward the school, taking the same streets he did before, passing the duplexes and homes with lanterns and lit windows, the silhouettes of people sometimes visible through the curtains. He wondered about each house, what each was like inside. At Aggie Tuft’s house, he stopped and looked for movement inside. One room to the side of the house was lit, and he imagined Aggie and her mother were having a late dinner—possibly her father was there, too, possibly Aggie was talking about the day. Would Aggie mention the kiss? Or was she sitting there, quietly, thinking about Morty, keeping the thrill of the secret close? Was it her first kiss? he wondered. After she pulled her lips from his, after she stepped back, she appeared prettier than Morty ever had imagined, and it was like his mother once said about love—that love can make everything seem perfect
He breathed in the cold until it hurt. A car drove slowly by. He resumed walking until he reached the church, where he stopped to look up at the image of the Virgin Mary, but she looked down, blankly, at him, and he couldn’t think of one single prayer to utter. He slipped past the gate and entered the cemetery, past the first and second rows of stones and the maple tree and the sitting bench. In the distance, the lights of the rectory turned off, one by one, and he crouched down and wiped the heavy snow from his mother’s headstone. He sat down in front of it, waiting for a sign; he didn’t know what the sign would be, exactly, but he was certain when it came he would recognize it. Still, even as he wished this, it occured to him that maybe God didn’t see anything, not his jiggling off or looking at Playboys, not an accident or a first kiss. Maybe heaven didn’t care and God and all the angels were blind; maybe heaven and God didn’t exist at all. Maybe his father was right, that Morty’s mother just died, and that was it.
He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them to keep warm. His lips were numb, and his hands tingled with cold. Eventually, he heard a cough in the distance and glanced around to see Father Bastian walking toward him. The priest’s gait was unmistakable, the careful way he placed his feet, as if he was worried he’d fall. When he neared, Morty said, “Hello, Father.”
“Morty!” Father Bastian cried. He pressed his hand to his chest. In the moonlight his face appeared ghostly. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack, boy?”
“No,” Morty said. “I was just sitting here.”
Father Bastian exhaled and waited a moment, still feeling his chest. Then he said, “Well, if it hasn’t happened yet, I guess I’m good for another day.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and looked around. “Quiet night,” he said. “You come here often?”
Morty shrugged.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Father Bastian said. “I come here a lot, too. It’s peaceful among the faithfully departed, and a good place to think.”
“I guess,” Morty replied.
Father Bastian regarded Morty in a sad way. “Something on your mind, Morty?”
“Never,” Morty said. He pulled his legs closer, blew into his hands to warm them.
“I see.” Father Bastian nodded at the gravestone. “Now, your mother was one of the faithful. She had a lot of faith. In people. In the world. The whole kit and caboodle, really.”
“She did.”
“The world lost a good soul when your mother passed.”
“It did.”
“Sometimes things just happen, you know, like accidents, and it’s no one’s fault. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I guess.” He rubbed his hands together again and shoved them in his pockets.
Father Bastian sighed. “Okay,” he said. “If this is the way the conversation is going to go, then I need a smoke.” He removed a pack of cigarettes from his inside coat pocket and then took out a piece of tin foil, which he formed into a cup. “Instant ashtray,” he explained. “I don’t like to leave a mess.”
Morty looked around at the other headstones and he nodded. “Makes sense.”
The priest rocked back and forth gently. “It’s a deplorable habit, really, and I don’t recommend smoking at all. I’d also ask that you don’t mention it to the nuns at Our Lady of Misery. If they found out they’d pitch a collective fit. They really would.”
“They do have tempers,” Morty agreed.
“You don’t know the half of it. I’ll tell you, those nuns don’t leave a man at peace. They want you to shovel their sidewalks in winter, and they want you to rake leaves in fall and clean the church van in summer and plant their gardens in spring. I’m sixty-five, Morty. Do I look like I can do all that anymore? When I die, and if the nuns from Our Lady are there—and they surely will be, with possibly the exception of Sister Agatha—I’m going to ask for a condo outside of heaven, because the nuns will probably see fit to find all sorts of jobs for me, even there. I got into this business to be a servant to God, not to clean out gutters.”
“I didn’t know,” Morty said. He didn’t want to be rude, but his teeth were chattering and he still hadn’t received the sign he was looking for. He held his arms tighter and looked up at the old priest, wishing Father Bastian would leave, but the old man only stamped his cigarette out.
“So now that I’ve told you all my problems, anything you want to talk about? Because, you know, there’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“I know,” Morty said, though it was clear from his tone he didn’t.
“So is it girl problems, then?” Father Bastian ventured.
Morty grimaced.
“I saw you and Aggie Tuft were talking it up quite a bit today.”
“Women,” Morty said.
“Don’t you know it.” Father Bastian pulled his coat collar tighter and looked around again, and Morty could tell the old priest was tired. “It’s cold as anything,” he said. “I think I have some hot chocolate, if you want, at the rectory. You could keep me company while I have a cup.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Nothing on your mind?”
“Most days my brain is pretty empty.”
“I doubt your brain is empty. I doubt that very much. Like I said, I could use the company myself, so the door’s open if you change your mind. I’m like the Motel 6: I’ll leave the light on.”
“No problem.”
“All right then. Goodnight.” With that, Father Bastian turned and walked carefully, making his way back across the cemetery grounds. Eventually he disappeared into the darkness, and then, later, a few lights went on in the rectory, one by one. In the distance the building looked warm and inviting. Morty drew his legs closer, for warmth. He was soaked through—his jeans and coat still damp from the day. He shivered. Something small did come to him, looking off into the distance. It seemed to him there were two choices, at least, that he could make in that moment. He could sit there, freezing to death in the process, or he could get up and get a cup of cocoa, which was certain to make him feel better. The world might be large, and God and fate might both be unknowable, but at least there was in that moment a simple clarity. The thought of being inside and warm consoled him, so much that Morty stood up and ran after the priest. He ran so fast he surprised himself with his desire. He ran so fast he felt as though he might fall, toward the rectory and lights.
For Boo
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Most of the stories in Everyone but You were written during or shortly after my MFA program, during the years 2003 through 2005. I’d like to express my thanks to Louise Crowley and Vermont College. Mary Grimm, Christopher Noel, Laurie Alberts, Victoria Redel, David Jauss, Douglas Glover, Ellen Lesser, and Abby Frucht all led excellent workshops and imparted much wisdom. The talented Beth Helms inspired me to love words and to try harder.
Dennis Foley, Peach Gazda, Paige Harlow, and Terri Sutton kept me sane during those killer ten-day residencies, during which time I missed both my husband and dog to inordinate degrees. They are true friends.
My best friend and husband, Phil, has read countless drafts of everything I’ve ever written and so by now has realized the great majority of my hopes, fears, and quirky hang-ups.
My agent, Denise Shannon, has believed in me and kept my spirits buoyant, and for that I owe her my gratitude.
My editors, copy editors, and publicists at Random House have provided invaluable input and taught me much about the publishing process. Jennifer Hershey, Jessie Waters, and Dennis Ambrose have my sincere thanks.
Finally, many thanks to the literary journals that published such early work, and to the Illinois Arts Council and Christopher Isherwood Foundation for their support of the arts.
ALSO BY SANDRA NOVACK
PRECIOUS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SANDRA NOVACK is the author of the novel Precious. Her short stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, The Chattahoochee Review, and elsewhere. Novack currently resides in Chicago with her husband, Phil.
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