Redemption

by Nancy Geary

  Jack twisted his wrist, and Jim eased his hold. He looked at his son’s face and thought he recognized the faintest sign of fear. There was something in his eyes, slightly wider than usual and possibly rimmed with tears. He hadn’t wanted to threaten his son, that hadn’t been his agenda when he’d set out this morning, but Jack’s stubbornness left him no choice. Just like the friskiest foal, he needed to be broken. Jim had to establish that he was still head of the family. He was the dominant male. Jack could be the pride of his life, but that didn’t mean he could be in control.

  Jack dropped his head to divert his gaze. He had looked away first.

  “Talk to Lloyd tomorrow. If you have any problems with Hope, you let me know. I’ll take care of her.”

  As he walked away, Jim didn’t have to look back to know that Jack remained standing where he’d left him.

  4

  Bill Lawrence slowed his navy blue Mercedes to nearly a stop in order to read the street numbers off the row of crooked mailboxes: 10, 10A, 10B, 12, 14A through 14F, the dented tin boxes snuggled as close together as the dilapidated houses to which they purported to correspond. He gazed across the street. On one porch, an elderly woman wearing orange fuzzy slippers and a brass-buttoned housecoat shifted in her La-Z-Boy recliner to stare suspiciously at him. Then, apparently uninterested, she returned to her crocheting.

  Frustrated, Bill pulled over to the side of the road, turned off his engine, and stepped out onto the hot pavement. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his right hand as he scanned the houses, three-family homes that differed little except for the amount of peel in the exterior paint and the degree of sag in the small balconies. Thank God Hope changed her mind, he thought. Or she could be living here. He tried not to imagine his youngest daughter as the wife of Carl LeFleur, a lobsterman with a future as bright as ebony. Although this working-class section of Gloucester at the tip of Cape Ann couldn’t technically be called squalid, it was far from what a father would want for his little girl, and literally and figuratively miles away from the environment that Jack could provide.

  Bill had visited Carl once before, but now in the bright daylight he didn’t recognize the house. The previous time he’d had a police escort. Although Hope had been twenty-five and legally able to do as she pleased, the uniformed officers at the Gloucester station hadn’t questioned his story that his daughter had run away. An infatuation with an older man, he’d explained. She’d lost her head and needed to be brought home before it was too late. He hadn’t had to explain his fear that his daughter would disappear into a world of lobster traps and Budweiser beer with a forty-three-year-old ne’er-do-well who had nothing to show for his life but the contents of a second-floor walk-up, a rental at that. When they’d arrived at his apartment, Carl had opened the door without hesitation or resistance. Hope, fully dressed, had been sitting cross-legged in front of a Scrabble board. It was she who had become hysterical when her father had asked her to leave. He’d ended up carrying her out crying, her long, thin legs flailing about.

  Had Hope heeded his instruction never to return? He would be the last to know.

  “Bill Lawrence?” He heard a voice call from behind him and turned to see Carl on the second-story balcony of a red clapboard house. He was bare-chested, and his prominent biceps and pectoral muscles flexed as he leaned against the railing. “You looking for me?”

  Bill cleared his throat. Even though he had driven nearly thirty minutes in weekend traffic in order to talk to Carl, his sudden presence was unnerving. How had he known of his arrival?

  As if reading his mind, Carl nodded toward the Mercedes. “Not many of those around here. Even if it is twenty years old.”

  He would have traded in his 1982 automobile if he could’ve afforded a newer model, but the diesel engine still hummed. Only the leather interior had needed repair after the first hundred thousand miles. “I tried to call first, but your line was disconnected.”

  Carl half smiled. “That’s what happens.”

  “Could I come up for a moment?” When Carl didn’t respond, Bill added, “Or could you come down? There’s something we need to discuss, and I would rather not do it like this.”

  “If you can make it up the stairs, I’m all ears.”

  “Fine,” Bill said, deciding to ignore the obvious insult. He opened his car door and reached in to remove the keys. As he did, he wondered for the hundredth time whether he should just walk away. But he didn’t want anything to interfere with Hope’s future.

  The lock on the front door was missing, and the door swung open with the slightest push. The stairwell smelled of fish and onions, an oppressive odor in the heat. He held on to the handrail as he ascended, feeling the pain of the effort in his right hip. Thus far, he’d been able to live with the growing incapacitation of his arthritis, a slowly debilitating condition that all started from a hip fracture playing fives when he was in the tenth form at Groton. Adelaide had done her best to accommodate him. She’d moved their master bedroom and his study downstairs, compromising the water view considerably, bought him a golf cart with a beige canopy to get around their extensive property, and instructed Kathleen to make lime Jell-O with aspartame until he’d lost the twenty extra pounds he’d carried. But despite her best efforts, he wouldn’t be able to postpone forever the surgery he needed for a total hip replacement.

  “I was expecting you to show up one of these days,” Carl said from where he stood, leaning against the door frame. He had a slight lisp, and saliva shot through the gap in his front teeth when he spoke. With one hand he rubbed his head with a striped towel to dry his thick brown curls. His khakis hung low on his narrow hips, revealing the elastic of his underwear around his waist. Calvin Klein, Bill noticed. Designer briefs. He shuddered to think that they might be a present from his daughter.

  Bill extended a hand. “Nice to see you,” he said.

  Carl laughed, then stepped away from the door to allow him to pass through. Inside, the room was exactly how he had remembered it when he had come to retrieve Hope nearly eighteen months before. Two couches covered in batik fabric straddled a single window. In one corner was a square table holding stacks of well-worn books and a vase of daisies. Fishing paraphernalia—lures, a buoy, several oversize rusted hooks, a large whale’s tooth, and several smaller shark’s teeth—filled a corner hutch. An assortment of colorful porcelain pitchers lined the floor along one wall. The domesticity seemed odd, almost feminine.

  Carl indicated for him to sit and offered him something to drink, which he declined. “Suit yourself,” Carl said.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Bill began, crossing his arms in front of him. “I assume since Hope is about to be married, we can get this matter resolved quickly. She doesn’t need you stirring up trouble.”

  Carl raised one eyebrow in seeming bemusement. His casual ease, his indifference, made Bill all the more uncomfortable.

  “Is that what you consider me? A troublemaker? That’s quite a statement coming from you, old man.” Carl laughed again, but the sound was sinister, not humorous. He walked to the refrigerator, opened it, removed a bottle of orange juice, and unscrewed the cap. His tanned biceps flexed as he tilted the bottle and drank for what seemed like several seconds. Bill watched his Adam’s apple move back and forth along his arched throat.

  “Look, I’m not here to point fingers. All I’m asking is that you recognize that her life is taking a different turn. You mustn’t contact her. No calls. No visits. It only complicates matters. Hope’s vulnerable, susceptible to influence. Your influence,” he said with particular emphasis, although he wondered whether, in an effort to make his point, he was actually empowering Carl in a manner he hadn’t intended. “You both need to recognize that you’ve gone your separate ways.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Carl’s gaze seemed to lock on Bill. “I should be waiting at the end of the aisle. That’s what Hope wants. You know that, too, or you wo
uldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Hope is very happy with Jack, I assure you. You and she had… had…” He stumbled over his words. “Very little in common.”

  “Because I’m older? Because I’m Portuguese? You’re as big a prick as she said.” Bill’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Carl laughed. “Don’t think I don’t know how much your little girl despises you.”

  What had Hope told him? He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remain calm. Even as the smallest child, she’d known exactly how to make him angry, but the difficulties between him and his daughter had been resolved. He’d taken his share of responsibility and extended his share of forgiveness. They had a good relationship now, as good as any father could have with a daughter. “Her marriage is a fait accompli.”

  “I’d be surprised.”

  Bill hadn’t realized he was squinting from the sun filling the room until Carl moved to the window and drew the blind. As he did, Bill watched, recalling the first time he’d ever seen this mysterious, off-putting man. It had been a lazy fall afternoon. He’d stayed at the club drinking Bloody Marys after his round of golf, then returned home looking forward to a night of outdoor grilling—a porterhouse steak and corn on the cob. He’d pulled in the driveway only to see Carl and Hope sharing a chaise longue on the flagstone patio. Hope was asleep, her head tucked into Carl’s armpit, her thin leg draped over his, her bare arm wrapped around his neck. She’d looked blissful, her half smile reflecting a peace she rarely displayed. As much as their public affection, her apparent contentment in the arms of an older man had enraged him.

  Carl had been staring at the sky when Bill approached the two of them. He made no effort to get up and, when Bill began to speak, had warned him to lower his voice. “You’ll wake her,” he’d said softly, as if there were no worse fate. Who are you to speak to me like that? he’d wanted to say. Instead, dumbstruck by Carl’s boldness, he’d turned and walked away.

  Hope must have asked Adelaide if Carl could stay for cocktails, because he was still there that evening. He paraded across the Oriental rug in bare feet and sat on the damask couch, his legs spread, his right foot propped on his left knee. From where he sat in his armchair, Bill had to divert his gaze to avoid seeing up his shorts. He drank a beer from the bottle as Bill probed him on who he was, what he did, how long he had known Hope. Hope stood by silently, sipping orange soda through a thin straw, most probably dreading, if he had to project, the reprimand she knew would come upon discovery that this lobsterman was seventeen years her senior, one of six sons who had left his family behind in Portugal, who had no 401(k) plan, no investment strategy, not a single indicium of success, and whose car insurance had been canceled for nonpayment of premiums. But Carl seemed unfazed as he made conversation, intermittently dropping literary references and reciting poetry. Self-taught or not, he was, Bill thought at the time, an arrogant immigrant, a peasant who had no business touching his daughter.

  Perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps Carl’s confidence in the Lawrence family came from knowing their secrets. It was a thought he couldn’t bear. Hope would have wanted to protect their privacy, wouldn’t she? He cleared his throat. If not, what had all his efforts years before been about? His nerves were making his mind race, and he needed to refocus on the purpose of his journey.

  “I know it’s tough making ends meet in your… your… industry,” he stammered slightly, not knowing exactly how to characterize a one-man lobster boat. “And I also know you’re interested in starting an aquaculture business. Hope told me scallops.”

  “That was something Hope wanted, not me. Probably thought I’d do better in her crowd—better with you—if I was an entrepreneur.”

  “Look. I’m prepared to help you out,” he said, realizing that his voice sounded more pleading than he intended. What was wrong with him? Getting some broken-down lobsterman to stay away from his daughter should have been nothing compared to what he’d had to deal with year after year during the forty-one he’d been a real estate lawyer. All up and down the North Shore was evidence of the multi-million-dollar deals he had put together—the sprawling malls and condominium developments along Route 128, the expansion of the commuter rail, much of the early legal work to make way for the Central Artery, the biggest public works project in history. That level of success hadn’t been easy. Hardly a day passed in the legal profession without some degree of acrimony.

  But looking at Carl, Bill had to admit to himself that he was intimidated. There was something about him, his bare torso and weather-worn face, his obvious strength, his easy carriage. Despite the conversation, he was comfortable, much more comfortable than Bill.

  Carl walked to the corner cabinet and removed an oversize, rusty fishhook from the shelf. He laid it on his right palm and rubbed it slowly with his left. “Help me? How could you help me? I love Hope. I have since the day I saw her. And she’d be marrying me if it weren’t for you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I bet you do.” Carl moved to where Bill sat and seemed to loom over him as he continued. “But that’s the way you people operate. Wouldn’t want to talk too directly about anything. Did she ever tell you about us? How great we are together? Not bad in bed, if you know what I mean.” Carl stared at Bill for a moment before continuing. “No, I imagine she didn’t. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. Your worst nightmare: a guy with red instead of blue blood pulsing through his veins, exciting your daughter in ways she never thought possible. I may not be what you want, but if you were a half-decent father—”

  “I won’t hear this,” Bill said, rising to his feet. He stood within inches of Carl, close enough to feel his breath and smell a trace of the anchovies he must have had for lunch. He struggled to balance. “I’m offering you ten thousand dollars. Start your business. Buy a new boat. Get the hell out of town. I don’t care. I just want you to leave her alone.”

  “Where’d you get that kind of cash?” Carl had a smirk on his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re insinuating.” But even as he spoke, Bill wondered whether his words were emphatic enough to be convincing. Maybe his paranoia was getting the best of him. Hope wouldn’t have relayed the sorry story of their finances to Carl, would she? But why else would he make such a reference? They still lived in a beautiful home. Even if his partners had forced him to leave his law firm, few people knew the catalyst for that decision. As long as no one discovered the pile of bills and late notices in the top drawer of his desk, or looked too closely at the peeling paint in the kitchen or the water spots that were now forming on the bedroom ceilings from the leaking roof, he’d appear to be the success he’d always been.

  It was hard to believe that for nearly a decade he’d survived as a solo practitioner charging $175 an hour, half his former fee. He leased space from an office complex in Beverly Farms, shared a secretary and a conference room with a title examiner, and had enough work to keep him busy most days, especially since low interest rates generated plenty of refinancings. But Carl was right. The cash he was offering didn’t come easily. Not anymore.

  “You want to pay me—bribe me—to stay away from Hope. And you expect me to take it?”

  “I expect you to do what makes sense under the circumstances. Hope will be very happy as Jack’s wife. He’s a good man. And I know you could use the money. So we can consider it a win-win deal.” He hoped his voice sounded firm. If you love her, let her go, he almost added, but he caught himself before acknowledging the intensity of Carl’s feelings.

  Before Bill realized what had happened, he felt the cool wetness of spit run down his cheek. He stood frozen, wanting to wipe his face but hesitant to make any dramatic gesture that might precipitate further reaction. Carl’s black eyes were filled with rage.

  “You wouldn’t give your daughter a real choice because you and I both know she’d pick me. Then again, you’ve never acknowledged her will or her wishes. She does what you want or else.”

/>   Carl turned away, walked back over to the window, and parted the curtain slightly. Bill scanned the room, wanting to inventory the sharp-edged objects he’d noticed earlier to make sure they were all in place. He couldn’t read Carl’s expression. Was he lost in thought looking toward the sea, or was he slowly boiling, getting ready to explode? Bill didn’t want to wait to find out.

  He reached into the pocket of his summer blazer and took out an envelope. Keeping his eyes on Carl, he leaned over and laid it on the table. “Think about it,” he said, moving backward toward the door. He opened it and stepped into the hallway. A woman’s voice shouting and a baby’s high-pitched cry filled the narrow stairwell. He scrambled down the stairs, feeling tempted to skip steps but hesitant lest he fall. He wasn’t afraid of the pain, only the embarrassment of seeming feeble. Old man, that’s what Carl had called him. Relief swept over him as he stepped outside and saw the sun shining on the hood of his Mercedes.

  As he was fumbling for his keys, Bill heard Carl’s voice call from above. “You don’t know her as well as you think you do. She won’t marry Jack Cabot. I can promise you that.”

  5

  The Reverend Edgar Whitney unzipped the plastic bag and removed the pledge envelopes, loose cash, and checks, the mound of currency that constituted the yield from yesterday’s collection plate. He organized the piles and began to count, feeling a rush of relief that the offerings remained consistently high. Judging by the numbers, the parish members were loyal. The Church of the Holy Spirit was one of the most fiscally healthy churches in the Massachusetts diocese.

  Although Monday was officially his day off and the church office was closed, he came to work anyway. He did allow himself an additional half hour to linger over his daily cup of coffee and rewarded himself with an extra slice of microwavable bacon, but otherwise his routine was sacred. He appreciated the quiet of the empty building, the privacy that gave him time to reflect. Silence bred the germ of his upcoming week’s sermon.