I’m going to adore my wife and children, and eat the poem that is Mass, and look at slinky Galaxy Girls, and sprint through Cobbs Hill Park while listening to that song “Flathead” by The Fratellis on my iPod. Or maybe to “A Gentle Sound” by The Railway Children. Have You ever run with “A Gentle Sound” ringing in Your ears, Lord? Do You know that guitar solo? And do You ever splurge, Lord, on wine You can’t really afford, and have You tasted Bass ale? Do You help the brewers brew it? And have You ever watched The Office? Have You seen the final Christmas Special of that show? Did it make You weep, like it made me weep? I hope that it did.
I’m going to keep going on this path—loving what You’ve given me to love, writing my Saturday night things—and I’ll trust that You’ll let there be a drop of grace in all of it. Amen, Lord, Amen.
• • •
TEN HOURS LATER, it is a clear-sky evening. I’m sitting in the grass near the tenth-hole tee of Black Creek Country Club, in the spot where Scott Barella and I used to eat our Snickers bars and drink our Sunkist sodas.
Sitting beside me in the grass is my three-year-old son, Luke. He is my and Martha’s elder child, and we also have a one-year-old baby girl, Cora. Martha is over at the pool with my mother, where they’re dipping Cora into the water to get her to make her happy squeals.
Luke is a blond, blue-eyed, curious little fellow. He loves to hold my hand and gaze at things with me, so we’re currently holding hands and gazing out at the fairways and skyscraper pine trees of the Black Creek golf course. I know what time it is in this place just by the coolness of the air on my skin.
“Daddy, where’s us again?”
“Black Creek Country Club. Daddy grew up here. Grandma and Grampa Schickler’s house is just through those woods.”
“I always knew that,” he says.
He has a dear, complicated way of speaking English. It is a manner of communicating that doesn’t squarely jibe with the world. I want it to change, so that all will be well for him in life and so that he’ll move forward smoothly. And I want it never to change because it is purely his, and he’s my son. Every day, I ask him as many questions as I can, just to hear how he will magically respond.
“Luke . . .” I squeeze his hand. “I wonder whose love for you is bigger than a T. rex. Do you know?”
He throws up his hands like I’m an idiot. “Daddy!” he laughs. “That’s easy! You’re the one who loves me so huge and I very always knew that!”
There are golfers teeing off on the eighteenth green, meaning that they’re headed vaguely in our direction.
Luke points at them. “Uh-oh. Oh, man. Three guys, right there.”
This means that he’s worried that their golf balls are going to hit us, which isn’t a danger. But I pull him onto my lap and tuck his head under my chin so that he’ll feel safe. I pull a granola bar out of my pocket.
“Do you want a snack, buddy?”
He sighs. “Well . . . my mouth is unblocked right now.”
He takes the granola bar and bites it and chews. I know that while he’s eating, he’ll be content, so I choose now to ask him the real question I brought him to this spot to ask. He is just this side of four years old, but I still want to know, because for me it started so young and went so deep.
“Luke, look down there. On the other side of that pond.”
I point to the dark path. It is a good ways off from us, but it is a clearly visible dell lined with the same overhanging trees it always has been.
“I see,” says Luke.
“Does that place look exciting? Should Luke and Daddy go for a walk down there and check it out?”
He chews and swallows. “Well . . . where’s Mommy?”
“At the pool with Cora and Grandma Schickler.”
“I always knew that.” He is still looking at the path. When I show him something, he looks at it deeply, maybe too deeply, like I always have.
“And where’s the orange?” he asks.
Whenever there’s a good sunset brewing, like there is tonight, Luke calls it “the orange.” I tell him that it’s behind us, up the hill, beyond the clubhouse. We saw a peek of it when we were walking over here.
“Daddy,” he informs me, “it’s not a clubhouse. It’s a castle.”
“Well, then, the orange is behind us, up the hill, beyond the castle.”
He finishes his snack. “I want to go look at the orange.”
I look off at the dark path for a moment longer. Luke is not zeroing in on it after all. He’s not seeing what I always saw. Good for him. I want him to know God and contemplation and love, but I’m hoping it might come to him more calmly than it did to me. I look at him now and I think, Have adventures, son. Have adventures, but take it easy on yourself. Don’t get mono, if you can help it. Don’t kick your way into a messed-up leg. Talk to the Lord from your heart and listen for Him but talk and listen to girls, too. Don’t choke out any sexually masochistic hotel concierges no matter how much they beg you. Dance your ass off! And never, never think that there’s only one way to be holy, only one way for God to love you, or only one path for you to His heaven.
Luke points at the golfers and says, “Oh, man, Daddy. Three guys are coming. I want to go look at the orange, please and thank you.”
“All right, buddy.”
I ask him if he’d like to ride on my shoulders. He sighs and thinks it through.
“I very always want to.”
I give him a kiss on top of his head. Then I stand and swing him up onto my shoulders and we walk up the hill, beyond the castle, to go look at the orange.
Acknowledgments
If I could, I’d gather these people for a night and pour them wine and thank them for making this book—and my life—so much better.
My parents, Jack and Peggy Schickler, have taught and still teach me joy, patience, and a hundred other graces. Dad and Mom: I love you and am so grateful for your endless, unconditional support. Martha, Luke, Cora, and I are blessed to have you.
My sisters, Anne Marie, Pamela, and Jeanne, make me laugh and always have the back of their freaky writer brother. Thank you for everything except those leotards.
Thank you to my literary agent and friend, Jennifer Carlson, for believing in this book and in me. All of her colleagues at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner have been wonderfully helpful, too. Thank you to my editor, Jake Morrissey, and to Geoff Kloske and everyone at Riverhead for giving The Dark Path a home. Ali Cardia, Jynne Martin, Claire McGinnis, and Darren Ranck at Riverhead have also been amazing for their editing, publicity, and overall enthusiasm.
The four friends who stood up for me at my wedding—Cliff Green, John Dolan, Chris Tengi, and Larry Mastrella—remain my best men and I’d march into Mordor for them. Special thanks to John Dolan for all the Room Time and Basement Time with Luke and Cora. You are their second father.
Alyssa Barrett read all the early drafts and offered discerning encouragement. Thank you, Alyssa, and health and wealth to you and the farmer.
Thank you to Kate Christensen, Darren Strauss, Jonathan Tropper, and Mishna Wolff for the blurbs. Everyone go read their books right now.
In Rochester: thank you to Bob and Alice DeLaCroix, Bob Bradley, Todd Stewart, McQuaid Jesuit, Eric and Rory and the crew at Bruegger’s, Joyce at HAI, Tiffany Reynolds, Karey Schmergel, Cassie Shafer, all the Edds, Schicklers, Compisis, and Moszaks, Saint Joseph’s, Joe Nicholas, Julie Black, and Mike and Sarah Milano.
In New York: thank you to Dan and Miranda Milledge, Margo Lipschultz, Court Harson, and Ed Nawotka.
In Los Angeles: thank you to Alan Ball, Peter MacDissi, Christina Jokanovich, Kary Antholis and Scott Nemes and everyone at Cinemax for Banshee, Shari Smiley, Jim Garavente, David Matlof, Lee Stollman, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lindsey Williams, and my two wonderful agents at CAA, David Kopple and Tiffany Ward.
Marcy Ulrich is my cousi
n and dear friend and I am grateful to her, Marc, Quinlan, and Griffin for the untiring support.
Thank you to all the Jesuit priests, late and thriving, who have shaped my life and faith, especially Larry Wroblewski, Frank McNamara, and the Georgetown priest identified here as Michael Prince.
I gave these people aliases in the book and I’ll thank them as such for their privacy: I’m grateful to Graham, Mason, Daniel, and Austin for their friendship from Georgetown till now . . . to Daphne Lowell and her father, Clement, without whom I would never have survived the crisis in this story . . . and to Mara Kincannon and her sisters and mother. Mara, I learned love and truth just by knowing you. Thank you.
Jonathan Tropper gave me great advice about this book and cocreated the TV show Banshee with me. He is an excellent man, writer, father, and friend.
Thank you to my children, Luke and Cora, for showing me, every day, the face and spirit of God in your smiles and shrieks and laughter.
Finally, to Martha Schickler, my forever bride, beyond time: if I had to go through everything in this book to find you, then God bless all of it. Thank you for being my life.
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