Faith House

by Robin Patchen

  “Looks good.”

  “Everything’s good here. I think you’d like the Bo Luc Lac.” He pointed again.

  Beef tenderloin, watercress, and red onions. “Yummy.”

  The waiter returned with their drinks and took their orders.

  Max handed the waiter his menu.

  Sadie did the same and then propped her elbows on the table. Remembering her manners, she slid them off.

  With a wide grin, he propped his on the table. “So, tell me about your father.”

  Sadie’s heart dropped. She glanced around the room, searching for a distraction. Red wine shimmered in the clear glass on the neighboring table. She could almost taste it, feel its warmth as it trickled down her throat. Her hands started trembling, itching to trace the cool stemware, to lift the glass to her lips. It would be...stop. She crossed her arms and squeezed.

  Max looked at the neighboring table and back at her. “You all right?”

  She swallowed, grabbed her soft drink and took a sip. Icky sweet. Not what she wanted at all. “I’m fine.”

  He narrowed his eyes, relaxed, and smiled. “OK. Seems like you told me once that your dad worked for the government?”

  “That’s what he told me the last time I saw him.”

  “When was that?”

  She pulled in a deep breath, forcing herself not to look at that wine again. “I was eight. He came home—he’d always show up unannounced. No warning. He’d stay a few days or a week, and then he’d disappear again. That time, he told me he had a very dangerous government job, and that’s why he wasn’t around more. He was trying to protect Mom and me.”

  Max folded his hands and leaned forward.

  She could see the questions in his gaze and wondered what he’d think of the answers. “I remember that time the best. He set me on his lap and gave me some orange breath mints. He always had orange ones in his shirt pocket. He said they reminded him of me. Bright and sweet.” She glanced toward the coat room near the door, wishing she’d kept her coat—and the treasure inside it—with her. “I still have the box.”

  “It must mean a lot to you.”

  “Yup.” Sadie sighed. If she’d known the last time she’d seen her father would really be the last time, she would have...what? She’d been eight. What could she have done to make him stay? Tears burned behind her eyes, so she took another sip of her drink, wishing their meals would get there already. She glanced at the wine, then at the door. She couldn’t do this.

  “Hey,” Max said. His head tilted to the side. “Please tell me.”

  She focused on his kind eyes. She’d always trusted Max. At this point, what did she have to lose? She forced away the stupid tears. “He had this song he’d sing for me. I don’t remember much of it. I think he made it up. Something about his precious Sadie Joy...”

  Max leaned forward with a slight smile. “Sweet.”

  Sadie took a deep breath and spit it out. “He’s schizophrenic.”

  4

  Schizophrenic. Max let the word and the images that came with it twirl in his mind. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I think—”

  The waiter returned with their meals, cutting Sadie off. Max ignored his, but Sadie grabbed her fork and knife and cut a piece of meat with trembling fingers. She popped a bite into her mouth, swallowed, and smiled as though everything was fine. But her tension was as clear as her shaking fingers.

  She met his gaze, and he smiled to encourage her. “Well, you can tell me now.”

  She set her silverware across her plate. “Right. OK. He always called me Sadie Joy. Never just Sadie. The same night he told me about the government job—I don’t remember everything, but I think we were looking out the window or something and he got really scared. He said, ‘They’re coming for me.’ My mom was there—we were in my bedroom, I think. They got into a fight, and he left. I haven’t seen him since.”

  Max sipped his tea and folded his hands again. “Wow.”

  “That’s it? Just ‘wow’?”

  He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. He needed to hear the rest of it. “What else?”

  Sadie looked at her plate and mumbled something he could barely hear, though he was sure he heard the words “desperate” and “drink.” He pretended he hadn’t heard, met her gaze, and tried an encouraging smile.

  “I didn’t lie to you about where he worked. I believed that for years. And then when I was thirteen, we went to Grandma’s for Christmas. One of my cousins asked me about my dad. I told her the same story I’d told you guys. And she laughed at me. Told me my father was crazy. A schizo. I called her a liar, but when I asked my mother about it...”

  Max pictured her at that age and could almost see how she would’ve reacted. “Did your mom tell you the truth, then?”

  “Yes.” Sadie swallowed another sip of soda. “It shattered my world, you know? I thought...” She flipped her hand like it was no big deal. “Doesn’t matter. You have to face the truth, right?”

  He nodded.

  “When we first moved away, I was afraid Dad wouldn’t be able to find us, but Mom reminded me that Grandma knew where we were. Grandma would tell him how to find us. But now, Grandma’s gone.”

  “Had she ever heard from him?”

  “Nope. Nobody’s heard from him in twenty years.”

  Twenty years. What would that be like, not to know where his father was for twenty years? His father was as stable as they came, like a strong foundation beneath a house. What would life be like without that strength? He’d never know. No wonder she wanted to find her father. “Remember that PI I told you about? Maybe I could talk to him—”

  “I’ve hired two private investigators. Neither of them turned up anything.” Sadie wiped the condensation from her drink, making vertical stripes on the glass. A big drop fell to the tablecloth like a tear.

  Max longed to comfort her, to fix this for her, but how?

  Emotions played across her face. The tiny wrinkles on her forehead told him she was thinking about something. If only he could read her mind. “What else have you done to try to find him?”

  “When I’m not working, I visit shelters. I think I’ve been to every one in the city. I don’t have a recent picture, but I have an old one, and I flash it to see if anyone recognizes him. I’ve never had any luck.”

  Her father might be dead. He might have been dead for twenty years, for all anyone knew. But how could he say that?

  “The thing is,” she said, “I don’t know where else to look. I’ve emailed his picture to every shelter I can find, all over the country. Nobody recognizes him. Maybe if somebody had looked for him sooner, but...” Her lips tightened, and she swallowed. “Too late, now. I just have to wait.”

  Max speared a mussel from its shell and popped it into his mouth. This was his favorite meal, but he barely tasted it tonight. He wasn’t sure what to say next.

  Sadie ate her tenderloin, keeping her face lowered. Was she embarrassed?

  Max set his fork down cleared his throat. When she looked up, he nodded toward her plate. “You like it?”

  “It’s delicious. Yours?”

  “Great, as always.” He wiped his fingers on his napkin. “So, what do you do when you’re not looking for your father? Your mother told me you gave up a great job to move here to care for your grandmother.”

  “Until the storm, I was working at a coffee shop. I thought it would reopen before now. There wasn’t that much damage.”

  “Must be tough with no income.”

  She rested her fork on the edge of the plate. “If they don’t open soon, I’ll have to find something else.”

  “What would you do instead? Do you like working there?”

  She uttered a short, ironic laugh. “Hardly. I worked in commercial interior design back home, but jobs are hard to come by these days, especially if you’re not willing to relocate. And right now, my focus is on finding Dad.”

  “Your mom told me if you mo
ved back, the company you were working for might rehire you. She heard they’re recruiting.”

  Sadie looked away, and he followed her gaze to the neighboring table. What had caught her attention?

  “No chance they’d want me back.”

  He lifted his eyebrows, said nothing.

  “I didn’t quit, Max. I was fired.”

  Fired? “Oh.”

  “I didn’t tell Mom.” She took a sip of her soda. She met his gaze, seemed to be waiting for something.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, so he leaned forward, coaxing her to continue.

  “I feel like I’m being interrogated.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Your silence is really loud.”

  He tried a relaxed smile, though the curiosity was killing him. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Her face darkened as if a cloud had blown across the sun.

  He reached forward instinctively.

  She looked at his outstretched hand on the white linen and placed her palm gently in his.

  His every nerve seemed to buzz with the touch of her skin. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice level. “Really, you don’t have to explain.”

  “I had a thing for my boss. At the Christmas party...” Her free hand clenched. She closed her eyes, pulled in a shallow breath, and continued. “I drank too much. I used to do that. A lot. I’d just found out about my grandmother’s cancer. I...” She swallowed, half-smiled. “I kissed him.”

  Max squeezed her hand, ignoring the pang of jealousy.

  “He was married. He rebuffed me gently, but someone saw it. He had to let me go, of course, because people saw.”

  “Ah.”

  “It was so stupid. I think I just needed...” She looked at her plate, and then back at him. “I think, all these years, I just needed my father. That’s why I have to find him.”

  “I see.” Max rubbed his thumb across her knuckles and tried not to think about the man she’d cared for, the man who’d rejected her. All those years he’d longed for her, wondered about her.

  In high school, she’d fallen apart, and he’d watched from a distance, heard about her drinking and dabbling with drugs. She’d flirted with the kind of guys she wouldn’t have given the time of day a few years earlier.

  He’d loved her even then, but he’d judged her, too, never understanding how she’d fallen so far.

  Sadie had needed her father, but he was gone. And she needed to accept that.

  He probably should have kept his mouth shut. Usually, he was good at that. Not tonight. “Do you really think it’s wise to put your life on hold? For all you know...” His voice trailed off. He couldn’t say what he was thinking.

  She pulled her hand back. “My father’s not dead. We’d have heard if he was dead.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve looked at this online database of unidentified homeless people who’ve...passed away, and I haven’t found him.”

  “Is that foolproof?”

  She rubbed her temples. “He can’t be dead, Max. He can’t.” Her voice caught. “I need him.”

  Sadie-logic again.

  She pushed back against the chair and crossed her arms, looking like the high school girl he’d known a decade earlier. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She glared at him. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Sadie-logic. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”

  After all these years, she remembered the term he’d coined for her unique way of thinking.

  “I need to find my father.”

  “I know you think you do. But just because you think you need to find him doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I think I do. It’s just like...” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “Like when we were kids and I lost my backpack. Remember? You were so sure it would turn up, because if it didn’t, my father would ground me, and I wouldn’t be able to go on the bike ride we’d been planning. You wanted to go on the bike ride. Ergo, I’d find my bag.”

  “This is different.”

  “Right. Just like—” He stopped, but not fast enough.

  “Just like when Josie died.” She spit out the words

  Her green eyes were brighter in the candlelight, and her freckles always seemed darker when she was angry. He didn’t want to fight with her. “You were so sure she would be healed, and when she died, you lost your faith.”

  “He should’ve saved her.”

  “But you understand now, right? You don’t know what’s best.”

  “I understand that God can do what He wants. He’s in charge. But this...I need this, Max. I need to find a man who loves me for me. A man who...” She stopped, grabbed her glass with shaky fingers, and took a sip. “You know the difference between my boss and every other man in my past?”

  He didn’t want to know.

  “My boss didn’t care for me—not like I wanted him to. But he cared enough to reject me. He didn’t lead me to believe...” She tapped her fingers on the tablecloth. “I don’t blame my boss for firing me. It helped me wake up, to realize how badly I’d messed up my life. The drinking, the drugs, the men. I always felt like I was missing something. And even when I didn’t...” Her voice trailed off. She shifted in her seat. “I knew I wasn’t whole. I quit the bad stuff, and I’ve pulled myself together. But I really need my dad’s love.”

  “You had your dad’s love, as much as he could give you. Maybe you need to realize that God is your Father, and your earthly father is—”

  “What? What is my earthly father?”

  “Gone.”

  The word floated in the air between them.

  Sadie’s eyes narrowed. She picked up her fork and speared a piece of meat.

  He returned to his meal, but the flavor was missing. He took a few bites and then set down the fork. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to...I don’t know. I just feel like you’re wasting your life here. Your grandmother couldn’t have expected you to put your life on hold forever, in hopes that he’d come back.”

  She blinked twice. “My grandmother never gave up hope. I can’t believe you’d want me to.”

  “I don’t want you to give up looking for him. I just think you’d be happier back home with your mom and your friends, with the people who love you.”

  She pushed her hair behind her ears. “There’s just my mom.” She lowered her voice. “No friends, really.”

  “That can’t be true. What about people from work, from UNH?”

  She shook her head. “There’s a difference between drinking buddies and friends. When I quit drinking...” She shrugged it away. No big deal. “There’s just Mom.”

  He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. His heart pounded so loudly, he feared she could hear it. “There’s me, Sadie.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them with the linen napkin. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “No need to be sorry.” What was going on behind those emerald eyes? He squeezed her hand, urging her to talk, praying she would.

  She pulled her hand away. A long moment passed before she finally spoke. “It’s just...” She sniffed, wiped her eyes on the napkin again.

  He fished his handkerchief out of his back pocket and held it out to her.

  She stared at it for a moment, and then uttered a half-sob, half-laugh. “You carry a hanky?”

  He dropped it on the table. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. It’s just so...grown up.” She laughed again. She picked up the handkerchief and used it to dab at her face. “Thank you.”

  “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “When I first moved here, it was such a relief. I mean, Grandma was sick, and that was awful, and I would’ve come anyway, to take care of her.”

  “Of course.”

  “But my life was such a mess. Even
before the thing with my boss, I was a mess. All I did was work and party and drink too much. I didn’t have anybody, really. No good friends. I haven’t had a good friend since...well, you.”

  “I wish you’d called me.”

  “I should have. I just figured, after the way I treated you, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

  He’d always wanted her.

  “Anyway, I jumped at the chance to start over. I came to Staten Island thinking I’d live with Grandma and start a new life. I did, too. I went to church, decided I needed God, after all. I tried so hard. But then, Grandma died, and I couldn’t find a job—not one I wanted, anyway. And now I’ve been here almost two years, and I don’t have anyone. The people at church are mostly older or have families. The people at the coffee shop are young, and they all drink and party, and I can’t get pulled into that again.” She sniffed and used his hanky on her tearful eyes. “It would just be so nice to have someone besides my Mom, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sadie had always had friends. In school, she’d been surrounded by people who wanted to be near her, her humor, her energy. She’d been so full of life, so fun and confident. To think of her, lonely, in that horrible house?

  “It’s all so much harder than I thought it would be. I had all those hopes. And here I am—” She looked up, choked off her last words. “I’m sorry. Why am I telling you this?”

  “Because you know you can trust me.”

  More tears filled her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “I know. It’s not...you didn’t do anything. You’ve always been a good friend.”

  He took her hand again. “Sadie, I will always be your friend. But you should know this is more than that.” He swallowed. Here goes nothing. “I’ve had feelings for you since we were kids. And now, seeing you...Sadie, I really care for you.”

  “Oh.” She blinked.

  He waited, hoping she’d say more.

  “I never thought of you that way before.” She brushed her hair behind her ear. “But when you showed up today...”

  He waited, wishing she’d finish her sentence.