Christmas Bells

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  To his surprise, as the summer passed, his younger brother, a straight-A high school senior-to-be, became his staunchest supporter. “An education in the humanities teaches critical thinking and essential analytical skills,” Liam declared. “It develops oral and written communications skills, the ability to synthesize information, and the ability to ask the right questions. Skills like those appeal to employers, and they never become obsolete. Studying the humanities opens the mind.”

  Liam was likely to become his class valedictorian, and his stratospheric standardized test scores had already earned him the avid attention of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, so their parents found it impossible to dismiss his argument out of hand. To Ryan’s relief, as he prepared to return to campus for the fall semester, they did not insist that he choose a more practical major, and he knew he had his brother to thank for it.

  “No problem, bro,” Liam replied, slapping him on the back and grinning. “I did it for myself as much as for you. I plan to major in history.”

  Over the next few years, Ryan studied and prayed. He met weekly with his rector, who had become his spiritual advisor during his time of discernment, and he volunteered with Campus Ministry and the Center for Social Concerns out of an intense desire to serve his community. For release he had hockey, for fun the Glee Club, and for friendship his roommate Jason, the other guys in the dorm, and a small circle of friends he had met in clubs and classes, fellow students drawn together by their contemplation of religious life. Some, like Ryan, were reluctant to tell their parents and had confided in only a few close friends. Others had been urged so often since childhood to consider the priesthood or had been told so many times that they would make an excellent priest that they were uncertain whether they heard God’s call or merely an internalized echo of their parents and parish priests. But for Ryan, every year brought greater certainty that God wanted him to become a diocesan priest, and greater happiness with that choice.

  As much as Ryan enjoyed his undergraduate social life, in the second semester of his junior year, he moved from Dillon Hall into Old College, an undergraduate seminary for the Congregation of the Holy Cross that offered residence, community, and support to undergraduate men discerning a call to religious life. It was there that Ryan became more certain of his calling and more determined to heed it.

  With that knowledge came acceptance that he could no longer hide from his parents the truth of what he was and what he wanted to become.

  A few weeks before graduation, while home on spring break, he broke the news to his family one evening after dinner. His parents were stunned, and as the week passed they asked him again and again if he was absolutely certain. His mother lamented that he would never marry or have children, and in the tearful discussions that erupted and subsided in the days that followed, she confessed that she feared he would be lonely and unhappy for the rest of his life. His father took it remarkably well, and after much throat clearing told Ryan that he was an adult and capable of making his own decisions, but he should be sure, absolutely sure, before he took any irrevocable vows.

  To his sorrow, his younger brother took the news very badly.

  “How could you willingly enlist in a sexist, moribund, archaic, patriarchal, scandal-ridden institution like the Catholic Church?” Liam demanded. “You’re an intelligent, rational, educated person. What possible appeal could that life have for you?”

  Ryan tried to explain, but Liam refused to listen. A chasm opened between them that day, one that Ryan tried in vain to bridge. He wrote to Liam often from the seminary, but Liam rarely replied, and only in anger. When they gathered at their family home for holidays, their conversations were strained and formal. Ryan missed their old closeness terribly, but Liam, who as the years went by earned his PhD from Princeton, accepted an endowed chair in the Department of History at Harvard, married, and welcomed two children into the world, rarely spoke to him except to debate Church doctrine or to challenge him to defend the Church from scandals that Ryan himself deplored as indefensible.

  Over the years his parents came to accept his vocation, even to respect it, but Liam rejected organized religion, and he would have considered himself a hypocrite if he had not rejected Ryan too. Ryan had always known that the path he had chosen could lead him away from people he loved, but he felt the loss of his brother’s friendship keenly, and he felt responsible for the sorrowful burden their estrangement conferred upon their parents.

  Ryan’s vocation had cost him his brother’s friendship. That was his only regret about his choice, but even if he had known, he could not have chosen otherwise.

  “Your mother called,” Sister Winifred told him brightly when their paths crossed in the hallway outside the parish office, where Ryan had just finished meeting with the office manager about year-end accounts. “She wants to know when you’re available to celebrate Christmas with the family.”

  Ryan nodded, remembering her earlier prediction. “Thanks, Sister. I’ll call her back later.”

  “She said she understands if it can’t be on Christmas Day itself, or even Christmas Eve. She realizes that you’re quite busy this time of year, and that you can’t easily reschedule commitments. She wants you to know that they’ll arrange the family celebration around you. The important thing is that you be there.”

  “Of course,” said Ryan, taken aback. Why wouldn’t he show up? Even at that busy, holy time of year he had days off between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and he had never missed a family Christmas celebration. “Well, that’s . . . very considerate of her.”

  Sister Winifred put her head to one side and studied him. “Your mother would also like you to reconcile with your brother as soon as possible. She and your father are still quite distressed about your last argument at Thanksgiving. They’re worried that one of you will refuse to come for Christmas in order to avoid the other.”

  Ryan inhaled deeply and ran a hand over his jaw. “My mother told you all that?”

  “Why, no,” said Sister Winifred, indignant, “but I would hardly expect her to. These are private family matters.” She smiled and continued on her way, then paused to say over her shoulder, “Oh, my. The snow has arrived ahead of schedule.”

  Ryan stared after her until she disappeared around the corner, then he shook his head, his glance taking in all sides of the windowless hallway. He knew that if he stepped out onto the front porch, he would discover snow falling quietly upon the churchyard, and the streets and city beyond.

  He found himself equally certain that however the elderly nun had come by her information about his parents’ unspoken worries—intuition or eavesdropping or otherwise—she was probably right.

  Lost in thought, Ryan made his way to the sacristy, where he sat down heavily in a chair, his errand forgotten. It was true he and Liam had exchanged heated words over the pumpkin pie and coffee while their parents and Liam’s wife had sat in silence, glancing unhappily at one another across the dining-room table. To Ryan, however, nothing had distinguished that argument from its many predecessors.

  Liam had brought up the usual criticisms of the Catholic Church in general and the Boston archdiocese in particular, and Ryan had responded as honestly as he could, but even when he agreed that certain actions were utterly indefensible and described ongoing reforms, Liam disparaged him. “How can you acknowledge these glaring faults in the Church and remain a part of it?”

  “You mean aside from having taken sacred vows? How would my leaving the Church help solve any of the problems you’ve mentioned? Don’t you want people who acknowledge past mistakes and care about justice to stick around to resolve these issues?”

  “Leaving would make a stronger statement,” Liam retorted. “By staying you align yourself with an authoritarian institution that treats women as second-class citizens and puts maintaining its own power and authority above everything that Jesus professed.”

  “My vocation isn’t abo
ut power and authority,” said Ryan, taken aback by his brother’s vehemence. “It’s about a life of service.”

  Liam barked an ironic laugh. “You forget that I’ve known you all my life. You’re the guy who wouldn’t think twice before checking an opponent into the boards if the ref was looking the other way. You used to cheat at Monopoly. I know you, and I know you aren’t any holier than anyone else.”

  “I wasn’t called to the priesthood because I was holy. I was called to become holier. We all are, whether our vocation is the priesthood or married life or something else.”

  “I just don’t get it.” Liam sat back in his chair and studied him, his expression bewildered—and to Ryan’s astonishment, deeply pained. “How can you, of all people, shut yourself away in your church? How can you turn your back upon the world instead of engaging in real life, where you could make a difference?”

  For a moment Ryan could only stare at him, speechless. “Liam, believe me, I’ve never been more engaged in real life.”

  “Maybe that’s what you think, sheltered as you are.”

  “Sheltered?” Ryan shook his head, incredulous. “Listen, Liam. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  In reply, Liam pushed back his chair and stood, frowning.

  “Liam, come visit me at St. Margaret’s.”

  “Are you kidding? I know where I’m not wanted.”

  “Don’t say that. Let me show you around, give you a better idea of what I do. Maybe then you’ll understand—”

  “I’ll never understand you,” said Liam angrily, looking suddenly as if he might weep. “I’ll never understand the choices you’ve made.”

  He stormed from the room, and a few moments later, Ryan heard him telling his children in a falsely cheerful voice that they should kiss their grandparents goodbye, because it was time to go.

  It had been a heated, ugly argument to be sure, but had it been their worst? Alone in the sacristy, Ryan played the scene over again in his mind, wishing he had handled it differently. Upon reflection, he realized that he and Liam had not spoken or exchanged a single email since Thanksgiving, but they had not been in daily contact since high school, and Ryan had thought nothing of it.

  Evidently he should have. He prayed that he had not become aware too late.

  • • •

  By midafternoon, snow was falling in thick, downy flakes upon St. Margaret’s, just as Sister Winifred and the Boston Globe had predicted. Gene was busy tinkering with the furnace, so Ryan pulled on his black peacoat and favorite Bruins cap and headed outside to clear the stairs and sidewalks before the children arrived for choir practice.

  He was sweeping snow from the front landing when Lucas, the accompanist, walked past on his way to the side entrance. He carried two cups of coffee, his bag was slung over his chest, and he was muttering angrily to himself. “Get over it,” Ryan heard him say. It was practically a shout.

  “Get over what?” he called.

  Lucas glanced around wildly for a moment before spotting him at the top of the stairs. He hesitated before saying, chagrined, “You know.”

  “Oh, that.” Ryan nodded and continued sweeping. He knew he probably should stay out of it unless Lucas asked for advice, but he could not resist adding, “You should ask her out.”

  “Are you kidding? Less than two months ago she broke up with her fiancé.”

  “Which means she’s single.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “I think I would’ve heard if there was an official mourning period.”

  “Sophia doesn’t think of me as anything more than a friend.”

  “Only because you’ve never given her reason to think of you as anything else.”

  Lucas’s expression revealed that the remark had hit home. “Father,” he replied, not unkindly, “no offense, but I’m a little skeptical about taking romantic advice from a priest.”

  Ryan acknowledged that he made a fair point, and since he couldn’t do anything else to ease the younger man’s heartache, he invited him in through the front entrance to save him a bit of a walk in the cold.

  Lucas was always the first to arrive, and Sophia, the choir director and unwitting object of his affection, usually followed soon after, but Ryan had finished clearing snow from the front of the church and had moved on to the side without seeing her. A few singers arrived and greeted him cheerfully as they passed on their way indoors, and still there was no sign of her.

  Not long before rehearsal was scheduled to begin, a familiar car pulled into the narrow parking lot and a mother and two children he knew well climbed out. “Hi, Father Ryan,” Alex called, waving as they crossed the lot. “Nice hat. The Bruins are gonna crush the Penguins tomorrow.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Ryan said, grinning, but when he caught sight of Laurie he felt his heart clench with apprehension. “Hey, Laurie,” he said carefully, mindful of Charlotte’s watchful gaze. “How’s everything going?”

  “Oh, everything’s fine.” Her smile was too bright, falsely cheerful for the children’s sake. “The usual.”

  He thought he knew what that meant, but he had to ask. “Have you heard from Jason?”

  “Oh, sure. We hear from him all the time, don’t we, kids?” Laurie turned to Alex and Charlotte, nodding to prompt the response she sought. Charlotte stared deliberately at her boots and shrugged, but Alex nodded happily back. “But you know how it is. The Internet over there is always breaking down, and it takes forever to get online again, but as soon as it’s fixed, we’re going to get to chat with him again.”

  “I get to talk with him first,” said Alex. “Mom promised. I want to make a rocket for the science fair and I have to ask Dad some stuff.”

  “That’s wise,” Ryan said, nodding seriously. “I’ve heard about you and rockets. It’s best to consult with an expert first.” To Laurie, he added, “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Thank you, Ryan. I will.”

  “And tell Jason Merry Christmas from me when you speak with him,” Ryan said.

  “Of course.” Laurie offered a wan smile, looking as if she wished she could say more—and maybe she would later, when the children could not overhear. She placed her hands on her children’s backs and guided them toward the door.

  Ryan finished clearing the walk, greeting children and parents and babysitters as they arrived for choir rehearsal, chatting briefly with one mother about her daughter’s upcoming first communion, conferring quietly with another about her father’s longtime battle with cancer. He took prayer requests, referred one young father to the parish food pantry, and offered a kind word to everyone, because it never hurt, and for all he knew, it might be just the thing to help someone get through a difficult day.

  The arrivals tapered off, and by the time Ryan finished the sidewalk, he had been alone with his thoughts for quite a while. He returned inside, but just as he took off his coat and hat, Lucas appeared at the top of the stairs. “Have you seen Sophia?”

  Ryan tried to hide his amusement. “You’re worried she might have gotten stuck in a snowdrift somewhere between here and school?”

  Lucas shrugged. “You never know.”

  “You stay here and start rehearsal,” said Ryan, pulling on his coat. “I’ll keep watch for Sophia.”

  “Thanks, Father.”

  Ryan tugged on his hat and waved Lucas back into the church. Turning, he opened the door and stepped outside—and narrowly avoided colliding with the missing choir director. “There you are,” he said, catching the door as it swung shut. “Lucas was getting worried, so he sent me out to search for you.”

  Shivering, Sophia quickly stepped into the warmth of the stairwell. “I’m not late, am I? I should’ve taken the bus.”

  “No, you’re right on time, but you’re usually early, and that was cause enough for worry.” A tightness in her expressio
n told him that something weighed heavily on her mind. Thinking that she might benefit from confiding in a friend, he added, “Lucas cares about you, you know.”

  Sophia laughed and shrugged out of her coat. “He just doesn’t want to be left alone with that pack of wild hooligans.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Ryan, smiling. “Not to the kids and not to Lucas. He’s great with them and you know it. He’s leading them in warm-ups as we speak.”

  Sophia’s quick intake of breath revealed that she was even later than she thought. “Thanks, Father.” She stamped her boots on the mat, draped her coat over her arm, and hurried up the staircase and through the doorway into the nave.

  Ryan wiped his feet, removed his coat and hat, and followed after, wondering what he could do to encourage Sophia and Lucas to have a long-overdue conversation about their feelings for each other. He couldn’t do much, he concluded ruefully, not without being overbearing and intrusive. There were some matters of the heart people had to figure out on their own.

  When he entered the church, the children were singing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” a beautiful, poignant arrangement of the familiar carol he had never heard until Sophia and Lucas began teaching it to the children. Smiling to hear Alex hit every note of his solo with sweet perfection, he did not realize Sister Winifred had joined him until she spoke almost at his elbow. “It’s painful to be the one not chosen,” she murmured sympathetically, her gaze on the choir director and the accompanist who watched her, surely believing himself unobserved, his yearning and resignation plainly visible in his face, evident in every note he played. “Even when you acknowledge, deep down, that the choice was the right one, it hurts to think that the one you love prefers someone else.” She smiled and patted his arm. “Call your mother tomorrow. Tell her everything will be all right. And then call your brother and see that you make it so.”

  “I will,” said Ryan slowly, staring at her, wondering. “I will.”