Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery)

by Gligor, Patricia

  “Yes,” she said. She looked directly into his eyes and said, “Father, I’ll be honest. I don’t have much experience. I haven’t worked in almost ten years, since before my daughter, Danielle, was born. I’m afraid I’m more than a little rusty.”

  He laughed. “Well, believe me, Ann, this is not a difficult job. Answering the phone, filing, that sort of thing. What kind of work did you do?”

  “I was a secretary for an insurance agency. It was a really busy office but I truly enjoyed the work. That’s where I met David, my husband.”

  “Well, if you handled a fast paced job like that, you’ll certainly have no problem handling this. By the way, how is David? I haven’t seen him in church lately.”

  She glanced down at her hands and began pulling the leather strap of her purse back and forth through her fingers. “Not so good, Father,” she said.

  “Is he ill? I hadn’t heard anything like that from Louise.”

  “No. Well, yes. Father, can I be honest with you?”

  “Well, Ann, of course. What is it?” he asked.

  “David has a drinking problem … and a gambling problem and … a problem with losing his temper. We … we’re not doing very well right now. Really, we haven’t been doing good for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought, if I just tried harder, I could make my marriage work.”

  “Sometimes, Ann, you have to admit you need help. Have you considered counseling?”

  “I would, Father. I would go but David … David would never. I’ve pretty well reached the end of my rope. I don’t know what to do anymore. If things don’t get better soon … well, I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  “You’re not considering divorce?” the priest asked.

  Ann shook her head up and down. “Yes,” she whispered.

  He leaned forward and pointed a finger at her. “Divorce is not an option! That’s not what God intended for you when you took the vows, promising to love, honor and cherish your husband in sickness and in health.”

  Ann looked up at him. “But, Father, what else can I do?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  “Pray! Sometimes prayer is the only answer. Ask God to help you and He will.”

  “I have prayed. I do pray. I still don’t know what to do.”

  “Then it’s not time for you to know yet. It’s all in God’s time. Not yours. Do you read your Bible, Ann? Do you remember the words of Acts 1:7? ‘And he said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.’ When God believes you are ready, He will show you the way. Here,” he said, sitting back and reaching into his desk drawer and handing her a business card. “Take this. Perhaps this woman can help you. I’ve heard she’s very good.”

  She dropped the business card into her purse. “Thank you, Father.”

  He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. “Well, we’ve gotten off of the subject, haven’t we? I have a simple application for you to complete, for our records, you understand.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “As long as the hours and the pay listed on the top of this sheet are acceptable to you, I see no reason not to offer you the job.” He handed her the application. “Would you be able to start tomorrow?”

  She sighed, barely glancing at the hours and pay on the paper. “Really? I’ve got the job? Yes, tomorrow is fine.”

  He handed her a pen and observed her, with his hands folded behind his head, as she began filling in the blanks on the form. When she finished, she handed the paper to him.

  “Nine a.m. then? I’ll give you a tour and get you set up,” he said, rising from his chair.

  “Wonderful. That’ll be great. Thank you, Father,” she said, standing.

  As Father Andrew opened the door for Ann and went out into the hall with her, he saw Louise Kern, her back to them, dusting a table a few feet down the hallway. You old busybody, he thought, you’ve been eavesdropping again. He grasped Ann’s hands in his, looked down at her and smiled. “God works in mysterious ways,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  * * * *

  After Ann left, Father Andrew went back into his office. He began to pace the length of the room. Not for the first time, he wondered what was wrong with people. How could they not be grateful when they had a spouse, a family? All the things he didn’t have, had never really had and never would have.

  No one is perfect, he knew, only God. But people expected their loved ones to meet all their expectations, to be exactly what they wanted. How totally selfish! Like this Kern woman, for example. She had two beautiful children, a family. She had a husband who provided for her. She hadn’t even had to work for the past ten years and probably didn’t have to work now.

  Did she see this job as an escape, a way to run away from her family? Did she even begin to know how blessed she was? No, evidently not. She planned to leave her husband and destroy her family. And for what? A life of loneliness? Like mine, he thought. Always being the outsider. Never being part of a family.

  He remembered his childhood all too vividly. He remembered how cold his mother had always been and how demanding his father was. They had expected him to be the All American boy, excelling in sports, academics and popularity but he’d fallen way short of their expectations. Both of his parents had been so engrossed in their jobs and their social standing that they had no time for their two children.

  So, Andrew and his sister, Mary, had only each other. Like him, Mary wasn’t what their parents had wanted. They expected her to be a cheerleader type: thin, pretty and popular. But Mary was overweight and extremely shy. He could still hear their mother’s voice, “Mary, you have such a pretty face. If you’d lose some weight and put on a little makeup, the boys would be lining up at the door for you.” He and Mary were very close and always confided in each other. Mary was so sweet, so sensitive and so vulnerable but she was also prone to depression. She was only sixteen when he lost her.

  It was the end of Andrew’s senior year. He’d never dated in high school. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to but attending an all boys’ school hadn’t afforded many opportunities to meet girls. Most of his classmates either played sports or at least attended the football and basketball games and they met girls that way but, on the few occasions he’d gone to games, Andrew had felt awkward and out of place.

  He remembered standing alone along the sidelines, hoping to find someone he knew to talk to. He watched as guys from school walked by him, some nodding, barely acknowledging him, while others pretended not to see him. There were girls there too from the neighboring girls’ Catholic high school. They giggled as their eyes scanned the crowd, looking for boys they wanted to meet. They too passed right by him. It was always like that.

  Then, in May, right before graduation, announcements were sent out for Prom Night. The boys’ Catholic high school, Elder, and the girls’ school, Seton, collaborated to host the seniors’ celebration. Andrew’s mother, who was constantly trying to fix him up with the daughters of her friends, daughters who wanted nothing to do with Andrew, managed to persuade her best friend’s daughter, Amanda, to go to the Prom with him. How she’d convinced the girl, he never knew until that night.

  He’d pulled into Amanda’s driveway in his father’s brand new Cadillac. He turned off the ignition and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants’ legs. Taking a deep breath, he got out of the car, went up to the door and rang the bell.

  “Why, Andrew, don’t you look nice?” Amanda’s mother commented as she ushered him into the entryway. “Mandy will be right down.”

  He stood there waiting for several minutes, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Finally, his date came down the stairs.

  “I … I got this for you,” he’d managed to say, handing her the purple corsage that his mother had picked out specifically to complement the color of her dress.

 
Amanda’s mother took the corsage from her daughter and pinned it on her dress. “Wait just one minute,” she said. “Let me get my camera. Before you leave, I want to get a picture of the two of you.”

  “Mother!” Amanda protested. “That really isn’t necessary.”

  “Now, don’t be silly,” her mother said, scurrying out of the room. She was back within seconds. “Andrew, move closer to Mandy,” she instructed, snapping the picture. “This is an important night for both of you. You’ll want to remember it.”

  But all these years later, Andrew wished he could forget it.

  He’d tried to make small talk on the way to the Prom but Amanda ignored him, staring out the window. When they got there, she left him standing alone and went off to find her friends. He watched her, talking with the other girls and flirting with other boys, for a long time. Eventually, he got up the nerve to ask her to dance.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said, laughing. “I only came with you tonight because my mother promised me a trip to Cancun this summer if I did.”

  A group of Amanda’s friends overheard the conversation. They huddled together, giggling and pointing at him. Andrew’s face turned bright red.

  When the evening was over, Amanda reluctantly got into the car to go home with him. She had to fulfill her end of the bargain with her mother, he reasoned. They drove in silence for a few minutes. To this day, Andrew didn’t fully understand what made him pull off of the road into an isolated field. He only had flashes now of what happened; most of it was a blur.

  In the end, he was accused of attempted rape and Amanda’s parents had agreed not to press charges if his parents sent him away immediately. That one evening, those few minutes, had changed his whole life. He remembered the talk he’d had with his sister the night before he left.

  “You know I don’t want to go,” he told her. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “But, Andy,” she had pleaded, “I can’t make it here without you.”

  The next day his parents had driven him to a college seminary in Pennsylvania. The first few weeks he was there, almost everyday either he phoned Mary or she phoned him. But, gradually, her calls came less and less frequently and, when he tried to contact her, more often than not, she wasn’t home.

  His parents were thrilled that Mary finally had a social life. Andrew tried to convince himself that his leaving had been good for Mary; that she’d depended on him so much that she hadn’t developed other friendships. He wanted that to be the case; he wanted her to be happy.

  Then, in the middle of the night, he got a phone call from his mother. Mary was dead; a drunk driver had hit the car she was in head on and she’d died instantly. Andrew thought his tears would never stop, that his heart would break in half. He tried to console himself by rationalizing; at least she’d been having fun, not sitting at home, missing him and crying.

  Over the next few months, in bits and pieces, he got a clear picture of what really went on after he’d gone away. Without him to turn to, Mary had been desperate for love and attention. She’d gotten involved with a bad crowd, doing drugs and drinking every night. Andrew knew that, if he’d been there, she never would’ve done that and she would not have died. He cursed God, that stupid bitch, Amanda, his parents and the driver of the car that killed his baby sister.

  He heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner out in the hallway. How long had he been lost in thought? He sat down at his desk and scanned Ann’s job application. The name seemed to jump off of the page at him: Malone. Ann’s maiden name was Malone. A common name, he told himself. There had to be lots of Malones in the area.

  Still, could it possibly be? Could Ann be related to the drunk driver who had killed his sister? He leaned forward and covered his face with his hands. He sat there for a few minutes, unable to move. He had to know and he knew how he could find out. The church records would reveal the truth to him, one way or the other.

  He got up and went over to the window, looking out at the adjacent cemetery. He watched Ann weave her way carefully between the tombstones. I can’t do anything about the past, he decided. “But” he said aloud, “there’s plenty I can do now.”

  Chapter 14

  AS SHE LEFT THE CHURCH, ANN THOUGHT about her interview with Father Andrew. She’d been surprised to see that he was so much older than she’d thought. He’s probably in his early forties, she guessed, judging by the fact that his hair was graying at the temples and there were lines at the corners of his eyes. He was tall and slim and, from a distance, he’d looked like a man in his mid to late twenties.

  Until today, she’d never seen him up close because she and the kids always sat in a back pew at Sunday mass. That way, if Davey got too restless and started fidgeting, which he often did, they could leave at any time without disturbing the other parishioners and, on the Sundays that they actually made it through the whole mass, they could exit quickly too.

  She had ambivalent feelings about her visit with the priest. She was excited that she’d gotten the job but she felt uneasy about the priest’s reaction when she’d told him about the problems in her marriage and intimated that she’d considered leaving her husband. Father Andrew’s brown eyes had turned darker; they were almost black. She remembered how the concerned expression on his face had so drastically changed and how he’d pointed a finger at her and all but screamed, “Divorce is not an option!” She shivered, recalling how the room had suddenly felt damp and cold. For a few seconds, I actually felt afraid of him, she thought. Why did I even say that though? I don’t want to leave David. I love him. I should never have said that. But why did Father Andrew get so angry with me? I know The Church is against divorce but I thought you were supposed to be able to talk about anything with a priest. Why did he react so strongly?

  I’ll visit Mom and Dad and then go talk to Nana, she decided; that always makes me feel better. As she walked behind the church and down the path to the secluded section of the cemetery where her parents and grandmother were buried, she thought back to the first time Nana had brought her sister and her to the cemetery to decorate their parents’ graves. She remembered sitting on the bench with Nana and Marnie, all three of them crying.

  And she remembered a later visit, the first time she’d “talked” to her parents, how she’d looked around to make sure no one was watching her; how she’d felt so foolish. She didn’t feel that way any longer. Now, it only made her feel close to them. She weaved her way through the tombstones, careful to avoid stepping on any of the plots, until she came to her parents’ graves. She stood, looking down at the headstones.

  “You both died so young. I can’t believe you’ve been gone for twenty-three years,” she said aloud, running her finger over the date, September 6th, 1985, that was engraved on her mother’s stone, the day she lost both of her parents in an automobile accident.

  Her thoughts traveled back to a Monday night when she was nine years old. Her parents had gone out of town for the long Labor Day weekend but they were due back soon. Nana was spending the weekend with her granddaughters, at their house. Marnie sat on the sofa reading and Annie and Nana worked on a puzzle at the dining room table. It was a balmy September evening and the windows were open to let in the fresh air. Ann remembered watching the sheer curtains billowing in the warm breeze and hearing crickets chirping outside. Occasionally, a firecracker would explode nearby, startling her.

  “Nana, when will Mommy and Daddy be home?” Annie asked.

  The phone rang, as if on cue.

  “That’s probably them now,” Nana said, getting up and going to the phone.

  Annie could hear the wail of sirens in the distance as she went back to working on her puzzle. Her forehead furrowed and she tapped her foot as she tried to find the place for the piece she held in her hand. After a few minutes, she heard her grandmother hang up the phone.

  “Was that …?” Annie started to ask but, when she looked up at her grandmother and saw the expression on her face, she knew instantly that s
omething was terribly wrong.

  “Marnie, Annie, I have some bad news,” Nana said, staggering to the table and easing herself slowly down onto a chair. “I’m so sorry, girls. I don’t know any other way to say this so I’ll just say it,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “There’s been an accident. Your mommy and daddy have been killed.”

  That fast, Ann’s whole life had changed. Never again would she and Marnie ride the bus to downtown Cincinnati with their mother for a girls’ day out, looking at the beautiful window displays in all the department stores, laughing and having fun. Never again would her father hold her on his lap and sing “And you’re Daddy’s little girl” to her. Never again.

  She would never forget the day of the funeral, how sad everyone had been. She remembered sitting in the back seat of the limousine with her sister and her grandmother as they drove to the cemetery. She sat, huddled against the car door, hugging her stuffed teddy bear, Buddy, to her chest. She watched the rain pelt the window, tears spilling down her cheeks. It had all felt so unreal. She couldn’t believe it was happening, that her mommy and daddy were really gone.

  At the cemetery, people kept coming up to them, hugging them or patting them on the arm, offering their condolences. A lot of the people little Annie didn’t even know. They bent down to her and looked into her tear filled eyes, saying things like, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” “your parents are in a better place,” and “this too shall pass.”

  It wasn’t until years later that she learned from Marnie that their father had had too much to drink that night and lost control of the car, hitting another vehicle head on, killing himself, his wife and the occupants of the other car. The accident had happened less than a mile from their house. The sirens she’d heard that night, before her world came tumbling down, had been the police and emergency vehicles rushing to the scene of the crash.

  “Aren’t you angry with my father?” she’d asked her grandmother.