The Paper Shepherd

by Olivia Landis

  After she hung up with Max, Tiar wondered what was worse: that she had to pretend to be happy about the trip, or how clear it was that Max had to pretend to be happy talking to her. The whole conversation seemed rehearsed. Tiar wouldn’t have been surprised if Max was reading off index cards. Why did he have to pretend to want to talk to me? she wondered. Why can’t he just be happy to hear from me? He found someone else, didn’t he? He was going to find someone else, it was just a matter of time. How could she possibly compete with college girls who were not only older, but probably started dating younger? How could she compete against girls like Sarah and Michelle who had mothers to show them how to dress and put on make up, girls who had years worth of experience? Max pretended all that didn’t matter to him, but it wouldn’t be long before he got a craving for what Michelle had already given him a taste of. It’s only a matter of time.

  The only thing worse for Tiar then having these thoughts was having them in front of other people, one of whom had dated Max herself. She wanted to go home. It was humiliating standing here, her friends ogling her, trying to cheer her up with elastic and satin. She never should have agreed to go out. She should have been home writing Max a love letter. She should have stolen her uncle’s car and been driving to St. Andrew’s right now. She was glad Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away. She just hoped she could fix things with Max then. She would only have four days. She would have to do something pretty amazing. She was desperate, trying to work out a fool proof plan to win him back, to make him truly happy to see her. She had even gone to the uncharacteristic step of buying a fashion magazine, not to make sure her hair and makeup were right, but for the article 20 must do things to keep him happy in bed. It was embarrassing to check out with the magazine at the pharmacy. She wanted to wash her hands after reading it, as though some virulent residue was left on them. At this point, embarrassment was nothing. All she could think about was making sure Max was satisfied with her. She had worked herself into a state where she would do anything. This excruciating public embarrassment, she feared, was only the beginning.

  “I just don’t know which is better,” Jen pondered. “Which do you like better, Sarah? The burgundy or the black.”

  “Oh, with her eyes?” Sarah said. “Definitely the burgundy.” Tiar rolled her eyes. She hated both sets of underwear equally and planned to buy neither.

  “She should buy both,” Jen stated pragmatically. “That way, if she ever finds a guy who can tolerate her, he won’t get bored. With two to pick from, he will always be… entertained.” Tiar’s eyebrows knit together in sudden panic.

  “I’ll take both.”

  Max sat in church. He had decided to take Tony’s advice and stop agonizing over the future before he had a chance to talk to Tiar about it. If only from sheer mental exhaustion, he couldn’t try to reason it out any further. He was relieved to be in church, in a place where he could recite the prayers from memory and feel comfort in the sheer constancy of it, the fact that this, if nothing else, was immutable, and could not change. The chapel was less crowded then usual with many students studying too diligently for midterms Monday morning to go to mass on Sunday night. With only a handful of the dutiful or desperate left, the service marched on. Candles spilled scentless white wax onto the stone floor. Max sat listening to the priest with his eyes closed. The same prayers over and over. Whether in English or Latin, they had the same transformative quality for him. They brought him back to a time and a place when things were simple and easy. He was seven again, an alter boy on the alter at St. Jude’s. Everything was scripted. There were no decisions to make. There was just the inevitable march of the service, identical cycle after cycle in its scriptural three year journey. The seasons followed one after another. Soon they would be in Advent and conclude with Christmas. Then would be the Feast of the Holy Family and the Epiphany. Soon after that would be Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and back to Ordinary Time. So easy, Max thought to himself, feeling the peace of the deeply hypnotized. Just go back. He was slipping, slipping into a time when he wanted this to be the entire compass of his life.

  Max opened his eyes suddenly. No, you can’t go back. Not now. That path was closed to him now. It was a path before Tiar, a path without Tiar. If they could not walk it together, he would not walk it alone. She was not a friend or a girl friend, but a soul mate. In seven months when she graduated from high school, he planned to make her his fiancée. He had left that path of asceticism and celibacy. I am going to marry her, he thought to himself. That’s my future now. I’m going to marry Tiar. I am going to get a Ph.D. in history and become a college professor. Max looked at the young priest standing at the alter in front of him with a twinge of envy. If I had never met her… if those bullies hadn’t been picking on her… if I had just minded my own damn business, that would be me. It was very silly, Max thought, to even entertain these memories—memories of a time when God’s plan for him seemed so perfectly complete. Silly? No, dangerous. What he had now was perfect and complete; he had only to stay this course and his life would be rich. He was at a terrific school. He was in love with a beautiful woman who loved him back. Being a priest can’t be better then that, can it? Perhaps if there had been an angel or a burning bush, maybe then he could be swayed. But, there was no celestial or supernatural sign, just the nagging in the back of his mind compelling him constantly to reconsider.

  Mass ended and the other congregants were filing out of the small chapel. Max followed them out. It was already dark outside and Max buttoned his coat against the mid-November night. He walked directly back to his dorm room without stopping by to chat with Tony or get a drink at Pugs. He had two tests before Thanksgiving Break and he had a lot of studying to do. He climbed the stairs to his dorm room two at a time. He walked down the long, carpeted hall and unlocked the door to his tidy, unadorned room. The hallway was unusually quiet, as most of the other students on campus were under even more of an academic crunch than Max. Max sat down at his desk and opened a text book about ancient Rome. But, as he tried to read about aqueducts and centurions, he kept coming back to the same thought. Just go back.

  Finally, Max decided to settle the issue once and for all. He would just logically prove that the calling he had felt to join the priesthood at age seven and the amendment he added at age ten to get a degree in archeology and spend his life trying to unearth supernatural holy relics, were silly compared to the decision he made at nineteen to marry the woman he loved and live a more standard American life. He got out a blank sheet of paper and quickly made a line down the middle of the page, writing “P” on one half and “C” on the other.

  Pro, I’d be serving God. Max began writing “serve God” but was stricken by the thought someone would find the paper and criticize him for trying to use logic about what was supposed to be a calling. What’s a good cryptic symbol for God? He wondered. It occurred to him that God was a trinity. He drew a pie chart divided in three next to the word “serve.” Con, I wouldn’t get to study history anymore. This became an eye crossed out next to the letters “Hx.” Pro, my community would be proud of me. Three faceless stick figures, heart, one stick figure that said “me.” Con, mom would be hurt that now neither of us is going to teach history. Crying stick figure. “Hx” in a “no” sign. Pro, I’d always have a job. Check mark, dollar sign. Con, vow of poverty. Dollar sign behind a “no” sign. Was that a con? He didn’t really own very much. He had a job during the summers mostly to help his parents pay his tuition. He never really spent much money on anything except ice cream and movies. He wasn’t particularly concerned with owning stylish clothing. His car was the cheapest safe vehicle he could find. He crossed that out. Con, less freedom about what to do with my life, where to live, etc. “No” sign over a palm tree. Max rested his head in his left hand and tapped his pen on the paper with his right as he stared at his hieroglyphics. He twisted short locks of his hair around his finger as he contemplated the drawings, saving up for another flurry of indecipherable shapes.


  Con, less vacation time than being college professor (summers off). Pro, don’t have to grade papers. Pro, help other people be absolved of their sins. Con, don’t get to get married. That was a big one. Con, don’t get to have kids. Less important. Con, don’t get to own a house. Was this really important to him, or was it something he merely thought was expected of him? For that matter, he wasn’t sure he wanted children, he just assumed Tiar would want some. He crossed both of these out. Con, Mom won’t get to have grandkids. That was the crux of the issue. Pro, Max thought of the Squad, the only friends he had ever made not through Tiar. I get along well with the kind of people who would be my coworkers. Con, dad will think I am some sort of weirdo. Max crossed that out. Dad already thinks I am a total weirdo. Con, would have to help and pretend to like parishioners, even the ones I don’t like.

  Con, it would really hurt Tiar. Tiar. The name rang through his head. She would be hurt. But, she would eventually accept this. How many times had she joked or implied he was going to be a priest some day? How many times had she relied on him to play that role already? She had to have suspected there was some glimmer of truth to it. Still, he didn’t want to hurt her. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her yet again when she looked at him with those trusting green eyes. Again. Again, like England. Again, like homecoming, like Prom. Again, like the summer after graduation that he had spent avoiding her, hiding out, ignoring her. He was miserable to her. His “love” for her had made him jealous. His “love” for her had made him angry and cruel. His “love” for her was like poison. She was better off without it. Con, would hurt Tiar a lot one more time. Pro, could avoid hurting Tiar over and over again for the rest of our lives.

  The cons had won, but not by the margin Max had expected. He leaned back in his chair and examined the list carefully. Surely there were some things he had left off. He crumpled up the piece of paper and lobbed it toward his waste paper basket, determined to leave it there for good.

  22

  Dear Tiar,

  You are a unique and mysterious creature, so full of goodness and unexpected generosity. You give not only of your possessions, but constantly of yourself. You are beautiful beyond human words. I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved. I want to cherish you for your true self. I want to look at you and see your soul, like you think I can. But, I have tried and failed to be the man you deserve. I cannot in good conscience ever offer you a life with me, a life which for me would be pure bliss, and for you a chronic, silent struggle. I only hope there is some good in me that can still be redeemed without you.

  With my eternal and sincere regret,

  Max

  Max read the letter to himself several times sitting in the car outside his parents’ house. He had tried to banish from his mind the list which he had fished out of his waste paper basket only to return there a dozen times in the two weeks between making it and leaving school for Thanksgiving break. But, like a chirping cricket you can’t find, he could not shut out the points that kept enumerating themselves in his voice as he ate, or walked across campus, or sat in class. He couldn’t blame his academic advisor, Dr. Henderson, or St. Paul for his current situation. He could not attribute this to Brandy shooing Tiar away nor Jason forgetting her messages. They were simply bringing into consciousness what Max had already known since he was child. The future did exist. His destiny was written. The calling he had heard as a child and tried to forget as a teenager was real and would not be ignored so easily. Tiar admitted he would only return if their relationship was meant to be. But, something else was meant to be—it had been destined long before the two of them had ever met on the play ground at St. Jude’s. If Max said he was letting the Almighty Father guide him, but ignored what was right in front of him, he would be lying. It was that lie, Max now knew, that so poisoned his soul that he hurt Tiar again and again. It would continue to poison him until he finally acknowledged his destiny and took up the path he had abandoned.

  If he was ever to reach salvation, and if Tiar was ever to have a happy life, Max would have to dedicate himself entirely to getting admitted into St. Andrew’s seminary. Now, he had only to tell Tiar. She wouldn’t take it well at first, but she would survive. She was strong. And, if he explained it to her just as he had written it, she would see that it was not because she was not good enough, not because he didn’t love her, but because he did love her that he had to do this. That would eventually assuage her pain. Max folded up the letter and put it in the pocket of his jacket. He knew what he had to do, but he feared he could not do it. It would likely take all of Thanksgiving to work up to this proclamation, and he was glad he had four days without school or basketball games to try to talk it over with Tiar. She was the one person he could always trust, and the one person who had the most too lose from his decision.

  Max got out of his car and ran up the stairs to his front porch two at a time. He flung open the door and was greeted by the aroma of cookies baking.

  “I’m home,” he called out, walking down the hall. Christmas music was playing on the radio in the living room. He heard footsteps.

  “Max,” Eleanor said, rushing down the hall toward the kitchen. They met at the kitchen door and embraced. “It’s so good to see you, son,” she said, taking his coat. “How was the drive?”

  “Good, Mom,” he said, taking a seat at the table.

  “I don’t suppose you want to drive to New Carrolton after so long on the road,” she said, hanging his coat in the hall closet and coming back into the kitchen.

  “New Carrolton?”

  “Tiar has a game there tonight,” she said, taking a seat.

  “I thought she had off for all of Thanksgiving break,” Max said.

  “She did, but one of the schools in their division had a fire in their gym,” Eleanor explained. “The whole rest of the season had to be rescheduled. The new schedule is on the fridge.”

  Max turned to look at the refrigerator behind him, looking at a sheet of paper stuck there with a Tower of London magnet he brought back from his trip two years ago. It was like a tuning fork echoing his frustration and anger from that trip. St. Jude’s was playing Wednesday and Friday of this week. Great, Max thought, slumping into a kitchen chair with frustration. How am I every going to be able to tell her? he worried.

  “The truth is, the game would be almost over by time you got there,” Eleanor reasoned. Busy taking cookies from the oven, she was oblivious to her son’s response.

  “Yeah, the end is near, isn’t it?”

  Three days later, Max sat with Tiar in his Volvo outside her uncle’s house. It was dark out already. The holiday had not gone well. He didn’t get to see Tiar until Thursday. And, although he had gotten to spend all day with her Thursday and Saturday, Jack and Eleanor were there too. He didn’t get to talk to Tiar alone at all. With every passing hour in their presence, his witty intelligent mother and his usually unobtrusive father became more and more intolerable to him. Max knew the only thing they had done wrong was to be home, to want to see him, to prevent him from seeing Tiar alone. He could not blame them, but he could not look at them without feeling frustration. He felt like he had ants under his skin. He wanted to leave the house.

  Friday, Max went to Tiar’s game in Rutherford. He watched her play, not with his usual interest, but instead with impatience. He knew his father was at a Knights of Columbus dinner and his mother was at church organizing a bingo game. He wanted to rush home, to get at least a few hours with Tiar alone. But, St. Jude’s won the game 89 to 70. Mr. Caponata offered to take the whole team out for ice cream afterwards. Max could have asked Tiar not to go and he knew she would have indulged him; but, separating her from her friends to break up with her would be cruel. Instead, he went home and waited for her to call from her uncle’s house. He waited for two hours on pins and needles, too upset even to read.

  Now it was Saturday night. Max sat in his old car knowing he would have to leave after church the next morning. Max had to admit to
himself that he still hoped Tiar could say something to change his mind, to help him see that nothing was truly inevitable for them or for him. That hadn’t happened and now Max knew it was too late. Max fingered the letter in his jacket pocket wondering if there really was enough time to have this conversation now. He was about to get up the nerve to take it out when Tiar handed him a small box. He looked up at her curiously.

  “What’s this?” he asked. Tiar averted her eyes and giggled shyly.

  “It’s an anniversary present,” she said softly. “I know it’s not a real anniversary, but it was a year ago the Saturday after Thanksgiving that we started dating.” Oh shit! Max thought to himself. I can’t break up with her now, can I? Should I even open this? Should I give it back? He looked up from the box. Tiar was looking back at him expectantly. He untied the ribbon carefully and opened the lid. Inside was a small brass compass, less than an inch in diameter, on a long gold chain.

  “It’s beautiful, Tiar,” Max said, his heart aching in pity. How could he hurt someone this sweet?

  “Look on the back,” she said, pointing to the pendent. May you never lose your way. God Bless, Tiar, Max read. I am the worst person in the whole world, he thought. How had he gotten himself into this situation? How could someone this wonderful love him? He put the compass back in the box and closed the lid.

  “It’s so beautiful, really. Thank you. I’m so sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

  “It’s okay, Max,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t expect anything. You’re in college. I know you have tests and stuff.”

  “I can’t believe you went through all this trouble,” he protested.