The Paper Shepherd

by Olivia Landis

  “It was no trouble.” Her words fell in the otherwise still air. Max knew he could not make his announcement now. It would have to wait until Christmas break. That would give him more time to practice what he was going to say. He thought he should say something now to soften the blow, to prepare Tiar for the news. Max cleared his throat. He looked up at Tiar and took her cold, white cheek in his hand.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said sincerely.

  “That’s silly, Max,” she said, putting her tiny hand over his. “Love isn’t about what we deserve.”

  “Maybe,” he answered evasively. “Still....” He gingerly pulled his hand away.

  “Tiar, what would you do if I died?”

  “That’s a silly question, Max,” Tiar said. Or is it? Tiar suddenly thought. She was used to Max being inexplicably moody from time to time. She had learned the best policy was to ignore it and wait for him to come to his senses on his own. But, this was a strange thing even for him to say. Is he hiding something? she now had to wonder.

  “Are you sick, Max?” she asked delicately.

  “No,” he assured her. “No, I’m fine. But, any of us could die at any moment. I could die driving back to school tomorrow.”

  “I know,” Tiar said. “But why bring it up now?”

  “I just want to make sure you’d be okay without me,” he answered. Tiar looked out the window.

  “No, I don’t suppose I would,” she said. Then she looked back at him. “But, what choice would I have? Eventually, I would be okay again. But, it would take a while.”

  “You could go on with your life?”

  “I wouldn’t kill myself, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “I could never kill myself. Then I couldn’t go to heaven. I’d have no hope of seeing you again.”

  “Promise me,” Max said, taking her hands in his. This is weird, Tiar thought. But, Max looked so desperate.

  “I promise you, if you die, I won’t kill myself,” she said. “What about you?”

  “Why would I kill myself?” Max asked.

  “No, I mean, what would you do if I died?” That’s so simple, Max thought poignantly.

  “I’d wear black every day of my life and never date again,” he said with finality. Tiar looked at him quizzically, trying to figure out if he was serious. Eventually she closed her eyes and laughed.

  “You really had me going there for a second, Max,” she said lightly. Max forced himself to smile, too.

  “Yeah, I’m quite a kidder.”

  23

  Max sat outside his parents’ house in his car for the second time in three weeks. For the five hours driving home, he had done nothing but rehears. He was going to tell his parents he was entering the seminary. His three weeks at school had only strengthened his resolve that this was the right path for him and what God wanted for the world. With three weeks to think it over, Max had devised a much wiser plan for launching the topic with the people he loved. He was not going to make the same mistake he made during Thanksgiving break—to try to break his news first to the person who had the most to lose by it. His parents would not have any objection but would expect him to honor the commitment seriously once he proposed it. In a devoutly Catholic family like the Franklins, one did not joke about dedicating one’s life to the church. Devotion to the church aside, Jack Franklin was a man who forgave few things, least of all quitting. Once Max told Jack and Eleanor, there was no turning back.

  It was Thursday night. Max had told his parents he was coming home on Friday knowing that is what they would tell Tiar and that he would have a whole day to let the news sink in for them before having to face her. Max envisioned the plan like a set of dominoes. If he set up the chain of disclosures carefully enough ahead of time, they would fall one after another without him having any way to stop them. His plan hinged on just one factor—telling his parents before he saw Tiar.

  Max unfolded his pros list. He had rewritten his arguments, categorized them, and given them subtitles. It was an airtight case. Max looked up at his parents’ house, the only home he had any memory of. Slowly, he got out of the car and walked up the stairs to the porch. He stopped with his hand almost on the knob, full of trepidation about what he was about to do. I can’t wait any longer, he thought. Be brave. The knob turned within his hand before he had a chance to grip it. The door slowly opened and Max could hear laughing from inside.

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” It was Tiar. She was still looking back over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her. Her eyes still adjusting to the dim light of the porch, it took her a moment to process that the shadowy figure in front of her was Max. Max looked at this angel in front of him. The light from the transom above the front door produced rivers of gold in her chestnut hair.

  “Max?” she asked the darkness in disbelief. She lunged toward him, not waiting for him to answer. “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.” She was like a warm ball of glowing light in his arms. He buried his face in her hair.

  “I rearranged some tests so I could come home earlier,” he said joyously.

  “I’m so glad you did,” she said, reassuringly. How can I leave this? Max asked himself. This is impossible. Tiar took his face in her hands.

  “Are your parents expecting you?” she asked innocently. He shook his head slowly and then kissed her full on the lips. Max felt warmth explode throughout his body. He wrapped Tiar in his arms and pulled her nearly off her toes. He felt as though life were returning to a limb not used in months. He sighed deeply.

  “You want to go somewhere and talk for a while?” she asked him, barely above a whisper. She felt his face brush against hers as he nodded yes.

  Their need for discretion was even more acute than usual. It would hard to explain if they were seen out in town before Max admitted to arriving home. Tiar remembered she still had the key to her uncle’s pool house. They parked a few streets away and snuck through the neighbor’s back yard so they wouldn’t be observed from the Alfred Mansion.

  Max hadn’t been in the pool house since he was thirteen years old, and at that time was preoccupied with keeping Tiar conscious so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit. He stumbled around the cold, dark, marble structure over stored pieces of pool furniture. Tiar led him to a teak lounge chair and groped around in the dark for some candles.

  “I used to hide out in here when my uncle had more than one visitor over at a time,” she said, not bothering to explain what these “visitors” were doing. She struck a match. The room suddenly was basked in a soft yellow glow. “Some of the women he dates are… loud.” Max tried to follow her voice as she disappeared behind pillars and closed beach umbrellas. “I have some cookies hidden somewhere around here if you’re hungry. They’re probably pretty stale, but....” Max tugged at the bottom of Tiar’s coat as she walked past. She stopped and looked down at him sitting on the beach chair.

  “I’m fine,” he said softly. He pulled her toward him so that she was kneeling between his legs on the chair. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need anything.” He pressed his cheek against hers.

  The pool house was built for summer use and even inside, it was too cold to remove their over coats. Max held Tiar tight against his chest. His whole body shook as he thought in sheer terror about what would have happened if she had left the Franklins’ house ten minutes earlier, or if she hadn’t eaten dinner with them at all. Conveniently, he thought, Tiar will think I’m shivering. How could he ever explain the truth?

  “Are you okay, Max?” Tiar asked after a few minutes. “Do you want to find someplace warmer to go?”

  “No,” he said, breathing out the word forcefully. He unbuttoned her coat and pressed his face against the bare triangle of her chest above her v neck sweater. He was practically hiding inside her coat. He felt an odd sense of safety. Tiar’s first instinct was to take off more of her clothes. This is what Jez would have told her to do… or Jen, Sarah and Michelle for that matter. A few weeks earlier, this was all she could thin
k about, to use her body to convince Max to stay with her. Keep him entertained. Then she read his letter. She found it outside the door of her uncle’s house where it must have fallen out of his jacket when he walked her to the door. Then there were the illustrations. Serve pie. People crying. No birds. More people crying. Crying birds. No money. She wasn’t sure what he was upset about, but she knew it was serious and very painful to him. Reading his side of the story, she couldn’t see this as an antagonistic pursuit—that she was a predator stalking her prey, a hunter trying to bag the best trophy man she could. This was her friend. He was hurting, and he needed her to help him, not confuse him.

  Tiar had had several weeks to think about it. She decided she did not care what magazines or social pressures may dictate—for her affection would always be a reward for love, an expression of love, not a currency to earn or buy love. Tiar knew this may be an unpopular view, but it was the only one she could respect herself for. She knew if he were an objective, disinterested third party, it was the only view Max could respect her for. Thus, she wouldn’t use affection to win Max. This relationship could end—they could go back to being friends. Tiar knew it wouldn’t be easy but that she could eventually accept that as long as they didn’t go any further physically than they already had. She didn’t think she could forgive herself for having sex with him knowing he wasn’t certain about his future with her. She certainly would not use sex to secure that future. Tiar put her hands on Max’s shoulders and pushed him gently away far enough that she could look him in the eye.

  “What’s wrong Max?” she asked gently. “It’s okay. You can talk about it.”

  “This semester was so unbelievably horrible,” he confessed to her, his eyes closed.

  “It’s okay, now,” she reassured him. “I’m here for you. I’m listening.” She could see he was struggling to decide what to say next.

  “Tell me something good, Tiar,” he begged her.

  “What, sweetheart?” she asked.

  “Everything was so terrible at school, and then Thanksgiving break was so awful. I just need you to tell me something good. Tell me why you love me.” Tiar was frightened by the desperation in his voice.

  “I don’t even know where to start, Max, with good things you’ve done. You saved me from those bullies, Max. You were my friend when no one else would speak to me. You helped clean all the stain glassed windows in the church two summers ago. No one had even tried to do that in twenty years. And how many hours did you spend on that extension latter polishing the chandelier in the church so it would be sparkling by advent?”

  “Don’t talk about the church, Little Bird,” he said, putting his hands around her waist. “I don’t want to hear about the church. Tell me why you love me.” Tiar moved to the adjacent lounge chair. She looked Max in the eye. How could she summarize so monumental a thing?

  “You saved me, Max. You saved me from being just an orphan. You found out for me who I was and told me that that person was someone special. You stood up for me every time the world attacked me, even when I deserved to be attacked. Remember when I got drunk that one time when I was eleven? Do you think anyone else would have taken care of me? And, even if someone had, they wouldn’t have wanted to.” Her smooth voice floated over him. “And that was the best part, Max. You did all of this without making me feel like it was an act of charity or a good deed you were doing. You always made me think you wanted to be by my side, no matter what mess I got myself into. How could I not love you?” Max sat with his head hanging down. Tiar lifted it in her hands.

  “What happened, Max?” she asked softly. He wanted to come clean with her, to tell her everything that had happened—every doubt, every suspicion, his whole plan for a life without her. But, he needed to be near her right now and could not risk making her angry. Tony had been right all along. Max had blown so many things out of proportion. He understood that, now. There was no need for her to be worried about what might have been.

  “Earlier in the semester,” he answered vaguely. “I had this stupid idea that I had to study something that would take me far away from you. It seemed so important… but… I don’t know. I know that I was being irrational. Tony talked me through the whole thing.”

  “We’re okay?” Tiar asked. Max sat up on the edge of the beach chair and brushed her hair around her perfect ears.

  “We’re better than okay. I promise you.”

  24

  Tiar rolled her eyes at Max. He smiled back conspiratorially and then turned forward to face the alter. It had been twenty minutes since Father Neman had begun his homily and it was proving to be another historical worst, rivaling even his juggler anecdote. I could write a better… Max began to think. Seeing Tiar out of his peripheral vision, he caught himself. Don’t you dare even think it. His head was clearer now and he could see what was really important in his life. He would rather spend a lifetime listening to bad homilies sitting next to the woman he loved than reciting good ones himself.

  Eventually, as it did every year, Christmas Vigil Mass came to an end and the parishioners of St. Jude’s returned to their homes. Jack built a roaring fire and Tiar and Max made smores while they watched It’s a Wonderful Life on video. When the movie was over, Max drove Tiar home. At home, in his own bed, he tossed and turned all night. He woke up every hour or so, terrified that he had actually told Tiar about his plans-- that he had accepted a position in the seminary class of 2000. Every hour he would remind himself that he had abandoned that plan—that everything had gone back to the way it should be, with him and Tiar together. Eventually at around five, Max finally fell soundly asleep. He awoke at ten when he heard Tiar’s voice floating up the stairs from the kitchen where she was helping Eleanor wash sweet potatoes and wrap them in aluminum foil. He lay in bed with his eyes closed, a wide smile on his face. Everything exactly the way it should be.

  Max got out of bed, showered, and got dressed quickly. He ran downstairs to join his family. His father, in the living room finishing up a cup of coffee, taunted him for waking up so late.

  “Oh, let the boy be,” Eleanor shouted at them from the kitchen. “He probably barely slept a wink studying for finals.”

  Max looked in the kitchen at Tiar who giggled and winked at him. Half an hour later, they were opening presents. Eleanor bought Jack a router for his ever growing wood shop in the basement. He, in return, had bought his wife a necklace and a pair of slippers. Jack and Eleanor gave Tiar a desk set to take to college and a nativity scene of paper dolls for her to set up in her dorm room the following Advent. Finally, it was time for Max to give Tiar her present. She unwrapped the box hesitantly, slightly worried when she saw the familiar Cici’s Top Drawer signature tissue paper with kiss marks emblazoned on it in pink and gold. When she saw the contents of the box, she had to laugh.

  “No, way,” she said, laughing. “Walkie talkies?” She threw her arms around Max. “I wanted a set of these since I was a wee lass, as your mom would say.”

  “What was that, dear?” Eleanor asked, hearing herself mentioned.

  “Look at what Max got me,” Tiar said, holding up the box.

  “Oh, those are the good kind, dear,” she said. “The ones that can work up to two miles. I read about those in one of Jack’s gadget catalogues.”

  “I think they’re great. Thanks Max,” Tiar said, beaming.

  “My pleasure.”

  After another splendid Christmas dinner and another unbelievably disastrous experiment involving Tiar and baking, the family retired to their own corners of the house. Jack retreated to the basement, where he gleefully applied finely beveled edges to an entire crate of scrap wood. Eleanor set about making sheet after sheet of edible and structurally sound ginger bread and then set about releasing from her cookie sheets Tiar’s concoctions, which failed in both criteria. Tiar, chased out of the kitchen this year with a broom, scampered up the stairs where Max was rereading a biography about Julius Caesar.

  “Hey,” he said, sitting up on his bed as
Tiar walked in the room. She sat nonchalantly beside him.

  “What are you up too?” she asked.

  “Nothing important,” he said, folding down his page and tossing the book onto his night stand. He smiled at her, so glad she was here, so glad she was still his. “You know, Tiar, that present was a metaphor...” he began.

  “Oh, I got it,” Tiar interrupted, covering his hand with hers. “But, metaphor or not, it is a cool present. I bet I could talk to you from my house while you’re still home.”

  “We’ll have to try it,” he said, smiling. He sighed. “I get crazy when I can’t talk to you, Tiar.”

  “I do too, Max,” she admitted. “You’re not the only one who stopped making sense this semester. I was getting a little paranoid myself. Trust me.” She thought of the $120 she spent on underwear she couldn’t tolerate wearing for more than ten minutes at a time. In the long run it had proved helpful—it showed her how ridiculous she was acting.

  “You know, they are starting to have this thing called email at a lot of universities now. I bet where ever you go will have it.”

  “Yeah. Jen is always bragging about how she gets email. Although, I don’t know who she is getting it from since none of her friends at school have the internet in their houses.”

  “Yeah, well, Jen has always been ahead of the rest of us,” Max reflected. “We’re supposed to get it at St. Andrew’s in the fall. Plus, they’re supposed to wire all the individual dorm rooms with phone lines instead of just one payphone in the hall.”

  “At St. Andrew’s!” Tiar said incredulously. “I thought you guys still communicated by colored smoke.” Max chuckled.

  “No, that’s reserved for choosing a pope,” he explained. “We use carrier pigeons for our day to day messages.”

  “Good. I was worried about all that combusted material going into the atmosphere.”

  “The point is, Tiar,” Max said seriously. “We may be apart for another four years, but we should be able to communicate better than we do now.” Tiar sighed.