I’ve wanted to ask Frankie about Caesar but have hesitated, waiting for a good moment, then realize there is no good moment, only my own awkwardness to climb over. “Was Caesar okay this morning?” I ask. “With you coming with me and all?”
Frankie smoothly switches lanes to drive around a tractor trailer. “Don’t worry about Caesar,” he says. “He’ll be fine. He’s … protective. How’s Susannah? Did you get to talk to her yesterday?”
I understand Frankie is changing the subject, but I don’t fight it. “Yeah,” I say. “I did. She’s okay.”
“Must be hard,” he says.
I nod, my throat suddenly thick with sorrow. “I hate it,” I manage to say. “I hate how she feels so … diminished. Like a light that’s going out. Burning out.”
“But she’s getting help, yeah? Therapy and meds and everything?”
“Sure,” I say. “But it won’t cure anything. Just manages it.”
“We’re all just managing, güero,” Frankie says.
* * *
THERE’S A WRECK that slows us down for a good half hour, but finally we turn off the highway, leaving the billboards and fast-food signs behind for a two-lane road. But it’s still the modern world. Just five miles from the monastery, we pass a shopping center with a Publix grocery store, a Rooms to Go outlet, and a Pizza Hut, all moored in a shimmering black lake of new asphalt. Further on, we drive by a subdivision under construction, a paved road winding up into cleared lots of bulldozed red clay. Hispanic workers in denim shirts and straw hats stand around a half-completed ditch at the entrance to the subdivision, one of them looking blankly at us as we drive past. And ahead, on the horizon, I can just see the start of the north Georgia mountains, a set of blue ridges one after the other, rising up above the plains and receding into the distance.
Then a sign appears: Monastery Ahead—100 yards. A driveway to the left boasts another sign: Abbey of Our Lady of Mercy—Bless You. A yellow metal gate is pushed open to allow traffic, and Frankie turns in. Small magnolia trees line the driveway, which leads perhaps half a mile before bending to the right and out of sight. I don’t see any buildings.
“Not what I expected,” Frankie says, and I know what he means. I half-expected a high brick wall or a large church, not a driveway lined with magnolias.
We follow the curve of the drive to the right, and as it straightens, we can see the monastery a hundred yards ahead—a low concrete building with a wrought-iron gate in the middle, then a two-story building behind that, and a church with a steeple and simple crucifix that rises above all. On the left a grassy field slopes down to a pond. I can see gray and white geese strolling up from the water. To the right is a cracked and weedy parking lot next to another low concrete building with a sign that reads Abbey Gift Shop. Although it’s not yet nine o’clock, there are already several cars in the parking lot, most of them dented older models of pickups and sedans. A group of people are waiting by the wrought-iron gate, maybe thirty or so adults, with children playing in the grass nearby.
Frankie pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine. Immediately, even through the rolled-up windows, I can hear the wree-wree of crickets in the surrounding woods. I open the door and get out, and when Frankie does the same, I point at the wrought-iron gate and we walk across the parking lot.
When we approach the gate, I can see that the gate has the word PAX wrought in the topmost part of it. The gate is closed, but I can see that it leads into an arched passageway that cuts through the building and opens onto a courtyard beyond. There’s a cardboard sign on the wall next to the gate. Handwritten in black marker, the sign reads FOOD BANK. The people in line stir like blades of grass in a breeze and form a rough line. A bell tolls, and before it stops, a monk walks out of the building on the far side of the courtyard. He crosses the courtyard and walks through the passage to the gate and opens it. He wears glasses and a white hooded robe cinched around the waist with a leather belt. A black scapular, a rectangular piece of cloth with an opening for the head, lies over his shoulders. His white hood is pushed back from his head, which is gray and grizzled. He’s wearing an old pair of grass-stained Reebok tennis shoes. The line of people shuffles forward, each person taking a number from a pad mounted on the wall by the left-hand door in the passageway before going through that same door.
Frankie and I get at the end of the line and slowly move toward the monk. When we finally reach him, I realize he’s old, at least seventy. The monk gives numbers from the pad to a family of five, including two small boys, one of whom looks up at the monk and grins, showing off his missing tooth. “Thanks, Brother!” the boy says loudly.
“There you go, buddy, God bless you,” the monk says, smiling, and the family goes through the door. When they open it, I can see it leads to a room with folding chairs. A sign inside the doorway reads, Only 28 people allowed at a time. I glance at the pad on the wall, which is on 29.
“I’m sorry,” the monk says to me. “You can go in with the next group in about half an hour.”
I smile in what I hope looks like embarrassment. “I’m very sorry to bother you, Brother,” I say, “but actually I’m looking for someone who might be here. An old family friend? His name is Sam Bridges?” I don’t know if it’s a specifically Southern thing or not, but posing statements as questions tends to be disarming. I hope it makes me seem innocuous and in need of help rather than like someone seeking answers.
The old monk blinks behind his glasses. “Sam Bridges? I don’t … ah, you mean Samuel. He’s working in the bonsai shop today. Have you made an appointment through the abbot?”
Now I’m the one disarmed. I hadn’t considered an abbot, let alone calling to make an appointment. “I—no, I haven’t,” I say.
The monk closes the door and extends his arm toward the door on the other side of the arched passage. “If you like, you can call his voice mail number from this phone over here and set up an appointment.”
“I’m sorry, this is an emergency. I really need to speak with him today.”
The monk’s expression grows slightly stiffer. “Are you a member of his immediate family?”
“No.”
“Then I’m sorry. You’ll need to call the abbot.” I don’t know if he did this on purpose, but now the monk stands between me and the courtyard at the end of the passage.
“Ethan.” Frankie puts hand on my shoulder. “How about I call and leave a message for the abbot. You go wait by the car.” As he says this, with his back to the monk, he cuts his eyes to the left, then back at me and to the left again. The car is not to the left, but directly behind us across the parking lot.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry, Brother.” The older monk shakes his head and smiles, as if denying that I owe him an apology, and then walks with Frankie over to the other door. I walk back out of the arch and look to the left, where Frankie indicated. Extending alongside the parking lot all the way to the gift shop is a fenced-off area with a closed gate. A sign reading BONSAI SHOP AND GARDEN hangs on the gate. Below it is a small sign: Please Do Not Enter Unless Gate is Open. Quickly I walk to the gate, push it open, and then shut it behind me.
Before me is another low building, but this one is wooden with a tin roof. One end is open so I can see inside the entire length of the building, which looks as if it was once a stable—on either side, what used to be pens are open to the center of the building. A few of the dividing walls between the pens have been removed. Sunlight streams in through glassless windows. In each area or pen, I can see a mound of soil and a stack of plastic plant trays. In some pens, I can see short rows of bonsai trees, each pruned and shaped into a unique twisted figure. The old monk said that Bridges is working in here today. I walk into the nursery, glancing into pens as I pass them.
At the far end of the nursery, two men step out of a doorway. Both stop when they see me. One is a monk, very old and humpbacked, dressed in white and black robes. “Can I help you?” he calls in a high, quavering voice.
&nb
sp; The second man is wearing work clothes—khakis and a blue T-shirt—but his T-shirt is tucked in and his khakis are neatly pressed. The overall effect is of a man without a coat and tie dressing as best he can for church. Although the goatee has been shaved off, the acne scars are still on his cheeks. He looks at me with surprise but not recognition. He probably didn’t get a good look at my face that night. I was just a kid running down a hallway, trying to bring his father a pistol.
“Samuel Bridges,” I say. The venom in my voice startles the men. It startles me. The hunchbacked monk cringes, while Bridges plants his feet as if awaiting a blow. “My name is Ethan Faulkner,” I continue. “I met you before at my house, with your friend who wears a ponytail. And Kayla.”
Astonishment washes across Bridges’s face, then recognition, followed by something I wasn’t expecting: guilt.
The old monk frowns, an ugly expression on his wrinkled face. “You shouldn’t be back here,” he says.
“It’s all right, Brother Milo,” Bridges says hoarsely.
We all stand facing each other, frozen by the enormity of the moment, depending on our point of view—Brother Milo from outrage, Bridges and me from other, more complicated emotions. We could be a Renaissance painting: the shocked monk, the guilt-stricken sinner, and the angry young man. All that is missing is the sad, cherubic face of an angel gazing down upon us from the heavens.
* * *
BRIDGES AND I sit outside the bonsai nursery on stone benches opposite each other. Frankie, who made his way back here after slipping past the monk at the gate, leans against a nearby wall, arms folded across his chest, his eyes never leaving Bridges, who, for his part, is doing a pretty good imitation of the Virgin Mary in the Pietà: head tilted toward the ground, eyes closed, mouth small and sorrowful.
“So, do you live here now?” I ask him.
Bridges opens his eyes, which are calm and clear. “Yes,” he says. “Ever since I got out of prison. Right now I’m just working here, doing maintenance, landscaping, that kind of thing. Most of the monks are old; they need help running the place. But if things go all right, I’ll go into my observership. Like a trial run. If the abbot and the vocation director like the progress I’ve made, they’ll make me a postulant in a couple of months.”
“And then you get a robe and sandals and everything?”
Bridges doesn’t bat an eye at my sarcasm. “I wouldn’t get to wear the religious habit unless I became a novitiate.” He gives a thin smile. “And most of the brothers don’t wear sandals these days.”
“I’m guessing most of the brothers haven’t murdered anyone either.”
That one strikes home. Bridges winces, then hangs his head slightly. “It may not matter for much,” he says, his eyes on the ground, “but I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve done horrible things, but I’m not a murderer.”
“Bullshit,” I say, and I like the reaction he has, the shocked jerk of the head, his eyes widening slightly, as if I’ve cussed at the altar. “You may not have pulled the trigger, but you came into my house with your buddy and my parents died.” I lean forward, glaring. “I don’t give a shit that you want to get close to God or whatever the hell you want to call this. You fucked up my life.”
He nods, his lips pressed together, hands on his knees. “I know,” he says, his voice thick with sorrow. “And I am sorry. Truly.”
Leaning against the wall, Frankie makes a dismissive noise in his throat. Bridges glances his way, then back to me.
“I can’t fix that night,” Bridges says. “God knows I would if I could, but I can’t. I told your girlfriend that, but it’s better that you’ve come so I can tell it to you straight to your face.”
Frankie stands up off the wall and uncrosses his arms. I’m leaning forward even farther, as if trying to hear. “What did—my girlfriend, what did she ask you?”
Bridges frowns, like he’s heard a wrong note in a familiar tune. No matter what else he is, he’s not stupid. “I thought you sent her here,” he says. “Asked her to talk to me.”
I look at Frankie, who shrugs as if to say, Go ahead, güero. “No,” I say to Bridges. “I didn’t.”
Bridges’s eyebrows knot together over that. Slowly, he says, “She told me that you were angry. That you wanted to know why I did … what I did. Did she tell you something different?”
“She … she actually didn’t tell me anything, really—”
“She lied to you,” Frankie says to Bridges. “Ethan didn’t know you were here. She came out here on her own.”
Thank you, Frankie. Confronted with a simple question, I didn’t know how to respond, especially regarding the fact that Marisa is now dead. “Marisa lied to both of us,” I say to Bridges, trying to swing the conversation back to her. “And I’m trying to figure out why. So please tell me what she asked you, what she said.”
Bridges says nothing for a few moments. “I want to tell you a story,” he says, then sighs and shakes his head. “I told her this, so I think I’d better tell it to you too.”
* * *
BRIDGES USED TO live in the Florida Keys, he tells me, working on swordfish boats, shrimp boats, shark boats, anywhere that paid well. He often got paid in cash. One night, after two weeks of swordfishing, he was walking to his rented room with his pay in his pocket when three men jumped him. Bridges threw one of the men into the harbor, but the other two clubbed him down, and one pulled a knife. That’s when another man stepped out from a nearby alley with a metal pipe in his hand, brained the one with the knife, and sent the other man running. The man with the pipe was thin and knotty, and when he smiled at Bridges, it looked like something a little kid would draw with crayons, all crooked and creepy when it was meant to be nice. But he had saved Bridges from being cut up and possibly stabbed to death, so Bridges took the man, whose name was Donny Wharton, to the nearest bar.
Turned out Donny was going to Miami and had a business proposition for Bridges, a little bit of risk for big money. Bridges was ready to leave fishing behind, and plus he felt obligated to Donny for saving him. So the next morning, in Donny’s car, a cherry-red Camaro convertible, they headed north.
* * *
“WHY ARE YOU telling me this?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to explain how I came into your life,” Bridges says. “How I met Donny, and what happened with Marisa.”
“Why should I give a shit about this Donny?”
Bridges looks grim. But then he sees something over my shoulder that gets his attention, and I turn around to look. A monk is approaching from the abbey, a tall sturdy man with a full, round face and a salt-and-pepper beard. He stops a few yards away from us. “Samuel,” he says.
Bridges stands. “Dom Michael,” he says. “My apologies. This is Ethan Faulkner and … his friend.” He says this last with a lame wave toward Frankie. “Ethan, this is Dom Michael, our abbot.”
Dom Michael appears to have little interest in either me or Frankie. His voice is both calm and penetrating, and almost manages to mask his irritation. “Samuel, I understand you have neglected to complete your duties in the bonsai shop this morning.”
Bridges shifts his feet. “That’s true, Dom Michael. I’m sorry.”
As much as I don’t mind seeing Bridges get in trouble, I need to keep talking to him, to learn what Marisa told him, and so I stand up from my bench. “It’s my fault, Dom Michael,” I say.
Dom Michael now considers me. “Mr. Faulkner, I understand that you asked one of our brothers to speak with Samuel and he directed you to contact me. Instead, you violated our sanctuary to find Samuel yourself. I have to ask you and your friend to leave.”
I glance at Frankie, who has crossed his arms over his chest again, then back at Dom Michael. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Ethan,” Bridges says in a low voice, “you ought to do what he says.”
“Don’t think so,” Frankie says. He steps up beside me. “My friend needs to talk to this man.”
Dom Michael frowns.
“This man,” he says, “is a member of our community. And our community has rules.”
“You know this guy just got out of prison, right?” Frankie says. “You want to know what he did to Ethan?”
The frown on Dom Michael’s face darkens, but I also notice that he shows no surprise or confusion at Frankie’s revelation. “I will not allow you or anyone else to violate this abbey,” Dom Michael says, his voice stern and absolute. “If you won’t leave, I’ll call the police.” He pulls out a cell phone.
Bridges looks alarmed. “Ethan … Dom Michael, please.”
“Worried about the cops, Samuel?” I say. I register the sneer in my voice, and I don’t like it, but I’m beyond polite manners at this point.
“Ethan,” Frankie says warningly.
“What?” I turn to look at Frankie, and then my heart drops and I curse myself. Bridges is an ex-con, but so is Frankie. Even as I’m thinking this, Frankie shakes his head. “Not me,” he says in a low voice only I can hear. “You. They’re going to want to talk to you about Marisa. You don’t need any cops pissed off at you right now.”
It takes a moment for the truth of Frankie’s words to get through to my head, as if static had been blocking the signal he was sending. He’s right. But I don’t have the answers I need.
“I’m sorry, Samuel,” Dom Michael is saying. “But these men must leave.”
“No,” I say, loudly, cutting off Dom Michael and getting everyone’s attention. “You don’t—none of you understand.” I turn to Dom Michael. “Both of my parents are dead,” I say. “They’re dead, and this man can tell me something about that, about why—”
“Ethan,” Bridges says, and his face is mottled with emotion. “I just wanted to get her away from him; I didn’t think that—”
Never Turn Back Page 21
