Forgiveness 4 You Read online

  Isaac, you’re the best PR guy I know, and it would mean the world to me if you’d come back. Also, I will do my very best to make you extremely filthy rich.

  Yours—

  MMM

  Chicago Chronicle News—ONLINE ARCHIVES

  April 26, 20--

  Losing His Religion

  The flock at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Parish on Talcott Avenue got an Easter Sunday surprise when their pastor, Father Gabriel McKenna, finished his sermon by announcing his departure from the Catholic Church.

  According to many in attendance, the priest took off his stole, kissed it, and laid it on the altar. Then he told the Easter audience of approximately 350 that he still had faith but he could no longer serve the church and was leaving the priesthood, effective immediately.

  McKenna, 40, was raised in Boston, the eldest son of an Irish Catholic family. He entered the priesthood in 19-- at the age of 24, and studied in Rome and Montreal before being called to St. John’s on Chicago’s South Side. When that church closed due to a decline in funding, McKenna assumed assistant pastor responsibilities at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. He has been the senior pastor since 20--, when Father Thomas Kirn retired.

  At a meeting of concerned parishioners last night, several people raised questions about Father McKenna’s possible involvement in the ongoing sex abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church. Lee Wybliski, police spokesperson for Chicago’s 16th District, said there is no evidence McKenna is being charged with abuse and, to his knowledge, no complainants have come forward to accuse the priest.

  However, records leaked to the Chicago Chronicle indicate Father Gabriel McKenna has a permanently sealed arrest file from 1992.

  The Archdiocese of Chicago declined to comment on this story but has issued a brief statement that read in part: “We consider Gabriel McKenna to be a child of God who is struggling to find his way, as we all are. This is a deeply personal and spiritual matter, and we pray for its resolution.”

  Father McKenna’s whereabouts are unknown at this time. The Chicago Chronicle has left messages at the rectory and on Father McKenna’s personal cell phone without response. Calls to his mother’s home in Boston have gone unanswered as well.

  “We’re certainly looking into McKenna, but so far it seems like what we’ve got is a guy having a midlife crisis who decided to change careers,” said Wybliski. “That’s not against any law.”

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Dear M—

  You know I can’t turn you down when you beg. And this idea is just random enough to intrigue me. So if we can agree on a decent day rate (I’m thinking in the neighborhood of $1,200 plus expenses) I’ll give you six weeks. You fly me back to Austin every two for a long weekend, Friday through Monday, BUSINESS CLASS. Last time I flew economy, I couldn’t straighten my legs for a day and a half.

  I’m not too worried about the article you sent. First, it’s in the newspaper, and no one reads the newspaper anymore except old people and impoverished intellectuals who have some stick up their ass about saving the “fourth estate.” Doesn’t matter. We’re not going after either group. What we want are people like you: 40-ish professionals, tons of disposable income, no time to waste on something like church (or therapy) even if you can fit in a manicure and facial once a week. When was the last time you read the Chicago Chronicle?

  Second, I checked and this story never went anywhere. It didn’t get picked up by any of the big news aggregators, there was no follow-up. Seems like what that cop said was right. This guy just decided to change careers. But I’ll follow up.

  I’ll also check in with Ted and Joy when I get there. He might need to be replaced. But I’m hoping she and I can bond over the trauma of growing up Catholic. I’ll tell her about catechism with Father Mears and how he said both masturbation and homosexuality were mortal sins. Can you imagine? I spent all my time jerking off while thinking about boys! Then I’d sit there every Wednesday night in a fiery panic. I swear, I thought God was showing me what it felt like to go to hell.

  So on that cheery note, I’ll sign off. Let me know if you can come up with the do-re-mi, and I’ll be on a plane headed north.

  Isaac

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Isaac—

  You are a brilliant extortionist. Do you know that?

  Attached is the itinerary for your flight. You leave March 8 @ 6 a.m. That’s the best I could do for business class. I’ll figure out a way to pay your day rate somehow. Our meeting with Red Oak Private Equity (aka The Star Chamber) is on Friday. That’ll give you a few days to get up to speed.

  FYI, I only get a facial once every two weeks. And I’ve had roughly 200 hours of therapy in the last few years, but during most of it I was so bored I thought about CRM or chocolate or made shopping lists in my head while they prattled on about the “work” we were doing together. Once I fell asleep (but it was that sleep that’s so light, you can nod at the person who’s talking to you so they think you’re still listening), which was the most expensive nap I ever took.

  The thing about Gabe is he’s interesting. He listens, and he actually helps.

  I’ll send a car to pick you up at the airport on Tuesday. Be ready to work the full day once you get here.

  MMM

  P.S. I’m sorry about the priest and what he said to you. That must have been awful.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Madeline—

  The early flight is fine. I’m usually done with my morning run by 5:30. Sobriety has had a wondrous effect—just wait till you meet the new me. Don’t worry about sending a car. I’ll rent something when I get into town.

  You might think about telling your personal story with Gabe when we meet with the Red Oak guys. It’s very effective and it answers our, “Would you tell a friend?” question right off the bat. Something to think about.

  Thanks. I’m over what Father Mears said. Mostly …

  See you Tuesday.

  Isaac

  V

  WE WERE AT MEN’S WEARHOUSE—MADELINE AND I—ON A Wednesday evening. And I was standing on a little platform in front of a tri-fold mirror while an older Indian gentleman knelt at my feet, crisping the cuffs of my pants.

  “Turn,” said Madeline. “Mmm. That looks nice. But you need a great tie, something that pops a little. Wait here.”

  She bounded off toward a table that displayed hundreds of colorful ties, and I offered my hand to the man whose nametag said Raj. He looked at it dubiously, but I said, “Please. I know how hard kneeling is on the knees.”

  He smiled, a brilliant flash of white. “Thank you, sir,” he said. And I hauled him up.

  “She has good taste, your wife,” Raj said. He pointed discreetly in the direction of Madeline, who was holding a tie with blues and greens and grays that looked like river streaks in the sun.

  “Oh, but she’s …” I started to say “not my wife” then stopped, because how would I explain who Madeline was and why she was dressing me? Once I began, I’d have to tell Raj that other people had been dressing me for work nearly all my adult life.

  This wasn’t true at St. John’s, where we’d run a soup kitchen and a van staffed with volunteers that went out in search of the homeless and brought them to shelter on cold winter nights. We were scrappy there, the sort of congregation where a priest wore the same faded black clothes daily, four interchangeable sets, and where I would buy a jug of Tide, throwing everything into the ancient washer in the basement and setting the dial to cold.

  But of course this is why the congregation disappeared. Over the two years I was there, it went from ghostly and sparse to nonexistent. The building was chilly in winter and beastly in summer: a shelter not much better than a stable, I often thought. We had no money for an organist or new hymnals. On good weeks people sang to sheets I’d photocopied and set in the pews.
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br />   “Sir?” Raj said, and I realized I’d faded into that space again, becoming like a ghost myself.

  “Yes, sorry. You’re right.” I turned to look at myself in the mirror. Dark, whiskered cheeks and somber eyes staring back. “She does have good taste.”

  Madeline was walking toward us, bright lengths of silk clutched in her hands like a bouquet. I suppose I might take credit for the way she was that night: voice full of laughter, hair the same dark mane as before, her face luminous and a good decade younger than when we first met. Some New Age gurus insist that forgiveness changes people at a cellular level. And whereas I would have sworn Madeline was a woman nearing fifty when she crashed into the bookstore, I saw now that she was closer to forty, probably a few years younger than I. In a different plane of existence, she very well might have been my wife.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Madeline stopped in the aisle between blazers and vests and cocked her head. She dumped the ties on a table that already held many hats then reached into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a remarkably small phone.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed, holding one hand up in a “what am I going to do?” gesture. Then she turned and walked in the opposite direction, hair bouncing on her shoulders in quick time.

  “She could be a while,” I said to Raj. And then, I don’t know what came over me, but I told my first little sideways lie in exactly eleven years. “My wife”—the word felt as strange as a rubber ball in my mouth—”is the CEO of a company. She’s the successful one. I’m a bookstore clerk.”

  Raj nodded. “This is how marriage works,” he said. “Each of you does what you are meant to do. But you come like this.” He brought his broad hands together and intertwined the fingers. “And your contributions mix to become one.”

  I was still up on the dais where men’s pants get hemmed. Raj stood three or four inches below me with his hands clasped, his warm gaze beaming up.

  “Are you married?” I asked. Immediately a cloud crossed the man’s face.

  “I was married for nineteen and a half wonderful years,” he said, swaying in a way I knew was an attempt to soothe something in himself. “My wife has been gone since ….” He shifted his gaze to the mirror and its endless reflections. “Last June.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes,” Raj nodded again, only very slowly this time. “It was a terrible thing.”

  Typically, as I have said, people seek me out. They confess without prompting, even against my wishes. It is only occasionally that I meet a Raj, dignified and sequestered inside his guilt and grief. He was presenting me with a tiny gap, like a loose corner on an envelope. I could not be certain he wanted me to tear it open. For a moment, we only looked at each other through the prism of the mirror.

  “How did she die?” I asked in the lowest, softest voice I own. And Raj shuddered a little, finally letting his hands separate and fall to his sides.

  “It was a very windy day, more so than usual.” I settled in—as much as I could while standing in pants that had been pinned for tailoring—because it was clear this man knew how to tell a story. And his lilting accent made every word sound like a jewel. “She was leaving her office building to get lunch, and a piece of the next building …” He shook his head, as if disapproving. “Not her own building, but the one to the right. It had been in some disrepair for a long time. And that day it began to break apart in the storm.” Stahrm? “She was struck. Here.” He pointed to his forehead and kept his finger there.

  “She never woke up. I was called to the hospital and Divya … that was my wife.” He glanced at me in the mirror, and I nodded. I understood that we could look at each other only in the glass. “Divya was in a bed, hooked up to many machines. There was something pumping air into her lungs. Her head was wrapped in white. I saw doctors all around her and I thought. I hoped …”

  I had been trained at the seminary to stand on the side of God during confession, rather than on the side of man. In layman’s terms, this meant I was mostly immune to the sort of empathy that hurts. But standing with Raj in the Men’s Wearhouse with darkness pressing in through the windows, I fell. There was too little distance between this man and myself; I could see what he saw. The hospital with its steel and linoleum. The beautiful woman lying wrapped in white sheets.

  “I went to a waiting room,” Raj continued, and inside my mind I walked with him down a long bright hall. “I kept thinking, they would not be in there with my Divya unless they were going to save her. Then two of those doctors came into the room where I sat and right there they told me my wife’s brain was dead. She was hooked up to those machines so they could breathe for her.”

  Just then a gentleman passed by us and tried the dressing room doors, shaking three in a row by their silver handles.

  “Here, sir, allow me.” Raj broke away from the sphere into which he and I had been locked. He took out his key and opened a little room, taking the man’s purchases gently from his hands and hanging them inside. I was relieved.

  By the time he’d returned to me, I was safely back inside my own mind.

  “I am afraid that I am bothering you, sir. Perhaps talking too much.”

  “Not at all,” I said, and meant it. That Raj should finish his story had become very important, for both of us. “Please.”

  “They told me there was no chance my wife would ever wake up. Then they said there was only truly a small chance. Two percent. But she would not be herself, ever. Because her brain waves were …” In the mirror Raj moved one hand, slow as a boat on gentle water, from left to right.

  “Flat,” I supplied.

  “Yes. The woman doctor—she talked most of the time—she said it would be terrible to keep Divya alive, because if she ever woke up she would have lost her, her … personhood.”

  I nearly smiled, certain that the young doctor had not used such an elegant word.

  “They needed you to make a decision.” Again, we were becoming enmeshed. I saw Raj’s story as clearly as if it had happened to me. “So they could use her organs.”

  “Yes.” Raj looked up, as if he were still, all these months later, asking for help finding the answer. “I was given two hours to tell them, or they would not be able to help five other people.” He enumerated what came next on his fingers. “Liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, eyes.”

  Madeline had finished her phone call and was walking back toward us. I beetled my eyes at her and put my hand up, discreetly. “No,” I mouthed silently the way she had earlier. I was shocked at my own authority. “Not now.”

  Luckily, Raj was still gazing up and did not see our exchange. Madeline stared at me with rapidly blinking eyes for a moment, then looked at the small princely man who stood before me and moved quietly away.

  “I could not …” he started then stopped. “There was no one to talk with me about this. Our children were twelve and fourteen. I have worked here”—he swept his hand in a wide circle—“for eight years, but there is no one. Divya and I, we did not often go to temple in this country. The children, they had sports on weekends. They wanted to be like Americans. The subway ride …”

  He broke off, and I waited. But after about thirty seconds, I couldn’t stand it. “What did you do?”

  His reflected image went to stone. Raj was perfectly still, almost robotic, as he answered. “I left,” he said. “I took the elevator down and walked out of the hospital into the very wind that had killed my wife. Because I knew that she was gone. But I could not say it. Instead I walked for so many miles, perhaps six or seven. I do not remember. It was raining and the sky got very dark.

  “Finally I could walk no more, and I found a coffee shop and went inside. I looked at my watch.” He demonstrated now, raising his left wrist. “Two hours had passed. Two hours and ten minutes. I had walked until it was too late, and I had stolen from all of those people, the ones who needed a new heart or eyes to see.”

  “Or,” I said softly, “those people received organs from other donors. Or lived a de
cent life while blind or on dialysis due to their own diseases, which you did not cause.”

  Raj bowed his head, as deeply as someone ducking a ball. “I was cowardly.” Gow-ard-lee, the word trickled from his lips like smoke. “By the time I got back to the hospital, all the doctors had dispersed. There was only Divya, in her bed with the machines, never waking up.”

  I saw her as he had, an empty shell of a wife.

  “Five days later, she developed an infection, and I told them to remove the ventilator. It was very quick. I held her hand while she died.” His left hand fluttered when he said this, as if it were remembering.

  I thought this was the end of the story, but Raj drew a breath and went on. “A month later, an attorney called me and said he would give me money if I would not sue his client from the building that broke apart. I told him I did not want his money, but he said not to be this way. My children, they would have no mother now, and it would help me to care for them. So I told him fine, I will sign. I went to his office the next morning, and he gave me a check. Two million dollars.” Raj sighed. “I put it in the bank.”

  “But you continue to work.”

  “This is what I do.” Raj straightened, touching the tape measure looped around his neck. “How do I explain to my children that their mother’s terrible accident has made our life easier? That I am a man now who can buy things because my wife is dead?”

  We stood, and I scrambled for what to say. It might have been the $300 pants I was wearing—the very pants Raj had been pinning at my waist just moments before—that threw off my thinking. I, like Jesus, was probably meant to minister in tattered clothes.