Watching Mr. Lawlor's watery blue eyes fixed on the numinous, Michael gave way to a spasm of rage; his jaw trembled. His fists contracted to claws. He had to remind himself that this man was not the shooter. As Michael watched, he completed the last decade of his rosary. Oh, the sorrowful mysteries! thought Michael. Lawlor crossed himself with the chaplet's crucifix, kissed it and fixed his rheumy gaze once more on unending bliss.
The celebrant priest, short, square Father Schlesinger, read scripture.
"I will go to the altar of God," he declared. And the pale, buzz-cut server, kneeling with the soles of his Reeboks toward the congregation, replied, "To God who giveth joy to my youth."
Beside Michael, Paul was praying. Decently, head down, following the order in his missal. The storms of impending adolescence had for the moment subsided. From the look of him, Michael thought, he was making contact. Casting the line up there, bending the reverent eye on vacancy, discoursing with the idle air. He saw the boy clasp his hands to his chest the way he had as a small child, and indeed, as far as Michael could tell, took hold of something and hugged it to his heart. Acknowledged and confessed it, rejoiced and partook. Outside, spring birds that should not have been present at that latitude warbled and trilled.
On his left sat Kristin; Michael saw that she too was watching Paul as he prayed. They could not take their eyes away. Their son was alive, the guest, like everyone, of random singularity. Random singularity, a mere machine, required no sacrifice. Yet around them secrets ascended with the incense and song. The farmers and clerks and cops, the professors, the young women on their own, all of them fought to merge their desperate inner lives with the peace that, it was written, passed understanding.
Finally Michael stood at the point of trembling, burning with shame and self-despising rage. The church that taught humiliation as a blessing was providing him all the humiliation he could bear. He regretted ever having led his son into its fragrant candle lighted rooms. He thought of Kristin in the hospital, leaning on the God she had conceived, imploring the mercy of dreams. He wanted to be out of there. Once, his mind wandered from a fit of anger and he imagined that there was a tiny old lady beside him, a doll-like creature with a death's-head smile. Marinette. She smelled of sachet. One of those waking dreams in the empty space he had come to church to contemplate.
Driving back, the best he could do by way of Sunday meditation was the picture of Lara among coral arches, her long body gliding past luminous tendrils or against the silky surface.
They went home to the ancient hum of after church. Pancakes for the young communicant. Ice water and the Knicks-Heat game for himself. Kristin took off her church clothes and put on a pair of tight jeans that caught his attention. He stood at the front window ignoring the basketball game, watching her rake winterkills in the yard. Those warm curves at the hip and the choice ones at the seat. The center seam taut, deep in. It was strange, ever since Lara had come into his life he had been in a state of sexual tension that focused itself equally on the two women. He was in different ways besotted with both of them. The high-pitched ache of desire was always one sensation away.
When she came in he thought she must know the way he had been watching her. All she said was, "What was the date of that dive charter?"
"Twenty-fourth. Easter."
"I guess it'll be nice there."
"Want to come?" He wondered if he had not hesitated too long on the false question.
"Shall I?"
"Sure," he said, "if you want."
"Yeah?"
So he wondered: What are we playing here?
"I just know," she told him, "you'll have a better time without me."
It was not quite what he had wanted to hear.
10
IN SAN JUAN, Lara played number 18 with five-dollar chips, covering it from every possible angle: corners, lines, neighboring digits, plus red, middle twelve and even. After four spins of the wheel it connected. She followed that by betting thirty-six covered and won.
The jolly croupier congratulated them. Michael saw her wink and slide him a fifty-dollar chip.
"Come on," she said. "I'm buying."
The service to St. Trinity had been suspended before they landed in Puerto Rico. There were difficulties subsequent to the election there, and the army had divided against itself. The airline treated them to a night at an Isla Verde hotel. From their room sixteen floors above the beach, they could hear the breakers but Lara was eager to hit the tables.
Nice-looking Puerto Rican teenagers in evening dress rushed breathlessly through the corridors, outrunning their families, who were talking over each other in a doubling of languages. After Lara's win, they found a bar that overlooked the rocks at the edge of the beach. It had tables set in a grotto surrounded by bird of paradise plants and traveler's palms. The place seemed agreeably cheerful, as though all intrigues were for fun and jungles were places for sipping cool drinks under the tropical moon. There was one of those as well, almost full, silvering the reef. The lights of San Juan made it look like a city without a care.
She raised a glass. "The founder of the feast, his memory."
Michael drank carefully.
"You're not to think I'm callous, Michael. Or that I didn't love my brother. I've told you I mourned him."
"I wasn't sure you meant John-Paul. I thought it might be some gnome in Washington."
She only looked at him, not answering. He took a lighted candle from another table so that they might have more light.
She was on the phone in English, French, Creole, getting tickets out of San Juan; she did it all with the fortunate smile that won at roulette. "Let's go back to our room," she said, "where I can really get on the phone."
When she was on the bed, between desperate phone calls, he lay down beside her. "Is there something more you should tell me about our trip?"
"Like what?" she asked him. After a while she said, "Where to begin?"
"Maybe begin where the papers leave off," he suggested. He had been following the story, though she never spoke of it. His strategy had been not to mention anything out of St. Trinity until she did. The stories in the Miami Herald that morning described burning roadblocks and lawlessness. He put his glass down and stared at the ocean.
"Don't look so worried, Michael. Everything will be with us. I do love you, you know. That's why I asked you to come."
"I came because I wanted to be with you, Lara. I could go back tonight if I wanted to." In fact he wanted to share a taste of danger with her. To descend as far, to take as much of her as he could survive, and risk even more.
"Are you mine in the ranks of death?" she asked, laughing.
She wrapped her leg around and under his. He moved close and put his hand against her, against the wet silk and strands of hair.
"You see," she said, "it isn't a question of life and death. I don't believe that. I'm not really asking for protection. Just the company of someone I've come to care for."
Her tone seemed to have changed ever so slightly since he had first questioned her.
"Whatever you need," he said, "whatever I can give you…"
"I've told you we're selling the hotel, right?"
"I assume the hotel was funded in some way," Michael said. "To political purpose."
"Yes, and now I'm trying to collect my very small share. After the service, after our goodbyes sort of, we're dividing who gets what. I can take care of all that. I just didn't want to be on the island completely alone."