Getting rid of the last one had been difficult.
He himself might be reassigned, or he might suddenly have a priest here with more authority and seniority to whom he must answer. He might get a swamper for a housemate — a sick priest in the slump of a long depression. Or a whole sack of nuns might be assigned to the convent suddenly, where now it was run by an oblate group of laypersons and used as a retreat and conference center.
Or, sometimes, nothing happened. He could always hope. He looked up at the cracked plaster ceiling of his office. There was a pale-blue line on the ceiling, scraped of carpenter’s chalk. That color. It was as if she had opened a blue door in his mind.
Father Travis pulled on his coat and walked into the brilliant, dry snow. It was the time of hallowed peace. He loved Christmas and Midnight Mass. The glow of candles spiritualized the features of people who drove him nuts. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, he would say in his sermon. And then there was that blue door. There was no shame in it, no sense that he was violating his or Landreaux’s or her vows or anything else. He could be happy in his thoughts, couldn’t he? In spite of Matthew? Not his favorite gospel. White wings rustled. He glanced around, filled with an odd joy. Brightness falls from the air.
NOLA MADE THEIR Christmas lavish, but it didn’t help. The lead sinker in her chest was leaking molten lead into her veins, slowly stopping her circulation. Her feet and hands were bone cold. She shivered in layers of fleece, sat next to the woodstove, and drank hot tea all day. Getting out of bed, out of a chair, changing her position, was like moving furniture. She could loosen her limbs only by holding LaRose in her lap every afternoon until he slept. He napped hard and sweetness flowed into Nola. She didn’t move except to rock him back to sleep if he stirred. When he woke, she was reluctant to let him go. Then she pushed herself along and pretended around the children that she was really there instead of in the ground. She could not pretend so well with Peter, but he was obsessed the week after Christmas with what would happen on New Year’s Eve. He’d planned it all out. When the night came, he put his plan into action.
December 31, 1999. Peter stuffed enough wood into the living room bins to keep the stove going all night — he was certain that their computer-regulated electric power would fail. He filled jugs for drinking water, and pails for flushing the toilets, then turned off the water just in case the pipes froze. He made beds downstairs in the living room, where the woodstove would give off a comfortable heat. He’d bought high-loft sub-zero sleeping bags, thinking that they might have to use them all winter. In hope, he’d bought a double bag for himself and Nola. And he’d bought thick foam pads. He spread all of this attractive bedding out on the floor, and the children brought down their pillows. LaRose cradled his action creature. There was food, the battery-powered radio, the computer to watch go crazy at midnight, and card games. Nola made popcorn and she laughed at everything LaRose did. She seemed delighted, and she was, because if the world did end this would all be over. She would not have to keep pretending to get better. Any chaos that happened wouldn’t be her fault. Peter and Maggie played Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Hearts, and in a hushed, excited voice, Nola read book after book to LaRose.
Eventually, the children wormed into their puffy silken sleeping bags and fell asleep. Peter lighted candles, brought out a bottle of sparkling wine, built up the fire. He poured the amber froth slowly down the side of Nola’s champagne flute, then his own. They raised their glasses in silence. Nola pushed her hair, the slack blond curls, off her face. As they drank they looked into each other’s eyes and saw the strangers who now inhabited the bodies that had together made their son.
I wonder who you are now, Nola said.
It’s just me, said Peter, the same old me.
No it’s not. We’ll never be the same.
All right. Peter drank deeply. We’ll never be the same. That doesn’t mean we change, you know, how we are with each other. I still love you.
His words hung out there in the stillness.
I still love you, too, she said at last, forcing conviction into her voice, sipping at her wine, then suddenly draining it. More! Nola held out her glass, laughing. After all, what does it matter if we’re the same or not? It’s the end of the world! Let’s toast the end of the world.
Her face was bright and hot. She flashed her pretty, good-luck, crookedy smile. Her teeth were small and pearly. He’d always said her smile blasted happiness into a room — and it was true that when she got excited she was infectious, as cool people are when they suddenly let go. They carry others by the force of surprise. Peter filled her glass and then motioned up the stairs. She rose exalted from the sleeping bag, tousled, barefooted. They climbed the stairs together, and in their bedroom locked the door. They made love with an urgency sweet at first. But as they twined deeper they jolted down into a mean-walled, sour place.
She seemed to be trying to choke him. Her thumbs were at the base of his throat, pressing. He swiped away her arms but her hands sneaked back as claws and clenched his ass. That hurt, but so what because she slammed him into her and he drove himself until he stopped thinking. She slid out from under his chest. He let her get on top of him but then remembered — she looked frail but she could slap like a motherfucker. She knocked tears into his eyes. He caught her arms at the wrist, turned her over, forced her to kneel. When he started again, she said, Wait, you’re hurting me.
He let her go and she rolled out a foot, heel first. Tried to end things with a dirty kick, but missed. The next day there’d be a hot bruise on his thigh. Maybe he was too rough after that, except the whole time as she fought him she was coming, and coming, furiously mute, then weeping as he slowed down and finally left her.
I shouldn’t have done that, Peter whispered after a while. Are you okay? he asked when she didn’t answer. The black silence fizzed in the room. Aw, he said, okay, I’m sorry it got like that but not sorry because you were there, too, I felt it. I love you so much and maybe it could happen, we could have another baby, Nola, we haven’t talked about that and it wouldn’t replace Dusty and it wouldn’t replace LaRose and I love him too, it wouldn’t change what happened but a baby might make you feel, something, something that might help, even happy.
I’m cold, said Nola. I hate your guts.
He said nothing. After a while she dropped her head on his chest and soon her breath came, slow and even. He left her upstairs once she fell asleep. Downstairs, he pulled the covers tenderly up the throats of the sleeping children. Something made him look up. The rusty dog was on the porch watching through the sliding glass doors. To let the dog in was so simple — on this night of nights. He opened the door. The dog entered, quivering with attention. His rosy upright ears drooped slightly, but strained to undertake the meaning of his admittance.
You. . said Peter. He couldn’t talk to this dog like a regular dog.
You aren’t a regular dog, are you. You must be hungry. We had chicken, but no bones for you.
He looked down at the dog, who sat expectantly, as if he were trained.
The bones splinter, said Peter to the dog, who cocked its head, an alarming gesture of understanding.
You could choke, said Peter.
The dog’s brown eyes were riveted on Peter’s hands as he pulled meat from the chicken carcass. When Peter put down the pan of scraps, the dog lunged forward moaning with joy and bolted the food in three heavy gulps. After, the dog went straight to the children. He stood over Maggie, then LaRose, utterly still, except that his nose worked, obtaining what would seem to us a supernatural knowledge of all the children had done, eaten, touched, in past weeks. Satisfied, tail beating the air, the dog toured restlessly all around the room and sniffed every object as though to memorize its essence. When he was finished with his inventory, the dog trod out a bed for himself at the children’s feet. It was made of all kinds of other dogs — a tawny head, delicate paws, a roan coat, dark patches where eyebrows would be on a person. Peter scratched its back. The dog beamed, then made a sound that conveyed great pleasure, an unusual clucking sound, and fell asleep, stinking gently in the luscious warmth. Peter adjusted the children’s sleeping bags again and turned away. Then, like a hungry man who has waited for his meal, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat down before the computer. It was almost midnight. He sat through midnight. For hours afterward he kept meandering about in cyberspace. A few digital clocks in France read 1900. Circuits in a few places faltered and flickered. There was no panic. At some point, he put his head down and must have passed out. Dawn was sad, calm, and brimming with debt.