“Naw. I figure you ain’t going nowhere. Even if you made it to the door, I’d be back by the time you could get outside. And outside, there isn’t no place to hide.” There was a scraping sound. Millie stiffened, but it was only him rising from whatever crate he had been perched on. “I’ll be back.”
She was alone in the darkness again.
Millers Kill was closing down for the night. Russ walked with Clare along Main Street, hearing the door chimes jingling as shopkeepers locked up, looking into store windows where display lights simmered like fires banked to last out the night. This being one of the last dry towns in New York, there were no bars or pubs springing to life, no restaurants gearing up for an influx of customers. Except for gamers hanging out at All Techtronik or dads dashing into MacPherson’s Video for the latest movies-action for him, chick flick for her, Disney for the kids-the streets emptied out. If you lived in Millers Kill, you went elsewhere on a Saturday night. To the Dew Drop Inn across the Cossayuharie line, or to the second-run cinema in Fort Henry, four screens, no waiting. If you wanted Dolby Sensurround and well-sprung seats, it was another half hour to the Aviation Mall in Glens Falls. If you wanted to drink in a place where the bartender didn’t look at you funny for ordering a martini, well, Saratoga was forty minutes and a whole cultural time zone away.
“Are you having second thoughts?”
Clare’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “About what?”
She jammed her hands into her bomber jacket pockets and stared straight ahead. “Walking with me. In public.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding?” He looked at her more closely. Under a sodium streetlight, she was burnished orange, striped by black shadows from a leafless maple arcing over them. Like a kid wearing tiger face paint for Halloween. “No,” he said more seriously. “I don’t worry about stuff like that.” He hesitated. “Do you? Did-has anyone said anything to you?” By anyone, he meant Hugh Parteger. He was trying, he really was, not to be unreasonably jealous, especially because he recognized that if he were a better friend to Clare, he’d be throwing her toward the rich, single guy who was obviously nuts for her, instead of snarling like a dog in the manger.
She glanced behind her. “I had a visit from the diocesan deacon this afternoon. Before you, uh, arrived.”
“I hope you didn’t entertain him in your bathrobe, too.”
She glared at him, then blew at a strand of hair that had worked its way free of her usual knot. “It turns out the bishop sent Father Aberforth to-”
“Wait a sec. Who’s Father Aberforth?”
“The diocesan deacon.”
“Shouldn’t he be Deacon Aberforth?”
She glanced up at him sideways, the ghost of a smile in her eyes. “Somebody hasn’t been reading The History and Customs of the Episcopal Church in America. Career deacons are, in fact, properly designated ‘Father.’ Unless, of course, they’re women, in which case I’m sure Aberforth refers to them as ‘Ms.’ ” She snorted. “Anyway, he was there to call me out on a serious matter. One that he attributed to my inexperience and to not understanding how people will talk in a small town. A matter he wanted to keep quiet so as not to give any other priests bad ideas.”
His stomach sank.
“Us?” “Ha! Exactly what I thought. I was sure someone had come tattling to the bishop about seeing the two of us together.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” he said automatically.
“Oh, Russ.” She looked up at him ruefully. “Tell me you’d have no qualms describing our relationship to your wife. And make me believe it.”
He kept his mouth shut.
“Anyway, it turned out he and the bishop are hot under the collar about Emil Dvorak’s and Paul Foubert’s union ceremony. I was supposed to apologize and repent, and I wouldn’t-”
“What a surprise,” he said under his breath.
“-so Father Aberforth is going to talk to the bishop and let me know what shape my discipline will take.”
“Discipline? This isn’t just them getting cranky?”
She shook her head, sending another strand of hair floating loose.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I could be removed. Have to try to find a position in another diocese with a disrecommendation from my bishop.”
“Another diocese. In New York?” Leave? Leave? How could you leave?
“Maybe. I’d probably have better luck in one of the more liberal dioceses, like Maine or New Hampshire.”
Okay. New Hampshire wasn’t that far away. Of course, coming up with an excuse to visit there would be a challenge. And traveling to see Clare would be tantamount to acknowledging, to himself at least, that they were having an affair. Whether or not they were sleeping together. He tasted the idea: him and Clare, together, somewhere no one knew his name or marital status. How long would his self-control and fidelity to his vows, both of which he took great pride in, last under those circumstances?
About forty minutes, was his guess.
She looked up at him, her face grim, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing. “It’s not getting censured that upsets me. It’s the fact that the whole time I thought Father Aberforth was talking about us, I was frantically thinking of ways to discredit what he might have heard.”
“That’s natural. Your bishop can’t get on you for your thoughts, Clare. Only for your actions.”
“Don’t you see? I wasn’t thinking about what was true, or what was right, or about being honest in my relationship with my church. I was thinking about covering my ass. Period.”
They had come to the intersection of Main and Radcliff. A wind off the mountains skirled across the open streets, rustling dried leaves and drawing a shiver from Clare. At least, he hoped it was the wind making her cold. They turned left toward the hospital. He considered, and rejected, several variations on Buck up! It’s not so bad! Finally he settled on “What can I do to help?”
Her lips curved. “You make me think of that Star Trek episode. Where Captain Kirk tells his love interest ‘Can I help’ is the most beautiful phrase in the universe.”
“Yeah, and then she gets run over by a truck. Let’s not go there.”
She looked away from him. “I’m wondering if I ought to talk with someone. About”-she waved a hand, indicating him, her, the town, everything- “the situation.” She glanced up at him again, and in the streetlight he could see her anxiety. “I wouldn’t have to name you.”
He was embarrassed. That had been his first thought, that he would be exposed. “To Father Aberforth?”
“Probably not. He hasn’t struck me as the sympathetic sort so far.”
He gagged the part of him that was yelling, Tell? Are you crazy? This was about her, not about him. “Is that what you want?” he asked carefully. “Sympathy?”
Her shoulder sagged. “I don’t know what I want. Absolution, I guess. For someone to tell me that I can sustain this tightrope act with you without hopelessly compromising my standards. For someone to confirm that what I feel for you isn’t wrong, that it’s a gift from God.”
“Some gift.” They rounded the corner and saw the Washington County Hospital sign glowing white and blue in the darkness. “ ‘Here, here’s your soul mate, the person who completes you. Whoops, did I mention you can’t actually be together? Have a nice day.’ ”
He glanced down at her. She was looking ahead, a complicated smile on her face. “That’s the nature of His gifts. He wants to see what you do with them.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick to stuff from stores that take a return with receipt.” They had reached the walkway to the admissions lobby. Smokers clustered along the wall, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. From the parking lot, visitors drifted up in twos and threes toward the doors. A nurse and a man in a wheelchair waited for a car making its way along the circular drive.