“You’re thinking of God? Would you like to pray?”
“Hell, no.”
He tried to laugh and was overcome with a coughing fit, spitting blood into tissues, and the chest spasms kept on coming.
A buzzer dangled from the side rail. I thumbed it hard.
A nurse came in, took a look at George, and left. She returned a minute later and gave him a shot.
“You need anything else?” she asked him.
“What else have you got?”
“I’ll check in on you before I go off duty.”
He waved her off as if he were flicking away a fly.
But he did settle down. I sat beside him, watching blue skies and fluffy clouds through his windows, and tried to call up a good memory of me and G.S.F. watching a movie, or a ballgame, or driving somewhere or dancing to something. I came up with no good memories. But I did remember the harsh criticism, rejection, and unapologetic neglect.
“Dad,” I said. “You wanted to see me?”
“I did?”
“Didn’t you? Kyle said you asked for me.”
“Oh. I don’t remember. I was just thinking of something Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote. ‘Death should take me while I am in the mood.’ And I am in the mood, Brigid. My will is out of date, and I fired my lawyer. But stop off at the house. Take the books and pictures.”
“Okay. Thanks. Feel better.”
He fell asleep then. It was the drugs, not death. I stood looking at him, thinking of him, my mother, our small house on Jackson Street, his inability to forgive my mother for having me or forgive me for being born. And now he couldn’t even say I’m sorry when he was close to death.
I should forgive him, right? But I didn’t feel it. At all.
I waved to the nurse on my way out the door.
Chapter 89
JAMES HAD asked me to go with him up the steep and narrow staircase to watch the sunrise from the bell tower. The air was chilly, but we sat close together on a bench built inside the railing as daybreak lit the distant hills. I liked this little seat with a view so much. Like the rocky outcropping in the woods behind us, where I had opened my heart to James last year, I felt close to God here. I also felt part of this church, this village, and very connected to James.
We were holding hands. James looked deep in thought. I asked him what he was thinking, and I was prepared for him to say that he was rehearsing his homily, or that the tower needed painting, or that he missed Harold Noah, a parishioner who had moved away.
He squeezed my hand and said, “I didn’t think I was ever going to be this happy.”
“I know. I feel that way, too.”
But the look on his face actually worried me. He was happy. Okay. Was there a but?
I flashed on the two of us making love last night on the sofa in front of the fire. I hadn’t seen anything but love and ecstasy on his face. Had something changed after he doused the flames? Had he finally hit a wall of guilt? James was still a Catholic priest who was living with a woman and having unabashed unmarried sex inside a church. Priests had been excommunicated for less.
James hadn’t spoken since I’d boarded this train of runaway thoughts. He sat still, looking past the big bronze bell, out to the timeless silhouette of the mountains.
“James? Is something wrong?”
“I never looked for anything like this,” he said. “I thought I would get my happiness from serving God. From helping people. Maybe from a big plate of fried chicken and potatoes every now and then, and sometimes happiness is a good bed.”
“Sure,” I said. “Nothing wrong with that.”
But?
“I’m so lucky, Brigid. That, despite all the bad stuff I was worried about the morning I met you in St. Paul’s, you spoke to me. And that I recognized you for the good woman you are. I’m lucky. Or God really does love me.”
“Both, maybe?”
“Both. Definitely.”
But?
“I was thinking that we have an opportunity,” said James. “Well, we have many opportunities, but one in particular.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
My mind raced ahead. Opportunity to open yet another JMJ church? Go down separate roads? Take-or, in his case, renew-vows of celibacy? What?
“I want to build a life with you in God’s grace. I love you, and I want to marry you, Brigid. I want to be your husband.”
Tears were in his eyes.
Tears sprung into mine, too.
“Is it okay?” I asked him.
“Okay to marry? It’s okay with me,” James said. “Is it okay with you?”
I was laughing and crying at the same time.
“It’s okay with me,” I said.
“Thank you, God,” James muttered, grabbing me into a hug. “You scared me for a minute, Brigid.”
“I scared you? That’s hilarious.”
“Hang on,” he said. He released me, dug in the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a little black box. He opened it, and there was a ring winking up at me, with a cornflower-blue center stone and a diamond on each side.
“I bought it in Springfield,” he said. “I liked the sapphire, but if you don’t like it, we can return it.”
“Are you kidding? I love it.”
He told me to stick out my ring finger, and he wiggled the ring onto it. He took both my hands in his and said, “Brigid. Will you marry me?”
I said, “Yes. I will.”
I collapsed into his arms, both of us laughing, hugging, rocking, nearly toppling off the narrow bench that was never meant for activity like this.
When we were somewhat composed, James took me over to the ropes, placed my hands around them and his hands over mine.
“Thank you, God,” we said together, and together, we rang the bell. Our happiness could be heard all over the town.
“Amen.”
Chapter 90
IT WAS my wedding day.
I was in the tiny second bedroom in the rectory with four new friends, my bridesmaids from JMJ, who were buttoning me into my ecru satin-and-lace vintage wedding dress and taking pictures. There was hardly room enough for the five of us to stand, so getting me ready for the big day was quite a riot.
I hoped I was ready.
Since our bell ringing seven months ago on that crisp February morning, James and I had planned a church wedding that would be true to us and would also approximate Catholic doctrine, which filled a book with rigid rules and rites that couldn’t be personalized or amended.
We also took turns being scared.
I pictured my dear Karl, who had died three years ago. Ours was the only marriage I ever expected to have.
After Karl’s and Tre’s deaths, I was so devastated that even if God Himself had shown me that I would marry again, I would have been appalled.
James had talked about his little freak-outs, too. He had taken vows of celibacy. He had never planned to marry, and the intimate architecture of a married life wasn’t in his mind. As soon as he married me, he would be laicized, meaning he’d lose his clerical rights and authority.
He was giving up a lot to be with me.
After weeks of planning and replanning, we threw the book away. Our love was deep and tested, and we had broken so many rules that crossing the line into a godly but off-road marriage ceremony was just our speed.
Everyone in Millbrook was invited to the wedding. James spoke to the Millbrook Independent, the town’s online newspaper, saying, “Come to our wedding if you can hear the bells-or think you can.”
Now, from upstairs in the rectory, I could hear organ music filling the stairwell. Soon I would be walking toward the altar and my new husband. I was humbled, excited, and scared half to death. I was having physical manifestations of all of that-sweating and light-headedness-and then I was falling.