The Hamavdil flame so fat, like a rush, swept across the darkness of the room, twinkling on Rabbi Fromm’s glasses, shining over the gold in Marta’s beautifully tangly hair, over the length of Moshe’s serious face.
“Shavua tov!” Marta was the first to embrace and kiss Laurel. Every Shabbos she was with the Fromms there was this giddy embracing, this rejoicing, this drinking. Pouring one more glass. One more dinner. Marta came around to Laurel.
“Laurel,” she said, warmly, “I have to talk to you.”
“I HAVE to,” The have to was always so expansive like she would absolutely die if she didn’t have the thrill of talking to Laurel. Marta Fromm was always this way.
She drew Laurel to the window seat of the house off California Street.
“You and Moshe aren’t talking,” she said.
“We talk.”
“Yes,” Marta allowed. “But not like you always do.”
“Well, things have been stressed.”
“Laurel,” Marta said in the closest thing to sternness that was ever in her voice, “I know Moshe has a ring. I know you saw the ring.”
“He told you?”
“He didn’t have to.”
Marta shrugged.
“When I met Douglas he was very Orthodox,” Marta explained. “My family was Reform. Did you know my grandmother was Catholic? My mother got religion later on. I had to do so much. I had to be re-converted by a Beis Din and everything to marry Doug. I went through hoops for him because I loved him.”
Laurel looked at Marta, unable to believe what she was hearing. Was she saying, this sweet woman, that Laurel didn’t love Moshe enough?
“The Fromms,” Marta continued, “did not love me. And I learned something.”
Laurel waited for the woman who was holding her hand so gently, to continue.
“I didn’t love me, either. I didn’t know me.
“Laurel, you are such a strong woman.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Like your whole family. You all are so strong. You all know who you are. It’s the most important thing to you, being you. I never had that.
“My husband so looked forward to performing your wedding. I know he did. And Moshe wanted that good Orthodox wedding. I think I did too. And the grandchildren? We’re going to want Jewish grandchildren. We can’t help that. But…
“A woman… she starts a child. She starts on a son, helping to make him a man. But she can only do so much. And if she is good then she hopes for a good girl to come along one day and do the rest. Without you there is no Moshe. I don’t know if he knows that, but I do. And I don’t care if you’re Reform or Conservative of Frum or Catholic or…. Whatever. You are beshert. You two belong together. If you don’t marry my son, if you don’t become my daughter, I will be a very, very, sad rebbitzen.”
That afternoon Fenn met Dan in his office, and they were leaving for lunch when the priest nearly bumped into a little girl standing at the door.
“Hello Darla,” Dan said.
He squatted down to eye level. “Is there something you had to ask?”
“It’s complicated,” the girl said.
“Well, don’t you have to be in class? Because I was about to take my friend to lunch.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fenn said, “I can wait.”
Dan looked up at Fenn. Somehow the look he was giving him was the same look he gave Darla. Love, approval, pleasure.
“Very well. Darla, what is it you wanted to ask?”
“Father Dan, how does Communion work?”
“Well, you know what Communion is,” Dan said, without a thought.
“It’s Jesus.”
“That’s right,” Dan told her.
“But it’s bread. So how is the bread Jesus?”
“Come here,” Dan held out his hand.
The little girl took it, and Dan led her across his office and sat her down in the chair.
“When your mom cooks you dinner, what does that mean? It means she loves you, and that food is her love. Well, Jesus is the love of God. And when you go to Communion that’s what he’s giving you. Does that makes sense?”
Darla thought of this, and then she said, “A little. But… it’s still a little confusing.”
“Big things are confusing. Even little things. We don’t get everything. We don’t have to. Your whole life there will be things you don’t get all the way. But you can understand a little bit. Do you understand a little bit of what I’m saying?”
“That Jesus is God’s love. That God loves us.”
“Right,” Dan smiled. “That’s all you ever have to get,” Dan told her. “All you ever have to know is that God loves you so much.”
Darla thought on this, and then Dan said, “Do you have any other questions?”
“Not for now.”
“Then it is time for some little girls to go off to class, and I will send a note to… Mrs. Naper?”
Darla nodded.
Dan scribbled a quick note and said, “Give this to Mrs. Naper. Don’t dawdle, and tell her I said you can come back anytime you have a question.”
The little girl threw her arms around Dan’s legs and then ran out of his office.
“Let me grab my jacket, and then we’ll go.” Dan said, looking after Darla.
But by the time Dan had grabbed his black coat and the black scarf that made his sandy hair so bright, Brendan Miller was running into his office.
“Father Dan! Father Dan! Do you have a—?”
The ten year old boy saw Fenn and said, “Oh, I can come back.”
“No,” Fenn said. “Brendan, I can come back.”
“Fenn—” Dan began.
Fenn shook his head.
“Brendan, you seem like a man who has pressing business, and Father Daniel is just the person I think you need to see. I will be out in the hall.”
“Thank you, Fenn,” the boy said, and then continued to speak to the priest.
“My mother wants to get married again.”
“Alright?”
“She’s not sure if it’s a sin though.”
“Well now, Brendan, that’s really a matter for your mother to discuss.”
“She wouldn’t do that.” The boy sat in a chair. “And so nothing’s ever going to happen.
“Before you ask,” Brendan continued, “my new stepfather is actually my father’s half brother. And my father’s been gone a long time.”
“Oh.”
“So I would go from being Brendan Miller to Brendan Miller.”
“Your mother’s marrying your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Does she love him?”
“Yes.”
“And you do too?”
“He’s the only Dad I know, really.”
“Tell your mother to come to me,” Dan said. “Tell her it is definitely not a sin.”
When Brendan was gone, Dan came out to Fenn.
“Is it really definitely not a sin?” Fenn asked him as they walked down the hall.
Dan shrugged. “It’s not a sin to me.
When they were outside, Dan said, “Hey, you wanna go off for the weekend?”
“Where?”
“The answer is supposed to be yes,” Dan told him. “You’re supposed to say, wherever you take me is fine.”
“Well, then wherever you take me is fine.”
“Great.” Dan opened the car door for Fenn, and then went to the other side.
When Dan had fastened his seat belt, Fenn said, “Now where are we going?”
“It’s a cabin my family has. In Michigan.”
At the look on Fenn’s face, Dan said, “Relax, already. There’s electric.”
“And heat?”
“You think I don’t know you by now? And heat.”
“Is there a phone? Are you going to leave your number so people can reach you?’
“That’s not necessary,” Dan said as they pulled out of the parking lot. “It’s a weekend. And there’s Father Koffman.”
“But you always leave a number so people can reach you.”
Dan thought about that for a moment, and then he said, “Do you mind that?”
“I’m not needy, Daniel. I don’t mind you getting calls at three in the morning or having to listen to children’s questions all day. That’s who you are. That’s why I love you.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever told me that before.”
“No?” Fenn said. “Well,” he shrugged, “I should have.”
Fenn Houghton was a water person in the wade-on-the-shore-of-Lake Michigan sense of being a water person. He was not a throw off your shirt and splash around like an otter water person—like Dan—and so he was glad for Dan when a family showed up on the second day. They were from the church Dan had grown up in, and when the children came out they swung on his arms and dunked him in water. They buried him up to his neck in the sand, though it was damn near autumn. The mother sympathized with Fenn. They sat on the edge of the beach smoking cigarettes together.
“I remember you,” she said. “From years ago. When Danny was in college.”
“Yes, I came up here a few times.”
“Frankly,” she said, exhaling, “I wondered why you were friends with him. I have to tell you, Dan was always a nice boy. But he used to be uptight as fuck.”
Fenn let out a long laugh, and the woman said, “I’m glad you see what I mean. But look at him now! You’ve loosened him the hell up.”
The children had jumped on Dan with such ferocity, Fenn was afraid for him as he went plunging into the water and then came up, spluttering.
“I don’t like it when they say things about priests,” the woman said. “I grant you some of it—a lot of it—is true. And a few years ago I heard, though they covered it up, about these boys who had been messed over by a priest up here, and I wondered how that could happen, why a woman wouldn’t be careful with her kids hanging out with these men. I have a theory now.”
“Alright?” Fenn said, interested in learning.
She pointed a finger at Dan Malloy, as he came up out of the water, dripping, his dark, sandy hair plastered to his head.
“Dan was a very dull boy. Now he loves being a child. You need a man who can be a child. Maybe that’s what some priests are like. I don’t know. And of course you need a man who knows he’s a man. Now that’s the rare thing.”
When the family had left, Dan came into the cabin dripping and laughing.
“What if I hug you right now?”
“And soak me?”
Dan grinned and threw his hands on Fenn’s shoulders.
“You’re such a kid!” Fenn said.
Dan tilted his head and gave him a look.
“Not totally a kid.” His eyes went to the bed. “I like grown up things too.”
Fenn’s shoulders were very wet, and Dan stood there in his trunks, smelling like lake water, his semi-wet hair sticking up.
“Daniel, what happens in the long run? I can’t see being your… mistress is a good word.”
“You’re not my mistress!” Dan backed away. He shook water out of his hair like a dog and it sprayed Fenn.
“But we are each others’ very private lives, and having us as an open life would end your vocation.”
Dan dropped his arms and began drying his hair with the red towel that hung on the bathroom door. He took off his trunks and dried his beautiful body, saying nothing for a moment, and then he wrapped the towel around his waist.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Dan said.
“Yes, I do.”
“There are so many ways to serve God,” Dan insisted. “There are so many different ways to love people. What in the world makes you think that… if things came to it, that I couldn’t leave the Church for you?”
Then Dan came forward and said, “Do you want me to? Do you want me to leave right now? Leave? Would that prove it to you?”
“Oh, my God,” Fenn sat down on the bed, “It isn’t about proving something. It really isn’t.”
“Then what?”
“It is about… what is right. And what is possible. Daniel, I don’t need you to prove your love, and I don’t think you’re betraying me or betraying God or… anything. I think you should have it all, all the time.”
“You make me right,” Dan said, sitting down beside him. “I wasn’t right until I was with you. I didn’t love people until I was with you. I wasn’t a good priest. When I wake up next to you I’m right.”
“And I’m right too, but it can’t last.”
“I could leave.”
“We’ve been through that. Listen,” Fenn said. “I don’t care about the Church. But you? That’s another matter. If you stopped being a priest, at least now, you would no longer be yourself. You would become something else that you don’t love, that isn’t you. That isn’t happy. I know that so clearly there’s no doubt in my mind.”
Now Dan stood over him.
“Then you’re going to leave me?”
“I’ll never leave you,” Fenn said frankly. “I will stop sleeping with you, though.”
Fenn placed his a hand on Dan’s hip, right over where he had tied the towel and it rested there on the heat of his skin.
“Fine,” Dan said.
Dan turned his back to him like a child, and Fenn waited for him to speak.
“I came back here because I thought we’d be together,” Dan said. “I thought we’d be together all night.”
“Be together?”
“You know just what I mean,” Dan turned around.
“Did you plan to stop sleeping with me today? Right now?”
The towel was just hanging under Dan’s flat stomach, the dark hair of his groin rising from it. And Fenn would give him up. He would, he absolutely would. Soon enough. But what he said now was:
“No, Daniel. Not today. Not tomorrow.”
He stood up, and Dan’s hands went to Fenn’s shirt. He lifted it up, and then his hands went down into Fenn’s pants, and he kissed him.
Fenn said, as they went to the bed, “And not for a while.”
NEXT: EPILOGUE
