 “I don’t know what you mean by that, Father.” As she spoke, she focused on the carved linden wood crucifix that hung on the wall over his head. “I certainly don’t feel soft...or open.” She could feel her facial muscles tense even as she spoke the words.
“Vulnerable?” he asked. “Do you feel vulnerable?”
She thought for a moment before responding. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
“I think that’s what I’m seeing,” he said, scrutinizing her face in a way that made her shift uncomfortably in her chair. “You’ve always been so guarded, so careful, so completely in charge of what you would allow to penetrate your consciousness. That showed in your bearing and in your face...in your eyes, especially. You look more human now, Isabelle, as if maybe you don’t have all the answers or total control. You look more like the rest of us feel, and I’m delighted by that.”
“Why?”
“There’s a lot out there, Isabelle, a lot you miss by protecting yourself, filtering things, preemptively defending yourself. There are difficult and hurtful things out there, to be sure, which is why most of us feel somewhat vulnerable all the time, but there are fulfilling things too, things you can only experience while you’re here on earth, things eternity doesn’t offer. You have the means and the emotional strength to take it all in. To be honest, I’ve long felt it was a shame that you wouldn’t allow yourself to.”
Isabelle stared at the priest she’d known for some fifty years, ever since he arrived at St. Patrick’s as a very young man. “You’ve never said anything about this before,” she said.
“It never occurred to me that you might be able to hear it, or that you might change,” he said with just a hint of a smile. “But forgive me for going on. You asked to see me. What did you want to talk about?”
Isabelle looked deeply into Father McGuire’s green eyes. His hair had long since turned silver and his face was ruddy, mottled and wrinkled, but his eyes were as clear and brilliantly green as ever. She took a deep breath. “For the first time in my life, I’m doubting my faith,” she said. “When Jeffrey died, my faith was my salvation...at least playing out the rituals was. It gave me direction, diversion and a measure of comfort. You gave me comfort. When Jake died, even though I knew he never felt entirely comfortable in the Church, I turned to you again...you and the ritual and the institution. And it got me through that terrible time.
“But now I’m encountering people and things that seem good and right and perhaps even part of some divine plan, and they’re anathema to the teachings of the church.” She thought about Phillip’s love for another man and William’s for a woman who was not his wife. “I’m meeting people for whom the church should be finding answers, but it isn’t.” She thought about the man named Sam who lived outside Jake’s building, and young John Taylor, alone and at sea. “I don’t know where it all leaves me, Father.” She looked at the crucifix again.
Father McGuire leaned over and touched Isabelle’s hand as if it were a precious, fragile thing. “You’re questioning, Isabelle. For the first time in your life you’re questioning the foundations of your faith.” He smiled gently. “That’s healthy, because when you figure it out...when you find out what your faith really means to you, it will be stronger than ever, and more sustaining.
“And the vulnerability that you’re feeling...that’s just what life’s all about when you open yourself up to it. Nothing’s certain, nothing’s truly safe, nothing’s absolutely predictable or clear...not even your faith. It’s scary when you first recognize that that’s the nature of the world you inhabit, and even more frightening when you realize that, no matter how many people and walls and reinforcements you surround yourself with, in the end you’re all you’ve really got. It’s intimidating, even terrifying at times, but also liberating. No one can control you, stop you, stand in your way, tell you what to do. Ultimately, no one. Not only must you negotiate your way through the world by yourself, you can.”
Isabelle felt queasy and began to wish she had not come to see Father McGuire. In the past, her visits here had been comforting, reassuring. They had talked of God, of Jesus, of divine love and sacrifice, of philanthropy and good deeds, of a life well lived and assurances of eternity. They had talked, too often, of death and the hereafter, of surviving loss and carrying on, and of the peace inherent in surrendering to powers greater than oneself. But this was just the opposite; this visit left her hanging, dangling in a place she longed to escape, a strange, foreign place she found herself in for the first time in her life, a place filled with people who acted differently than she, felt differently, lived differently.
“I’ve been given a second chance, Father, and I don’t know why.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a biopsy that tested positive for a virulent form of cancer; I was a little bit scared, but fine, really. I’ve lived a good life and was ready to acknowledge it was over. I was actually planning my funeral. Then I was told the results were wrong; I was fine. Specimens had been switched.” Isabelle had a hard time speaking because of the lump in her throat. “I came to you wondering why God was giving me this second chance, a chance I didn’t ask for and am not sure I want.” She looked at him, desperately hoping for a solid response. “I thought maybe you could help me straighten it all out...the odd encounters, the second chance, all of it. Maybe it all works together.”
“Perhaps it does, Isabelle. I don’t know.”
No, this visit was not helpful. Isabelle felt suddenly exhausted and...defeated. “I think I’d better go now, Father.”
“Are you unhappy, Isabelle? Are you sorry you came?”
She had always half-believed that priests were endowed with magical powers of a sort and, as if in confirmation, now he was reading her mind. She nodded.
“I know I haven’t given you the answers you came here seeking, but that’s because I believe you are finally ready to find them on your own. You don’t need what I used to give you. You’re strong, Isabelle; you’re an amazing woman and you’re still growing. I’m proud of you.”
She tingled a little at hearing that. No one had said those words to her–about pride–since her father died almost thirty-three years ago. She looked at her hands, embarrassed to make eye contact with the priest. The gnarled knuckles and tissue-thin skin reminded her of her age. She was supposed to be living a peaceful life by now, a cosseted, comfortable life in which others would look after her. And she had been, until a few days ago.
It was all so unsettling.
• • •
She wasn’t at all sure why she found herself back at Phillip Davidson’s bedside. She had expected to leave her visit with Father McGuire feeling better, put back together, as she always had in the past. But this time he had failed her. By affirming her lack of certainty and giving a name to her feelings of vulnerability, he had virtually celebrated her weakness. Hardly a useful outcome.
Maybe she was here because this man Phillip seemed even more helpless than she; maybe it was that he was a cause she could take on, a mission. Maybe she felt that somehow she could regain her footing and sense of herself as a productive member of society if she could help someone. Maybe that’s why she was here.
But as she sat by the bed watching Phillip sleep, she wondered why she hadn’t just written a big check for some cause instead. Doing that and throwing extravagant parties for charities had made her feel adequately useful for some six decades, so why should she now take this new tack of personal involvement?
“Mrs. Peretti?” Phillip said, his eyes barely open.
“Yes,” she said, affirming her presence.
“Do you hate me?” he whispered, as if he didn’t have the energy to speak aloud. His eyes, which opened more widely, were filled with the question.
“No,” she said. “You loved my grandson, and I imagine he loved you. How could I hate you?”
Phillip continued to stare. “You could hate me because I caused his death.”
“But you didn’t. You took him to a place he wanted to go. You let him try something he wanted to try.” Isabelle thought about Jake and his zest for life. “He loved trying things. He was always a little bit reckless, which worried me. But looking back, I realize that’s what made him happy and made him who he was. His adventures are what made life worth living for him, that and his art.”
“And his grandmother,” Phillip said weakly.
“Jake was not one to sit home and watch television,” Isabelle continued, embarrassment causing her to ignore Phillip’s intervention. “He was not one to go to debutante balls or museum openings. He wanted to be out and about, as he put it. He loved the streets, he loved the diversity of the city, he wanted to experience everything. He once asked me how anyone could live in Manhattan and not want to gobble it all up.” Isabelle smiled at the memory. “Those were his words, ‘gobble it all up.’”
“What are you saying?” Phillip asked.
“I guess I’m saying you were only helping him do what he wanted to do, what he probably would have done in any case.” She looked out the dirty window at the building next door. “Everyone wanted to make Jake happy; he was irresistible.”
Then she turned back to Phillip. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
His eyes closed slowly as if he didn’t have the strength to keep them open. Then tears crept out from under the lids. They trickled, then flowed down both his cheeks. “You’ve already done more for me than you can imagine.”
She was surprised at the response since the question had frankly been a sort of perfunctory one, the kind of thing one simply says to someone in the hospital because...well, because they’re in the hospital.
Phillip opened his eyes slowly and gazed at her. “Do you think they’ll ever find the person who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would you do if they did?”
“I have no idea,” Isabelle said.
“I think I’d try to kill him,” Phillip said.
• • •
“Is everything all right, Mother?” Bill gave Isabelle a peck on the cheek as she let him into her suite at the Pierre. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure if everything’s all right,” she said. “That seems to be a more difficult question to answer than it used to be. But I’m fine. I just want to talk. Thanks for coming.”
Bill took off the teal cashmere scarf that matched his plaid shirt and dropped it, along with his camel coat, on a chair. Isabelle had always admired Bill’s willingness to go for bright colors in fashion despite his otherwise generally conservative approach to life. Color was something neither his father nor his brother had indulged in, but Jake had followed Bill’s lead and always lit up a room when he walked in.
He sat down in his usual place on the sofa, but Isabelle remained standing. She folded her arms and looked at him.
“Maybe you should marry her,” she said without prologue.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know very well what I’m talking about. Your friend. The one you’ve been ‘seeing.’”
“Larissa,” he said. “Her name’s Larissa.”
“Larissa.”
“What made you change your mind about her...about us?”
“I haven’t changed my mind about the propriety of the whole thing. It’s not something I would do and not something you should be proud of, and it’s unfortunate you two couldn’t have figured this out when you met, all those years ago, before you were married, but it is what is it now. We can’t change that.”
“You think I should leave Vanessa?”
“I didn’t exactly say that, William.” Isabelle sighed deeply and sank into the chintz chair she always sat in when her son was here. “I just think maybe you should do what you need to do to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be complete...if it’s possible to be complete in this life.”
“I’ve never heard you talk this way before, Mother. What’s going on?”
“I had a talk with Father McGuire this morning, and I’ve come to realize there are things we can’t do in eternity...things we must do now. And I’ve learned that what’s good and bad and right and wrong is not so very clear. And that ultimately we’re alone in this life...all alone...to take care of ourselves and do what we need to do to get by and, if we’re lucky, give it all some kind of meaning.”
“I still don’t quite understand what....”
“I just think that if we find someone special–not just anyone, but someone who truly completes us and makes us less alone–someone to not just go through life with but someone who can maybe even give it meaning, we shouldn’t let that person, that opportunity, pass by. When you suggested your relationship with Larissa might have a spark of the divine in it, I chided you for bringing God into your sin, but I might have been wrong.” She looked out the window at the clear, blue sky that was just starting to fade into evening darkness. “Maybe it’s about divinity. Or maybe divinity doesn’t even exist. I honestly don’t know what it’s all about, William. After all these years, I still haven’t figured it out. I don’t know if we have a purpose or a role to play in being here, but I do think we need to take heed when something very, very powerful pulls at us.”
Bill got up from the sofa and sat on the ottoman at the foot of his mother’s chair. He took her worn, frail hands in his strong, elegant ones; Isabelle had always thought he should be a pianist. He smiled broadly. “I can’t believe you’re becoming an existentialist at this point in your life, Mother. A Catholic one, at that.” He chuckled. “God, I love you so much.”
“So, are you going to marry her?” Isabelle said, looking at him through a haze of tears.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not sure she’ll have me. I think I may have blown it.”
“What did you do?”
“It’s more what I didn’t do. I haven’t had the nerve to actually say I’d leave Vanessa...and my whole life. I guess I haven’t had the nerve to make that decision. And Larissa’s unhappy being in a clandestine relationship with a man she thinks is not fully committed to her.”
“It’s not hard to understand her point of view,” Isabelle said softly. “Are you committed to her?”
“Unconditionally,” Bill said. “I have loved her since the day I met her, and I’ve never loved anyone more.”
“Are you willing to give up your life for her...the life you have in Connecticut with Vanessa?”
Bill dropped Isabelle’s hands and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t answer.
“Maybe it’s not so unconditional, after all.”
“But it is,” he said. “I can’t imagine life without her.”
“But you can’t seem to imagine life with her, either.”
Bill looked at his mother. “Actually...I can, at least partly.” He took Isabelle’s hands again, and squeezed them tightly. “I’ve done almost nothing lately but imagine that. I know exactly how it would feel going to bed with her each night and waking up with her in the morning. I know what it would be like drinking coffee and reading the paper together. I know how it would feel to watch her perform, knowing she would be going home with me. I’ve imagined all that.
“But I can’t quite imagine the rest of the day. I can’t imagine the structure of our days...where we’d live, what we’d do all day, how we’d make a life that would please both of us, what it would all look like. I imagine it would look lovely, but I can’t imagine the details, the commonplace details.
“And I can’t imagine telling Vanessa...or the kids. I know Jeff would understand; he’s got insight way beyond his years, and I actually believe Vanessa might be relieved, in an oblique way...though hurt. But I don’t know about Marianne, and there’s nothing in the world that would hurt me more than hurting my daughter. And then there are the people at the hospital...and the club; I don’t know what they’d say...or think...or how it would affect my relationships with them. I mean, I know people do this all the time, but I can’t imagine it all playing out in my own life.”
Isabelle nodded.
“So, I love Larissa and I want to be with her all the time. That much I know. But I know nothing beyond that, and I’m scared to death of what I don’t know.” Bill stopped abruptly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
“Because I asked,” Isabelle said simply. “And because I’m your mother.”
Bill laughed.
“You know, I still am,” Isabelle said, “even though it has not escaped my notice that the roles have been rather reversed since your father died.”
“Oh, Mother....”
“No, I mean it. I recognize you’ve been taking care of me, and I appreciate it, William. I really do. Actually, I’ve quite taken it for granted, for the most part.”
“Stop it, Mother. You’re very independent....”
“I’m going to stop you before you add, ‘for a woman of your age,’” Isabelle said. “I know I’m able to be ‘independent’ because I’m living in what amounts to a high-class assisted-living facility.”
“If you’re unhappy here....”
“I didn’t say that, William. I love my suite and love having everything done for me here. It’s a wonderful hotel, a perfect location, and the staff couldn’t be nicer.” Isabelle patted Bill on the knee. “This is perfect for a woman like me, one who’s always been taken care of.”
Bill looked at her curiously.
“I’d never before thought much about my life,” she went on. “Never thought about how I lived or how I should or how anyone else did. I simply lived my life according to the rules, to all the prescriptions and proscriptions that were somehow evident, if not spoken.”
“Are you happy you’ve done it that way?”
“I’m not unhappy, William. But I’m just beginning to think there’s more to it all, that I might have missed something along the way.” Isabelle looked out the window again at the now-dark blue sky.
“How could you have missed anything, Mother? You’ve traveled the world, had all of New York at your fingertips; you’ve had the means to do whatever you wanted.” Bill looked perplexed.
“Yes, I’ve traveled, but everywhere I went I lived just as I do here. I was always comfortable and cared for, either ignoring the harsher things or seeing them from a distance. I’ve done things most people only dream of, I know. I’ve lived an enviable life. But William, I’m beginning to think I’ve only skated across the surface of it all. I’ve never really dug in and engaged life in a deep or meaningful way. Others always protected me from that, and I allowed myself to accept that protection.”
“Father protected you because he loved you. Didn’t that give your life meaning?”
“We did love each other,” Isabelle said, directing a soft glance at her youngest child. “But I’m not sure it was all it might have been, all it could have been.”
“What do you mean?”
Isabelle could see she was torturing William with this talk. She knew he wanted her to be happy and couldn’t stand to think she might not have been, but she went on. “You, of all people, should understand what I’m talking about...you, with your crazy, hopeless, perfect love,” she said sadly. “I never had that hopeless feeling with your father, that desperately-in-love feeling. I never had to fight for him, make sacrifices for him...or even consider it. I loved him, I respected him, we were compatible, but there was no passion, William, no feeling of destiny or completion when we were together. It was easy, it was pleasant–delightfully so–but it was never the stuff poetry was written about or wars fought over.”
“It makes me sad to hear you say that, Mother.
“I don’t want to make you sad, William, I only want to make you think. I don’t want you to miss out on what you can only do in this life...what you can’t do, no matter how good and holy and righteous you are, in eternity.”
To be continued....
Judy Pomeranz, an Arlington-based freelance writer, critic and lecturer, is élan’s Contributing Editor for arts and books. In 2003, we published her novella, Lies Beneath the Surface.
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