The Good Luck of Right Now(41)

“Actually, I’ve been to visit her and Adam. Edna came with me. The four of us had a very good talk just yesterday.”

“You did?”

“I prayed with them. We had a productive back-and-forth. Wendy confessed to me afterward, here at the church. Let’s just say, to ease your conscience, Bartholomew, things are looking up for our young mutual friend. So do not worry too much about her.”

It was hard to believe Father Hachette was able to do what Father McNamee could not. Also, I knew he shouldn’t have told me that Wendy confessed, because confessions are confidential. It was like he was bragging—like he wanted me to believe he was a better priest than Father McNamee. Father McNamee would never have bragged like that. Never. Nor would he have betrayed the confidence of a parishioner.

“Is she really okay?” I asked, thinking Adam should have been the one to confess, not Wendy, and wondering exactly what Wendy had told him. Did she mention the hurtful things she’d said the last night she stayed in our house? How much did Father Hachette really know?

“She’s wrestling with her soul. Adam is too. They have a lot to sort out.”

“He’s evil, you know. He beats her. Didn’t you see her bruises?”

“People are not evil or good. It’s much more complicated than that. Much.”

“How could it be complicated when a man hits a woman repeatedly?”

Father Hachette looked down at his desk, took a cigarette out of a hard pack, tapped the filter twice, and lit up. “Why did you come here today, Bartholomew?”

I understood that he wasn’t going to talk about Wendy—and to be fair, maybe this had to do with keeping what was confessed confidential—and so I said, “How can I help Father McNamee overcome his depression?”

Father Hachette frowned, blew smoke out the corner of his mouth, back over his left shoulder, and said, “You should come to Mass, Bartholomew. You should continue what you and your mother have always done. The routine of our shared faith will save you. In the end, the routines will save us all.”

“Yes, I will. But what about Father McNamee?”

Father Hachette held my gaze for an awkward moment, and then he said, “Let me guess. He’s drinking heavily. He’s claiming God abandoned him. He’s sulking alone in a room and emptying his guts into a toilet nightly? That’s his ritual. Mountaintops and valleys. That is his pattern. And I bet he blames you for not hearing God’s voice—for not providing him with divine instructions. Am I far off?”

He was not far off, as you know, Richard Gere, but it didn’t seem like Father Hachette was going to help me today.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You told me to come to you when I needed help. You came to my house specifically to offer your help. Was that a lie?”

“I’m glad you came, Bartholomew. Saint Gabriel’s is your spiritual home. But you need to work on yourself. You need to grieve for your mother and then begin a new life without her. God can help you accomplish this task.”

“But you don’t want to help Father McNamee? You’re not interested in his depression?”

“It’s like trying to fight a hurricane with your bare hands—punching at wind and rain. Only a fool would try. You need to wait it out. Trust me. I have some experience with this. Father McNamee will right himself eventually. He always has in the past, anyway.”

“Then why did you come to Mom’s house and offer your help?”

“Honestly? It’s you I’m worried about, Bartholomew. Not Father McNamee.”

“Me?”

He nodded slowly behind a skinny finger of cigarette smoke that cut his face in half.

“Why?”

Father Hachette took a few more puffs of his cigarette, studied his hands like there was something written down on them, and then said, “You still don’t know why Father McNamee came to live with you, do you?”

“To help me get over Mom’s death—to help me move on with my life.”

Father Hachette smiled, and I noticed how thin his neck looked wrapped in that black-and-white collar, like a fishing line leading up to a red-and-white bobber.

“And yet it’s you who wants to help Father McNamee now. Things got flipped. You see?”

“Why are you talking to me like this?”

“Like what?”

“In riddles. Like I’m slow-minded. Too stupid for the honest truth.”

Because you are a retard! the tiny angry man yelled.

“I’m sorry, Bartholomew. You see, I’m in an unfair position. I have an advantage, because I know more than you’ve been able to piece together. But it’s not my place to tell you what you need to know.” He stubbed his cigarette out in a bronze bowl full of butts. “Has he mentioned Montreal yet?”

The man in my stomach froze when I heard the word Montreal, because that’s where my father supposedly was from.

“So he hasn’t talked to you about that yet,” Father Hachette said. “Hmmm.”

I wanted to ask Father about Montreal’s significance.

The little man in my stomach was screaming. Use your words, idiot! He has information you need! And yet you sit here with your mouth shut, like a moron. Ask him about Montreal! Ask about your father! He gave my spleen a few good digs with his clawlike toes.