'She says she wants to stay where she is, Tommy,' I said.
'Of course she does, they've brainwashed her.'
'No. I don't think so. She says she wasn't kidnapped, and that she's free to leave.' Banks's hands were clasped in front of him, forearms on the knees. His knuckles were white.
'They've made her say that. They took her and brainwashed her. I was there, they came and took her and tied and gagged her and dragged her away in the trunk of their car.'
Across the room a complex short rattle sounded as someone did a tap step, someone laughed. I kept watching Banks.
'Do you know where she is?' he said.
'Yes.'
'We've got to get her out of there. I'll go with you, we'll rescue her.'
'Tommy, I don't think she's a prisoner. She has a right to stay there if she wants to be there.'
'She doesn't have the right to kill me,' he said. His voice was tight and squeezed. 'She can't kill me. I can't make it without her. I can't . . .' He shook his head. I knew he couldn't talk. There were tears in his eyes.
'I can't . . .' He tried again. 'I . . .' And then he sat with his hands clenched together, and his body hunched forward. I felt like sitting that way too. I straightened up a bit to make sure I wasn't.
'They've taken her away from me,' he said. 'You can't let them.'
He didn't look up. I didn't say anything. Across the room the dancers moved less, and their talk died down. Banks's shoulders shook.
I said, 'I'll talk with her again, Tommy.'
He nodded. The room was dead silent now. I stood up and walked away. No one said anything. Paul's face was serious as he looked at me across the room. I looked back at him and we both understood something at the same time. There was nothing to say about it, so we didn't speak.
I went on out and down the stairs to the street. It was a clean summer day, even on Huntington Avenue. I walked downtown, past Symphony Hall, toward Copley Square. At the Christian Science complex a few kids were trying to wade in the reflecting pool and an official was chasing them out. In Copley Square the unfriendly high rise of the Copley Place development loomed up over Dartmouth Street, the heavy equipment cluttered the area and had Huntington narrowed to one lane around the construction site. A lot of trouble. Well worth it though, it would eventually rival the Renaissance Center in Detroit for its sense of open ease and hospitality.
It was a market day in Copley Square and truck farmers were selling produce in front of Trinity Church. People sat on the low wall along Boylston Street and listened to Walkmans or drank beer or ate their lunch or looked at girls or smoked grass or did all at the same time. I moved on down toward the Common. I was trying to think. Never easy.
I didn't think Sherry had been kidnapped. I wasn't sure whether Tommy really thought she had been or not. What he couldn't do was accept that she'd left him voluntarily. I had seen the clenched refusal to let go in him and I had seen Sherry talk about the pressure he'd put her under and I could guess that she had not so much sought the church as fled Tommy. Escaped maybe was a better word.
My heart was with Banks. I knew how he felt. But the kidnapping was fantasy. Even on three hours sleep I was pretty sure of that. Still, Sherry didn't seem to be having a swell time in the church and the church seemed a little hierarchical to me. I had told Owens I'd check on Sherry periodically and I was going to do that anyway. No real harm in looking into it a little more. Maybe there was a better option for Sherry than the Reorganized Church of the Redemption. Maybe there was an option that would ease some of Tommy's pain, or help him through it. Maybe not. Maybe there was no way to ease pain. No harm to trying. It was something to do. Irish whiskey can only take you so far.
CHAPTER 17
I drove up to Salisbury to see Sherry. There were purple field flowers in bright density all over the meadows along Route 1. I'd looked at them nearly all my life but I didn't know what they were called. That was nothing. I'd been with me all my life and had just started to wonder about that.
Sherry was feeding chickens when I got there. She was spreading something that looked like dry dog food pellets around an the ground and a bunch of white hens flurried about her, pecking at the food. I realized I didn't know anything about chickens either. She looked up at me and didn't speak.
I said, 'Hello, Sherry.'
'Hello.'
'How are you,' I said. She kept distributing the pellets. The chickens kept scuttling around after them.
'I'm fine. I told you that last time I saw you.'
'I know. I just like to check. You don't seem especially happy.'
'The point of this world is not happiness,' she said. 'It is salvation.'
I nodded. 'Tommy is in pretty bad pain,' I said.
She stopped scattering the pellets for a moment. 'I'm sure he is,' she said. 'But that is Tommy's pain. I won't take ownership of his pain.'
'I don't argue the point,' I said. 'But it sounds like a recited answer. Tommy loves you.'
'Tommy needs me,' she said. 'That's not the same thing.'
'Tell me about life here,' I said.
'We have a regular life. Exercise in the early morning, study and instruction in the afternoon.'
