“Since college.”
He says nothing after that, negotiating the driveway, but his smile is gone. I know what he’s thinking. I got to go to college and take classes and party, all while he was sitting in an eleven-by-seven cell. I want to tell him it wasn’t really like that for me, that college was more about working to build a new life and get away from my old one. But explaining that I had it tough too would sound like the height of arrogant white male privilege.
“How long you been working for my uncle?” I ask.
Frankie finishes backing out of my driveway, checks the mirrors, and then puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb. “Since I got out,” he says. He looks at me to see my reaction, and to be honest, given that I’ve worked hard to extricate myself from my uncle’s life, my reaction is complicated. Frankie’s situation as an ex-convict is complicated enough without adding my uncle to the mix. Ruben worked for my uncle for years, doing God knows what kind of shady shit for him, then died of a heart attack. And then Frankie stepped in to take his place. Was that hard for Frankie? Did he feel indebted to my uncle, who had paid for his defense lawyer? Or did he resent how his father had literally worked himself to death for the man Frankie now worked for?
Frankie must see something in my face, because he shrugs and says, “Hard to get a job when you get out of prison. Your uncle offered, and I knew how to work at Ronan’s.” He comes to a stop sign at Roswell Road, and even though there isn’t any oncoming traffic, he doesn’t turn onto the road but looks back to me. “If I’ve gotten between you and your uncle, or made you feel like I’ve taken your spot or something, I’m sorry.”
That leaves me speechless for a moment. “No,” I finally say. “You haven’t. I got away from him years ago. I left. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Frankie doesn’t respond at first, instead waiting for an early-morning bus to roll past before turning onto Roswell. “Okay,” he says.
We drive up to the Perimeter, and even though it’s before rush hour, there’s plenty of traffic, although it’s moving swiftly for now. Frankie rolls up the driver’s window before turning onto 285. I ignore the King and Queen Buildings rising up on our left. Ahead of us, the sky is beginning to crack open, a fiery light spreading across the horizon, and Frankie aims the Frankenstein directly at the rising sun, the V-8 beginning to thrum under the hood, finally getting to show off its paces a little.
WE TAKE THE exit for GA-400. The southbound lanes are heavy with traffic, but because we are heading north, Frankie can open up his car a little, and we move along at a brisk clip. The sun is now over the horizon, a golden star banishing the gray predawn to usher in a clear blue sky.
I’ve wanted to ask Frankie about Caesar but have hesitated, waiting for a good moment, then realize there is no good moment, only my own awkwardness to climb over. “Was Caesar okay this morning?” I ask. “With you coming with me and all?”
Frankie smoothly switches lanes to drive around a tractor trailer. “Don’t worry about Caesar,” he says. “He’ll be fine. He’s … protective. How’s Susannah? Did you get to talk to her yesterday?”
I understand Frankie is changing the subject, but I don’t fight it. “Yeah,” I say. “I did. She’s okay.”
“Must be hard,” he says.
I nod, my throat suddenly thick with sorrow. “I hate it,” I manage to say. “I hate how she feels so … diminished. Like a light that’s going out. Burning out.”
“But she’s getting help, yeah? Therapy and meds and everything?”
“Sure,” I say. “But it won’t cure anything. Just manages it.”
“We’re all just managing, güero,” Frankie says.
THERE’S A WRECK that slows us down for a good half hour, but finally we turn off the highway, leaving the billboards and fast-food signs behind for a two-lane road. But it’s still the modern world. Just five miles from the monastery, we pass a shopping center with a Publix grocery store, a Rooms to Go outlet, and a Pizza Hut, all moored in a shimmering black lake of new asphalt. Further on, we drive by a subdivision under construction, a paved road winding up into cleared lots of bulldozed red clay. Hispanic workers in denim shirts and straw hats stand around a half-completed ditch at the entrance to the subdivision, one of them looking blankly at us as we drive past. And ahead, on the horizon, I can just see the start of the north Georgia mountains, a set of blue ridges one after the other, rising up above the plains and receding into the distance.
Then a sign appears: Monastery Ahead—100 yards. A driveway to the left boasts another sign: Abbey of Our Lady of Mercy—Bless You. A yellow metal gate is pushed open to allow traffic, and Frankie turns in. Small magnolia trees line the driveway, which leads perhaps half a mile before bending to the right and out of sight. I don’t see any buildings.
“Not what I expected,” Frankie says, and I know what he means. I half-expected a high brick wall or a large church, not a driveway lined with magnolias.
We follow the curve of the drive to the right, and as it straightens, we can see the monastery a hundred yards ahead—a low concrete building with a wrought-iron gate in the middle, then a two-story building behind that, and a church with a steeple and simple crucifix that rises above all. On the left a grassy field slopes down to a pond. I can see gray and white geese strolling up from the water. To the right is a cracked
