A Ship Made of Paper

ifher eyes are asking,What are you doing?but he cannot move.

At last, Hampton and James emerge.All ofthe levity and grace and joyousness and even youthfulness seems to have been beaten out of James, while Hampton, in victory, seems not noticeably different than he was in the beginning ofthe game, when he was losing.His long slender legs are bright with perspiration, his shirt has dark circles at the armpits, a long ragged icicle-shaped sweat stain down the middle, and his scalp glistens in the overhead light.

“You lost!”Nelson cries accusingly, jabbing his finger at the air between him and his uncle, as ifto create a shock wave that would knock James to the ground.

“Sorry, O Great Leader,”James says.His voice is weak, exhausted.

“Your daddy’s too much for me.”

Pleased to hear this, Hampton smiles at James.

James slumps onto the bench next to Iris.“I feel sorry foryou,”he says to her.“The man is tireless.”

Daniel is offended by James’s little joke.It is unbearable to think about Hampton’s untiring ardor, the sexual machinery going on and on.

“He rinses his cottage cheese to take out the last one percent ofmilk fat,”Iris says.“What do you expect?”

“Hello, Daniel,”Hampton says.He opens his gym bag and pulls out a small white terry cloth towel with which he carefully dries, first his fore-head, then the wings ofhis nose, then his chin.

“I was watching you play,”Daniel says.“I’m just learning.”He is acutely aware that everything he says could very well be subject to mul-tiple interpretations, and that one day if—no,when—Hampton learns the truth, then it will all be remembered, ransacked for meaning.

Nelson has scrambled offIris’s lap.He takes the racquet from his uncle’s hands and grabs the ball and hits it.It bounces and then rolls down the long hall, and then over the ledge, where it falls to the ground floor.

Hampton snaps his fingers and points in Nelson’s face.

“Get it,”Hampton says.“Now.”

Nelson doesn’t say anything, but the skin on his face is suddenly drawn, mottled, he looks like someone who has been in the freezing cold.

“Take it easy, Hampton,”Iris says.“That doesn’t work with him.”She turns to the boy.“Go on, Nellie, do as your father says.”

“No!!”Nelson screams.“You get it.”

The vehemence startles Iris and she lets go ofthe leash.Scarecrow goes straight for Daniel.After bounding up on Daniel and uncoiling her long tongue in the direction ofhis face, she suddenly lies down before him, resting her chin on her forepaws.Then, with a couple sharp barks, she rolls onto her back, exposing the bare pink-and-black skin ofher belly, her eyes glazed with adoration.

“Scarecrow!!”Iris calls out, her voice sharp, nervous.“What are youdoing?”

Hampton has folded his long arms over his hard, flat chest.“Seems like you’ve gone and won my doggie’s heart,”Hampton fairly drawls.

Meanwhile, on court number one, Bruce is hitting the ball to himself, harder and harder, until it sounds like gunshots.

“Do you mind ifI sit next to you for a minute or two?”

Kate is sitting in the back pew ofSaint Christopher’s Church, which is eight miles outside ofLeyden, on a curving dirt road, surrounded by open fields, where the dried remains ofthe harvested corn stalks rise and fall with the undulations ofthe land, in neat rows like markers in a cemetery.Startled by the soft, questioning voice, she turns to see the young priest next to her, tall, narrow, with an ascetic face and prema-turely gray hair.He is the sort ofman people say looks like a priest, even ifhe happens to be selling dress shirts in a department store, or walking in his baggy plaid bathing trunks on the beach.

“I didn’t hear you sit down,”Kate says.

”I’m sorry.Did I startle you?Were you praying?”

“I was really just closing my eyes.I’m collecting my thoughts.”

“I see you come in here from time to time,”the priest says.“I thought it was time we met.”

“My name’s Katherine Ellis.I’m not Catholic.”She extends her hand.

”I’m Father Joseph Sidlowski.And IamCatholic.”He takes her hand, shakes it.His touch is spectral, she could be dreaming him.

“I go to a lot ofchurches,”Kate says.“But this one is just so lovely, it’s one ofthe nicest in the area, I think.”

Father Sidlowski looks up at the planked ceiling, the simple blue-andyellow stained glass windows.“It really is,”he says, as ifthe beauty ofthe place had never occurred to him before.“Do you know its history?”

“No.”

“The farm right behind us and all the land around us, about four hundred acres, used to be owned by the Bailey family.Does that name mean anything to you?”

“I know Bailey Road.”

“We’re on Bailey Road, and there’s the Bailey Building right in the village.The patriarch ofthe Bailey family was named Peter Bailey.He outlived three wives and ten ofhis thirteen children.In his seventies—this was in about1880—he converted to Catholicism and built this church for himself and his family.There were no other Catholic churches nearby.It has something ofthe barn about it, don’t you think?Anyway, he died in his nineties and he left an endowment to the archdiocese to keep Saint Christopher’s open for one hundred years.The churchyard is filled with the remains ofBaileys, as well as the graves ofthe priests who have worked here.Part ofmy own pastoral duties is to make certain those graves are well kept.The Bailey family is scattered now, and most ofthe priests who are buried here have no family to speak of.I think sometime in the next few years we’ll see the doors to this chapel closed for the last time.We have a modest congregation and I suspect that when the hundred years are up and there is no income to support Saint Christopher’s, they’ll turn this place into an antiques shop.”

“Just what the world needs.”

Sidlowski shows his teeth in a slow approximation ofa smile.“May I ask what brings you to Saint Christopher’s?”His voice is low, confiden-tial, though there is no one else in the church.

“It’s very peaceful here,”Kate says.She looks around the small church—the dark, heavily varnished painting ofthe dying Jesus recum-bent in his stricken mother’s lap, a few votive candles twinkling in their red glass holders, the simple wooden cross, unusually austere.“I’ve been thinking a lot about…things, and it’s easier for me to have my thoughts in a church than it is at home.”

“May I show you something?”Father Sidlowski asks Kate.“It’ll only take a moment.”

Kate follows the priest through the church.Their footsteps echo in the stillness and she wonders how he could have sat next to her without her hearing his approach.He leads her through a small doorway offthe nave ofthe church and into his office.It’s a small, windowless room, with books and magazines piled in every corner.A banged- up metal desk and a swivel chair are the only furniture.The fax machine on the edge of the desk is receiving a transmission as they walk in;Kate sneaks a peek at what’s coming in—it seems to be from a travel agency, she sees a drawing ofan airplane and the words“ChristmasTravel Bargains.”The walls are bare, except for one old painting in an ornate gilt frame.The image on the canvas is ofa dark-haired woman in a modest brown robe, on her knees before a child’s crib.Her hands are clasped prayerfully and blood drips from them.The crib is suffused with golden light.

“That’s Saint Mary Frances,”Sidlowski says, his voice suddenly intimate, suffused with gentleness, as ifthis were upsetting news he must break to her.“She died at the end ofthe eighteenth century and was can-onized about sixty years after her death.”

“I never heard ofher,”Kate says.“I don’t really know very much about saints.As I said, I’m not—”

“Catholic,”Sidlowski cuts in.“I realize that.But she’s a lovely saint, one ofmy favorites.Not very well known here, but greatly loved in Naples.But do you see why I wanted you to see this painting?”

Kate redirects her attention to the image.The canvas is old, the paint is muddy, and the surface veneer is cracked into a thousand little jigsaw sections.

“She looks so much like you,”Sidlowski says.“Don’t you see the resemblance?”

Kate shakes her head.She sees nothing ofherselfin the face ofMary Frances.All there is in common is the dark- brown hair, brown eyes; everything else about Mary Frances seems merely average, even generic: average height,