still almost full.
Hood watched her pour, saw the orange of sunset on her cheek and the sheen of perspiration. There was a cool breeze coming onshore and he felt a chill through his denim jacket.
'I feel hot,' she said, smiling. 'It takes me hours to cool down after ten miles.'
'I'm enjoying the story. So you're looking through the screen at Sean and the priest-'
'And all of a sudden the moths and bugs got spooked and flew and their wings were noisy and flapping. I could see their wing dust floating in the light. Then Leftwich turned around and I saw something fall from his hands to the floor. It landed in the bedspread. The spread was bunched on the floor because it was way too hot to sleep with it over you. Joe popped right up and opened the door for me. Big smile on his face. A bunch more bugs went flying. I went inside and asked him what he was doing and he said he was praying and watching Sean sleep. He said he was about to come get me. He said they'd had a great conversation. But he'd rarely seen a man of such moral fiber and spiritual goodness so dispirited by his work. He said Sean had reserves of strength and goodness that were rare. He hoped that he had helped a light go on in Sean's mind-the idea that his work against drugs and guns was vital to the freedoms that we Americans enjoy at home. Vital, he said. He said he tried to paint the world in simpler terms than Sean's complex, shaded, compromised world. He said it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done but he finally convinced Sean to think of himself as good. Good. A good man. And I said, 'Well, that's all fine and dandy, Joe, and pardon my French, but what the fuck were you doing with his toes?' He chuckled and his face lit up and he said he was shooing away a fly. 'Some of them can draw blood,' he said, 'make a nasty little sore-the owner's son lost a toe to an infected bite, ask him about the flies here. He'll show you his half toe.''
'And what were you doing while this priest was going through all that?'
'Looking for what fell into the bedspread.'
'I knew it. I like your curiosity and your practical side, Seliah. Tell me what it looked like. What was the first thing you thought of when you saw this thing fall into the spread?'
'I barely saw it. It happened so quickly and I was upset and the light was bad. It was something heavy and small, inside something larger and loose. Like… like a golf ball wrapped in a washcloth. But we couldn't find it. Joe saw it, too, and came over to help me look. We lifted up the bedspread and shook it real good but nothing was there. Nothing under the bed, either. Joe just kept talking away. I could smell the booze on his breath, though to be truthful it could have been the booze on my own. Sean just lay there snoring through the whole thing. That's when Joe told me he thought Sean and I were special, that we'd do great things on earth. I said getting Sean to his own room would be a good start. I finally woke him up, which wasn't easy. He walked to our room and crashed down on the bed and fell asleep again. I tried to get his shirt off but he was just too heavy and dead asleep. I took off his flip-flops. He'd dinged a toe on the walk over, so I got an alcohol wipe and cleaned it up. Just a drop of blood, not even that. Or maybe it was one of the flies Joe was shooing.'
'Did you see the blood before you got him home?'
'No.'
'But the light in Joe's room was on, right?'
'Yeah, but weak, like I said. And the ceiling fan, chopping it into spokes. But the blood was nothing, Charlie, less than a drop. That isn't the point. The point is the whole way Leftwich pried into Sean's life. And kind of… what… pointed Sean in a new direction. Changed him. He woke up a new man. I'm not saying the new direction wasn't good. I know the priest meant well. But he drinks Sean under the table with his secret concoction and watches him sleep and plays with his toes. The whole thing just basically gave me the creeps.'
'What did the priest look like?'
'Short side, muscular. Black hair and blue eyes. From Dublin. Had the accent. The drunker he got, the stronger the accent. He had… what-charisma? Force of character? Sean hasn't been the same man since he crashed out that night. He woke up filled with optimism about his work, and us, and having a family someday soon. That was all good. But after it wore off, then all the things that he wrote in the e-mails started up. All the pain and the aches and the insomnia and hyperactivity. All his crazy talk about being chosen to do a mission, that someone or something was guiding him. All the… Just everything. Then, what you say he did down in Buenavista. That was not my husband. That could not have been Sean.'
'It was but it wasn't.'
Seliah swirled the wine and drank. 'And I have to admit, Charlie, I've been feeling the same way. The same… wrongness. The same strangeness. I can't…'
'What?'
'Explain it any better to you.'
'You don't have to.'
'Like what I said to Janet. I don't say things like that. I don't think things like that.'
Seliah finished the wine and ordered another bottle. They ate the clams and ordered dinner. The sun set in a red-black sky and fell out of sight. Seliah took off her sunglasses and Hood saw that even in this soft darkness her pupils were closed down hard against the light. She excused herself, slinging her little bag over her shoulder and navigating between the tables. An older woman at the adjacent table gave Hood a disapproving look. Seliah was back a few minutes later. She ate quickly-her swordfish, all of the bread, dessert-and drank most of the second bottle of wine.
'We'll get through this, Seliah. We'll get him back.'
'Then what?'
'I don't know what.'
'If what you say happened really happened, then I won't see him for a good long while.'
'It's up to us. When we know the whole story, things will make sense.'
'I believe that, Charlie. I believe things will make sense and that Sean and I have a future.'
Hood reached out and put his hand on hers and felt the startling heat.
Later he drove her home and walked her to the door.
'Let's see what Sean wrote,' she said.
'Good.'
23
Inside she leaned over the laptop and tapped the keyboard. 'Excuse me, Charlie.'
He heard the bedroom door shut. He sat and watched the in-box fill on the computer screen. A few minutes later she came out wearing a long, cobalt, satin bathrobe. The sash was tight to her waist and the lapels framed her breasts. Her eyes were darkened by new makeup and her lipstick was fresh. She gave him an embarrassed glance.
'Glass of wine?' she asked.
'I'm fine, Seliah. You go ahead.'
She was back a moment later with an oversize goblet half-full. She smiled and sat down close to him on the couch. Hood was unhappily aroused. She reached across him and deleted a few messages, then opened the one from Sean. She took a long drink of the wine, then put the glass on the coffee table and set her hand on Hood's knee. From: Sean Gravas [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 9:19 p.m. To: Gravas, Seliah Subject: end of faith Dear Seliah, Tearing up my Bible was a terrible thing. I'm still exhausted by it. It must sound like some kind of symbolic destruction but it wasn't. It was REAL and genuine destruction. I felt a piece of my soul leaving with each page I yanked out. When I saw what happened to Juan Batista I felt personally fooled and betrayed. He was a good man. So was I. AM. I'm moving toward the ACCOMPLISHMENT of the MISSION. Or at least toward the opportunity to accomplish it. If I sound doubtful now instead of optimistic it is only because I AM. I once thought that God led us to the brink of things, to the very edge of the cliff, and helped us do what was best. But now I see that WE lead ourselves to our own cliffs and heights and WE decide what is best.
We are free to be brave and free to be terrified and I am BOTH.
All of this GREAT JOURNEY will lead me back to you. When I'm finished we'll be together. We'll resume our life and begin our FAMILY. We will be THREE then more.
I ache for your touch. I want to be welcomed back into the vast universe of your heart and the warm mystery
