The City of Rossford

Part Two

Night

These Are Some of The People Who Live In

The City of Rossford, Indiana

Meredith Affren

Chay Lewis

Sheridan Klasko

Mathan Alexander

Shelley Latham

Frank Slaughter

Sean Babcock

Chad North

Casey Williams

Logan Banford

Layla Lawden

Dena Reardon Affren

Brendan Miller

Kenneth McGrath

William Klasko

Milo Affren

Claire Anderson Lawden

Julian Lawden

Radha Hatangady

Fenn Houghton

Todd Meradan

Tara Veems

Thomas Mesda

Paul Anderson

Noah Riley

Lee Philips

Bryant Babcock

Daniel Malloy

Keith McDonald

James Lewis

w i t h

Nell Affren

Adele Davis

Maia Veems Meradan

a n d

Dylan Houghton Mesda

Four

Advent

O come, o come emmanuel!

And ransom captive Israel

Who mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice

Rejoice

Emmanuel

Shall come to thee o Israel!

“Brothers and sisters,” Dan Malloy began, as the wreath that hung above them was lowered on a pulley by Chay Lewis and his father, James, “this week we open our hearts to welcome our returned friend and brother in Christ, Father Keith McDonald, who has been at Saint Anne’s Episcopal.

“Roman or Anglican, we are all Catholics and Catholic or Protestant we are all Christian sisters and brothers in the Lord,” Dan said resting a familiar hand on Keith’s back.

“And so, we invite our once and future friend to light the second candle on the Advent wreath.”

Keith nodded and took the long lighter as he walked up the to the wreath and intoned:

“Father, your Son is the desire of every heart and the Deliverer from every secret darkness. Hear now our prayers, and as we light this second purple candle, visit us with your eternal light. We ask this now, in the name of Christ our Lord.”

Between Dena and her grandmother, Meredith Affren, holding Barb’s old rosary, murmured: “Amen.”

Dan, smiling at the altar began, “Glory to God in the highest…”

Above them, Bryant was playing the organ which made Barb and the other parishioners rise to the occasion, and Meredith went over the words, at a loss. She wished she was one of those Christians at school who knew exactly what was right and what was wrong. Sex before marriage was wrong. Homosexuality was wrong. Democrats were probably wrong. Meredith’s head was reeling with the story Robin told. She was confused over everything she had been hearing since the wedding that was not.

Robin, who had been so quiet for those first few days, had begun telling them everything. And then the boys had been rounded up. Radha’s…. well, Radha Hatangady’s boyfriend’s brother, who Meredith sort of knew, Wally who she sort of suspected. Bill. Who would believe Robin was dating him? And Kip Danley whom she thought was hillbilly cute. The list went on. Ten in all. The arraignment was in a few days.

“They’re really speeding this up,” Brendan had said.

“Please be seated,” Dan said. On the other side of him sat Keith McDonald.

“He was a wonderful priest,” Barb said to her granddaughter. “It’s the Church’s loss. He helped me through your grandfather’s death. You wouldn’t remember that.”

“Of course I remember it,” Meredith said. “It was right around the time Dad lost his job.” She shut up as Fenn Houghton came to the podium to read. Then she added, “The same time that Dad and Mom were about to get a divorce.”

“The days are coming, says the Lord

when I will fulfill the promise

I made to the house of Israel and

Judah.

In those days, in that time,

I will raise up for David a just shoot;

He shall do what is right and just

In the land.

In those days Judah shall be safe

And Jerusalem shall dwell secure;

This is what they shall call her:

The Lord’s justice.

The word of the Lord:

The congregation intoned: “Thanks be to God.”

Tom was the cantor this week and as he replaced Fenn at the podium and the music began, Meredith heard her sister saying to Milo: “I can’t believe he’s back.”

“Huh?” Meredith whispered.

Dena opened her mouth, and then she said: “I can’t tell you any of this with accuracy… or good conscience for that matter, until after Mass.”

“To you, oh Lord, I lift my soul!” Tom sang.

They repeated the phrase, and as Tom began singing the psalm:

Your ways, oh Lord, make known to me;

Teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me…

Dena said: “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t tell you at all.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Chay whispered from where they sat in the arcade.

“You just did,” James told him.

“You’re a funny man, Dad. I was going to ask you what this means to you?”

“That,” James said, frowning, “is a very loaded question. Especially since I just run around doing things here, and I’m not even Catholic.”

“Dad is. Noah, I mean. And… He’s not here.”

“Your father made his own peace with God a long time,” James said. “And it doesn’t involve coming to church.”

“Would you say Dad’s a deep man?”

“You’re full of questions.”

Chay shrugged.

All the paths of the Lord are kindness

And constancy

Toward those who keep his covenant and his decrees…

“I would say…” James said, “that your father is a man of many secrets.”

“But you know him. Right?”

“Of course I do.”

“I just wish he would tell me more. I just wish he was more like you?”

“You wish he was Black.”

Chay tried to cover a laugh, but it escaped. People in the back of the church turned around and looked at them.

“I meant cool.”

“You’re buttering me up?”

“Not really. Just like, when I went to work for Casey, he was all bent out of shape. And he’s always…”

“He’s afraid for you. You know that. He sees himself in you, and he remembers what his life was like when he was your age. Which wasn’t that long ago. In fact it was when you were a baby.”

“Was life really that bad?”

“For him? Yes.”

“I wish he’d tell me.”

James put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, we earnestly ask and exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus that, as you received from us how you should conduct yourselves…”

“You have to understand,” James said, “Noah isn’t just protecting you from himself. He’s protecting himself. All of those secrets, so much of what happened to him, is so painful. It’s hard for him to look at it or talk about it. He puts it away.”

“But he used to be my best friend,” Chay said. “He used to be like this big brother. And now….”

“He’s an overly anxious mother?”

“Yes!”

As the organ started up again and the congregation rose for the Alleluia, Chay stood up too and said, “I miss the way it used to be.”

The priests stood in the vestibule shaking hands after Mass.

“This is my granddaughter, Meredith,” Barb said. “I was just telling her what a help you were all those years ago, and what a loss it was to all of us when you went over to the Episcopalians.”

“Well…” Keith said. Then, “You are a very beautiful girl, Meredith. One day you’ll be as pretty as your grandmother.

“And Dena? Dena Reardon, is that you?”

“Dena Affren,” Dena corrected.

“Ah, yes,” Dan smiled. He gestured to Milo. “Dena married Milo a couple of years ago. But before that her mother married Barb’s youngest son, Bill.”

“Oh my.”

“Yeah,” Dena said, sickly. “So Milo’s my cousin and my husband and Meredith is my cousin and my sister and Barb… I’m still working that out.”

“I’m your grandmother-in-law and your step-grand-mother.”

“That’s kind of soap opriky,” Keith commented.

Meredith blinked. “I always thought it was incestuous.”

“Do you need me to come over?” Chay was saying to his phone as he stood by the car, waiting for his father.

“Oh… I mean, I want to. I… I know it’s Sunday. Since when do you care about… Alright. Alright. Fine then. But I’m coming over tonight. Fine… Fine…”

Chay hung up.

As his father approached he said, “Should I ask who that was?”

“No,” the boy said, opening his door and sliding in. He reached for the seat belt and looked at his father.

“What? Are you worrying about me too?”

“You and Noah are more alike than you think. I worry about both my boys,” James said, putting his key in the ignition.

“I just don’t wear my worry so openly.”

“Okay,” Meredith said as she, her cousin and Dena went to the car. “Dish.”

“Are you ready for this?” Milo said.

“How do I know unless you tell?”

Dena crossed herself while declaring, “I half feel like I shouldn’t tell.”

“But you’re my sister and I know you want to.”

Dena took a breath and then said, “Fine. You know my dad’s a big homo?”

“Correct.”

“He and that priest once had an affair.”

“Oh, my God! Well,” Meredith considered, “he is sort of hot.”

“He used to be hotter if I’m going to be honest.” Dena said, opening the door for her sister, and then turning around and crawling into the back. Meredith closed the door as Milo started the car. “Anyway, not only that, but you know Paul Anderson?”

“Uh, huh.”

“And Noah?”

“Chay’s dad, yeah… Wait… what’s he got to do with them. Didn’t they used to…”

Milo said to his cousin, a wicked smile on his face “Father McDonald’s screen name was Bick Throbbing.”

“Yes,” Dena remembered. “A thousand years ago, when Brendan was my very confused boyfriend, he made us watch movies with Paul and Father Mc.Donald.”

“That is so…. Creepy. And yet Circle of Life.”

“Evil circle of life,” Milo said, cackling in an evil way as they headed out onto Dorr Road.

“Now,” Dena began, “I know we just left God’s house, and gossip is a sin, but… Why do I feel so much better?”

“It isn’t gossip if it’s true,” Milo said as they whizzed up the road. “You were just confessing, and confession is one of the cornerstones of our faith.”

“So how is life in the Church of England?”

“Actually,” Keith raised a finger, “not the Church of England, as I’m sure you know—”

“You guys are so complicated. I don’t know how that works.”

“We’re a communion of churches, all separate but equal. With no pope. But, most importantly, with no conflict between me being gay and me being a priest.”

Keith sipped his tea.

“Things got easier,” he explained, “once I wasn’t splitting myself in two. Once I wasn’t trying to be two different people. Good priest… bad person having sex. I almost killed myself doing that.”

Keith was quiet. Dan watched him.

“Did you ever think of it?” he said to Dan.

“Think of?”

“Leaving? The Church?”

“Well, you just said it,” Dan told him. “It’s THE Church. I can’t imagine being part of any other.”

“I know. I used to feel the same way. They tell you so much in seminary. And in Catholic school. Years and years of it in Catholic school. Till you really think there is nowhere else to go.”

He looked at Dan.

“Till you think the people who leave are fools and traitors.”

“Oh, now, I never said that.”

“No,” Keith agreed. “You didn’t. But you do think of yourself as the last man on the true ship while it sinks. You don’t even think of getting off the ship, do you?”

Dan looked around the large rectory with its old worn carpets and the dark wood paneling, the polished door lentils.

“It’s a good ship,” he said.

Keith wanted to say, “No, it isn’t.” But he only said: “Sometimes.

“It took me a long time to stop being Roman. It was just two years ago I was turning on the Christmas Eve Mass at Saint Peter’s. I would listen to Lessons and Carols on the BBC first. Anyway, I was looking at the Pope, and I was looking at those big old spirally pillars around the altar and suddenly I just wondered why I was watching this. I couldn’t understand why I was there. I wasn’t… mad or… disappointed. I was just… disinterested. I got up, turned the TV off and put on a CD of the King’s College singers.”

Dan shook his head.

“I couldn’t do it. You did so much I couldn’t do.”

“And you admire it?”

“Some of it,” Dan Malloy admitted. “Sometimes all of it. Sometimes…” he drummed the tabletop with his fingertips, “I feel like I’ve been so terribly safe.”

“Safe isn’t always a bad way to go.”

“The only thing is… very often it isn’t any way to go,” Dan said. “You… all you do is take risks, make a difference. I sit here and think about making a difference, tell people that’s a great idea, go make a difference. Then I come back here to the rectory and keep things going.”

“I thought you liked that. It’s the same thing I do.”

“I suppose,” Dan said.

Keith looked up to where there was a large oil painting of Jesus. He couldn’t say who made it, but he was familiar with the rich color of the Lord’s face, the dark drama of his hair and eyes.

“You know,” Keith said, “when I left I left because I was in love. It was because I was gay, yes. But I was in love too. I thought something was going to happen.”

“And it did.”

“For a while,” Keith nodded. “Yes. But then after I had left my vocation he decided that his own vocation… he couldn’t leave it for me. And I wouldn’t have that. So, you see, I am still alone. And all that after I left. You… you’ve got your vows to keep you straight and narrow. I’m just a gay priest on permanent cruise who can’t find anyone. You’re a little more lucky than you think.”

Dan reflected over this, and then he said, “You’re here now? To stay?”

“Pretty much. Saint John’s opened up. Before the old pastor left he referred them to me, and now I’m back here.”

“After Michigan?”

“Michigan had lots of deer. Rossford has memories. It’s close to old friends.”

Dan nodded.

“It’s close to you, Dan. And you’re one of my best friends.”

“Yes,” Dan said doubtfully.

Keith looked at him.

“What?”

Dan Malloy looked at him directly and said, “It’s close to Casey.”