The City of Rossford

Seven

Christmas

MEREDITH CAME AS SOON as she got the phone call from Mrs. Netteson. She didn’t tell anyone about it. She just drove over. Dena had called earlier and said, I have excellent news!” Meredith thought it would be better to hear whatever the Nettesons were going to say and get that out of the way first. It couldn’t possibly be good.

As she drove through town she thought of Kip Danley. She wondered what she would have done in his place that night. But then, if she had been with Robin, nothing would have ever happened. She would have told Robin it was time to go and that they had no business with any of those strange boys. And in a dark parking lot at that.

“What was wrong with her?” Meredith finally let herself say. She hadn’t wanted to think it. She knew so many people had already. And it was dangerously close to saying: she asked for it.

“Why didn’t she have some sense? She should have known better.”

Meredith stopped talking. It was a relief now to just say it, to say it out loud and, what was more, to make sure no one ever heard her say it out loud. She was just so tired of denying her rage.

In the house, Mr. Netteson said, “Thank you for coming,” and Meredith nodded, not able to find anything sensible to say.

Mrs. Netteson made a gesture to her husband, which he nodded to, rose and said, “I’ll leave you ladies alone.”

“Thank you,” Meredith said at the same time Robin’s mother did, and both women looked at each other, Mrs. Netteson giving Meredith a small smile.

“You should read this,” Robin’s mother said.

She held a folded piece of paper in her hands, and she gave it over to Meredith.

“Open it,” Mrs. Netteson charged in a small voice.

Meredith didn’t really want to. The paper rustled as she opened it. Everything else in the house was so quiet.

Meredith read it once, very quickly. Then another time, this time slow and finally she placed it on her knee.

“I’m not afraid,” she quoted. “I’m just going to take a little ride. I’ve got to…”

Mrs. Netteson nodded.

“That’s what she said,” said Meredith. “I’m just going to take a little ride. So… she planned it.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Netteson said. It sounded better than saying: suicide.

They were both quiet.

The clock was ticking. The cat yawned with a little “yeow” and outside, on Veram Street, a car rumbled by.

“You knew it though,” Mrs. Netteson said. “Even without the note you knew.”

“I thought I knew,” Meredith agreed.

“So did I,” Eileen Netteson said.

Meredith knew the older woman had something to say. Finally she did.

“It’s just…” Eileen shook her head and took a deep breath. “I know this sounds terrible, but… maybe you know how I feel, Meredith. You’re a smart girl. I mean, you’re what they call an old soul.”

For some reason this made Meredith’s eyes sting. They were hot with tears. Her face ached with tears not falling while Mary Ann Netteson continued:

“She just… in the end didn’t have much choice over anything,” Robin’s mother reflected. “And… I just think that with everything… It sort of makes me feel good, you know, to know she at least chose that.”

THE HOUSE WAS STUNNED TO SILENCE. As they entered, Layla’s and Will’s fingers locked together. He looked at her and she was glad to have him. She wanted to say: “Don’t ever cut your hair.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it.

Out of the crowd, Radha approached them. She was more sober than they’d ever seen her, but black became her, and Layla thought how even in this, with the kohl rimming her large eyes, she was still alluring. Everyone else here was so lost and so plain.

“I feel like I shouldn’t even be here,” Layla confessed.

“I feel the same way,” Radha said, looking around. “And this is going to be my family.

Across the room, Aidan’s head was pressed to Mark’s, but the two men didn’t seem to be saying much to each other. Annelise Michaelson’s hair was tied up and she was with one of Mark’s cousins. When she saw Will and Layla, she lifted up a finger and crossed the room.

“Well, I guess it’s official?” she said, looking from Will in his rumpled jacket with his shoulder length hair then to Layla.

When neither of them said anything, Annelise said, “It’s the one good thing to come out of all this awful year.”

Now Chad North came into the room along with Bryant, who really didn’t seem to belong.

“I heard about something like this once,” Chad said. “In California. A rash. One kid got in front of a train, and then after him, or her, I don’t remember, it was about three others who did. All suicides in the same spot.”

Radha smiled grimly, patted her friend on the shoulder, and said, “You might not want to tell Mark that story. The last month, learning about Russell and that girl… And now both of them in the same twenty-four hours. The thing is we’ll never know what happened.”

“I think we do know what happened,” Will said.

“I think she means the details,” Annelise said to her ex boyfriend.

“I think I did too,” Will said. “But now…. I don’t need them. I don’t want them. Not really. I want something. But I don’t know what it is.”

Hoping to change the subject, Bryant said to Radha, “Is it true? What I heard about you and Mark?”

At this, Radha brightened and she said, “It is! Thank you Bryant.”

She hugged him quickly.

“You were two of my best students.”

“Mark was one of your best students?”

“Well,” Bryant confessed at the doubt in Radha’s voice, “he had a great personality.”

Claire came out of the bathroom, her hand on her stomach and Layla said, concerned:

“Is it usual to throw up all the time during pregnancy?”

“It’s usual for me,” Claire said. “I talked to Paul last night… I can’t wait to tell him. Didn’t even tell Kirk. He can’t keep a secret. At least not from Paul.”

“When did you find out?” Bryant asked.

“When Julian got tired of me throwing up all the time and bought a home pregnancy test about a week ago.” She turned to Layla.

“Feel like being a godmother?”

“This is the second time I’ve been threatened with that in a week,” Layla said.

“Dena…” Will reflected. “Knocked up.”

All of a sudden Chad spoke.

“Is it true? That they’re thinking about changing Wally Reed’s charges from rape to murder?”

“Thank you for making the conversation a lot less light,” Claire told her old friend, but Radha confessed: “I kind of hope so.”

“I know Meredith hopes its true,” Layla said. “Meredith Affren,” she said to clarify the matter.

“She doesn’t think it’ll happen though,” Layla continued. “And she told me she isn’t even entirely sure it should. But… I don’t know. I think we’re responsible for a lot more than we admit. Robin’s blood is on Wally’s hands. Maybe Russell’s too.”

She gave a bitter chuckle here and then said, shaking her head, “Life is such a bitch sometimes.”

O LORD OF LIGHT our only hope of glory

Your radiance shines on all who look to you

Come light the hearts of all in dark and shadow

O spring of Joy, rain down upon our spirits

Our thirsty hearts are yearning for your word

Come make us whole, be comfort to our hearts

For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits

Truly my hope is in you!

From the mirror on the organ, Chad North could see Keith McDonald light the last purple candle. Now the lights wavered, three purple, one bright pink, and Christmas was a few days off. He liked playing at Saint John Chrysostom. He needed to get away from Catholicism, although it always attracted him. This was the happy medium. He needed to get away from a place where he felt like he was pretending not to be gay and they were pretending not to notice. Then again, in some ways it was more comfortable to be at Saint Agatha’s or Saint Barbara’s, where his business was his business and anyone who knew anything about him, and anyone who mattered even a little bit knew he was Bryant’s lover than to be here where, if he talked about Bryant it was… a political statement. It was a thing that threatened the more conservative members and galvanized the so-called liberals.

For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits

Truly my hope is in you.

As Keith McDonald said: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…”

Chad thought about what Sean had said, bitterly:

“They could be talking about Zeus!”

Here, they might as well be.

What did he believe? He loved music. He loved working around town playing organ. He loved liturgy. He loved playing for the Vespers and Morning Prayer services here. He liked that much better than Mass. But did he believe in anything, really? Chad didn’t ask himself questions, not really, and when he did they weren’t very demanding ones.

He began to play the Gloria. He knew it so well he could drift off into thought even while adding the occasional flourish.

He liked the grottos at the Catholic churches. He hadn’t grown up with that, little manmade caves filled with candles where a saint lived inside of a statue and you could sit in front of her or his presence and bare your sorrows. No matter what ideas people had about saints, the saints he had seen never judged. Nothing was ever too much for them. You could tell them anything and always their plaster fingers were open in love. They were open with a human love, and with God’s love. Their faces were so calm and solemn. Nothing shocked, no request was too much. He wished he believed in them. He wished he could get to that place. Bryant lived in that place. That’s why he loved him so much. He wished he could tell someone, anyone, about everything happening inside of him.