The Families in Rossford

THE

THIRD

ACT

 

UNION

JONAH WAS STARTLED by a young man putting the brakes on his bike, right before him.

 On the path in front of him he rested, good looking but bundled in sweatshirt and knit cap and gloves, and Jonah was bothered because he should have known him.

“Jonah?” said the man.

“Yes?”

“It’s me. Keith Redmond!”

Keith had left Sean asleep in his apartment after his friend had told him of the wonderful fellow he’d met the other afternoon and taken back to the hotel across the street from the college. Now Keith pulled off his cap, and in the misty morning his hair was silver grey. Jonah went a little hot because, not knowing him, he’d been more attracted to him than before.

“Good morning,” Jonah said. “I walk out here.”

“I like to ride here,” Keith explained. “Do you mind if I walk with you? I’ll just… tie my bike up.”

“I tied mine up on the other side of the lake,” Jonah said.

 The quiet was everything, and he prized it. But Keith was something too. “Please. Let’s walk.”

Keith tied up his bike and they walked along a low hill to their left with geese trooping up its summit, the shore of the pond to their rights. Keith picked up on Jonah’s mood and said, “We don’t have to talk at all. I’m very good at being silent.”

Jonah chuckled.

“Thanks for that. But I’d feel rude. It would be too much like ignoring you, and if I wanted to ignore you, I guess I would just say go away.”

A smile split Keith’s face and he said, “I heard you’re a poet.”

“I guess. I mean, yes. I mean… I don’t try for it,” Jonah explained.

“Everybody wants to be something. Or someone. I don’t try for it. I just… Write things down. They fall into my head.”

“Maybe you’ll write a poem about me.”

Jonah looked at him.

“I was just joking,” Keith said, suddenly.

Jonah did not believe he was.

---

TEN

YOU AREN’T THE FIRST TO DO IT,

AND

YOU WOULDN’T BE THE LAST

 

Jonah Layton went up the steps and entered into the quiet of Saint Agatha’s Catholic Church. The noise of the street went out with the closing of the door, and was replaced by the music of the organ, the heavy silence of sanctity. There were few lights on in here, and the church was filled with shadow. This was an old place. It still had its communion rail before the ancient altar. Above it stood the crucifix, and Jonah thought of how beautiful churches were when nothing was going on in them.

But that was not why he had come.

He turned past the baptismal, and went up through the little door into the choir loft. It was a small, tight, twisting passage that brought him up to the place where a tall man, with grey in his dark hair, bent over the organ, playing. Jonah leaned against the wall, watching him and watching the whole of the church, aisles and rows beneath the high pillars that reached up into the elaborately patterned ceiling. Brian played for some time before, stopping and turning around with a start.

“Are you Brian Babcock?” Jonah said.

“Eh… yes,” he stood up, remembering himself, and came forward.

“I am Jonah Layton,” the younger man said, shaking his hand.          

“I feel like I know that name.”

“You may,” Jonah allowed. “I am the love of your brother’s life.”

“Uh,” Brian opened his mouth. “I…”

Jonah chuckled.

“A hell of a way to introduce yourself, right?” he said.

“Well, accurate enough,” Brian said. “After Sean left we heard a lot about you.”           

“But you didn’t want to ask too much because you weren’t too interested in your brother,” Jonah guessed. “You were glad to see the back of him.”

“I don’t know what he told you,” Brian began.

“He told me enough,” said Jonah.

 “Look, I’m no idiot who would defend Sean for what he did. It’s just that I’m going to be here a while, and Sean doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and your neice is having a dinner, and we want you to be there. You and Chad, and I hope you say yes. And I hope you and your brother can be close again.”

“We were never close,” Brian said, candidly.

Jonah shrugged, heading toward the door from which he’d come.

“Well, then maybe you can be close for the first time.”

When Meredith came over in the last days of February, in the first week of Lent when the sky was deep blue and the weather sunny though snow was still on the ground, she looked lighter than she had in a long time. She entered the basement apartment like Persephone come to the netherworld, and while she sat on the couch drinking a wine glass full of juice, Sheridan said, “Look at what Brendan has done.”

Brendan had been sitting at his desk, and now he turned around with a huge stack of papers.

“Is that a new case, or is it the book you’ve been working on?”

“It’s the beginning of the book I’ve been working on.”

“Do I get to read it?” Meredith said. “And seriously, I don’t want to be one of those tiresome bitches who asks to read something and then doesn’t read it, and then asks you if you can email it and then asks you to text it to my phone or something like that.”

“People do that?” Sheridan said.

Meredith nodded. “Layla had this friend—friend no longer—who was like, can I see your book, blah, blah, blah, and then she was like, well don’t print it. Email it, and then she was like email is so much trouble—”

“It sounds like she was so much trouble,” Brendan said.

“She was,” said Meredith. “But I promise I won’t be.”

“Well, even Sheridan hasn’t seen it—”

“That’s alright then,” Meredith began.

“But if you really want to,” Brendan pushed it forward. “Then there are the first two chapters.”

“Well,” Meredith smiled sharply. “That’s quite a coup! I promise I’ll have it read in a few days.”

“No, take your time.”

“I hate people who take their time,” Meredith said, grumpily, sitting back on the sofa as she commenced reading.

“So, Mere,” Sheridan settled down closer to her, “what about this guy of yours?”

“Oh,” Meredith turned from reading, “how am I ever going to get this story read if I talk about him? He’s really great, I don’t mean great as in impressive, I mean great and funny and sweet and…” Meredith sighed and shook her head. “The truth is I never thought I would be in love. And that’s strange to say for a woman who’s had three children.

“The only thing,” Meredith said, “is dating Charlie makes me want to have my own place. I can’t bring him where I am now with Nell and my father. And whoever else might show up. Like, I would love to have a dinner for him, and I can’t. It would just be too odd.”

“You can have it at my house,” Brendan said.

“What?”

“I’m not living there. Me and Kenny haven’t sorted anything out yet, but I can tell him to clear the hell out for a night. Yeah, do it at my house.”

Meredith put down the sheaf of papers that was Brendan’s story, got up and went to kiss him.

“I always knew you were wonderful,” she said. “But I didn’t know just how much!”

“The only way for you all to learn is to participate,” Todd whispered.

They sat in a small room with windows overlooking Overton Street, books lining a back wall, and a closed Ark before them.

“I agree,” Melanie said.

She wasn’t really whispering. No one was, and the room was only a little crowded.

“But I think this rabbi is a yutz,” Layla said sourly.

“Unfortunately,” Melanie Fromm said, “I agree with that too,—” the rabbi had entered the room. “—but this is the only synagogue aside from the Orthodox one that does daily minyan.”

The back door opened and Todd, Melanie, Maia and Layla, turned around, surprised to see Laurel Houghton and Alex. Laurel grabbed a book off the back shelf which proved she knew a little of what she was doing, and they snuck into the chairs behind their friends.

“What are you doing h—?” Maia whispered, but Laurel shook her head, waved it off and said, “Long story,” as the congregation launched into prayer. Melanie and Todd knew precisely what they were doing, and eventually Maia picked up. For her it wasn’t so much a problem of ignorance as uncertainty. Layla, between her friends, felt uncharmed and was comforted by Laurel and Alex’s silence. She heard the hatzi kaddish, which she remembered. Then began the most beautiful things she had ever heard. It was in her memory, but the words were never with her. She lifted the book and was frustrated by the Hebrew letters on one side, the English on the other that did not tell her how to make those beautiful sounds. There was a tap on her back and she turned around while Laurel held out a book to her. She took it from her neice. It was a different one, brown, leatherette and, most importantly, with the Hebrew written out in Latin letters.

 

Ba-ruch  a-tah  A-do-nai,

E-lo-hei-nu,  Vei-lo-hei   a-vo-tei-nu,

E-lo-hei  Av-ra-ham,  E-lo-hei  Yitz-chak,  Vei-lo-hei   Ya-a-kov,

Ha-eil  Ha-Ga-dol  Ha-Gi-bor  v'Ha-No-rah  Eil  Eil-yon,

go-meil  cha-sa-dim  to-vim

v'ko-nei  ha-kol

v'zo-cheir  chas-dei  a-vot

u'mei-vi  go-eil  liv-nei  v'nei-hem

l'ma-an  sh'mo  b'a-ha-vah,

Me-lech  o-zeir  u'mo-shi-a  u-ma-gein

Ba-ruch  a-tah  A-do-nai,

ma-gein  Av-ra-ham.

 

After that, they carried on, and it was so beautiful, it did not matter what they said, but there it was, readable to her in its sounds and in its translation.

 

A-tah  gi-bur  l'o-lam,  A-do-nai   m'chai-yei  mei-tim  a-ta  rav  l'ho-shi-a,

ma-shiv   ha-ru-ach  u-mo-rid  ha-ga-shem

m'chal-keil  cha-yim  b'che-sed

m'cha-yei  mei-tim  b'ra-cha-mim  ra-bim

so-meich  no-f'lim  v'ro-fei  cho-lim

u-ma-tir  a-su-rim

u-m'kai-yeim  e-mu-na-to  li-shei-nei  a-far

mi  cha-mo-cha  ba-al  g'vu-rot

u-mi  do-me  lach

me-lech  mei-mit  u-m'chai-ye  u-matz-mi-ach y'shu-a,

 

v'ne-e-man  a-tah  l'ha-cha-yot  mei-tim

 

Ba-ruch  a-tah  A-do-nai,

m'cha-yei  ha-mei-tim.

    

On one side of her sang Melanie, and on the other, Todd. Maia’s voice was high and surprisingly sweet, and Tara trudged along to support her daughter. Layla flipped back to the beginning, backwards, she remembered, and looked at the top.

“Shimonei Ashrei,” she pronounced.

Once she remembered her great grandmother saying she had agreed to be Catholic because she fell in love with the old Gloria: Glória in excélsis Deo: et in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntátis. On such things as these, decisions were made. On the strength of the Shimonei Ashrei, Layla decided, as she had never decided before, that she would be a Jew.

“You know,” Edward was saying to Meredith, “I like you.”

“Well, I like you too, Ed,” Meredith said. “In fact, you look like someone I know.”

“Yeah, my dad.”

Meredith raised an eyebrow at the fifteen year old.

“I take it you mean someone else,” Edward Palmer said.

“A friend of the family,” Meredith explained. “Practically family.”

“Well, if things keep up then I will be family,” Edward said. “And that would be great as long as I didn’t have to call you Mom because, like, you’re only ten years older than me.”

“Well, I didn’t know your father was—”

“Father was what?” Charlie entered the living room, grinning with a beer for himself and one for Meredith.

“I believe Meredith was on the verge of saying such an old man,” Edward told his father.

“You’re a merciless little monster,” Charlie said, palming the boy’s head and messing his hair. “Now get up, so I can sit with Meredith.”

“I’m getting up,” Edward said, “and I’m going out.”

“Be back by ten,” Charlie shouted, “it’s a school night.”

“I will,” Edward shouted back. “I promise.”

The door closed.

“He reminds me of Dylan,” Meredith said.

“Who?”

“Sort of like a cousin, though I don’t think we’re really related at all. He looks like him. He even acts like him.”

“Small world,” Charlie said, wrapping an arm around her.

“So what’s this about you not knowing I was such an old man?”

“Firstly, I didn’t say that. And secondly, you’re not.”

“I’m forty-two.”

“Well, when you say it that way…”

Charlie laughed.

“You look like you’re thirty. Maybe.”

“You know that’s still too old for you.”

“Why don’t you let me decide what’s too old for me, Charlie Palmer.”

He grinned at her.

“You’re really cute that way,” she told him.

“Cute enough to kiss?”

She kissed him.

“That’s out first kiss,” he told her.

“So, Meg?”

“Yes?”

“Your ex wife.”

“I assumed.”

“You like her, she likes you. From what I’ve heard.”

“It was an amicable divorce.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get,” Meredith sat up. “If she was the bitch, I would trust you more, but is she’s not the bitch—”

“Then I must be the bastard?”

“Yes,” Meredith said. “Something like that.”

“I hope I wasn’t the bastard,” Charlie said. “I mean, I think it was just both of us wanted to be with someone when we met. Meg had lost her father, not that she really had him. He was sort of dirty and never around. She came here looking for him, but he was dead. I had gotten out of a relationship with an older woman. It didn’t work. Me and Meg both wanted someone. We wanted something simple. We got married.”

Charlie stopped and added, “I got her pregnant, and then we got married.”

Meredith nodded.

“I like to manufacture the image of a nice guy. I like to be a stand up guy. By the time I was in my mid or late twenties, I’d had two failed relationships, one strictly based on sex, and I had met a decent girl but certainly not one who was in love with me, and neither one of us had the sense to use protection. We were married and we didn’t seem any less happy than other people. It was the right thing to do. We went to church every Sunday. It would have gone on forever.”

“You didn’t feel… cheated? Or anything? You didn’t feel like you wished there was more?”

“No,” Charlie said, honestly. “Not anymore. I felt like I had the same life my dad and my brothers and every guy I knew had. And then Edward was born, named for Meg’s father. Then Charlie for me, and then Theresa cause we liked the name. No, I was okay with our life.”

Meredith shook her head.

“When I had an okay life I was so miserable,” she said.

“Well, that must be how women are,” Charlie guessed. “Because that’s why Meg ended it. She said she wanted to be happy. I wasn’t really happy either but I felt so hurt at the time, like I was a failure because she wouldn’t be happy with me. Maybe you think I’m a really nice guy, but I became a very bad man to live with for a time. After a while I realized we wouldn’t be happy together. We were friends after we divorced, but in the beginning I made it really difficult for her. I’m embarrassed about that now.

“So,” Charlie said. “That’s my story.”

Meredith touched his face.

“I’m glad I know it, now.”

“Does it make you like me better?” He gave her a doubtful smile.

“It makes me know you better,” she told him. “So you should know about me.”

“Will I regret this? Did you kill anyone?”

“Wouldn’t you feel horrible if it turned out I did?”

Charlie chuckled and caressed Meredith’s arm.

“I had a boyfriend for years, Mathan. And things had come to an end, but before the last hurrah, a few years ago, we just started this crazy affair, having sex in all of these places.”

“I can’t wait till we get to that place.”

“Shut up.” She slapped his knee.

“Anyway, I broke it off, and he was dating someone else. I mean it looked like they were going to be in a real serious relationship. And I was seeing someone who sort of looked like Mathan and who I sort of liked when I realized that I was pregnant with Mathan’s baby.”

“And so you married Mathan?”

“No,” Meredith said. “I married the guy I was seeing. I slept with him, told him I was pregnant, and married Max. I could have been okay with being a single mother if Mathan hadn’t found someone else and someone so close to home. It just made me look so pitiful. And Max was so into me. I thought it was what would work. This was so much worse than your marriage.”

“But when it ended?” Charlie said.

“Well, I had Elijah, and then I had our daughter right away so that Max would have a child. And then I was pregnant again.”

“What?”

“Around the new year, back in Chicago, I told Max the truth. He said none of the children were his and he left, and then I went into labor and our baby died.”

Charlie sat up straight.

“It’s alright,” Meredith told him. “Well, it’s not alright, but… It’s what it is.”

“Where is he now?” Charlie said.

“I guess in Chicago,” Meredith told him. “He just didn’t come back.”

“That son of a bitch,” Charlie Palmer muttered. “What a son of a bitch.”