The Prayers in Rossford

This is the conclusion of the Rossford Triptych. So, if you haven't read The Houses in Rossford or The People in Rossford, it makes no sense for you to start here.

We begin where we left off, at a Christmas Eve party full of presents. Tom now has a son, and Fenn has… a lot of explaining to do. Brian, after years of lovelessness now finds the beginnings of love with Chad North though Claire Anderson may have something to say about it. Noah, to the surprise of Danasia, and everyone else, admits that a new arrival, his old friend James, is the love of his life and the one thing that could make him blush. In the conclusion of the Triptych, all must be resolved. Some relationships will be consummated, while others end, some virgins will be unvirgined and some whores redeemed, but others will stay just as they always were. A marriage is in the works and Nell Reardon, long kept from the world of romance will stumble into it again with the most unlikely of partners. Can a pornstar priest find peace? Will a lonely priest wish he was a pornstar, and is someone finally going to have to give an account for all of Ed Callan’s money?

Read, and find out.

These are the people who pray in Rossford, indiana

Fenn Houghton
Layla Lawden
Todd Meraden
Dena Reardon
Adele Lawden
Nell Reardon
Brendan Miller
William Klasko
Tara Veems
Thomas Mesda
Paul Anderson
Noah Riley
Lee Philips
Milo Affren
Brian Babcock
Claire Anderson
Julian Lawden
Danasia Burns
Daniel Malloy
Keith McDonald
Naomi Riley
James Lewis
Radha Hatangady
Barbara Affren
William Affren

and

Casey Williams

Acquainted With Sorrow

Fenn Houghton was locked in the little study when Tom came in rocking the baby.

“You wanna hold him?”

“Eh?” Fenn tilted his head. “I’m not good with babies. I’d actually planned to never have one.”

“And now you do.”

Fenn rose from the chair where he’d been smoking, and raised an eyebrow. He put down the cigarette and came to Tom who said:

“This little baby is sort of your bastard child.”

“Doesn’t look a bit like me.”

“He’s our love child,” Tom said, smiling a little at his joke.

“Well, he was sort of conceived on a one night stand.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Tom said. “I understand why you did what you did?”

“You do?” Fenn said, taking the baby and rocking it gently. “Cause I don’t.”

“I remember,” said Tom, “when you were leaving grad school and you said your head hurt. I mean, you smoked a pack of cigarettes and your head throbbed every night and you said that you knew who you were and what you were going to do, and then all of a sudden you didn’t. It was gone, and you were drifting.”

“I did say that,” Fenn acknowledged, his gaze on the baby while he rocked him.

“That’s right. And… I remember you said you wished you could

cry. I know what you mean. How the back of your eyes and the side of your head hurt so bad.”

“Yes.”

“And I think when we ended it must have been like that. World shattering. It was for me, and it was my fault. So I imagine that during that time, the time when we came back together, when I was so excited about us making love and sleeping together, your anger came back.”

“My fear came back,” Fenn said, gently pressing the sleeping baby to Tom. “I loved you again.” Fenn shook his head. He corrected himself. No. I was in love with you again. That’s different, and I had to do something spiteful, not on the level, to throw that trust off. To make you someone I was getting back at, Tom. That’s what it was. I’ve been in this room thinking about that all night. I knew it was too right away, And it was after I did it that I felt free to love you again, to trust what we had again. But I couldn’t tell you.”

“I probably would have laughed.”

“You would have laughed to know that when I was jacking you off and freezing your sperm to sell to some crazy woman for my rent money?”

Tom looked up from the baby, and sat in the chair beside him.

“No. When you put it that way… And given what I was like eight years ago….”

“And then it was about eight years ago. I mean, I assumed nothing came of it. I mean, you’ve gotta put that stuff in special freezers. Or I guess I thought you did. Now that I think of it that can’t be true cause women take it home from clinics and freeze it all the time. I just. She must have kept it for a long time and then made…”

“This miracle,” Tom said tenderly, playing with the half sleeping infant’s fingers. “She made this miracle.”

“Yeah,” Fenn said, turning to Tom, “He is a little bit of a miracle.”

“He’s our miracle,” Tom said, flatly, frowning as he considered the baby.

“Our fucked ups with each other made this baby. I was thinking… You wanna adopt him? Be the dad with me?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Plus Todd wants a kid.”

“Well, then it makes sense you’d ask Todd. Or Lee, who’s your partner.”

“He’s got Danny,” Tom said, shrugging. “I don’t know that he’ll want a baby all the time. I don’t think he does. And Todd does, and I’ve wanted a child.”

Fenn said, “This is all too strange.”

“It’s like the greatest Christmas present ever. The night of Jesus’ birth is the night that I get this baby. We get this baby. It all comes full circle. Especially when you think how it was halfway conceived in this house anyway.”

“You should have known something was up when I asked to jack you off.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “That was never your thing. I thought you’d changed or something. It felt nice.”

“Does Lee do it?”

“Uh… hell, no. You’re the only person who ever did it and, now I know it was just to get this precious Dylan.”

“Dylan?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Uh… I guess. It’s got a ring to it.”

“Say, Tom. Before you get excited and crazy, how about you check and see if you really are the father, if you really can make claims on him. And if that crazy bitch can ever get at him again.”

“Oooh, yeah, that’s a good idea,” Tom said. “I know! We’ll go to city hall as soon as possible, or social services and—”

“Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?” Fenn said. “We’ll go over to Barb’s house tomorrow and ask Larry Affren about the legality of this shit. We’ll make sure this woman has no custody over this baby, and then we’ll move on from there. If she came back at this very moment she could call the police on us if we didn’t give this baby up.”

“Well, she won’t come back,” Tom said. “And even if she did… I’d kill her.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” Tom said serenely. “Lee saved Noah’s life by shooting that scumbag, and now that I have a child I’m not going to let anything come between us. Not even the crazy lady who shot herself up with my sperm to make him.”

“Well, that’s very… touching,” Fenn said.

“It’s true,” Tom said as Fenn went to the door. “And everything I said is going to come true,” Tom beamed at the baby and rocked him a little as he cried. “I always knew there was something between you and me that would last forever. It’s this baby, Fenn. He’s ours.”

As Fenn came out of the study looking mildly perplexed, Todd Meradan came up to him, resting the back of his hand on his chest, and squeezing his side.

“What’s going on with Tom?” Todd murmured.

“He doesn’t seem upset about the whole…”

“About how you sold his sperm to a perfect stranger and now he’s got a baby?”

Fenn looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, Todd. About that.”

Todd shrugged and grinned.

“He’s delighted by the whole thing,” Fenn said “He’s all about doing the paternity test and getting full custody as soon as possible.”

“What if it’s not his?” Todd said. As they entered the kitchen, brushing past Adele and Layla. “I mean, you had thought of that, right? Any woman crazy enough to steal black market semen, wait over a half a decade to impregnate herself, and then give her baby away to strangers, is crazy enough to give a fake baby.”

“Fake baby?”

“Or give her real baby to a fake daddy.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Fenn said. “As far as I’m concerned we can’t find out fast enough.”

Todd blew out his cheeks and jammed his hands in his pockets. “How come it matters to you so much?”

“Because I care about Tom.”

“Yes,” Todd said. “But… Is that all?”

Fenn looked up at his tall boyfriend. Ten years ago, Todd would never have asked a question like this.

“He wants me to adopt it,” Fenn said. “He wants it to be our baby, like the baby that came out of our relationship. He wants you and Lee to be the step parents.”

“Are you serious?”

Fenn nodded.

“Shit.”

Todd grabbed a chair, straddled it, and Fenn said, “How do you feel about it?”

Todd opened his mouth, and closed it, like a fish.

“I… I hope that damn test turns out positive and we make sure that crazy bitch never tries to get her baby back.”

Beside Will, Layla saw Claire approach her brother and his… something. Julian raised an eyebrow, and then Claire was about to head off in another direction.

“Wait a minute, Will,” Layla said, and threaded through the room to grab her friend’s wrist.

Startled and ready to fight, Claire turned around and then said, “Oh, Layla.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Claire shook her head so quickly she had to push her red hair out of her face.

Not letting go, Layla pointed out, “It didn’t seem like nothing when you went to Julian? Or when you marched out of that kitchen.”

Julian and Will were with them now, and Julian said, “You should tell her.”

Claire exhaled. “All right.

“You remember how Chad said he had this new boyfriend, but he couldn’t talk about him?”

“What?” Layla and Will said.

“They wouldn’t remember,” Julian said. “Because they weren’t there.”

“Oh, that’s right. Well,” Claire said, “Chad is gay.”

“That part isn’t really a surprise,” Will told her.

“Yes,” Claire acknowledged. “Well, his new boyfriend is...”

It hung in the air, and then Julian said, “It’s Brian Babcock.”

“What?” Layla shrieked.

Claire turned on Julian, looking murderous, “That was my thunder, Jules. You just took my fucking thunder.”

“Who took what’s thunder?” Brendan said. His arm was around Kenny and they were in matching Christmas sweaters.

“You too look so gay,” Claire said.

“Good,” Kenny said, “Cause… I don’t know if you heard, but…”

“Speaking of what you haven’t heard,” Layla began.

“Brian Babcock’s having an affair with our friend Chad,” Claire spat out, determined to not have her thunder taken again.

“Chad?” Brendan frowned.

“The kid who you thought was gay, but wasn’t sure?” Kenny said, taking his arm from around Brendan and jamming his hands in his pockets while he frowned.

“You look just like Ed Sullivan when you do that,” Will said.

“Who?”

“Kenny doesn’t know about the Golden Age of television,” Brendan said. “And yeah… that’s Chad? Him and Babcock… Ick.”

“Actually he’s not bad looking,” Kenny said.

“He could be your father,” Brendan stated. but before Kenny could respond, Brendan pointed across the room to where Tom Mesda was coming out of the study. “ A baby…What’s that all about?”

“I don’t really…”

Dena was coming from the kitchen, and Brendan said, “Deen, what’s the baby all about?”

“Oh,” Dena said, blaisse. “Layla’s uncle stole Tom Mesda’s sperm and sold it to a crazy woman who showed up today with that baby and says it’s his. And now, it seems, he and Lee and Fenn and Todd are going to adopt it or something.”

Dena paused and said, looking at Layla. “It’s sort of going to be our mutual cousin.”

Kenny mused, “You stay out of town a few weeks, and everything happens.”

“Yeah,” Dena said with a shrug in her voice, and then she cocked her head and looked at Kenny and Brendan.

“You all… match.”

“Do we?” Brendan said, pulling at his sweater and smiling a little. “Yeah. I guess we do, a little.”

Dena said, “It’s really gay.”

“We’ve already covered that.”

“Yeah,” Claire said. “But this just verifies it. Thank you Dena.”

Dena nodded and Layla saw Milo approaching.

“Hum?” Dena turned to him.

“It’s ten past eleven,” said Milo. “If we want anything like a decent seat at mid-night Mass, we’d better start heading out.”

“Then we should go,” Will gestured to Layla. But Milo said, “I thought you were all Jewish now?”

“Well, just an apprentice Jew.”

“That’s good. I thought you might have to cancel out on Christmas dinner.”

“Nothing doing,” Will said. “I’ll never be too Jewish for egg nog or Silent Night. That—would be a tragedy.”