The Prayers in Rossford

“Come on in,” Fenn murmured as Tom walked in through the kitchen.

“We need to talk!”Tom announced.

“We certainly do.”

“I asked you something very important.”

“I’ve made my decision—”

“I told you that I wanted you to be Dylan’s father, that I thought it should be you all along, and nobody else—”

“And I know it’s taken me a while—”

“And Fenn, I do love Todd. I mean, he’s a good man—”

“And I probably should have said yes from the start—”

“I can totally see why you would say no, and maybe it’s old resentment—”

“But really I was just afraid, and I still am. I know I won’t be alone—”

“But I’m not going to leave you alone until you agree to be the father of this child—”

“So I’ve decided to be the father of this child.”

They both stopped.

Tom looked at him.

“Did you just say…?”

“I said yes, Tom.”

“Oh, great!—”

“I don’t promise to be great or—”

“I’ll never ask you to be something you’re not—”

“I can only be me. All you have is me. That’s all I can be, and I think—”

Pleased, Tom put a hand over Fenn’s mouth and said, “I think we can do this.”

Tom came into the living room where Fennhad placed Dylan in the crib, and set him to sleep.

“What are you thinking?” Fenn said, looking up at him.

“You me, Lee. Todd. What a perfect family we are.”

Fenn nodded, looking down at the little baby with curiosity, his brows knit.

“What an amazingly little thing he is.”

“You know? Brian said you’d make a great father.”

“Really?” Fenn’s tone showed nothing, except maybe amusement.

“I agree.”

“You all talk a lot recently.”

“We talk period, He’s a good friend.”

“The two of you look like you’re going to fall into bed again,” Fenn said. “If you ever betrayed my cousin—”

“God, Fenn!”

“I’m just saying.”

“Plus, that’s what people say about us.”

“You and me?” Fenn grinned thinking of that.“Is that a fact?”

“They say that the spark’s still there.”

“Well the spark will always be there.”Fenn yawned and sat down on the couch.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. If it had been one sided…” Tom shrugged. “I dunno. I think we should always stay a little in love with each other.”

“God, Tom, give me a cigarette.”

“Where are they?”

“Over there,” Fenn gestured to the mantle.

As Tom crossed the room, Fenn told him, “One day Dylan will ask why his two daddies don’t together. He’s going to wonder why we never lived together in his lifetime.”

Tom shook his head, and handed Fenn his cigarettes.

“When I was a kid my grandpa used to come and go to my grandma’s house. I never thought about it. When I was older I learned that he had another wife, and my grandmother had been the woman on the side.”

“You never told me that.”

“Not cause I was trying to keep it from you,” Tom said. “I just forgot. But my point is kids don’t think about that.”He kissed Fenn on his head.“They don’t think about the type of love their parents have. They just know their parents love each other. And that’s what this little one’ll know about us.”

On his way to Fenn and Todd’s, Noah Riley surprised himself by stopping at Saint Barbara’s. This was, of course, the only place God had ever spoken to him, and he was aware that God hadn’t spoken to him since, and he hadn’t been terribly troubled about it.

He parked outside of the church and went up the steps. It was so different from the desperate winter night when he was full of jealously and upset, and snow covered everything and the cold fell on the world like claustrophobia.

He entered the church and it was empty, except for a dark haired man in one of the pews toward the back. He thought it was Brian Babcock, and was coming up to say hello when he turned around and Noah gasped.

Keith McDonald got up and came to him.

“Noah!”

“Keith.”

“I’m glad to see you.”

And Noah discovered he was glad to see him too.

“Are you back for good?’

“I’m back for now,” Keith gestured for Noah to sit down in the pew, and Noah did so with an awkward sign of the cross.

“I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left. I wanted to talk to you. Like we did on Christmas.”

“Well, we can talk right now,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” Keith realized. “Yes. Why are you here? I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No,” Noah said. “I guess… I’m here for you.”

“What would you do for love?”

Fenn, who was sitting in his housecoat, holding a crying Dylan, looked up at Brian and said, “This, obviously. Todd!”

Todd’s footsteps could be heard coming down the steps and Fenn said, “Who is this brand new Brian, the one who walks into my house unannounced and asks ridiculous questions?”

“Not a ridiculous question,” Brian said, reaching back to tuck in the tail of his forest green shirt into his perfect khakis. “An absolutely essential question.”

“What’s up, Fenn? Hey Bri?”

“I need you to change this baby.”

“Can’t you change him?”

“No,” Fenn said. “He smells bad.”Fenn handed Dylan to Todd and Todd, going back up the stairs said, “One day you’ll have to learn to do this.”

“That’s what he thinks,” Fenn confided in Brian once Todd was up the stairs.

“Now what’s all this about… doing anything for love?”

“Well, it’s almost graduation time.”

“Shit! Layla’s graduation gift! Take me downtown.”

“All right,” Brian said, looking at Fenn strangely. “I have to put a coat on. A ball cap’ll cover up this hair.”

Fenn had not even thought of asking Brian if this was an imposition, but he did ask, “What does graduation have to do with love? I mean, in the specific sense?”

“I was actually referring to graduation at Loretto, Fenn,” Brian said, while Fenn pulled a coat out of the closet and shouted up, “Are you done, Todd?”

“Give me a second, please!”Todd shouted down.

“I’m going to take the baby out with me,” Fenn said. “It’ll give you some time to get work done.”He told Brian, “He’s working on something so private even I don’t know what it is. Though sometimes I think maybe it’s so private he doesn’t either.”Fenn shrugged. “But back to graduation.”

“Yes,” said Brian. “Well, Chad’s graduating.”

“That’s right. Your young man.”

Todd came down the steps with the baby, and said, “Here you go. I appreciate this.”

“And I appreciate you diapering this baby.”

“Tonight Fenn, I’m serious. We’re gonna work on this together. I’m going to show you how to do this.”

“All right, love.”

“I’m serious, Fenn.”

“I’m serious too. Now kiss me.”

Todd stooped down to kiss Fenn, and then headed back up the stairs, earnestly, stopping at the rail to wave before going back to his office.

“You’re not really serious, are you,” Brian said as they headed out the door.

“Not in the least. If you know that by now, he has to. So back to you and Chad.”

They passed the Land Rover to Brian’s car.

“Get the baby seat out of Todd’s car, would you?”

Brian nodded and said, as he lunged into the Land Rover:

“He’s going to school outside of Pittsburgh.”

“Yes,” Fenn handed Dylan to Brian while he climbed into the passenger seat.

“I was thinking of getting a job there and living with him.”

“Shit!”Fenn came up from the back seat, reached for Dylan, strapped him in and then came back and hit Brian sharply in the shoulder.

“Ouch.”

“You make it take ten years for me to like you, and then you go away.”

“It’s not done yet,” Brian said.

“And Paul’s gone now. Trying to be an actor off in Chicago,” Fenn went on.

“Look, I’m still here. I’m at Loretto for at least another year, but when I’m gone, I’d like to join Chad.”

Fenn nodded and climbed into the car.

Brian shut the door and said, “Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever’s on your mind. Say it.”

“Well,” Fenn said, at last, “at the risk of sounding like one of those people that always goes, let’s be reasonable: let’s be reasonable. The year apart for you and Chad will let you know… how solid things are.”

“I know things are solid,” Brian said sharply.

“But that’s so like you,” Fenn said, unaffected, while Brian looked at him.

“You never doubt anything. You’re always sure that what you have is so necessary. I wonder sometimes if your certainty is just camouflaged doubt.”

Neither one of them said anything about Tom. Brian had been certain about that too, and nothing else mattered but his certainty back then, either.

He turned his head and came down the driveway. They went north up Versailles, toward Dorr Avenue.

“I come from Pittsburgh,” Brian said, at last.

“I know that. But there’s a reason you left. Obviously.”

“A couple, really.”

They were passing Saint Barbara’s now, the red brick church rising up to their left, now passing as they went through the last brick buildings before downtown.

“Well, Todd lives here. He always has. But would you… would you follow him to say, Pittsburgh?”

“I could have followed him to Germany,” Fenn said. “But I didn’t. I was past thirty, which you are too. By then I knew that you could wait for love and you didn’t have to rush things to death. “

Brian smiled, ruefully, as the streets widened and they entered the beginnings of downtown.

“One would think I would have figured that out by now,” he said.

“Yes,” Fenn said, looking at him meaningfully, “One would have.”