The Prayers in Rossford

Keith shut the suitcase and sat down on it, clicking it underneath him.

“Are you really leaving tonight?” Dan leaned against the lentil.

Keith nodded.

“We’re not going that far.

“I can’t believe that Casey is a friend of Noah’s. And Noah’s guy, James. We’re gonna go down to Noah’s house in Rummelsville and stay awhile, work things out.”

“Are you still thinking about being an Episcopal priest?”

“I actually meet with the bishop next Monday,” Keith said. “I… he’s a sympathetic bishop. And I love this place. Saint Anne’s, the Episcopal Church outside of town is always looking for a new pastor so,” Keith shrugged, “we’ll see. I need to perform the Sacraments.”

“What’s it like. The Anglicans?”

“The same, but not the same,” Keith told him. But today, at Mass, all I could think was… I mean… Didn’t you feel the Spirit?”

“I… ah…” Dan began. And then he said, suddenly, “Keith, I’m going to miss you so much.”

Keith hugged him quickly.

He said, “Me and Casey… We’re not doing anything. I told him that until everything was settled and I was no longer a Catholic priest, I wanted to not be… engaged in sin with him. I know it sounds silly, but—”

“No no,” Dan said urgently. “It isn’t silly at all.”

“Well my point is, I think me and Casey will stay here tonight. There are enough rooms, and… I think Noah would love to stay. Would you like that?”

Dan realized that this was colossal pity, that Keith had seen into how lonely, how suddenly afraid Dan was of this night in the rectory alone. But he also knew that he was afraid, and that pity this colossal wasn’t pity. It was grace. So he said, “Yes. I would like that. A lot.”

TAKE AND EAT,

Take and eat

This is my body

Given up for you

Take and eat…

“Don’t,” Dan said, his voice a little whimper.

“Don’t what?” Fenn said to him in the bed.

“It’s not right.”

Fenn murmured

“This is my body, given up for you.”

His mouth went all down Dan’s body.

“You are the sacrament,” he murmur-sang. “We are the sacrament.”

It was so strange seeing him at the party. It would have been better if he’d been part of one of those happy couples, one of those look at us, we’re so glad together couples, instead of someone who looked like he was in something very old with someone he’d known for a long time. Of course it was very old, or at least ten years old, which is old enough.

“Do you mind me coming to Saint Barbara’s?” Dan had asked him.

Fenn looked up at him, genuinely confused. Tom had just clapped him on the back and gone to fix him a drink.

“What the hell would I mind for?”

“It’s just… You know…” But the more Fenn looked at him, the more Dan realized, “No, I don’t know why I asked.

“I knew you were here,” Dan said. “So when the bishop asked me, you know, where I’d like to be—they do give you a sort of option these days—after doing my two years in South Bend I said I’d like to come here.”

“Now, let me get his straight—thank you, babe,” he said as Tom handed him his drink and sat at the picnic table beside him. “You can just get moved about whenever. Wherever. Like a chess set.”

“Chess pawn,” Tom corrected.

“That’s what I meant.”

“Well,” Dan jested, “I suppose I am the church’s chessman.”

Fenn shrugged, and reaching into his breast pocket took out a cigarette.

Tom shook his head, “I’ve been trying to get him to give it up for years.”

Dan looked around the park across the street from Saint Barbara’s.

“Everyone here knows you’re a couple?” Dan said, incredulous.

“Well,” Tom answered, “they don’t not know.”

“I never stood up on a rooftop and declared it,” Fenn said. “But they’d have to be stupid not to know. And Tom’s the best organist and choir director the church ever had.”

“You should never expect the choir director to be straight,” Tom said. He looked away and said, “There’s Brian. I gotta go talk to him. Be right back.”

“Brian?” Dan said.

Fenn’s gaze followed Tom to where he was talking with Brian. “He’s at the college where Tom is. Loretto.”

Dan squinted and said, “I don’t like the look of him.”

Fenn shrugged. “Seems harmless enough to me.”

Dan, watching Brian rub Tom’s arm, thought different.

“You and Tom have been together ten years now?”

“Almost,” said Fenn. “Pretty much since you decided you needed to be a priest. And now you have that. And I have this so… Everyone’s happy. Right?”

“I’m happy often as not,” said Dan, honestly.

“I don’t know what else anyone can ask for.”

“Is it true you guys are getting a house?”

Fenn cocked his head and ashed his cigarette. “Who told you that?”

“Adele.”

“Adele should mind her own business.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Cause I don’t like people who are always telling you what’s going on. Me and my boyfriend are getting a house. Me and my boyfriend are doing this, doing that. Folks that have to tell you all their shit don’t have shit.”

Dan grinned.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Oh? Well, you should.”

“Remember I came in on a party,”Dan said as he came into the back door of the house.

“What?” Fenn looked up from the sink.

“Last year, when I first came. And you and Tom were thinking of getting a house.”

“And this is the house,” Fenn gestured about the kitchen.

“I can’t believe Tom even thought to come to this party.”

“I can’t believe you threw him out.”

Dan didn’t laugh.

“I hate what he did to you. I knew that Brian was no good.”

His voice wasn’t furious. He was looking directly at Fenn.

“Did you come in here to tell me how horrible Brian was?”

“No,” said Dan. “Not really.”

“What did you come for?”

Dan kissed him quick, and hard. Fenn did not draw away, but when the kiss was over he asked, “What the hell was that?”

“That was me kissing you.”

“That was Father Dan kissing me.”

“That was you not exactly resisting.”

“Dan…” Fenn moved away to go upstairs. Dan followed him and caught his hand.

“What are you doing?” Fenn demanded.

“I’m going to come upstairs with you.”

Fenn looked down at him.

“All my life, haven’t you known me to do the right thing?” Dan said. He came up the stairs and faced Fenn directly.

“I have always hated Tom. The moment I heard about him I hated him. The first time I saw you together and he was real, I hated him. The whole time I was in seminary I hoped you all would break up.”

“So you would have the priesthood and I would have the memory of being with you?”

“Yes. That’s selfish, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and it’s stupid!”

“Well, he’s gone, and I’m here and—”

“You’re a priest.”

Dan shook him by the wrist sharply, angrily.

“Stop acting like you care about that. Stop acting like you give a shit. You don’t care, Fenn.” His voice was a savage whisper. “Whaddo you see right now?”

Fenn didn’t answer that. Instead he said, “There’s a backyard full of people.”

“Fuck them,” Dan said. Then he said, “Fuck me. Come on.”

Dan’s eyes were wild and his grip on Fenn’s wrist was passionate.

“Come on,” he said again.

Everything was pretense. To pretend that he felt like Dan was a priest who belonged solely to God wasn’t working. For Fenn to pretend that the priesthood was so sacred to him because he was such a good Catholic didn’t work. The Church had stolen Dan anyway.

“Come on,” Dan hissed. “It’s not just… for you. It’s for me. I need you. Come on, Fenn. I want you. I want to be there for you. I want that chance again.”

And then it didn’t seem to make any sense, saying no.

EARLY MONDAY MORNING, Fenn Houghton came to Mass, and this was unusual. After Mass, Dan found him and mentioned that.

“Come back for coffee?”

“Of course.”

As they were coming, Keith and Casey were leaving.

“I’m glad I get to say bye to you,” Keith said, putting his bag down on the porch. He extended his hand, but Fenn shrugged and hugged him quickly.

“No need for formality,” he said.

From inside the rectory, Fenn could see James coming down the steps.

“Fenn? I gotta talk to you.”

Fenn raised an eyebrow and said in a Fenn way: “All right.”

When they’d said goodbye to Keith and Casey, Fenn said, “You put the coffee on, and I’ll go talk to James.”

“James?”

“I won’t know what it is, until I see him.”

Fenn went upstairs, and upstairs Noah came down the hall saying, “I’m so glad you’re here! I’m so glad you’re here. I really, really need to talk to you.”

“I thought James needed to talk to me.”

“No, I do,” Noah said, He pulled Fenn by the wrist into his room.

Fenn let himself be dragged into the bedroom with the painting of Jesus praying in Gethsemani.

“It’s Ed Callan,” Noah said.

“Ed’s dead.”

“Yeah,” Noah said. “But his daughter’s alive.”

“His daughter?”

“Yes. Meg Callan.”

“Meg?”

“Stop repeating everything I say,” Noah snapped. Then, “I’m sorry. But… stop. Yes, Meg.”

“You never told me about a Meg.”

“That’s cause I didn’t know she existed.”

“Then how—”

“Until I met her yesterday.”

Fenn looked from Jesus on the wall to Noah standing before him.

“I met her at the truck stop. Where Danny and my mom work.”

“What the—?” Fenn started over. “What was she? Why?”

“Because she works there,” said Noah. “She lives here.”

Downstairs the large kitchen was full of the smell of coffee, and Fenn said, “What you need is cinnamon rolls. Or donuts. Or something like that.”

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Dan said.

He sent a cup of coffee, freshly poured, Fenn’s way and Fenn said, “What’s bothering you.”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“I can tell. I can always tell. Is it Keith leaving?”

“Yes. I was used to him. I was used to having someone. I wasn’t lonely before, but I am now. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“You didn’t mean to admit it.”

They both went to the large island in the middle of the kitchen.

“I think a lot about if I made the right choice. Since Keith came back, since he found Casey, I’ve thought a great deal about it.”

Fenn, not being a priest, was wise enough not to say anything or make any silly suggestions.

“I do miss you. I don’t want you not to be with Todd, but I do miss having you. I should tell you that.”

Fenn smiled, and reaching over to touch Dan’s hand he said, “And you’ll never be without me, Daniel.

“And I should tell you that.”

And when we return, we will begin the final chapter of this book, and of this trilogy.