The Prayers in Rossford

Heaven

“She’s coming to the wedding,”

They were in the café of the theatre, watching the cars come up and down the street.

“Who?”

“Her sister,” Fenn told Melanie and Tara. Then amended, “I mean our sister. Julian’s mother.”

Tara Veems looked incredulous. “That bitch?”

“Hey,” Fenn said, “that bitch is our sister.”

Melanie burst out laughing.

“It’s a good thing she came into the house with Fenn.”

“I was leaving as she was tapping to come in,” he said. “I thought she’d be a fool to go in and see Adele, my mother and Grandma at the same time.”

“Mama wanted to cut her,” Adele said. “Shit. I wanted to cut her.”

“But she’s coming now,” Fenn said.

“Amazing,” Melanie commented.

“Not amazing,” Adele disagreed. “Enough is enough. She was right. We are family.”

“I mean, she knew Hoot was married when she was having an affair with him?”

“Right,” Adele told Tara. “But enough is enough. I don’t feel like hating this woman for the rest of my life. Especially since it turns out this woman is family, and her son is Layla’s brother.”

“If he marries Claire, Paul’s going to be family,” Fenn noted.

“I see people,” Melanie pointed ahead of them.

By the time Adele and Fenn had found them, Lee came in with Danny and another woman.

“Who is that woman?” Adele said.

When they came in Lee leant over the table and said, “Can we come in here?”

“Can I introduce you to someone?”

“This is Meg Callan,” Danny said, sitting at the table.

“Meg…”Tara began, looking at Fenn.

“She came looking for her father,” said Danny.

Meg said, “I came to town a few months ago, because I had heard that Rossford was the last place my father was seen. His name was Ed.”

“Ed Callan,” Tara mouthed at the same time Fenn said, “I met Ed Callan. Once.”

Meg looked at him.

“Fenn,” he said. “I’m Fenn Houghton.”

“Well, Fenn, can you tell me anything more? We weren’t close, but I’d love to know more.”

Tara looked at him for a long time, and then Fenn said, “Yes, I can, Meg. I can tell you he’s dead.”

When they came into the house,Layla had just arrived, and Adele came behind Tara and Melanie.

“Who is Ed Callan? What is all this about?” Adele said. “And is that girl all right?”

“Danny and Lee stayed back with her.”

“Ed Callan?” Brian turned from the salad he was making.

“You know him too?”

Brian, who knew Adele had no love for him, turned away and Layla murmured, “Who came looking for him?”

“You know him?” Adele said.

“Yeah,” Layla shrugged.

“Who is this man?”

“We need Noah for this,” Layla said.

“We need Claire and Paul,” Todd added. “Actually we need Barb.”

“No,” Adele said. “You all need to tell me who the hell Ed Callan is.”

“Ed Callan was a gangster—sort of—” Todd said, “who we took five hundred thousand dollars from.”

“What?” Melanie and Adele shouted. And then Melanie turned to Tara.“You knew?”

Tara shrugged and murmured, “Kinda.”

“Look, we didn’t so much steal it as find it,” Todd began.

“You all,” said Adele, “found it? Together?”

“Yes. The night we met Paul and Noah. Or rather the night we met Noah. When we were at Guy McClintock’s house and the police busted the party.”

Adele waved her hand and made for a chair.

“I need to sit down.”

“When Todd went to shoot that film, about a year and a half back, at Guy’s?”

“Yes,” Adele murmured, “I always thought that was a bad idea.”

“Well, it was a good idea,” Fenn said. “It was a good idea and the party got busted, and a bag of drug money was beside Noah. So after we brought out Noah, I brought of the money.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

“Well, no I guess I didn’t.”

“I’m your sister! Everyone in this room knows it.”

“I don’t know it,” Melanie said.

“Everyone knows it,” Adele continued, “but me. Brian,” she said, forcing all the violence she could into his name, “knows.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” Brian said.

“No there isn’t.”

“Yes,” Fenn said, “there is. But at first, he didn’t know it. Basically no one knew it. But then Ed Callan suspected that Noah had the money. I don’t know why.”

“Wait a minute?” Adele put up a hand. “Who the hell else knew?”

Sheepishly, or as sheepish as she could be, Layla put up her hand.

“What?” Adele snapped, turning around. “Oh, I don’t fucking believe this!”

“I found the body,” Layla said, as if she’d found a stray sock.

“Shit,” Adele said.

At this point they all went quiet when the door opened, but it was just Lee and a subdued Danasia.

Fenn nodded to his cousin and then said, “Anyway—”

“Fenn!” Adele interrupted.

“Anyway,” he continued, “We don’t know how this man found out. Maybe Noah let it slip. He was different back then. Anyway, he found out and he found Noah the day that Noah came back to Rossford. I was out at the church with Barb Affren, and we were coming back here, and Lee was on his way here with a gun, and well, this Ed Callan had Noah at gunpoint. We snuck around the house to sort of, you know, catch him off guard, save Noah.”

“You didn’t call the police?”

“We couldn’t have called the police!”Fenn said. And then he said, “Well, maybe we could have. Anyway,” he waved it off, “Ed Callan was sort of crazy and one thing led to another.”

“Oh, God,” Adele shook her head and began fanning herself, “Fenn, you killed this girl’s father?”

“No, you crazy bitch!”he fired back taking Dylan from Tom’s arms.

It was Lee who said, “Actually, I did.”

“So, I still don’t get why Brian knew,” Adele said, sulking on the sofa.

Fenn, who was merciless, said nothing, but sipped his tea. Todd said, “We found Ed Callan’s bank card, and Brian is good at numbers.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“How did he even know about the card?”

“Because we told him about it,” Fenn said, in exasperation. “He walked in on us trying to open it.”

“And you told him,” Adele said. “The man, who… You know what he did.”

“Everyone knows what I did,” Brian said, walking into the room. “They did it,” Brian turned to them, “because they wanted me to know they trusted me.”

Adele opened her mouth, and then snapped it shut, not trusting herself to speak.

“They trusted me,” Brian went on. “Even though there was never any reason I had given to be trusted. All Fenn knew was I wanted someone to trust me. And so he did. With everything.”

“You don’t have to go on like that,” Fenn said crabbily. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Brian said, “It was everything.

“That’s why he told me, Adele. I opened the accounts and found… A lot of money.”

“Which he has never touched,” Todd said.

“I touched a little bit,” Brian said. “I got that new car. Remember?”

Fenn sent him a longsuffering glance.

“And now,” Adele said, “all of that money belongs to that little waitress. So what are you going to do?”

“Indeed,” Todd said, nodding his head slowly and rocking back and forth on the edge of the sofa. “Indeed.”

“It’s so strange.”

“Me being married?”

“No, Mama. That’ll be a relief. Simon’s a good man, and I’m glad he’s moving in here.”

“Well, where else would he go? We can’t move into his apartment.”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d sell the house and get a new one.”

Adele laughed. “I’m not selling this house. The one good thing Hoot ever did was finish paying the mortgage.”

“What I meant,” Layla said, “about it being so strange was it’s strange I’m not going to school tomorrow. Claire, Radha, they’re going to school. Bren is going to school. Me and Dena? We’re here till the wedding?

“I miss Brendan already. He’s been around every day since I was five.”

“Well, he’ll be at the wedding, and that’s a week away, Layla.”

“I know, Mom. But it’s not the same. Nothing’s the same.”

“Layla?”

Her daughter looked at her.

“I can’t believe you and Fenn knew about this.”

“Lee knew about it too.”

“Everybody knew.”

“No, not everybody. People who found out knew.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

Adele didn’t argue with that.

“I didn’t even tell Dena,” Layla said.

Then she said, “But I did tell Dena something.”

“Like what?”

“I told her I was sleeping with Aidan.”

“Layla!”

“I’m not,” she said. Layla sat up straight, “Mama, I repeat, I reiterate, I state, I fully declare that I am not really sleeping with Aidan Michaelson.”

“Then why… why did you tell her you were. She’s your best friend.”

“Because she’s sleeping with Milo.”

“What!”

“And she slept with Brendan.”

“Brendan! Brendan’s—”

“Gay guys can do it too, Mama.”

“Well, shit,” Adele said, folding her hands over her chest. “I don’t know a goddamn thing.”

“And her mother doesn’t know either,” Layla said. And then with a meaningful look she added, “And she won’t.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Well, she is eighteen. And so am I. And… not that I’m tired of being a virgin, but I am tired of feeling like one. If that makes any sense.”

Adele looked at her daughter, strangely for a moment, and then said, “Yes. It does, actually.”

Suddenly Adele Lawden hugged her daughter until Layla’s face was in her bosom.

“Layla, promise me that when it’s time for you to have sex, you come and talk to me, all right?”

“No, Mama,” Layla said from her mother’s bosom. “I probably won’t. Because that would be awkward and weird.”

Adele pulled her away and said, after some thought: “Yes, you’re probably right.”

“Where’s Fenn?” Noah said.

“He’s at home,” Dan Malloy said.

“Because, we’re planning his birthday party, and it wouldn’t make any sense for him to be here, now would it?” Brian looked at him.

They were in the rectory house, sitting around the large, shiny table in the dining room.

“I didn’t know that’s what it was?” Noah snapped. “I thought we were here to talk about the money.”

“The money. And the birthday party,” Brian said.

“Well, since they both belong to Fenn, it’s all the same.”Tom shrugged.

“Okay, the money… the last bit, the part Brian found, that is, most of it, does not belong to Fenn.”

“It kind of does,” Brian disagreed.

“I thought we agreed it was for all of us,” Lee said. “It could not have been found without all of us.”

“And now Ed Callan’s daughter has found all of us,” Lee said.

“We need to give her that money back,” Noah said.

“Bullshit!”Brian snapped.

They all looked at him.”

“Bull—” Brian began, “Shit!”

“We need to tell her the truth.”

They all looked at Noah.

“You,” Lee said, dipping his ashes, “want to tell that girl, oh your father was a gangster—”

“She already knows that. Pretty much.”

“Involved in gay porn,” Lee continued. “Who—wait—there’s more—sold drugs and got you fucked up and left you for dead when the house was broken into and then—”

“Wait,” Brian sang, sarcastically, along with Lee, “there’s more!”

“Held you at gunpoint and almost killed you until—and this really is more. I walked in and blew his head off.”

“What!”Brian and Dan said together.

“Oh,” said Lee, “I thought you knew. Well, anyway? Is that what you want to tell her?”

“And do you want to give to one person,” Brian added, “everything we’ve been sharing—”

“Hoarding,” Noah said. “We don’t know what to do with all of that. There’s got to be… taxes. Or something on the houses.”

“I can’t believe that,” Brian said. “I just can’t believe it’s right to turn everything over to her.”

“Except,” and it was Dan who finally spoke. “It is.”