shoes!
Earmuffs, then?
No-ho-ho-ho!
How about a nice little tub of snails?
Besotted by this game, Lizzy collapses on the sofa, so wilted by laughter that Vivienne bends to check her, bends slowly, since she is hugely pregnant. Lizzy is fine, eyes alert and focused, looking very much like her mother. In a brief time he has learned some things about children, but not nearly enough. Certainly a child requires a schedule, some discipline. In this arena he has not done well. Spoiled , he’s heard Mrs. Hanson tsk into the telephone. Spoiled rotten. He wants Vivienne’s opinion before cutting Mrs. Hanson’s hours any further than he already has. But he is unwilling to sound as befuddled as he feels.
The gloomy evening renders the parlor especially close, its leafy wallpaper encasing the four of them briefly as the girls settle down again, adding items to their store, recruiting Fatty, the only willing cat, to serve as an extra customer. Play nice , Vivienne warns them. Be nice to the kitty.
He invites Vivienne into his little office, leaving the door ajar. She sits down gingerly and hugs her blooming belly. He is hoping to pick up their discussion about the presence of God. After their talk of loneliness they concluded that God ismost accessible to us in extremes—when we are in great need or in great bounty—and almost invisible in our daily endeavors, when we feel neither completely empty nor completely full. How can God seem most absent when we are doing exactly what He wants? They talked a long time about this, and now he would like to know how she has sorted out the paradox.
Instead, she has something else on her mind.
Must a good Catholic follow all the laws, Father, even the stupid ones?
Nothing she says insults him. She speaks without irony when she speaks of Church law. She wishes to be a good Catholic, to live a Christian life, to raise Catholic children and die anointed. In this way she is unlike most of his parishioners except the very old; most of them come to him wanting loopholes and shortcuts and permission to remarry. They want from him the minimum required to please their grandmothers. They expect their wedding rite to include a high Mass that will become their last memory of receiving the Eucharist. In two years they will bring a baby to be baptized in a Red Sox outfit and running shoes.
The stupidest laws, in Vivienne’s view, are the ones governing birth control and the strict obligations of certain sacraments. He thinks she means the sacrament of Holy Matrimony but can’t be sure. What comes to him is a vision of Ray Blanchard hogging all the space in the marital bed, all the space in his wife’s body, Ray of the muscular forearms, Ray of the well-upholstered chest, Ray of the blue eyes his own sister once said reminded her of Paul Newman’s. When Vivienne wants to discuss the Church’s stupid laws, it is always just after Ray has left for the sea.
That’s not a problem of faith, Vivienne.
No , she agrees, smiling. Faith has nothing to do with the Church.
I wouldn’t go that far.
No. You wouldn’t.
They have their customary debate about the Pope’s unyielding reign. At the end he leans across the desk as her co-conspirator: I agree with you, Vivienne. Don’t tell.
I was testing you, Father. From time to time I must remind you what you really believe.
He blushes, which he does too easily, and her eyes crease merrily at the corners. He minds, very much, that he amuses her sometimes, but he doesn’t know how to make things different. Vivienne knew Lizzy’s father back in grade school; for this alone he needs her. For this, and their mutual memories of Elizabeth and Bill in this house for Sunday-night cook-outs, the two baby girls gabbling in the twilight. Sometimes Ray wandered over to join them, toting his own six-pack and sitting on the steps, wrapping his big hands around a can and popping a top, that distinctive summer sound. The babies crawled over the grass with the mothers
Earmuffs, then?
No-ho-ho-ho!
How about a nice little tub of snails?
Besotted by this game, Lizzy collapses on the sofa, so wilted by laughter that Vivienne bends to check her, bends slowly, since she is hugely pregnant. Lizzy is fine, eyes alert and focused, looking very much like her mother. In a brief time he has learned some things about children, but not nearly enough. Certainly a child requires a schedule, some discipline. In this arena he has not done well. Spoiled , he’s heard Mrs. Hanson tsk into the telephone. Spoiled rotten. He wants Vivienne’s opinion before cutting Mrs. Hanson’s hours any further than he already has. But he is unwilling to sound as befuddled as he feels.
The gloomy evening renders the parlor especially close, its leafy wallpaper encasing the four of them briefly as the girls settle down again, adding items to their store, recruiting Fatty, the only willing cat, to serve as an extra customer. Play nice , Vivienne warns them. Be nice to the kitty.
He invites Vivienne into his little office, leaving the door ajar. She sits down gingerly and hugs her blooming belly. He is hoping to pick up their discussion about the presence of God. After their talk of loneliness they concluded that God ismost accessible to us in extremes—when we are in great need or in great bounty—and almost invisible in our daily endeavors, when we feel neither completely empty nor completely full. How can God seem most absent when we are doing exactly what He wants? They talked a long time about this, and now he would like to know how she has sorted out the paradox.
Instead, she has something else on her mind.
Must a good Catholic follow all the laws, Father, even the stupid ones?
Nothing she says insults him. She speaks without irony when she speaks of Church law. She wishes to be a good Catholic, to live a Christian life, to raise Catholic children and die anointed. In this way she is unlike most of his parishioners except the very old; most of them come to him wanting loopholes and shortcuts and permission to remarry. They want from him the minimum required to please their grandmothers. They expect their wedding rite to include a high Mass that will become their last memory of receiving the Eucharist. In two years they will bring a baby to be baptized in a Red Sox outfit and running shoes.
The stupidest laws, in Vivienne’s view, are the ones governing birth control and the strict obligations of certain sacraments. He thinks she means the sacrament of Holy Matrimony but can’t be sure. What comes to him is a vision of Ray Blanchard hogging all the space in the marital bed, all the space in his wife’s body, Ray of the muscular forearms, Ray of the well-upholstered chest, Ray of the blue eyes his own sister once said reminded her of Paul Newman’s. When Vivienne wants to discuss the Church’s stupid laws, it is always just after Ray has left for the sea.
That’s not a problem of faith, Vivienne.
No , she agrees, smiling. Faith has nothing to do with the Church.
I wouldn’t go that far.
No. You wouldn’t.
They have their customary debate about the Pope’s unyielding reign. At the end he leans across the desk as her co-conspirator: I agree with you, Vivienne. Don’t tell.
I was testing you, Father. From time to time I must remind you what you really believe.
He blushes, which he does too easily, and her eyes crease merrily at the corners. He minds, very much, that he amuses her sometimes, but he doesn’t know how to make things different. Vivienne knew Lizzy’s father back in grade school; for this alone he needs her. For this, and their mutual memories of Elizabeth and Bill in this house for Sunday-night cook-outs, the two baby girls gabbling in the twilight. Sometimes Ray wandered over to join them, toting his own six-pack and sitting on the steps, wrapping his big hands around a can and popping a top, that distinctive summer sound. The babies crawled over the grass with the mothers
Similar Books
