S Rozan - Absent Friends

But she was the one to find words first, and those words were only “Goodbye, Phil,” and he was left alone.

October 31, 2001

One blowy, dark autumn day some years ago, Marian had lingered on the steps of Holy Innocents after mass to speak to Father Domingo about secrets.

What had been an early morning cloudburst had retrenched to a hostile dampness; a sky the color and weight of lead sagged over wet sidewalks stuck with fallen leaves. Father Domingo, the keen-eyed junior priest at Holy Innocents, lately come to this church and to his profession (and this was why Marian had selected him: she hoped for the counsel of someone to whom her questions, like most questions, was new and thus worthy of serious thought), had shown no surprise at the gravity of her inquiry or the time and place she had chosen to pursue it.

On the church steps, a cold, determined wind pushed the hem of the priest's cassock around his ankles and tangled Marian's hair. Father Domingo tilted his head to hear her question, then frowned thoughtfully, clasping his hands behind him.

The conundrum she posed was hypothetical. A man carelessly throws a match away, realizes he has started a fire, and runs inside the burning building, rescuing the inhabitants. All are grateful: the man has saved them. Their home is destroyed, their possessions lost, but the man, their rescuer, helps them rebuild. Their losses are great, but they take heart from the selfless spirit of their benefactor. They are not sure they could have gone on, they say, but for his help and his example. He never tells them, and they never learn, that it was he who started the fire.

Marian's questions were two: Do this man's bravery and good deeds outweigh his guilty action? And: Is it cowardly of him to fail to reveal the truth, or courageous of him to bear the burden of this knowledge alone so that people who need something to believe in can continue to believe in him?

“We need never bear our burdens alone,” Father Domingo said, in the suede-soft accent that made him the darling of the Dominicans and Mexicans who worshiped at Holy Innocents. “God stands always ready to share the weight of our burdens.”

Marian's heart sank. Still, she persevered. “Sometimes people can only come to God through good works.”

“This man, then, he is coming to God?”

“I don't know. But the people who believe in him, what if they believe he was sent to them by God, to give them faith?”

“Believing in a mortal man, this is a sad delusion.”

“But if he tells the truth, people might lose their faith.”

“In God? Or in him?” Father Domingo's eyes fixed on Marian's. He seemed to want to bore deep within her, below the protective stones and the nurturing soil, to the roots of her heart. She wanted to look away, but she could not.

The rising wind snatched at her scarf, trying to draw her attention as though to warn her of danger, but Marian had another question, in some ways the only question. “If someone else had seen him throw the match?”

“Would you like to come into the confessional?” Father Domingo suggested.

Marian flushed and shook her head. She had been to confession earlier, had taken communion at mass. Like most people, she was not lacking in sins to confess. But how to be sure what was a sin, what required confession; it was really this that Marian was asking.

The priest met her eyes again and she shuddered: had he found her core and seen the darkness there? “Then you must ask God,” he said.

Marian mumbled her thanks to Father Domingo. She walked slowly down the steps. She would ask God: tonight in her prayers, and tomorrow, and next Sunday at mass. But she had been asking God this question for many years already.

Years later, following mass at St. Ann's on the Sunday after September 11, Marian stood with Sally in the sunshine outside the great carved doors. They hugged each other, holding on, then wiped their eyes and smiled at each other.

“I went to the hospital to see Kevin yesterday,” Marian said.

“He told me.”

“He looks good.” Marian, who would have said this to Sally in any case, was grateful that it was true.

“He's doing well, the doctor said.” Sally cast her eyes down. In these times and in this place, she was ashamed, Marian thought, of the joy she felt because her son was going to live.

Marian felt a hand rest on her shoulder. “Hey, you two,” said Tom. He hugged Sally, and then Marian; his strong arms were surprisingly comforting in this time when comfort was rare.

“You okay?” Tom asked Sally. “I called NYU this morning, finally got to talk to Kevin. He sounds good.”

“You got through on the phone?” Marian asked.

“Took me an hour.”

“He's doing well. I'm going over there this afternoon,” Sally said.

“To the hospital? Want me to take you?” Tom offered. “The bridge's open.”

That was sweet, Marian thought. Sally didn't like to travel into Manhattan alone; her friends all knew. And Tom was one of her friends. He always had been. He had never turned his back on her, though her husband had gone to prison for killing his brother.

Sally was hesitating. It was a lot of trouble for Tom to go to. Marian stepped in.

“I'm just having coffee with Dad, then I'm going back,” she said. “Tell me what ferry you want to make, and I'll go with you.”

Sally smiled. “Thanks.”

“Okay,” Tom said, “but the offer's still open. Marian, can we talk a minute?”

Sally gave them each a quick kiss. “I'll call you at your dad's,” she said to Marian, and left them.

Marian and Tom stood in the sun, and Tom told Marian about the fund that had just been created, the McCaffery Memorial Fund. Listening, Marian felt a lurch of fear. She told herself impatiently that was foolish. Jimmy was a hero. He was famous for unselfish courage. This fund would celebrate that. This was just the kind of thing New York needed right now. What was there to be afraid of?

“They made me chairman of the board,” Tom was saying. “But none of us knows anything about this. I'd like-the board would like-to ask you to be the director.”

“What? Oh, no.” Marian moved a small step back, as though fighting a magnetic field. “Tom, I can't.”

Tom gave a shake of his head. “Please.” He was handsome, as he had always been, with his dark hair and blue eyes that, when fixed on you, saw nothing else. Marian, seeking respite from Tom's eyes, glanced over the crowd. She saw Vicky on the sidewalk with her son Michael, named after Tom's father, Big Mike Molloy. When Vicky and Tom separated, Tom had been the one to move out; he'd bought a house two blocks away. Marian had asked him then if he'd considered a bigger move, a cleaner break. No, he said, sounding surprised: Pleasant Hills was where he belonged.

Marian watched Michael kiss his mother and stride away. The boy was twenty-two and looked so like Tom had looked that for a brief, disorienting moment, like a tremor or a spell, she found herself searching the crowd for Jimmy, for Markie, for herself, all of them exuberant and invincible as they had been, back then.

The moment passed, everything snapped back into focus. Marian was standing with Tom on the church steps, and Tom was speaking about the McCaffery Fund.

The idea was not Tom's, as the press later had it. Tom was inclined, as Marian was, to let Jimmy's legend rest, though his reasons were surely different. But other people-men who, as boys, had won trophies on teams Jimmy had captained; women who, when girls, had contrived innumerable accidental encounters with him in noisy school corridors, had whispered jealously to each other as Marian walked by-had elected this loss to stand for all the unbearable others. They had chosen to take action now to console themselves for their helplessness on that day, and they had come to Tom.