Alice McDermott - After This

“Unacceptable,” the pastor said.

Or-he moved the building again-he could turn it to the side, facing the alleyway and the cinder-block wall. Goodbye green lawn, but the white statue of Saint Gabriel might easily be moved into the lobby. And the alleyway, at least, could accommodate a car or a truck or a school bus that needed, for whatever reason, to pull up to the front door. It was a compromise no doubt, the architect said. Not nearly as grand as the original, but they could break ground in the spring and have the gym going in a year’s time. Which meant the new church could get started and it was the new church, after all, that would be the showpiece.

“It seems a shame,” Father McShane said, “that one man’s intransigence will leave generations of St. Gabriel’s students in an alley.”

Collectively, the men bowed their heads and considered this.

The six men on the building committee had jobs that only vaguely qualified them for the task-Mr. Keeley was an electrician, Bill Schultz managed a bank, Mr. Kozlosky sold insurance, both Mr. Keane and Mr. Battle were with the telephone company, Lou Pintaro owned a garden center-but each of them was happy to concede the point when the architect replied that a man had to make a living and provide for his family, first and foremost, come what may. No one could blame Mr. Krause for that.

It was late. No one could blame the men for wanting this business to be concluded. They had work tomorrow. They were missing Bonanza. Mrs. Arnold was waiting in the kitchen to clear away the coffee cups and get home herself. Father McShane folded his arms across his chest. He called the men by their first names, Robert? Bill? Jerry? John? Larry? Lou? And one by one they all agreed. It was not ideal, but it was a solution. With Mr. Krause dug in like this, there weren’t many alternatives. Mr. Marrs said, “Those Krauts do dig in,” and the men laughed, pushing back their chairs. The matter was settled. The new church, then, would be the showpiece.

In the cold black sky over the rectory parking lot, there was Orion, as he’d always been. And always would be. Jacob had drawn the constellation once and labeled it “O’Ryan.” At dinner tonight, Michael had announced that a kid in school asked if Jacob was a Jew. Michael thought this was very funny. Jacob had brushed it aside. So what, he’d said. Jesus was a Jew. There was something rehearsed in the boy’s reply. John Keane wondered if one of the nuns hadn’t provided it to him, against another kid’s teasing. Across the dinner table, his wife had bowed her head, more effective than catching his eye. Fourteen years was no time at all in the life of an I told you so.

Mr. Keane got into his cold car. Let the engine run a bit. The other men were pulling out of the drive and he saluted them as they drove past. They had done the work of their church. Solved the question of Mr. Krause. At home, there would be a light left on in the kitchen for them, or a lamp lit in the living room. A wife under a caftan, watching TV, or in bed, asleep already, or pretending to be. The scent of dinner still in the air. A child (probably Michael, but maybe even Clare) still awake. Some of them might open a beer or pour two fingers of scotch. Or walk the dog. Read the paper.

They were either immortal, or they were not. It was prayer, all of it, this talking to the dead, or it was howling at the moon. At the winter sky. At Orion. O’Ryan. It was another bit of misapprehension, another mistaken imagining-the dead pope hearing their prayers, his parents, his brother Frank, all the angels and all the saints, the other Jacob. Or it was true.

Absolutely, Mr. Gallagher.

Positively, Mr. Shean.

At home, his wife was at the dining-room table with Jacob. What distinguished this room from the priests’ was the clutter of bills and magazines on the server, the simplicity of the small chandelier (the priests’ was Waterford), the dust. A portrait of a pretty little girl in a wide-brimmed hat rather than the old pope. She had his history book before her and her forehead in her hands. Jacob was sitting quietly to her left, looking ready for sleep. “It’s late,” John Keane said, coming in, but she ignored him.

“Battle of Hastings,” she said and he answered, dejectedly, in his new voice, “1066.” His face was changing, too, growing thinner and longer, balanced somewhere between homely and beautiful.

“Magna Carta?” There was silence. The boy frowned. Swallowed hard, perhaps resisting tears. His Adam’s apple, also new, looked swollen. His father had an impulse to turn away.

From the couch in the living room, Michael called out, “1215,” and Jacob slammed his fist on the table and, standing, threw back his chair. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and his father might have reprimanded him if the boy had not also said, turning slightly toward them, “Good night.”

Mary Keane looked up at her husband. Her face was colorless and worn, as dimpled and lined as a potato. She ran her finger down a double page of dates and names and places. The end-of-chapter review. “He doesn’t know half of this,” she said.

He shrugged, walked through the living room where Michael, lounging on the couch in his pajamas, said, “It’s easy.”

His father said, “Don’t be a smart aleck,” and then, when he had hung up his coat, “Get to bed.”

Upstairs, in their room, Michael said, matter-of-factly, as if it were the middle of the day. “Battle of Hastings, 1066, Magna Carta, 1215…”

“I’m asleep.” Jacob had his back to him. His voice was muffled.

“I thought Jews were supposed to be smart,” Michael said. In the dim light from the hallway, he couldn’t tell at first what his brother had thrown at him-it missed anyway and hit the floor. But then he saw it was the flashlight Jacob kept at his bedside and the potential pain it might have caused filled him with indignation. They were on each other in seconds, legs and arms and blows struck into ears, into shoulders. The overhead light came on-if they hadn’t expected that it would they would not have begun the battle-and their father barked a single word. He dragged them apart, both of them splotched red in the cheeks and across their shoulders and throats, but whether from blows or their own fury, their father couldn’t have said.

He grabbed them, both of them panting, by their shirts. Their mother was in the doorway with Clare in her arms and Annie was next to her. “Enough,” was what he said.

He shoved them both down on the edge of their beds. “Sit.”

They glared at each other, across the short space between their beds, believing, each of them, that there was no greater flaw in all the vast design of the universe than these two made brothers, condemned to this same small room. Only their father between them, saying words, kept them from colliding again.

“Flesh and blood,” were the words their father was saying, standing between them. Michael’s eyes fell on the black flashlight, rolled just under Jacob’s bed, and he pointed to it as if it could bear witness. “He threw the flashlight,” he said, before his father cut him off. “Your own brother,” their father said, raising his voice again. “Who,” he asked with his finger in the air, “who do you think you’ll have on your side when your mother and I are gone? Who do you think you’ll be able to turn to when you’re as old as I am and there’s something you need-a buck or two, or a piece of advice, maybe just someone you can ask, Remember when? Your friends? Your Little League team?” He waved his broad hand. “They’ll be scattered to the four winds. They’ll have forgotten your name.” He paused, as if waiting for them to speak. And then he said, “Your family. Your flesh and blood, that’s who you’ll have. If you’re lucky. Your two sisters. Each other. That’s who you’ll have.”