Jim Shepard - Flights

“ And ransom captive I-i-is-rael, That mourns in lonely e-ex-ile here, Until the Son of Go-o-od appear. ” They grew louder together suddenly, those in class who hadn’t been singing joining in: “ Rejoice! Rejoice! Emma-a-anuel shall come to thee, O I-i-is-rael! ” Their voices dropped again. The volume of the darkened space seemed to enforce quiet.

On the font they encircled, Sister Theresa had one of a set of four red candles burning for the first week of Advent. In the catechism it was the first of four weeks preceding the coming of Christ, each with its own special significance. To the class, it was the first step in a countdown to Christmas, the beginning of a series of incessant reminders that the day was moving ever closer. On that Monday and the next three, they would assemble in the chapel with the lights out and sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” For those few moments the ceremony lasted even the rowdiest of the class stood quietly and gave Sister no trouble.

They completed the song and she looked at them uncertainly. A few people shifted and coughed, in the darkness every sound magnified.

“Sister Beatrice is supposed to be here,” she said finally.

They stood about with their candles burning, waiting. They began to feel embarrassed for her, sensing everything wasn’t going as planned. Biddy’s back felt chilly. Sister Beatrice came on the first and fourth Mondays to talk about Christmas and Advent. He supposed she had more training in that than Sister Theresa. She would stand near the font and speak deliberately, as if telling a ghost story. She always came after they finished singing, and they’d finished minutes ago. Sister peered down the passageway they had come in, and looked back at them. “Well, something’s holding Sister up,” she said, her voice hushed. “I can get you started.” She tapped her finger on the round cement top of the font, thinking. They hadn’t seen her unsure of herself in any way before, and they edged forward, beginning in a furtive, guilty way to enjoy it.

She hesitated. “This is not the best place to hold a discussion,” she said, almost to herself. The “s” sounds in her words seemed to linger in the empty spaces between the pews, in dark corners.

“Come on,” she said. “Why don’t we sing it again?”

And they raised their dittoed sheets again to the candlelight. They sang it once more, their voices alone and together in the darkness, the candles only half their original height and warm wax beginning to collect around their grip. She had only to signal with a nod once they’d finished and they repeated the song a third time, without hesitation, the final notes hanging reverently in the silence as she turned and led them back down the passageway and out of the darkness without a sound.

That night, in Fagan’s House of Beef, he craned his head back to look up into the darkness of the moderately high ceiling, trying to re-create the moment in the chapel. Around him his family was fussing over who sat where, trading seats with the Lirianos. Cindy sat directly opposite him. She smiled and edged the centerpiece forward, a challenge. The flowers trembled.

“Let’s get moving with those menus,” Dom said to no one in particular, to a passing waitress.

Ginnie remarked that she couldn’t believe they finally had everyone together. “Ronnie and Cindy together is one thing. And getting these two out—” She gestured toward his father and Dom.

“Yeah, it’s thrilling,” Dom said. “I could just spit biscuits thinking about it.”

“Well, I’m not sure your daughter is getting married,” Biddy’s mother said. “I never see her with her fiancé.”

Ronnie gave a small smile and Cindy blushed.

The waitress arrived and set menus in front of each of them. She spaced three baskets of breadsticks evenly along the center of the table as well.

“It’s not going to be long now,” Biddy’s father said, opening a flap of the menu. “When’s Memorial Day? June?”

“May thirty-first this year,” Ginnie said.

“You guys have only a few more months.”

Ronnie nodded, picking the cellophane from two breadsticks. He held them like drumsticks and began to tap quietly on his plate.

“Ronnie’s going to have brown tuxes at the wedding,” Louis said.

Ronnie smiled. “Louis is a Cleveland Browns fan. Brown tuxes and orange shirts.”

“Lovely,” Biddy’s mother said, sipping some water. “Do they rent helmets, too?”

“It’s going to be a punk wedding,” Cindy said.

“That’s a good idea.” Dom crunched a breadstick. “We’ll give you punk presents, too.”

“We were debating where you guys should send us on our honeymoon.” Cindy smiled, lifting a flower in and out of the vase with two fingers. “We were thinking Martinique.”

“I was thinking Danbury,” Biddy’s father said.

“I think we’ll settle for Captiva.”

“Dom’ll get right on it.”

Dom nodded. “Your check’s in the mail.” He turned the menu over. “Let’s see what the Fage can come up with here.”

Biddy opened his own menu, trying to interest himself in one of the categories, “From the Sea,” perhaps, or “From the Grill,” but the candlelit tables of the bar he’d glimpsed on the way in had reminded him strongly of the chapel in the morning, and he was having difficulty concentrating on the choices presented him. Veal was his favorite, but he couldn’t decide.

“More layoffs at U Tech?” Dom said.

His father turned the menu over, dissatisfied. “Everybody’s laying off. Everybody’s cutting back.”

“I thought defense plants were a little better off, though.”

“These are hard times.”

“I hope they can afford to pay me next year,” Louis said. Biddy’s father was supposed to be getting him a full-time job at Sikorsky once he finished high school.

“I don’t know, Louis. I hope they can afford to pay me. We’re talking about a three-year cost-of-living freeze right now.”

“Things’re that tough?” Dom said.

“Things’re that tough.”

“And, of course, everything’s going up.”

“Of course. No freeze on that. The school told us now that tuition’s going up. I’m thinking about taking the kids out. We’re supporting the public schools, anyway.”

Biddy looked up from the menu.

“How about it, guy? How’d you like to be in Johnson next year?”

He couldn’t think. One fact occurred to him: all his friends were in Our Lady of Peace.

“I wouldn’t know anybody,” he said.

His father sat back. “Oh, well. You didn’t know anybody when you went to Our Lady of Peace, either.”

“The kids’ll stay where they are,” his mother said. “We’ll manage.”

“I’m not sure we’ll manage. And I’m not sure there’s any great advantage to having them there.”

Dom and Ginnie looked down, embarrassed.

“What’s he getting for the extra money? Hymns?” his father said.

His mother said it wasn’t the time or place to talk about it.

His father ordered for him: veal. He cut it realizing for the first time that he had some sort of choice; it was possible he could belong or be somewhere else. He was going to Our Lady of Peace because his parents had made a decision to send him there years ago, not because of any implacable natural law. He had never stopped to consider whether he would be happier or unhappier in a public school; he had identified himself completely with Our Lady of Peace when he thought of school, for better or worse. And now all of it — the Sisters, the spelling bees, the mornings in the chapel — all of it was unstable, all could change if the need or desire arose. Events and forces he had never dreamed of could interfere and wipe out that part of his life and send him in another direction entirely.