“I got hurt playing softball,” Wendy insisted, but she was crying now, and her words made her sound like a child.
“You can live with Bartholomew and me,” Father McNamee said. “Leave with us now, and it will be easier for you. If you stay, he will beat you again when we leave. You know that. He can’t help himself. He’s sick. And make no mistake, you are part of that sickness now. You’re keeping him sick. Continuing the cycle. You need to leave right away—for him, for you.”
“It was a softball game. Third base. A line drive to my eye,” Wendy said, but she was looking at her slippers now, and her words were quiet and light as plucked feathers.
“Our door is open to you any time, day or night,” Father McNamee said, and then he hugged Wendy. “Let’s go, Bartholomew.”
We started to walk down the spiral staircase.
“How did you know his name was Adam?” Wendy said to me. She was leaning over the railing, watching us descend. She had put her sunglasses back on. Her angry words echoed in my head. “How did you know that?”
I couldn’t think of the right way to tell her, so I just shrugged.
But then I thought of a line from the Dalai Lama’s book A Profound Mind: “‘We should work toward cherishing the welfare of others to the point where we are unable to bear the sight of their misery.’ The Dalai Lama said that. It’s hard for me to look at your bruises. That’s how we ended up here. That’s all I can explain right now.”
“Our home is open to you,” Father McNamee yelled up the stairs, and then we left.
We didn’t say anything to each other as we walked home.
I think we both knew what was happening to Wendy as we strolled—like our slow steps were prayers that could save her—and even though we had tried our best to protect her, there was nothing else we could do now.
Father McNamee seemed drained of energy, and I was too.
He got down on his knees and began to petition the Almighty just as soon as he arrived home, and he didn’t stop until late in the night when our doorbell rang.
It was Wendy.
The entire left side of her face was swollen and bruised. Her teeth were coated red with blood. Her posture was defeated.
“I’m so stupid. I’m so weak,” Wendy said, her voice sounding like a little kid’s, and I felt for her—I wanted to take away her pain, mostly because she was saying the things the little angry man in my stomach says all the time, and I know how horrible it is to hear those sorts of words associated with yourself and to believe that it’s all true.
She crumpled onto our couch and cried and moaned in Father McNamee’s arms as he rubbed her back and I wrung my hands until they looked scalded.
When she had cried herself out, Father McNamee covered her with a blanket and whispered, “You’re safe here, and you can stay as long as you like.”
Wendy was asleep in the fetal position.
“She needs rest,” Father McNamee whispered to me, and so I followed him upstairs.
He paused in the hallway and handed me his flask. It was silver and inscribed.
MAN OF GOD
We each took a few long pulls of whiskey. I felt my insides warm. When I handed the empty flask back to him, he lightly slapped my cheek twice and smiled at me.
“We’ve done good work tonight,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“But you have,” Father McNamee said, and his face looked so proud.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come out.
I was confused.
“Good night, Bartholomew,” Father finally said.
“Good night,” I answered.
He went into Mom’s room and closed the door.
I had cleaned out all of Mom’s things, donating most to the local thrift store, but it was still her room—the place she had slept for many decades—so it was strange to think of our priest sleeping there now. And yet I felt like Mom would be okay with Father McNamee using her bed, because he was her favorite priest—a man she believed was all good.
I stood in the hallway wondering if I could take any credit for what Father McNamee had done to help Wendy. I couldn’t decide.
So I went into my room and wrote you this letter.
Your admiring fan,
Bartholomew Neil
9
THERE WERE INDEED PATTERNS TO THE UNIVERSE
Dear Mr. Richard Gere,
Wendy didn’t get up off our couch for three days, and the whole time Father McNamee prayed in Mom’s room, which is becoming his room, and that hurts my brain a little.
The past few days have been a confusing time for me, as I’m not sure I enjoy having so many people in my mother’s house—especially Wendy, who Mom never even met. It was starting to feel like Mom never lived here at all, and I don’t like that one bit.
But I tried to remind myself of what the Dalai Lama says about compassion in A Profound Mind: “When our heart is full of empathy, a strong wish to remove their suffering will arise in us.” Wendy was clearly suffering. I want my heart to be full of empathy; I want to be as much like you as I can. And so I’m trying.
Father McNamee brought Wendy buttered toast and orange juice, macaroni and cheese and coffee, but she left it untouched and mostly buried her face in the cushions of the couch. I heard her use the bathroom late at night and wondered how she held it all day long. The bruises on her face were transitioning from purple to yellow. Father McNamee said this meant Wendy was healing on the outside, but not yet on the inside. Father McNamee said Wendy was embarrassed, mostly because she’d “traded roles with me.” I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but after a day or so I figured he meant that I was the one trying to get Wendy through a difficult period when she was supposed to be helping me. I can understand why that would make her feel like a failure, and I began to wonder if she had a little woman in her stomach that yelled at her and called her names.