“What’s going on here?” Wendy said.
“I’ve moved in with Bartholomew.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking care of some old business that doesn’t concern you.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
Father McNamee sighed. “You are so young, Wendy. I admire your youth.”
“You asked me to help Bartholomew become independent—”
“Your point?” Father McNamee stood, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Excuse me, God.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Wendy said.
“Let’s talk outside, shall we?”
Wendy and Father McNamee went out the front door and talked on the sidewalk. I watched them through the window, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Father McNamee kept nodding confidently. Wendy kept pointing her index finger at Father McNamee’s face. This went on for fifteen minutes.
Finally, Father McNamee walked away down the street.
Wendy took a few deep breaths, lifting and dropping her shoulders, before she saw me staring at her through the window. She looked angry for a split second, but then she smiled and walked toward the house.
“Should we sit in the kitchen?” she asked when she entered, and then strode right past me before I could answer, which was unlike her.
She removed her floral-pattern trench coat and hung it on the back of Mom’s chair. Then we sat down at the kitchen table, but the birds were not singing, which seemed like a sign of some sort.
“Do you want Father McNamee to live with you?” Wendy said. Her orange eyebrows were scrunched together. Her orange hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The tops of her freckled ears were so full of light they appeared translucent.
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Father McNamee does not seem well. Has he been acting strange?”
I shrugged again, because he had, and I didn’t want to say that. Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone, and I knew that Father McNamee was likely to leave if I said I didn’t want him there. It was confusing, the way I felt, so I went into silent mode.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Wendy said, misinterpreting my lack of words. “Look, Bartholomew, I know I’ve been telling you to find a flock and make friends. Remember how we outlined your goal of having a beer at a bar with a peer sometime within the next three months?”
I nodded.
“Well, I think that Father McNamee living here will not help you accomplish that goal.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You’ve spent the first forty years of your life taking care of your mother. You haven’t been on your own for two months before a man much older than you moves into your home. Don’t you see a pattern developing?”
I had no idea what she was talking about, which made me feel like a Neanderthal. I’m sure you, Richard Gere, know exactly what she meant and probably saw the problem two or three letters ago.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
She bit her lip, looked out the window for a second, and then said, “Did Father McNamee tell you that he expects you to deliver a message from God?”
I knew that telling the truth would not be a good idea, so I said nothing.
“I understand that Father McNamee has been your religious leader for your entire life—that your faith and the Catholic Church are very important to you. I understand that Father McNamee cares about you a great deal. Furthermore, he was the one who put me in touch with—”
“What happened to your wrist?” I said. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself from speaking. There was a purple and yellow bruise on her left wrist that looked painful and awful. I saw it jump out of her sleeve when she was motioning with her hands.
“What?” Wendy said, and pulled down her sleeve, covering the bruise.
The look on her face made me wince.
“Oh,” she said. Then she looked up and to the left, which I’ve read is a classic sign that someone is lying. “I fell Rollerblading. Down on Kelly Drive. Should have worn my wrist protectors. But they are so dorky. I’m okay.”
I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t say anything more. Wendy is a terrible liar. She began talking about Father McNamee again, saying something about how she had been contacted by Father Hachette, who is very concerned about Father McNamee. He hadn’t told anyone where he was going. He hadn’t even said good-bye to anyone. She’d have to report his whereabouts to Father Hachette. I remember hearing the words “mental health” several times, but I can’t elaborate more because I was creating scenarios in my mind regarding Wendy’s bruise—trying to explain why her wrist was yellow and purple—instead of listening to her rant about Father McNamee. If she had fallen Rollerblading, she might have sprained her wrist or broken it—this was true—but I don’t think it would have turned such awful colors, but maybe I was wrong about that. I am no doctor.
I imagined maybe a dog had bitten her, but I hadn’t seen any puncture wounds or scabs. Maybe she had a pet snake that had wrapped itself around her wrist too tightly, and she was afraid they’d take her pet away from her if she told the truth?
Maybe.
But I couldn’t make any of these scenarios stick. I feared the worst—that something horrible was happening, and Wendy was pretending.
The angry man in my stomach wasn’t happy.
“Are you worried about me, Bartholomew?” Wendy said, and then looked at me the way Mom did when she first started calling me Richard—like the sexually active girls back in high school, tilting her forehead forward, staring up from under her eyebrows. Just like Tara Wilson looked at me before she took me into the high school basement. “You haven’t taken your eyes off my wrist.”