“Honestly? It’s you I’m worried about, Bartholomew. Not Father McNamee.”
“Me?”
He nodded slowly behind a skinny finger of cigarette smoke that cut his face in half.
“Why?”
Father Hachette took a few more puffs of his cigarette, studied his hands like there was something written down on them, and then said, “You still don’t know why Father McNamee came to live with you, do you?”
“To help me get over Mom’s death—to help me move on with my life.”
Father Hachette smiled, and I noticed how thin his neck looked wrapped in that black-and-white collar, like a fishing line leading up to a red-and-white bobber.
“And yet it’s you who wants to help Father McNamee now. Things got flipped. You see?”
“Why are you talking to me like this?”
“Like what?”
“In riddles. Like I’m slow-minded. Too stupid for the honest truth.”
Because you are a retard! the tiny angry man yelled.
“I’m sorry, Bartholomew. You see, I’m in an unfair position. I have an advantage, because I know more than you’ve been able to piece together. But it’s not my place to tell you what you need to know.” He stubbed his cigarette out in a bronze bowl full of butts. “Has he mentioned Montreal yet?”
The man in my stomach froze when I heard the word Montreal, because that’s where my father supposedly was from.
“So he hasn’t talked to you about that yet,” Father Hachette said. “Hmmm.”
I wanted to ask Father about Montreal’s significance.
The little man in my stomach was screaming. Use your words, idiot! He has information you need! And yet you sit here with your mouth shut, like a moron. Ask him about Montreal! Ask about your father! He gave my spleen a few good digs with his clawlike toes.
But I couldn’t make my mouth work, Richard Gere. I kept hoping you would appear to me, so that you might coach me through the situation, but you did not materialize, and I wondered if my being in a Catholic church had anything to do with it, since you are a Buddhist. Maybe Catholic churches limit your ability to appear to me—almost like a denominational force field.
“I can tell you this,” Father Hachette said when he understood I wasn’t going to open my mouth. “Father McNamee may not deserve your help, but he definitely needs it. He needs saving. That’s why he came to live with you. The drama is all part of his spiritual process. He’s a difficult man. But he is a man of God. To the best of his abilities, anyway.”
“So what should I do?”
“Pray.”
“Just pray?”
“And be patient.”
“Should I be listening for God’s voice?” I asked, hoping he would say that was delusional, ridiculous, thereby letting me off the hook.
Father Hachette smiled, tilted his head to the right, wagged his index finger at me three times, and said, “Always.”
We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. He seemed to pity me, and I started to hate him, even though it is a cardinal sin to hate a priest, one of the deadliest, I do believe.
The man in my stomach was wreaking havoc on my digestive system. He was absolutely furious.
“That’s it?” I said to Father Hachette when the silence became too much to bear.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Try to get him to take these.” Father reached into his drawer and pulled out a small orange bottle. He gave it a shake, and the pills inside sounded like an angry rattlesnake.
“What are these?” I said as I took the bottle from him.
“Mood stabilizers. Lithium. The directions are on the label.”
I nodded.
“Tell Father McNamee that I miss him. I pray for him daily, and for you too, Bartholomew. I know you are unhappy with me, but I am serving you the best I can, given the unusual circumstances. I wish I could make it easier for you, but I can only offer my daily prayers at this point. You will understand soon enough.”
“Thank you,” I said, and then left.
Back home, I knocked on Mom’s bedroom door and said, “Father Hachette is praying for you, Father McNamee. He sent medicine.”
The door flew open.
Father McNamee’s eyes were tiny black snowflakes again.
He grabbed the orange bottle out of my hand, stormed down the hall, dumped the pills in the toilet, flushed, and then returned to his room, locking the door behind him.
He had looked like an insane bull, charging through the hallway, storming toward some imaginary red cape.
It was like he’d become a completely different person.
“Why did you do that?” I said to the door.
“I’m not taking meds!”
“Why?”
“They make me piss all the time. They also make me fat—or fatter!”
After a mostly sleepless night, I attended morning Mass to make up for missing the previous Saturday night. Afterward, Father Hachette asked if I was able to get Father McNamee to take his pills, and when I told him what had happened, he just nodded and smiled and then chuckled knowingly. “I’ll keep praying,” he said.
Nothing much else happened until I went to group therapy with Arnie and Max, which is when I began to feel as though maybe God was really beginning to speak to me—if only circumstantially.
I arrived in the yellow room early, before Max. Arnie was dressed in a tie, vest, and matching pants—like he was just missing the jacket of a three-piece suit—and he seemed very happy to see me.
“So glad you decided to continue on with your therapy, Bartholomew,” he said. “Please have a seat.”