Authors: Lynne Hinton
W
hen Trina woke up after a nap on the Thursday a few days after Alex came home from the hospital, she knew for sure what she had been trying for weeks to cover up and make go away. She was pregnant. She had fallen asleep after a dinner of leftovers from the diner, curled up on the sofa, the television blaring news of movie stars and their decorating styles. She had worked the breakfast shift for Francine, home from Phoenix but sick with a virus. She had seen Roger before he left to go pick up groceries for Malene and Alex, handed him a card to give to the boy, a get-well card that promised, when he felt stronger, she would play computer games with him, or poker, whatever he liked, and she would feed him ice cream and brownies she got from Fred and Bea. She wanted to ride with the boy’s grandfather over to visit, but once she realized that Roger was leaving right away for the store, she decided not to ask to tag along. She had promised Bea she would cover for Francine for both shifts.
She had been up since five o’clock in the morning, worked breakfast and lunch, helped Fred wash down all the appliances, mop the floors, and take inventory of what was in the walk-in freezer. When she got home she decided to clean her apartment, and finally, by the time the news came on and she had sat down for the first time that day, she was tired.
She lay still for a minute, realizing that she was different after this nap, that she felt unlike herself, and considered how it was that she now was unable to deny that something was vastly changed about her. She thought about how it was that she had managed to hide what was happening, what had happened, for the past several weeks, but that now that ability to hide and keep hidden what was going on no longer existed. She thought about how many weeks she had been this way, counted down the days since she had been in Pie Town and the days since she last had sex with Conroe, and figured she must be almost seven or eight weeks along.
Her period was late by more than a month, and she was usually regular and paid attention to that kind of thing, but up until that evening nap, she had tried to make herself believe that she’d missed a period just because of the leaving she had done, all the walking she did to get to Pie Town, and the stress of hearing the truth from Conroe, the truck driver she met in Amarillo and followed to Tucson.
She thought she loved him when he offered her a ride alongside him in his new rig, hauling cars from Texas to anywhere west. She thought that all of the bad things that seemed to follow her everywhere she went, all the harm and sorrow and smart city boys, had finally done all the damage they could do and she was free now. She thought that because his name was Conroe, the same name as the tiny little town where her mother had once been happy, he was somehow different from the other men she had met since leaving home and that he was honest when he said she was beautiful and that he didn’t want to sleep with her as much as wake up beside her.
She fell for him hard and stayed next to him in that big rig, helping him deliver the fancy cars to car lots and rich people who didn’t want to drive their vehicles across the country and the new vans and wagons to the border patrolmen. She believed him when he told her he hadn’t settled down because he had been waiting all this time for her to walk across his path and that he didn’t have to wear a condom because he knew when to pull out. She believed him when he said he was only twenty-four and that he had a little house in Abilene where she could live when she got tired of the travel. Everything he said she took as gospel, and it wasn’t because she was naive or stupid or hadn’t been played before.
Conroe Jasper was tall and quiet and had hands like her grandfather’s, thick and hard-worked, and she wanted to believe a man could be honorable and interesting. But in the end, he was just like the others, and she had walked all the way from Tucson to the Salt River Canyon before she’d even thought to take a ride with anybody else. She’d never walked so far in her life, but once she found out Conroe was well beyond twenty-four years of age, actually more like thirty-five, married with twin boys, and that the little house in Abilene was really a backroom at his brother-in-law’s place where he already had a wife and a family, she couldn’t stop pressing forward.
She walked in the heat of the day and late into the night. She walked along the highway, avoiding the stares of the children from backseats of buses and the catcalls from men out their open windows, and finally out across the middle of the desert where coyotes and owls watched her curiously and the stars filled up the skies. She walked until she fainted from exhaustion and woke up in that small clapboard house, with an old Indian woman speaking words she did not understand.
She stayed until she got the sign of where to head next. She stayed until she heard the name Pie Town. Trina thought she might be pregnant but tried to pretend otherwise, even though the old Indian woman patted the girl’s belly and nodded with a smile. Trina had hoped, tried to make herself believe, that the woman simply wanted to feed her breakfast, thought that she should eat. Now she understood that the old woman had known what she herself had not wanted to know. Trina lay in bed, wondering if Conroe was heading to San Diego to deliver BMWs or El Paso to hand over patrol cars, or if he was home, having already forgotten the girl he said was worth the wait.
Trina knew her options. She could have an abortion or give the baby up for adoption. She even heard she could sell the baby and make some nice cash if she could find that 1-800 number she had been given when she was sixteen and thought she might have gotten pregnant by Tommy Dexter. She worked afternoons at the garage with her grandfather and had driven his truck clear over to Dallas to take a pregnancy test, and there she met a girl in the waiting room of the clinic who told her about the agency and her plans to sell her baby before it was born. Trina had been lucky that time—the test came back negative—and had never risked that again, at least not until this last time.
“Maybe this isn’t all bad,” she said to herself, even though she did not believe that to be true. She blew out a long breath and closed her eyes. She had done the very thing she swore she would never do again. She had done exactly the same thing her mother had done. She’d had sex without protection, and she had believed a man who talked too sweet. And now she would probably end up in the same way she had started. Only this time, instead of being the baby, mishandled and starved, beaten by a man who hated anything lovely, she would be the woman, her mother, broken and old, used up and worn down way before her time.
Trina sat up on the sofa and glanced at the clock. It was after nine o’clock, and she wanted to talk to someone. She wished she were back in Amarillo and could talk to Dusty or Jolene or even Lester, the bartender at the club where she hung out a lot. She hadn’t contacted any of her old roommates since she climbed up into the cab of Conroe’s truck because she knew that both of them and Lester would say the same thing. “You should have known better than to trust anybody with boots that shiny, and a man with a beard is hiding something.”
Dusty would say that Conroe was too good at being needy and too smooth with his clumsiness. She was always a good read of men, and she had warned Trina that there was just something too clean about this boy, something too covered over. She had even guessed that he was married and had urged Trina to check him out before going out on the first date. Dusty found his name in the phone book on the Internet and told Trina to call the number just to see who answered. Trina had told her no and thrown away the piece of paper that Dusty had handed her while they drank beers on the house at the bar, compliments of Lester.
Jolene had not been overbearing in her suspicions of Conroe, but she did not approve of Trina packing everything she owned in a suitcase and traveling with him. Jolene told her to leave at least a few things hanging in the closet so he could see them, make it clear that she was coming back and not throwing away everything to drive west with him.
Lester could have cared less. He shrugged when Trina told him she was heading out with Conroe and said it was her life, but he had told her to call if anything happened and if she needed any help. He had even slipped her twenty dollars, all in ones, the tips from one night at Tank’s Cowboy Bar where he worked, and told her to hide the money for an emergency. He’d thrust the cash into her hands and shaken his head like he also knew that things wouldn’t work out.
Trina longed to talk to any of her friends. She almost didn’t care that they would say they told her so. She wished she had a cell phone and could dial the numbers of people who didn’t care if she was impulsive or spent too much money on lipstick and would call her Trina Lou or Trinie or Sweetie the way they used to. She wished that she could call and tell them what had happened, how she had discovered that Conroe was married, how she walked outside of their motel room and heard his voice from below, heard him laughing and chatting, so animated and fatherly, so different than she had ever heard him. She had gone out to find him, to bring him back to bed and stay past checkout time, and she stood out on the walkway, listening to him as he talked just beneath her, thinking she was asleep and wouldn’t hear.
She listened as he talked to children, listened as he talked to
his
children, heard him tell his sons that he would be home soon and that they were to take care of their mom until he could get back and be the man of the house. She listened, her fingers gripping the rails, her robe hanging open so that the guy next door, watching from the window, could see her breasts, while Conroe promised them gifts from his trip and his presence at their fall baseball games, and then even a few minutes later when he talked to his wife, saying to her that he missed her and that she was the reason he was able to keep going. He said he was almost done with his work in Iraq and knew that what he was doing was good for the country and would give them some much-needed income. He would be home soon, he promised, and he was hopeful that there would be no more long-hauls, no more work overseas.
Trina stood a floor above Conroe Jasper, two months after leaving Amarillo and falling in love, and could not believe the words that drifted up from below her. When he finished his call and came back to the room with a paper bag with two sausage biscuits, the bottom stained with grease, Trina had started walking. She took some money, packed her things, and never went back to talk to him, and he never went looking. She had walked to Salt River Canyon and then on to Pie Town, and now she was pregnant and alone, and she just wished she had a friend or somebody to talk to.
Trina got up from her sofa, put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, brushed her hair, and decided to do the most unlikely thing she would ever think to do. She figured that where she was going somebody would be there to listen, if not to talk. She hoped that when she got to where she was going she would find a friend, or at least a listening ear. Trina, pregnant and lost and alone, put on her shoes, the ones the Indian woman had given her, the buckskin moccasins, and walked to church.
F
ather George was restless and thought about going to bed early. He had given Mass and greeted the group as they gathered in the education classroom, the women making prayer shawls, before changing out of his robe and going back to the rectory. He had eaten the dinner prepared for him by the women of the church, pork enchiladas with rice and beans, a dish that he had not expected to enjoy since he preferred a blander diet but had discovered he had actually come to favor, and after making a few phone calls, he had started looking ahead at the next week’s sermon text.
It was a gospel story, a healing miracle performed by Jesus. George had studied it in his New Testament class in seminary. In the story Jesus is approached by a Gentile, a Syrophoenician woman who wants healing for her daughter. Jesus explains that he is there for the Jewish people, quotes to her a Jewish proverb that says something like food should not be taken from children and given to the dogs. And then this woman, this nonperson who shouldn’t even be speaking to a Jewish man, responds that even the dogs get crumbs from the table. And then, just like that, Jesus heals the woman’s child. He breaks rules and traditions and gives his gift of healing, a miracle, to a Gentile.
George had never liked the story, was never comfortable with the action of Jesus or the interpretation of the story by scholars.
He got up from his desk and decided to make a pot of tea. He hoped that the chamomile that he bought at the grocery store on his last outing would calm him, soothe his mind. He turned on the faucet, filled up the kettle, and placed it on the stove, waiting for it to heat.
George had never understood the harsh words of Jesus to the woman and he also never understood the way it appeared as if Jesus changed his mind and met her request. He knew that some scholars claimed that Jesus said the proverb just to show his disciples their prejudice and how wrong they were to exclude others. “It was a teaching moment,” his professor had said. But then one of the students, an older boy who eventually dropped out of seminary, raised his hand and asked the questions that had shocked everyone in the class: “What if she changed his mind? What if Jesus had a conversion experience because of what this woman said?”
At the time George thought the student was crazy, heretical, and, like everyone else, had not been surprised when months later he had left school. But the questions he had asked stayed with George. They practically haunted him. He wondered: was it possible that the Son of God could have a conversion experience? Could it be that Jesus had started out thinking one way about Gentiles and women, the way all Jewish men thought about them in the first century, and then suddenly changed his thinking?
He poured a cup of tea and shook the memories and thoughts from his mind. It was more than he wanted to think about that week. He would simply preach on the Old Testament text and just not deal with the gospel story. And with that decision he dismissed the other thoughts he was having and recalled instead the events of the day.
Most of that Thursday he had been out of the parish and rectory making pastoral visits. He’d gone to Carebridge and conducted Mass for the few Catholic patients who could attend and made visits to the rooms, offering Communion to those who could not. He had visited Fedora Snow because she wanted to talk about the upcoming fall services, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Feast Day held in early September, only a few weeks away, the St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals scheduled for October, and the Pie Town community dinner that was always held in November.
She had asked for the visit because there were things she needed the priest to know, things like Millie Watson should not be in charge of the Feast Day meal because she always made her stew too spicy and never had enough desserts. Fedora wanted Father George to ask someone else to be in charge of that event, and she also wanted him to know that she didn’t think the animals should be on the front lawn of Holy Family Church for St. Francis Day. The November community dinner, she explained, needed only publicity and no discussion since she had been in charge of that gathering for years and saw no need for any change. The woman had droned on for over an hour, and by the end of the visit Father George, feeling bored and in need of a break, had decided to stop by the diner for lunch and to catch his breath after he left Fedora’s house.
After hearing from Bea that Roger and Malene had brought Alex home from the hospital earlier in the week, he decided he would drop by Malene’s house after he stopped to see Frank at the garage to give him a Bible and rosary beads for Raymond, his son, who was in boot camp. He thought about that encounter too, his first with the owner of the garage, a Navajo, the son of an active member of Holy Family.
Frank had been polite but not thrilled to see the priest or to receive the gifts for his son. George explained that Frank’s mother had asked him to bring Raymond the Bible and rosary beads, and Frank had made a kind of huffing noise at that. “Mama still thinks she can make Catholics out of us,” he said, and Father George felt his face flush. He dropped his hands at his sides, still clutching the small Bible and the long wooden beads. And then Frank studied the priest and asked, “What is it with your kind? Why does everyone need to believe as you believe? Is God so small that there is only one way to name Him? Only one way to get His attention?”
George had tried to explain that Catholics and all Christians believe that it is only through God’s son that one can find salvation and have eternal life. Frank just shook his head, leaning back under the hood to work on the engine of the car in the garage bay. “And your God only had one son, not many children? Why would the Creator of all worlds and all heavens create only one son?” George didn’t answer. “And this need for salvation?” Frank asked. “Are we being saved from ourselves or from this God who is described as not just a God of love but also vengeance?”
The questions had rattled George. In the end, he had not given answers, only stood looking embarrassed while the man opened valves and flushed a radiator. Frank stood up and wiped his hands on the rag hanging from his back pocket. He reached out to receive the Bible and beads. “I’ll give them to Raymond,” he said to the priest, and George handed them over. “But your Church and your God have brought only sorrow to my people. Our only need for salvation is to be delivered from the likes of you and your predecessors.”
Father George had left that encounter to go over to Malene’s to see Alex. And that visit had been just as unsettling. The boy was weak and had lost quite a lot of weight while being hospitalized, but he was alert and engaging, and when he realized that Father George was standing at the door with his grandmother, he made it clear that he wanted to talk to the priest alone. Malene had raised her eyebrows in suspicion at the request but granted Alex his wish. She backed out and shut the door as George stood just inside the room.
George now sat at his desk, recalling his last conversation of the afternoon, the one with Alex.
“How are you, Father?” the boy had asked, motioning the priest to come closer, to sit in the chair by the bed.
“I’m great,” George replied, trying not to show signs of his fatigue. “But the question is, how are you?”
Alex smiled. “I’m home,” he answered. “And that’s all that matters.”
Father George had felt uncomfortable in the boy’s room, sitting by his bed. His early visits at Carebridge and then his talks with Fedora and Frank had made him realize that personal conversations with parishioners and visits to the sick, whether in hospitals or homes or nursing centers, exhausted him. It had become the least favorite part of his job. The preaching and consecrating of the elements, the study and personal time of prayer and reflection, those ministerial tasks were his forte. He realized he should have received more training, more experience, in the pastoral care aspect of his ministry.
“Thank you for visiting me at the hospital that day after I first got there,” Alex had said. “And for bringing Trina.”
Father George nodded. He had not wanted to think about that day. He had not spoken to the young woman since she got out of his car on Highway 60 and he drove away. He had seen her through the diner windows on occasion, passed her once on Main Street, but they had not talked since the argument.
“I was glad to see you both,” Alex commented.
Father George nodded. He had no reply.
“She’s not what you think,” Alex said, his voice small and weak.
“What do you mean?” George asked, not understanding what the boy was saying.
“She’s not bad or anything,” Alex replied.
Father George didn’t know how to respond. He dropped his face. He wondered why Alex would say such a thing to him, and he worried that his discontented feelings about the other new resident of Pie Town had become too transparent. He was going to explain, but then, perhaps because of his fatigue and the day’s other conversations, he thought better of it.
“She’s lost is all,” Alex added. “But things will be right soon.”
Father George looked back up at the boy and decided that Alex was not fully himself, that he was speaking from weakness, and maybe from medication. The priest nodded and smiled. “Yes, I think things will be right for both of you.”
“And you,” the boy said, focusing his eyes on the priest. “Things will finally be right for you too.”
Father George had been about to ask Alex what he meant, but Oris came in just at that moment, interrupting the conversation. Oris pushed past the priest and knelt by the bed, pulling his great-grandson into his arms. George noticed the tears in the old man’s eyes, understood the intimacy of the moment, and decided to make a quiet exit. He left without saying good-bye.
He sat at his desk and remembered the conversations of the day with Fedora and Frank and finally Alex. He remembered that he had been struck dumb by Frank’s arguments against the Church, that he had felt lifeless after hearing Fedora’s complaints and instructions, and that he had been confused by Alex’s words. He had driven back to the rectory trying to make sense of what the three conversations had meant, and especially what Alex had said.
“What would finally be right with myself?” George asked. “What is so wrong that would be made right?” But before he could answer, he saw the lights coming up the road, a vehicle pulling into the church parking lot, and recognized right away the make and style of the small pickup truck.