The Miracles of Ordinary Men (22 page)

“So he didn't see you,” Father Jim said.

“No.” Sam shook his head. “He didn't see me. Just because I went to get coffee.”

The priest turned his hands palm up in the light. “The world has turned on smaller things.”

Sam held his hand out for the cat; she ambled over and then rolled on her back in front of him. He brought his wing around and brushed the feathers across her stomach. “I don't know what happened but it meant . . . something.”

“Do you know what it means, Father?” Timothy shifted from one foot to the other.

“I don't know,” the priest said, his voice quiet. “But I'm not surprised.”

“What?” Timothy and Sam spoke at once.

“God is beyond mysterious.” Father Jim sat at the counter and ran a hand across his face. How old he looked, Sam thought suddenly. “But you — you, me, all of us — we'd be foolish to think that God is the only unknown in the universe.”

Sam grew cold, shivering as he hadn't in weeks. “Are you talking about — ”

“I don't know what I'm talking about,” the priest said sharply. “Isn't it obvious? I'm guessing, just like the two of you.”

Sam pressed his hand into the cat's stomach. Fur, smooth skin, and beneath the flesh, organs that propelled her forward. An inner solar system, an inner rhythm. Did she see the world differently, now that her life had been dipped in a miracle? If she had been there beside Timothy on the sidewalk, would she have seen something else besides a man in a long dark coat?

“You can't talk about God,” Father Jim said slowly, “or live through a miracle, without eventually seeing something else. Something other than God.”

Sam took a breath and stared at his hands. A demon, a different kind of angel altogether. He thought of Rilke.
Almost deadly birds of the soul
. “What happens now?”

“Damned if I know,” said the priest. “This isn't
The Exorcist
.”

“So — we just sit here?” Timothy's voice went even higher. “We do nothing? What if I want to see my sister?”

“No one said ‘do nothing.'” Father Jim poured whiskey into a glass. He passed it to the boy, who held it between one forefinger and thumb as though he didn't quite know what to do. “Liquid courage, my boy. If I had to come face to face with the Devil, I'd sure as hell not want to do it sober.”

Sam snorted. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang above the floor. “We keep going,” he said. “I don't see that we have any other choice.”

“You
don't
have a choice,” Father Jim said flatly. “Look — maybe you came close to something
today. Maybe not. Maybe there's a thread in all of this that none of us can see. God is being revealed to both of you — but on God's
time, not yours. You do not get to decide what makes sense, and whether something has meaning
or not. You get to pay attention. You get to feel God in your blood. That's all.”

“God does not feel all that great,” said Sam. “He feels like . . . the flu.”

Now it was the priest's turn to snort. “God is more terrible than anything you could imagine, Sam.”

“That's your wisdom?” Timothy's voice was almost hysterical. His eyes were stark, haunted — the eyes of a fugitive. “That's your uplifting speech?”

“
Yet in my flesh I shall see God
,”
said the priest. He paused and let the words hang in the air. “Only a fool would find that uplifting. If God is truly in your veins, gentlemen — changing your skin, changing your bones — there won't be
anything left of you when it's over. Anything else is a toy, by comparison.” Now he was quiet, sad. His words settled among them like the ash that had begun to drift, steady and slow, from Sam's own wings. “As to the rest — if I was God, the world would make me ill too.”

III

The week goes by and she avoids them both, Timothy and Israel, as much as she can. It's too much. She runs errands. She calls Roberta. She pleads another headache, and another. She leaves work early every day and goes straight home, where she crawls into bed and goes to sleep. No dreams. No answers. Nothing.

On Thursday, she stops at a McDonald's, and from there takes the long way home. She finds Timothy by the water, perched on beach driftwood, staring out. He wears a hat she hasn't seen before, and as she steps closer he straightens, becomes more alert.

“Lilah.” He turns around and takes off the hat. “Where have you been?”

“What happened to your hair?” she says. He has showered. He is wearing different clothes. He is bald. “Where did you get that shirt?”

“I'm just borrowing it,” he mutters. He does not look at her. “I'll give it back.”

“Who gave it to you? Why in bloody fuck did you shave your head? Are you in some kind of cult?”

“I was safe,” he says. “Don't worry.”

Worry. Worry is all she ever does. “You could shower at my house. You can borrow clothes from me.”

“I can't borrow clothes from you.”

“So I have tits. Big fucking deal. You can borrow a goddamned sweatshirt, at least.”

“Don't swear.”

“Well? For fuck's sake, Tim. What am I supposed to think?”

“This isn't about you,” he says. “Isn't it enough to know that I'm safe?”

Yes. And no. “You're not . . . you're not . . . you know — ”

He smirks. “No. Thanks a lot.”

“Oh. Well, that's good, then.” She stands above him, awkward, unsure. Someone else had Timothy in their apartment last night, when she was hiding under her duvet. Someone else had him safe.

“You always find me,” he says then. “How?”

“I don't know.” Other people get pulled around this city for food, for sex. Lilah follows her brother around like a shipman, lost at sea and following the sky.

“How's Mom?” he asks.

“She's dying. She wants to see you.”

His breath comes out funny — a wheeze and a whimper all at once. He blinks and he runs a hand around his head. “Do you like my hair? It was falling out. I couldn't hide it anymore.”

She shuts her eyes and imagines the story she'll tell Roberta. “Please
tell me it's not a cult.”

“A cult?” He is genuinely perplexed. “Why would I join a cult, Lilah?
God lives inside of me
.”

“It's falling out because you're not eating enough.” She sits beside him, on the log, and pulls out the bag of fast food. All of this travel between Victoria and back has meant little time for groceries — Roberta would cringe to see the shit Lilah is feeding him now. But Timothy is oblivious. He eats his food without comment, and this time he wipes his face with the single napkin that was placed inside the bag.

“Thank you.”

“You always liked Happy Meals,” she says. She thinks of The Actor, who brought Timothy food all those weeks ago. The Actor, Joe-with-an-L, all these parts of her life that are falling away, disappearing. The guilt is sharp and sudden, but eventually it subsides.

“I'm not seven, in case you haven't noticed.”

“I know.” She reaches for his hand; as always, he pushes her away. “You're a grown man. Completely capable of making your own decisions. I'm aware.”

“You laugh,” he says. He begins, once again, to rock in his seat. “You laugh, but Delilah, if only you knew.”

“Then tell me!” Suddenly she is furious. A woman walking past them jumps mid-stride.

“I won't hurt you,” is what he says. “Just know that.”

“Tim — you can't do this forever.”

“Who said anything about forever?”

The sound that comes out of her throat is wild, uncontrolled. She throws the rest of her hamburger at him. Then she stands and shouts so loud that people fifty feet away stop to look at them. “I hate you!”

His face opens for her like a flower, dying even as it blooms. “I know,” he whispers.

Lilah stalks away before she can do anything else. She doesn't look back. She doesn't cry. She walks through the city, blind with rage. She walks straight to Israel's apartment, gleaming tower of metal and glass. She presses the buzzer.

“Delilah.” She whirls around to find him there, in front of the door, holding Chinese takeout in his sleek gloved hands. “How . . . unexpected. I thought you were in hiding.”

“What — I can't come to see you? We do everything on your clock, is that it?”

He smiles. For an instant, he looks like every other man she's ever slept with. Then he takes her arm, and she remembers. “Hardly.”

Inside, he splits the takeout onto two plates and pours wine for them both. Lilah sits at the counter and does not eat; the fast food turns her stomach. She runs her fingers over the granite. Timothy's face, opening and crumpling for her all at once.

“You have seen Timothy,” Israel says.

She sniffs, and immediately hates herself. “No.”

He laughs. “You are a terrible liar.”

“Fine. Yes.”

“Yes. And he is — not well?”

“He's fine,” she mutters. “He spent the night at someone's house. He fucking shaved his head. Like he's in some goddamned cult!”

She doesn't see his arm move at all. Another backhand, so quick. “How many times must we do this, Delilah? You are more than your body. You are certainly more than your mouth.”

“He's going to die,” she says bitterly. She speaks around the pain, around her stinging cheek. Then she dips her finger into the sweet-and-sour sauce. “He's going to freeze to death on the streets, and there's nothing I can do.”

“But everyone dies,” he says. “Your brother. Your mother. Even you, eventually.”

She stares. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“The truth does not make you feel better or worse. It is merely the truth.” He puts his cutlery down. “You build what you can from that.”

Lilah licks her finger, catches the sauce at the corner of her mouth. Sweet. A hint of chilies. “I hate him.”

“You don't hate him.” Israel pats his mouth with his napkin. She watches the skin over his collarbone, dark and brown. The pulse in his neck has quickened, like her own. “You love him so much that it feels like hatred.”

“Or I hate him so much that it feels like love?”

Israel smiles his crooked smile. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, Delilah. You see — you are beginning to understand.”

—

This time he ties her completely to the bed, her hands and feet stretched to the bedposts, her knees bent so that she's exposed, all of her, to the air. To him. She shakes with terror, with anticipation. The pillow beneath her cheek is damp with tears.

“You fear me,” Israel says behind her, “because you think I have power over you. Because you are used to having power over men.” A caress, then the crack of his whip against her thigh. “But what you don't realize, Delilah, is that this is where the power comes from. This recognition — it is
pain
,
only that. It will disappear. You are Infinitely more than your body.” He stops the whip and then draws it back over her reddened skin. Agony; like nothing else she's ever felt. Lilah sobs into the pillow, into the bed. She pulls against the scarves until her wrists and ankles chafe — these will be harder to disguise, these marks, and tomorrow at the office Debbie will be overwhelmed with concern. But right now, here, she says nothing. She couldn't say anything even if she tried — in these moments of calm before the whip descends she's holding infinity right in her mouth, teetering on the edge of a climax so radiant it's a wonder her organs don't implode. Is this what they meant, the saints?

“‘For the Lord disciplines the ones He loves,'” Israel intones, “‘and chastises every son whom He receives.'” At
chastises
,
he snakes an arm around her front and jams his fist into her mouth, so that her teeth clink against the gold of his ring.

She bites him because it is the only thing she can do, bites until his flesh breaks and the warm tang of blood spills over her tongue. Israel grunts behind her and then pulls his hand away. He rams his fist into her cheek — she hears the bone crack, or shift, and then her head hits the pillow again and for a moment she feels nothing. More blood in her mouth. She spits it out onto the pillow.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“Never mind.” He pulls his hand through her snarled hair, rests his fingers against her cheek. “It will all come out.”

Lilah rests her head against the pillow and smears her forehead with the blood. Her breath comes in short, ragged bursts. Her skin aches. Her ass shivers. And yet she is calm, focused. She feels Israel ready himself behind her. He presses close, so that her shivers become his shivers, his heat becomes her own. For a moment, just before he pushes inside her, the space between them is filled with something endless, something other. His arms come round and cover her, like wings.

Two

Nearly a week after the encounter on the streets, someone came to the house. It was morning. They were on the patio. Timothy had come back from a solitary walk on the streets last night looking like a beaten dog. He'd gone into his room, and he hadn't spoken to anyone, and all three of them had slept around the noise of muffled sobs. Now he sprawled on the patio stones, his limbs loose and awkward, the joints pronounced, like some kind of wooden puppet.

“What if,” said the boy, “what if this is what we
all
become?”

“What if,” Sam repeated. Today everything felt like a struggle. “I don't know.”

“This could be death. This could be why no one talks about it.”

“But no one sees
us to talk about it,” Sam said. “And — surely — if it happened to everyone, we'd know something.
You
,”
and he pointed to the priest, “would know something.”

“What do you think?” said Timothy. His voice cracked with longing. “Father.” Fa-ther.

“I think,” said the priest, “that God is full of mystery. And perhaps he is already
using you for something wonderful. There is always that.”

“You didn't make it sound so wonderful before,” Sam said.

“Things can be wonderful and terrible at the same time.” Father Jim took a sip of coffee and continued. He'd slipped the whiskey straight into his cup this morning — a quick sleight-of-hand, but Sam had noticed. “You both have family you fought with, whom you love. You've both had your hearts broken, in some form or another. We human beings — we love and despise at the same time. Once you acknowledge this, and recognize the limitless possibilities of your own heart, you'll realize that God isn't that different.”

“Still,” Sam said. “‘Everything else is a toy, by comparison'? That's what you said.” A shimmer in the air, the weight of feathers on his soul. “Or something to run from. It's either/or — it
can't be both.”

“What you're fighting, that other thing — it has to be . . . charming.”

Timothy laughed. “That's not what I would say.”

“But it has to be.” The priest was calm yet insistent. “Think about it, gentlemen. What would you do if the Devil came to you in a roar of smoke and fire, threatening pain and eternal damnation? I don't know about you,
but I'd sure as shit be running for the church.”

“I thought you already ran for the church,” Sam said, his voice wry.

“The point, Timothy,” and the priest faced the boy, “is that if there is
a Devil, and there is
a God, and the point of the Devil is to draw you away from that God, then the Devil — or this other force, thing, whatever — needs to be as attractive as possible. The Devil needs to make you an offer you can't refuse, to seduce you so deeply you can't see any other way forward. Gentlemen — fire and brimstone is not a selling point. It's that simple.”

The doorbell rang and Sam went to get it, sliding back into himself as he walked through the house and up through the front hall.

It was Emma. He held the door open for her and she stepped inside.

“Hello,” he said. Hell-o.

“I've been calling,” she said. She was pale, shaken. “I left messages.”

“I'm sorry.” He wasn't checking the messages anymore. He slept, and he walked, and he waited. That was all.

“I thought — I thought it had happened.”

“Thought what had happened?”

“I don't know.” Her laughter was shaky, forced. “Whatever it is that's happening to you.”

Whatever it is. “No. Not yet.” Whatever that was. He swept his arm out and pointed to the back of the house. “Everyone's through there.”

“Everyone?”

He stopped. Remembered. Then he took her hand and pulled her through to the back of the house. She saw Timothy, and her hand squeezed his hard.

“Oh,”
she said. It could have been a prayer.

Timothy sat upright, quivering and terrified. “Who are you? Who is she?”

“It's okay,” Sam said. He released her hand. “This is Emma.”

“Hello,” she said. She sat next to Father Jim.

“Emma used to be my student,” Sam said. “And now — ”

“We're friends,” she finished.

“Friends,” the boy echoed. He looked at them both. “I never had friends.”

“You have a sister,” the priest said gently.

“She
hates
me.” Timothy rocked on the ground. The sounds out of his mouth reminded Sam of the deer he'd killed, all those weeks ago.

“I'm sure she doesn't hate you,” Emma said instantly, leaning forward. “Why would she hate you? Maybe she's just . . . upset.”

“She doesn't understand,” Timothy said. “She doesn't understand, so I have to keep everything from her.” He looked at Emma and sobbed. “But you. You can see them. Why you
and not her?”
He stumbled to his feet, breathing hard. “
I want it to stop
.”

“Timothy,” Sam said. This he could do, he could understand. Hadn't he helped children such as these in his other, long-ago life? He stood up, counting the seconds as he rose. He locked eyes with the boy. “I know. I want it to stop too.”

“I want to go home,” the boy said, weeping. His wings shone white and terrible. “Make it go away, Sam.”

“Timothy,” Sam said again, and he reached forward, took the boy's hands in his own. They were both so warm. And yet the hands of God, come down to touch them both, were sterile, strange, and cold. “I would,” he said. “I would take it for you. I would take it all away from you, if I could.”

The boy shook and cried. His own hands were nail-less, and crisscrossed with veins, like Sam's. “You can't. You can't do anything.” He wrenched his hands away and ran into the house. They heard the front door open and slam.

Sam stood there, staring at the open patio door until he couldn't hear the slap of Timothy's feet anymore. The boy, stumbling down to the city, his heart pulsing with fear and grief and rage. He turned back to look at the others, who were both stunned and quiet. Emma wept silently, her eyes shimmering and dark as the grass.

“He's gone to find his sister,” Sam said. “He has nowhere else to go.”

“He'll come back,” said the priest. “He will, Sam.”

“I'm sorry,” Emma whispered. They turned to look at her. “I'm sorry. I thought — I thought it was a miracle. You. Him. I didn't understand.”

“It is a miracle,” Sam said softly. “And we don't understand it, either.”

“Will he find her?” Emma asked. “Does he know where she is?”

Sam and Father Jim looked at each other, then at Emma. “Yes,” they said.

“Should we go after him?” she said then, even though it was already too late. “Does he need help?”

“He'll find her,” Sam said. He rested his hands against the back of his head and saw Emma start. Yes — no gloves. “Or she'll find him. One way or the other. There's something between them. I don't think we can see it.” He thought again of Timothy. Weeping. Running. Alone.

“I need a drink,” the priest said suddenly. “Does anybody else need a drink?”

Sam laughed. “No.”

“Emma?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Very polite.” Father Jim nodded and stood. “I'll take myself to the bar, then.”

“There's whiskey in the cupboard,” Sam said.

The priest shook his head and offered them the tiniest bit of a smile. “No,” he said. “There isn't.”

—

They sat in the kitchen, on opposite sides of the counter, just as everything had started on opposite sides of the desk.

“It's going to happen soon,” Sam said. “Whatever it is.”

“I know.” Emma ran her fingers over the countertop, then raised a hand to her mouth and bit a nail. “I can feel it.”

“I'm sorry. That you had to see that, I mean.”

“I'm sorry for Timothy,” Emma said, her voice low. “And you.”

He shrugged. The cat came and jumped into his lap. Still purring. For Chickenhead, there was still so much to love about the world. “Emma — talk to Father Jim. If I'm not here. He'll know. He'll be able to tell you . . . what happened.”

She nodded. “I still don't understand why I get to see everything. Timothy. I don't even know him.”

Sam remembered Father Jim again. “Maybe you're just supposed to watch. To bear witness. To tell me that I needed to grow up, and stop screaming.” He paused. “I didn't thank you before,” he said. “But you were — you were so right.”

She laughed, sniffled. “Who knew.” She took a deep breath. He could hear the sadness whistle through her lungs. “I'll miss you.”

“I'll miss you too,” he said. This unexpected soul beside him, this unforeseen friend.

Emma reached over and took his hand, traced her fingers around the veins across his palm. “It's terrible, what's happening to you. But . . . I want it to be beautiful too. Somehow.”

He laughed. “Forever the poet, you. Always ready to find the thing that shines.”

Emma curled his hand into a fist and held it between her hands. “Maybe,” she said softly. “I'm going to hope for something beautiful, all the same.”