Free The Good Life by Erin McGraw Page B

facilities, a fact she’d confessed to Father Marino and that he told her didn’t need to be confessed. More than anything, these women worried about their children, and Beth told them with real compassion, “Children are the fear that steals your heart. I know just what you mean.”
    When she said this, her eyes slid to the desk photo of her two daughters, laughing and proud on their new Rollerblades. They were older now and laughed less. The divorce had hurt them. Ten-year-old Alison threw tantrums like a first-grader, and seven-year-old Stephanie refused to read her colorful schoolbooks. Beth told Father Marino about this, too. “Ali screams until she’s blue. Anthony would never have stood for it.”
    â€œNo kidding. He left.” He leaned forward, resting his bony elbows on his thighs. Despite his apple-round face, he had a lean frame, freckled skin stretched over long bones. “Don’t you feel like screaming?”
    â€œNo more than ten times a day. But for the last six months Anthony was home, I wanted to scream all day long, so I should be grateful.”
    Father Marino shook his head. “You don’t ask for enough.”
    â€œI ask for plenty,” she said. “I just don’t get.”
    â€œWe’ll have to see about that,” he said.
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    Beth understood that she should not take Father Marino’s vague promises too seriously. Everybody knew that he liked to make promises. He especially liked to make them on the telephone, at night, when people heard the sound of ice cubes rattling in a glass not far from the phone.
    There weren’t rumors, exactly, and no incidents—unlike the case of Father Toole at St. Agnes, who had been pulled over for DUI and was abusive to the officer: the whole parish council had had to swing its weight to keep the story out of the paper. Still, so many people had run into Father Marino at the Liquor Barn. At so many parties he had gotten tipsy. Holy Name parishioners were accustomed to a priest who took a drink—if anything, they liked the little touch of worldliness—but sometimes when they called the rectory late, they heard a wildness in Father Marino’s voice—too much laughter, too-quick sympathy. He spoke very knowledgeably about wine.
    Beth’s own mother had drunk too much and had died of it. Beth knew the signs. Still, she didn’t blame Father Marino. Lately, when the girls were at Anthony’s condo, Beth had been learning about the stillness of an empty house, how a person could wade through loneliness as if through mud. One night she’d sat in front of the blank TV until one in the morning, unwilling to turn it on because eventually she’d have to turn it off again and hear the silence sweep back down. Who could be surprised if Father Marino took a snort too much now and then?
    Nevertheless, when the Parish Life Committee started planning Father’s birthday party, Beth voted with those who said the only liquor should be jug wine, and not too much of that. Already teens from the youth group were writing a skit, and the Men’s Club had planned a roast. It would be the sort of evening that a pastor should enjoy, and Beth meant to make sure Father Marino enjoyed it. “Sorry,” she said to Frank Burding, who wanted to bring his special punch. “This is family entertainment.”
    â€œWhat are you, the den mother?”
    â€œThat would make you a Boy Scout?” She meant it as a joke. Father Marino would have laughed.
    Maybe Frank had a party for Father before the party, or maybe Father had a little party for himself—as soon as he entered the parish hall, to applause, Beth could see how his eyes wandered and slid. “Happy birthday to me,” he said at the door.
    â€œHow old are you, Father?” said Amy Burding.
    â€œA gentleman never tells.”
    â€œYou’re not a gentleman. You’re a priest.”
    â€œAnd that is where my