Living Proof Page 14

  Joanie and Dopp both reddened, and Trent could see they were restraining themselves. His father pushed food around his plate, looking uncomfortable, and Trent felt sorry for involving his parents at all; manipulation went against their grain, though he knew they were happy to do anything in service of the DEP.

  His mother piped up then, making an effort to dispel the tension. “Arianna,” she said, “tell us why you decided to be a doctor in the first place. What a difficult profession, and the years of work it must have taken!”

  Arianna smiled kindly at her. “Well, I grew up with two biology professors, so it was pretty hard not to find the body fascinating. And I love seeing a new life come out of my work—it’s very gratifying to help give people the gift of a child. Although unfortunately,” she said, glancing at Dopp and Joanie, “the science of eliminating infertility is not yet perfect.”

  “Children are the ultimate blessing,” Mrs. Rowe said quickly. “I really do believe every one is a miracle.”

  Arianna turned back to her. “You both must be so proud of your son. I can’t imagine any professions more challenging than the creative ones, especially writing. I don’t know how he does it.”

  Trent’s breath caught in his throat as he met his parents’ eyes. They smiled curiously at him.

  “Yes, of course,” his father said after a pause that Trent hoped would pass unnoticed. “Trent has always been a talented writer.”

  “Have either of you read what he’s working on?” Arianna asked.

  “I haven’t shown it to anyone yet,” Trent cut in. “Not till it’s done.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’ll all look forward to that,” Arianna said. “Excuse me. Where is the restroom?” She pushed her chair back, and Dopp pointed her around the corner, back toward the living room. “The food was very good, by the way, thank you,” she said, picking up her cane and walking away. As soon as she was out of sight, the group uttered a soft collective sigh.

  “Intermission,” Joanie joked.

  Trent almost rolled his eyes. Dopp’s flush of anger had dispersed, replaced by his characteristic half smile; the director was satisfied.

  “Well, we got what we came for, didn’t we?” Dopp said in a low voice. “There is no way that woman is Christian like she told you, Trent.”

  “Seems that way.”

  “She refused to say the Lord’s Prayer, for heaven’s sake!” Joanie said. “Didn’t you see that?”

  “It was pretty pitiful,” Trent agreed. But then again, he thought, she never did claim she was Christian.

  Trent’s mother and Joanie exchanged grimaces, while he made an expression of distaste, appearing to agree with their sentiment.

  “Honey, are you paying the poor man overtime?” Joanie asked.

  Dopp looked apologetically at Trent. With the prospects for the department’s share of the state budget still looking poor, there was no way it could afford overtime. But Trent knew he would be well reimbursed if he cracked the case, for his success could resuscitate their hopes for more money.

  “For having a disease, she doesn’t look half-bad,” Mr. Rowe remarked. Mrs. Rowe just shook her head. He looked at Trent. “A writer, eh?”

  “I was, once,” Trent replied.

  “You were a fabulous writer,” his mother said.

  “Soon,” his father said, “I bet you’ll be writing her a nice ticket.”

  “Oh, it will be much worse than that if we can peg her for something criminal, which she is clearly capable of,” Dopp said. “She didn’t even apologize after admitting she did abortions.”

  Joanie put her hand on the nape of his neck. “I couldn’t help asking.” Her face twisted. “Can you imagine what families like us go through to have a child, and there she is, cutting babies out of wombs, and then dumping them like trash.”

  Dopp caressed Joanie’s globe of a belly. “She was totally unashamed, and that told me all I need to know about who she is.”

  Trent heard the sound of a cane hitting wood floor, and his stomach toppled over.

  “To minimize the chances of anyone slipping up,” Dopp whispered, “Trent, check out soon and we’ll follow suit. And thank you both for coming,” Dopp muttered to his parents. “We should get together some other time, for real.”

  His voice returned to its normal baritone as he addressed the table. “So who wants seconds?”

  Arianna appeared and trudged behind Trent into her chair as everyone shook heads.

  “I’m so full,” Dopp said. “I think I’ll have to wait on your cake, Arianna.”

  “I couldn’t even think about dessert,” Trent said, and before anyone could engage Arianna in conversation: “By the way, Mom, how was your charity drive this week?”

  Trent leaned back and grabbed Arianna’s hand under the table as his mother talked about what happened at the drive. For once, he appreciated her volubility, and he suspected everyone else did, too. At the first lull, he cleared his throat.

  “Well, everyone, sorry to cut it short, but we should probably get going. It’s a pretty long ride back.” He looked at Arianna and squeezed her hand under the table. “We have a party in the city tonight.”

  Arianna nodded, and he sensed she was grateful for his exit strategy. “Thank you very much for having me,” she said.

  A chorus of pleasantries followed. As the group rose from the table, Trent’s father offered to drive them back to the train station. At the front door, everyone exchanged handshakes and hugs and Merry Christmases, but Trent knew that they were all rushing to be through with one another.

  When the door closed behind them, he let out a brief sigh. The feeling of goodwill that usually came over him like magic every Christmas season was missing, he noticed; all he felt was an understanding of the sense of dirtiness Dopp had described.

  As they pulled up to the station, Trent saw that the train was already waiting with open doors, which expedited their good-byes. The train stood in the station for only one minute, and it had already been at least thirty seconds; with a sinking heart, he appraised the staircase leading up to the platform, knowing there was no way Arianna could rush up it.

  “I have to do this,” he said. “Hold on to your cane.”

  Then he lifted her into his arms, as she squealed with delight. “My dress!”

  “No one’s looking,” he said, racing up the stairs two at a time. Then he ran across the platform and slid between the closing train doors. He let her down gently as the train groaned forward. She smiled at him with that same windblown exuberance he remembered from their bike rides.

  “It’s nice to go fast again,” she said.

  He chuckled and guided her to two open seats.

  “So, what was up with that sly exit?” she asked, taking the seat next to him.

  “That’s about all I can take of my family at one time,” he joked. “They get kind of overbearing when they’re all together—I don’t know if you noticed.…”

  She snorted. “You said it first.”

  Trent looked down at his lap, recalling Dopp’s instructions from their impromptu meeting in the kitchen. He sighed deeply.

  “What’s wrong?” Arianna asked. “I’m sorry if I offended you—”

  “No, it’s not that.” Won’t it help if my confession is truthful, he wondered, since she’ll see it’s sincere?

  “The thing is…” Or was he just rationalizing Dopp’s instructions so he could open up to her for real?

  “Yeah?” she said, putting her hand on his.

  He looked into her concerned blue eyes. “The thing is, well, I’ve actually never admitted this to anyone before … but for some reason, I feel like telling you.”

  “Okay…”

  “I get this weird feeling sometimes, like something’s wrong with me, but mostly just when I’m around my family.” He swallowed, waiting for her brows to knot in confusion, for her lips to curve down in solidarity.

  But her expression remained placid, save for the comprehension in her ey
es. “I understand completely.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ll tell you my opinion as long as you promise not to hold it against me.”

  “No, please, tell me.”

  “Your family—particularly your aunt and uncle—they’re just as judgmental as the God they believe in, and if you don’t follow their ideas to a tee, they’ll make their wrath felt. So I can see how they would make you feel uncomfortable if you ever diverge from what they consider good. Have you ever stood up to them?”

  “Of course.” He racked his brain, thinking of the only example he could recall. “Back when I was a journalist covering religion, I had this whole crisis of faith because of a bunch of church scandals, one after the next. It made me seriously doubt God. I told my parents I was done.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “They were furious, and sent me to talk to our priest.…”

  “And? Did he convince you to keep believing?”

  “Yeah,” he said, feeling sheepish for some reason. So? he wanted to add.

  “Well, that was then. What about now?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  There was a pause. This is supposed to be about you, he thought.

  “And in the meantime,” she said, “you feel guilty for not feeling as religious as you think you should be, right?”

  Trent’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

  “I can tell they’ve put a lot of pressure on you to be a certain way. What do they think of your taking time to write fiction? I noticed they weren’t overly supportive.”

  He shrugged.

  “I bet they don’t like it,” she said. “Writing is the most selfish career of all, since it’s mainly to challenge your own mind. No charity drives there.”

  He nodded weakly. At least investigative journalism had been a service to society, while personal writing was selfish, he realized, the very opposite of the self-sacrifice he had always been told was right.

  He suddenly laughed out loud at the bizarre notion that she could be a murderer.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, smiling.

  For the first time, he seized her cheeks and kissed her, trying, through his lips, to communicate the one truth he could not disguise—perhaps the only truth of which he was certain—that he wanted her mouth, her body, her mind; to be close to her, to know everything about her, as a lover and not an investigator; to shed the skin of that person whom he had blindly impersonated for so long. His kiss was fierce as his fingers buried into her hair.

  Stop, his mind roared. Remember yourself!

  He pulled away with dogged effort, like a magnet repudiating its pole. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he muttered.

  Arianna looked worn out from the exertion. “You wouldn’t believe how wiped I am from this trip.”

  “It’s the cold,” he said quickly.

  “And your family loved me like a daughter.” She flashed him a glimmer of a smile. “Listen, I would invite you back to my place, but I need to sleep.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, feeling clashing tides of relief, disappointment, and guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “About my family.”

  “Don’t be. You are not your family.”

  His smile quivered as he grasped her small hand—it seemed incapable of the forceful handshake he remembered from their first meeting. “I’m sorry you’re tired.”

  “Me, too. Thanks for being so patient. I know most men aren’t.”

  “No problem. I’m not in a rush if you’re not up for it—that’s not why I’m here.”

  She smiled gratefully.

  At least, he thought sadly, it was the truth.

  * * *

  After they parted in front of Penn Station an hour later, anticipation quickened his pulse as he hailed a cab. He couldn’t wait to get back to the alley, and twenty minutes later, he was standing at the threshold.

  It was darker than before, blanketed in the shadows of adjacent buildings. No streetlights reached into its depths. Trent looked around—the only person in sight was a bum slumped across the street.

  He stepped across the threshold, keeping his elbows close to his body. Though it was below freezing outside, the alley felt colder. He stopped and looked behind himself, knowing that he was being paranoid; Arianna was on her way home, not here. About thirty yards away, the church’s tall steeple beckoned. He pulled out his phone and shone the electric blue light on the ground. Trash had pooled there: yellowed wrappers, cigarettes, decaying food. He tiptoed over it, shivering. The air was fetid with the scents of urine and dirt, and he held his breath until he reached the black railing under the steeple. Ten concrete steps led down to a steel door.

  He scanned the empty alley behind him before climbing down the steps—large, steep blocks. He breathed in sharply when he reached the bottom. The stench had disappeared, replaced by floating dust he had kicked up on the stairs. Up close, he could see the door was scratched and dented, but no less impervious to being opened. Above and below a brass knob, there were two keyholes. Trent grabbed the knob and tried to twist it as hard as he could. It didn’t budge. He let go. What was this damn place? Why was she hiding it from him?

  With a grunt, he kicked the door, sending a shock of pain through his toes.

  Why did he care so much?

  Again he kicked the door, taking satisfaction in the release of incongruous emotions that had been mounting all night.

  “Who’s that?” growled a male voice from behind the door.

  Trent froze.

  “Hello?” prompted the voice.

  Trent did not dare breathe.

  “If you’re a hoodlum, you better get lost,” the voice snarled. “You don’t want to deal with me.”

  Images of gunshots and slaughter skipped through Trent’s mind with terrifying plausibility; he was unarmed, in the middle of a squalid alley, and alone with a threatening voice. He turned and scampered to the top of the stairs, tripping over the steep blocks as fast as he could, before sprinting back to the edge of the alley, stepping carelessly on the pools of debris. Under the streetlamp, the sidewalk gleamed with alluring beauty.

  TEN

  The confessional booth in the back of Trent’s church smelled like musty wood. He closed the door behind him and knelt in the cramped space to avoid revealing his identity to the priest on the other side of the screen. Hammered into the wood above the screen was a bloodred cross. On the kneeler was a plaque with the Act of Contrition engraved on it. Trent skimmed the words, feeling guilt and despair mingling in his gut:

  “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because of thy just punishment, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.”

  Guilt, because the words meant nothing to him—despair, because he wished they did.

  “Hello, there, my child,” came the priest’s gentle voice. “What is it you would like to confess on this Christmas morning?”

  “Merry Christmas, Father.” Trent paused, suddenly reluctant to confess anything at all. It was obvious what the priest was going to tell him—and who was he to dictate the terms of Trent’s life?

  “Merry Christmas to you, my son. What’s on your mind?”

  But whom else could he turn to? “I have a problem,” he started.

  “Go on. You are in the right place.”

  “Well, I’m confused about my work. I’m on a big case, a criminal case. There’s a lot of pressure on me to solve it, but…”

  “Yes?”

  “I might be falling for the woman I’m supposed to be investigating.” Trent bit his lip; speaking the words felt blasphemous, yet also relieving.

  “That is a very big problem indeed.”

  Trent looked around the tiny space he was kneeling in, growing more claustr
ophobic by the second. He could barely stretch his elbows out. “I should go,” he said, beginning to stand.

  “Wait,” the priest commanded. “Don’t go. I know this isn’t easy, but God sent you to me for a reason. He wants to help you. Please.”

  How do you know? Trent thought. Are you God?

  But he knelt back down. “I don’t know what to think,” he finally said. “She’s spun my head around. And I’m pretty sure she’s no Christian. She might even look down on—” Us, he almost said. “—on religion.”

  “Oh, dear—”

  “Plus, I know she’s hiding something from me,” Trent interrupted. “It kills me that it might be something heinous … and that she doesn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

  “She sounds very dangerous. Recall the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.’ It sounds like you need reminding of this verse.”

  Trent shook his head, his voice rising. “But how can you say she’s evil when you don’t even know her? She’s also very sick. There isn’t much time, and I feel like every second I’m not with her is a waste!”

  The priest’s voice grew stern. “If you feel you are incapable of doing your job in an ethical manner, you must resign and stay far away from her.”

  “Then I’d have nothing left!”

  “You certainly cannot have both. If you must continue with your job, then I urge you to direct the temptations of your flesh elsewhere, toward a woman who respects the Lord and her fellow man, a good Christian like I know you are in your heart. But if you let your base desire for this one woman overcome your ethical sensibilities, that is a very grave sin indeed.”

  Trent raged silently; this was exactly what he had expected, and just what he didn’t want to hear.

  “Recall, my son, James one verses two to five and twelve to fifteen. ‘Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.’”