Chapter Thirty
Chapter
Thirty
Mark woke up the next morning, shifted in
bed, and groaned. Lucas hadn’t been lying about the effects of the
exercise. Mark stretched a little and realized that Lucas had even
identified the exact area that would be giving him the most
trouble—the muscles between his shoulder blades were so tight he
felt like his arms were being drawn back and his chest pushed
out.
He rolled over, groaned his way to a sitting
position, and recognized the shift in his thinking. Lucas. Not
Lucas Cain, formal and distant and reminiscent of the newspaper
articles from years early.
“Lucas,” Mark said out loud. He knew he’d
never called the man by name, not to his face, so this might be the
first time he’d ever said the first name without the last. “Lucas,”
he tried again. “Luke.” But no, that was Alex’s name for him.
Alex. No pondering names, there, but
something to worry about nonetheless. The boy had seemed
increasingly distant since Mark had started volunteering at the
farm. Instead of being able to support the teen, Mark seemed to be
irritating him. Maybe just a generational thing—a need for
independence without adult supervision. Or maybe something more
serious. Mark should try to sit down with the kid. Alex was
certainly always happy to discuss his feelings.
But, first things first. Mark stumbled to the
bathroom for a quick pee, then splashed some water on his face. And
then, as he had every day for longer than he could remember, he
returned to his bedroom and fell to his knees beside the bed. His
body might have been a bit creakier than usual, but his spirit
still knew what it needed.
His daily offices were familiar without being
a dull routine. Saying the words was a ritual as special as any
performed in the church, and every phrase of his prayers was a
meditation. As he prayed the stiffness drained from his muscles. He
hadn’t realized he’d been frowning until he felt his brow smooth.
He said “amen” out loud and let the word spread out through the
room. He could imagine its power seeping through the doors and
windows of his apartment, out into the street, and then on and on—a
wave of love and acceptance that could wash the sins from the whole
world.
Then his stomach rumbled, and as he clambered
to his feet he felt his muscles tighten again. The transition from
prayer to daily life was always harsh, but it was even worse when
his physical health wasn’t as robust as his spiritual state.
Lucas had warned him, he reminded himself as
he headed for the kitchen. They’d checked the weather report and
seen rain in the forecast, and Lucas had said that they needed to
get the cut hay baled and into the loft if they could do it. And
they had, with Alex’s strangely surly help, although they’d left
two of the wagons parked inside without unloading them. Lucas had
said there was no hurry on that, since they wouldn’t need the
wagons until they’d cut another batch of hay and let it dry and
they wouldn’t be able to do that until the weather itself dried
up.
Mark looked out the window as he turned on
the coffeemaker. Grey and drizzling. Not weather that inspired any
of the world’s more positive emotions. He thought of Lucas out at
the farm, working with the animals that seemed to prefer to be
outside regardless of the weather. Elise wanted their habitats to
be as close to the wild as possible to make the transition back to
nature less challenging. It was logical, but on a day like this it
was probably pretty miserable too.
Mark ate a bowl of cereal while the coffee
brewed, then poured himself a travel mug. He’d showered the night
before, washing brownish-green leaves out of every crease and
crevice of his body and watching the dried grass partially
rehydrate before it washed away down the drain. He wouldn’t bother
cleaning up now, not when he was just going back to the barn.
And he was going back, he realized. He
hadn’t really planned it, but somehow he knew that was what he was
going to do with his day. Spending time with the animals—and
with Lucas, a tiny part of his mind whispered to him—was
becoming another calming ritual for him. He’d go to the hospital
first to check in on his father, but then—
It was hard to understand what happened next.
One moment he was looking absently out the kitchen window while he
mused about his plans, the next he was jumping back in alarm as the
window shattered in toward him, the glass raining down onto his
counter in an almost musical explosion. And something larger and
heavier was falling in as well. Mark stared at it as his mind
caught up to events. His chest hurt and he realized he’d still been
holding the coffee carafe and had splashed himself. There was a
rock on his counter. Broken glass. Burning. He reflexively tossed
the carafe toward the sink where it shattered on the antique
porcelain, an anticlimactic echo of the larger destruction.
Someone had thrown a rock through his window.
He took another step backward, resisting the urge to turn and run.
This was deliberate. Someone had…
The knock at his door had him jumping back
toward the window. But the knock was tentative, not aggressive. And
he recognized the female voice that quietly called, “Mark? Are you
okay?” Annie. His neighbor.
“I’m fine,” he said as he crossed the room
toward her voice.
“Don’t open the door!”
He froze. “What?”
A pause, and then, “No. I guess…I guess you
have to. I’m sorry, Mark.”
“So, wait. I should open it?”
Another pause. “I think so. Yes.”
He set down the travel mug he hadn’t realized
he was still holding and pulled the door open. It was the sight
that hit him first, but the smell followed soon after.
“I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I thought I could
clean it up and you wouldn’t have to see it. But maybe you want to
call the police…”
Faggot. Smeared on his door. In thick,
brown… “It’s dog shit,” he whispered. The smell was unmistakable.
“Dog shit. Somebody…”
“What was the crash? Are you okay?”
“My window. Somebody…” Somebody had attacked
his home. Had they seen him standing by the window before they
threw the rock? They must have. It was grey outside and he’d had
the kitchen light on, and they must have been fairly close in order
to have enough power to shatter two panes of glass…
“Someone broke your window?” Annie looked
like she wanted to cry. “Mark, you have to call the police. I’ll
clean this up, or Dave will when he gets home from work. We’ll take
care of that. And the super can fix the window. I’ll go get him.
But, Mark, you have to call the police.”
Mark nodded. Of course he did. This was a
crime. A series of crimes, he supposed. He stared at the word on
his door, and wondered why he was so reluctant to involve the
authorities.
“We need security cameras,” Annie was saying.
“And people need to stop propping the damned door open! Or letting
people in. I mean, what’s the point of a security door if you don’t
use it properly?”
Annie was obviously focusing on the practical
aspects of the situation, and that made sense. Mark should try to
follow her lead. But he couldn’t help wondering why, not how.
“Mark?” Annie rested her hand gently on his
upper arm. “Do you want to come to my apartment and call from
there? There’s coffee on, or I could make you tea…”
Mark thought of his shattered carafe and
looked down to see the brown stain on his light blue shirt. “They
might come back,” he said. “I don’t want you to be involved if
they—”
“Oh, I’d like to see them fucking try!” She
snorted. “But they’re cowards, sneaking around in the dark. They
won’t come back in the daylight.” She frowned at him. “Besides,
you’re calling the cops. Right?”
How to explain his reticence to her when he
didn’t quite understand it himself? “I don’t want to be a victim.
And these people—whoever did this—they expect me to call the
police, right? To be afraid and to hide behind someone else’s
uniform…”
“And what do you want to do? Charge out and
track them down, somehow? By yourself?” She shook her head.
“Calling the cops doesn’t mean you’re afraid, it means you’re above
all this shit. You’re a priest, for fuck’s sake. You save people’s
souls or whatever, and the police take care of this stuff.”
Save people’s souls. Or do paperwork. Mark
shook his head and made himself focus on the task at hand. “Yes.
Okay. I’ll phone the police. But you don’t need to babysit me,
Annie. I appreciate your support, but—”
“Mark? If I got in trouble, I’d expect my
neighbors to step in. Honestly, I’d be a bit pissed if you didn’t.
So, no, I don’t need to babysit you. I don’t even need to help you
out. But I’m going to anyway. Understood?”
He nodded sheepishly. “Yes.”
She gestured at the door. “These guys?
Whoever did this? They’re assholes, Mark. But I’m not. Most people
aren’t.” She waited a moment for the message to sink in, then
swatted him gently on the arm and shooed him toward her door. “So,
get in there and get on the phone! I’ll call the super on my cell
and tell him about the window. But we probably shouldn’t clean
anything up until the cops come, right?”
“Probably not,” he agreed. Annie seemed to
know what needed to be done, and it was much easier to just let her
take over. He was still hearing the crash of his window shattering,
still seeing the hateful word smeared on his door. It was hard to
think of much else. The only other thought that his mind seemed to
want to focus on was the hope of getting out to the farm, and
finding his sanctuary. He hoped the police wouldn’t take too
long.