chapter 36
Gus
Behind the altar, Dad sat in the chair and waited while I buzzed around him, putting my vestments on. There was supposed to be a process to this. A ceremony. Prayers spoken silently while I donned each garment, but I was too excited for that. I was about to christen my father, offer him his first taste of communion in the Orthodox church. My brain was going in a million directions at once, and I was afraid that if I slowed down, it would give him enough time to back out.
“Are you sure this is the way you want it?” I asked, buttoning my cuffs.
Dad lowered his eyes and nodded.
“No family?”
“I didn’t want it to be a big thing. Your ma…. she would’ve made it into a production. Gotten a cake and a DJ. I’ve been going to this church long enough. I just want to take communion with my kids. From my son’s hand.”
Dad’s sunken eyes looked deep into mine, begging me to let him pretend this wasn’t momentous. Don’t overcomplicate this, he told me with that look. And I wouldn’t.
Momentous events weren’t always accompanied by the clanging din of triumph. For every new birth that screamed into the world, there was a soul that slipped peacefully into death. For every explosion of cheers when the clock ran out on a game seven victory, there was the silence of a monastic’s prayer. For every moment of thunderous applause in a stadium filled with graduates, there was a couple in love experiencing orgasm.
All joy was worship. Even the most humble.
I wanted to call attention to Dad’s chrismation, but it was just as well that it remained soaked in quiet reflection.
As I began the service—Dad had been baptized in infancy, so this was would be quick and neat—I prompted him to recite the Nicene Creed.
He did it unfailingly. In English first. Then he unfolded a slip of paper he’d removed from his jacket pocket and read it again in perfect Greek, which was above and beyond necessary.
Blinking away tears, I watched my father do his cross for the first time. Three fingers pinched together, touching his forehead, his belly, his right shoulder, then his left. Three times.
Father Vasili was his godfather. All this time I’d thought they were just meeting for beers, Dad had been seeking conversion, with Vasili teaching him his catechism. Now, Vasili stood next to him, not just now at the altar, but for the rest of his life—however short that may be—as his guide and friend in the faith.
When I’d lifted the spoon to his lips and offered him the Holy Eucharist for the very first time, the words caught in my throat. Tears streamed down my face. The teenage acolytes holding the cloth under the chalice exchanged wide-eyed glances, probably biting their cheeks to keep from laughing at their priest crying over communion.
“The servant of God, Demetrios,partakes of the Precious and All-Holy Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, unto the forgiveness of sins and unto life everlasting.”
Dad solemnly took the spoon in his mouth, swallowed down the Eucharist, and crossed himself again, before stepping back.
My breath filled up my lungs and I let it go. It was done. The work I’d always set out to do. I’d offered my father Holy Communion.
I’d been a priest for several months, but I hadn’t felt any different. This time… now… I felt different. I felt like a priest. Like God’s servant. It was all real to me now. The fulfillment of my calling.
After the service, Vasili, Dad, and I went out for breakfast. At the Waffle House.
Joy at its most humble.
But its edges were blackened with a sense of foreboding.
What would I do without Dad?
My eggs felt like rubber. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since food had any taste. Everything carried the stench of death. This whole year should have been one that I should look back on with warm memory in my old age. My ordination. My marriage.
Dad was a man of deep and profound faith, but he had too much timidity to talk about it. I was the opposite; brash and boisterous about religion, while inwardly tiptoeing around my own spirituality.
Decca was a blend of the both of us. It was one of the reasons I loved her.
Loved her.
The words had come into my head so easily, as if they’d always been there.
Hadn’t they, though?
As a priest… as a Christian… I’d loved her immediately. But I loved everyone. It was my duty. When had that love grown from the fulfillment of a commandment to a… feeling that she was the very blood running through my veins? That without her, I’d die?
Maybe that had been just as immediate.
I’d met her at Waylon’s house. I was home from a break during seminary. Soula had moved in, five or six months pregnant, and it was the night of their housewarming party. I’d heard Soula talking about her friend Decca for years, but in all that time, I’d never met her. Our ships had always passed in the night.
That night was the first time we were in the same harbor. And it was glorious.
I heard her laugh first. Smoky like whiskey, rough, and a little dirty. I turned on a dime, searching for the direction it had come from. When I heard it again, from the beautiful woman with crow-black hair, wide smile, and eyes that glinted with humor and intelligence, I was done for.
I did everything I could think of to talk to her, monopolize her every moment, afraid she’d slip away from me and I’d never get her back. It was dire, my urgency, my need for Decca.
No. I’d always loved her. It didn’t have to grow into anything. It was there from the start. God had made her for me, and if He didn’t make me for her, then fuck, I’d become whatever she needed… whatever she wanted from a man.
I hadn’t said the words. I tried to tell her, in small ways: cleaning the house, restoring the garden, giving her the Liturgy book. Words meant nothing to me. Throwaway phrases. How could she possibly believe them?
Maybe Decca needed to hear them, anyway. Maybe that would help us both finally accept that we were real. That we’d found our skeleton, and it was complete.
Decca
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for Jim’s confirmation. A hunter in Davidson County found remains. I had to leave before dawn. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Chrismation. Not confirmation. You got called out this close to Christmas?”
“Crime doesn’t stop for holidays. Anyway, I thought the Orthodox Church doesn’t really do Christmas.”
He grinned and kissed me on the head before twisting a strip of cheese straw dough into a spiral and placing it on a cookie sheet. He looked so happy today. I loved when Gus was this happy. It must be the party tonight.
“We don’t, really. Just the pageant for the kids. Easter’s our thing. Don’t you dare take calls on Holy Week.”
“I’ll put in for vacation now. At least the atmosphere was festive at the crime scene, though. We got a Santa cap on Sheriff Hardy. And Chris was there. Did I tell you? He’s visiting his parents in Nashville, so he’s in town.”
“Great.” He snorted.
“I invited him to the party tonight. What’s one more body here, right? Anyway, I think he’s got it bad for Daphne, and I want to see if I can work a little magic to get the two of them alone together.”
He nodded, absently. “Whatever you want.”
I put down the eggplant I’d been peeling. It had come from the patch Gus had tended and looked delicious.
But it was now or never. Chris would be here tonight and I didn’t want him going behind my back to talk to my husband.
“Speaking of Chris…” Oh, God, how do I say this in any way Gus would understand? “I promised him I’d talk to you about something.”
Gus winced, reaching for another strip of dough.
“There’s a job. In Knoxville. He thinks I should apply for it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “He thinks?”
“I… yes. I don’t really want it. I mean, I did. A long time ago. It’s what I’ve been working for…” I shrugged. “Pretty much my whole life. It’s ironic, really. That it happened so soon after marrying you.”
“This the job you and Chris were talking about the morning after he stayed over?”
“You knew?”
“I overheard a little. Since you never brought it up, I thought it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It’s not.” I dropped my knife and came over to him. He stiffened when I hooked my finger into the belt loop of his pants. “I don’t even want it.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Chris lives in Knoxville, does it?”
“I told you that’s over. Don’t be like this, Gus.”
“What’s the job?”
“Um… Director of the FAC. The Forensic Anthropology Center. The Body Farm—”
“I know what the FAC is, Decca. Fuck. That’s a big fucking deal.”
“Okay.”
“I just didn’t know you’d ever consider taking a job there. That’s three hours away.”
“I’m not considering it. I just promised Chris I’d tell you I’m not considering it.”
“Of course you promised him.”
“Gus, please. I don’t want this job. I did want it. At least I thought I did. Five, ten years ago. Before I grew up. Before Granny got sick. Before all my friends settled out here… Before I married you. I love my life here. I don’t want it to change. Not for any job.”
“But this isn’t just any job. This is the job. Isn’t it?”
“The former job, yes. Past tense. Look, Gus,“ I said, pulling his hands in mine. “I can’t help what I wanted in the past. I can’t help that it looks like a great opportunity. But it’s wrong for me now.”
“If you hadn’t married me, would you take it?”
I hadn’t thought of that. I honestly didn’t know.
Gus wasn’t the only thing keeping me here in Middle Tennessee. My life was keeping me here. A life I hadn’t thought existed until Gus showed it to me. So maybe I would have taken it. But it would have been the wrong choice.
I paused too long and Gus went back to the cheese straws, standing a little straighter now, a little farther away from me.
“I think you should try out for it. Interview… Fuck, whatever. Take the job, Decca.”