“And you wanted to help.”
“Its paw was mashed.”
His father shook his head. “Albert Schweitzer, Jr. Look, Biddy … you said the dog wouldn’t let anyone go near him.”
“I wanted to get help.”
“Your mother said she got the security guard.”
“They wouldn’t do anything. They said they didn’t know whose dog it was.”
“Well, they didn’t. What are they supposed to do? Rehabilitate him?”
He looked away.
“Biddy, they’re running a business. This was just some dog from the neighborhood. I’m sure he’s all right now. His owner probably found him right after you left.”
He didn’t answer.
“What did you want to do?”
“I wanted to call someone. Firemen. I don’t know.”
“That’s right. You don’t know. Biddy, they wouldn’t’ve been able to do anything either.”
“They would have tried to find out whose dog it was.”
“That’s right. And then what? What happens when they don’t find out?”
He picked at the desk top.
“He goes to the pound, that’s what happens. Is that what you want? You know what happens at the pound if nobody claims him?”
They sat opposite each other, not moving. The panes shook.
His father shifted on the bed. “I thought I asked you to go easy on your mother. She’s unhappy right now and she doesn’t need this kind of aggravation. I thought I asked you about that.”
He nodded.
“Now am I going to hear a song and dance when I come home every time you notice an animal not in perfect health?”
Biddy hesitated a moment, then shook his head.
“All right. Now I understand you care for the dog — I’d feel bad too. But there’s so much in the world we can’t do anything about. I don’t want you making yourself miserable all the time.”
He nodded. His father sat watching him, silent.
“Your mother showed me the list you came up with today. Some haul you’re expecting. What’s with the camping stuff? You planning a trip?”
He shrugged.
“Tent, mess kit … maybe you could use that stuff in the summer. Maybe we could go camping somewhere up north.” He stood. “We’ll work on it. Maybe we’ll go to Lake Champlain. Guy I work with has a cabin up there.”
He stopped by the door and looked back. “Just excited to death by the possibility, I can see. Use the desk lamp if you’re going to read. You’re going to have glasses if you keep this up.”
He went downstairs. Biddy reopened the Flight book and his top drawer and pulled out a black notebook. In it he wrote, under the general heading “Questions,” “Are the brakes on the rudder pedals?”
He returned to the book. After a few moments he snapped on the desk lamp. He underlined:
Ailerons, on the wings and moving in opposite directions, push one wing up and the other down, causing the aircraft to roll. The elevator, hinged to the rear of the tailplane, pushes the tail up or down causing the aircraft to dive or climb. The rudder, mounted vertically and hinged to the fin, controls the aircraft in yaw, or its rotation about its vertical axis.
He reread the final sentence two or three times, concentrating, before finally writing, “What is yaw?”
Laura passed a candle to him after lighting it with hers. He stood there, in the gloom, waiting for the hot wax to drip onto his fingers.
They were in one of the smaller side naves of the chapel with the overhead light off. The darkness seemed a warm brown from the candlelight on the wood, but it was drafty as well, and they stayed close to each other, three rows deep around the baptismal font. Sister had a hymnbook she was reading from in the yellow light of her candle. The class had half-page dittoed sheets.
“O come, o come, Emma-a-anuel,” she sang softly. Her voice rose toward the beams of the high-pitched ceiling. They joined her. The song was dirge-like, slow, and reminded him of a moment from a film he’d seen: Napoleon’s army returning from Moscow. He wasn’t sure why.
“And ransom captive I-i-is-rael, That mourns in lonely e-ex-ile here, Until the Son of Go-o-od appear.” They grew louder together suddenly, those in class who hadn’t been singing joining in: “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emma-a-anuel shall come to thee, O I-i-is-rael!” Their voices dropped again. The volume of the darkened space seemed to enforce quiet.
On the font they encircled, Sister Theresa had one of a set of four red candles burning for the first week of Advent. In the catechism it was the first of four weeks preceding the coming of Christ, each with its own special significance. To the class, it was the first step in a countdown to Christmas, the beginning of a series of incessant reminders that the day was moving ever closer. On that Monday and the next three, they would assemble in the chapel with the lights out and sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” For those few moments the ceremony lasted even the rowdiest of the class stood quietly and gave Sister no trouble.
They completed the song and she looked at them uncertainly. A few people shifted and coughed, in the darkness every sound magnified.
“Sister Beatrice is supposed to be here,” she said finally.
They stood about with their candles burning, waiting. They began to feel embarrassed for her, sensing everything wasn’t going as planned. Biddy’s back felt chilly. Sister Beatrice came on the first and fourth Mondays to talk about Christmas and Advent. He supposed she had more training in that than Sister Theresa. She would stand near the font and speak deliberately, as if telling a ghost story. She always came after they finished singing, and they’d finished minutes ago. Sister peered down the passageway they had come in, and looked back at them. “Well, something’s holding Sister up,” she said, her voice hushed. “I can get you started.” She tapped her finger on the round cement top of the font, thinking. They hadn’t seen her unsure of herself in any way before, and they edged forward, beginning in a furtive, guilty way to enjoy it.
She hesitated. “This is not the best place to hold a discussion,” she said, almost to herself. The “s” sounds in her words seemed to linger in the empty spaces between the pews, in dark corners.
“Come on,” she said. “Why don’t we sing it again?”
And they raised their dittoed sheets again to the candlelight. They sang it once more, their voices alone and together in the darkness, the candles only half their original height and warm wax beginning to collect around their grip. She had only to signal with a nod once they’d finished and they repeated the song a third time, without hesitation, the final notes hanging reverently in the silence as she turned and led them back down the passageway and out of the darkness without a sound.
That night, in Fagan’s House of Beef, he craned his head back to look up into the darkness of the moderately high ceiling, trying to re-create the moment in the chapel. Around him his family was fussing over who sat where, trading seats with the Lirianos. Cindy sat directly opposite him. She smiled and edged the centerpiece forward, a challenge. The flowers trembled.
“Let’s get moving with those menus,” Dom said to no one in particular, to a passing waitress.
Ginnie remarked that she couldn’t believe they finally had everyone together. “Ronnie and Cindy together is one thing. And getting these two out—” She gestured toward his father and Dom.
“Yeah, it’s thrilling,” Dom said. “I could just spit biscuits thinking about it.”
“Well, I’m not sure your daughter is getting married,” Biddy’s mother said. “I never see her with her fiancé.”