When he was growing up, the pastor led his parents’ church in Sioux City and the family got very close. It was Pastor Wayne whom he turned to when Larissa told him that his “son” was a sham, a whore’s con. The news made Derek suicidal; for a few weeks he was in the serious planning stage of a triple murder-suicide — he was going to take himself out and bring the bitch and her bastard runt with him. And it totally blew him out when the pastor dropped everything and showed up in L.A. to spend a long weekend, that was how righteous he was, how much the man cared, a man of God for real. He ministered to Derek about love knowing no birthright, that all God’s creatures resided not beneath earthly roofs but in the humble tents of our Lord, and that to betray His will would be blasphemous. As a result of his compassionate hymns and panegyrics, his generosity of spirit and relentless sermonizing (it went on for months, by phone and letter), Derek slowly healed and became half human again. He found his way back to the marriage and his new daughter. Living in the same house with Larissa and the boy was a challenge, and Derek freely admitted to his confessor that his attempts at reunifying the family weren’t perfect by a long shot, that he continued to be rough on the boy, but the pastor said he’d done the right thing and that his love for “this special son” would come in time, and both he and Tristen would reap not the whirlwind but the reward of kings. Pastor Wayne said he was so proud of him, which meant a great deal. But Derek never made peace with himself about taking up again with his wife and her demon seed. Looking back, he saw that his heart really did break, so it made sense that all these years later he needed a new one. It was like the pastor had given him an artificial one yet it too had failed.
He was never sure why he returned. It wasn’t from the guilt he carried from breaking her arms, nor could it have been solely from a Christian sense of duty instilled by the pastor. Some of the reason would of course have been Rafaela — he loved her more than life — and some, a kind of crawling back to his mom. Larissa had always reminded him of Mom.
—
Queen Jeremy’s annus horribilis:
The Miscarriage.
The Death of the Boy…
— and now sweet Allegra, broken and brain-ravaged.
Yet in seven months — on July Fourth no less! — he would be a father.
How had any of it happened?
It astonished…
He was one of the chosen few allowed to visit her in the hospital, not just because he already had membership in their private club of sorrows, but because Dusty had always welcomed the comic danciness of his wounded heart and in these darkest of days needed the solace of it more than anything. She’d even thought of telling him — about Aurora—but something stopped her. Those doors would soon be closed to everyone, forever.
Tristen’s death struck Jeremy with unexpected severity; a second blow, landed by Allegra’s botched suicide, caused much suffering, but had the paradoxical effect of freeing him (like an antivenin creates immunity) — though from what he wasn’t sure. Perhaps it had to do with their last conversation and the stickiness of Jeremy striking out on his own to have a child; now, all fell neatly under the Darwinian euphemism “It just wasn’t meant to be,” affording some relief. Them that’s got shall have, them that’s not shall lose … but the joy of locomotion was there too — the kinetic pleasure of moving on, a skill set he’d long been in possession of yet never fully implemented until the death of his mother and sister. (It was royal habit now.) The familiar elation evoked by the morning prayer of “Onward!”—and the attendant day’s march through fields where friends, acquaintances, loved ones, and strangers lay dead and wounded — often presented as schadenfreude, and it was important for Jeremy to take note of that distinction; for it pained him to even briefly confuse the relentless rush of forward movement that was the nature of life itself with a reveling in others’ misfortunes, an emotion which he wasn’t remotely capable of.