Koesler tasted the coffee. Very hot with excellent flavor. Whenever he tasted exceptional coffee, he had an urge to share his own brew with whoever served him. Perhaps one day-one never knew-he would have an opportunity to make coffee for Margie Green.
“I don’t know whether I should feel awkward,” she said.
“Now what?”
“Well, I phoned you at St. Joseph’s earlier this morning. Your … secretary, is it? She identified herself as Mrs. O’Connor … she said you were out. She remembered me.”
How could she possibly forget? thought Koesler.
“She said,” Margie continued, “that you were at a news conference at the seminary, and that I could try there. So I phoned and left a message. There was nothing urgent about it. I mean you got here so soon after I phoned. I hope I didn’t take you away from something important.”
Her misgiving was well placed, he reflected. He’d hated having to leave the conference just when things were beginning to pop. And all because he’d assumed there was some sort of emergency. But he would not further embarrass her. “No. No, what was going on there could get along very well without me.”
Koesler picked up a cookie. In the process of breaking it in two, a crumb took flight and buried itself in the shag rug. Why did this seem to happen to him whenever he felt out of his milieu? Sometimes it was an antique chair coming apart under his weight. Sometimes it was an errant crumb. Always it was somewhat humiliating. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t think of it. The cleaning woman will be here later.”
Koesler brightened. “Lucky today was her day to come in.”
“She comes in every day … at least lately. Moe developed an allergy to dust … or, at least, so he said. So we upped her schedule to every day. The place is clean. God, is it clean! And he’s quiet about that anyway.”
Koesler never ceased to wonder at the chemistry that developed between married couples. The relationship began, for him at least, when a man and a woman, usually young, showed up at the rectory to arrange for their wedding. Almost without exception, the chemistry was perfect. They sat close to each other. They held hands. They stole glances at each other. Sometimes they were embarrassingly affectionate.
And so they were married.
Then the chemistry really went to work. Often, at least from what he’d seen, not only did the fires of passion cool, but the two seemed to treat each other with disrespect and scorn. Take Margie’s statement that her husband’s allergy complaint might be imaginary and that only daily cleaning would satisfy him. The opposite reaction-genuine concern for the comfort and well-being of the spouse-happened rarely.
Koesler wanted to ask about her husband. But first on his agenda was to discover why she had called him and had gone to the trouble of tracking him down at the seminary. All right, so it wasn’t an emergency. What then?
“Mrs. Green, your coffee is excellent, as is your company. And we have established that you asked me here for something less than an emergency. Just what is it you want of me?”
“Oh …” She displayed a combination of dismay and self-deprecation. “… of course. How silly of me.” She went to a nearby secretary. She took out a checkbook and began writing. “I told you when you agreed to hold the wake service that I would try to express my gratitude.” She ripped the check free and handed it to him.
It was made out to him personally for three thousand dollars.
He was dumbfounded. “Mrs. Green, this is impossible!”
Her brow furrowed. “Not enough?” she asked, sincerely.
He shook his head. “Way too much. You see, the archdiocese sets an amount-called a stipend-for services such as funerals and weddings. What the stipend means is that this represents the maximum a priest may accept. The local amount of stipends is fifty dollars for a wedding or a funeral.
“But there are a couple of other considerations,” he said, as he laid the check on the table between them. “You made the check out to me. If there were an offering due, it would be made out to the parish, and for no more than the stipend calls for.
“Secondly, we didn’t have a funeral. We didn’t even have the wake we had agreed upon.
“What it comes down to, Mrs. Green, is that you owe neither me nor the parish anything.”
It seemed he might as well be speaking in a foreign and unintelligible tongue. Margie pushed the check toward him. “Why don’t you just keep it, Father? I really want you to have it. You really went out on a limb for me. I feel I owe you. And I want you to have this as a freewill donation-or whatever. What I want to say is, It’s yours.”
Gently, he eased the check back in her direction. It was, he thought, like playing checkers or chess-or a Ouija board. “I can’t take it … for a great number of reasons. If you feel some compulsion to donate, send whatever you wish to the parish. Or, better yet”-his face broke into a grin-“drop it into the collection at Sunday Mass.”
She shrugged and picked up the check. “You’ve got a point.” She smiled. “I should start going to church again.”
He broke another cookie, carefully. “I came here primarily because you asked for me. I would never have imposed on you. But, now that I’m here, I have been wondering: How is your husband? At the news conference, some of the reporters wondered if he was really alive.”
She made a face. “Oh, he’s alive all right.”
“I don’t hear anyone stirring.”
“The only time he makes any noise-lately, at least-is when he wants something.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. Green-”
“Oh, please: Call me Margie.”
“Margie. But I thought you would be much more impressed than you seem to be with what’s happened to your husband.”
“Oh, I was impressed all right. Monday night I was impressed as all hell. And I was pretty overwhelmed Tuesday morning. Then I had to admit that what was holding most of my interest was whether he would be much changed by what had happened. It was sort of like watching a cocoon to see what kind of butterfly will develop and emerge.”
“You don’t seem terribly pleased by what came out.”
She sighed. “He hasn’t completely recovered yet. But the signs are that it’s going to be the same old Moe.”
“How’s his back?”
“He isn’t moving around much yet. It’s hard to tell. So far, he hasn’t made life too hectic. But I guess it’s early.”
“You must be closer to him than anyone else. What do you think happened?”
“You mean miracle or coma? I would put my next-to-last dollar on a coma. The only thing that would make me hesitate is that I found him. And I observed and checked really thoroughly. He sure seemed to be dead. That I could understand and accept. But why would God-or whoever-bring him back?”
“Another priest has an answer for that. It involves footnotes in traditional theology. What it comes down to is that miracles like this are granted to increase the faith of believers and unbelievers alike. Nothing is promised or guaranteed to the individual who receives the miracle.”
“Yeah?”
“So they say. And I think there’s some truth to it. But I’m thinking more of an inexplicable recovery from some illness or injury, not a return from the dead. Maybe I’ve got a gap in my faith.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still … I did look. Actually, I feel major league foolish for causing all this from the beginning.”
“You didn’t cause it.”
“I should have insisted that the doctor come over. If not Fox, some doctor-”
“And what if his condition had fooled the doctor? Or, what if he really was dead? We don’t know those answers yet.”
“More coffee, Father?”
It was too good to refuse.
As she poured more for both of them, Koesler said, “The night of the wake … remember, you were going to brief me on some things I might use to speak about your husband?”