The Night Mark. Tiffany Reisz

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СКАЧАТЬ like my second marriage,” she said, sitting up again, wiping at her face and then giving up. Too many tears, not enough tissues in the world. “After the funeral, Will’s best friend from college, Hagen, started hanging around our place all the time. It was nice. It helped, it really did. He said it was what Will would have done. And then a couple weeks later, he sat me down and told me he thought we should get married. It wasn’t much of a proposal. More like an escape plan. Like this would solve all my problems. I thought he’d lost his mind. Then Hagen said the magic words again—‘It’s what Will would have done.’”

      “Was it?” Pat asked.

      “If it had been Hagen who’d died, Hagen with a pregnant wife left behind, Will would have stepped in and been a father to that kid. So Hagen and I got married. Hagen had money, a big house. He told me I could have my own room, that he wouldn’t expect me to act like his wife until I was ready for it. Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful romance, doesn’t it? Hollywood thought so, too. A story ran in the Boston Globe about Will and me and Hagen, and the next day a producer called and said he’d already talked to a screenwriter about putting Will’s Cinderella story on the big screen—nobody kid from Nowhere, Mass, drafted in the forty-first round, ends up playing for the Red Sox. And it would end with me giving birth to Will’s baby. Triumph out of tragedy. Whatever. I talked to them because you go crazy when you’re grieving like that. And I just wanted Will to be remembered. Then I lost the baby at sixteen weeks and they stopped calling. Not even Hollywood could give me a happy ending.”

      She didn’t tell Pat about the years of trying to get pregnant that came after losing Will’s baby. She could barely face her grief over losing Will. If she had to grieve for those lost years, she’d never make it out of this house in one piece. And Hagen? She couldn’t talk about Hagen, how once she’d lost the baby, he’d turned into a ball of quiet anger, like it had been her fault she’d lost the last part of Will left in the world.

      Faye took a shuddering breath and forced herself to drink her tea. Crying so hard had given her dry mouth, and her throat felt like it had been dragged down a gravel road.

      “I promise I’m not vomiting this whole story onto you for the fun of it,” Faye finally said, carefully lowering her glass to her knee. It left a wet ring on her white jeans, but she didn’t care. “I’m just so...freaked out, I guess. And I don’t even know why. So what? So Will and Carrick Morgan looked alike. What does it mean? Nothing. I know it means nothing. I’ve seen those internet clickbait stories where they show celebrities who look like people who’ve been dead for a hundred years. It happens. There are only so many faces in the world, I guess. But it feels like it means something. Do I sound crazy? You can tell me if I do. I can take it. Oh, and I think a stork is stalking me. Yeah, I sound crazy. I can hear it.”

      “My job entailed me turning wine into God’s blood, so I don’t think I can judge you too harshly. I’m an open-minded spiritual man by trade.”

      “I appreciate you listening to me. I can’t talk to anyone about Will. Hagen and I are divorced, and we can’t talk about anything anymore without it turning into a fight. Will’s parents are doing better than I am. They have grandkids from Will’s sister, and those kids are their whole life now. Every time I visit them, his mom has a breakdown and it takes weeks for her to get back on her feet again. I stopped talking to Will’s family two years ago. Too hard on all of us.”

      “And your parents?”

      “Dad died. Mom has dementia. I was an oops baby when they were both forty.”

      “Friends?”

      Faye shook her head. “I had friends. They were great until the funeral. After that, they had their own lives, and nobody knows what to say to a twenty-six-year-old widow. Will’s friends and teammates weren’t thrilled with me for getting married again so soon after he died. The medical bills and funeral expenses wiped out the life insurance. There I was, almost broke with student-loan debt up to my eyeballs and pregnant. I ran out of shoulders to cry on a long time ago.”

      “You’re Lady Job,” Pat said with a sorrowful smile.

      “Who?”

      “Job, in the Bible. A very old Jewish story, very strange and mystical. You’ve heard the phrase ‘the patience of Job’?”

      “Oh, that guy. Yes, I’ve heard of him. I don’t know if I’ve ever read the story.”

      “Odd little book, but some of the loveliest poetry in the Bible. A man named Job has a wife, children and wealth. And he’s a good man. Satan goes to God and makes a sort of bet with him, saying that Job is only good because he’s blessed, but if you take his blessings away, he won’t be righteous anymore. God takes him up on that bet and wipes out Job’s entire family, his wealth and his health. He’s literally sitting in ashes using potsherds to scrape the sores off his body.”

      “Oh, my God, that’s disgusting. Even I didn’t have it that bad.”

      Pat laughed. “I told you it was a strange little book. But it does have a happy ending. Job keeps his faith in God, though he demands God explain himself.”

      “Does he?”

      “God shows up and gives the ‘who do you think you are?’ speech to end all speeches. The short version is basically ‘I am God. You’re not, so stuff it.’”

      “Very poetic.”

      Father Pat smiled but didn’t laugh. He took a breath and met her eyes.

      “‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with its doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?’”

      Pat stopped and sighed. “It goes on like that for a long time. God wanted to make sure Job got the point.”

      “That’s beautiful,” Faye breathed. “What does it all mean?”

      “It means a lowly man may never understand the ways of God.”

      “And you find that comforting?” she asked.

      “A little. If lowly little me could understand God, then he wouldn’t be much of a God, right?”

      “I guess,” Faye said.

      “I do find this comforting, though—even after God tells Job off, he restores him. New wife. Children. Even more children than he’d lost. Twice as much wealth. And a life so long he meets his great-grandchildren.”

      “If only,” Faye said.

      “Yes,” Pat said. “If only.”

      Faye wiped her face with Pat’s handkerchief again. She didn’t know many men who still carried handkerchiefs. Will always had—a red bandanna in his back pocket just like his dad.

      “When Will and I got married, we did all the usual wedding vows. Love, honor, cherish, until death do us part. But that wasn’t good enough for Will. He added one more vow. He said...” She stopped to breathe even though it hurt to breathe, but she kept on doing it. Will would СКАЧАТЬ