Chapter 8- Father and Son

---As Parochial Vicar of St Josephs Catholic Church and nearing 80 years of age Father Pat seldom heard what he considered a good confession anymore. ---During the Spanish American war Father Pat had heard some of the most heart wrenching last words of dying soldiers on both sides. He had been Chaplin for the American army, but the Spanish opposition happened to be fervently Catholic, and he often heard “Padre…Por favor…” or “Father…please…” beckoning him close to hear the dying words of a blood-soaked soldier in his last moments on the battlefield. --- Father Pat heard all the things a man hid from the world until death came to find him. He heard about infidelity, and abuse both given and received. Stories about theft and lies and the willful schemes of men. Lament over rapes and murders. He would have been downcast at the tales had he not remembered that it was redemption they sought. It was their repentance and their hope of heaven that drove them to cry his name, “Padre…Father…” Boys all of them. --- He gave last rights to both sides; his faith knew not the boarders of war. All were Gods children and he doled out absolution to all who asked for it. Repentance reflected the sacred rhythm of life, the great cycle of pride and humility, the refining of a soul that drew him to the priesthood. Father Pat loved a good confession, he seldom heard one, but he always prayed. ---The bell of St. Josephs Catholic Church in Seattle rang Twelve noon, Monday. Normally Reconciliation wasn’t heard until Wednesday. It gave people proper time to sully their pure hearts after Sunday’s offering. ---Joseph Lavery was the only one there that afternoon, he had requested it. He had called Father Sunday night and wanted to meet right then but Father Pat had said he served four Masses that day and had a headache. But truth be told he had already eaten a steak dinner at Callahan’s and seen his way through the better part of a bottle of red wine a nice family had given him last Christmas. He was listening to a ballgame on the radio when Joseph called. ---It would have to wait till Monday. ---By noon, Joseph had already been there an hour to pray a rosary. Typically, his confessions were quite drab; impure thoughts, half-truths, and late bills; that sort of thing. But today did not disappoint, Father Pat loved hearing about the family arguments. Their squabbles were his entertainment. It reminded him of his upbringing with three brother of his own. Josephs tale did not dissapoint, he had never actually struck Daniel. Father Pat was swept away and for a few blessed moments, forgot himself. ---From between the veil between Father Pat jumped to his feet during Josephs confession and swung his fist like he was watching a boxing match and cried out, “Heeyo! Right in the jabber!” It certainly wasn't like Joseph to strike someone, let alone his brother and Father Pat couldn't help but be swept away. ---Joseph exhaled in frustration from behind the veil. “He didn’t deserve it…well he did. But I know how he struggles in his faith, and I don’t think I brought him any closer to Christ with what I did.” ---“Admonish the sinner I say, Joe! Besides your brothers been a dirty no gooder at times…can’t say I blame you.” Father Pat sensed there was more. He could smell the reluctance on Joseph, he was holding back, he always held back. That was the thing about people who confessed their scruples like Joe. They confessed everything and nothing. Father knew there was more, just how much was a mystery. Still, he invited, “Is there anything else?” ---Joseph hesitated and thought about Daniels commitment to the Gatt Brothers and what trouble they were in. But he couldn’t say any of that to Father Pat. He had never confessed to Father about selling booze, first because he didn’t think it was wrong and second because he wanted to protect Father Pat. It was one thing to confess a sin to a Priest if you had an intention of changing but what Joseph was doing was considered crime and he did not want to make Father Pat an accessory. ---Father Pat sat in the silence and let the spirit move. ---Joseph remembered what Daniel had said about family and the rage that it ignited inside him. A lump rose in hi his throat. He rolled his neck to stretch it out, breathed hard and swallowed it back. “That’s all today, Father.” Joseph sat stoically, holding himself back from saying more. ---Father Pat raised his eyebrows. He enjoyed Josephs confession today, but it was not the one he had hoped for. “Well, you’ve got to make things right with him. Tell him you’re sorry. Move on with it. Brothers shouldn’t quarrel.” Father leaned into the screen between them. ---It wasn’t that simple Joseph leaned into Fathers niceties, “He’s deciding things for the business without me!” ---Father Pat leaned back, “Is he deciding without you or are you deciding without him?” ---“I’m ten years older! I’m in charge of more! I know better!” Joseph’s protest sounded petty the closer he got to losing control. ---Father Pat continued, “Who are you to take away your brother’s freedom Joseph?” ---Joseph, almost insolent now, “Father you don’t even know…” ---“But it sounds like you do! You know better than Daniel you know better than me. Joseph, some men insist to learn by consequence. Who are you to take that from him?” ---“But what if it leads him too far down the wrong path? What if he hurts others?” Joseph wore the anguished face of a prophet. ---Father Pat reminded, “Then the lord will be here for him to make a right turning.” And with that the penance was given. “Three hail Mary’s and an our Father…but both of us know you’ll say the whole Rosary.” ---There was a stillness between the two of them. ---Father Pat made the sign of the cross over Joseph as he left to do his penance. Father Pat stayed behind alone in the confessional. He gave thanks for the confession that Joseph gave and prayed that what ever he was holding back would be brouht to light in Gods prescious time. ---

Chapter 7- The Seed

“You could have called, Blossom! I sent letters! Telephoned!” Anne’s father, John Hibbert was bedridden and winded but still he persisted over his profuse coughing. --“Stop calling me Blossom. You didn’t call or write, your staff did.” Anne huffed back, unphased by his infirmities. --“What’s the difference?” He asked indignantly. --“Whether or not you want me to come. Besides, it’s just a cold and your asthma makes you feel worse. You do this every time you’re sick! It will pass, just like it always has!” She handed him his nebulizer and he inhaled in between coughs. “And shame on you for sicking poor James on me! I only came so his efforts weren’t in vain, you know.” Anne wandered about her father’s bedroom. Her eye caught a beautiful flower blooming in a pot beside a large window. ---His cough now subsiding, her father watched Annes eyes, “Do you remember our trip to South Africa?” --“I was sixteen! Of course, I do! Anyway, it’s a nice flower.” ---“Flower? Come now child! Since the garden, Adam was charged with the proper naming of things…say it with me now, you remember!” ---“Not this again!” Anne rolled her eyes. ---John raised his hands as if conducting an orchestra. Anne recited with her father reluctantly “A-Asclepias, B- Berberis, C-Cotoneaster, D-Dendranthema.” The side of her mouth curled in-spite of herself. “There now.” Her father’s eyes shining brightly back at hers. “Banksia speciosa if you please!” They smiled together in silence. “This is her first flowering year. There were two. See there…” Pointing to a large pod behind the flower. It was smaller than a pinecone but similarly formed, large seeds were bursting from it. ---“You men and your pursuit for ephemeral beauty!” She shook her head. "Eight years seems a long time to wait for a flower” She scoffed. ---He rose from his bed and teetered over to the windowsill, winded. “Some flowers take time my love.” He looked at her face tenderly and cupped her chin. “You can take it home if you like. Give it a try yourself” He took a pair of clippers next to the pot and sniped off the seed pod. There was an ornate wooden box on the desk nearby, he placed the pod inside and closes the box, offering it to her. ---Anne gave him an insolent laugh, “No thank you! I have better things to do!” ---He returned her impertinence. “It’s probably better, it’s not an easy one to sow. Not all seeds are water and soil my dear. I never taught you to sow the seed of a Chaparral…” ---“I never asked!” Exasperated by his persistence. “I think I know what you’re doing…and it’s not going to work.” ---“Come back to the Conservatory my dear! You were very promising as a botanist, and you loved it!” He sat in the window seat next to the Banksia. ---“Yes well, I have my own life now! No more following you around the world, chasing your dream! Africa, China the Netherlands for God’s sake! I should have been at playgrounds, schoolyards, and dances! If there is any fault to the way that I am I can assure you it’s because of the eccentric way you raised me!” She slumped into the window seat next to him, thinking about the way she persuaded the other girls to the protest in their bathing suits and got them arrested. The way she was quick to fight and adamant to get her way on things. The way that she pushed James away in his affection for her. And worst, the way she wanted her father to apologize so that she could refuse him forgiveness. ---Her father put his arm around her. “The way you are? You are lovely my dear. You are as bright, and beautiful as a daisy.” ---“I am not! I’m prickly, and dry and plain.” Anne hung her at the thought of herself. Her father looked at the Banksia. “Ah, Blossom.” Anne leaned into him tearfully. “We don’t come into this world knowing. We are roots and branches and flower all the same and growing takes time.” ---The warm sun shone on them. Finally, Anne said, “I imagine you called mere to make things right, to apologize.” ---He hugged her close for a moment. “I know you expect that of me. But I can’t bring myself to apologize for something I am not sorry for.” ---Anne’s head rears back out of his arms. “NOT SORRY?” ---He reached for her as she pulled away, “I know you don’t understand, I don’t expect you to. I am a disappointment for what I did to you…” ---“For what you did to Mother!” Anne hissed. ---Her father abruptly “I’m dying, my dear. I can feel it…something isn’t right.” ---Anne stood folding her arms as she looked down on him, “How very opportunistic. Now I’m supposed to forget what you did. Do you know how it tormented me? The least you could do is to admit you were wrong instead of holding your infirmities over me, relying on my sympathies to win the day. You Cad!” ---He persisted and rose, looking her in the eyes sincerely, “I’m leaving you everything; the house, the estate…” ---“…are you trying to buy me off?” Anne was apauled. ---Still her father continued, “… stocks, bank account, The collection.” ---The mention of the word sent Anne over the edge, “The collection? I don’t want it!” ---“I won’t break apart the estate. You take it in its entirety or nothing at all! You know what it means to me.” He was adamant. ---“Haven’t I lived under your madness long enough?” How could he do this? She thought. ---“Sell it off after I’ve gone, give it away! Burn it for all I care! But please, help an old man come to the end of his life and feel as if he has amounted to something? Please Anne…” He stood up as straight as he could, trying to catch a breath. Coughing uncontrollably, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. She brought him his nebulizer again. He inhaled. ---She continued “You’re not dying, stop trying to enlist me as a foot soldier, I’m not your little seed!” ---“But my dear that’s exactly what you are…” He touched her face gently, she pulled away and turned on her heels from him. “Where are you going?” He stood up to follow her. ---“Home! This is nothing more than an eccentric attempt to usher me back into your ranks as a minion because no one else will…” She walked over to the door putting distance between them. ---Still, he implored her, “No one else understands what they mean to us” ---“What they mean to you! Now leave me alone!” Anne slams the door as she walks out. ---John sighs in frustration, on the verge of tears. He looks at the flowers longingly. He pulls the handkerchief from his pocket, there is blood on it.

Chapter 6-Going Home

The Northern California countryside passed quickly from the passenger train window. By late fall the dry ground was scattered with nuts from Walnut and Oak trees. Anne’s eyes tracked the tidy rows of passing farms. Sitting next to James in a passenger car her head nodded sleepily from one side to another. James shifted towards her as if offering his shoulder for her to rest. ----- Occasionally they passed a field of farmworkers turning soil. Their sun scorched skin made Anne wonder why they chose to live that way. There were plenty of other jobs a person of minimal education could hold. Why farm work? It paid nothing, it was never done, and it never changed! It seemed an enslavement. How awful to get to the end of one’s life only to reflect upon a life filled with planting and tending and harvesting! It was a sad thing to see but also a reminder never be complacent in the making of her own destiny. ------ She was raised to follow in her fathers’ footsteps at the Conservatory, marry and have children. But upon finishing her education she stayed in San Francisco to join the Suffragist movement, much to her mother’s shame and her father’s disapproval. Her decision had its consequences; a sizeable decrease to her monthly living stipend. But she was determined. Life was supposed to be an enriching journey and she was willing to live modestly for the sake of it. ----- It would be a long way to Washington, to her father, back home. She sighed at the thought of seeing him. It had been five years. He was sick, which was not unusual. He was asthmatic and had a myriad of allergies. He had been confined to his bed in the past. But James had come all the way from Washington! Perhaps this was different. She had to come. She would give him a chance to apologize, a chance for him to make things right. ------ Her eyes drifted as the train headed out of the valley and into the mountains. Out of the dry windy landscape of the farmworkers and the everyday people and into the woods and their uncultivated landscape. She rested her head on the metal wall to her left, away from James’ shoulder and finally found rest.