When word spread that Mona had left us, families at our church reached out. They cooked us meals. They organized a babysitting schedule so that I could return to work. Eventually Sister Helena took over many of these duties, but even now, no priest at our church receives more generous Christmas gifts than I do, and it would embarrass the most hardened pirates to see the booty Peter receives on his name day. I’ve always detected an undercurrent of pity and inevitability in this kindness, as if a Greek boy who married a Roman girl was taking a certain risk, and now my life has become the honorable aftermath. The parishioners don’t mean anything by it. All Christians believe the business of human life is to pay down the debt on old sins. These good people helped support me until the day came when I could shoulder my debt myself.
I had a fantasy once, which I thought I would carry with me always. It was the fantasy of my wife’s return. I would encourage her to take shifts at the hospital again. I would take care of Peter full-time until she was ready to know him better. Then she would discover that our son is not an omen, not an emblem of her failures. He is precocious, conscientious, and good-hearted. Teachers praise him. He is invited to many birthday parties. He has my nose and Simon’s eyes, but he has Mona’s thick, dark hair; her round face; her cheerful smile. He will be grateful someday that he looks more like his mother than his father. In my dreams Mona would discover, through him, that she had never completely left. That we could rebuild what we once had, since the foundation we set together continues to rise.
But I’ve lost that fantasy, as surely as I’ve sloughed my old skin. To my surprise, I’ve discovered I can be whole without it. Only one part of it stubbornly remains: I want Peter to understand that his mother’s love for him isn’t a fiction I’ve created. I want him to understand that there are sources of himself that lie outside of me. From Mona come his deep intuitions of difficult truths, his fondness for jokes and riddles, his magical love of animals. His mother would fascinate him. I want nothing more than to share them with each other.
Wherever Mona is today, I imagine her full of regret for the life we shared, or else for her decision to end it. It would’ve broken me to feel regret on that scale, but I never did. Every time I looked back, Peter pointed me forward. I am still midstream in the voyage I began with my wife. Every night I thank God for my son.
CHAPTER 7
WHEN I WAKE, the floor beside me is empty. Peter’s gone.
Fumbling into the hallway, I find Leo and Sofia looking up from their breakfasts at the kitchen table. Leo points to the balcony, where a tiny body is hunched up like a cricket, bent forward over squatting legs, coloring with a crayon.
“He’s making a card for Simon,” Leo explains.
I smile. “I’ll take him up to the roof.”
Sofia whispers, “Father Simon’s not there.”
The look on Leo’s face supplies the rest. They don’t know where he’s gone.
When I dial my brother’s mobile, he picks up on the fourth ring.
“Where are you?” I say.
“At the apartment.”
“Are you okay?”
“Couldn’t sleep. When I get back, I’ll take you and Peter to breakfast.”
Leo and Sofia are both watching me. Sofia must’ve been tending to Peter since he woke up. The poor woman is still wearing her bathrobe.
“No,” I tell him. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll meet you there.”
* * *
IN THE LIGHT OF day, it seems eerie that the apartment is unchanged. The wreckage hasn’t all burned off like the darkness. Peter’s hand is clamped to mine as we enter. He steps over toys as if they’re poisonous mushrooms. In the kitchen, the broken plate is gone, the spilled food cleaned up. All the windows are open. Simon is sitting alone at the table, pretending that he hasn’t been smoking.