Everyone an Orphan by Erik Svehaug

The Linnet’s Wings

EVERYONE AN ORPHANBy Erik Svehaug

The Straw Manikin by Francisco Goya,Date: 1791 - 1792, Style: Romanticism, Genre: genre painting, Media: oil, canvas, Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, Dimensions: 97 x 160 cm

Storyman

Ray stared at a heavy-looking cross twice his height, convinced if he touched it, he might topple the whole row. The inventory of crosses leaned against the old church’s high stone wall, rough-hewn models alongside others of thinner wood, twenty, thirty, forty pounds lighter. Some were hollow facsimiles.

How heavy should I go? Maybe he could find Christ-connectedness here, but he didn’t want to kill himself in the attempt.

To his left, a ‘Geschlossen/Closed’ sign hung from an iron nail on the door of the rugged limestone kiosk. The sign board of the attached Chapel of Renewal advertised “Kreuze Vermietet/Crosses Rented: 9:00-15:00. He glanced at his watch. 9:10. Quiet/ Innsdorf. Probably should have left my watch in the hotel room.

The shutters of the kiosk jumped open. The female attendant, in a form-fitting black sweater, leaned across the counter and studiously engaged the shutter dogs with long, thin fingers. Her black hair, streaked with threads of grey, swung like a horse’s tail when she turned and bounced when she briskly nodded toward him. She had startling ice blue eyes and black eyebrows. As though satisfied that the tray of brochures had been pushed to the leading edge of the counter, she smiled at Ray with even, yellow-ivory teeth. She was almost Ray’s height. “Good morning. I’m Marianna,” she said, clearly having placed him as an American. “Have you rented with us before? Have you picked out a cross you would like to try?”

“Hello.” Thank God I don’t have to rely on High School German. “Yes, well, I have no idea how much weight I should carry or how long it takes. I really am completely new to this.” He hoped she appreciated that he was admitting this openly.

She wrinkled one eyebrow. Did she see the deep sadness he carried beneath his interest in renting a cross from her?

“Very normal hesitation, I assure you.” She nodded. “It’s always best to start out easy and work your way up, assuming you have time to come back more than once. Can you step over here for a moment?” She stood framed in the doorway and indicated the corner of the kiosk.

Ray obliged.

“Please raise your hand and touch the highest mark you can reach.”

Neat lines of black paint tracked up the back edge of the stones that made up the corner of the kiosk. Colored labels in ten-centimeter increments stopped just below the roof of the kiosk at three meters plus four more marks. Ray’s fingers touched a blue mark labelled “2 M 50 cm”.

“You are tall, so you’ll want one of the larger models; one with a blue sticker on the base, about fifteen stone. They’re clearly marked in kilos, so about ninety kilos should be comfortable, I think.”

Ray struggled with the relative weight of stones and kilos and carrying a comfortable cross. He flinched at a mental image of Christ carrying a cross marked with a bar code and colored label. “I don’t want comfort as a starting point. I mean, in your experience…?”

She smiled. “You will find ninety kilos for a kilometer will be uncomfortable enough without adding anything extra. That’s once around the building and grounds, following the white line.” “And the rates?” “One price of twenty euros covers any cross you choose no matter how long you keep it out, as long as you have it back before we close the shop.” She frowned slightly. “If we have to come get you, it will be an additional ten euros.” Ray turned his face away. “Only a very few customers ever need rescuing.” Her voice was gentle. Ray tapped his Visa card on the reader, signed the release of liability and turned toward the line of crosses with just the tiniest bit of vertigo. He recognized this nausea from telling lies, dating someone new, talking about his feelings.

How could doing a parody of a long-ago Jesus do anything to fix a life like his, a love-thirsty, adulterous offspring of his detached parents, careening from one relationship to another? It should take a lot more than orbiting around this church dragging a piece of lumber. But he’d already burned through three marriages, put in five years of weekly support meetings, done two sets of Twelve Steps and spent way too much money and time with counselors.

Ray surveyed the crosses and found the blue section. He was distracted by the clerk’s svelte figure, but managed to absorb most of what she had said. He stroked the side of a tall, smooth Model 90, like a rider gentling a horse. Jesus, thank you for the courage to go deeper into my hurt and fear. Help me face the feelings I find there. Twice, during his Fourth Steps, he had catalogued his failed relationships that started in third grade and led inexorably through a score of women to his second and third marriages and now to martyred celibacy. He’d apologized to as many of the women on his list as he could, except when he thought it would hurt them. He had promised never to lie or flirt or sneak around again. Again.

Carefully placing his hands under the cross beam of solid cedar and hoisting upwards, he brought the unit away from the wall and onto the gravel path, still completely vertical. He walked his hands up towards the top allowing the cross to descend onto the triple-folded towel draped across his right shoulder.

Ray flinched from the sharp pressure against his neck. His body sagged to the right as though a heavy 48

hand was pushing him to his knees. Starting out light? Doing this more than once? He pushed the wood up and shifted his neck away from direct pain, rebalancing his load. He commanded his back and knees to carry him erect. Focus, Ray. Focus. He leaned away from the church and dragged his new burden with him until he was fairly centered over the white line in the village street. The designated cobbles circled the cemetery and Chapel, and he trudged along them, counterclockwise per instruction.

Only three pedestrians and a couple of Vespas went by but they ignored him. Ray discovered he had brought his own crowd of witnesses, each with their own criticisms.

He made out Pastor Kevin, who shot barbed-arrow Bible verses at him from the pulpit and in the classroom to infect him with holy character.

There was Miss Stephens in her tight, low-cut sweaters who fed the class sweet-pastry love poetry while strolling between the desks, allowing her delicate hand to graze the shoulders of the boys in the room.

Ray’s father watched, eyebrows raised, as though curious to see if he could fulfill his mission this once; his mother glowered, clearly certain he could not.

Leaning over the railings of the balconies above the street, the Fourth Step girls Ray had wrestled, cuddled, or coerced in the past eyed him dispassionately as he labored slowly past.

His ex-wives shared a table at street-level, gazing at his hunched form and uneven progress, not invested in his success or failure, just watching. He looked for Laurie’s face, looking for her rejection, his bitterest defeat, as well as his latest, last and longest temporary marriage. Her sister, you idiot. Her little sister! You just couldn’t resist, could you? She was there, too! Neither registered interest in his labor. All that screaming, all that pain. Now, nothing? He felt the screen door slam on his hand again, bloodying his knuckles. She was right, of course. I had no right marrying. I know I’m sick. Each footstep carried a suggestion from his shoulder to put his load down.

Cut it out! Get out of my head! He must look like one more pudgy American tourist with a ‘sucker’ sign on his back, staggering along.

One of the local teenagers could probably carry this much while jogging and carrying on a conversation.

No judging! Focus. This is how I put judging to death. It’s okay to feel a little feeble. Are you going to help me through this, Lord? If you’re still with me, help me to follow through. Show me how to learn what I’m supposed to learn here. Give my body the strength to keep going until my mind is clear and my heart is clean. I’ve got to get this right. Not me. You. It’s your grace. I don’t care how this looks to others. Ray’s head was down and counting five white crumble-cornered cobbles ahead. And then the next five. And then the next. He started to smell his sour-compost armpit sweat and, hovering over that, the open-door, wind-off-the-lake, herb smell of cedar, activated by sweat from his neck. The cobbles were spaced out ahead of him like stops on a slow bus route. No. Focus on why you’re here. I long for you, Jesus. And I’m scared of you. I’m lonely. I’m almost paralyzed. Help me look at the things

that scare me.

He had chosen the off-season to carry his cross and avoid the press of the Pilgrim crowds of nearby Alt Ötting before Easter. He couldn’t afford any of it, so he had charged this trip. He had allowed himself three weeks: a week in Munich touring Neuschwanstein Castle and surrounding Bavaria, a week in Innsdorf to try to pray and reenact the cross experience, then a week in London at his cousin’s place.

Focus. Why am I here? The prayer. Two things. Let me be happy with who I am. Forgive me for failing. Peel away all the church words and I only want to know why I can’t have a single successful relationship with a woman without wanting another one? Why am I perpetually uncomfortable? Why does life suck? Show me it doesn’t have to.

He tried not to lurch. Don’t lunge. Pick your foot up and put it out front. Now put your weight over it. Repeat. Should I switch shoulders? Wait till at least halfway around. Where’s halfway? Relax about that. Settle into it. Pretend it’s forever. That’s crazy. That’s the point. What’s the point? Stop that! Focus.

The real Neuschwanstein Castle had been disappointingly artificial. She was Mae West with bright red lipstick and he would have preferred Katherine Hepburn. He’d hiked the hill to the castle and followed a group through rooms that were like a Mafioso’s idea of real class. He had drifted alone among the crowds of couples and families bulging the tour busses, boats, and paths throughout the area. Every glimpse of female curve and skin, swish of skirt and giggle of laugh had challenged his healthy resolve, while his mind continually played images of his impending cross rental like an alarming, squawking, urgent Amber Alert. Now, a white ball caromed off Ray’s shin and he stopped. The players of a street-soccer game swirled around him like a school of herring just out of reach of a seal. As Ray moved forward again, the ball flew past his left cheek, whoosh, then reappeared on his right, now kicked hard by a lanky teenage boy in blue shorts, and the crowd of yelling kids surged left to follow it. One or two jumped the end of the cross. Another player planted herself in front of Ray and he almost fell across her.

“Hierher!” yelled the rosy-cheeked obstacle, waving her arms and jumping up and down. Her shirt was untucked. She wore old leather shoes.

Ray came to a dead stop and barely kept the cross from tipping over, though its weight was entirely transferred to the street. Girls and boys. Running. Playing. Together. Totally oblivious.

The ball flew near his face and he batted it away with his left hand, overbalancing to his right. The cross leaned irresistibly away from him. He ducked his shoulder out from under it and yelled: “Watch out!” Kids scattered and the cross thudded to the street, vibrating the soles of his feet.

No one got squished! Those out-of-control brats! Ray quickly inspected the cross. It didn’t appear to be damaged. Had he signed for insurance?

He fumed as he tried to hoist the dead-weight off the cobbles with both hands, struggling to bend his knees, lift with his legs. Two hands joined him to rectify the load. A slender, olive-skinned, mustachioed shopkeeper from the Bäkerei, still in his white apron, steadied the cross while Ray aligned the towel on his left

shoulder and inserted himself under his burden again. Ray nodded. “Gracias. Excuse me, Dankeshchön.” The smaller man smiled and said something in German. Ray didn’t understand the man’s reply but sensed tolerance for his mishap. Ray nodded again, returned the smile and looked up the street for the soccer players. Nowhere to be found. He returned to his journey around the Chapel, now with the distilled ambition of simply returning the cross. His left shoulder reported immediate anguish and his lower back and calves were complaining.

“Are you collecting love?” His sponsor had wanted to know. “One is never enough, is it? What if six women or sixteen or sixty loved you? No? It isn’t about quantity? You just need the right one? Maybe if you got that certain right one to love you, that would do it. Right? No? I don’t think so either.”

He followed the white cobbles. He created a mantra of ‘no two alike’ to distract his mind by comparing each cobble to the next as he pushed against the inertia of physical objects and his home-grown incapacity. Each bump of the cross on the stones behind him shuddered him from shoulder to shin.

A week-long hour later, he halted alongside the row of crosses. From the pattern, his big cedar appeared to be the only one in use.

Grimacing helped somehow as he extracted himself from under his load and hefted the beast back into the lineup. He felt so much lighter, he seemed to float.

Ray had intended to drink an entire pitcher of beer, eat pork chops, sauerkraut and potatoes in the neighboring Gasthaus while he journaled his experience. He got as far as his room, thinking to wash up, when he collapsed onto the bed fully clothed. It occurred to him distantly that he had actually completed the circuit. And then it was morning. He woke up ravenous. At the bistro, he ordered an oven-fresh roll, a sausage, a couple of eggs, skillet fried potatoes with onions and black coffee. He brushed aside the notion that he shouldn’t load his stomach before today’s workout; his appetite demanded volume. As he waited for his order, he prayed: Thank you for bringing me to this spot at this time, Lord. Show me what you want from me. Bless my attempts to be open. Heal me. Ray pulled a card from his vest pocket and read the handwritten verse:

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you. I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land, where there is no water.

He arrived at the shop as Marianna was opening the shutters at the counter. She wore a snug blue blouse with a V-neck that highlighted a lapis pendant. Her long hair was loose over one shoulder. Looking steadfastly at the desk, he said a perfunctory: “Good morning.”

He waved aside the safety reminder, tapped the Visa reader once more with his credit card, and strode

immediately to his familiar burden darkened with yesterday’s sweat and lifted it upon himself. “Meet me here, Lord,” he said audibly. “Come with me.” For an hour, Ray’s legs, shoulders, back, and neck cooperated to pull the ancient form through the narrow streets without excessive complaint. Each bounce of the cross against a cobble returned his thoughts to his desire to overcome the past.

After the first hour, he felt his knees bowing; he was gritting his teeth. Sweat ran down his cheek and neck into his open collar. He had never smelled as rank.

A raucous wave of children poured out of the side street. He recognized several: the tall red-head, the blond stick-figure, the rosy-cheeked girl from yesterday’s game. Now, the group split in half and flowed up both sides of the street, each child waving a small colored flag. They rushed away around the curving main street. A tiny car came toward Ray, and passed him, as if in exchange for the children. You’re safe. Suck it up. Keep moving. He told his legs to drive forward and his neck to ignore the white-hot pain. A memory of his father double-digging the garden. “Ray! Get on that shovel,” Dad shouted. “Whose kid are you?” Six-year-old Ray struggled with the square-bladed tool with its long straight handle. “Dirt doesn’t get any softer than this! Put some muscle into it. When are you going to grow up?”

Under his load and already close to tears from the pain in his shoulder and neck, Ray stifled a sob.

Failing.

Then he realized that the memory was a piece of his puzzle. His sudden gasp attracted the stare of an elder townsman with a straw broom. Ray rested one end of the crossbar on the cobbles. Incompetence—just one of the seeds Pop planted along with the vegetables, Ray reassured his younger self.

He picked up the load again. With a smile, he remembered the white-aproned baker stepping in to help him right the cross yesterday. There was a gentler way.

He flew to his childhood kitchen, heard his mother’s voice: “Ray? Give me that. Do I have to do everything for you? Can’t you ever learn? What’s wrong with you?” His cheeks burned red. “When are you going to grow up?” Mom’s shaming. “What did I say about leaving the yard? His cousins snickered. “Are those your good pants?” Someone laughed out loud. Interrupting his phone call, she said: “I think it’s time you say goodnight.” Then: “You think you’re in love, do you? You are unbelievable! You are so immature!” You don’t have to live with it, Ray told himself. No one starts by knowing how. Shoulder pain flashed lightning through his body. A jolt of anxiety about his Visa balance rocked his focus. Though yesterday’s cross seemed heavier, today’s burden suddenly became a grinding futility that reminded him of home. He had started out thinking he would complete three circuits of the grounds today, but he was only halfway around the first circuit. Damned if I have to prove anything. He lowered the end of the

crossbeam to the street and leaned the cross against a lamppost. “I’m so sorry,” he told Marianna. “I left my cross by the round-a-bout near the Metzgerei. I just couldn’t go another step.” He blushed. “Actually, as I say this, I’m better now. I’ll go get it. Never mind.”

“Don’t be at all concerned,” she said. “It happens all the time. I will have one of the fellows bring it back with the cart. It’s so heavy.” She smiled as though she had carried that cross once herself. Ray mumbled sheepish acquiescence. It cost him ten euros.

He returned to his room, heart aching. He kicked off a shoe and it bounced against the plaster wall. He longed to realize a truth he hadn’t yet discovered, to hear loving reassurance in a language he had never learned. That was impossible, wasn’t it? What had possessed him? What did his parents’ impatience mean for his healing? He didn’t leave his room for dinner. He cried in the night. He was running out of vacation, slept fitfully.

He woke near dawn. “Have mercy, Lord,” he prayed. “See through my mistakes and my grasping at every possible love and my doubts and my ignorance.” He breathed shallowly while a series of his failed relationships flowed through his awareness. Images of Laurie and Carole, Janice, Pam, Sidney glided past, each in a window seen from his mind’s moving train. He couldn’t cry out to them. Faint sunlight illuminated the worn bureau in his tiny room and reflected a bit of sunrise in its mirror. Ray crossed the cobbles to the tiny café opposite the kiosk and approached the only patron, a white-wispy bearded gentleman in a long, gray, wool overcoat who might have been there for days sipping espresso at a tiny green bistro table. Strands of white hair protruded from under a blue felt fedora.

“Can I sit here?” He thirsted for human contact and had no idea how to take it in or what to offer in return.

He only knew tricks of appealing, or ingratiating. He wanted another way. The gentleman nodded him to the empty chair across from his. In his haste to bridge the awkwardness of meeting Ray almost asked, Do you come here a lot? He sensed sadness or loss, so he remained still, after all. He dismissed the idea of food.

The little chair was of wrought iron and very hard on his buttocks. His companion looked physically very comfortable on a similar chair, almost languid. “You might fold up your coat and sit on it if you intend to stay a while,” he said, in measured British English.

“Thanks,” Ray said. I must be transparently tender. As he stood to take off and fold his coat, he said: “Do you think the booth will open on time?” The old man looked into his cup as though into a well of thoughts. “Patience.” Ray tried to not to squirm. Bicyclists rode by on their way uptown towards the market. A man in a suit drove his moped past the church toward the Inn River bridge. A horse and driver pulled a cart from the direction of the bridge carrying an abundance of orange and yellow squash cushioned in hay.

“Where are all the children today?” Ray scanned to left and right. “The streets are so quiet. Yesterday, they were everywhere.”

“I believe they are being interviewed by interested couples today. They are all on their best behavior at the Home.” When Ray looked blank, his table mate added: “I think you call it orphanage.”

“I had no idea,” Ray said. “Yes, orphanage.” Are they all orphans? he thought. They seemed so happy. As he compared his quotient of childhood joy to theirs, Marianna of the kiosk emerged with difficulty from an old blue Volvo. The car drove off while she settled a pair of crutches into the armpits of her light jacket and swung across the gravel to the door of the kiosk. Ray’s forehead furrowed deeply, and his lips pursed in concern for this attractive woman. She was hurt. “You have met my niece?” asked the old man. “Why, yes,” stumbled Ray. “She’s very helpful, knowledgeable, over at the church, the cross rental.” He felt exposed, as though he had been caught with pornography. He blushed. “I didn’t realize she’d been injured.” “It’s a disease, not an injury. She’s slowly losing the muscle tone in her body. Soon, she will lose the arm strength to hold herself upright on the sticks.” “That’s terrible.” Ray’s eyes winced closed. “She’s so lovely. Isn’t there a cure?” “No.” The answer tolled like a bell that vibrated for long seconds. “Eventually, her lungs will not have the strength to breathe.” His voice revealed no emotion. “It is genetic.

My sister had it. Her mother. Marianna’s daughter has it.” He took a tiny sip from his espresso. “She’s married? And they continue to have children?” Ray’s voice hit a higher octave. “They are passing on this …?” Curse? he thought “We will all die, Ami. She has a better idea than most of us how she will go.” Ray leaned forward looking at his laced fingers, elbows on his knees. He considered the consequences of knowing how he would die and roughly how long he had. What would he have done differently? I would probably be curled up in a ball of self-pity. After a few moments, he stood. “The stall is open. Thank you for sharing your table.” When Ray reached the stone booth, the bottom half of the door was latched, but the top was open.

Marianna glanced up when his hands rested on the door partition. “Greetings. Another rental?” He thought he had wanted to try again and almost agreed that he would. Instead, he froze. She was so much herself, needing nothing, open to the new day. In her place, he would have been demanding a cure, empathy. Pity? He had never known anyone with such serenity in the face of a trial such as hers.

Her lack of pretense was piercingly lovely. He sensed she was raising her children joyfully, allowing them to have their own chance to find enrichment in life.

Ray was overcome by her, admired her. He didn’t want her, didn’t need to have her. She was attractive, yes, but he wasn’t feeling sexual or needy. It fed him just to know she existed, that she was part of his world. He hoped she had married her equal. He suddenly loved this stranger and her confidence more deeply than he had ever loved anyone.

Watching her eyes, he said: “I have a couple of questions.” Her tranquil expression and demeanor gave him permission to continue. “Have you worked here long?”

She looked puzzled. He said quickly: “I wonder if you know anything about the experience that customers have when they rent from you.” “Well, yes, I think so,” she said. “Though it is different for everyone.” “I have used the cross two days now,” Ray said. “Each time I find myself disappointed.” “Do you know what you want?” He hesitated, dropping his eyes. “Some sign, I guess. Maybe a meaningful experience? A vivid dream? I want a moment that changes my life.” The last bit slipped out unexpectedly. “From what to what?” she asked. He had never asked himself this, exactly. He suddenly remembered none of the prayers that accompanied him while he had plodded around the church with two hundred pounds of wood on his shoulder. Now, he had let a stranger in.

“I want more than I see. More than I have. Not selfishly,” he added. “I just ... I don’t want more nothing.

Does that make any sense to you?” “Instead of circling it, maybe you should go inside,” she said, with a gentle smile. “Inside? The Chapel? There’s no access.” He had seen every inch of the building over the last couple of days with his head twisted to one side and a cross on his aching shoulder.

She handed him a brochure of the building. “Forgive me, but if you are not renting today and since no one else seems to be waiting, I’ll go over to the home and lend them a hand. They are very busy with interviews today. Will there be anything else?” He shook his head no. She released one of the shutter dogs and pulled the shutter towards her. “I’ll walk you there.” His own voice sounded strange to him and he felt that risk-taking vertigo that signaled unknown consequences. Was the answer with her? He didn’t want time to pass, the space to shift, the feeling to fade.

“Thank you. No. Besides, you have a full day ahead.” She smiled and closed the remaining shutter between them. Mystified at her response, he turned away. What about me? I’m an orphan. “Thank you,” he murmured. He heard her gather the crutches with a clack. Over a nearby coffee, he read the entire brochure, which confirmed that every doorway and window well had been blocked with stone and mortar to defend against Napoleonic depredations. Then, he saw what she had no doubt intended him to see: the stone rental kiosk was not in the picture at all. Its current physical location abutted a spot on the south wall of the church where one of the blocked doorways was pictured. That door led to the narthex of the interior.

Ray turned back to the kiosk to find it dark and the “Geschlossen/Closed” sign on the iron nail of the door. He approached. He turned the doorknob on impulse. The door opened. From inside, the heavier plank door at the back was obvious. On the desk sat a large iron key which Marianna must have left for him. He

inserted the key and unlocked a door that squeaked as though it had remained shut for two hundred years.

The air was still and cool and sweet. With a warble and smack and echo of flapping wings, a pigeon swooped across the space and perched on a carved finial. Colored light from a ceiling of brilliant stained-glass windows streamed a path through motes of dust floating in the air. Gray stone walls, mottled black with years of candle soot, were bare of decoration and detail. A round stone structure with a figure-covered copper lid, green with age, stood in the center of the floor. Below a simple Crucifix, a bare wooden altar anchored the far end of the Chapel.

The pamphlet said that the windows above his head represented the Icons of the Church, triumphing in the face of the impossible. With a hand on the lid of the font in the center, Ray surveyed the windows, one by one. From old preschool stories, he made out images of Noah, Samson, Moses, Daniel and other pillars of faith. The movie stars of the Old Testament.

A knowing filled him. He suddenly realized he had the cart before the horse. Hah! Renting crosses to find faith. He might as well have jumped into a den of lions. Or challenged a giant. Not one of these All-Stars had a template to follow. Each was unique. Each of them had a bedrock Higher Power experience so powerful it translated into knowledge and took over his physical life. Fresh from living, facing their specific circumstances, not imitating anyone. Love. They experienced the personal love of a Creator who found no fault in them; He allied Himself with them. Once they felt that love, their soul could hear His whispered instructions, leading His children through thick and thin. Part the Red Sea. Kill a giant. Quiet the lions. Ray had his own lions.

Ray smiled at the brilliantly colored light above him. Contentment washed over him and the perfection of being himself right then swept his mind of other thoughts. Without explaining to me how or why, You led me here gently. Gratitude flooded his entire system with a wash of heat. You love me. A quiet impulse. He found he could lift the old copper covering on the stone structure in the center of the room. The stones surrounded a well-head, a single baptismal bath with worn stone steps, that held clear water reflecting back the blues and reds of the incredible ceiling. The water’s surface rippled gently.

With deep calm and a glance over each shoulder, Ray took off his shirt and shoes, his watch, his pants. Within moments, he was naked in the well-spring. The water was cool, not cold. He laid his head back on the stone edge and breathed in the aroma of the old dust and incense and the warmth of the morning sun, the damp

stones and the shadows. He sighed from deep within. For an hour, he did nothing but breathe.

He imagined his dad selecting a sixteen-foot-tall oak cross and staggering with it through the streets. Ray’s mom followed him with a varnished pine model about her own height. Then, within the same daydream, he pictured himself, the Ray of a few hours ago, trying to shoulder their crosses in sympathy as though his shoulders were broad enough. Impossible. And wrong-minded.

Each of his missteps had been a rung of the ladder that led him to this moment. Each person he thought he had injured through selfishness, longing, loneliness, lust, vanity, dissatisfaction could claim victory for their part in his healing. His fear and guilt and confusion about them had led him here.

YOU led me here! The original internet link, Mariana and her crutches, the soccer ball in the shin, the old soldier, the iron key, the well in the church, that was all YOU! Ray cried.

His tears joined the waters.

***