The Night We Met

“I meant from the sermon.”

I glanced up at him, careful to lower my eyes before I met his. I wasn’t yet under the tutelage that would require me to keep custody of my eyes, but I knew I would be soon. As a novice, I would be required to keep my gaze low, to refrain from direct eye contact. I wanted to practice it now, I told myself.

Either that, or I was afraid of liking him too much.

“Are you Catholic?” I asked him, instead of answering his question.

“I was born Catholic.” He slid his hands in his pockets and we moved around a bend filled with brightly colored blossoms. “But I’m divorced and when the Church wouldn’t recognize that, I felt kind of hypocritical staying. I’d done what I knew was right for me, but the Church expected me to remain in a marriage that wasn’t working anymore.”

I barely got through the rest of his words, stuck back in the divorced part.

“How long were you married?”

“Two years.”

“When?”

“Before Keith shipped out.”

A couple with two small children smiled at us. I felt an urge to tell them that Nate and I weren’t a couple, but held my tongue.

He’d been married at least four years ago. I would’ve been, at most, fifteen. “Why did you split up?”

“She was still at university and got involved in antiwar protests. Pretty soon they were consuming her life and I hardly saw her.”

“She was protesting the war your little brother was fighting?”

Nate didn’t say anything for a few minutes and I walked silently beside him.

“I never blamed her for her beliefs,” he said slowly as we passed an elderly man walking a dog. “I supported her right to have them.”

“So what happened?”

“She couldn’t accept the fact that I wouldn’t join her. Said she couldn’t live with someone who promoted violence. About a year before Keith was killed, she left me for a fellow student and antiwar activist. They’re married now and just had a baby.”

“I’ll bet she’s got Dr. Spock’s book,” I said to cover my unexpected desire to comfort this man. I was completely out of my element. “He was indicted last week for conspiring to help others avoid the draft,” I added when Nate said nothing.

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“I’ve been listening to the news a lot lately.”

“Because you’re interested or because you know you won’t be able to after next week?”

Could the man see straight into my thoughts? My heart? That idea wasn’t as threatening as it could have been.

“The latter, I’m afraid.”

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

“It feels…duplicitous.”

“Wanting what you can’t have, believing the grass is greener on the other side, is part of the human condition.”

“You make it sound so…normal.”

“It is,” Nate said. “Listen, if it was easy to make the right choices, there’d be no glory in doing so.”

His words made me think.

“You’re a smart man, Nate Grady.”

He chuckled. “I’ve made some pretty stupid decisions, that’s all, and had to learn from them.”

I wanted to know what each and every one of them was.

But I didn’t dare ask.

We moved aside on the walkway to make room for a family dressed in church clothes. The son, about ten, I’d guess, had a stain on the knee of his slacks and his tie was askew. The little girl, with bows in her hair and lace on her socks, was pristine. The sight made me smile.

“You’ve never mentioned the rest of your family,” I said. “Other than Keith.”

“He was my only sibling.”

“What about your parents? I imagine they took his death hard.”

Hands still in his pockets, Nate slowed. “My father doesn’t know. He took off right after Keith was born.”

“You’ve never heard from him?”

“No.”

“Have you ever tried to find him?”

“Nope. What was the point? He knew where we were. If he wanted contact, he knew how to get it.” Nate didn’t seem bitter. Or the least bit victimized, either.

I glanced sideways as we walked, trying to see his expression. “Aren’t you curious about him?”

“Not really. I vaguely remember him. My mother said he never wanted kids and that made sense. He’d come and go as he pleased, and he never heard me when I talked to him. I don’t think he loved my mom. They had to get married.”

“Because of you?”

“Yeah.” Nate nudged a stone off the cement with the toe of his shoe without missing a step. “I suppose he wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t beat us or anything. Some people just aren’t meant to be parents.”

I thought the man sounded incredibly selfish.

“What about your mother?”

“She loved him.”