When the change came it was strange how it seemed focused on one event. He was leaning on the counter in Suzanne’s apartment, watching her while she stirred muffin batter and chatted happily. She was whipping the batter with a wooden spoon. It was amazing to him how much energy she could bring to the batter in short bursts between comments. She seemed so happy and sure of things. This is my man and we are here in the apartment making muffins. We are here because we want to be here and because this is the kind of thing we do together. We make muffins and do things. Simple things. Everyday life things.
 
Her carefree, innocent giving of herself to him and to the muffins and to the moment seemed incredibly brave. She wasn’t holding anything back. She popped muffin liners into a tin, never slowing her conversation. She poured the batter, using the wooden spoon to restrict its flow so that it was not too wide for the cups. For a moment her attention was pulled into this task and they were both silent. Then she looked up at him and her amazing smile burst onto her face. He adored her smile. It was the most natural and beautiful smile he had ever seen on a woman. It came to her so easily, as if it lived just below the surface. He had convinced himself that her smile was incontrovertible evidence of a pure heart. Not necessarily a good heart, but a pure one. An honest heart that did not lie to others, but more importantly did not lie to itself.

But now her smile seemed to detach itself from her face and become a thing itself. A thing you could love. What a wonderful smile. What a tragedy it would be if the woman behind a smile like that was hurt. He began to panic, second-guessing everything that had happened so far. Had he led her on? Had he moved too fast? Had he been weak and let words slip out of him? The words he knew she needed to hear? The right words had always been there for him when he needed them. They appeared out of nowhere, spilling out in his sermons. Even he was surprised sometimes at what came out of him. When the words sounded good and were a comfort to others, the truth behind them seemed like a nuisance, something he couldn’t be bothered with.

His feelings for her hung in the air like a ball thrown upward and reaching its terminal peak. There was a pause and then the ball dropped, dragging his happiness down with it. That was the moment. Stirring and pouring and talking and smiling and wiping the edge of the bowl so the last of the batter did not drip. In that moment, Suzanne stopped being a woman to be loved and fought with and lived with and known. She became instead a person in need, someone that he should care for, someone to be careful with. The change came from his best intentions, but it made her an object nonetheless. He had made this same emotional downshift so many times as a pastor when people who might have been friends in some other reality were instead revealed to be his employers, those he was paid to love. Their children became his children. Their problems became his problems. He caught a whiff in the air of something disagreeable and stepped back from the counter. A large freckle near Suzanne’s ear that had seemed adorable to him the day before, now seen in the fluorescent lights of the kitchen as it jiggled from the force of her stirring, became strange and unattractive. He couldn’t stop looking at it.

Suzanne carried on with the conversation by herself, blissfully unaware of his troubled thoughts, supplying both the questions and the answers, pausing occasionally and waiting for a grunt or a single word from him before moving on. Her innocent trust shamed him. Denial, the cruel sister of carefree procrastination called to him like a Siren, and he went into her comforting arms without hesitation and without protest. He forced himself forward, pushing past his thoughts and feelings like he had so many times before. He wanted to stand between Suzanne and the angry god of truth. So intense was his need to take up this priestly calling that he could no longer recognize what was true inside of himself. When was this Rubicon crossed? Not at the counter with the muffins but years before on the first Sunday when he lied in a sermon, being faithful to the text for the sake of the community and betraying himself. And all the Sundays along the way when he had talked about God with such passion while not believing in God himself. Why? Because he was the one in the community who was paid to believe. That first Sunday and every God damned Sunday after until there was no telling the difference between truth and duty, faith and lies, commitment and fear, love and mercy. No telling the difference. No bite to anything. No woody meat into which he could drive something home. Nothing but the desperate and endless turning of a screw in a stripped hole.

Foy’s real smile slipped beneath the surface like a dolphin rising and falling and then not appearing again. You search the surface of the water for it, but dolphins come and go for reasons that no one can understand. His fake smile rose like an inflated buoy to save the day. He had to bring out the fake smile or explain what happened to the real one. And that would hurt her. The idea that he might be the one to hurt her was an unthinkable horror. And a perversely selfish part of himself would pay any price to avoid that horror. It was a great smile, as fake smiles go. If the smile had no roots in joy, it at least had roots in compassion. Jenny was the only one who had ever been able to tell the difference between his real and fake smile. He pushed himself into the conversation with more energy than he felt, desperate to keep the moment going because it was so romantic and perfect, the two of them finding each other. He began initiating questions. The energy upholding the conversation shifted from her to him. His depression loomed, but the horror of letting her down was a nightmare he would not face. And so he denied himself. He took up once again this unrighteous cross of his own making and trudged forward, obedient to the end.

rlp

This next move in Foy's life has been hard for me. I don't have any idea what will happen next. I wasn't even planning a part two but something is missing. So I don't know. Usually I sort of know where I'm going with these. At least enough to get started even if it changes, as if often does. Somehow it felt like publishing the first part would force me to find the second part.