Words
by Daniel R. Snyder
Peg brought coffee and winked at me, then turned and walked back to greet the young couple walking in the front door. I reached for the empty yellow legal pad, drew a squiggly line, then a cross, and finally started sketching boxes, hoping that the simple act of touching pen to paper might get it started. But there were no miracles concealed in the pen, and the stack of boxes simply continued to grow.
The elderly couple at the table across from me finished eating, and the silver haired woman dug in her pocketbook for a tip. After they left, Ramon came over to clean the table, wiping around the coins and pushing them toward the napkin holder for Peg. Ramon is a devoted Catholic, and on more than a few slow nights we had shared a word or two about the differences, but there aren’t as many as most like to think, and I’ve always admired him.
Peg escorted the young couple to the newly vacated table. They didn’t notice me, but after a few moments, I realized I knew the man. Dennis Buchannan. I hadn’t seen him since his brother’s wedding a number of years ago. I heard they’re divorced now. I baptized Dennis when he was a boy. He had to be in his late twenties or early thirties by now. I didn’t know he was married.
He was dressed in blue jeans, a wool blazer with patches at the elbows, and a black t-shirt. His wife wore a light green dress--a maternity dress I think--that looked too big on her. Gently holding her wrists, Dennis helped her to sit. I looked at the pad again and tried to relax, waiting for the Lord to tell me what to write.
“What are you having?” Dennis asked.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“C’mon Chris. Eat something. You’ll never get better if you don’t eat.”
“I am better.”
I poured two sugars in my coffee and stirred them around. Rachel used to kid me about that, saying it was going to kill me. She drank hers black. Figure that out. A minute later, my supper arrived, liver and onions, the meal Rachel used to make every weekend, the reason I come to this restaurant every Saturday. Peg set down the plate and reached for the empty salad bowl, and as she leaned over, the silver chain around her neck dangled in front of me. I’ve always thought it quite pretty, a silver Pisces medallion. She believes it has significance, and who am I to argue? It would be nice to think that God created the stars for some greater purpose than providing insomniacs like me with something to count at night.
Peg winked again, then headed back to the kitchen. I pushed the pad aside. Long ago, it would have been full of words and phrases, notes and references, back and front and spilling onto two or three napkins. Today, the only thing on it was a drop of Italian dressing and a few useless doodles.
“Please eat something,” Dennis said.
“Only if you promise to stop hounding me.”
“As long as you eat something.”
“All right, fine. You sound like my mother.”
“If you don’t eat your vegetables, Chrissy, you won’t get any desert.”
The smile he wanted didn’t come. I took a sip of coffee and stared out the window, watching cars move slowly on the boulevard and people walking along the sidewalk, their conversations lost to me behind a transparent wall. As the sun disappeared behind the hills in the distance, marking the end of another day devoid of inspiration, the night came in, cold and dark.
With less than a day left and not a single word on the pad, I once again resigned myself to giving a sermon plagiarized from a book on my library shelf. It’s strange, but nobody’s seemed to notice that my sermons are derived from something less than divine inspiration because the handshakes and the kind words at the end of the service are as sincere as they’ve always been. They’re just far less reassuring.
“Can I ask you something?” Chris asked, picking up a menu.
“Anything look good?”
“Why did you ask for the priest?”
“The shrimp looks good.”
“Why did you?”
“You’re Catholic.” Dennis sighed, setting his menu in the holder behind the condiment tray. “I thought it was important to you.”
“I thought you said it was stupid.”
“I said I didn’t think it was necessary, but I figured it would make you feel better.”
“It wasn’t necessary. Sammy never had the chance to sin.”
“Don’t you need last rites to get into Heaven?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so. Not a baby anyway.”
“You’re a lousy Catholic.”
“And you’re a lousy Atheist.” She turned and looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "You want coffee? Here comes the waitress.”
Peg guided a handsome Mexican couple with three children into a booth near them. As the family settled in, Chris stared at the children, then reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. Dennis slid his arm across the table. They held hands.
“I’m all right,” she said.
“I know.”
“It’s just not fair. I did everything right. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, took it easy. What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Chris. Nobody did.”
“It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not,” Dennis said. “But maybe he’s better off. Sam learned what he needed to learn and now he’s gone on to something else, something better.”
“Stupid Buddhist bullshit. What can you learn hooked up to a machine for ten days?”
Suddenly, a balled up napkin flew over her shoulder and hit him squarely in the forehead. One of the Mexican children giggled. Chris set down the menu and started to turn, but Dennis stopped her with a shake of his head.
“They ought to teach that kid some manners,” she said.
“Forget it. Let them take care of it.”
She crushed the napkin in her fist. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What did Sammy learn?”
“Maybe the lesson was for us.” Denny shrugged. “Tis better to have loved and lost --”
“And now Shakespeare bullshit.”
“Would you prefer Milton?”
“Just words.” She dabbed her eyes with the tissue again. “And I’ll bet he never lost a child, so what the hell would he know about it?”
Another napkin sailed across the aisle, this one hitting her in the back of the neck and bouncing to the floor. She stared at it for a few moments, face turning red, then whipped her head around.
“Hey! Why don’t you try to control your stupid kids?”
A tug on her hand turned her around.
“Leave me alone!”
“Calm down, Chris.”
“No!”
“Lower your voice, Christine, or we’re leaving.”
“Fine. You leave. I’m hungry.” She snatched up the menu, slumped down and hid her face behind it, then grew quiet again. After a few seconds, she neatly replaced the menu and took his hand again.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right.”
“We’ll raise our kids better than that, won’t we?”
“It won’t happen again. His father just cuffed him.”
“Hard?”
“Hard enough.”
“Oh.” She lowered her head and stared at her lap, smoothing wrinkles out of a napkin, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He didn’t have to do that.”
“I love you, Christine.”
“Did Sammy know we loved him?”
“Of course he did,” Dennis said, glancing toward the kitchen. “But we have to remember, the brain damage and the heart problems and all that. It wouldn’t have been a good life. Like they said, it was probably for the best.”
“He would have had us.” Her voice was getting louder again. “He would have been happy. They only say things like that to make you feel better. Like it’s supposed to comfort you or something, but it doesn’t and I hate it and it doesn’t make me feel any better and--”
Dennis placed a finger on her lips. She slapped it away. I saw embarrassment on his face, tempered with a sad kind of understanding. I dropped my gaze and started scribbling, not that the ruse did any good. I’m sure Dennis knew I’d been listening.
Chris had regained her composure by the time Peg came over to take their order. She set coffees in front of them, then stopped and refilled mine, whispering in my ear. I told her that at some other time it might be helpful to them but I thought they would rather be alone right now. A request for a slice of cheesecake sent her on her way.
Not wanting to get caught eavesdropping again, I returned my attention to the pad and noticed a sliver of onion on one of my scribbles. I pushed it aside with the pen, and it left a dark trail of moisture that speared through the one sentence I had written: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. What kind of sermon could I give with an opening like that? I ran the pen over the sentence, scratching away until there was nothing left but a hole in the page.
“Do you think I’m losing it?” Chris asked.
“No,” Dennis said.
“Because,” Chris leaned over the table, lowering her voice, eyes darting back and forth, and whispered, “I think people are uncomfortable around me.”
“I know what you mean. I got two kinds of reactions at work when I finally went back.” Dennis slid forward on the bench and brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
“You’re blind.”
“Anyway, either they felt so bad that they just couldn’t shut up about it, or they didn’t mention it at all, like they’re afraid I was going to melt down right there.”
“Sometimes I feel like it’s my job to comfort everybody else.” Chris let out a soft laugh. “Isn’t that silly?”
“They want to help. That’s all.”
“But there’s nothing they can say.”
“I know,” Dennis said.
“So why bother?”
“One of the girls at work,” Dennis toyed with his fork, “wanted to know if you should buy me a father’s day card.”
“You are one,” Chris said.
“I don’t feel like one.”
“Unemployed father maybe.”
“Is that how it works? I don’t know.” Dennis leaned against the backrest and took a sip of his coffee. “I’m hungry. I hope this doesn’t take long.”
Peg returned with my cheesecake, then walked over to their table and set salads in front of them, and for some reason, I noticed the weight of my Bible tugging at my jacket. I pulled it out, set it in front of me, and stared at the worn leather cover. The board of deacons presented it to me on the day I started this ministry--a red-letter edition with my name embossed in gold letters on the spine. That was thirty years ago, and for the first twenty-seven of those years, it had never failed me. Somewhere in this book should be the words Dennis and Chris needed. I rifled through the concordance.
“Do you think I’m cold?” Chris picked up a fork and stabbed at her salad.
“Why would I think that?”
“Well, in those pamphlets I got from the social worker, all those people talk like their life was over. Like they had no reason to live. I don’t feel that way. Sure, I’m sad but--”
“Maybe later,” Dennis said. “Maybe we’re still in shock.”
“People are stupid,” Chris said. “It’s like they have nothing else in their life. And here I am, holding up fine. We’re just smarter than they are.”
Finding nothing in the concordance, I started randomly flipping pages, knowing exactly how she felt. Books don’t tell you anything. Nothing but a bunch of meaningless words on a page. Sound and fury, but no answers. I slammed the Bible closed.
Peg returned with meals for the Mexican family. I risked a glance at Dennis and Chris again. He was quietly concentrating on his salad while she toyed with her coffee mug, and while lifting it to take a drink, a piece of hamburger abruptly exploded against her cheek. She sat in shock for a few moments, watching mustard drip down the front of her dress, then slammed her mug on the table, and was yelling before even fully out of her seat.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Dennis was already scrambling out of the booth.
“Can’t you control your stupid kids?”
“Christine…” He reached for her hand. She yanked it away.
“I would never allow my kids. . . and you’re just a couple of stupid Mexicans. . . and you’re probably Catholic and don’t use birth control. . .and you probably didn’t want them in the first place and you have them by the litter . . . and we tried so hard to...and then. . .and then...”
Dennis grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him. Chris threw her arms around him and dropped her head on his chest, sobbing.
“I hate them I hate them I hate them.”
Dennis looked at the speechless father and said he was sorry, although he probably couldn’t hear him over the crying and the mother loudly scolding the children. The father apparently understood. He nodded and made a motion with his hands that seemed to communicate both understanding and apology.
I found myself on my feet, standing next to them.
“Could you hand me that, please?” Dennis asked, motioning toward his wife’s purse, which she had knocked to the floor. I picked it up and hung it on his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you,” Dennis said. He still didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t remind him. “I’m sorry for disturbing your dinner. We’re leaving now.”
He took an arm off her shoulder and reached for his billfold.
“Let me.” I reached into my pocket.
“That’s really not necessary,” Dennis said, a single tear gliding down his cheek.
“It’s all right.” I tossed a couple of bills on their table, staring at the back of her head and listening to her cry, desperately searching for something to offer.
“You can get through this,” I finally said.
Dennis nodded, and with her head still on his shoulder, they headed for the front door. I remained standing in the aisle as they moved toward the exit, trying to remember exactly what I had said to them, but it was all a blur. Whatever came out of my mouth must have done so through long years of habit, not through any great flash of inspiration.
“Good words,” Peg said, walking up from behind me and slipping a hand under my arm. “I guess that’s why you’re a preacher. They always know what to say. I’m sure it made them feel better.”
“Did it?” I watched Dennis and Chris leave, and started thinking about Rachel again, about the three long years I had spent without her, and of all the long and lonely years waiting ahead. “It certainly would be nice to think so.”
Originally Published in Teach.Write 2024
