The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“Believe me, I understand,” said Reuben. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

Jim looked off into the fire again for a long moment, as if he hadn’t heard.

“But all my life I’ll be haunted by Lorraine and that child,” he said. “And what might have been for that child. I don’t expect to ever not be haunted. I deserve to be haunted.”

Reuben didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure at all that Jim was right about all these many things. Jim’s life seemed shaped by guilt, by remorse, by pain. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t figure how to ask them. He felt closer to Jim, immeasurably closer, and at a loss as to what to say. He was also very aware that he himself thrived in a realm in which he took human life without a particle of regret. He knew this. He saw all this. And it provoked no real crippling emotion.

“And several times in the last couple of years,” Jim continued, “I’ve seen Lorraine. I think I have at any rate. I’ve seen Lorraine in church. It’s never more than a glimpse, and it’s always during Mass when I cannot possibly leave the altar. I see her, way to the back, and then of course by the time I give the last blessing, she’s gone.”

“You don’t think you’re imagining it?”

“Well, I would except for her hats.”

“The hats?”

“Lorraine loved hats. She loved vintage clothes and vintage hats. I don’t know whether it’s a British thing, or what, but Lorraine was always a very stylish person, and she positively loved hats. At any University function in the day, she’d have on some big brimmed hat, usually with flowers. And in the evening, she wore those black cocktail hats with veils, you know, that women used to wear years ago. Actually you probably don’t know. She collected vintage clothes and vintage hats.”

“And the woman you see at church is wearing a hat.”

“Always and it’s a real Lorraine Maitland hat. I mean, you know, a Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck hat. And then there’s her hair, her long blond hair, straight hair, and her face, and the shape of her head and shoulders. You’d recognize me at a distance. I’d recognize you at a distance. And I’m sure it’s Lorraine. Maybe she’s living here now. Or maybe it’s all something I’m imagining.”

He paused, looking into the flames of the gas fire, and then he went on.

“I’m not in love with Lorraine now. I think I was once, booze or no booze. Yes, I was in love with her. But not now. And really I have no right to track her down if she is living here, no right to meddle in her life, to bring all those bad memories back to her. But selfishly, I’d love to know that she’s happy, remarried, and maybe with children. If I could only know that for certain. She so wanted that baby! She wanted that baby more than she wanted me.”

“I wish I knew what to say to you,” Reuben said. “It breaks my heart to think of you going through this. And believe you me, I will go out to get Celeste pineapple at midnight if that is what it takes.”

Jim laughed. “I think it’s going to go well with her, if you just don’t challenge her. Let her believe all the bad things she has to believe.”

“I hear you.”

“It’s taking more courage for Celeste to give up this baby than she’s admitting. So let her dump her anger on you.”

“I’m with the program,” said Reuben putting up his hands.

Jim was looking at the fire again, at the blue and orange flames licking the air.

“When was the last time you think you saw Lorraine?”

“Not that long ago,” Jim said. “Maybe six months? And one of these days I’m going to catch up with her outside of church. And that will be when she decides it’s time. And if she tells me that I hurt her so bad she couldn’t have children anymore, well that will be exactly what I deserve to hear.”

“Jim, if she’d been hurt that bad, she might volunteer it on her own. She could take you down even now for what happened, couldn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Jim. He nodded and looked at Reuben. “She certainly could. I was straight with my superiors about all of it, always, as I told you. But they were straight with me about it too. They knew that what I’d done had happened in a drunken brawl. I was a debilitated alcoholic. They didn’t see it as premeditated murder. A man who murders cannot be a priest. But any scandal at any time could take me down. One letter to the archbishop, one threat of going public, that would do it. Lorraine could indeed take me down, and Jim’s great personal mission in the slums of San Francisco would blink out like that.”

“Well, she probably knows that,” said Reuben. “Maybe she just wants to talk to you and she’s building up the nerve.”

Jim was pondering. “It’s possible,” he said.

“Or, you feel so guilty about it all that you think any pretty woman you see who’s wearing a hat is Lorraine.”

Jim smiled and nodded. “That could be true,” he conceded. “If it is Lorraine, she’ll probably try to protect me from the full truth about what I did to her. That was the tone of her letters. She is sweet, just so very sweet. She was the kindest person I ever met. I can only imagine what it was like for her when she left me that last day. How did she stand it? Going home sick, hemorrhaging, losing a baby and having to tell Maitland about that.” He shook his head. “You don’t know how protective she was with Maitland. No wonder he took her right out of there, and went back to England. Stroke. I don’t believe his mother had a stroke. Boy, did I ever let him down. He brought me in to be a comfort to his wife, and I beat her within an inch of her life.”

Reuben was at an utter loss.

“Well, listen, here’s the second lesson,” said Jim. “I’m no saint. I never was. I have a mean streak in me and always did, of which you know nothing. I work with addicts at my church because I am an addict. And I understand them and the things they’ve done. So stop thinking you have to protect me from the things that are happening to you now. You can come to me and tell me what’s going on with you! And I can handle it, Reuben. I swear that to you.”

Reuben felt he was gazing at Jim across a huge divide.

“But there isn’t much you can do to help,” said Reuben. “I’m not running away from what I am now.”

“Have you thought about running away from it?” Jim asked.