Home Again

The thought made Angel mad.

“Well?” Francis said.

“What do you want to know, Franco? Did I screw her? No, I didn’t. It’s a little tough hooked up to a heart monitor.”

He saw the distaste in his brother’s eyes, the disappointment. Francis sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I know you didn’t… sleep with her. That’s not what I was asking.”

Angel felt like an insect before his brother’s penetrating gaze. And the worst of it was, Angel knew it was all in his own mind, knew that Francis felt none of this tension, none of this childish competition. But, as always, Francis brought out the worst in Angel.

“Are you screwing her?” Angel asked, sickened and shamed by his own question, but unable to hold it back.

Francis eyed him, saying nothing for a long time. Each second of silence felt like an hour. “I’m a priest,” Francis said finally.

Angel felt a rush of relief, then a surprising pride. He remembered all the times he had sat on the front stoop with his big brother, listening to ten-year-old Francis’s dreams of becoming a priest. “You did it, huh? Good for you.”

“All in all, it’s been good. It made Ma think God would overlook everyth

ing about her.”

Angel found himself smiling. For a second, it felt as if they were kids again. “If she made it to Heaven, you’ve been screwed.”

Francis laughed. “That’s for sure.”

“What’s it like, being a priest?”

“Good. A little … lonely sometimes.”

Angel saw unhappiness in his brother’s blue eyes, and a vague shadow of dissatisfaction. He knew suddenly, the way he used to just “know” things about Francis, that his brother was talking about Madelaine again. “You love her.”

Francis flinched, then gave a feeble laugh. “You always could read my mind. Yeah, I do.”

It hurt, that sad, quiet statement of fact. It irritated the hell out of him that it should hurt so much, after all these years. “And she loves you,” Angel shot back. “Probably one of those sordid, heart-wrenching Thorn Birds kind of things. What do you do, lock eyes over the Communion wafer?”

“She’s not a Catholic.”

Angel frowned. It wasn’t an answer at all. He felt the anger coming back, prickling him. Now, he thought. Shut up now and you’ll be okay. But on the tide of the anger came the words, unstoppable, unchangeable. “What’d you do, help her through the rough times after I left?”

Francis’s face turned surprisingly hard. “After you left, she was all alone. Alex cut her off and kicked her out of the house. She needed somebody.”

“And there you were,” Angel said in a bitter, sarcastic voice.

“And there you weren’t.”

Angel winced. “Touché, big brother.”

Francis moved his chair closer. “What in God’s name did you expect her to do?”

Angel squeezed his eyes shut He refused to feel shame now, all these years later. It was a useless waste of time. She’d obviously done all right for herself.

“She believed in you, Angel,” Francis said quietly. “We both did.”

Shame tightened his stomach. “Yeah, well, life sucks. People let you down.”

“They also change and apologize and seek redemption.”

“Don’t give me that saintly crap. It’s too late for me to apologize or change, and redemption is way out of my reach. I think I’ll just stumble along as I always have.”

“You aren’t going to see Madelaine anymore, then?”