December Adagio
Adagio:
At a slow tempo.
Chapter Three
When Søren called, Kingsley answered. Even when the call was nothing more than an invitation to dinner.
In the late afternoon of a bright mid-December day, Kingsley drove himself to Wakefield. He parked the black BMW he used for private trips in the church’s parking lot. As he walked to the sanctuary, he gazed up at the church. Bathed in the watery light of a winter sun, it looked like a Currier & Ives calendar. Perfectly picturesque. Pure New England. Before going inside to find Søren, Kingsley glanced around, taking in the scene, committing it to memory.
Usually, Kingsley looked forward to his nights with Søren with a sense of anticipation bordering on feverishness. Not today. It wasn’t going to be easy being with his lover and not telling him the momentous decision he’d made. Six weeks ago, he’d asked himself how he could un-invite the whole city from the party that had been his life. Now he knew the answer.
If the party won’t leave, you leave the party.
He had no plans to tell anyone what he had decided—not Søren, not Juliette, not anyone—until after the holidays. He didn’t want to ruin Christmas, not after all they’d been through this year. Kingsley walked on toward the church.
Two enormous wreaths of greenery tied with red bows hung on the great double doors of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. He went inside, where he heard voices coming from the sanctuary. Sounded like an argument. One male voice, unmistakably Søren’s. A younger woman’s voice—not Nora’s.
Kingsley poked his head through the doors and saw Søren sitting at the bench of the church’s grand piano with a young woman—Maxine, who used to play soccer with them on Sacred Heart’s intramural church league team. She was college-aged now, with short dark hair and an athlete’s compact build. For some reason, she was thrusting her left hand out at Søren and pointing at it.
“One hard whack,” she was saying. “That’s all I ask.”
Catholics were getting stranger all the time.
“What’s going on?” Kingsley asked as he came to stand by Maxine. She turned to face him, gasped at the sight of him, and threw herself into his arms.
“King!” she yelled in delight.
“Missed you, too,” he said, returning the embrace with affection.
She pulled back, but left her hands on his shoulders and gently shook him. “You’re having a baby!”
“Not exactly,” Kingsley said. “I’ve outsourced that part to Juliette.”
“I’m so happy for you.” Maxine shook him again. She really was a very sturdy girl. Kingsley’s brain bounced around his skull like a pinball until she let him go.
“I’m very happy for me, too,” he said. “Or will be when the concussion subsides.”
Søren was watching this whole show with an expression of barely concealed amusement. He shook his handsome blond head, turned back to his piano, and played a few notes.
Maxine grinned, showing all her teeth. “Could you do me a favor, King?”
“Sexual?”
“Not today,” she said. “Can you please tell Father S to hit me as hard as he can with a Bible?”
“No, no, no,” Søren said, punctuating the no’s with three descending notes on his piano.
“Why do you want him to hit you with a Bible?” Kingsley asked. “Other than the obvious.”
“I have a tumor,” she said, wincing.
“A what?”
“Maxine is exaggerating,” Søren said. “She has a small ganglion cyst in her hand that requires minor medical attention, not being slapped with a Bible. Especially not by me.”
“Look at it.” Maxine held up her left hand and pointed to a tiny bump on the back near her wrist. “Isn’t it disgusting?”
“Grotesque.” Kingsley could barely see it.
“Right? It’s called a Bible bump,” she said. “It’s called that because the way you’re supposed to get rid of it is by hitting it hard as you can with a Bible to make it pop. Nobody around here can whack harder than Father S—”
“This is very true,” Kingsley said.
“But he won’t do it. Says it’s ‘assault on a parishioner’ or some bullshit like that. Sorry, Father S.”
“Assault or not, if you want your cyst gone, call a doctor,” Søren said. “Hitting it with a Bible is an old wives’ tale.”
“Sexist,” Maxine said.
“I’ll do it,” Kingsley said.
“Good Lord.” Søren sighed and returned his attention to the piano, playing a slow, melancholy tune.
“Father S, do you mind?” Maxine said. “We’re trying to do a medical procedure here.”
Søren swiftly stood up, closed the fallboard on his piano, and walked out of the sanctuary.
“Thank God,” Maxine said, shaking her head. “Now, will you really whack me with a Bible?”
“It would be an honor and a pleasure.”
Kingsley never turned down an opportunity to take a whip, paddle, or a New Revised Standard Version Bible (red leather, how apropos) to an attractive young woman.
He had Maxine duck behind a pew and grip the rounded top, giving him a clean target. With her head down, she recited the Latin Pater noster in hushed tones. Kingsley narrowed his eyes, readied the heavy leather Bible, and just as he had hefted the holy book over his head, he felt it plucked from his hand.
“What?” Kingsley turned. Søren stood there, the Bible tucked under his arm.
“Here,” he said and held out a small scrap of paper. “Maxine, you have an appointment this week with Dr. Liz Rayden, an orthopedist. She’s booked until March, but she said she’d see you this week.”
Maxine looked up at him and rolled her eyes. She stood up, took the paper, and tucked it in her pocket.
“Fine. Fine. See if I ever ask you for help again,” she said. She threw her arms around Kingsley for another hug and said into his ear, “You’re going to make a great dad, you know.”
It was the sort of bland nicety people said to expectant parents, but Maxine had said it with such sweet and easy faith in him, he felt a lump in his throat. “Merci.”
“And when your kid’s big enough, they can join the Sacred Heart Attacks!”
“I still despise that team name,” Søren said.
“You were outvoted,” Maxine said. “Get over it.” She released Kingsley from her hug and pointed at Søren. “Merry Christmas, and thanks for nothing. Me and my tumor are out of here.”
She started for the door, and Søren began to say, “It’s not—”
“Don’t,” Kingsley said. “Just don’t.”
“I can’t believe you were actually going to hit Maxine’s cyst with a Bible. What if you’d broken her hand?”
“There were two positive outcomes either way,” Kingsley said. “Either it would work, and goodbye cyst. Or…she’d learn once and for all to listen to you.”