Last Things by Ralph McInerny Read Free Book Online

records conversations.”

    Tuttle thought he was serious. He got up and went to study the air freshener. He looked at Andrew. “You’re kidding, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s quite a little breeze it puts out.”
    But Cassirer decided to take the fight to the enemy camp. He published an article in the student paper about tenured mediocrity, a mistake. Dozens of students, not all of them anonymous, wrote at length about Cassirer’s incompetence in the classroom. Mabel Gorman wrote that he was simply the worst teacher she had ever had in her life. Word got to Andrew that Cassirer was sure Andrew had orchestrated the campaign. One night he went out to his car and found both rear tires were flat.

7
    Phyllis drove Raymond to LAX from their home in Thousand Oaks. There was not much conversation because of the traffic and her faint resentment that he was going. Had she expected to be asked to accompany him? Unlikely. Someone had to meet their patients. The message from Andrew and then Jessica’s call had filled him with dread, not because his father was on his deathbed but at the thought of returning to Chicago. Neither of them had been back since leaving, taking their own sweet time on a crosscountry jaunt in a rental car and living high on the Order’s credit card. They owed him, that was his attitude. He and Phyllis had become licenced counselors and made a good living giving bad
advice. It was like hearing confessions without giving absolution. The trick was to convince the patient there was no sin. When Raymond decided to go to Chicago it occurred to him that it would give him relief from Phyllis’s obsession with Julia.
    â€œIn a few hours you will be back there.”
    â€œYou can’t go home again.”
    â€œDo you still think of it as home?”
    He touched her arm but she shrugged off his hand. They had become one another’s patients. Physician, heal thyself.
    â€œI’ll cancel your appointments.”
    â€œYou might take some of them.”
    â€œJulia?”
    â€œIf you’d like.”
    If he had been driving she would have started in on it, but they were nearing the airport now and she had to keep alert for the signs. The prospect of time away from Phyllis filled him with the same carefree madness with which they had run away together years before. It had been on the spur of the moment but a moment when they had already gone too far. Driving west over plains and through the mountains and finally to the Golden State had been like shucking the skin of the past. What a romp they’d had. They had driven away from all restraint. In motels they watched soft porn movies and frolicked like teenagers.
    â€œYou can just drop me off.”
    She made a face. “I’m sure you can buy a ticket for yourself.”
    She found a space near the United entrance and he leaned toward her to kiss her cheek, but she turned to him and gave him a passionate kiss.
    â€œBe good.”
    â€œAt a funeral?”
    â€œCall when you get in.”
    He hopped out. She had popped the trunk, and he removed
his bags, then ducked down to smile in at her. She stuck out her tongue, then smiled. He turned and hurried inside.
    When his turn came and he told the girl he wanted a ticket to Chicago, she asked his name.
    â€œI don’t have a reservation.”
    â€œAnd you want to fly today?”
    â€œI have to.”
    She clacked some keys and gave him a figure.
    â€œOuch.”
    She looked sympathetic but then he was giving her the full benefit of his professional smile. “If you didn’t have to travel today …”
    â€œMy father is dying.”
    â€œOh.” Lips rounding in sympathy. “But that’s different.” There was what was called a compassionate exception. He huddled over the counter; they were coconspirators now. She gave a figure half of the previous one. “I’ll try to get you into first