With the Father by Jenni Moen Read Free Book Online Page A

hands.  
    She swiped her
thumb across the phone’s black glass face and was met with the passcode screen.
She stared at it dumbly.   I knew the
feeling. I had spent hours staring at it myself.
    “I can’t figure it
out,” I said, my voice a quiet wail.   “And I know there’s a message in there from the kids. They called him
the day before to sing him a song. But I can’t figure out his code.” I glared
at the device as if it were to blame.
    “We’ll figure it
out,” she said. “It’s probably something obvious.”  
    I had already tried every possible code I could think of. Our wedding date. The kids’ birthdays. My birthday. Jonathan’s birthday. I’d also tried every
obvious numerical pattern. Up. Down. Across. Diagonal. Nothing worked.
    Embarrassingly, I spent hours, day after day, entering different
combinations of numbers and letters. After six attempts, the phone would lock
up and not let me try again for a very long minute.
    Kate put the infuriating device down on the bed between us. “Listen. We
need to talk about last night.”
    I laid back on the bed, clutching the picture
frame to my chest.
    “I’m really sorry,” she began. “I should have told you I was working
with Maddox, but I didn’t want to upset you.”
    “It’s okay,” I
said. “I’m not upset any more.” Father Paul helped me understand that she was
only trying to help. I hadn’t given her a lot of opportunities to do that.
    “I just needed something to do everyday, and Maddox asked me to come
help go through Jonathan’s office. He didn’t want a secretary to do it and I
didn’t want you to have to do it.”
    “I know,” I said. “It’s okay.”
    “And I can’t just sit around this house all day. It’s too depressing.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    She leaned over and looked me in the eye. “So let’s get you out more.
Last night wasn’t so bad.”
    “It was pretty bad. I’m not fit for public consumption.” My
attention waned when other people talked about things that I now considered
mundane, and it never went anywhere good. All of these things created a social
rift that was as difficult for the people around me as it was for me.
    “You are, too. Maybe we can try having dinner with Arden next week.”
She looked hopeful.
    “Do we have to go to dinner?”
    “Would you rather do something else? I think there’s a new Ryan
Reynolds movie at the theater.”
    A movie would be better than dinner. Less talking. Less awkward
steering of the conversation away from touchy subjects like Arden’s son,
Jackson, who had been in Trey’s class, or her daughter, Autumn, who was one
year older than Isabelle. Less of me trying to act like I was
normal. “It’s just awkward.”
    “I know.” Kate laid back on the bed. “So what
else can we find for you to do? You could come to Karen’s Kitchen with me.
Father Paul asked me to help out tonight.” She was turning into a real Mother
Theresa. Everyone seemed to need her help these days.
    “I think I’ll pass.” I watched the fan blades go around. I tried to
pick one and follow it until I got dizzy again. “But I am going to help Father
Paul with the coat drive that’s coming up,” I added, surprising myself.
    She popped up on an elbow. “You are?”  
    “I am. And I’m going to take Aurora to the park today.” Upon hearing
her name, the dog raised her head from her spot at the end of my bed and
snorted in my sister’s face.
    “That’s great,” she said, patting Aurora’s head to appease her. “I
really like him, and he seems to really care about people.”
    “He likes to help people in need, and now he thinks I’m one of them.”
    “Probably. But he’s funny and pretty easy on the eyes. I certainly
wouldn’t toss him out of bed for eating crackers.”
    I turned to face her. “He’s a priest , Kate.   A priest.”
    “Well, yeah. But he’s not dead and neither am I.” Her eyes darkened as
she immediately realized what she’d said.