Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [56]
“I dislike kitchens,” the man said harshly.
For a moment, Ian thought he still hadn’t made himself clear. But the man went on: “They’re junk. See this hinge.” He pointed to it—an ornately curlicued piece of black metal, dimpled all over with artificial hammer marks. “My real work is furniture,” he said.
“Fine,” Ian told him. What did he care? Kitchen cabinets, furniture, it was all the same to him: inanimate objects. Something he could deal with that he couldn’t mess up. Or if he did mess up, it was possible to repair the damage.
“I have a workshop. I make things I like,” the man said. He spoke like anyone else except for a certain insistence of tone, a thickness in the consonants, as if he had a cold. “These kitchens, they’re just for the money.”
“That’s okay! That’s fine! And as for money,” Ian said, “you could pay me minimum wage. Or lower, to start with, because I’m just an apprentice. Student,” he added, for he saw now that it was the uncommon word “apprentice” that had given him trouble. “And any time you have to do a kitchen, you could send me instead.”
He knew he had a hope, then. He could tell by the wistful, visionary look that slowly dawned in the man’s gray eyes.
But were his parents impressed with Ian’s initiative? No. They just sat there blankly. “It’s not brute labor, after all,” he told them. “It’s a craft! It’s like an art.”
“Ian,” his father said, “if you’re busy learning this … art, how will you help with the kids?”
“I’ll work out a schedule with my boss,” Ian said. “Also there’s this church that’s going to pitch in.”
“This what?”
“Church.”
They tilted their heads.
“There’s this … it’s kind of hard to explain,” he said. “This church sort of place on York Road, see, that believes you have to really do something practical to atone for your, shall we call them, sins. And if you agree to that, they’ll pitch in. You can sign up on a bulletin board—the hours you need help, the hours you’ve got free to help others—”
“What in the name of God …?” Bee asked.
“Well, that’s just it,” Ian said. “I mean, I don’t want to sound corny or anything but it is in the name of God. ‘Let us not love in—’ what—‘in just words or in tongue, but in—’ ”
“Ian, have you fallen into the hands of some sect?” his father asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Ian said. “I have merely discovered a church that makes sense to me, the same as Dober Street Presbyterian makes sense to you and Mom.”
“Dober Street didn’t ask us to abandon our educations,” his mother told him. “Of course we have nothing against religion; we raised all of you children to be Christians. But our church never asked us to abandon our entire way of life.”
“Well, maybe it should have,” Ian said.
His parents looked at each other.
His mother said, “I don’t believe this. I do not believe it. No matter how long I’ve been a mother, it seems my children can still come up with something new and unexpected to do to me.”
“I’m not doing this to you! Why does everything have to relate to you all the time? It’s for me, can’t you get that into your head? It’s something I have to do for myself, to be forgiven.”
“Forgiven what, Ian?” his father asked.
Ian swallowed.
“You’re nineteen years old, son. You’re a fine, considerate, upstanding human being. What sin could you possibly be guilty of that would require you to uproot your whole existence?”
Reverend Emmett had said Ian would have to tell them. He’d said that was the only way. Ian had tried to explain how much it would hurt them, but Reverend Emmett had held firm. Sometimes a wound must be scraped out before it can heal, he had said.
Ian said, “I’m the one who caused Danny to die. He drove into that wall on purpose.”
Nobody spoke. His mother’s face was white, almost flinty.
“I told him Lucy was, um, not faithful,” he said.
He had thought there would be questions. He had assumed they would ask for details, pull the single strand he’d handed them till the whole ugly story came tumbling out. But they just sat silent, staring at him.