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By Root 1143 0

himself. It brought him up short. He hardly knew what to do with the sensation. There was an almost automatic response: an impulse to turn to God in gratitude. He fought it down, clinging stubbornly to the facts: he was doing laundry and riffing on Princess Bride with John Candotti and he was enjoying himself. That was all. Paola Marino was responsible, not God. And he had helped himself. When he’d realized what an improvement the new braces were, he’d asked to be assigned to the laundry. He needed to work at something, and this would be good mild exercise, he argued, natural therapy for his hands. He ate and slept better for it, got through the nights easier. And he was getting stronger. Sure, he had to stop every now and then, a little winded by the repetitive stooping and reaching overhead, but he was gaining on it—

John left his perch on the stones, disturbed as always by these sudden motionless trances. "Here. I’ll help you with this," he said genially, to break the silence, and picked up one of the sheets.

"No!"

John dropped the sheet and backed away.

Sandoz stood there a few moments, breathing hard. "Look. I’m sorry," he said. "I was startled, okay? I didn’t expect you to be standing so close. And I don’t want help! People keep trying to help! I’m sorry, but I hate it. If you would just do me the courtesy of letting me judge—" He turned away, exasperated and close to tears. Finally, he repeated more quietly, "I’m sorry. You put up with a lot of shit from me. I get confused, John. A lot of things get mixed up in this."

Embarrassed and ashamed of the outburst, Emilio turned and bent to the laundry basket, going back to work. After a few minutes, he said over his shoulder, "Don’t just stand there gawking. Give me a hand with this, will you?"

Eyes wide, John shook his head and blew out a breath, but he picked up a pillowcase and hung it on the line.

They finished that basketful in silence and went back into the basement gloom for another load of wash. Setting the basket down, Emilio waited until John joined him and then heaved a sigh, looking at the braces once again. "Yes, these are a great improvement but I still can’t play the violin..."

John was halfway through a sympathetic murmur when Emilio’s grin stopped him. "Shit," John laughed, and the tension between them evaporated. "I can’t believe I fell for that. You never played the violin, right?"

"Baseball, John. All I ever played was baseball." Emilio opened another washer and started dropping towels into the basket, feeling that he was back on top of things again. "Probably too old and beaten up to get around a diamond now anyway. But I had good hands once."

"What position did you play?" John asked.

"Second base, usually. Not enough arm to play outfield. I was pretty consistent at bat, mostly singles and doubles. I wasn’t that good but I loved it."

"The Father General claims he’s still got a bruise where you took his ankle out sliding in to steal third once. He says you were savage."

"This is slander!" Emilio cried. Indignant, he pushed his way out the door again and carried the basket to the line. "Serious, yes. Barbaric, quite possibly. But savage? Only if the score was close."

They worked their way through the basket together, listening to the late morning sounds, pots and pans banging in the kitchen nearby as Brother Cosimo started on lunch, and now the silence was companionable. "You follow baseball, John?" Emilio asked after a while, his voice coming through the rows of wet fabric.

"Cubs fan," John muttered. The Chicagoan’s curse.

Sandoz pushed a towel aside, eyes wide. "How bad?"

"Anybody can have a couple of lousy centuries."

"I guess. Wow." Sandoz let the towel fall back into place. There was a thoughtful silence. "Well, that explains why Giuliani brought you over." Suddenly John heard the Father General’s voice saying: "Voelker, I need someone to take care of a hopeless wreck coming back from Rakhat. Get me a Cubs fan!"

"You’re not hopeless, Emilio."

"John, I could tell you things about hopeless that even a Cubs fan wouldn’t understand."