Read Online And Also With You by Tandy McCray - Free Book Online Page B

terrify all the families with children decked out in their Christmas finery. The more I slump, the closer to me he scoots on the kneeler. He smells like wood. There’s another smell, one I can’t quite identify. The knees of his jeans are dingy gray and worn. He wears gloves with the fingers out, and there is motor oil or something around his nail beds. That explains the other smell. It’s engine grease.
    “Oh, excuse me. Can we get through?” It’s a youngish Mexican woman with two dark and shiny-haired children and an older woman, grandmother probably, behind her. I look around for the first time. There aren’t any other seats. My warm hovel of quiet refuge has become a celebration house for the blessed.
    Time to go. Everything feels sluggish and faulty, as though I am mired in the ice that clings to the stained glass windows like ghosts. I want to go, but I can’t move. She stares at me. Her smile slips just a bit. The red and white lines on her soft sweater run together and I close my eyes and breathe through my mouth, desperate for…something.
    I register the warmth first, the way his arm goes around me, over my coat but still so hot on my back, and his other hand with just the fingers peeking out lands on my stomach where the coat has come unclasped. The gasp that comes out of me hangs in the air between us but he doesn’t let go. A twist and a gentle heft, and I am sitting on the bench out of the way. He kicks the kneeler up and motions the family through.
    “Please,” he says. “My wife isn’t feeling well tonight but she wouldn’t miss Midnight Mass. You know how it is.” I am positive he’s been drinking but his words are sharp so it would seem that he holds his liquor better than I do.
    He looks at me, really looks, and I lean back against the wooden benches to still my swirling head and give him my eyes. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, and I don’t care. I just really don’t do that anymore.
    Care. I don’t care.
    The older woman leans down as they pass us. She pats him on the shoulder. “I’ll say a prayer for your wife.” She smiles at me, like poor thing, and I grimace. He’s watching as I do. If he wants a thank you, he’s not getting one.
    The service starts with singing, and for Christmas Eve they bring out their best singers, the fine china of worship, who sing with voices so glorious that one cigarette might ruin them forever. I try not to soak it up. Strangely, Sean Connery’s voice comes back to me. They are the pilgrims and I am the unholy land.
    The liturgy goes on with all the usuals but when they are reading about the baby and the promise of life eternal because of the One born this day, I start shaking again. It’s midnight here in Bethlehem and that always gets them going, because we are the chosen city, the Christmas City, and oh, my God, I need a drink.
    “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
    I don’t realize how cold I am until his hand closes over my fingers. I have clenched them in the frays of a gold and green scarf she used to wear, but I cannot focus on it for long. It’s not as warm in here as I hoped it might be, and Brady’s is going to close, and what, what? He actually is holding my hand.
    “The Word of the Lord,” says the woman up front in the deep red dress, and the man holding my hand squeezes and says, “Thanks be to God.”
    I don’t do that either. Thank God.
    His hair is short, fuzzy; the way men’s hair looks when they are growing out a crew cut. I focus on him because he’s warm, and because no one has touched me in nearly a year. No one.
    They give the second reading. He has a longish nose, strong, but not overwhelming. The brown eyes aren’t just brown. They are blackish. They burn. I wonder about leaving, but when I close my eyes to gather myself, the long lashes and the