Rage Against the Dying - By Becky Masterman Page 0,129
than I’d ever told Sigmund, including how Paul was nothing like Dad, and how that meant he must be good.
I told Carlo I was terrified that he would leave me if he knew who I really was.
When I was finished, Carlo stayed silent, as if I’d been talking too fast and he needed to catch up. Then he said, “What an asshole.”
Stunned, stricken by his response, I turned my head away. “Maybe you had to be there,” I managed.
“Not you,” Carlo said. “I mean Paul. Paul sounds like a real asshole.”
I sat blinking, processing that, wondering why it didn’t sound like either absolution or penance. One perfect man in my life calling the other perfect man an asshole. I didn’t know what to think anymore.
“And you thought I was like him,” Carlo said. I could feel him humphing mildly on his side of the car. “I did part of my pastoral training as a prison chaplain, for Christ’s sake. I’ve given last rites to someone who was shanked in the ear. I’ve walked someone to their execution when they still used the electric chair and stayed to watch his body melt. What do you take me for, some kind of pansy-assed cleric with Communion wine where his spinal fluid should be?”
“No?” Only I was careful to remove the question mark.
“Fuckin’ A. Because that would be offensive.”
I still had my doubts. “Wait, this isn’t one of those stooping-to-conquer maneuvers, is it?” I asked.
He ignored that. “I can’t understand why you’ve withheld so much of yourself from me.”
That pissed me off. “You didn’t want to know! Remember our first date? You told me that story about the man with the mask. Your message was loud and clear.”
“What did you think I was saying?”
“Whether you knew it or not, you were saying that you were good and I was bad.” Peasil’s body flashed into my head, probably not for the last time. “That I needed to hide all the things I’d seen, all the things I’d done, and pretend to be as good as you.”
“Good Lord, you thought I didn’t imagine what you might have witnessed? I’ve got a PhD and a doctor of divinity, O’Hari, and I’m not stupid. You’re just going to have to, what do you call it, come clean with me.”
“Please don’t make me tell you the truth, Perfesser. It never turns out well. You won’t like me afterwards.”
“Well that’s a chance you’re going to have to take, because I don’t see any other option.”
“Do you think there’s a chance you won’t dump me?”
Carlo knew better than to simply reassure me, knowing how anyone can lie. “This is not a healthy relationship.”
“I’m beginning to see that, but in my defense, I’ve never had any other kind.”
“Maybe with a lot of honesty I think there’s a strong probability that I will not leave you, yes.”
“Before I start a major confession, would you tell me first everything Sigmund told you?”
He paused to consider before shaking his head. “Listen, we can go slowly on this, but for starters—and forgive the aphorism, but for the past twenty-four hours I haven’t been able to come up with a different way to say it—you have to trust the people you love. And you have to trust their love for you. And just to set the record straight, I might add that when I told you the story of the man with the mask I was talking about myself.”
In that moment I had a glimpse of all the men that Carlo had been, all the masks he had worn. I liked this Carlo who was talking now, this powerful man who met me on my own ground. Maybe that’s why I had married him, because I saw this version that first day in his classroom. Until now all the rest between us had just been trying on different people. Maybe we do that at any age.
“Daphne,” I blurted.
“What?”
“My name isn’t really Brigid. I was baptized Daphne, but I changed it when I joined the Bureau so the guys wouldn’t tease me.”
“That’s a start.” Carlo put his hand on mine, the touch throbbing in my viscera. I had not realized until the touch how dangerous the moment had been. His grip tightened and he pulled me closer to him with an aggression that showed me I had underestimated so many things about him. I was close enough now to see his face even in the darkness.