Bo's
Gift
Mattie
knew that Paul was having heavy days. He had always been prone to
brooding but it had gotten worse once Bo Freeman came home and even
worse since the job interview at St. Martin's down in the capitol
city. Initially, Paul had been so excited about the possibility of a
new position. He had come home after the initial interview telling
her what a good chance he thought he had, how he believed he had
impressed the committee, how he could already imagine himself Rector
of a thriving parish in a real city.
Mattie listened
joyfully, so pleased at Paul's pleasure. But the moment fell apart
when he said, “at last we can get out of this two-bit town.”
Mattie made sure not to react, but it dawned on Paul what he had said
and the thrill went out of him. He talked a bit more, with much less
enthusiasm and Mattie knew he had been struck by guilt for what he
said. After all, it was 'her' two-bit town, not his.
Mattie had grown up
in Deep Valley, as had her parents before her. Paul was from the
capitol, a big-city boy as things went in that small New England
state. She imagined he didn't even know where Deep Valley was until
he was hired to be the priest at St. Luke's straight out of seminary.
Though, in all the years, he never said so, she knew he had seen it
as a brief stop, a few years before moving on to bigger and bigger
churches, perhaps even to be elected bishop some day, like his father
had been. But, as Mattie's mother used to say whenever plans were
thwarted, “considerations got in the way”.
In fact, Mattie was
the consideration that came between Paul and his ambitions. She had
always told him she would go wherever he needed to go, but either he
hadn't believed her or knew it would grieve her to leave the little
town while her aging parents still lived. So, in the first decade or
so, he patiently waited, putting his longings for a more prestigious
parish on hold. First he waited until Bo finally had to go to the
state hospital 50 miles north. Then he waited for Mattie to get
pregnant, discovering through that wait that it was his fault she
didn't conceive. Finally, he waited for her parents to pass on—first
her father and then, five years later, her mother. Before he knew it
he had been at. St. Luke's , Deep Valley for nearly 25 years. And,
Mattie knew he had already waited too long.
Then, like a
unsuspected marvel, Bo Freeman came home and Paul had to wait until
the new realities of that homecoming settled down. But now, finally
accustomed to having Bo be the child they never had, he felt free to
apply for positions in larger places. But by that time he was already
over 50 and the sad truth was that churches were always looking for
younger priests rather than mature ones. The final interview at St.
Martin's had not gone well—had gone horrendously bad, in fact, and
hope was lost. Paul told Mattie that in so many words when he got
back late at night. She had waited up for him—praying as she
prayed...more like thinking hopeful thoughts...that the news would be
good. That, his waiting finally over, Paul could pursue his dreams.
But he was morose
when he arrived. His eyes were red and swollen and she pictured him
in her mind, weeping as he drove home. He said very little, sentence
fragments really...”too long in a small parish”...”never showed
ambition”...”younger, more exciting candidates”...”our family
situation”...”I'm not my father”...”looking for someone who
could stay longer....”
Mattie was holding
his hands in hers on the kitchen table where they often sat and
talked into the night. She was so deeply, profoundly sorry for him,
distressed to see him so deflated, longing to be able to give
comfort, when those three little words jumped out of the jumble of
his self-accusations: “our family situation”. Mattie could
imagine it all, the closed door conversations of the vestry at St.
Martin's, those doctors and lawyers and university professors and
business men and women who made decisions for the largest church in
the diocese. Their city ways, their busy lives, their attention to
the 'image' of St. Martin's--”Fr. Harden is a good man, a solid
priest, and we know how successful his father was here. It might just
work, but he is older than we'd hoped for and, well, the
family situation....”
They would
have never said it out loud, too conscious of political correctness,
but they would have thought it and it would have weighed heavy on
their minds. How could a priest be Rector of our St. Martin's
whose only child was a retarded adult that didn't really belong to he
or his wife. No they would have never said it out loud, but Mattie
was sure Paul had read between the lines. And though Paul loved her
too much to ever hurt her with the idea, Mattie knew it must be true.
How hadn't either of them anticipated it? Had they simply become
blind to how 'things must look' to strangers? Not that it was the
only reason, Paul had been passed over, but it would have entered in.
Somehow it was Bo Freeman's fault that Paul was not moving on to
receive the much delayed reward for all his loving patience. Mattie's
eyes clouded with tears. She thought her heart might break. In the
end she was what had kept Paul waiting, her devotion to her parents,
her love of Deep Valley, and now, finally her 30 year old promise to
'look after Bo....”
Bo Freeman had been
the reason for the first conversation Paul and Mattie ever had, that
and church music. Mattie had been the organist at St. Luke's for two
years before Fr. Harden arrived. She made an appointment and went in
to play for him two days after his furniture had arrived at the
Rectory so he could decide if he wanted to keep her on the staff. He
stood smiling as she played through a few hymns and a Bach prelude.
He started smiling as soon as she hit the first notes and asked her
how St. Luke's, such a small church, afforded her.
“Oh,” Mattie
said, not so much flattered as intrigued at the 'light up the night'
smile of the seemingly somber and serious young priest, “I teach at
the elementary school and live with my parents, so I don't expect to
get rich on St. Luke's ....”
“Well, you
certainly won't,” Paul said, still smiling.
They talked for a
while about music matters—Fr. Barnes before him had left hymn
selection up to Mattie, using The Choirmaster's Guide to help her.
Paul wanted more imput—but so he would, being young and energetic.
Dear Fr. Barnes had been with them for 30 odd years—he'd baptized
Mattie—and didn't need to 'put his stamp' on the music. That was
the term Fr. Harden had used. Mattie found it amusing. So, in the end
they agreed she would keep playing and Paul promised to try to give
her a raise in the next year.
She was about to
go, when he said, “If there's anything I can ever do for you, let
me know.” And she realized there was. She got off the organ bench
and they sat together in a pew while she tried to explain about Bo
Freeman and the promise she had made.
“Sally Freeman
and I grew up together. We were inseparable from first grade on,”
she told him. “People referred as 'S & M', like the shoe store
in the mall. We were planning to go to college together, room
together and come back to teach school here in Deep Valley. But none
of that happened....”
She went on to
explain that during the summer of their Senior year at the regional
high school, Sally met a 'big city boy' and he got her pregnant and
disappeared. She stopped and apologized, remembering suddenly that
Paul Harden was a 'big city boy'. He waved away her apology and she
continued.
“It all fell
apart, Sally's hopes and dreams,” Mattie told him, “plus, her
parents—very strict people—threw her out. She lives in the little
apartment above my parents' grocery store with Bo.”
Paul was already
familiar with “Holmes' Market”, the only grocery store in town.
It was small but well stocked and saved a drive out to the Big Y on
the Interstate.
“Then Bo was
born,” Mattie went on. “It was clear from the beginning that
something was very wrong with him. He's not Downs Syndrome, but it is
in that genus of conditions....”
Paul missed the
next sentence or two since he was so shocked to find a young women, a
product of the small town of Deep Valley, who used the word 'genus'
so casually. He knew she was a remarkable musician from hearing her
play, but now she was getting interesting.
What came out in
the next five minutes was that Sally (the S in the 'S & M'
girls—although Paul repented thinking momentarily of the other SM,
it obvious hadn't occurred to Mattie) had moved heaven and earth to
keep Bo with her. She worked in Mattie's parents store, offered art
classes at the local library (“I was the musician and Sally was the
artist,” Mattie said.) Paul noticed that she was neither bragging
or embarrassed about saying musician and artist. He was
not used to such straight forward, confident talking. He had spent
his life among those who thrived on irony and sarcasm and figures of
speech. People who didn't offer themselves unprotected to the world.
Even his father, the popular and thriving Rector of St. Martin's in
Capitol City--'sure to be a bishop someday', was the conversation
about Paul Harden, Sr.--even his father had never, in all of Paul's
life, been so unconcealed as this somewhat lovely young woman was
being on their first meeting.
“When I came back
from State College,” she continued, “Bo was turning four and the
real problems were showing up. He still wore diapers, he didn't speak
much and what he said was hard to understand.” She paused, took a
breath. “And he was big. A big boy. The last three years, since
I've been home, I've helped all I could. And my parents have helped.
But then....” Mattie paused, tears rising in her eyes, pain showing
in her face, her body slumping in the pew. She was a slight woman who
became even smaller for a moment. “Then...,” she continued, voice
slightly breaking, “Sally was diagnosed.”
Sally it turned
out, had a form of cancer as insidious and irreversible as Bo's
condition. She had six months at diagnosis, two months now when
Mattie was talking with Paul Harden, her priest, for the first time.
“I promised her,”
Mattie said, near sobbing but controlling it enough to talk, “I
promised her I would 'look after Bo'. He's a dear child—as innocent
and pure as a spring day here in the mountains. And Sally is ready to
sign guardianship over to me, but I need some references....I know
you don't know me, but a priest's reference would....”
Mattie never
finished that sentence because she burst into tears and fell into
Paul's arms. He held her, wondering why Seminary hadn't taught him
about such things, feeling a vibrant, honest, almost lovely young
body against his, hers convulsing in pain, grief, loss. Paul realized
he had no idea whatsoever about what to 'do', so he simply held her
until the rapids of weeping subsided and she sat up, clearing
embarrassed at her out burst, and asked, simply, clearly: “will you
write me a letter, Fr. Harden?”
How could he not?
Of course he asked her if there were other options for Bo
Freeman--”Sally's parents?” “Dead in a car accident when I was
a Senior at State College”.
“Siblings?”
“She was an only child, like me....” And Paul added in a whisper,
“Like me too....”
So he wrote the
letter and Matilda Holmes, 25, his age almost to the day, became the
legal guardian of Bo Freeman when Sally Freeman died. Paul did the
funeral, since Sally's parents had rejected her and their pastor did
as well. She was buried in the small graveyard behind the church, a
Baptist among generations of Deep Valley Episcopalians. Mattie
handled the expenses and the details and then moved into the small
apartment above her parents' grocery, so Bo wouldn't have to adjust
to a new environment. Every thing Mattie did, from that funeral on,
Paul came to understand, was in response to her promise to a dear and
deep friendship. A promise not easily made, a promise that had a
cost, a promise made in true trust and commitment, a promise that
would shape and form, over many years, both Mattie and Paul, and
their lives. A promise rooted in the profound depths of love and
friendship, a promise that could never be broken—no matter what the
fall-out. That was what Matilda ('Mattie') promised to Sally and to
Bo. And it was a promise, so unlike the vast multitude of promises of
human beings, that would be kept. Cost what it may, mean what it
might.
Everything went
well—oh, not 'well', but acceptable, for several years. Mattie
managed Bo well enough, with her parents' help and the help of others
in the little town. Mattie continued to teach, play the organ for St.
Luke's and care for Bo. Paul had to admit that Bo was benign enough.
Since Mattie was so dedicated to him, Bo came with her to choir
practice and church. He was frightening because he was so large and
'different', but the people of St. Luke's accepted him in time. He
even grew on Fr. Harden, though Miss Holmes grew on him more. Paul
was impressed how Bo would sit by the organ console, leaning against
it at choir practice and on Sunday for the two Eucharists. It was
awkward and the source of endless gossip, but over the next few years
Paul wooed and finally won Mattie. They would be married when Bo was
eleven and Mattie and her child born of a promise were going to move
into the rectory after the wedding and leave behind the apartment
over Holmes' Grocery. Most people agreed, up until then that Mattie's
love and devotion could manage the incredible force of nature that
was Bo.
Then it happened, a
week before the wedding. Just as all the wags and lunch counter
philosophers of Deep Valley could have and in fact did predict over
the years: Bo, as much as Mattie had sophisticated and tamed and
acclimated him to the culture of life in Deep Valley—a culture much
more forgiving and accepting than the 'big city' culture that
depended on social workers and institutions—did what could have
been predicted. Bo set fire to their apartment between the time when
Mattie's mother went downstairs to help with the store and the time,
only 20 minutes later, but a lifetime in Bo's life, Mattie got home
from school, having stayed a few minutes longer to speak with a
parent. Bo came home from school—he was in fifth grade though, God
knows, he hadn't passed the previous four. “Social Promotion”,
they called it back then, in the day, and he turned on the stove
after Mattie's mom went downstairs, and it would have been disastrous
had Mattie not arrived and put it out with salt, bath towels and
great courage born of commitment.
Yet there was no
way to keep it from the state social workers. And added to that, Bo
had recently hurt a much smaller classmate. Bobby was on the swing
and Bo merely meant to give him a push, but Bobby saw him, panicked
and fell off the swing. Bo, being 100 pounds heavier tried to pick
Bobby up and broke 3 ribs. Fr. Harding had helped soothe over the
reaction to that event, but when Bo started the fire, well, the state
simply stepped in and Bo went to the hospital in Garden, where he
stayed for years and years.
It was in that
context that Fr. Harden, having waited patiently for years, married
Matilda Holmes.
Time passed, as it
always does, like it or not, and it was not until nearly 20 years
after Mattie and Paul were married (much to the delight of the people
of St. Luke's and the whole village of Deep Valley, loving them
both, but loving Mattie more and wondering, some of them, why she
would waste herself on such a man—a man without ambition, a man
willing to be patient and wait for Matilda Holmes to 'be
available'....) At that point in their thoughts, their wonderings
would stop. What man wouldn't wait for Matilda? What man with any
sense about him wouldn't be patient if patience was what was needed
to win such a prize as Mattie? Maybe this 'big city boy' priest knew
what he was doing. Maybe he was right to be patient and wait. That's
what the people of Deep Valley finally decided—as odd and brooding
as Fr. Harden was, if he had the good sense to wait for Mattie, well,
how much better could he be?
So their married
life began. They were both 30. People talked behind their hands and
wondered out loud in the diner and on the street and at the coffee
hour at St. Luke's when they would have a child. The widows and
mothers of the village looked endlessly at Mattie's waist, but she
remained slim almost to a fault, slender in a way most women first
admired and then envied.
Matilda's parents
wondered too. They waited, as did Paul and Mattie herself. They were
patient and waited and when they finally knew—having submitted
themselves to intrusive and awful tests—that Paul's sperm count was
too low, much too low to induce pregnancy, well, they had waited
patiently and then they knew. And they wouldn't be moving soon, Paul
wouldn't take a new call because Mattie's parents were growing old
and the corner grocery, well stocked and with such variety as it
had—was becoming a dinosaur that people fed, from time to time,
because it was 'their' dinosaur. But, all in all, the Holmes' Grocery
was being laid waste by the 7-ll and the Big Y and a convenience
store over on South Street that stayed open later and had a license
to sell both beer and wine.
Paul and Mattie
shared the aging and death of her parents, shared it equally since
they had been truer parents to Paul than his own parents had been.
But when both Davis and Alma Holmes were dead and buried, near Sally
Freeman, in St. Luke's grave yard, Paul had called his father, now a
bishop on the west coast, to ask, tentatively, if there might be some
churches in his father's diocese that would be interested in him,
Paul Junior.
After an
uncomfortable pause and silence, Paul's father said, sadly, Paul
thought, “You've waited too long. I'll retire in a few years. I
really don't think it would be wise to put your name forward,
knowing, as I do, I won't be here to guard you.”
They spoke for a
bit longer, but Paul knew, knew fair well, he had disappointed and
let down his father by staying so long in Deep Valley, by not being
more aggressive or having more initiative, more ambition. Paul's
father never understood that his 'staying put' at St. Luke's had to
do with waiting for Mattie—someone worth waiting for. Such a
thought would have never entered Bishop Paul Harden's ambitious,
ironic mind.
That all took place
just before Bo Freeman came home. In his years of 'incarceration', as
Mattie saw them, at the State Hospital, Bo had learned even more than
Mattie had taught him. And a new law decreed that people like Bo, who
were able, so far as the state could determine, to live in the
community, must do just that.
Mattie had visited
Bo faithfully every two weeks for over twenty years. Mattie was, in
Paul's mind, one of the few people he'd known who steadfastly kept
her word, her promise to Sally to 'watch out' for Bo. She always
returned and told Paul all about Bo's progress. She even convinced
Paul to go with her two or three times a year and give Bo communion
and anoint him for healing.
It was a struggle
for Paul at first. He had been glad to share Mattie with Bo in her
twice monthly visits, but sharing her and their house with him proved
difficult. Bo was well mannered enough, but, at 34 (several years
past what the doctors had predicted would be his lifespan) he was
large and clumsy and often dropped things and knocked things over.
Bo was polite and pleasant and very goodhearted, but he tied them
down more than Paul had expected and took so much of Mattie's time
and energy. Paul was jealous, he admitted to himself, jealous of the
gentle giant who had 'come home' after so many years. The feelings
Paul had depressed and disappointed him. It was dangerous, he well
knew, to assume he could be as committed as Mattie was to Bo, but he
felt guilty nonetheless. The first year was the hardest but the three
of them eventually settled into their new life together. Bo called
him “Poppy Paul”, having failed to be able to say either 'Father'
or 'Harden'. He called Mattie “Matta” and in time Paul would come
to use the nickname. Things certainly settled down, but it was
another delay, another waiting for Paul. Until they were used to Bo's
presence there was no way to look for a new job.
But then, when St.
Martin's came open—the place where Paul had grown up and his father
had been Rector for so many years. Well, he thought it was FATE
calling to him. He no longer dreamed of being a bishop, like his
father, but at least, he imagined, he could make his father proud by
following in Paul Senior's foot steps. That was why he was so morose
and depressed by the rejection. St. Martin's was the domino that
knocked down all the others. That was why he became withdrawn and
sullen. Mattie didn't seem able to lift his spirits. Bo was merely
confused at the way Poppy Paul was behaving. “Poppy Paul sad?” he
asked Mattie. She had to admit Paul was very, very sad. “Bo help?”
he asked. She embraced the big man, her eyes welling up, “if only
Bo could...,” is all she said.
Even Advent
couldn't take the weight of loss and disappointment from Paul's
shoulders. It had always been his favorite season, but this year, he
barely sang the wondrous Advent hymns, celebrated communion with
little passion and his sermons were less structured, less poetic than
they always were in the Season of Waiting. Perhaps he was through
with waiting. Perhaps he thought there was nothing to wait for
anymore.
Finally, a week
before Christmas, Mattie could take it no more. She found him sitting
in the Rectory office in the dark.
“Paul,” she
said, “I think it's time you talked to someone. Won't you call Dr.
Lewis?” David Lewis was the psychologist in a nearby town who Paul
had recommended to dozens of people over the years.
He looked at her.
Bo was behind her, in the doorway. Paul got up and moved toward her.
“Do you think I'm crazy!” he shouted. “Is that what you
think?”
Mattie was
startled. She didn't remember a time in all their marriage that Paul
had raised his voice to her like that. The shout sent Bo running. In
a moment, they heard the front door open and close. Mattie went after
him, but when she stood on the porch it was too dark to see where he
had gone. Suddenly, Paul was beside her.
“He didn't take a
coat,” she said, shivering in the chill night.
“I'm sure he'll
come back soon,” Paul said, his voice full of guilt. “He won't go
far.”
But a half-hour
later, Bo had not returned though Mattie and then Paul had put on
warm jackets and went out to call for him.
They were about to
give up when Mattie said, “there's a light in the church.”
St. Luke's was
never locked. People often let themselves in late at night, turned on
the chapel light and sat for a while.
“That's not the
chapel light...,” Paul said as they moved toward the door, “it's
candles.”
Sure enough, Bo had
lit the altar candles. He had also moved the creche figures from the
table by the pulpit to the center of the chancel, arranging them just
outside the altar rail. Since it wasn't yet Christmas, the figure of
the Christ Child wasn't out yet, but as they moved down the aisle,
they saw that Bo laying on the floor in front of the little foot-tall
statues of Mary and Joseph, holding something against his chest.
“What on
earth....” Paul's voice trailed off, beginning to comprehend the
tableau before them.
“You see it too,”
Mattie said in a whisper.
By that time, Bo
had gotten to his feet and came hurrying down the aisle toward them.
He gripped, Paul by the arm with one huge hand, in the other he
gently held the creche's Angel.
“Come, Poppy
Paul,” Bo said, excited. Paul let himself be led up the steps where
Bo said, “lay down, Poppy Paul, lay down with Mary and Joseph.”
Paul was already on his knees, tears were rolling down his face. He
let Bo help him down until he was laying on his side. Then Bo pressed
the angel into Paul's hands. “Poppy Paul's Mary's Baby too....”
Paul was weeping
quietly. Bo looked anxiously at Mattie.
“It's okay, Bo,”
she said, holding back a sob herself. She stood rooted to the spot
and watched as Bo sat beside of Paul and cradled his head gently in
his huge arms.
When the tears were
over, Bo helped Paul to his feet. He looked at the priest with a
compassion few would have thought him capable of and asked, “Poppy
Paul is Mary's Baby too?”
“Yes, son,”
Paul said softly, embracing the larger man, “Yes, my son, I am....”
Mattie held her
hand to her mouth. Paul had never called Bo that before. And she
could tell as Paul looked at her and held out a hand to her to join
their embrace that light had come into Paul's darkness and his
life-long waiting was over.
Bo hugged Paul
back.
“Easy, son,”
Paul said, wincing, “careful with my ribs....”
