Wouldn’t that be nice.
“Unfortunately, I don’t see it,” I said. “But really, it’s ultimately up to Lane and Cole, isn’t it? If those two can find a way to bridge their differences, it doesn’t matter what the rest of us think. Similarly, if they’re at each other’s throats, it doesn’t matter how well the rest of us can hold hands and speak about unity.”
It’s no different than it ever has been. Since the day Roger Carter died, it’s always been a story of sibling rivalry.
Father Marcellus bowed his head and closed his eyes. I knew he was praying—or perhaps just thinking—but if someone had driven by, it would have looked like he had fallen asleep in his chair. I would have loved to know how he would come to whatever conclusion he did, because for as much as I’d racked my brain, I hadn’t found anything.
I wouldn’t say the situation was hopeless, but I would say the only hope was surrender to the tides of time.
“You are familiar with the story of Cain and Abel, right?”
“The one where one of the brothers murders the other? Is that supposed to give me hope?”
I added a dark laugh, mostly because I didn’t want to consider the possibility of him saying that was inevitable for the Carters.
“Yes, but there is a strong difference between that and this,” he said. “In that story, Cain and Abel were largely left to their own devices. As children of Adam and Eve, they did not have confidants or friends or club partners to tell them to cool off. You do.”
Oh, shit.It clicked even before the chaplain added another word.
“Phoenix, I know that you have nothing in your heart but anger for Butch and other members of the club, and no one blames you. It is a very human response, and I think even the holiest of people would understand and empathize with your anger. But no one in either of these clubs is a lowly, hopeless puppet that cannot make change while the two puppet masters clash over ego. You can be the catalyst for change. You can encourage the two brothers to reach across the aisle with handshakes instead of fists.”
What I could do was starting to turn some gears. But how I would do it seemed virtually impossible.
“And how would I do that?” I said. “I mean, I can stop them from fighting—”
“You can make it a visible point to forgive Butch.”
“What.”
I hadn’t asked a question. I had been so stunned, so floored, so flabbergasted by what Father Marcellus had said that I just said the first word that came out.
But then I let what he had said sit a little bit. I thought about why Butch had killed my father. I thought about where my father’s loyalties lay, where Butch’s lay, and how I felt about it all.
And...
“You want me to forgive Butch,” I repeated back to him, the words still tasting rotten on my tongue.
“Yes.”
You know he’s right.
“That seems ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, and I can acknowledge that it is far harder than anything I have been asked to do in this life. But look at it like this. What will not forgiving him do? Give you the momentary ego boost that you can lord that over him, when in reality, it poisons you? And what’s the downside to forgiving him? I have already spoken to Butch about this. He would not hold it over your—”
“Wait, stop, stop, stop.”
I took a breath. I didn’t think Father Marcellus had betrayed my trust; actually, I thought that if he had done this, he had done something potentially critical to the unification of the clubs. But I was terrified to hear what Butch had thought.
“You talked to fucking Butch about it?”
“Yes,” he said. “Butch is Butch. It was not a momentous conversation for the ages. But he is not stupid. He understands what needs to be done. And more than that, he understands why you acted the way you did. He was at the funeral, after all. It gave him no pleasure to have to kill your father.”
I know what he’s saying makes sense. I know there’s something to it. But damnit...
“I’ll think about it.”
I left it at that. This was not something I was going to resolve talking to anyone, even a chaplain. It needed to be something pondered.
