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On Good Friday Jacob took his father to the senior medical centre in Ithaca, and it's official--Mr. MacNaight has Alzheimer's. Jacob listens to the talk quietly, takes in what the doctor has to say and files it away in his memory, and spends the rest of the day reading with his hands in fists, trying not to be angry at God.
On Holy Saturday he helps to decorate the church and fasts again, mostly just wishing Mrs. Sanford hadn't given all her workers a long weekend for the holiday.
Come Easter, he goes to the service--both services, the early and the late, plays with the kids, helps with the egg hunt, cleans up afterward with the ladies in the altar guild. He goes home to check on his dad, but everything's okay, at least for the most part. Ruth talked about visiting, but she's got her daughter-in-law's family to tie her up.
At six o'clock he puts his dad to bed, and by seven he's at the bar, the only place in the whole town that isn't closed for Easter. He's never done this before, but then again he's never felt this sense of loss before. First his father, then the brother he never met--then Heliabel, then his witch-woman in the forest. After that Galahad, and he bore all those losses steadfastly, trusting in God. But he still doesn't have Galahad; he's alone in this new time with his memories of the old, and his brothers and sisters are scattered across the continent, and his dad is disappearing in pieces, like an onion that gets peeled down, one layer after another.
He nurses a beer. The combination of fluorescent signs and low lights makes his head hurt, and the only people in the bar on a day like this, in a town like this, are the people who don't have anywhere else to go.
On Holy Saturday he helps to decorate the church and fasts again, mostly just wishing Mrs. Sanford hadn't given all her workers a long weekend for the holiday.
Come Easter, he goes to the service--both services, the early and the late, plays with the kids, helps with the egg hunt, cleans up afterward with the ladies in the altar guild. He goes home to check on his dad, but everything's okay, at least for the most part. Ruth talked about visiting, but she's got her daughter-in-law's family to tie her up.
At six o'clock he puts his dad to bed, and by seven he's at the bar, the only place in the whole town that isn't closed for Easter. He's never done this before, but then again he's never felt this sense of loss before. First his father, then the brother he never met--then Heliabel, then his witch-woman in the forest. After that Galahad, and he bore all those losses steadfastly, trusting in God. But he still doesn't have Galahad; he's alone in this new time with his memories of the old, and his brothers and sisters are scattered across the continent, and his dad is disappearing in pieces, like an onion that gets peeled down, one layer after another.
He nurses a beer. The combination of fluorescent signs and low lights makes his head hurt, and the only people in the bar on a day like this, in a town like this, are the people who don't have anywhere else to go.