Chapter 81: Renewal

Friday, April 5, 1985

We hit the road midmorning. The first part of the trip was consumed by discussing the rest of the semester and the summer.

The end of the semester was currently five weeks away. It was a bit surprising to realize we were so close to being done with our first year of college. In forty-year-old memories, my first year at UT had gone so much more slowly, yet I was certain I’d done much more this year.

Perhaps that was the secret: just keep busy.

After a bit of discussion, we decided to call this ‘The Longest Summer’. Classes would end May 10th and not start again until early September. By high school standards, this was very long. By working standards, it was even more so.

We might never take the entire summer as vacation time again (until retirement, anyway, which felt very far away), but we would this summer. One of the biggest concerts in history was happening, and that was just the start of the possible fun.

Neither Cammie nor Mel would have as much time. Cammie was embarking on her real estate career and should have her license by the time school started in the fall, while Mel was taking classes during the first summer term and might take more in the second term. No matter how much better things were with her parents, she saw no reason to be in Houston doing nothing when she could be at home with her girlfriend and taking classes.

We made a quick stop at Kyle’s office, picking up my tax return and dropping off the letters. He promised to have them in Detective Frederick’s hands by the middle of next week.

After that, we headed to Mom and Dad’s house, arriving just before noon. The six of us would have lunch with Mom, and see Dad when he got home, before scattering for the evening.

Mom was happy to see us and had lunch waiting. We spent quite a while discussing most of what was going on. Claire and Katy were not included in those topics. We might talk about them with Camille, but Mom definitely didn’t need that information.

It really was good to get back. It had been right on the edge of ‘too long,’ at least for who we were now. The longest I’d ever gone without seeing them was probably two years at one point in my first life, but we’d often gone a year. I wanted to do better this time, but it depended on just how busy we became.

And on the resources we had. If we, and they, could fly anywhere and not consider the cost, that would change things. Even if we were very busy, they would be retired before much longer.

The next trip we could promise was mid-May once classes had finished. We (or some of us, at least) might come down the weekend before my birthday so we could celebrate together, but it wasn’t a given. It would depend on what else was going on then.

We headed out half an hour after dinner. Our first stop was at the Rileys’, where we dropped off both Cammie and Mel (Mel would take Cammie to the Nguyens’ house later).

After that, we hit the road, making the rounds of bookies. Since Angie had placed these bets, she was the one to pick them off. I made the point of saying hello to them. Only Gerry knew me all that well, but the others were friendly enough. Gerry, in particular, groused good-naturedly about my making things worse by getting my sister involved.

Honestly, no one seemed particularly upset. Undoubtedly, far more of the betting had been on Georgetown. They would have done still better if we hadn’t bet on Villanova, obviously, and this was serious money, but you have to expect bets to somewhat balance if you’re a bookie. That’s why the odds are what they are — to get bets to balance.

Once we had our money (far too much in my car for me to be completely comfortable), we stopped at the Seilers’ to drop off Angie and Paige, taking the time to say hello to the Seilers when we did.

There was no way that Ted would come home for anything short of a major holiday, but that was to be expected. He wasn’t a short car ride away, after all. He would be home at least some this summer, but Paige wouldn’t be home much, so there would only be so much overlap there.

Perhaps Monique had tamed him, too.

Camille spent a while talking me through what the Easter Vigil service would be like tomorrow. Jasmine had also been explaining it, but her perspective wasn’t the same as her mother’s.

For me, it felt like ‘long,’ ‘complicated,’ and ‘full of ritual’ would cover it. That is, compared to the typical Lutheran service.

Contradicting what I’d long believed (undoubtedly based on bad information), the typical Catholic service was generally short, no longer than the Lutheran services I’d grown up with. They lasted perhaps an hour, sometimes less.

The Easter Vigil service, though, would last around three hours. I wouldn’t be expected to know anything in particular, and Camille and Francis both thought it was very unlikely anyone would so much as hint at whether I was interested in joining. They fully expected me to be just as welcome as Jasmine had been at Mom and Dad’s church — and she’d never had any problem there.

I felt as prepared as I was likely to be by the time we went to bed. It should be fine, and I was looking forward to it.

Cammie arrived midway through the explanation and listened attentively. I couldn’t imagine that she was actually interested in Catholicism as an option, but she was a good listener and curious about how other religions functioned. She was, after all, extremely unlikely to go back to the one she had grown up with.

Saturday, April 6, 1985

After a fairly leisurely breakfast, we made the excuse of needing a quick trip to the store. That was a white lie. Our trip was, instead, to the bank, which was open Saturdays until noon. Fortunately, that included the Saturday before Easter.

When I had rented my safe deposit box here long ago, I’d picked a medium-sized one. It was mostly cleared out now. That came in handy now. $600,000 in $100 bills is surprisingly small, but not that small. It’s also surprisingly light, but still heavy.

I wasn’t planning on actually depositing it until the summer. Easter weekend was too risky for that. It wasn’t insured while sitting around as cash, but it would be over FDIC insurance limits in any one account, too, so we would have to split it up. More to the point, this building had never suffered any sort of disaster or serious robbery in my first life, so I felt quite secure with things.

Once that was taken care of, we headed back to the house and then spent a while talking with Camille and Francis. There was so much to catch them up on, from skiing to war games, from movies to classes. We’d brought pictures from our trips and went through them, too, leaving a curated set with them. In my experience, ‘the parents’ always like pictures. I had, when I’d been a parent.

After we’d mostly wrapped that up, Angie, Paige, and Mel came over, joining the two of us and Cammie. Angie had found an interesting article in the Houston Chronicle, and we spent some time discussing it.

The ‘Straight Slate’ people were officially running for every Houston city council seat and the mayor’s office. Louie (it turned out the spelling seemingly varied between Louis and Louie from article to article, something I hadn’t noticed before) Welch was their candidate for mayor. They had their success on the referendum as ‘momentum,’ and declared that Houston needed ‘good, strong, conservative leadership that fought against special rights for deviants.’

I wasn’t surprised about it, nor about the timing. Guns blazing, as it were! We would see how Houston reacted this time. I felt good about our chances. I thought they had woefully misread the referendum electorate’s ‘mandate,’ but I could always be wrong.

Angie, Paige, Mel, and Cammie left before dinner, Cammie with a key to the house so she could get in while we were still at the service.

We had a nice French dinner together, then headed to their church. I’d barely even paid attention to the locations of Catholic churches when I’d grown up (either time), and it turned out there was a good reason for that: there were none within a few miles of Mom and Dad’s house. The one we went to was quite a distance from the Nguyens’ house, at least by comparison to how far Mom and Dad’s church was from either residence. Hardly ‘far’ by Houston standards, but it was well past the area I knew well.

The church itself was grand by comparison to nearly all of the churches I’d attended in the past. Larger, more ornate, and with more spaces and decorative flourishes, it was an impressive edifice. The only larger church I’d personally attended was Houston’s Second Baptist Church, which Dad, Mom, and I had visited once in my first life, simply to do it. Its building had put even this one to shame.

To go with the larger church, they also had a larger congregation. The ministerial team were kept very busy greeting the many parishioners. Few got elaborate greetings. Camille, Francis, and Jasmine didn’t receive any special treatment. Francis introduced me as Jasmine’s boyfriend, I shook some hands, gave a very brief introduction, and that was that.

This was clearly a major social event, though. Many parishioners were meeting and greeting. I got the feeling that, as at many (most?) churches, this was one of the few services that brought out many people. For some, this would be their yearly time to catch up.

Things got started before long, though. And, yes, it was long, elaborate, and ornate. Some stretches were in Latin, but not much, and even Lutherans toss in a bit of Latin here and there. There was little difference in Easter itself between the two faiths, though, so it was easy to follow along.

There was a lot of standing, and a lot of kneeling, and ... pretty much, it was fun. Long, but fun.

Christmas was my favorite holiday in the Christian calendar simply because of what it meant for family, for holidays, and for getting people together. Easter, though, was the most meaningful to me. Yes, the sort of resurrection Jesus experienced (if, indeed, He did — but I was perfectly happy to concede the point for the purpose of discussion) was quite unlike mine, Angie’s, and Laura’s, but we knew it was possible. That’s an enormous change of perspective!

It also called to mind so many other thoughts about rebirth, both literally and figuratively. Jesus hadn’t hung around all that long after He had come back. If He had, would He have been the same? One can only guess, but being dead for a time would probably be a bit of a shock, I would think.

I’d hardly been the same, nor had Angie or Laura. Being ‘back’ was part of that, but the stakes seemed higher now, too. We had received a gift that, perhaps, only one other man had ever received.

Even for people who hadn’t died, though, there are many forms of rebirth. Paige spoke of ‘old Paige’ and ‘new Paige’ almost as sort of rebirth. Jasmine’s end-of-summer breakdown in 1982 had been somewhat similar. Candice, undoubtedly, had been reborn through her brush with death. Perhaps nothing less than going right to the brink of death could have saved her. And, of course, Sharon was in the midst of what could be her own rebirth.

Life is change. Death is a big change, followed by a lack of changes (at least, ones one can perceive, at least as far as anyone else can tell). Getting more life through death was, so far, the biggest change of all. But, if we could live again after death, perhaps death was just a doorway, not an ending. Perhaps that door was almost always one-way, but occasionally it let souls return. If so, where did that doorway usually go? What was that place like?

The priests here would surely have said that doorway led to paradise (eternal life with God), possibly purgatory (a middle state, somewhat unknown), or hell (eternal damnation by separation from God), but was that the answer? Perhaps just an answer? Or was that partly or completely wrong?