Tenebrae

The last sliver of the setting sun was minutes from disappearing when Alice pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home. She took a careful look and nodded, satisfied. It was deserted. Well, almost. Kay’s midnight-blue Benz was still near the door.

Just the sight of Kay’s car brought back a host of memories, of trips taken together, the four of them. Kay always drove, of course. A superb driver, but more importantly, an enthusiastic one. That was Kay – passionate, sometimes overwhelming, driven, accomplished. In a city of big personalities, she was a rule unto herself. It was hard to believe, somehow, that the world would keep spinning, all on its own, without Kay there to ensure that the thing was done properly.

Alice parked her own, very modest, metallic gray Corolla next to Kay’s power car. She stepped out and took two steps towards the front doors of the establishment before stopping, returning to her car and popping the trunk. She pulled out her rainbow-colored stole and settled it on her shoulders. This would be official, even if it was unusual.

As she expected, there was no usher to open the door when she arrived. Calling hours had ended well over an hour earlier, and the most dilatory chatty Cathies had gone home to their dinners. But the door was not locked. She entered without issue and walked across the outer greeting area and towards the interior doors to the memorial chapel.

Old Carl came out of the inner office when he heard the door open, but, seeing who it was, he relaxed. “Mr. Stafford said not to let anyone disturb him, but he did say I could make an exception if you showed up.”

She patted Carl’s arm with quiet affection. Ministers tended to be on familiar terms with the men – it was almost always men – who ran funeral homes. It was one of the few times that many people found the need for some spiritual care, after all. “Thanks, Carl. I’ll see myself in and out.”

He murmured his agreement and returned to his inner sanctum.

She faced the walnut door, took a calming breath, and turned the ornate knob.

The inner chapel was largely in shadow. The stained glass window at the other end, which avoided sectarian theological controversy by the expedient of artistic abstraction, glowed with the final light of the day, and four large candles surrounded the open casket. Those sources, however, provided ample light to see the spare figure in a widow’s formal black dress at the strategically placed kneeler.

The figure made no movement, gave no sign of awareness as she approached, even though her heels echoed against the terrazzo floor. Not until she was almost close enough to reach out a comforting hand.

“I thought you might come back.” The dry tenor would never be convincingly female, but all of the voice’s color – the subtleties that conveyed welcome, and shared grief, and mind-numbing weariness – all of those spoke the deeper truth. The truth that the body itself concealed.

“Of course I came back, Jane,” Alice replied. “Sorry about the Bishop, earlier.”

Her friend got up from the kneeler, one stocking-clad leg at a time, then unbent painfully. “The spirit is willing, but Christ, the flesh is weak. Don’t worry about your nominal superior. I knew he’d be the one to say the words, but in my mind, I heard you anyway.”

Alice wrapped an arm around Jane’s waist to give her some assistance. They stood together, arm in arm, looking down at Kay’s lifeless body, Jane towering above the petite minister. Carl’s crew had done what they could do, but the waxen features looked nothing like the bold, energetic and larger-than-life woman they had known for nearly five decades.

“I wish to God we could have avoided this,” Jane said. “But Kay’s instructions were very precise. Still, it did allow me my time.”

“My time,” in this case, meant “Jane’s time.” She would have had hours today already, and would have the formal funeral and burial services to get through tomorrow as well. Everybody who was anybody would be there. But in that public-facing time, she would wear a different face. Carry a different name.

Paul Stafford, the deceased’s husband.

“Are you planning on doing the whole vigil on your knees?” Alice inquired, practically. “It won’t make your job tomorrow any easier.”

“I suppose not,” the tall woman replied with a sigh. “She probably would have managed it, if I’d gone first. But my old knees won’t stand it, I’m afraid.” They stood quietly for a few minutes before, in a sort of joint, silent accord, they stepped back and sat down in the first row of chairs, side by side.

“How are the kids taking it?” Alice asked after a longer pause. Jane just stared at the casket, unseeing, silent. Alice was wondering if her friend had even heard her.

Eventually, though, Jane responded, sounding as if she was unaware that it had taken her minutes to gather her thoughts. “Julie looks like someone hit her in the head with a log. She can’t imagine a world without her mother. Spencer can – but he doesn’t much like the way it looks. I think Julie will be okay; Devin will get her through it, and she’s got Dana and Tom to keep her tethered to the real world. Spense . . . I’m not so sure. I worry about him, Alice.”

“You always have,” she responded fondly. “But somehow he’s always found a way. You should trust him more.”

The shadows failed to conceal the ghost of a smile that played across Jane’s thin, rose-tinted lips. “So you’ve mentioned . . . once or twice.” The silence returned as the glow began to fade from the window, the darkling sky behind providing increasingly scant illumination.

“I can’t imagine the world without her either, Alice,” Jane whispered. “I’ve tried. I just can’t.”

Alice took Jane’s bony hand in both of her own, the dagger of grief in her own heart a pale echo of what she saw etched in Jane’s face.

All she could think to say was, “I know, honey. I know.” This was not the right time, she knew, to speak of the next world. Alice was as confident as she was of anything – as confident as she was that the sun would rise tomorrow even without Kay’s assistance – that Kay’s ebullient spirit had been welcomed into paradise to the sound of trumpets. Heaven without Kay just wouldn’t be heaven, since it wouldn’t be remotely perfect. The issue that needed to be addressed wasn’t Kay’s fate beyond the confines of this world, but her spouse’s fate within it.

“I never understood it.” Jane’s voice was low and choked with pain. “She was beautiful, talented, full of life . . . she could have had anyone. Anyone. But she wanted me. The shy, artistic guy who sat in the back of the class. I was so alone, those days. Before I met her. And even after . . . even after she found out that Paul wasn’t just Paul, she still loved me. She even loved plain Jane. I’m passable as a man, but I’m a gargoyle as a woman. You know that. But Kay . . . Kay didn’t see it that way. Or she didn’t care.”

It hadn’t been so easy as all that, Alice knew. Kay had discovered Paul wearing lingerie after they were already married, and she had been royally, almost titanically, pissed. Mostly because of the deception, but it wasn’t only that. Kay had been a beautiful woman, certainly, but she had also been tall and strong, courageous, stubborn, charismatic . . . a born leader. There were plenty of catty girls and insecure men along the way who labeled her as “mannish.” The discovery that her own husband viewed himself as being female profoundly shook Kay’s faith in her own femininity. Alice, her contemporary and at the time new to ministry, had helped get her through it.

Kay had found a way past her anger and past her self-doubts. She decided that she loved Paul enough to not only forgive him, but to make room for Jane as well. They had made a bargain and stayed with it. He was Paul to the outside world and to their twins. But with Kay, he had been free to be Jane.

In time, Kay had made her own peace with it, telling Alice, “In the bedroom, when the lights are out, the person I feel under my hands, between my legs, buried inside me . . . that person has a body that is male. I know it. And I need that. I need it, Alice. But . . . the heart, the soul, the mind? He . . . or she . . . says, these are the things that are female. Who am I to say? All I know is, male or female, they are why I’m in love. They are why I stay. If it gives her peace for me to call her Jane, to recognize that the things I love most about her are feminine, I will. And if it makes her happy to express her femininity in how she acts with me, how she dresses, even how she makes love, that doesn’t make me either her husband or a lesbian. It’s not about me.”

Kay had shared those feelings in the deepest confidence, and Alice would never betray a trust. But neither would she ever forget Kay’s words. Kay had been one of the few people Alice had ever met who could see the reality beyond the direct evidence her senses presented. She had seen the incredible, beautiful person beneath the shell that Paul Stafford presented to the world, and she had loved and cherished it for decades. Allowed that spirit to blossom and flourish.

Of course, the bargain they had made created limits as well. Jane had to maintain her ability to present as Paul, and so had not transitioned. Regardless of how she dressed or did her hair, regardless of the artistic skill with which she applied her makeup, Jane would never look or sound convincingly female; that she was 6’2” in her stocking feet would have made it difficult even had their bargain been different. Jane’s social network was minute – just Kay, Alice, and Alice’s partner, Bea. But Jane had accepted those limits without hesitation. She had wanted nothing more in life than to make Kay happy.

All Alice said was, “She loved you, Jane. It’s that simple. Or that deep, depending on how you look at it.”

“I know. But how could she? It doesn’t . . . I’m . . . I’m . . . “ She couldn’t finish her thought, it distressed her too much.

Alice finished it for her. “You’re beautiful, Jane. Beautiful. Kay saw that. People say love is blind; it’s not. Love sees all the imperfections, it just knows how little they matter. Love is divine, because God is love. So when we see with love, like Kay did, we see as God sees.”

Jane was weeping. “No, Alice. God made me a freak. A woman inside, a scarecrow of a man outside. Maybe Kay pitied me.”

“That’s not a very good read on your woman,” Alice replied. “Kay didn’t think you were a freak, and while she was a truly wonderful woman, her love was always more about passion than compassion. You know that.”

The words were quiet, even gentle, but they hit home with force. Jane might be feeling sorry for herself, but . . . no, Kay would not have stayed for pity. Not Kay. She gave money out of charity, for pity; but herself? She only gave herself to her passions, and she did so wholly without stint. Her spouse had simply been the greatest, most intense, most intimate passion of her life.

Jane nodded, accepting the truth Alice had voiced. “Alright . . . I guess you’ve got me there. But I’ll never understand it. She filled my life with wonder, every day. Now I’ve got to drive her car back to that house . . . our sanctuary. And she won’t be there, ever again.”

When the twins had been small, Jane had only had time and space behind the closed doors of the master bedroom. Once Julie and Spencer were grown and had moved away, though, Jane expanded her domain to the entire house.

“It’s still your place, Jane,” Alice said, her voice tentative. That was, of course, true in every material sense. But this went deeper. It wasn’t just Jane’s sanctuary; it was the sanctuary for Jane and Kay’s unique marriage. The kitchen where Jane labored to make special dishes that she knew Kay would love. The alcove where they had their morning coffee together in matching silk dressing gowns, sometimes sharing the New York Times crossword puzzle. The cozy couch by the fireplace where they would cuddle together on cold winter evenings.

Jane confirmed Alice’s intuition. “It was all for her, Alice. Every design choice I made, every color I selected . . . it was all for her. Things that would make her happy. Make her laugh that great, gurgling, goofy laugh of hers. That house without Kay . . . it’s a museum. I can’t live there. And if I can’t be there, where can I be? There’s a place in this world for ‘Paul,’ but there’s never been a place for me. Except the one that Kay made for me, at her side.”

Jane was weeping now, a flood of tears for a life that had been pointless and lonely, but had been redeemed by the powerful love of the woman whose body lay before them. The woman who had seen and known her, as God has always seen and known her: whole and pure and beautiful as the first cherry blossoms of spring.

Alice remembered the last time the four of them had gotten together for dinner and bridge, just a bit over a year ago. As usual, Jane had made something exquisite. She had based the entire dinner around the bottle of wine that she knew Bea had selected. Jane had made the stock for the soup the prior week; she had hand-dried the lettuce for the salad and had picked the tomatoes from her own garden . . . everything was always like that, with Jane. The house itself was the best example, a simple design that Jane’s artistic vision had transformed into a jewel box for the love of her life.

Jane and Kay were well-paired in bridge; Kay always daring, Jane so attuned to her spouse that she could practically read her mind. They won more often than they lost, even though Alice and Bea were keen players themselves. The four of them had sat and talked afterwards, as they had done countless times before, about life and love and the world and the kingdom. They had never imagined that this time, of all the times, would be the last. And if they had, they certainly wouldn’t have believed that Kay would be the first to depart. It really was hard to imagine the world without her spark.

Alice could understand why Jane would not want to be in that house now, all alone with her memories. “Jane, my love, there’s a place for you with Bea and I, at least for now. Until you get your feet under you. Please. We love you too. If the house is too painful, come stay with us.”

“Thanks, Rev,” Jane said through her tears. “I may have to take you up on that. At least for a bit. Until I figure out how . . . how to keep going. I can’t just give up; the kids still need me. Well, Paul. But nevermind.”

“Have you ever considered telling them?”

Jane shook her head sadly. “We considered it, from time to time. We both decided it wasn’t something they would be able to handle well. And now, with their Mom gone, I doubt they can take another shock. They’re good kids. But Paul’s all they’ve got left now. I can’t have them see him as a lie.”

“Is Paul a lie, to you?” Alice asked gently. It seemed like a harsh description. When they had gone out together, or when the other couple had visited their house, Jane had always come as Paul. That had been their rule, and Jane had always followed it, even when they went to Alice and Bea’s house. In Alice’s experience, Paul and Jane weren't radically different people. Paul Stafford was kind and thoughtful, did not put himself forward, was artistically gifted, creative and articulate in an understated way. Jane was those things, just more intensely so. Maybe more freely so. What seemed, in Paul, to be reserve, was manifested in Jane as simple shyness. As either Paul or Jane, she had always seemed well-paired with Kay, who needed a stabilizing anchor in her life.

“It felt like it, sometimes,” Jane said. “Mostly because I just wanted to be myself. To talk to people about the things that matter, the deep things, the personal things. The ways that women share, and men typically don’t. I wanted to move with grace, to speak gently, to give comfort, and not be thought less for it. I didn’t really filter myself much around you and Bea; you knew who I was. But at work, or in town, it was different. More filters, more barriers. Even with the kids, I put on the show. To make sure that they would see me as their father. Not to interfere with Kay’s role as mother. So I coached T-Ball for Spence, but Kay was the one who was always with Julie for the step dancing. I’d go to the feis; we’d all go, as a family. But all the practice, the training . . . that was mother-daughter time.”

She was silent a bit more, thinking. “I don’t suppose Paul’s really a lie. The thoughts and feelings I express as Paul are genuine. I just don’t say everything that I might say, or say it in the same way, as I might if I were free to be Jane. But, that’s probably not how the kids would see it.”

Over forty years of marriage. Two children, two grandchildren. If Jane thought it would hurt her kids to know, she’d never tell them, and Alice would not question her judgment where they were concerned. Jane and Kay – or Paul and Kay, if you wanted to look at it that way – had been superb parents.

But that meant that, in all the world, she and Bea were the only people who would ever know the beautiful woman who sat beside her this evening. The rest of the world would only see “through a glass, darkly,” through their experience of the man, Paul Stafford. And Paul without either Kay or Jane . . . he would be a pale shadow.

Alice had no answers, but Jane knew that and wasn’t expecting any. Jane was a brave woman in her own quiet and loving way. She would bear what would have to be born, for the sake of the children that she and Kay had brought into the world.

“Even God’s love can’t make this moment any easier," Alice said to her friend. "But maybe God and I can keep vigil with you, tonight. If you’ll have us?”

Jane squeezed her hand wordlessly.

The hours passed, and the two friends sat, hand in hand, bearing witness to the passing of a mighty soul, to the stilling of a passionate heart. Bearing witness, as well, to the transformative power of a truly great love.

One by one, the candles burned down, guttered, and went out, leaving them in darkness. They could have turned on a light, but the night of the soul is not so easily dismissed.

They faced the darkness together.

– The end

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