Page 33 of Alone With You in the Ether

“Yeah. I haven’t been to church in ages, and I only ever go with my parents, you know, on Easter and Christmas. Would it be okay if I went with you?”

He doubted there was any mental space he could occupy that Regan would disrupt. In fact, the idea of her being present in a place he usually reserved for rote mechanization and the occasional wandering thought felt like it would be vastly improved by her presence.

“Sure,” he said. “I go to Holy Name, the cathedral in Streeterville.”

“Oh, that’s really close to me, okay. Seven?”

“Seven,” he confirmed.

“That’ll be a different conversation from this one,” she told him. “Just so you know.”

“Naturally,” he agreed. “What did you take from this one?”

“Mostly? That you go to church,” she said, and he laughed.

“Fair,” he said. “Most of what I got out of this was that your best friend is a toddler.”

“Well, try to get a little bit more out of the next one,” she suggested. “There’s only… what, one left after that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, better not waste it.”

None so far had been a waste, he thought.

“See you at seven?” she asked.

“Sure.” It was five, which meant he could get in a morning workout.

Or.“Or I could keep talking about the Babylonians,” he suggested.

“Mm. Tempting,” Regan said. “What else did they do?”

He wondered what she believed in. Probably most things, or nothing. “Astrology?”

“Ooh, yes, okay,” she said quickly, settling in. “Tell me about the Babylonians and the stars.”

He was waiting for her on the stepsof the cathedral, wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs pushed up and a pair of chinos that were a step up from his usual jeans. His hair was, for once, swept away from his forehead, though that appeared to be more a consequence of wind than anything sartorial. Autumn was well underway, and Chicago was a sweeter version of its blusteriest; a light suggestion, probably, to those who couldn’t stand the harshness of winter that perhaps they ought to seek the door.

“Did you walk?” Regan asked him, and he nodded.

“You look nice,” he said.

She’d worn a midi-length skirt and a pair of heeled oxfords, her long blazer paired sensibly with a low bun. She felt like she was in costume as a Good Girl, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She was usually in some sort of costume, one way or another. The thing about women and clothes was, in Regan’s mind, that nothing was ever a permanent expression; it wasn’t any sort of commitment to being this type of girl or that one, but purelytoday, I am. It was just whichever version of herself she wanted to project for the time being. When attending mass for the first time in at least a year with a sort-of stranger, she’d aimed for somewhere between neutrally well-intentioned and blatantly puritanical.

“Thanks,” she said, and they walked inside.

The relief of Catholicism was that very little ever changed—geographically, temporally, or otherwise. There was a consistent Baroque devotion to grandeur in every Catholic space Regan had ever entered, and Holy Name was no exception. It was its own kind of imposing from the outside, an island of squatty, stone-washed brick and steeple beside its high-rise cousins of industry, while the interior featured an eclectic mix of the things Regan considered very On Brand, papally-speaking. Bronze cathedral doors boasted a tree of life; from afar, a suspended crucifix sobered the brazenness of luxury. Gothic revival dominated the schema of the space, the ceilings high and vaulted, and the lofty sense of violence and idolatry poured in through color-stained rays of light.

It wasn’t unlike the Art Institute, which made sense. She understood why Aldo opted to surround himself with it. It was like bathing in opulence, only colder, stiff with authority. Churches were their own kinds of museums—with their devotion to ritual, at least, if not to God—and to exist inside of one was to dwarf oneself with inequity.

She understood the compulsion to seek out more space. To lessen to a speck of nothingness.

Aldo picked a pew somewhere in the middle, gesturing her in first and genuflecting before he sat. It looked like a motion he performed out of habit rather than deference. She’d noticed he had a different set of expressions for thinking and for routine, and this one came with a notable blankness.

She wondered what he looked like when he did other things; when he taught, for example, which her cursory Google search had indicated he did without much devotion. She wondered how he looked when he slept; when he dreamt; when he came.

She shook herself, shuddering a little.

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