A Little White Lie
by
JRosemary
Little Joe squirmed in the church pew. He always got antsy during the sermon. He could remember his mother telling him how amazed she was the first time she sat through the low-church Protestant service. The sermon alone had lasted over an hour! She’d been horrified—after all, the whole Catholic Mass usually lasted less than that.
Joe sure hoped they built a Catholic church in Virginia City soon. Why should he have to suffer through these sermons when he wasn’t even Protestant?
He sighed. It was a trade-off, he supposed. In the Catholic Church you had to make your confession before Mass—and Joe hated confession. He never relished remembering all the scrapes he’d gotten into between Masses, let alone listing them to a priest.
Good for the Protestants for doing away with confession! That was one thing he never had to worry about in his Pa’s church. But at least the Mass itself was short and quick. And Catholic churches usually had a statue of Our Lady where Joe could light a candle for his Ma.
He had asked the preacher of his Pa’s church once if they could put in a statue of Our Lady. But for some reason the man got visibly upset and started a gentle but bewildering talk about idolatry. Adam stepped in and quickly brought the conversation to a halt. Then he explained to Joe afterwards that most preachers didn’t understand about Mary.
Joe sighed and put that incident out of his mind. He tried once again to focus on the sermon. His Pa said that was the right thing to do when you were in church.
Actually, if he was fair about it, the preacher wasn’t half bad. Sometimes his sermons were even interesting. But today the sermon was making Joe downright uncomfortable.
The preacher was talking about lies. Not bold, blatant lies—everyone knew to avoid those. But little white lies, which, the preacher insisted, could do just as much harm.
Joe swallowed hard and glanced at Adam. He had told his older brother a little white lie yesterday. It had seemed harmless enough—but maybe that wasn’t the case.
Stupid sermon. Joe decided not to listen to any more of it. He closed his eyes instead and let himself drift off to sleep.
*
Joe dreamed that he was hiding in the loft of the barn—hiding from Adam, that was. Sooner or later Adam was bound to find out about the little white lie.
He cringed as he heard someone climbing the ladder. He was contemplating jumping off the loft and making a run for it when he realized that the newcomer was not older brother.
It was a young man he hadn’t seen before, but Joe recognized him at once. Adam had described him often enough when he wrote his letters from college. It was Kevin Doyle, the wild Irisher Adam had shared a flat with while he was back east.
Joe’s mouth dropped open. “You’re supposed to be dead!” he blurted out.
Kev grinned as he reached the loft and took a seat beside him. “And you’re supposed to be listening to one of those excruciating Protestant sermons,” he retorted.
Joe shut his mouth at that. He knew that Kev had died in a brawl in the Five Points of Manhattan. Adam had written a taut, strained letter home, telling them how Kev took a knife to the stomach and died in his arms.
But this was a dream. Sometimes Joe dreamed about his Ma being alive, so he supposed there was nothing wrong with dreaming that Kevin Doyle was still alive too.
“The preacher was going on and on about little white lies,” Joe confided.
Kevin gave him a sympathetic nod. “An inconvenient topic,” he owned. “I can understand why it would make you uncomfortable.”
His voice had the hint of a lilt to it, confirming his identity. Adam had described his accent in one of his letters—he said that Kev could make his brogue as broad or as light as he pleased.
Joe smiled. Kev was just like he always pictured him. He could remember how jealous he’d been of the Irisher when Adam first started mentioning him in his letters—he’d been terrified that Kev had supplanted him in Adam’s affection. So he wrote his own letter directly to Kevin.
It was a terse, mean-spirited thing, that letter Joe wrote to him. But Kev had responded with laughter and reassurance. Kev told him that Adam was always talking about his family back home—especially his youngest brother. And Kev admitted that Adam’s family would always come first.
Joe and Kevin kept in touch until the Irisher died. He learned all sorts of useful things from Kev—like how to get around confession by using very general terms to admit your sins.
Pa could never tell Joe stuff like that. In fact, Pa was always afraid to criticize Catholicism in Joe’s presence. But Kev could write to him as one Catholic to another. He could tell Joe that you had to take the Church—and her priests—with a large grain of salt.
Joe never told Adam about their correspondence. Apparently neither had Kevin. Joe was willing to tell Adam about it now—but older brother didn’t like to talk about his friend any more. Pa said he was still angry at Kev for getting mixed up in that stupid brawl and that he hadn’t really grieved for him yet.
“So what little white lie is weighing on your mind?” Kev asked.
There wasn’t a trace of judgment in his voice. Well there wouldn’t be, would there? Kevin had been a master at kicking up larks and getting into scrapes when he was alive.
“Adam’s sweet on a girl that I don’t like much,” Joe explained. “So I, uh, casually mentioned at supper last night that I had seen her walking and holding hands with Jeremy Norton. And I did—but they weren’t holding hands.”
Kev considered that. “I’m not sure that counts as a little white lie,” he commented, “but I suppose we needn’t quibble over terms. Why don’t you like the girl?”
Joe sighed. “She’s nice to Adam but she’s rotten to everyone else. She is real pretty, though,” he added, feeling that he had to be fair. “But what’s going to happen if Adam up and marries her?”
“He won’t,” Kev assured him. “Your oldest brother may be a bossy, over-bearing tyrant—but the darling boy is no fool. You can trust him to get the measure of this young lady before he commits himself. There’s no need to slander the poor girl.”
Joe stared down at his hands. “I should tell him about the lie, shouldn’t I? He’s going to tan me good.”
Kev shrugged. “That depends on how you tell him. Go to him right after church. In fact, tell him while you’re in the church. He can’t tan you there. Give him a genuinely repentant look—you can even insist that the preacher’s sermon inspired you. Then make those puppy eyes at him. Adam used to tell me that he could never resist that look from you.”
He paused and grinned broadly. “Then tell him that you were sick with worry about him so you told a little white lie. And see if you can get your eyes to water while you explain what you lied about.”
“What if he doesn’t believe me about the girl?” Joe asked. “I mean, what if he doesn’t believe that she really is nasty?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Kev answered with another shrug. “He just has to believe that you believe it. If you’re right about her, he’ll figure it out on his own.”
Joe considered that. Kev was right—if he handled this correctly, he could probably get out of a tanning. Heck, if he played his cards just so, Adam might be touched and grateful for his little brother’s concern. Even if he thought that concern was misguided.
He turned to thank Kevin, but the Irisher was gone. And Joe wasn’t in the loft any longer. In fact, he was back in the church pew, opening his eyes as the sermon drew to a close.
He scooched over so that he was sitting closer to Adam. Adam glanced down
at him and smiled. Joe smiled back, confident that everything would be just
fine between them.