Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place during "Peace on Us".

oOo oOo 6: A Dim Reflection in a Mirror oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

Last night saw my scheduled hours for confession this week, so naturally I assumed I would be left alone to get some work done the way it usually happens. No one ever feels the need to see me until I'm busy doing something else. Why should last night have been any different? Of course, the fact that I'm writing this letter and have already heated the stove should tell you how wrong I got that prediction.

Let me start at the beginning. I had finished the material for the next two Sundays, and was about to choose scripture to go with my sermons when I heard a knock at the door. It seemed rational to call out, "The mess tent is two over!"

Instead of the usual muffled thanks and departing footsteps, I heard nothing. I started to wonder if someone had knocked on Colonel Potter's door and I just thought it was mine.

Then the knock came again. As soon as I was over the shock, I got up and hurried to the door. "Come in," I said through it.

The door still didn't open, and I began to suspect it was a prank. I sighed and opened the door, ready to find Hawkeye covered in toilet paper shambling down the road groaning. It's happened before. But instead of the live-action reenactment of 'The Mummy', Margaret Houlihan was standing there, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Which was strange, considering that she was the one who knocked. At least I assumed she knocked. I took one more look for Hawkeye, or possibly for Boris Karloff.

There was no one around but her. "Major?" I asked. "Did you knock?"

She seemed to be searching for an answer. Major Houlihan has never, in my experience, lacked confidence. To see her so tongue-tied didn't bode well for whatever it was she wanted to talk to me about. I thank God every day for a high tolerance for fatigue.

I tried again. "Do you want to come in?"

"I . . . yes. Can I? I know this is when you're taking confession, and I'm not Catholic. I don't want to take up your time if you're busy with official duties."

She clearly didn't know much about my confession schedule. "Not at all, Major. Come in." I turned and made my way inside. I heard the door close behind me, so either the Major decided to slip out while I wasn't looking, or I was in business. Considering my last few confessions with the senior staff, I thought I was doing pretty well. I had pants and a shirt and everything.

When I turned around, Major Houlihan was still there. She was pacing the length of my tent, looking at everything. I was willing to bet she noticed every detail. She really is an excellent nurse, Sis. One of the best.

She stopped and stared at my boxing gloves. She seemed genuinely fascinated by them, lifting them up and looking at them from every angle. I tried to understand what she saw there, but then I've never been good at guessing what people are thinking. I tend to rely on them just telling me.

"Do you box?" she asked. She sounded surprised. I suppose I don't look like anyone's idea of a boxer. I remember how Mom laughed when she heard I was taking it up. She thought you should have gone out for boxing, and I could take your dance classes.

"Featherweight champion a long time ago," I said, and then hoped that didn't quite count as a prideful statement. I didn't mean it to be, even if the memory still fills me with a quiet glow. I know we're supposed to lay all our vanities aside in our vocations, Kathy, but it isn't often I get to be the best at anything. I suppose I'll just have to pray harder tonight. Maybe take a few extra shifts in post-op to put myself back on the right humble track.

"Do you still box?" she asked.

"No." Of course, that wasn't quite true, so I added, "Before I came here I taught the boys at the local CYO."

"You had time?" she asked. Her laugh was nervous and harsh in the stillness. The Major is a study in contradictions. I have it on good authority from several independent sources that she's an attractive woman, but she has all the delicate femininity of a tank squadron. And roughly the same subtlety. From what little I know about her younger years, I imagine that her father had a daughter, was confused for a while, and then resolutely raised a son anyway. Having said that, she doesn't seem poorly off for it, unless one counts being deployed to Korea as 'poorly off'. On some days—the days when a Divine Plan seems more like some grand practical joke on the part of the Almighty, and all I can think of is how I've failed not only as a priest but as a Catholic for falling so far as to view any aspect of God's works as a joke—I might say that every drafted soul is 'poorly off', and not for upbringing.

Major Houlihan looked at me, and I realized she actually wanted me to talk about boxing. I've had stranger confessions, and boxing has always been a topic I'm warm to. I started to think that maybe, for once, this would be easy.

I said, "I always tried to make the time to work at the CYO if I could. After a week of ministering to adults, it's a relief to work with children. Their faith is so uncomplicated."

Her face pinched in an ill-concealed grimace, and I knew I'd said something wrong. Of course I had. If I didn't put my foot in it, people wouldn't know they were talking to me. "Children are wonderful, aren't they?" she asked. "I always thought—hell, I thought—oh, damn—oh! Sorry, Father. I didn't mean to say that in front of you."

"It's quite all right. Please go on."

She let go of the gloves, shook her head, and stepped back. "It's nothing. I don't even know why I came here. I just . . . being a priest must take a lot of time out of your schedule. Hours per day, it has to be just as bad, if not worse, than, say, a nurse's schedule."

"Um, I suppose. It's probably why we call it a vocation and not a job."

"But you still find time in that vocation to work at the CYO and the boxing and who knows what else." She wrung her hands and started pacing again. I stood rooted to the spot, worried that if I made a wrong move she would knock me flat. Featherweight champion or no, I'm pretty sure she could take me. Her voice rose, and there was nothing I could do besides make myself an unappealing target. "I couldn't even find the time for—I mean, why are all the things that are supposed to be hard for women so easy, and all the things that are supposed to be easy completely impossible?" She turned to me then, and her pacing had brought her closer than I'd expected. I looked up at her and wondered when she'd gotten so tall.

"Has something happened?" I asked. I used the same tone I'd once used to talk Klinger down from lobbing a grenade at Burns. I'd like to think I sounded soothing, but we both know what I sound like even on a good day.

And just as suddenly as her energy seemed ready to burst, probably on me, she sat down hard on my bunk, leaving me to heave a quiet sigh of relief and wonder if I should just get rid of the guest chair. No one seemed to want to use it when my bunk was available.

"Donald transferred stateside," she said. "We're getting a divorce. Sorry, Father. I know you don't believe in them."

At least she saw the complication for me, if not the depth of it. "If there's anything I've learned from this war," I said, "it's to be doctrinally flexible. There are quite a few points of dogma that seem somewhat … out of touch in war." I crossed myself for saying it, even if part of me still struggles with the notion that maybe, just maybe, divorce is all right every now and then. Under certain circumstances. Rules work well when society is all around you, but things change when the bombs fall. People do things they wouldn't normally do, just to carve out some corner of sanity in all the madness. Sometimes they make mistakes. And perhaps the Major's marriage to Donald Penobscot was one of those mistakes. Since we are human, and we are fallible, then surely God won't punish us for making mistakes and then attempting to undo them. We are as He made us, and He does love us, and so He'll forgive us.

I am so very glad you aren't reading this.

Major Houlihan made a disgusted noise that snapped me back to our conversation. "Everything is out of touch in this lousy war," she said. "My husband is out of touch, my marriage is out of touch, this whole idea of a life beyond this hellhole is out of touch. You know that I forget there's a world outside the war? Maybe that was how this whole thing happened. I just forgot about Donald when he wasn't here. I'm a terrible person, Father. I'd want to divorce me."

"Now, you know that's not true, Major. You're a good person, and from what I heard, you talked about him a great deal."

"Then maybe I expected too much from him. Maybe he was overwhelmed. Maybe if I hadn't been so persistent—"

"Maybe this isn't your fault," I said.

She shook her head. "No, this has to be my fault."

"Major—"

"Because if this isn't my fault then I have no way to fix it. And there has to be a way to fix it! He can't just leave me."

She wanted to reconcile. She didn't want the divorce, but it was being thrust upon her and she would make the best of the situation. The relief I felt was immediately followed by shame for finding any comfort in her pain. This wasn't about me, it was about her, and about her own impossible expectations of herself. We all have demons, Kathy. They're just more visible when you get this close to the valley of the shadow of death. Major Houlihan's demons came in the form of expectations of perfection, both from herself and from the life she lived. Being helpless had to be the worst possible thing to inflict on her. I wonder if her husband understands that, or if he cares. I'm not a man given to violence, but seeing a proud, strong woman like Margaret Houlihan reduced to this doubting state made him want to knock Donald Penobscot's block off.

The Major looked at me for several minutes, not saying anything. Then she patted the cot next to her. "Come on, Father. Stop hovering and sit down. You're making me nervous . . . more nervous. I won't molest you, I promise."

I did sit, though I made sure it was a respectful distance away. "Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked.

"Get me Donald alone in a room for five minutes," she said. "I'll bring my own gun."

It was one thing to harbor violent thoughts toward the man myself, but hearing her say that with the deadly sincerity of the truly devoted? I was terrified. "Major …"

Major Houlihan patted me on the knee, which didn't help the terror, but I did appreciate her effort. "I'm not serious, Father. Well, I am, but I know it's not going to happen." She lifted her chin. "He isn't worth it."

"That's the spirit," I said, and laid a hand on her shoulder in what I hoped she would understand was support, and not a reason to distrust me.

At which point she burst into tears.

Sis, if there's anything worse than trying to comfort a non-Catholic in tears, it's trying to comfort a non-Catholic woman in tears. The standard prayers are useless, blessings earn you glares, Scripture is suspect, and my own advice is rarely effective. 'This too shall pass' sounds like an invitation for a black eye. I couldn't even say I understood her pain. I've never been married. I've never had my heart broken. Dad walking out on us doesn't count; I'm a priest and you're a nun: we turned out fine. Major Houlihan's problems might as well have been in Swahili for my depth of understanding.

"Why?" she sobbed. "Why wasn't I good enough for him? What more did he want from me? I tried! I tried so hard!" She twisted around, and before I could do anything she hand both her hands twisted in my T-shirt and her face pressed into my shoulder. Her hair didn't smell regulation. That made me sad, for some reason.

I think I probably flapped my hands while I tried to decide whether or not patting her back would result in the loss of limbs. Somewhere near my ear, the Major's voice trailed off to a continuous growl of, "I'll kill him. I'll kill him. See if I don't, Buster. I'll kill him."

I settled for patting her back and saying, "There, there," right before I realized it was probably the wrong thing to do.

She jerked back, her expression stricken through mascara streaks, puffy eyes and messy hair. "Oh, Father, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to … that is, I didn't think I would … I know I'm not supposed to touch you." She dashed the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "You must think I'm pathetic, getting so worked up."

"No!" I hurried to reassure her. Then I realized my hand was still on her back and got, well, very embarrassed. I pulled away quickly, my hands tight to my chest. I forced myself to relax. "I don't think you're pathetic at all. I think you're human, and that you've just lost someone you loved."

"Want to know something awful Father? I think that I was in love with the life I could have had, and Donald just happened to be tacked onto it. I thought we'd get married, and I could still be in the Army. I could go on, married and happy with a man I loved. Maybe a few children after my tour's over, just like Mom. I could get a job state-side. We could get jobs. And I could have everything." Her hands on top of her knees started shaking. "I could have had everything."

"Major," I said, but I didn't know where to go from there.

"Oh, don't listen to me, Father. I'm being maudlin. I'll pull myself together by tomorrow." She stood up, ready to leave, but I couldn't let her. Not like that. I don't know where she gets the strength to go on as though nothing is wrong day after day. No, I do know. She goes on because there's no other option. We all do. She goes on because, if she doesn't, people will die. The harsh realities of the war are enough to either break you or force you to far exceed what you thought you were capable of.

But I know that my ability to carry on and do my best for the soldiers who come through our doors doesn't go very far to dent the feelings of failure that plague me when I'm alone. I didn't expect Major Houlihan to be exactly like me, but even if she was a little like me she was still in pain. How could I let that go and still call myself a man of God?

"Major!" I called after her. She stopped, and I kept talking before she turned around and I lost my nerve. "We're not perfect, Major. None of us. Not you, not your husband, not anyone. God knows I'm not. And words, well, I'm especially not perfect at those. But if we were perfect, if the world was perfect, it would be Heaven. We're not in Heaven. So the best we can do … well, sometimes no matter how hard we try, it's not good enough." She turned, and I looked at my feet to avoid looking at her. "You didn't fail. The cards were just stacked against you, as they say in poker." I looked up to see how I was doing, but her blank expression didn't bode well. "I've made a mess of this, haven't I?"

"Actually, Father, you haven't."

I couldn't quite believe my ears. "I haven't?"

"No, you haven't."

"Could you … could you maybe tell me what I did right, so that I can do it again in the future?"

She didn't answer me. Instead, she laughed, walked back to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't take this the wrong way," she said, "but I really wish more men were like you."

What was I supposed to say to that, Sis? "Oh! Well, I … yes … the world would be a much less … populated place if that were so."

She hugged me then, which wasn't as bad as her crying, but it was just as awkward. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome. I still don't know what I did."

She kissed my cheek. I don't mind telling you, I blushed down to my toes. Luckily, she stepped away before I had to say anything. "You were you," she said.

"That was enough?"

"Sleep well, Father," she said, and then she left.

Kathy, I still don't know what I said to turn things around. I don't know if it'll last, or if it was temporary relief. I suppose the point of this letter, if there is any point, is that sometimes we fail; sometimes we stumble and we fall. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes we succeed, even if we never figure out how.

Your brother,

Francis