there would be no reason for the Church to exist. It is ancient and broken. Like all ancient things. The institution itself is a false idol. But I also take comfort in the fact that it is ancient. There will be women after me who take vows and teach children and take care of the sick that no one else will touch.”
Patrick understood what she was saying. Human beings were wired for ritual, and he’d found purpose in being the conduit for the ancient. In the liminal spaces—especially the ones between life and death—he felt purpose. He may have lost God, but he’d never lost the sense that being there to assure a family that their small one was never going to be alone, or a man dying too soon and away from his family that he would be welcomed into whatever came after, was important.
Could he give that up?
“You could give it up for her.”
Patrick had almost forgotten that Sister Cortona was there, staring at him while he tried to process everything that he’d told her. “Are you a mind reader or something?”
She took another sip of beer. “Comes along with the habit.”
“You’re not wearing one.”
“You ask too many questions.”
And everything that she’d said to him was making him ask more. Before she’d walked into the bar, he’d felt hopeless—as bad as things had been after his mother’s death. Watching Sasha step away from him was like watching his heart walk out of a room. He didn’t know that he could survive it. He looked down at his third scotch of the night.
“Finish your drink and close up.” Sister Cortona made a motion to his tumbler. “It won’t do to have you dying before you make your escape.”
* * *
—
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, PATRICK found himself staring at his mother’s headstone in the Catholic cemetery near his father’s house. The ground was wet from a midsummer storm, but he sat down anyway. The lilies he always picked up on his way to his mother’s resting place were in his lap. For some reason, he didn’t feel like giving them to her yet.
When his mother had gotten sick, he’d still been young enough that he hadn’t gotten to know her as a person. As she wasted away, he’d been able to see her humanity slipping from her, but his personal pain had come from the fact that his mother was dying. His father may have been stingy with emotional support—thank you to toxic masculinity—but his mother had lavished both him and Chris with it.
He’d always known that he was loved, but he didn’t know what else his mother had loved. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still smell the drug store shampoo that she’d used. He could remember being splayed on the couch, reading whatever adventure or fantasy series that he’d been into at the time while she sat across the room in her chair, reading novels or memoirs or poetry. He could see the light coming through the window and how it glinted off her hair.
Sitting here now, he wished he’d spent more time talking to her, figuring out why she got such comfort from religion and literature. He wished that he knew what formed her so that he would have some idea as to why she’d wanted him to become a priest. In a way, he now felt like he had when it became clear that his mother was dying. Except now, he was losing his faith along with the love he’d been willing to compromise that faith for.
He felt totally unmoored, and tears sprang to his eyes. He sat there, lost in thought for so long that he thought it might be growing dark when a shadow fell over him. Except he looked up, and it was his father, who was leaning on a cane and glowering at him.
“What are you doing here, boy?” His father squinted down at him. “Are you crying? She’s been dead for well over a decade.”
“You’re here, too, you know,” Patrick said. “And I’m not the one who’s supposed to be resting flat on his back.”
Patrick stood up so he could look his father in the eye, noticing that Danny had also brought lilies.
“I know that, but I never miss a visit.” His father looked down at the beautifully etched stone. Like a good, morbid Irishwoman, his mother had picked out all of the accoutrements of death long before she’d gotten sick.
“I’ve missed too many visits of late,” Patrick said. He