looked seriously spooked.
The office door opened, and there stood Sister Hildegarde. She does not wear the habit. She favors off-the-Walmart-rack specials. Her short, graying hair is dead straight and parted in the middle.
“Come in,” she said.
Sister Mary was sitting in the office, her face devoid of color.
“What’s going on?” Father Bob said.
Sister Hildegarde shut the door. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. There has been an incursion. An e-mail.” She motioned to the monitor on the desk. This was the computer Sister Mary usually handled.
On the screen was an e-mail, sent to St. Monica’s:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
I will do to you what you deserve.
Don’t fear God.
Fear the one you don’t know.
I can’t wait to get to know you better.
I looked at Sister Mary. Her eyes were more frightened than I’d ever seen them.
“Who would do this?” Sister Hildegarde said.
“A punk,” I said. “It’s cyberstalking. The address is no doubt fake, but we need to get the cops on it.”
Father Bob said, “Wouldn’t this be an FBI matter?”
“The feds leave this to the states. They haven’t got the manpower, unless they think it’s terrorist related.”
“Is it a felony, then?”
I said, “It’s a wobbler. Means it can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony, depending on how bad it gets.”
“How bad is that?” Sister Hildegarde asked.
I looked at her and said nothing. But my clenched jaw was a dead giveaway.
“I think all of us need to catch a collective breath,” Sister Hildegarde said. “I’ve just been saying to Sister Mary, a retreat is in order. She’ll be going to Louisville for a time of self-assessment.”
That sounded ominous. Father Bob nodded slowly, but not in an agreement way. It was an I-get-what’s-going-on-here nod.
I got it a half second later. This was a way for Sister Hildegarde to put a black mark on Sister Mary.
“Let’s get the cops up here and file a report,” I said.
And hoped that would be the end of it. Some jerk had sent a single e-mail, and wouldn’t be heard from again.
Yeah, that’s what I hoped, all the time knowing hope is for kids on Christmas. It’s not a thing the rest of us can lean on. You try to and you fall hard.
Like getting dumped on the asphalt in a pickup game of hoop. You can get seriously hurt that way.
11
I SPENT CHRISTMAS Day with Fran Dwyer—who was to have been my mother-in-law—and the little charge, Kylie, she has taken in. Being with them brought up all sorts of memories, and pictures.
I never got a Christmas with Jacqueline Dwyer as my wife. Even though I could see her here, decorating the tree. Unwrapping presents. Shadows of what might have been.
As Kylie opened the present I got for her, McElligot’s Pool by Dr. Seuss, I got a jolt of joy for the first time in months. But joy is a plaything in the hands of chance. It gets tossed around, maybe you catch it for a while, but if you get too attached, it ends up getting lost or broken.
So I didn’t grab too hard for joy as it passed by. I just kept wishing it for Kylie and Fran. Kylie hadn’t known much hope growing up. Didn’t know her father, and her mother was dead.
And Fran was still devastated by Jacqueline’s death.
But somehow, these two had found each other, and it was a good thing. It would fight back the loneliness. I thought about that, and thought maybe I was losing that fight. I had wanted Jacqueline in my life more than anything else in the world. There was a faint, shuddering fear creeping up in me that I’d never be able to replace that void. Not fully, anyway.
Kylie loved the book. She made me read it to her three times, sitting on my lap, her arm around my neck. The little house in Reseda filled up with the smell of Fran’s cooking, and that was Christmas, a pleasant one in L.A.
12
IN THE MIDDLE of January the rains came.
I don’t like L.A. in the rain. It seems out of sorts, like a dog in a sweater. It wants to roam free, but the wet puts the kibosh on everything. Beaches go deserted, tires skid on freeways, and at country clubs around the city retired vice presidents sit inside and suck gin-and-tonics and complain about their wives.
The rains turned foul. Mud started sliding in Malibu. A couple hillside homes became ground-level houses. A large dollop of wet earth and rock tumbled across the Coast Highway, blocking access for days.
It