“Have you just figured it out, Megan?” He asked the question softly, with no ridicule.
She nodded. “The building was a church….”
“Yes.”
“And as building manager, it was worse for you, because you expected church people to be kinder and better than others.”
“No, I didn’t. I knew they were as human as anyone else.”
She stopped tracing and met his eyes. “Why did it upset you so, then, Nick? If you understood that people are just people no matter where they go on Sunday mornings? You tried to help Billy. What more could you have done?”
“Everything.” He smiled sadly. “You see, I was the priest of that parish. I was Billy’s priest, too, and God had placed him in my hands. I failed them both, Billy and God. And now I’m just a carpenter who sees visions of homeless men in places where they’re not supposed to be.”
7
F
ather Ignatius Brady, pastor of St. Brigid’s, liked the finer things in life. On his quest for quality, Iggy haunted the aisles of Ohio City’s West Side Market, searching for the freshest produce. He also charmed the market’s butchers, who knew him by name and showered him with their choicest morsels. Late on Thursday morning, Iggy dropped by Niccolo’s house to present a rump roast so exquisitely trimmed it deserved a pedestal and an epigraph.
Niccolo, who knew what was expected, graciously accepted this latest triumph and invited Iggy to share it with him that evening.
Promptly at six, Iggy arrived for the second time. The two men embraced; then Iggy followed Niccolo into the kitchen where Niccolo had served Megan espresso and sad stories that morning.
Niccolo waited until Iggy had taken his favorite of the two chairs before he gestured to a bottle on the counter. “I have something you’ll like. A particularly fine Barolo a cousin brought home from a trip to Italy last summer.”
Iggy’s ascetic face softened with delight. He was thirty years Niccolo’s senior, a wisp of humanity who had to gird himself against a lazy summer breeze. Iggy was more spirit than flesh, a holy man whose death would be the slightest of transformations.
“You’re too good to me.” Iggy was always delighted by kindness, and always surprised. He was the only genuinely humble man Niccolo had ever met.
“That’s just the start.” Niccolo held out the precious bottle with the flourish of a wine steward before he rummaged for his corkscrew. “I prepared my mother’s favorite recipe. You won’t be disappointed.”
“What is it?”
“I simmered the roast in a special red sauce. We’ll have steamed spinach with it.”
“And pasta?”
“Of course.”
Iggy would only eat a few bites, but he would cherish them. He craned his neck to peer longingly at the stove. “Soon?”
Niccolo laughed. “Soon enough. Wine first?”
“Such a great pleasure.” Iggy waited until the wine had been poured and the proper toasts made. “The house is coming along, Niccolo.”
Niccolo joined him at the table. “Is it? These days, I only see the things I haven’t finished.”
“Symptomatic of your view of life.”
Niccolo considered. “It’s strange you’ve never said that before.”
“I’ve said it a number of ways. It’s a blessing to be that kind of person, as well as a curse. If you couldn’t see what was unfinished, you’d never know what to do next. Those sort of people constantly founder on the rocks of indecision.”
Niccolo smiled. “The homily for the day?”
Iggy’s wizened gnome face lit up, and his answering smile showed a wide gap between his front teeth. “Let’s say I’m working on it.”
“Then I suppose you see the flip side, too. A man who can’t look honestly at his accomplishments and feel a sense of completion is a man who will never be happy.”
“Of course.”
Niccolo leaned back and slowly swirled his wine in his glass. “You don’t have to worry. I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished, Iggy.”
“Any man who’s made the transitions that you have must have doubts about where he’s been and where he’s going. And feel unsure about the value of both.”
Niccolo thought about that as they slowly sipped and savored. He and Iggy were so comfortable together that silence was never anything but a resting place. Ignatius Brady had been his teacher and confidant since Niccolo’s seminary years. Iggy had been present at Niccolo’s ordination and at the final meeting that had ended his life as a parish priest. Through all those events, Iggy had never judged him.
“I have no regrets,” Niccolo said at last. “I don’t regret my years in the parish, and I don’t regret ending them. I still feel God working in my life, only now, no one is translating his words. I’m having to find my own code.”
“Are you having any luck?”
Niccolo laughed. “A lot happened while you were on retreat.”
“Is that right? I was gone a week. No more.”
Niccolo rose and went to the stove. He took down a package of black pepper tagliatelle he’d been saving and added it to water that had just begun to boil on the back of the stove. “I saw Billy, Iggy. Only this time, he may have saved my life. Even though I didn’t or couldn’t save his.”
Iggy didn’t sound surprised. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Do you know a woman named Megan Donaghue? She runs the Whiskey Island Saloon on Lookout Avenue.”
“A lot of Cleveland business is conducted at the saloon. At lunchtime it can be a who’s who of county politics. And the Donaghues are all members of St. Brigid’s. So I know them, every one.” He didn’t elaborate on the last part, and Niccolo knew that he wouldn’t.
Niccolo turned up the stove until the spinach, which he’d washed earlier, began to steam in earnest. “I got my introduction to the Donaghues the hard way.” As he completed the final preparations for the meal, he told Iggy the story of the carjacking and then about Megan’s visit that morning.
“She claims the old man is someone from her neighborhood, someone who wouldn’t want my help,” Niccolo finished. He turned off the heat under all the burners and began to spoon the spinach into one dish and the sliced roast into another, topping both with the rich tomato sauce.
“Do you believe her?” Iggy said.
“Sometimes a piece of the truth is just as dishonest as a lie.”
“Then you think she’s withholding something?”
Niccolo waited, hoping Iggy would say more. But the silence stretched as he finished serving the food. He carried it to the little table, one dish at a time. Iggy looked positively gleeful.
“What do you think?” Niccolo said.
“I think you’re right. God is working through you, and a small thing like the absence of a collar around your neck hasn’t deterred him. But you were right about one thing more. Now it’s up to you to find the code.”
“Meaning you won’t help me? You won’t give me the benefit of a little background?”
“There’s nothing I can say.”
Niccolo knew better than to push. He, of all people, understood the confidentiality of the confessional. “I have one more thing.” He reached in his pocket for the cuff link and rested it on his palm. “After the incident in the parking lot, I went back and found this behind the car. I think the man I told you about may have dropped it.”
“Surely any number of people might have.”
Niccolo explained his reasoning. “And it was lying just beneath the wheel,” he finished. “No one had driven over it.”
“It’s a pretty thing. Old, I think, and probably worth a bit.”
“I suppose it’s possible it could really belong to this man instead of being just an item he scavenged. These could be his initials.”
“He’d have to have fallen very far down on his luck, wouldn’t he?”
“The initials are S.S.”
Iggy frowned. “I have to say, it looks a little familiar. But I can’t place why.”
“The cuff link looks familiar?”
“No. The letters and the rather odd way they’re entwined. Like something more than a simple monogram.”
Niccolo saw what Iggy meant. “Maybe.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” Iggy promised. “If I remember anything, I’ll be sure to tell you. But there is one more thing I should say.” Iggy closed his eyes and bent over the platter of sliced beef, deeply inhaling the fragrance as Niccolo put the cuff link away.
“What’s that?”
“I believe Billy had more to tell you than you’ve been able to absorb so far. It’s no surprise to me that he’s come back.”
Sunday was the most difficult day of the week for Niccolo. During the long months of indecision and soul searching after Billy’s death, he had wondered how he would feel if he never celebrated Mass again. When he was a diocesan priest, each week had been a spring winding tighter and tighter as Sunday approached, a spring that bounced ecstatically back into place when the morning dawned.
There were other Masses, other events and tasks each week, that he’d found fulfilling. But Sunday, when the wafers turned to flesh and the wine to Christ’s blood, when he was the instrument of that holy transformation, all the pieces of his world fell perfectly into place.
One frozen body on the steps of St. Rose of Lima had changed that forever.
When Sunday dawned after Megan’s and Iggy’s visits, Niccolo tried to divert himself with the
New York Times
and a recorded performance of
La Bohème.
He had dutifully attended Mass the night before, trying not to total up the errors of the recent seminary graduate who was Iggy’s new assistant. Nick remembered making his own share of mistakes as a new priest, and one Mass in particular, when he had stumbled on the hem of his alb and sprawled across the communion rail, like a felon willingly offering his neck on the guillotine.
He ate a cinnamon roll from a neighborhood bakery and drank two cups of his own espresso. Then, when it was clear that neither Puccini nor the crossword puzzle was going to capture his interest, he put on his warmest winter gear and locked his doors behind him.
In the driveway he saw that his car, a nondescript gray Honda, had guests. Two youths in their middle teens perched on the trunk and didn’t unperch as he approached.
“Hello, gentlemen.” Niccolo stopped just a few yards from his rear bumper and examined them. “What’s happening?”
One of the kids was black and one was white, and Niccolo was reminded of the carjackers. He was glad to see that integration was finally catching fire on this side of town, although his recent sociological sampling left something to be desired. The black kid had elaborate cornrows and African-dark skin. The white kid had lank, shoulder-length brown hair and the first wisps of a ratty goatee.
“Nothing happening.” The black kid smiled, but his eyes didn’t light up. The white kid licked his lips. He fidgeted a while; then he nodded.
“I don’t know all my neighbors.” Niccolo stepped forward and extended one gloved hand. “I’m Nick Andreani.”
Neither boy seemed inclined to take it, but finally the young man with the cornrows gripped it and shook. Hard. Much too hard. “Good you got a name. Everybody needs a name.”
Niccolo didn’t let go. He held on, even though the boy tried to pull his hand away. “I’m waiting for yours.”
“What you care for?”
“Easy. I like to know the people who sit on my car.”
The boy pretended to be shocked. “Is this your car?”
Niccolo knew they were playing games. He held on anyway. “How about you?” he asked the other boy. “You have a name?”
The kid looked as if he was afraid Niccolo was going to grab him, too. “Josh. And he’s Winston.”
Niccolo dropped Winston’s hand. “Pleased to meet you both.”
“Sure….” Winston drew out the word like a curse.
“You guys live around here?”
Josh looked at Winston, as if to ask what he could and couldn’t say.
“So what if we do?” Winston answered for both of them.
Niccolo hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Winston, let me go on record. This is just a polite conversation. No tricks. No disrespect. No attempt to find out who you are and where you live so I can call the cops. You’re sitting on my car, and we’re just passing the time until you get off. That’s all.”
“You’re not going to call nobody?” Josh didn’t look at Winston this time.
“Why should I? You’re just sitting there, aren’t you?”
“I’m not getting off. I like watching people go by. This is a good place to do it.” Winston was a good-looking young man, and even better looking when he smiled, which he did now. Again nothing much reached his eyes, but the smile was an improvement.
“It won’t be so good once the car starts moving. Then people will be watching
you
go by,” Niccolo explained without rancor.
Josh slid down. “C’mon, Winston.”
Winston didn’t move. “There’s a girl walks her dog down this street. Got me a good seat.”
“What do you do when she walks by?” Niccolo said.
The question seemed to throw Winston. For a moment he dropped the tough guy routine, looking puzzled and much younger. Somehow it was the scrap of proof Niccolo needed that these were probably just bored kids with nothing much to do on a Sunday morning. Not gangbangers in training, not juvenile offenders with files as unwieldy as a social worker’s caseload.
“Look, I know a better place to watch,” Niccolo said.
“Yeah?” Winston sneered.
“My front porch. You can sit on the steps.”
Winston didn’t seem to comprehend.
“Over there.” Niccolo pointed.
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll, like, hurt something?” Josh said.
Niccolo couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Take a better look. What could you hurt?”
“Why you be living in a place like this, anyway?” Winston slid gracefully off the trunk, as if he’d never threatened to sit there forever.
Niccolo pretended not to notice. “I’m fixing it up, doing the work myself. You guys ever do any carpentry?”
“You kidding?” Josh laughed nervously. “My old man strips my hide I go near his tools.”
Niccolo knew better than to answer that the way he wanted. He turned to Winston. “How about you?”
The boy shrugged. Niccolo realized Winston was wearing only a thin denim jacket. He knew better than to comment on that, too. Instead, he started around the side of his car. “When I come back, I’ll show you what I’m doing. If you’re still here.”