Page 160 of Beautiful Obsessions
Three.
Peace was a thing I built by hand every day.
Some men were born gentle.I had carved gentleness into myself with a very blunt knife.
At noon, I took my small black car along the narrow roads outside town, past olive groves and low stone walls, to the home of Pietro Mancini.He had been dying for six months with the stubbornness of a man who disliked leaving work unfinished.
His daughter met me at the door, red-eyed and exhausted.
“He’s in a mood,” she warned.
“The important thing is that he is alive.”
She smiled, but it died quickly.
Pietro’s skin had gone thin, but his eyes were still bright and mean enough to start a fight with death.
“Father,” he rasped.“You’re back again.”
“You keep refusing heaven.I’ve come to check whether you have changed your mind.”
He made a sound that might have been laughter.“Heaven has too many rules.”
I sat beside him and took his hand.
He did not want prayers at first.He wanted gossip.He wanted to complain about the doctor, the mayor, his neighbour’s dog.I let him.The dying often needed to return to ordinary things before they could face extraordinary ones.
After a while, his grip tightened.
“Will it hurt?”he asked.
I looked at him.He stared at the ceiling, jaw clenched.
“The end?”I asked.
He nodded once.
“I don’t know.”
His eyes shifted to mine.“That’s a terrible answer coming from a priest.”
“I can offer you only honesty.”
“I am afraid.”
“I know.”
“I was not a good man.”
“Few are.”
“You?”
The question sat between us.
I should have had an answer ready.Instead, I looked at the crucifix above his bed and said, “No.I was not a good man.”
Pietro watched me for a long moment.Then he turned his hand and gripped mine properly.
