Page 31 of Dead to Rites

“That was Frank,” Father Esteban went on. “He saw the world as a house with rooms enough for everyone. And he spent the forty years of his priesthood trying to make sure no one in this parish ever felt locked out.”

He paused again, and I saw his jaw tighten before he spoke.

“I’ve been a priest for twenty-six years. I’ve buried friends before. I’ve stood at this lectern and tried to find words. I don’t have especially good ones tonight, and Frank would forgive me for that, because he always forgave us our small failures. So I will only say what is true.”

He looked out across the church.

“Frank loved this parish. Not the abstraction of it, but the people of it. He knew your names. He knew your children’s names. He knew which of you were sick and which of you were grieving and which of you were celebrating. He carried all of you with him every day. That’s not something a man does because it’s required of him. That’s something a man does because he’s decided, again and again, that you’re worth the carrying.”

My throat tightened, and I swallowed. I’d come here to observe, nothing more. But Father Esteban’s voice was filled with the ache of losing a friend, and that ache awoke the memory of all the losses I’d experienced over the past year.

Sometimes, it was impossible to ignore the hurt.

“Frank used to tell me,” Father Esteban said, “that the priesthood wasn’t about answers. He said the priesthood was about presence. He said most of what he did in any given week was simply to be there, whether at hospital beds or at kitchen tables, whether at gravesides or in confessionals, or even in the back of this church on long afternoons when someone needed to sit with their grief and didn’t want to do it alone. He wasn’t a man who needed to fill a silence. He was a man who could sit with you in one.”

A quiet murmur of recognition followed that statement, and several heads nodded.

“That gift — the gift of presence — is what the world has lost this week. And I don’t believe, my friends, that any of us will fully measure what has been taken from us until the next time we need a priest to simply be there, and we turn to find him gone.”

Father Esteban stopped there. He looked down at the lectern for a moment, and I saw his hand grip its edge.

“I want to say one more thing. Frank would want me to say it, and I wouldn’t be a good friend to him if I didn’t.”

Father Esteban looked up toward the vaulted ceiling of the church as if expecting to find answers there. Whether he found any, I couldn’t tell. Then he spoke again.

“There’s been talk about how Frank died. We all know there will continue to be talk. The investigation is in the hands of those whose work it is, and we will pray for them and for the truth. But I want to ask each of you — please — to remember tonight that how he died is not the measure of him. How he lived is the measure of him. He lived as a man who loved his people. He died, as we all hope to die, having spent the day in service to that love. The manner of his passing belongs to whoever has done this thing. The shape of his life belongs to him, and to us, and to God.”

I wasn’t the only one wiping my eyes by then. A few rows ahead of where I sat, a woman with silver hair and wearing a navy blue cardigan was leaning against the shoulder of a younger man. His arm was around her, holding her steady. The man had his head bowed, so I couldn’t see his face.

“Frank chose this reading,” Father Esteban said, returning to his theme, “because he believed the house of God has rooms enough for everyone. I believe he’s in one of them tonight. And I believe — I have to believe, my friends, on a night like this one — that he has set a place at the table and is waiting for the rest of us to come home.”

He made the sign of the cross.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” the congregation responded. I murmured the word along with them, surprising myself a little.

Father Esteban returned to his seat. After a moment, the cantor stood, and the opening notes of “On Eagle’s Wings” began on the organ. People rose. I rose with them, my hands clasped in front of me, and listened to the music fill the room while I pulled in one deep breath after another, willing away the tears, trying to get myself back to a place of some composure.

The rest of the vigil consisted of prayers I tried to follow and a final blessing, and then at last, people began to file out toward the parish hall, where I’d been told there would be coffee and a chance to share remembrances.

I let myself be carried along with the crowd, knowing that this would be my real chance to see if I could overhear anything interesting, even the smallest snippet that might lead my investigation in a useful direction. Because I’d been in one of the back pews, I arrived at the parish hall a little earlier than the bulk of the crowd and was able to pour myself a cup of coffee and then stand off to one side without looking too awkward.

People were still talking in low, respectful voices, and I wondered if I’d be able to hear anything at all without craning my neck and making myself horribly obvious. But just as I was trying to decide whether to move somewhere else, a woman appeared at my elbow.

“I’m Diane,” she said. “Diane Lindley. I do a lot of the volunteer coordination here. You must be Hazel’s great-niece — I’m so sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”

I found myself smiling at her. Diane Lindley looked like she was in her mid-sixties, with silvery blonde hair in a wavy bob and kind blue eyes. Her Chanel-style black suit had probably come from the local Dillard’s, and she was wearing the kind of sensible pumps that wouldn’t get in the way of her managing her duties at the parish hall.

“Lorelei Cosgrove,” I said.

She nodded. “Oh, I know. Father Frank said some very nice things about you. He told me he was glad you’d decided to take over running the bar.”

This revelation surprised me a little, because I didn’t think that Frank Brennan had known me well enough to have formed an opinion one way or another.

But Hazel had always been my champion, and he’d been good friends with her, so I supposed he’d already been inclined to look at me kindly before I even became a permanent resident of Prescott.

“You have to let me introduce you to everyone,” Diane went on. “The Cosgroves have deep roots in this town, you know, and I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay rather than go back to Phoenix.”