Bishop's Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

which is why i’m here. jacinta seems concerned. she has unusual green eyes.

    The day’s weak light was failing fast as night approached. I might feel warmer in the church, I thought.

    It was dim there and a kind of peace fell over me. Shadows absorbed boundaries, enlarging the possible, making the hollow, vaulted places more vast than I remembered. Surfaces and corners softened. Shadows from a solitary vigil light flickered. I noticed I was not alone. Among the wavering shadows a dark, motionless form, someone crouched in prayer before the banks of votive candles to the right of the altar. I stayed in the back. The prim kerchief told me it was a woman. I sat still, touched by her devotion.

    There used to be a rail between the people and the altar. A little fence. Women were not allowed inside the fence except to change the linen, scrub the floors. I remember women with their hair covered, working silently, efficiently, to minimize their time in the forbidden spaces. And I remember Sundays, people kneeling outside the sanctuary, elbows on the starched cloth of the altar rail, faces buried in dry, knobby hands. People lined up to receive the Blessed Sacrament, eyes intense with devotion and hope. Cape Breton, Honduras—the features blur in my memory. People shaped by hardship and faith into a common character.

    There was a flare of light at the front. The dear woman was lighting candles. Thanksgiving? Anxiety? Light now flickered in a red receptacle, casting rosy shadows. The glow of faith and hope.

    A shadow rose. I heard the clink of a coin. Another light flared briefly. Another candle. Another movement as she made the sign of the cross.

    She must be old, I thought. Lighting candles, praying for some small reprieve.

    The church creaked as a cold wind rose outside. A suffocating silence drifted down from dark recesses in the hidden ceiling as the cold currents of air wafted over me. The woman hurried by, head down, arms wrapped across her chest as if cradling a child. She didn’t see me. The glass front door whispered shut behind her.

     
    Back in the glebe, I found a loaf of fresh homemade bread and a bag of tea biscuits on the kitchen table. And a note.

    “If we’d known you were coming, we’d have baked a cake …”

    They’d drawn little music notes around the words. I vaguely recalled an old song. Ethel Merman singing “how’dya do, how’dya do, how’dya doooo.”

    “This loaf of bread will have to doooo.”

    It was signed Bob O.

    Bobby O’Brian showed up later to apologize in person for the lack of preparation, the shabby glebe. The women were beside themselves, he said. New priest coming and the beds not even made. I assured him everything was fine. He said that he’d been president of the parish council, but since there hadn’t been a resident priest for a couple of years the council had lapsed. Just in suspension, though. A lack of manpower. But ready to go again now that I’d arrived. Just say the word. His wife made the bread by way of contrition for the state of the glebe house. One of the priorities of the place was a new house for the priest.

    I told him again, the place was fine.

    “Did you try it yet? The bread?”

    “Yes,” I lied. “It’s fabulous.”

    “I’ll tell the wife. She makes the best bread in the county.”

    I smiled.

    Bobby was middle-aged, prematurely balding and on the heavy side. It was great to have a priest again, he declared. To see a light in the window of the old place.

    “Kind of hard to take, not having a priest. We were sure they were going to shut us down for good, after so many years. Would you believe we were the only church in the area once, years and years ago? St. James we were back then.”

    I nodded and smiled and said I knew that.

    He said, “Of course you do. I’m forgetting, you grew up in this neck of the woods. I did a little homework. Back of Port Hastings, you grew up. Out the Long Stretch.”

    “Not too much homework, I