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had come to him. He would write the history of St. Hilary parish.
    â€œI’m not sure there would be a great demand for such a history,” Father Dowling said.
    â€œIt is a matter of setting down the record.”
    â€œI suppose publishing it would be expensive.”
    â€œMy proposal is to write and publish it, Father.”
    â€œAh. You’re retired?”
    â€œMore or less.”
    There seemed no need to mention his job as a guard at the retirement home where his mother now resided. Father Dowling’s kindness seemed the result of an effort. George had the sense that he was being condescended to, however unconsciously. He smiled, sustained by his carefully cultivated self-image. In the end the pastor saw little reason to refuse him. George would have recourse to the parish records, he would need a letter that would gain him entry to the archdiocesan archives, he would interview graduates of the school.
    â€œOf course the school will be a central theme.”
    â€œYou know that it has become a Senior Center?”
    â€œAll the better. As a school, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
    â€œHave you written such a thing before?”
    â€œHistory is a new departure, Father Dowling. But a writer’s craft can be applied to many subjects.”
    If he rather easily received carte blanche from the pastor, Marie Murkin, to whom Father Dowling referred him—“She is a walking archive, George, the animate history of the parish”—was a tougher nut to crack.
    â€œWhy on earth would you want to do such a thing?”
    He looked at her. “It’s not easy to talk about.”

    â€œWhy not?” She had insisted that he take a cup of tea. They were seated at the kitchen table in the rectory.
    â€œI suppose I could talk with you.”
    â€œOf course you can.”
    â€œEqually, of course, I could not do this without your help.”
    Marie Murkin liked this acknowledgment of her importance in such a matter. He added, “In all justice you would have a claim to be co-author.”
    â€œCo-author!” She threw up her hands, but could not master the smile that came. “I will leave the authoring to you.”
    So he was given access to the records of the parish, most of them stored in the attic, and Edna Hospers let him use what had once been the school nurse’s office, just down the hall from the principal’s office where Edna was installed. He brought his laptop computer with him to rectory and nurse’s office and established a routine that, in a short time, made him all but invisible to those he moved among.
    â€œYou grew up in the parish?” Edna asked.
    â€œI attended the school.”
    The school records, nine large file cabinets, were transferred to the nurse’s office by a protesting school janitor and the parish maintenance man. They stood around until he tipped them each five dollars. He closed the door after them. The first thing he did was ascertain which of the cabinets contained the records of his own years in St. Hilary’s parish school. Then he settled down to work.
    4
    As Father Dowling had told Colleen, weddings were a rarity at St. Hilary’s given the changed character of the parish. There were young families, happy possessors of the large houses that were sold for a song by those anxious to flee the parish after it had been hemmed in by the a triangle of new highways meant to facilitate the daily flow to and
from Chicago. Old parishioners were just that: old, their families grown and gone. This had prompted turning the parish school into a meeting place for seniors, and under Edna Hospers the idea had expanded and flourished.
    â€œThe next pastor may want to turn it back into a school,” Father Dowling said.
    â€œThis is a pretty healthy bunch, Father.”
    â€œI was thinking of the growing number of children in the parish.”
    â€œOh, sure. As soon as my kids are grown,