Pierced by a Sword (59 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

1

A Warm Evening
13 May, 30 R.E.
Notre Dame, Indiana

He laid the roses at the foot of the Father Sorin statue and sat down with his back against the cold marble pedestal.

Remembering Chet.

Nathan pulled out a dog-eared Polaroid someone had taken on his wedding day. Chet had his arms around Nathan and Joe, with Lee at the end on Nathan's side. They had cigars in their mouths.
Joe–looking so young and fit–with a rare, open grin. Lee with a peaceful smile. Just before the Polaroid was taken, Nathan had looked over at his best friend. The photo caught the side of Nathan's face which bore the scar on his cheek from the accident. The scar from the Warning. Even now, Nathan remembered taking that look at Chet.

The joy!

Nathan looked at the picture for a long time.

Thirty
years. Nathan had grayed early. But he was still lean and strong. Every year he came here alone. He always started the memories at the same place. First grade. The skinny Irish kid behind his desk. Cracking a joke about Sister Lardo, puffing out his cheeks. Laughing. Smiling with his eyes. The vacations together in Chicago. The time Chet brought those two kids out to visit from New Jersey. When Chet
heard his confession the day after he met Joanie and agreed to Pascal's Wager. Hearing Chet's voice from the Cross during his personal Warning. Presiding over his wedding at Immaculate Conception Church. Saying good-bye on the tarmac at Essex County Airport.

Thirty years. Nathan realized that he was as old as Tom Wheat had been when he first met Tom here at the statue. That was before the Warning,
before the Dark Years.

In another universe.

He missed his father-in-law, too, of course. But Nathan knew when and where and how Tom died–gracefully, in the midst of his family, at the Wheat farm. Tom had died a peaceful death six years ago, and knowing how he died made the mourning easier. Sure, in the years after Chet's death, a few of those who had known him in prison came from New Jersey. Even
his old pastor, Monsignor Whelan, came to visit. They told Nathan about Chet's Kolbean charity before he was taken away to wherever they took him. And murdered him.

Nathan was certain that Chet was in heaven because Chet always answered Nathan's prayers. Maybe that had to be good enough.

Nathan lit a cigarette in honor of the priest.
Nobody smokes anymore,
he thought, feeling like an old man.
Nathan had to grow his own tobacco.

Thirty years. The mourning never really stopped, despite all the joy and happiness he had experienced during the Eucharistic Reign.

+  +  +

"Mind if I sit down?" Becky asked politely. Nathan shook his head. She sat down next to him. He saw her wince a bit at the arthritis in her knees.

She held up a homemade cigarette. "Got a light?"

Nathan nodded and popped
his ancient Zippo for her.

In the light of his Zippo, he looked carefully at his friend. Rebecca Jackson's beauty had not faded over the years–it had only changed.

"Thinking about him?" she said evenly. It was not really a question.

"Yeah," Nathan replied.

"Mind if I remember with you?" she asked.

"Now that you're here, no. Not at all. Maybe you can come next year, too," he told her mellowly.

She sighed, then inhaled deeply. She was Nathan's biggest and only tobacco customer. Thirty years ago, after the news came of Chet's mysterious death, she vowed to remember her priest every time she had a cigarette. She had her own memories. The first phone call. Crying on the beach in Chicago. The first confession. Good times at Bruno's Pizza. His wonderful stories. Those heady days at the Kolbe
Foundation before the tribulations. The wedding.

Tears streamed down her lovely, wrinkled cheeks. She tried to put words to the thoughts that Nathan could never quite formulate out loud.

"Sometimes I think," she began softly, "that when he died, however he died, the whole universe changed. I mean, he wasn't always holy, but Father Chet was always faithful. He used to tell me that Beauty and Sadness
were related. I like to think that as sad as it was when they killed him, it was beautiful, too. Beautiful enough to change the whole world. Maybe it did. Maybe it did. Maybe none of us would have made it if he hadn't shed his blood for all of us. Do you ever think that?"

Nathan was crying silently as she spoke.
Yeah, Beck. I think that all the time.
But the man of sorrows could say nothing to
the beautiful woman.

There was nothing more to say.

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