Chapter 18

This year, the demigods of meteorological symbolism—at least those assigned to the Chicago area—attempted to humble the storied heroes of the Christian inheritance and instead smile on those ordinary souls whose passing from this world seems of no account even a generation later. The Feast of All Saints exhibited that particular manifestation of late autumn dreariness in the upper midwest—just above freezing and just barely dry enough to be designated “not raining,” but all the while with a dampness in the air and a crisp breeze that chills the marrow of one’s bones. All Souls’ Day, by contrast, was veritable baseball weather: bright sunshine, calm air, and daytime highs slated to hit the 60-degree mark on the farenheit scale.

It was, of course, a surreal day for Miles. He was buoyed by the singular honor of having been invited to preach at the day’s observances at his alma mater—a Solemn Mass in the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, followed by a procession to the graveyard and special devotions there. If his overall anxiety load had been anywhere near the range of normal, he would have expended some energy teasing out whatever spiritual insight there might be for him that this was his first trip to Nashotah since burying Sharon in the very cemetery at which the liturgy of the day would conclude. As it was, of course, he would have to sit underneath the Sword of Damocles for some time before he could even head for the Wisconsin border. If Leland Rowell and his cohorts determined that Tracy Lindholm’s claims were more credible than his own, it would be within their purview to recommend to the Bishop that Miles be inhibited from the exercise of his priestly ministry pending a church trial. No doubt, if this should be their assessment, the inhibition letter would be handed him on the spot, with Chase Landry’s signature already affixed.

As he drove into the city, he was stressed even beyond these grim circumstances simply because, in getting out of the house, he had neglected to allow time to stop and fill the Mercury’s fuel tank; he was looking at more than 250 miles being added to the odometer before he could pop open a cold one in the comfort of the St Alban’s rectory, and, depending on what would transpire in his first appointment, and how much time the transaction would consume, he may be pressed for time getting to his second one, and the prospect of having to stop for gas en route was a manifestly unwelcome distraction. Under normal circumstances, he would have tuned in the morning news program on Chicago Public Radio, or perhaps the AM “drive time” banter and chatter on WGN. Today, however, he kept the radio off. He wanted to be centered, focused, reflective. It wasn’t that he had any particular mental preparation to accomplish. His role in the meeting with the Sexual Misconduct Investigation Team would be largely passive; they would say what they would say and do what they would do. And his homily for All Souls’ Day was written, edited, and refined—the final stage being accomplished by delivering it to an empty St Alban’s late in the evening before last. Nor was there any signficant spiritual work yet left undone. He had said his prayers, and now he would have to be content to let events play out as they would. In his own mind, he knew he was innocent of the charges that has been brought against him. Yet, the outcome was very much out of his control. He would have to accept the reality of his powerlessness. Rather, it was the solemnity of what might happen—the effective end of his career—that drove him to keep the radio silent.

Between his late start and slightly thicker than normal rush hour traffic on the Northwest Tollway and the Kennedy Expressway, not to mention the ubiquitous difficulty of finding street parking on the near north side, Miles walked in to the diocesan offices precisely at 9:00 AM. Max the security guard greeted him with his customary ebullience, overlaid with a demeanor of concern. “Father Coverdale, there’s some mighty serious-looking long-faced people that say they’re expectin’ to see you. One of ‘em looks like he could be a Philadelphi lawyer!”

Miles chuckled. “Well, Max, he’s a Chicago lawyer, and that’s probably bad enough!”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll set ’em straight, Father. Anyway, they want you in he second floor conference room.”

“Great. Thanks, Max.” With that, Miles headed for the elevator, which opened as soon as he hit the call button. Long faces, huh? Serious looking. As omens go, these were not good ones. But he was not constitutionally given to taking such things very seriously, so he was not unduly bothered as the elevator doors closed in front of him and he felt the gentle jerk that indicated ascendant movement. And so an elevator ride that lasted less than ten second became the sacrament of one of the major hinges on which Miles’ life would turn. It was a liminal moment of the sort when time and space are transcended, or at least become utterly unimportant. Maybe he should have prepared himself better for this. He had allowed himself to be distracted by all the bizarre twists of his life over the previous year, and hence had not rigorously thought through the enormity of what the elevator was carrying him toward. He had known this moment was coming; there was nothing unclear about it for him objectively. And he believed he had prepared spiritually, having offered up the whole mess in his prayers with conscious intention on several occasions. He had been disposed to interpret his lack of consuming anxiety as a sign of having reached that condition—an enviable one—known in the taxonomy of the spiritual life as “detachment.” Now, in the elevator, he wondered whether it was more a matter of denial than detachment. In any case, it was suddenly evident to him that he was manifestly unprepared emotionally. Having never visualized an adverse outcome, he had no strategy, no contigency plan. Even as the elevator ascended, the blood in his cheeks rushed the other direction. His palms were sweaty, his heart raced, and his breathing became shallow.

The elevator stopped, an electronic chime sounded, and the doors opened. There was no anteroom, no holding cell for the condemned prisoner. The elevator opened directly into a conference room with a large oblong table surrounded by padded chairs. Beyond the table was a floor-to-ceiling window extending over the full width of the room. The vertical blinds were in a fully open position, allowing the day’s bright sunshine to enter the room and backlight everything and everyone in it. Three silhouetted figures, positioned at the center of the table, along the left side, stood up in unison. If Miles had not already known who would be greeting him, he would have had trouble immediately identifying them. As it was, he knew them to be Leland Rowell, flanked by Ellen Nordquist and Tomás Fonseca.

In his role as first among equals, it was Rowell who spoke first. “Ah, Father Coverdale, good morning. Do come in. Please have a seat.” With that, he motioned to an empty chair on the side of the table opposite the one on which he and his two cohorts had already placed themselves. His manner, as usual, was neither brusque nor disarming; just matter-of-fact. He then abruptly took his seat and began shuffling papers in a manila folder on the table in front of him, leaving Nordquist and Fonseca to offer their hands in greeting, each with a nod and a faint smile. These telltale signs were not encouraging, Miles thought to himself. A nod and a faint smile were the precise elements in a prelude to the delivery of bad news. So he shook their hands, smiled back just as faintly, and sat down.

After a few seconds, Rowell finished straigthening the papers in his folder, but left it open in front of him, folding his hands on top of it and making direct eye contact with Miles. Here it was. This was the moment. He unconsciously held his breath and listened as the lawyer spoke. “This won’t take long. There isn’t much to say, and I’m not one for drawing things out. As you know, we interviewed you and we interviewed Mrs. Lindholm. There wasn’t much else we could do. A case like this inevitably boils down to ‘he said, she said.’ There’s no physical evidence. You’ve had a long and distinguished career in this diocese and there have been no other complaints against you of this nature. Mrs. Lindholm is a high-functioning professional who doesn’t have a history of making scurrilous accusations.” Miles would have had reason to question the implied judgment in this assessment, but he remained silent as Rowell continued. “So we talked with our friends over at Church Insurance, and they’ve agreed to offer her a modest financial settlement, but without acknowledging any culpability either on our part—that is, on the part of the diocese —or, and this will be of some interest to you—on your part. There will be no presentment filed against you. The Bishop will be writing you a letter—not a ‘godly admonition’ in the technical canonical sense, just an informal letter—advising you of the inapropriateness of seeing counselees, particularly female counselees, without anyone else present in the general area. Moreover, your Senior Warden will be getting a letter from the Chancellor of the diocese with the recommendation, the strong recommendation, that the Vestry install glass doors on all clergy offices at St Alban’s. Following either or both of these precautions could have saved all of us a whole bunch of heartburn, don’t you think?”

Miles was tempted to voice his honestly-held surprise that Leland Rowell ever suffered from heartburn, but he restrained himself. Instead, he offered a tepidly affirmative response to the question hanging in the air at the moment. “Perhaps so, Mr Rowell. Perhaps so.” While a glass door would probably not have made a difference in the case at hand, a policy that cross-gender pastoral care meetings in clergy offices be chaperoned from a distance—in combination with a glass door—almost certainly would have. There was no denying the factual truth behind the recommendations he and Lance Kemper would be receiving. An intuitive awareness that Miles had carried with him for a long time, probably for years, broke the surface of his consciousness for the first time at the moment: His own confidence that he would not engage in the sort of behavior denoted by the verbal equivalent of the plain brown wrapper—“misconduct” —was not at issue. Of course vulnerable females who came to him for pastoral care were safe from his predatory sexual advances, and were therefore in no need of such precautions as glass doors and nearby receptionists. He, on the other hand, did need such protection, protection from the likes of Tracy Lindholm. It may be a thoroughly lamentable development of civil society and church life that this was so, but it was nonetheless so. He had dogdged a bullet, by the grace of God. But divine grace cannot be tamed or contained, nor is it ever meant to serve as a surrogate for wisdom or prudence, so there was no guarantee he would be so fortunate should there ever be another such incident.

“Then I think we’re done here,” the lawyer continued. With that, he stood and set his briefcase on the table and extended his hand across with what was probably the nearest thing to a smile that ever habitually emanated from his countenance. “Thank-you for coming all the way in here for such a short meeting.”

Miles instinctively rose and grasped the outstretched hand in front of him. “Trust me, counselor, it was worth the drive to be able to hear what I just heard.” Tomás Fonseca then offered his hand with a greeting that was neither warm nor percfunctory. “This was hard work, but a fair outcome, I think. Blessings on you and your ministry, Miles.”

“Thank-you, Tomás. I appreciate the work you put into it.”

By this time, Ellen Nordquist had made her way around one end of the table and approached Miles with both her arms open, signifying her intention to embrace him in the chaste manner associated with the exchange of the Peace in celebration of the Eucharist, an overture to which he instinctively assented. Afteward, Ellen verbalized the sympathetic demeanor that she had already expressed kinetically. “My God, Miles, what an ordeal this must have been for you! I can scarcely begin to imagine what it must have been like for the future of your ministry to hang in the balance these last several weeks. If it’s any consolation, we could pretty much tell from the beginning that there was no basis to the allegations. Tracy struck us as…well, I think you know…obviously you know! I’m sorry you had to be put through this.”

Yes, obviously he knew, Miles thought to himself. For a moment, he was inclined to perveive Ellen’s remarks as patronzing. It was all easy enough for her to say; it was not her life that was at stake. And if they could tell from the beginning that Tracy was damaged goods, why didn’t they…? But he quickly checked that impulse, realizing that she, and Fonseca and Rowell, were as much victims of Tracy Lindholm’s manipulation of the process as we he; not in the precise same way, of course, but victims nonetheless. A considerable amount of time and energy had been hijacked from three busy people by one of his parishioners. They had responded precisely as they should have, and in the end, both justice and grace prevailed. It was a quintessential “Thanks be to God” moment.

But he wasn’t of a mind to dissect the situation with the Reverend Mrs Nordquist, so he disciplined his response in the direction of succinctness. “Thank-you, Ellen. It’s been a rough go, but I’m glad it’s over.” With that, he motioned for her to go ahead of him toward the elevator.

On his way out of the building, Miles stopped in the first floor men’s room. Somehow, the purging of fluid impurities from his body was symbolic, he felt as he made a special effort to express the proverbial last drop, a detail most men let slide more often than not, of the sudden and salutary outcome of the whole mess. As he walked out into the late autumn sunshine of the near north side, he was literally leaving it all behind him, the poison having been completely drained.

On his way up I-94, first north and then west, and taking the I-294 bypass through the southwestern suburbs of Milwaukee, Miles felt an inner freedom, a lightness in his being, that was not an accustomed experience for him. The proximate cause, of course, was the news that had been disclosed to him matter-of-factly by Leland Rowell. He had his life back. He was free to contemplate his future in a manner bearing some resemblance to “normal”—which, in turn, afforded him both the freedom and some raw material for contemplating higher levels of meaning. He had always—since his Wheaton College days, at any rate—realized as an intellectual conviction that the morphology of a Christian soul’s passage through this mortal life in necessarily and inherently cruciform. To profess faith in Jesus, to profess being a disciple of Jesus, entails a willingness to making a quantum leap into the flesh of the Good Thief, to be nailed to a cross right next to Jesus’, and to plead to be remembered when he comes into his kingdom. Yet, he had somehow nearly reached the sixth decade of his life—indeed, November 2 was his fiftieth birthday, a milestone even the contemplation of which, to say nothing of its celebration, had been utterly buried by the emergent debris of his life—without ever consciously thinking to himself, “Now I am on the cross. Now I am finding out what it means to be crucified with Christ, to share his sufferings.” But it now dawned on him that he had effectively spent the immediately prior twelve months just there—on the cross, nailed right up there next to Jesus, bleeding and dying.

Ah, death. Yes, he had in fact tasted death. Several deaths, to be exact. The first one was Sharon’s, but it was his too. He died to the identity of being a husband, Sharon’s husband—Sharon, whom he loved. There was no choice in the matter, but it was a death nonetheless. And only now, nearly a year after her diagnosis and more than six months after her passing, the reality that it was indeed a death—his death—washed over him both cognitively and viscerally for the very first time, and he yielded without restraint to the kinetic force of tears, not just something to discreetly dab away from the corner of his eye, but spontaneous sobbing of a sort that probably made it unsafe for him to keep on driving, as the Grand Marquis crossed the Wisconsin border without drawing his notice.

Then there was the death of his identity as a father. And it was not, as he might have tried to comfort someone else in a similar circumstance, merely the death of his self-image as a father, and thus merely an abberant projections of his ego, amenable to being diagnosed, treated, and dismissed. No, Rachel and Brian’s perception of him as a father—as their father—had been altered by the events of the past several months as well. Hence, there was an objective component to this particular speciation of death.

And, in a supremely ironic realization, on this day when his priestly vocation had been literally handed back to him, Miles’ identity as a priest had also effectively been put to death by the onslaught of his life’s events. Only after coming within a hair’s breadth of being stripped of the honorific adjective “reverend” did it become clear to him that, long before the successive waves that had pounded him for the last twelve months, long before the cells in Sharon’s brain had reconfigured themselves toward malevolent purposes, his ministry was on cruise control. He was so naturally gifted at making nearly every person with whom he came into contact feel as though they were his special friend, the technical skill set required for “running a church” was so seamlessly integrated into his personality, that he never suspected anything might be amiss. The fact that, in two-and-a-half decades of ordained ministry, he had never taken a sabbatical, set off no alarm bells in his consciousness. Only now, in the tearful privacy of an automobile flying northward at seventy miles per hour, did he see how much he had been relying in his daily work on technique and personal charm rather than on the sort of ubiquitous divine grace that he was wont to preach and teach about. He was doing his job, and, for the most part, doing it well. Only amid the stress of Sharon’s illness and death, compounded by all that followed, did the house of cards begin to collapse. The anonymous complaints to the Bishop about indecisiveness and lack of leadership, the quagmire into which the August vestry meeting sank, his delay in referring Tracy Lindholm to a therapist—these events did not happen in a vacuum; they were the signs of a dessicated vocation.

By the time he reached the Delafield exit on I-94, Miles had regained his composure. Indeed, he was not only composed, no longer distraught, but veritably joyful. Not merely relieved, but joyful. It was a joy catalyzed by relief, the relief he had felt when he left the diocesan office following his exoneration by the review committee, but neither rooted in relief nor ending in mere relief. It was the sort of joy that a visually-impaired person feels when surgery provides the gift of normal vision, not as the restoration of something lost, but for the first time, as fresh gift. What he has accepted as normal he now knew to be decidedly sub-normal.

But he had no time in which to process his epiphany just yet. His attention became consumed by the present duties of the day. He slowly traversed the drive leading into the Nashotah campus and made his way past the refectory and the library and around to a small parking lot along the north side of St Mary’s Chapel where he knew there were some spots reserved for visitors. He occupied one of those spots, and as he emerged from the vehicle he remotely released the trunk latch so he could retrieve the vestments—a cassock, a surplice, and a purple stole—that he had brought along for the occasion. With the vestments slung over his left forearm, and the leather notebook containing his sermon notes tucked under the same arm, he closed the trunk with his free hand and was immediately startled to see Rachel standing about four feet away, with a broad grin on her face.

“Hi, Dad!” she chirped as she made a sort of quick circular motion with her right hand—a stylized wave—with her left hand stuck in the pocket of her red raincoat.

Miles shook his head quickly in an intuitive sign of surprise, a double-take. “Rachel! I had no idea you were going to be here. What a nice surprise!”

Then they embraced. Miles looked at his watch. It was 11:40; the Mass was due to begin in twenty minutes, during which time he needed to make his presence know to the Dean, lay his notes in the chapel pulpit, get into the sacristy to don his vestments, and be ready to join in the entrance procession. Rachel was aware of all this as she held onto her father’s right elbow with both her hands as they walked toward the chapel’s apse and around to the sacrisy entrance. “Dad, I know you’re in a hurry, but I wanted to be here, first because—hey!—it’s your birthday! Happy birthday, you old fart! I can’t believe I have a father who’s a half-century old!”

“Ah, yes, it is my birthday, isn’t it? You know something, sweetheart, I might have gotten all the way through this day without even stopping to realize that if you hadn’t reminded me.”

“You’re welcome, you’re welcome. And I hope you know I was just teasing about that ‘old fart’ business, right?”

“Teasing? A daughter of mine teasing? Say it ain’t so!”

“Jeez, what am I going to do with you? But listen, I had another reason for coming up here today.” They headed off a few feet toward the privacy of a shrub next to the old wooden tower housing ‘Michael the Bell.’ “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

The prospect of bad news took some of the edge off of Miles’ giddiness. “Oh?”

“Ooh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laid it on you that way right before you have to go preach. My bad. But trust me, it’s nothing to freak out over. But first the good news, because…well, I just can’t wait any longer to tell you!”

Miles looked directly at her. “I’m all ears.”

“Well, there’s a chance Greg and I may be able to get back together. It’s not a done deal yet. We still have stuff to work through—I mean, we haven’t even begun to discuss the details. But—oh, Dad, I’m so happy about this!—two nights ago he came over and spent the night, and we talked all night. He spent the night—I’m talkin’ crack-of-dawn here—but all we did was talk! Isn’t that a hoot? All we did was talk, and I’m thinking, this is actually a good thing! I think he really understands how sorry I am for the pissy way I was behaving. I know you’re not exactly the president of the Audrey Newhouse fan club these days, but, believe me, she has helped me. She has helped me so much. And I just know that she can help ‘us’ as much as she has helped ‘me.’ I’m just really happy about this, Dad!” Whereupon she threw her arms around her father.

As he hugged her, Miles softly replied, “So am I, Rachel. So am I. You have no idea how glad I am to hear this.” Then, moving his hands to her shoulders, he looked at her with a more anxious demeanor. “But you said you had…you know…the other kind of news as well. So what’s that about?”

“Hmm. It’s not the end of the world, so please don’t let it upset you too much. Brian called me on my cell as I was driving up here. He said he tried to call you but got your voice mail. You must have…”

“Hey, cut to the chase!” he interrupted. “Brian called? Where is he?

“He’s in jail.”

“Thank God!” Miles sighed.

Rachel hesitated. “Well, it sounds a little weird to hear you say that about your own flesh and blood, but, now that I have a moment to think about it, I actually agree. Yes, thank God Brian’s in jail. Anyway…he was picked up by the Indiana State Police for speeding on the tollway—eastbound, that is, around South Bend. I don’t know where he was headed, but I’d guess east coast. The idiot was driving his own car, so it wasn’t exactly rocket science for them to figure out there’s an outstanding warrant for him in Wisconsin. So they threw him in the slammer and now he faces extradition, along with new charges for skipping bail, of course, so that means the plea bargain they offered him is completely off the table now and he’s a slam dunk for doing hard time. I’m sorry, Dad.”

Mercifully, he did not have time to process this news, either emotionally or cognitively, at the moment, as he responded instinctively to the sound of his own name. “Father Coverdale!” It was Joy Perry, Dean Craig’s administrative assistant.

“Hi, Joy! Yes, I’m here. Sorry to cut it so close.”

“You’re going to be fine, Father. The Dean saw you drive up, so his heartburn has disappeared. I wanted to find you before the Mass, though. Donna called—your secretary? She said she tried to reach you on your cell, but it went right to voice mail.” It then occurred to Miles that he had turned his ringer off on his way into the meeting at the diocesan office, and then set the phone on the car seat next to him and didn’t notice it vibrating. “But there was something she thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

Joy then handed him a folded note. “Thank-you,” he relied as he handed his vestments to Rachel and opened the note to read it. It was short: “Elmer Johnson died this morning at 8:00. Family will call when you get back.” Curiously, of all the information that had just been piled on him in the space of less than two minutes, this bit of news was the one that caused his pulse to elevate and the blood to drain from his cheeks. It wasn’t that he was particularly close emotionally to Elmer; if anything, for the entire length of their relationship, Elmer had represented more of a chore than a source of fulfillment or satisfaction. But their last meeting had been so luminous, so full of serendiptous grace, that hearing of his passing just before the beginning of an All Souls’ Day liturgy—the Requiem Mass for All Faithful Departed—was veritably transcendant.

Miles slipped the note into his jacket pocket, kissed his daughter on the cheek, and headed for the sacristy to vest. A few minutes later he was helping bring up the rear of the procession into the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin—a venerable and well-prayed in structure, if modest in size, that dated back to the Civil War era—just ahead of the Deacon and the Celebrant, who was Father Trevor Hughes, the effective dean of the faculty who was already both a legend and a relic during Miles’ own days as a student two and a half decades earlier. As the members of the altar party filed into their assigned places in the sanctuary, the chapel choir sang a polyphonic setting of the text from the Prayer Book Burial Office: “In the midst of life we are in death;

from whom can we seek help? From you alone, O Lord, who by our sins are justly angered.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and merciful Savior, deliver us not into the bitterness of eternal death.” Father Hughes then intoned the Collect of the Day: “Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served you here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into your unending joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

A student read a passage from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah—an evocative portrait of a banquet in time outside of time, on God’s “holy mountain,” where both food and drink are utterly abundant, and joy pervades the created order. Miles’ imagination flashed vividly on Elmer Johnson being shown a seat at that heavenly banquet table, and invited to sit and eat, freed at last from the shackles of his crippling illness. Then a cantor chanted verses from Psalm 116, as the congregation sang the repeated refrain, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his servants.” Another student read from St Paul’s second letter to the young church in the cosmopolitan Greek city of Corinth—an admonition not to lose heart, to keep on keeping on, a reminder that whatever suffering must be endured in this world is literally nothing—a “slight momentary affliction”—in comparison to the “eternal weight of glory” that awaits those who finish their course in faith.

The congregation then stood to greet the reading of the Holy Gospel by chanting the Church’s ancient shout of praise—“Alleluia”—as the deacon was led in procession to the center of the chapel aisle to read from the fifth chapter of St John’s gospel: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

Then Miles found himself in the pulpit, invoking the triune name of God and instinctively motioning with his hands for the congregation to be seated. Death is a strong word, he said, but it is not the last word. God has the last word, and that word is life—because God has life “in himself.” Grief is a strong word (and did he ever know it), but it is not the last word. God has the last word, and that word is joy—the joy of the celestial banquet on God’s “holy mountain.” Loss and change are strong words, but they are not the last word. God has the last word, and that word is hope—the hope of an “eternal weight of glory.” Grace is ubiquitous, and the media through which God delivers his grace transcend even the barrier of death.

His own work done, Miles receded into the background as the liturgy continued with the Apostles’ Creed, the words that pass the lips of soon-to-be Christians just before they are drowned and raised back to life in the amniotic fluid of the baptismal font. He indulged himself in the luxury of allowing his mind to wander as the Mass was offered in specific remembrance of those who have been known and loved in this world, but whom are no longer seen in it. He thought of Sharon, and tapped into that same reservoir of spiritual energy that had allowed him to weep so freely in the privacy of his car barely two hours earlier. He knew that he may yet shed some more tears for her—indeed, he would probably need to be alarmed if he did not do so—but there were no tears now, now at this moment, this eucharistic moment, when time and space are suspended and heaven and earth are one and life and death are indistinguishable from one another. In the imagination of his heart, he revisited the names and faces of those whose passage from this life to the next he had accompanied part of the way with his pastoral presence (in an iconic representation of the Good Shepherd)—how many were there? More than two hundred; of that he was certain. Once again, he thought of Elmer Johnson, who would shortly be added to that list, and felt a little embarrassed at his own surprise that, after years of simply doing his job with respect to Elmer—years, it had seemed, of tilling a garden that promised to be nothing but barren—he had actually been privileged to see and harvest the fruit of his labor. But it was an embarrassment he would be more than glad to suffer many times more. As he held out his hands to dine on the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of the crucified and risen Jesus, he knew himself to be fed at the same heavenly banquet table at which Elmer and Sharon were even at that moment also being fed. He even thought of the fruit of his own sin—and the fruit of another’s womb—harvested before its time, and never having seen the light of day in this world before being ushered into the next, bearing the sins of the parents never known, but somehow, Miles was sure, taken up into the redemptive love of the One who was the ultimate source of even its ill-conceived life.

After the Mass, the assembly traveled in procession to the cemetery, chanting the Litany of the Saints, invoking the prayers of the Church Triumphant on behalf of the Church Militant and the Church Expectant. Even though walking, Miles felt on that short journey that he was resting—truly resting for the first time in at least a year, and probably a lot longer than that; indeed, possibly for the first time in his life. He rested in the ubiquitous grace about which he had just preached—grace that he knew would be sufficient for Rachel in her anxious hope, grace that he knew would be sufficient for Brian in his angry sickness, grace that he knew would be sufficient for Tracy Lindholm in her brokenness, and grace that he knew would be sufficient for Oksanna as she attempted to order her life faithfully, if imperfectly.

As coincidence—or providence, depending on one’s perspective—would have it, as the procession arrived at its destination, Miles discovered that his assigned place in it required him to take a station directly in front of Sharon’s grave. (To his regret, the marker was flush with the ground, for the convenience of the groundskeepers; he would have preferred a proper upright gravestone, but had not thought to voice that request at the time the arrangements were made.) The Dean led the closing devotions, which were, in an adapted form, the very words uttered by Chase Landry before Sharon Coverdale’s open grave some six and half months earlier: “In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brothers and sisters, whose mortal remains we have committed to the ground in this place, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them, the Lord make his face to shine upon them and be gracious to them, the Lord lift up his countenance upon them and give them peace.” The sun shone brightly; the air was unseasonably warm and calm. It was a good day. It was simply a good day.