Reprisal

FIFTEEN

Why?

Bill stood alone beside the double grave under an obscenely bright late winter sky. The unfiltered sunlight stung the healing burns on his cheeks, feebly warmed his chest and shoulders, but left his soul untouched. The March wind was a cold knife slicing across the bare knolls of Tall Oaks Cemetery, ripping through the thin fabric of his black pants and jacket.

The mourners were gone; the caretakers had yet to arrive. By tradition he should have hosted a gathering at home for the mourners, but his home was gone. Home was now a tumble of blackened, ice-encrusted timbers.

Why?

Bill had made all the mourners go, practically pushed them away from the graveside. He had wept his tears, he had pounded his fists of rage against unyielding walls until they were bruised and swollen, now he wanted to be alone with his folks one last time before the earth was resealed over them.

How alone he felt at this moment. He realized that subconsciously he had taken it for granted that his parents would always be around. Consciously, of course, he had known that their remaining years were numbered in single digits, but he had envisioned them leaving him one at a time, taken off by natural causes. Never in his worst nightmare had he envisioned the possibility of such a… catastrophe. Their sudden departure had left a gaping hole in his life. Even the old ranch house was gone. Where was home now? He felt adrift, as if his anchor had been torn loose three days ago and could no longer find purchase.

A long three days—two for the wake, then the Requiem Mass and funeral service itself this morning—full of pain and the sympathy of friends and acquaintances, days in which he'd tried to leaven his grief by telling himself that his parents had led long, happy, productive lives and hadn't had much time left anyway, and how lucky he'd been to have had them around as long as he did. But none of it worked. Whatever tempering effect that sort of reasoning might have had on his almost-overwhelming sense of loss was repeatedly blasted away by the insistent memory of the two blackened, twisted corpses he had seen removed from the ruins of his parents' bedroom.

Why?

How many times had he offered pat, soothing bromides to a deceased's mourning family when they turned to him with that same question? He had always avoided perpetuating the nonsense that it was God's will, that God was "testing" the living, trying their faith. Circumstance, the capriciousness of reality, those were what tested one's faith. God didn't have to stick his finger into the soup and squash somebody. Disease, injury, genetic accidents, and the forces of nature were all quite capable of ruining and ending lives without the slightest help from God.

And yet here he was, Father Ryan, asking the same question—one chagrined Father Ryan, realizing that he never really had answered the question for others, and he now could do no better for himself.

Chief Morgan of the Monroe Fire Company had provided some sort of an explanation, though. He had pulled Bill aside in the rear of Cahill's Funeral Home during the wake.

"I think we found the cause, Father," he had said.

"Was it arson?" Bill said, feeling the rage rise up in him. He'd been sure the fire had been set. He had no idea who or why, but he couldn't bejieve the fire could spread so far so fast on its own.

"No. W.e had the arson team go over the place. No sign of an accelerant. We think it started in the wiring."

Bill had been dumbfounded.

"You mean a short circuit could make a house burn like that?"

"Your folks built that house before the war—the Second World War. It was a tinderbox. A good thing one of the neighbors called it in or you wouldn't be standing here."

"Electrical…?"

"Well, the wiring was as old as the house. Not made for modern appliances. Something gets overheated once too often and then…" He finished the sentence with an elaborate shrug.

But he had said more than enough to leave Bill feeling weak and sick. Even now as he turned away from the grave and began walking aimlessly, the nausea still churned in his gut. He hadn't mentioned to Chief Morgan that not all the wiring was old. He had spent a couple of weekends over the winter rewiring a few of the rooms himself.

My God, had the fire started in one of the junction boxes he'd replaced? But he'd done the work in January, two months ago. If he'd botched something it would have been apparent before now. The sparks had probably originated in some of the old wiring he hadn't got around to replacing yet. Still, Bill was unnerved by the mere possibility that he had contributed to his parents' horrible deaths.

He stopped and looked around. Where was he? He'd wandered away from the gravesite without actually watching where he was going. He remembered walking through a stand of oaks and was now halfway up the rise on another of Tall Oaks' grave-studded knolls. No upright tombstones at Tall Oaks; everyone got uniform flat granite markers, the implication being that no matter what you were in life, you're all the same in death. Something about that approach appealed to Bill.

A patch of lush, dark green grass off to his left caught his eye. The grass in Tall Oaks was just beginning to come back from its winter brown, but the green of this one small spot was almost tropical.

Curious, Bill approached it, then stopped in shock. He recognized the grave before he was close enough to read the marker. It belonged to Jim Stevens.

A flood of memories swirled around him, especially of the afternoon he had stood on this same spot with Jim's wife Carol and looked down at a similar patch, only that had been dead grass surrounded by living. The grass over the grave today was so green, so perfectly rectangular, almost as if…

Bill squatted and ran his hands over the emerald blades. Despite the setting, despite the horrors and misery of the last three days, he had to smile.

Plastic.

He dug a finger under the edge and lifted. The plastic sod came up, revealing a patch of cold, brown, denuded earth beneath. His smile faded as he realized that even after almost twenty years the gardeners at Tall Oaks had been unable to make anything grow over Jim's grave. He glanced up at the flat granite and brass marker.

"What's the story, Jim?" he said aloud. "What's going on here?"

No reply, of course, but he felt his heart give a sudden twist in his chest as he noticed the dates on Jim's marker: January 6, 1942-March 10, 1968.

March 10. Today was March 13—his parents had burned to death three days ago… in the early hours of March 10.

Suddenly the wind through Tall Oaks seemed to blow colder, the sunlight seemed to fade. Bill dropped the corner of the plastic turf and rose to his feet.

As he walked down the slope his mind whirled. What was going on here? Jim Stevens, his best friend, had died violently, horribly on March 10, and now two decades later his parents had died just as horribly… on March 10.

Coincidence? Of course. But he could not escape the feeling that there was some sort of message there, some sort of warning.

But of what?

He shook off the thought. Superstitious garbage.

He returned to his parents' grave, said a final prayer over their coffins, then headed toward his car.

The boys of St. F.'s were all waiting for him when he returned, swarming like bees around the hive of his office door. He'd been back only once for a few moments since the fire, like a thief in the night, long enough to grab a few changes of clothes before rushing back to Long Island where Father Lesko was letting him bunk in Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow's rectory for the duration of the wake and funeral, but he was certain the kids all knew what had happened. Especially since so many of them seemed to be having trouble meeting his gaze this morning when he said hello to each of them by name.

What kind of talk had run through these halls last Sunday? He could almost hpar it: Hey! Didja hear? Father Bill's folks got burnt up in afire last night!… No way!… Yeah! Burnt to a crisp!… Is he comin' back?… Who knows?

Bill knew. He would always come back. And he would keep coming back until they closed this place down. No personal loss, no matter how great, would keep him from fulfilling that vow.

Only a few of the boys were smiling. Weren't they glad to see him?

As he stuck the key into the lock on his office door, Marty Sesta stepped forward. He was one of the oldest boys in St. F.'s, and the biggest. He tended to throw his weight around but he was basically a good kid.

"Here, Father," he said, his brown eyes averted as he thrust a legal-size envelope at Bill. "Dis is from us."

"Who's 'us'?" Bill said, taking the envelope.

"Alia us."

Bill opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of drawing paper, quarter folded. Someone had drawn a sun behind a cloud. Below was a flat green line with some tuliplike flowers sprouting from it. Block-printed words hung in the air: WE'RE SORRY ABOUT YOUR

MOM AND DAD, FATHER BILL.

"Thank you, boys," Bill managed to say past a steadily constricting throat. He was touched. "This means a lot. I'll… see you all later, okay?"

They all nodded and waved and took off, leaving Bill alone to ponder the incomprehensible wonders of children and what they could wring from a single piece of paper and some crayons. He'd expected a little sympathy from some of them, but never this kind of united display. He was deeply moved.

"Are you sad?" said a familiar small voice.

Bill looked up and saw blond hair and blue eyes. Danny Gordon was standing in his office doorway.

"Hi, Danny. Yes, I'm sad. Very sad."

"Can I sit with you?"

"Sure."

Bill dropped into the chair and let Danny hop up onto his lap. And suddenly the dark winter chill that had enshrouded his soul since Sunday morning melted away. The drifting sensation faded. The gaping emptiness within began to fill.

"Are your mommy and daddy in heaven?" Danny asked.

"Yes. I'm sure they are."

"And they won't be coming back?"

"No, Danny. They're gone for good."

"That means you're just like us."

And then it was all clear to him. The touching drawing, the sympathy from the kids. They'd been long-time citizens of the country to which he'd just emigrated. They were welcoming him to a land where no one wanted to be.

"That's right," he said softly. "We're all orphans now, aren't we."

As Danny jumped off his lap, unable to confine himself to one location a second longer, Bill felt a sudden oneness with the boy, with all the boys who had passed through the doors of St. F.'s during his tenure. More than mere empathy, it was like a merging of souls. The drifting sensation dissipated as his anchor found bottom again and caught.

But he wasn't entirely without family. He knew that although he was indeed an orphan like the other residents of St. F.'s, he still had the Society of Jesus. Being a Jesuit was like belonging to a family of sorts. The Society was a close-knit brotherhood. Whenever he needed them he knew his brother Jesuits would be there for him. In fact, as a priest, there was no reason why he shouldn't consider the whole Church as one huge, extended spiritual family. And in that great body of relatives, the residents of the St. Francis Home for Boys could be looked upon as his immediate family.

True, he had lost his parents, but he never would be truly alone as long as he had the Church, the Jesuits, and the boys of St. F.'s. He would always have a home, he'd always belong.

And that was a good feeling.

Bill put the horrors of last Sunday morning behind him by throwing himself back into the daily routine of running one of New York City's last surviving Catholic orphanages. He felt he'd already faced and survived the worst that life could offer. What else was left to go wrong? Whatever could go sour had already done so—in spades. Things would be looking up from now on.

And for a while, through much of that spring, his life did indeed seem to chart a steadily upward course.

Then the Loms crossed the threshold of St. F.'s.