The elderly woman with the blue rinsed hair who checked me into my room yesterday waves at me as I hurry through the lobby. “Ms. Taylor? Oh, Ms. Taylor? We have a wonderful cocktail hour at sunset this evening. It would be our pleasure if you could join us.”
I smile, shaking my head. I slow my gait, but I don’t stop walking. “That does sound wonderful, but I’m afraid I’m already promised elsewhere. Thank you for the invitation, though.”
The woman—Ellen May, according to her name badge—gives me another toothy smile, but I can see the look in her eyes. She probably wants to ask me why I soaked all of my towels through and left them on my bed. She probably wants to know why I ordered a huge breakfast this morning, with a double serving of bacon, and then touched none of it. Not even the coffee.
I wave cheerfully at her as I dash out of the revolving doors of the hotel. It’s nearly three now. I grew up running the maze of narrow side streets in Port Royal—spent my youth before Mom died wading through marshes and punting through reeds, dragging sticks along endless stretches of white picket fence and rolling marbles down the length of the boardwalk, watching the little spheres of colored glass tumble over the edge and into the murky water below. I know this town. I know the sight, sound, smell, feel of it, and I still know every single building that stands here.
St. Regis of Martyr’s Catholic Church is perhaps the most well known local landmark. Its slate-clad spire isn’t the tallest or grandest of church spires by any means, but it’s the highest point on the Port Royal skyline, and its bells still ring out at midday every Saturday and Sunday. When Mom was alive, she used to drive me down here at the weekends so we could watch the young couples fleeing the high, arched wooden doors, dressed in suits and overflowing wedding dresses, dodging a gambit of rice and handfuls of colorful tissue paper horse shoes and love hearts. They would always beeline for their decked out cars, ‘just-married’ spray painted in silly string on the back windows, laughing all the way, and I remember thinking how happiness like that made people appear, at least on the outside, to have lost all common sense and intelligence.
I drive over to St. Regis, grinding my teeth. I don’t remember there being a parking lot around the side of the old stone building, but when I pull into the place, there it is, and it’s clear it’s been here forever. Three other cars are parked at random intervals, at least four or five spaces separating them, and I feel compelled to maintain this spacing. I park at the very far end, as far away from everyone else as I possibly can. This strikes me as odd—for some reason, I would have thought people parking in a church lot would have all gathered together in a show of solidarity or something. Some kind of god-loving high five for vehicle owners. Turns out Catholics don’t like the idea of their paintwork getting scratched as much as the next person, though.
I find the priest in the rectory doing push ups. He’s sweat right through his gray t-shirt, and his feet are bare, though a pair of running sneakers sit by the entrance to the rectory, and a pair of socks have been stuffed into the foot holes.
He’s young, maybe only thirty-five, and his hands are well callused when he shakes mine.
“Good to finally meet you, Ms. Taylor. Sorry, normally there’s a lull in my duties around this time in the afternoon. It’s the only time I get to work out.”
“Right. Priests have to keep in shape, too.” This seems like a hilarious comment to make, since the vast majority of priests I’ve met have always been overweight and probably hadn’t bent down to collect their own newspapers in years.
“I’m Sam. I knew your father well. I’m sorry for your loss,” he says.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.” Being a bitch to Sam the priest isn’t high on my agenda. He smiles with his eyes, and he seems genuinely hurt on my behalf. To go full on glacial would be like kicking a puppy. “I assume you’re here to arrange your father’s memorial service. Malcolm actually outlined the passages of scripture he’d like me to read. The music he liked has already been drafted as well.”
“Great. So what do I need to do exactly?”
Sam the Priest shrugs, still catching his breath from his push-ups. “Once the body’s been released from the morgue, you just need to arrange a date. Typically, it takes about ten days to organize everything once that’s happened.”
“Ten days?” I feel like the trodden-down brown carpet beneath my feet has suddenly split open and a gaping hole has formed in the ground, trying to suck me under. “I can’t be here for ten days.”