“Sweet?” said the third. “Try socially awkward. He’s either tongue-tied or rambling on and on about something.”
He’d been mortified at their assessment. Was that how people saw him? He hadn’t recognized the voices and remained grateful for that. He hoped they were not regular members of the congregation and comforted himself by thinking they were summer residents. Still, he found himself replaying the conversation. Rambles on and on. Socially awkward. Such a cold indictment. Had people always seen him that way? During high school and his first years at university he had dated, and his memories of those distant times were pleasant. One girl in particular came to mind. Cynthia Gibbons. A brunette with a frank and open face who played oboe in the high school orchestra. He remembered a kiss they had shared in the small room off the auditorium where the instruments were stored. That summer she had moved away. He couldn’t remember if they had exchanged letters.
The truth was, he didn’t mind being alone, preferred it actually, though he might have enjoyed having an animal. A small dog or cat. Even a bird. Oddly, the one person he had felt drawn to, the one person who didn’t want something from him or seek his company because he was a priest and might bring a person one step closer to their Savior was Will Light. Again he worried about the bill.
“What can I get you to drink?” the waitress asked, pencil posed over pad.
“Do you have iced coffee?” Will asked.
“We have iced coffee and iced tea. The tea comes sweetened and unsweetened.”
“I’ll have the coffee. No cream.”
She turned to Father Gervase. “And what can I get for you, Father?”
Coffee would keep him up all night. How did one drink coffee this late in the day and still manage to sleep? He really would have liked a glass of wine, but since Will hadn’t ordered one, he refrained. “Just water, thank you,” he said.
“Shall I get the drinks, or are you ready to order?”
“I’ll have the seared tuna on greens,” Will said.
“I’ll have the same,” Father Gervase said, although he was no longer hungry. He groped for a topic of conversation and settled on the weather, the first and last resort of the desperate. “A good rain this morning,” he said. “For the gardens.”
“We could use more,” Will said.
“Yes. It’s been a dry summer. One might even say arid. And after the spring rains, I had hopes for a good season for the gardens.”
Their salads arrived, and the priest welcomed the reprieve from having to make conversation. He unfolded his napkin and spread it on his lap, relieved that Will seemed content to eat in silence. So many people didn’t. The tuna was rare in the middle, and he wanted to send it back to the kitchen for further grilling, but Will was eating his, and again Father Gervase was reluctant to make a fuss. He shook salt on the slab of fish, then sliced a portion from the edge where it was most cooked. “How is Sophia?” he asked.
“She’s in Maine. A friend has a cottage up there, and she went up to work on a project.”
“A project?”
“Writing. It’s a project exploring violence in our culture and the effect of it on all of us. She is especially focusing on violence against our children.”
“Good for her. The world could use more voices of conscience sitting on its shoulders. She’s that rare person, you know.”
“What’s that?”
“An activist without anger.”
“Is that what she is?”
“I think so, yes. You know sometimes we go through an experience—a betrayal, a grievous loss—and we are left wondering how anything worthwhile can possibly come out of it.” He took Will’s silence as encouragement to continue. “But it is possible to emerge from such an experience with a greater capacity for compassion, you see. To have a change of heart or mind we could never have anticipated. It seems to me that is what has happened to Sophia. She has had a conversion experience. What we call a metnois.”
“Yes, well, no offense, Father, but I’m not in the mood for a sermon.”
“No. Well, I meant no offense. I certainly didn’t intend to invite you for dinner and then spend our time together preaching.” Invite you. There it was again, the implicit intention that he would treat. He removed his glasses—it was a puzzlement to him how they were always smudged—and reached into his pocket for the green silk square to clean them. As he lifted it to clean the lenses, an object fell to the table. Across from him, Will made a sound.
“What is—what is that?”
“This?” Father Gervase picked up the little Yoda figure. For no good reason, he had developed the silly habit of carrying it around with him.
“Where did you get that?” Will asked, his voice so agitated the older couple at the back table looked over.
“Why I . . .” The priest paused. “Why I don’t remember exactly.”
Will reached for it, and as Father Gervase surrendered it he felt the trembling in the artist’s hand.
Will lifted it closer to his face, turned it over. “Where did you get this?” he asked again, his voice stricken.
The priest’s brow furrowed with concentration. How had he come to have it? Had he picked it up somewhere on the parish grounds? On the street? “I don’t remember exactly,” he said, puzzled by Will’s agitation.
“Please,” Will said. “Try to remember.”
“Is it important?”
“Did—did Lucy give it to you?”
It took a minute for him to follow Will’s question. “Lucy? Your daughter?”
“Yes.” Will clasped his fingers tightly around the toy. “This belonged to her.”
“Are you sure?” Father Gervase said and immediately regretted the question.
“Absolutely.” Will opened his fingers. “Here,” he said, “this ear that’s missing its tip. And here, on the bottom, the little mark. Lucy did that. This is hers. Did she give it to you?”
“No.” That much he was sure of. He’d only started carrying it around in recent weeks. Could it really have belonged to Lucy? How was that possible? But Will Light was so certain.