Eleventh Hour

She hurled herself sideways. She hit a fire hydrant and went crashing down on her hip. She felt the hot air, smelled the sour rubber of the tires as the sedan sped by. She lay there, pain pulsing through her hip, wondering why no one was around. Not a single person was stupid enough to be out in this weather. Oh God. Would the car come back?

She got up, tried to run, but ended up hobbling back across the street. She saw a bum in the alley just next to her condo building. He’d seen everything.

“Crazy bugger,” the guy said, lifted a bottle to his mouth, and drank down a good pint.

She fumbled with her building door key, finally got it to turn, and almost fell into the lobby, so afraid that she just hung there, leaning against a huge palm, breathing hard. There was a neighbor, Mrs. Kranz, standing there. The old lady, the widow of a Chicago firefighter, helped her to her condo, stuffed aspirins down her throat, and sat her down as she built up the fire in the fireplace.

“What happened, dear?”

Dear God, it was hard to speak, hard to get enough saliva in her mouth. She finally got out, “Someone-someone tried to run me down.”

Mrs. Kranz patted her arm. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” At Nick’s nod, because she really couldn’t speak, Mrs. Kranz said, “A drunk, more like it. Right?”

Nick just shook her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” A drunk? She’d felt all the way to her bones that it was someone who wanted to hurt her. Maybe even kill her. Was that unlikely? Sure it was, but it didn’t change how she felt. A drunk. That might be right. Damn.

She thanked Mrs. Kranz, forgot the papers she was going to grade, and went to bed. She shuddered beneath the covers, cold from the inside out.

When she finally slept, it was only to see that big dark car again, then another and another, all around her. She saw a man driving each car, and each man was wearing a ski mask pulled over his face. There was a kaleidoscope of madness in each man’s eyes, but she didn’t recognize any of them. There were so many, she didn’t know where to look. She was spi

She managed to sleep another hour, then awoke feeling groggy, her hip aching something fierce. She downed more aspirins, looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, and nearly scared herself to death. She looked pale, sick, like she’d been in a really bad accident. A drunk, she said to the image staring back at her. It had to be a drunk. She stripped off her pajamas, looked at the huge purple bruise covering her right hip, wished she had something stronger than aspirin, and got under the shower. Ten minutes later she felt a bit more human. It had to be a drunk, not an old relic of a professor, not a wild teenager out to scare her, no, a drunk, a simple up-front drunk.

The eyes, the madness, that was just a dream spun out of fear.

She didn’t bother reporting it to the police. She had no license plate, so what could they do? She told John about it, and he held her close, stroking her hair. He repeated what Mrs. Kranz had said. “A stupid drunk, that’s all. It’s all right, Nicola. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

She didn’t sleep well after that night, not until her first night wrapped in a blanket atop a very hard, narrow cot in the upstairs dorm of a homeless shelter in San Francisco.

Wednesday evening, after a day of endless interviews, trying to find any co

But before he could take her to the wake, they had to stop at Macy’s in Union Square and buy her a black dress, both for the wake that night and for the funeral to be held on Friday afternoon. And black shoes. Neither of them wanted to, but it had to be done.

They didn’t arrive at the kind of Irish wake filled with a sea of voices, boisterous laughter, even louder sobs, lots of hair-raising stories about the deceased, lots of food, and too much booze. This wake was attended by more men wearing black than Dane could count, all of them somber, and only two women, Ms. Jones and Eloise DeMarks, his sister, both wearing simple black dresses, both looking pale.

Father Bi

Eloise, tall and thin, her lipstick looking garish on her too-pale face, was dark-haired and dark-eyed just like her brothers. Grief bowed her shoulders, and she was as silent as their mother had been for those six long months before she finally left their philandering father. Dane didn’t know if their father knew one of his sons was dead. They hadn’t been able to reach him. Their mother had died of a ruptured appendix while traveling on safari in western Africa. Dane remembered that they hadn’t heard a word from their father then.

Dane didn’t want to view his brother’s body again. He simply couldn’t bear it. He waited at the back of the rectory chapel, his arms hanging at his sides, not moving, just wishing it was over.

His brother was dead. He’d forget for minutes at a time, but then it would smack him again-the terrible finality of it, the viciousness of it, the fact that he would never see his brother again, ever. Never get another phone call, another e-mail, another stupid joke about a priest, a rabbi, and a preacher…

How did people bear this pain?

Nick was standing just behind him. She picked up his hand, smoothed out the fist he’d made. Her skin was rough but warm. She said, “They’re honoring Father Michael Joseph, doing the best they can, but it’s so very hard, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t speak. He just nodded. He felt her fingers stroke his hand, gently massage his fingers, easing the muscles.

She said, “I want to see him one last time.”

He didn’t answer her, and didn’t look at her, until she returned to stand beside him.

“He’s beautiful, Dane, and he’s at peace. It’s just his body here, not his spirit. I firmly believe that there is a Heaven, and since Father Michael Joseph was such a fine man, he’s there, probably looking down at us, so happy to see that you’re here and that you’re safe. And he knows how much you love him, there’s no doubt at all in my mind about that. I know he must feel sorry for your pain. I’m sorry, Dane, so very sorry.”

He couldn’t find words. He squeezed her hand. “Just three weeks ago-Christmas was just three weeks ago, can you believe that? Michael and I went down to San Jose to be with Eloise, her husband, and our nephews. Michael gave me an autographed Jerry Rice football. It’s on my fireplace mantel. Only odd thing about it was that Jerry’s an Oakland Raider now. Michael thought that was a hoot. Jerry in silver and black. I never saw him after I flew out on the twenty-seventh.”