“Loud and clear.”
“There are always educated guesses and wild rumors, but never have there been rumors like this, Brigid. The cardinals are locked up until the vote is in, but there’s been a leak. Your name is being circulated in the College of Cardinals.”
“My name? What are you talking about?”
“Brigid, your name has come up as a candidate for pope.”
My legs went out from under me as if I’d been slammed behind the knees by a two-by-four, and I dropped to the floor in a state of stunned shock and denial. There was no way the church would want a woman pope. And I entirely lacked the background to qualify. This story was crazy, frightening, and I didn’t get it. I sat down hard at the foot of the bed, pressed Redial, and heard the ring tone.
Zach answered.
“Brigid,” he said.
“Wait. What you just said? It’s absurd. It’s some kind of bad joke.”
“You don’t understand, Brigid. Something is happening here in Rome. My sources are reliable.”
A tremendous roar came over the phone. The only thing that sounded even close was a game-winning homer at Fenway. This sounded ten times louder.
Zach shouted, “Brigid! I think news is breaking. Keep your phone with you and charged. I’ll call you.”
And the line went dead again.
I tried to blank out what Zach had said. I had to say Easter sunrise Mass in an hour. I had to get ready.
I went to wake Gilly, but she was already sitting up in bed with her iPad. She flashed the screen toward me. “Zach sent this clip.”
“Let me see.”
I sat next to Gilly and watched the images of a roiling mass of people within the confines of St. Peter’s Square.
“What’s happening?” Gilly asked. “It looks crazy.”
“St. Peter’s is always filled like that on Easter Sunday because the pope goes onto his balcony-somewhere in here-and gives a blessing.”
“But the Pope died.”
“That’s right. And now, there’s a vote going on in the Vatican to elect a new pope.”
“A new pope? Today?”
“Could happen. But sometimes it takes a few days for the cardinals to reach an agreement. Hey. Are you as hungry as I am? Five minutes until breakfast. And then we’ve got to hustle.
“Let’s go, Gilly. We have to beat the sun.”
Chapter 117
THE STREET outside our front steps had been closed to traffic and was jammed with people out to the very walls of the houses. The crowd was chanting my name, holding up babies to be kissed; their expressions were ecstatic, pleading, expectant.
“Brigid, is it true? Don’t forget us when you go to Rome.”
This was how I learned that the rumor in Rome had flashed across the “pond” and that I had become the flesh-and-blood manifestation of hope.
But I had no answers. I opened my mind to God, and I felt a slight breeze that moved around me so faintly, I couldn’t be sure that it was anything but the natural movement of air.
I looked out from my short stoop at the field of people who’d gathered to see me. For a moment, I was paralyzed, but Gilly loved this. Dressed in her second-best dress, blue and embroidered with daisies, and with a bandage over the cut on her hand, she thrilled to the attention. She waved from the top step and was rewarded by people calling out to her.
“Yo, Gilly, did you meet the pope?”
Gilly was still small enough to get trampled. I picked up my little girl, and she gripped her legs around my hips, tightened her arms around my neck. She was getting heavy, but once I had a good hold on her, I stepped down into the street.
Reporters assailed me with questions from all sides. One of them, Jason “Papa” Beans of the Boston Globe, was wearing a button on his jacket, the universal question Y in bold red on a yellow ground.
“Have you gotten the call from the Vatican?” Beans asked.
“Aww, Papa. It’s a rumor, nothing more. And that’s the really big scoop. Now, pleeease pardon me. I have to go to church. I have a Mass to say.”
“Bri-gid! Bri-gid!”
Beans did the gallant thing. He walked ahead of me, parting the crowd so that I could go through. Still, people threw flowers and grabbed at my sleeves and even my hem, and they blew kisses as we moved slowly up the block.
By the time we reached the entrance to St. Paul’s, thousands were funneling from the broader avenues down the narrow streets, toward the entrance to the church.
Only a small number of these people would fit inside, and as this became apparent, panic began. They all wanted to see me.
My vision started to blur. I was walking behind Beans through the crowd, and I could also see myself with Gilly and the restive mob from a great height. It reminded me of the view of St. Peter’s that Zach had sent Gilly this morning.
It was Jason Beans who brought me back to earth. Having cleared a path for me and Gilly right to the sacristy door, he shot his last, desperate questions at me.
“Brigid, has the Vatican contacted you? Have you been told that you’re in contention for pope?”
“No and no. Thanks for the escort. I’ll see you after Mass, Papa, I promise.”
I closed the sacristy’s street door behind me. As I caught my breath, Gilly embraced Birdie and fed her, and when I told her to go into the church, she said okay.
I opened the door to the nave, and Gilly scooted through. I watched her squeeze into the aisle seat in the front right pew, my seat for thirty years. I had been sitting exactly there when I met her father. It was Gilly’s seat now.
I looped my stole around my neck and looked out over the congregation. The air was supercharged with expectation, and I was pretty sure that the congregants were more interested in what had transpired in Rome than they were in St. Paul’s thoughts about the resurrection of Christ.
I would read the First Epistle to the Corinthians anyway.
I felt a draft at my feet and at my cheeks.
God, are You here?
I smiled at the congregation, and I began to speak.
Chapter 118
THAT WAS a pretty rough scene out on DeWolfe Street,” I said to the congregants. “But I’m glad we’re all together now on this momentous Easter Sunday. We have a lot to reflect upon and much to pray for.”
As I spoke, I felt that strange sensation of water drying on my skin, the same one I had first felt when climbing the imposing marble staircase in the Apostolic Palace.
Now, as then, I felt a soft breeze in my hair.
Could anyone see it?
I reined in these thoughts and focused on the faces before me. I knew, Be with them.
But something was going on inside me. I felt woozy and warm, maybe feverish. I rationalized that it was jet lag and stress, lack of food and sleep. Or maybe the channel between me and God was so flexible now from use, it had become like a window that could open at any time.
I anchored myself to the altar with both hands. I very much wanted to celebrate this sunrise Mass, and I didn’t think I could do that if I was both with the congregation and watching them from under St. Paul’s barrel-vaulted ceiling.
I was reaching for my next words when a commotion broke out, back in the shadows at the rear of the church. A bearded man jumped to his feet and called my name, demanding my attention.
“Look here, Brigid. Look at me.”
I looked, but I couldn’t make out his face. Did I know him? He walked up the aisle toward me, and when he reached the rail, he dropped to one knee and made the sign of the cross, smoothly slipping his hand inside his jacket. I was focused on his square, bearded face-it was the beard that threw me off. And then I got it: he was Lawrence House, the man who had threatened our family and who had likely burned down our church.