I open the Bible we keep beside an icon of the Theotokos. She watches serenely as I turn the pages. I wish I could share her calm.
Peter comes back reeking of the ginger-mint toothpaste he loves. He strips down to underwear, then climbs into bed and draws up the sheet to his Adam’s apple.
“Peter, I want to talk to you about what’s happening with Uncle Simon.”
He stares at me. His eyes are suddenly filled with innocence, with the tremulous courage only a child can have, being powerless to stop the things he fears.
“Do you remember Mister Nogara?” I say.
He nods.
“Five days ago, Mister Nogara died.”
A wrinkle forms in Peter’s forehead. I wait for him to say something.
“Why?” he asks.
Why. The question so distantly beyond my capacity to answer.
“There’s no reason to be afraid. You know what happens when we die.”
“We go home,” he says.
I nod, and it takes a wrenching effort to hide my emotion.
“Now,” I say, running a hand through his hair, “you need to know something about his death. We don’t understand why it happened. And some people say Simon is to blame. Some people think he hurt Mister Nogara.”
Muscle by muscle Peter grows rigid. I can feel him begin to tremble.
“Don’t be scared,” I repeat. “We know Simon. Right?”
He nods, but the pressure of his body doesn’t subside.
“In fact,” I say, “do you know where I went today? To a place where people have been coming from all over Italy just to talk about Simon. And do you know what some of them said?”
“What was the place called?” he asks instead.
I hesitate. “It was one of the palaces.” I gesture. “Over there.”
“Prozio’s palace?”
“No, a different one.” I persevere. “Bishops and archbishops have been coming there, even cardinals, and do you know what they came to say? That Simon is a very good man. That they know the same thing we do: that he would never hurt anyone. Especially not his own friend.”
The nodding intensifies, but only because Peter is trying to live up to my expectations. Trying to show he’s strong enough to take this awful news. I reach my arms around him and pull him into my chest, showing him he doesn’t have to be a grown-up tonight. The relief is so instantaneous, he explodes in tears.
“I know,” I say, stroking his hair, feeling his hot tears through my cassock. “I know.”
He makes an insensible sound, the cry of a much younger child.
“Oh, my boy,” I say, feeling the strange fullness that exists only in these moments of pure dependence. I am his. God made me for this child.
On the nightstand, the Theotokos casts her protective glance over the open Bible. The title above the chapter says: δίκη του Ιησού. The Trial of Jesus. Many times we’ve read it. But when we read it tonight, I hope Peter will start to understand. Tomorrow, I can’t know what will happen with Cardinal Boia. I will take a risk that we may both regret. But tonight I can explain to him, in a way he will someday understand, why I have to take that risk.
A Christian life is lived by the example of the disciples. By imitating their virtues, but also by learning from their failures. When the disciples were faced with the arrest and trial of the man they believed in, they abandoned him in fear. They placed their own safety, and the verdict of their priests, above the demands of their consciences.