He is staying in a small church just outside Rome. The pastor has taken him in like a stray cat. The Secretariat has placed Simon on temporary leave, and guilt has driven him out of the Vatican walls, so he serves food at a community kitchen in the evenings and helps at a Catholic shelter most nights. I assist him sometimes, and in the small hours that follow, when the bars have closed and Rome almost sleeps, we return to his little church and sit side by side on a pew.
At first we keep ourselves to the familiar topics. But one night at a time, the tap opens wider. He seems to be undergoing a second priestly formation here, stripping off the coats of Secretariat varnish and sanding down the grain of our father’s old ambitions to see what remains. I listen, mainly. I sense he’s bracing me to hear some conclusion he’s come to about his life. On this spot, long ago, Saint Peter was fleeing the persecution of Emperor Nero when he had a vision of Jesus. “Domine,” Peter asked, “quo vadis?” Lord, where are you going? And the vision replied, “Romam vado iterum crucifigi.” I go to Rome, to be crucified again. At that moment, Peter understood God’s plan for him. He accepted martyrdom, letting Emperor Nero crucify him on Vatican Hill. There is a church in Rome for every station of a man’s life, and this one is the church of turning points. Some night soon, I keep telling myself, I will share news of my own with my brother.
It’s four miles from Simon’s church back to the Vatican gates. Four miles is a long way to walk, but a pilgrimage should not be driven. The walk home takes me by the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, all in the dead hours of dark. There are still a few tourists and young couples in the piazzas, but they’re as invisible to me as the pigeons and night traffic. What I see is the Academy where Simon once studied, the square where Mona and I met on our first date, the hospital in the distance where Peter was born. At each milepost, I make a small prayer. In each neighborhood along the way, my eyes linger over the clotheslines strung over the narrow streets, the soccer balls left on doorsteps, the holiday lights in the shape of La Befana or Babbo Natale and his reindeer.
Four miles on a December night cuts like a river between penance and prayer, and when I reach home, my own feelings of foreboding are more muted. I check the answering machine in case there is word of a verdict. But the verdict is always the same: Peter is asleep and barely moves when I kiss him on the forehead, and when I crawl into bed, Mona whispers, You’re freezing, don’t touch me with those feet. She smiles and slides over, nestling against my chest, and fits herself into the emptiness that only she can fill. For a second, on those nights, I am tense with amazement all over again. I reach out to hold her. Is he doing better? she murmurs. Because she has found a new place in her heart for the brother-in-law who used to fill her with misgivings. Then I kiss the back of her neck and I lie to her. I say that Simon seems better every time I visit him. He needs to know he’s forgiven, she says. And she’s right. But to make him believe those words takes a higher power than mine.
The last thing Mona always says, before falling asleep, is, Did you tell Simon the news? I touch her bare back. The soft unguarded slope of her shoulder. For years I have lived with one foot in yesterday. Now I can barely sleep for thought of tomorrow. Did I tell him the news? No, I did not. Because I believe I will have more time.
Not yet, I tell her. But soon.
* * *
ON THE TWENTIETH OF December, just before dawn, I get a text on my phone. Leo.
Baby boy born at 4:17 AM. Healthy, 7 pounds 3 ounces. Alessandro Matteo Keller. With thankful hearts we praise God.
I stare at the screen in the dark. Alessandro. They’ve named him after me.
A second message appears.
We want you to be godfather. Come visit. We’re downstairs.
Downstairs. Sofia delivered at Health Services. They have a Vatican baby.
When Peter and Mona and I arrive, Simon is already there. He is holding the newborn, enveloping it in his immense hands the same way he used to do with Peter. In his eyes is the fragile vigilance I remember so well, the protectiveness snowed over with awe. He looks like the big brother who once raised me, the boy disguised in a man’s body. When Mona comes up to run a tender finger across the blue cap on the little child’s head, I am suddenly choked by the sight of them both. I watch as Simon gently lowers Alessandro to let her hold him. But first she reaches out her hand and puts her palm on Simon’s chest, in the space over his heart where a bishop’s pectoral cross should be. He stares down at it, and his eyes are big and searching. I hear her whisper, Whatever you did, Ugo forgives you.