Wish You Well(5)

could not support life. Then someone was pounding on the car with a hand, and the

person they had almost killed was saying something. Lou chose not to hear the man

whose negligent actions had just shattered her family. Lou turned and looked at her

mother.

Amanda Cardinal too had seen her husband outlined there in the unforgiving light. For

one impossibly long moment, mother and daughter shared a gaze that was completely

one-sided in its communication. Betrayal, anger, hatred—Amanda read all of these

terrible things on her daughter's features. And these emotions covered Amanda like a

concrete slab over her crypt; they far exceeded the sum total of every nightmare she had

ever suffered through. When Lou looked away, she left a ruined mother in her wake. As

Amanda's eyes closed, all she could hear was Lou screaming for her father to come to

her. For her father not to leave her. And then, for Amanda Cardinal, there was nothing

more.



CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS A CALM PIETY IN THE SONOROUS RING OF the church bell. Like steady rain,

its sounds covered the area, where the trees were starting to bud and the grass was

stretching awake after a winter's rest. The curls of fireplace smoke from the cluster of

homes here met in the clear sky. And to the south were visible the lofty spires and

formidable minarets of New York City. These stark monuments to millions of dollars and

thousands of weary backs seemed trifling against the crown of blue sky.

The large fieldstone church imparted an anchor's mass, an object incapable of being

moved no matter the magnitude of problem that assailed its doors. The pile of stone and

steeple seemed able to dispense comfort if one merely drew near it. Inside the thick walls

there was another sound besides the peal of holy bell.

Holy singing.

The fluid chords of "Amazing Grace" poured down the hallways and crowded against

portraits of white-collared men who had spent much of their lives absorbing punishing

confessions and doling out reams of Hail Marys as spiritual salve. Then the wave of song

split around statues of blessed Jesus dying or rising, and finally broke in a pool of

sanctified water just inside the front entrance. Creating rainbows, the sunlight filtered

through the brilliant hues of stained glass windows up and down these corridors of Christ

and sinners. The children would always "ooh" and "ahh" over these colorful displays,

before they trudged reluctantly into Mass, thinking, no doubt, that churches always made

fine rainbows.

Through the double doors of oak the choir was singing to the very pinnacle of the church,

the tiny organist pumping with surprising energy for one so aged and crumpled, and

"Amazing Grace" trumpeted ever higher. The priest stood at the altar, long arms

tenaciously reaching to heaven's wisdom and comfort, a prayer of hope rising from him,

even as the man pushed back against the tidal wave of grief confronting him. And he

needed much divine support, for it was never an easy thing explaining away tragedy by

invoking God's will.

The coffin sat at the front of the altar. The polished mahogany was covered with sprays

of delicate baby's breath, a solid clump of roses, and a few distinctive irises, and yet that

sturdy block of mahogany was what held one's attention, like five fingers against one's

throat. Jack and Amanda Cardinal had exchanged their wedding vows in this church.

They had not been back since, and no one present today could have envisioned their

return being for a funeral mass barely fourteen years later.

Lou and Oz sat in the front pew of the full church. Oz had his bear crashed to his chest,

his gaze cast down, a collection of tears plunking on the smooth wood between skinny

legs that did not reach the floor. A blue hymnal lay unopened beside him; song was really

beyond the boy right now.

Lou had one arm around Oz's shoulders, but her eyes never left the casket. It did not

matter that the lid was closed. And the shield of beautiful flowers did nothing to obscure

for her the image of the body inside. Today she had chosen to wear a dress for one of the

few times in her life; the hated uniforms she had to wear to meet the requirements of the

Catholic school she and her brother attended did not count. Her father had always loved

her in dresses, even sketching her once for a children's book he had planned but never got

around to. She pulled at her white socks, which reached uncomfortably to her bony

knees. A pair of new black shoes pinched her long, narrow feet, feet that were quite

firmly on the floor.

Lou had not bothered to sing "Amazing Grace." She had listened to the priest say that

death was merely the beginning, that in God's enigmatic way this was a time for

rejoicing, not sorrow, and then she did not listen anymore. Lou did not even pray for the