“Shut up, and get back to work.”
Deirdre’s visit and Gibs’ words worked a nerve in Luke he couldn’t put aside. He was too raw from Emily’s rejection that seeing Deirdre only frustrated his morning. Working on a bike repair, he slid the wrong size bolt in and ruined the thread for the third time. “Dammit!” He drilled the tool in his hand across the room. “Gibs, I’m taking a break.”
“For how long?”
“For as fucking long as I want. Lock up if you have to.”
“But what about—”
Luke was out the door before Gibs finished his sentence. He jumped on his bike and pulled out on the highway, not knowing nor caring where he went. He drove around aimlessly for a while, and then spotted a Catholic church on a corner of the road. It was a brownstone building with a parking lot to the right, and a green lawn in front with an ancient blue stone pathway from the parking lot and also from the street to the front doors. Flowers edged the pathway, pink, blue and white laid in alternating clumps.
He pulled into the parking lot, not sure why he was there. Maybe he wanted to see for himself what the damned attraction was, what was so important that Emily would follow it do
wn a road away from him.
He tried the front door and found it was locked.
“Friggin’ figures,” he muttered. He picked up a rock lying on the slate walk and flung it at the brownstone wall. Luke didn’t throw it close enough to hit any of the stained-glass windows, but it was an act of defiance nonetheless.
“It’s all your fault!” he yelled. “All your fucking fault!”
“Hey,” someone said behind him.
Luke stood like a deer in the headlights when a priest came from the other side of the building. “Is there a problem?” The priest was a medium height and built man, with graying black hair. He watched Luke, not in anger, but with concern. He held some bags in his hand.
“I’m sorry.” Luke knew his face was burning. “I’ll go.”
“That’s your choice. However, the good Lord brought you here, maybe it was for a reason.”
Luke looked away, not knowing what to say.
“Look,” said the priest, “I’ve got to open the church for a service. Come in and see inside. It’s really quite beautiful, especially with the morning light coming in. Here, you can help me with these.”
“Sure,” Luke mumbled. He was embarrassed at his childish behavior and felt the least he could do was lend the man a hand.
“I’m Father Peters, by the way.”
“Luke Wade.”
The priest unlocked the door with his keys.
“You know we hate to do this, lock the doors. But when vandalism got to be too much, the bishop ordered it.”
“Understandable.”
Luke entered alongside the priest into a vestibule of white washed stone. On either side, stairs led upwards to some unknown place. The priest walked straight forward into the church.
On either side of the aisles stood wood pews, and ahead on raised steps behind a railing, was a marble altar. There were four windows on each side, depicting biblical images in stained glass.
“They’re quite beautiful.” Luke tried to make conversation, still too embarrassed by his actions.
“The windows were imported from Austria in the eighteen hundreds in pieces. The pieces were assembled and leaded on site.”
“That’s amazing.”
The priest walked up the steps where the railing was, knelt quickly and crossed himself. He gave a backward glance to Luke.
“Not Catholic, are you?”