Twenty-One
“YOU CAN’T STAY HERE, Tom.”
Joan and I are sitting on the front bench under the watchful eye of Mary, our only companion aside from the statue of Saint Bernadette frozen in rapture and adoration at the appearance of the Immaculate Conception. Even the birds have left us alone.
“That’s what you told me the last time,” I say.
“It’s even more true now,” she says.
I know she’s not real—that none of this is real. But her hand feels warm on mine. She smells the way she did when she was alive, all honeysuckle and lavender.
“You don’t know what it’s been like for me.”
“Oh, my dear, I do,” she smiles. “I know all about what you’ve been going through. I’ve seen everything.”
I know what the Church believes—that those in heaven and in purgatory know what’s happening on earth. But I’
