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She thought of the dozens of children who’d hunched over tiny desks, cutting and pasting and coloring Francis had been so proud to tape their creations on his bedroom …
Grief rippled through her, one wave after another after another, leaving her shaken and cold She couldn’t see a hundred moments pass before her eyes, a dozen times she’d loped up this path, her arne Like the time she’d passed her first biochemistry exam … or the day Francis had heard his first confession … Lina’s baptism… Madelaine’s last birthday …
She shuddered and forced herself to think about other things—Lina and Angel and the days that lay ahead
Madelaine couldn’t go on as she had been It had been a week since Francis’s death, and she’d been stu only when spoken to, and not always even then She knew that Lina needed her, needed her desperately, but Madelaine felt as if she had nothing inside her, just a gaping hole where Francis had once been He’d been her rock, her lifeline, for more than half of her life Without him, she felt lost
She took a deep breath and tilted her chin up She knew there was no point in putting this off, in pretending she didn’t need to walk up this path, open that door, and pack up his things His housekeeper had taken care of the household goods, but Madelaine had asked to pack up his personal possessions She would have put it off forever, but a new priest would bein soon
She went to the door and opened it wide, letting a swath of sunlight cut through the glooh the common room toward his bedroom
When she opened his door and flicked on the light switch, ered backward The cardboard box slid froers and hit the floor with a thud
Tears blinded her With a tiny, gulping sound of grief, she raphs, books, the favorite baseball cap he wore on Saturdays The rosary wound neatly on his Bible
She saw a picture on the dresser and picked it up, letting her fingers trace the cool surface of the glass It was her and Francis on the day they’d brought Lina ho, but there was such worry in their eyes, such grown-up fears on those adolescent faces…
Heya, Maddy-girl, you’re on the wrong side of town
“Oh, Francis …” She pulled his pillow from the bed and smoothed her hands over its ruiven him as a joke last Christmas
She’d told Angel that they had to learn to live without Francis—but how could she do that? How could you learn to live without the sunshine on your face?
The tears caave in to the into the pillow that smelled of her best friend in the world
Chapter Nineteen
Lina stared out at the glassy surface of Lake Union A huge black shadow slithered across the flat water It reminded her of the monster that had lived behind the louvered doors of her closet when she was a little girl Francis and her ination, and hts when it was especially dark outside and rain fell like salt in the circle of the streetlamp outside her bedroom , she’d known that the , scraping, rustling her ers