Gaspar and Cathleen looked in the bathroom and the wardrobe. They ran down the hall, screaming Colm’s name as they went by each door.
As they passed Brother Rocco’s room, the older man came out, rubbing his eyes as he tried to wake up. “What is the matter?” he asked.
“Colm’s gone. We can’t find him,” Cathleen said breathlessly.
“Let me put on some clothes. I’ll be right out to help you look for him,” he said, already in motion.
The three spread out throughout the pensione, knocking on doors and opening closets. The nuns came out of their rooms with their robes on, and Brother Rocco told them in Italian what had happened. The mother’s bambino was lost. They ran back into their rooms to get dressed and began looking for Colm too.
By the time Cathleen reached the front door, she noticed it was open.
“Colm left!” she shouted up the stairs to Dr. Basu as she ran outside to look for her son.
She went up and down the dark street lit only by small lanterns above the door frames of the homes on the narrow pathway. As she walked toward the piazza, she became aware, for the first time, of the seemingly infinite directions, stairways, and alleys that broke off the main path. He could be anywhere.
She started with the piazza, running down toward the fountain. An orchestra that had set up, as they often did in the evenings, was breaking down. She ran up to the dispersing crowd and began asking if anyone had seen the boy.
“I have lost my son. My boy. Have you seen a little boy?”
The Italians shook their heads. Some had no idea what she was talking about; the ones who spoke English told her to relax. She was in Assisi; he could not have gone far. If a child was lost, he would surely find his way back home, they all agreed. And if not, Francis and Clare would watch over him. He was in the safest place in the world.
Cathleen tried to take comfort in this, but she was panicking. What if he was sick? What if he needed his mother and she wasn’t there? How could she have left him all alone? How could she let herself go feel love for someone else, for being such a fool? Hadn’t she learned anything? Hadn’t love only gotten her into trouble.
All night Cathleen ran up and down the steps of Assisi. She passed Brother Rocco at one point and asked if he had seen anything.
“No, Cathleen. But pray to St. Anthony, the patron of lost things: Something is lost and can’t be found, dear St. Anthony come around. I am sure he’ll show up.”
Suddenly, the brother infuriated her. This is no time for this crap, she thought. She didn’t need St. Anthony. She needed her son. And her son wasn’t just something—he was everything.
By the time the sun began to rise over the valley, Cathleen had been all over the city. She thought of all of the sights they had visited—the chapels and churches. Surely Colm would not return to any of them.
She looked up over the hillside at the Rocca Maggiore standing guard over Assisi. Colm loved to explore. Could he have gone to this mysterious fortress? As she walked toward it, she climbed up to a green space that spread out before a gargantuan church. At the crest of the lawn, she saw the defeated knight—a large steel sculpture of St. Francis, which she had read in her book was meant to capture an image of Francis just before he met the leper on the road and realized his life’s purpose was to serve the poor. He was a broken knight who was so tired of fighting too, she thought.
There on the steps of the massive medieval church, in front a large crowd of men in habits from the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, she saw him. Colm was speaking. She could see his arms rise above his head, demonstrating something and using his entire body to explain it.
She could see that the friars were looking at one another, some nodding their heads and all listening to the boy with rapt attention. Cathleen ran down the long pathway and cut through the crowd of men, trying to get to the boy. When she reached him, she forgot her relief at finding him and yelled.
“Colm! You scared me half to death. Where have you been?”
“Here,” Colm said, pointing to the church behind him and then back at the men.
“I spent the entire night looking for you, Colm. Why did you leave?”
“I went looking for you.”
“I was just outside the door of our room on the roof.”
“I didn’t know there was a roof. I didn’t know where you were.”
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” As she said that, she realized she should have considered her audience and quickly apologized to the men.
They all smiled and assured her they had heard far worse.
“What is he talking about? Why is he here?”
“He was telling us about what it is like to die,” a friar said in English with a faint Italian accent.
Cathleen looked at Colm. She was stunned. “Is that true, Colm?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Colm? I’m confused. How did you get here all on your own?”
“I thought I heard singing, and I followed the sounds.”
Another friar spoke up to assure Cathleen. “We were singing our midnight prayers just as Francis did when he was alive. The child must have followed us here. We were already finished and heading back when we noticed him. He stopped us, and we began to talk of many things. We didn’t realize how much time had gone by.”
“You mean to tell me you sat up talking to a boy all night, and it never occurred to you he needed to be home with his mother?”
“He assured us that you would be fine with it because he was at church.”
Colm smiled, and all the men laughed. Cathleen blushed hot with anger.
“ColmFrancisMagee you are in deep, deep . . .” she said through clenched teeth. She looked at the friars. “What have you been talking about all this time?”
“Lots of stuff, Mama. Stuff you probably wouldn’t understand.”
Cathleen looked at the men and back at her son. “Oh, no? What wouldn’t I understand?”
“Lots.” Colm walked down the steps ahead of his mother.
“Now where do you think you’re going, young man?”
“I’m finished here. I thought you came to take me back.”
Cathleen nodded. “Yes, right. We’re going back right now.”
Colm stopped in front of all the friars and said, “Thank you.”
An older friar bent down, his habit floating over his spread legs and brushing the ground, and he whispered something only Colm could hear into his ear.
Colm smiled at the reassurance that he would someday meet his father. The friar was sure of it. As Colm walked away, the old friar winked, and all the other men waved good-bye and told him how wonderful it was to meet him, that they were all sure that Colm was a special boy.
Cathleen pulled Colm up the hill and toward the pensione while Colm waved and smiled back at all the men.
When Cathleen was out of the men’s earshot, she started to yell. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again! Honestly, Colm. I don’t know what you were thinking. Why did you do that?”
“I just wanted to know.”
“Know what? What do you want to know, Colm?”
“Everything.”
Cathleen and Colm walked back toward the pensione in silence. When they crested the top of the hill, they saw Dr. Basu walking toward them.
“There you two are!” Dr. Basu threw his hands up as if to say hallelujah.
Cathleen walked toward him and said angrily, “He’s all yours, Gaspar. I’m exhausted.”
Colm could not believe what he was hearing. He looked at the doctor, dumbfounded. His mother had never ever walked away from him. Ever.
“Yes, perhaps the boy is hungry. Colm, would you like some breakfast?”
“Yes, I am hungry.”
“Very well. Let’s get you something to eat. Cathleen, you go and get some rest. I will have a nice chat with the boy. You go back to the room. I’ll bring him back soon.”
It was all she could do to keep from crying and running down the street as fast she could. Why was he always running off? Why was he so desperate to get away from her? But then she realized he wasn’t running from her—he was looking for her. She felt ashamed. How could Colm ever think that she had run off, abandoned him? Didn’t he know how much she loved him? She was angry with herself for letting her guard down and leaving him alone. Angry for letting the doctor’s ideas make her forget her own. She wanted to scream and hurl something at someone.
As she walked away, she heard soft giggles between Colm and Gaspar. Colm shared his secrets with men—men like her brother, like Gaspar, like the friars. He gave all his love to great, wonderful, and mysterious men, even the father he never stopped asking her about. And here she was right in front of him the entire time. But her love, she thought, would never be enough. She thought of Francis, as she often did these days, and she said aloud the word asshole. For all of his love of God and humanity, he didn’t have the decency to love and be kind to the people who loved him most in the entire world—even his own mother. What bullshit, she said.
When she reached her room, she went to the window and watched Gaspar and Colm walk hand in hand away from her toward the piazza. She closed the shutters, continuing to argue with herself and St. Francis and everyone else she had ever been mad at—her brother, mother, dead father, Pierce, and all the doctors, everyone she could think of who had ever let her down. Then she caught her reflection again in the mirror and realized she had let others down too. Hadn’t her mother asked her to take care of Sean and be kind to him? Hadn’t Colm begged her not to go to Italy? Hadn’t she left Colm in the room alone? She felt ashamed and forgave them all, especially Colm. How could she stay angry with him, she wondered as she collapsed on the edge of her bed in exhaustion. Cathleen was done with fighting; she was broken and defeated. Her armor, like Francis the knight, became too heavy to bear and so she slept.
She was tired.
Meanwhile, Dr. Basu took the boy back to the piazza and sat him down on a chair in front of the fountain.
“I will go in and get you some milk and a croissant. Can I trust that you will be here when I return?” Dr. Basu asked somewhat jokingly, knowing the boy had intended no harm.
“Yes, Dr. Basu. I am not going anywhere. I promise.”
“Good. I’ll be right back.”
While Dr. Basu waited in line to place his order, he examined the boy from afar. Colm’s legs were dangling from the chair. He was still so slight. He looked nearly starved.
“Are you feeling well?” Dr. Basu asked when he returned and placed the food on the table.
“Yes.”
“You’re not tired? Not even a bit?”
“I am always tired, Doctor.”
“I see.”
“I am mostly afraid. Is Mama mad at me?”
“No. She is not mad. She was just worried about you.”
“I was worried about her,” Colm said.
“Oh? Why?”
“I thought she had left me like my father did. And now she is mad at me. She doesn’t want me anymore.”
“That’s nonsense. Your mother loves you. She’s just tired and needs a break. Every mother cracks a bit now and then. Even the best ones.”
“But I thought she was abandoning me like my father did.”
“How do you know that? How do you know such big words?”
“I just do.”
“Did someone tell you such things?”
“No. But I figured it out. My father is a deadbeat.”
“Where have you heard these words—abandoned, deadbeat? Does your mother say such things?”
“No, my uncle Sean does.”
“When did he say them?”
“I heard him once say to my mama that if God was real, then he was the first deadbeat dad because he let some other man raise his son and then took all the credit.”
Dr. Basu tried not to smile. He could only imagine Sean saying such a thing.
“Colm, I want to tell you two things. First, your mother would never abandon you as you say. She loves you and would never willingly leave you. And second, it is not the child’s job to worry. You should never, ever worry about your mother. She can take care of herself.”
“I hope so.”
“What do you mean, you hope so?”
“I mean, someday, she is going to have to be able to take care of herself. I can’t do it forever.”
“Oh, and it is you who cares for your mother?”
“Yes. I look out for her.”
“I see. I bet you are very good at it.”
“I am. But, between you and me, I am a little worried about her,” Colm said quietly, leaning toward the doctor like he was telling him something top secret.
“Ah, is that so?” Dr. Basu leaned forward and whispered, “But remember I told you it is not your job to worry about her.”
“Yes, but Dr. Basu, you know what I mean. You have to know why I’m worried. You know. You and I both know,” Colm said, pointing at the doctor and then back at himself.
“Oh. What do I know?”
“That I am going to die soon. Someday, I am going to die and be gone forever. I won’t wake up, and it will be hard for her.”
“But you may be healed. You may get better.”
“The miracle didn’t take.”
“No? How do you know?”
“I know because there are no such things as miracles, Dr. Basu. There are no miracles because there is no God.”
“Yes, you have told me this before. Perhaps it’s time you tell your mother these things. Maybe it is time we just go home and put all of this silliness behind us. Is that what you want?”
“Yes. I want to go home.”
“Your mother will understand. Just tell her what you have told me. You’re only a child, after all.”
“Yes, but she won’t be happy.”
“Yes, she wants so badly to believe,” the doctor agreed.
“I know. But it’s not my place to tell people what they should believe. I just know what I know,” Colm said while staring off at the fountain as if what he said was something every six-and-a-half-year-old boy in the world would say.
“You are very wise, Dove,” Dr. Basu said, in awe at the boy’s precociousness.
“Dr. Basu?”
“Yes.”
“Will you talk to my mama?”
“About?”
“Do you think we can go home tomorrow?”
“I will see what I can do,” Dr. Basu said, patting the boy on his knee.
Colm jumped off his chair and launched himself into Dr. Basu’s lap, snuggling comfortably into his chest. “Thank you, Dr. Basu. Thank you so much.”
Overwhelmed, Dr. Basu wrapped his arms around the boy and held him tightly.
“Dr. Basu?”
“Yes, Dove.”
“I am tired. Do you mind if I don’t eat anything?”
“That’s fine, son. Do you want me to carry you back to the room to your bed?”
“Can I just rest here for a while?”
“Of course, Dove. You can stay here as long as you want. I am not going anywhere.”