CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

PRIEST

The only thing that kept Lacy from tearing behind me was that she was already on the phone with the police. I saw her leave the sanctuary. I knew they’d be there any minute.

I might not be able to hold Gina, but I sure as heck could hang on to Zoe. We pushed our way through the crowd, my arms tightening around her little frame, my voice telling her everything would be okay.

Police sirens wailed in the background. Mike’s henchmen stood guard like sentries around my car where Gina sat. Gina was gone again. Lost in ecstasy. The men couldn’t have known I’d had a run-in with Lacy, because if they did, it would have been all over.

The man at the driver’s door moved aside. I thrust Zoe inside that vehicle as quickly as I could get her in there without hurting her. She slammed into Gina, felt the blood on her dress and screamed bloody murder. Gina was totally out of it. I tried to soothe her, but I had to focus on the task at hand, getting out of there. I buckled Zoe in on Gina’s lap, and yes, I know it was crazy, but I didn’t have time to disengage her. Then I slid over to the driver’s seat and shut the door behind me. Whoever got Gina in the car had started it for me, purchasing precious seconds for me. But people had crowded around the car.

The men tried to run them off, but they were outnumbered by the multitude that spilled out of the church.

I was going to get her out of there if I had to run somebody over. I started banging the horn, but only a few responded. Finally I shifted the gear into drive with my foot on the brake and eased off a little just to let them know I was serious.

That’s when Lacy came running out of the church screaming, “Stop him.”

The police pulled into the parking lot.

I said one more desperate prayer before I peeled out of there no matter what. How I freed us without plowing over several pedestrians or getting busted was a miracle. Not that I wasn’t beginning to feel like I had more of those than a man could take.

I wasn’t up for this. I asked for grace in my deficiencies.

GINA

I don’t know how long I was gone, transported to some quiet place of wonder where I worshipped God, no matter that I did not feel His presence. His Word had comforted me and given me a bit of faith to face the present dangers.

When I awoke I looked over at Priest. I don’t think he could have appeared more wild-eyed and crazy if he were high. He must have been driving ninety miles an hour, burning up I-94. I bumped and shook along in that little car he was pushing past its limits, and each time I got knocked around, pain ripped through me.

He shouted obscenities. I didn’t want Zoe to hear all that, but he was so upset. Not that she heard him. She cried her little eyes out, strapped on my lap with my blood all over her little blue dress.

She was five! As forgiving as she was, I think she’d grown a little tired of seeing holes poked in her mother.

I would have kept holding her, but Priest continued driving like a maniac. “Unbuckle the seat belt, Zoe.”

“Nooooo, Mommy,” she wailed.

“It’s okay. We can’t sit like this. It’s not safe. We can get hurt even more.”

That got her attention.

I made her crawl in the back and buckle herself in. And not for a second did she stop crying. And I couldn’t even click her seat belt on, but maybe she’d survive the car wreck Priest was intent on killing us in because she sat in the back buckled up at my command.

“Priest!” I said. “Slow down. I don’t have a seat belt on, and besides, if we don’t crash, the police are gonna come after you for speeding.”

He didn’t slow down. His adrenaline drove us onward. Either I could sit there and add my own crying and screaming to the chorus of his blistering cussing and Zoe’s wailing, or I could try to talk him off his ledge.

It’s bad if I’m the one who’s the voice of reason.

But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

“Tell me a story,” I said.

“What?”

“You said you know all kind of saint stuff. Tell me a saint story. Make it a good one.”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you a story right now. We’re … on the lam!”

“You’re gonna have to stop watching those Turner Classic Movies, Priest. Why would we be on the lam? What did we do wrong?”

“Lacy called the police. She was trying to keep Zoe.”

“But what was our crime? Taking Zoe to church? Or would it be leaving church early with her?”

“People were coming after you. They’d have torn you apart.”

“Most of them just wanted some help. They were a little confused.”

“No, Gina. People who thought The Da Vinci Code was based on facts are a little confused. My drug dealer, a transvestite who has a crush on me? She’s a little confused. I’m a little confused because people keep thinking I’m black, and frankly, I’m inclined to believe them despite what my birth certificate says. Those people at the Vineyard weren’t confused. That lynch mob was going to crucify you for real.”

“Your pusher is a transvestite?”

“You focused on the wrong point.”

Zoe’s wailing slowed to a whimper. Our talking must have comforted her. I kept it up.

“And you call … that person … a she? Did … that person … ask you to, or did you do that on your own?”

“Again. Wrong point.”

But he was slowing down.

“I think I’d be confused about what to call him. Or her.”

Laughter exploded out of him.

“Tell me another story, Priest. Please.”

I don’t think he was good and convinced it was time to start the story hour yet, but he was a journalist; he loved a story. I knew it from the two he’d already told me. I nudged him a little more.

“We Protestants mostly go with Bible stories. I mean, we might stretch out now and then and somebody will tell us about Corrie ten Boom, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One day Mike got really crazy and taught us about Etty Hillesum.”

“I’m seeing a real Holocaust theme here, Gina. Any reason for that?”

“Probably, but don’t make me conjure it. Anyway, I love Bible stories. They strengthen my faith and beef up my Bible knowledge, but I know next to nothing about the saints. Or even stigmatics. So tell me a saint or stigmatic story or something.”

He sighed and watched the road ahead. “I’ll tell you about Saint Padre Pio.”

“You mentioned him before. He was a stigmatic, right?”

“Sure. Bore the wounds for fifty years.”

“Fifty years?”

“Yup.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me his story.”

Priest laughed again. I think we’d slowed to seventy or so. I’d get his blood pressure down yet.

“Okay. Padre Pio it is.”

I settled back, as achy I was, and let Priest spin a saintly yarn for me.

PRIEST

“Saint Padre Pio”

Some people are born poor in spirit. Padre Pio was one of them.

He was the fourth child of a poor farmer and his wife in Pietrelcina, a mountain town in southern Italy. His parents named him Francesco—wonder who they had in mind when they called him that? Could they have known when they first laid eyes on him that he’d be a true spiritual son of another Francesco, the one you may know as the birdbath guy, but to those of us who love him, he’s know as Il Povello, little poor one.

Little Francesco Forgione was one sick kid. And he was a little screwy too. Perhaps because he had a gaping father wound right after his dad took off to America to fund a proper education for all the little Forgiones. Young Francesco must have taken his father grief to God. He told his mother he wanted to be a monk. Makes you wonder if the kid wasn’t trying to find a replacement papa. After all, it worked for the other Francesco.

But Mama and Papa Forgione were smart. They told little Francesco he could do what he wanted to do, as long as he went to school first. And so he did, but he didn’t thrive there.

He was just too much for … pretty much everybody. Always fasting and praying—and I do mean always. He was into kiddie mortification, sleeping with a big rock under his pillow until Mama Forgione found out and put a stop such self-denial.

He survived, despite himself, and at the age of sixteen he became a novice in the Capuchin Franciscan order. He took the name Pio, which means pious, and he was one person who could pull the name off. But young Pio had funky lungs and after seven years of praying, fasting, and trying to breathe they got him out of there. A month later, in the solitude of a reed hut Pio built in his family’s fields, Christ and His mother appeared to him, and Pio received the sacred stigmata in his own flesh—all five wounds!

That’s gotta hurt!

I don’t have to tell you how much pain and embarrassment the wounds caused him. He prayed that they would become invisible, and his request was granted.

Don’t get too excited though. I know what you’re thinking. But I’ll get back to that.

During the First World War, Pio was drafted. They had no idea how sickly he was. He spent so much time on sick leave the army had to discharge him. The brass sent him to Our Lady of Grace Friary, and doesn’t that sound like the place to go? The air was supposed to be really good there. Apparently it was. On the eighth anniversary of his receiving the stigmata, his now invisible wounds were pierced with rays of light from the Crucified Christ as he prayed before a crucifix after Mass.

They became visible again and stayed that way for half of a century, until just before he died from that same lung condition. He wore half-mittens to hide the wounds in his hands. A sash absorbed the blood on his side.

Padre Pio walked through the trials and tribulations of life with pain as his constant companion, but he wasn’t one to complain about it. Maybe because he smelled so good, like another saint I know. Some people thought he smelled of roses. Others tobacco.

I guess it depended on what you were into.

And don’t be cute. You smell like roses to me. It was one of the first things I noticed about you. Hey, I said one of the first!

A humble, unassuming man, he wanted to hide his stigmata, but you may have noticed it’s a little hard to keep the wounds of Christ on the down low. His notoriety spread, and Catholics came from the world over to have him hear their confession. He could read souls like I go through The New York Times book review, and he had the gift of healing. Padre Pio could also consort with angels and had the habit of bilocating when he just had to be in two places at once. Demons beat him mercilessly all the time, but come on, with all that other stuff? What’s chronic pain and demons constantly trying to kill you?

His gifts did draw devotees to him, including my Nana, but sometimes he could be the object of hysteria, the likes of which you saw today. In 1968 he died, with a body unmarred by the scars of crucifixion he so patiently carried.

Padre Pio inspired pilgrims to love whatever cross God gave them. He once said to his spiritual children:

Religion is a hospital for spiritually sick people who want to be healed. To be healed, they must submit themselves to suffering, to bloodletting, to the lance, to the scalpel, to the fire, and to all the bitterness of medicine. In order to be spiritually cured, we have to submit to all the tortures of the Divine Physician.

Don’t laugh. He was serious about that.

If you ever feel all alone, you can pray his prayer for Jesus to stick around:

Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You. You know how easily I abandon You.

Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength that I may not fall so often.

Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You I am in darkness.

Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.

Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.

Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love You very much and be in Your company always.

Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.

Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of love.

You might want to memorize that one.

GINA

I knew who Saint Francis was. I even knew his name in Italian was Francesco. Don’t sleep at the Vineyard. Mike slips in all kinds of knowledge, just when you think you’ll run for the hills if the worship band croons “I Can Sing of Your Love Forever” just one more time.

Priest astounded me. All that from the top of his head.

His voice, and the engaging way he told a story, put Zoe right to sleep. I didn’t happen to think that was a bad thing. When he was done he asked if we could stop and get gas. “I wasn’t expecting we’d have to keep riding.”

“Knock yourself out. We’re fine, especially since you stopped driving like a lunatic.”

“I’m concerned that we still don’t have enough distance from Ann Arbor, but the tank is demanding a pit stop.”

We pulled off the freeway in Belleville.

“There’s a Mobile up ahead on Belleville Road,” I said. I thought maybe I should get a snack for Zoe for when she woke up, but for the moment, my mind was still with Padre Pio, and Priest’s way of telling a story. “Do you have a photographic memory?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about it that way. I remember things, but I fried a lot of brain cells. Sometimes it surprises me the information that pops into my head that I haven’t thought about in years. I can remember whole quotes. Long ones, sometimes with perfect recall. Helps with the journalism thing.”

“Amazing. I’ll bet you’re a formidable Scrabble player.”

“Hey, where you been all my life, Gina? If I had you to beat in Scrabble I may not have gotten in so much trouble.”

“Who says you’d beat me?”

He found that funny too. We pulled up at the Mobile station, and Priest chose the pump farthest from the building. He put the car in park, and his whole body seemed to exhale.

“I’m not trying to amaze you. I’d be happy to help you in any way I can to make peace with what’s happening to you.” He gazed at me with those soulful multicolored eyes. “Maybe we’ve begun your story in earnest now and I’m foraging for parts of it amid all the other stories in my head’s database. Like you were always there, somewhere.”

“That almost sounds romantic.”

He thought for a moment. “Not romantic. Connected.”

Next to the Mobile sat a McDonald’s and a dollar store. Outside his little gray Probe, everything looked so normal. Everybody looked as regular as unleaded gas—87, but what were their stories as they milled about? Were we all intertwined in one big God yarn He was still spinning?

“My story somewhere in all the stories in your head? It does sound connected, but why does that sound scary to me too?”

“I think we both know why. Can we salvage the little self-esteem I have by acting like you didn’t just ask me that?”

“Why did you park so far out?”

“You’ve got blood all over you. I don’t want anybody thinking we’re spree killers or something. I don’t want to raise any suspicions.”

“You might want to try not driving like a bat out of hades then.” I hadn’t thought of how I must look. I guess I was getting use to bleeding from all kinds of extremities. And now my side. Wow. But at least it had slowed, I could tell, which made me wonder if being around all those people hadn’t made it worse. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“To Alessandro. He’ll help us. He’s a Franciscan and a priest. Stigmata won’t make him want to sick the authorities on you.”

I’d trust him because Priest did. Besides, I always wanted to meet a real Franciscan. Plus, Priest had already told me he said he wanted to meet me. Nobody had looked forward to meeting me in a while.

But I wanted to probe Priest further about the stories. He seemed to be merging us in a way that intrigued me. And it didn’t sound so gonzo, either. It was different, and I couldn’t quite place what made it so.

“Do you really believe it? That you have my story already, I mean, on some level? That they’re tied together in some way?”

“I already told you I thought our meeting was providential. Do you believe it, Gina? Do you want that?” His thoughtful gaze caressed me. Nothing harsh or painful about how he touched me with that look.

“Want what?”

“Our stories to commingle.”

“Do you want it?”

“You tell me first.”

“No, you first; you’re a girl.”

“Are you some kind of sexist? I was starting to like you. Are you going to go all macho man on me now?”

“Now? What do you mean now? I’ve been rescuing you since Wednesday. Not half hour ago, I stormed through a church carrying our kid. Didn’t that speak to you of my valor?”

“Not really, I was preoccupied thinking I’d have to heal or be killed.” I froze. “Did you say ‘our’ kid? Have you made us an ‘our’ in your mind?”

“I didn’t say ‘our.’”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“You cannot lie to me, Priest. Don’t even try. You made us an ‘our,’ didn’t you?”

“Would that be okay with you?”

“I suppose I’ve already accepted it. We are on the lam together.”

“No, you were right the first time. We’re not on the lam. It just feels like it.”

He unbuckled his seat belt. “What do you want from inside? I don’t think they have Tofurky.”

“Can you just get me some orange juice?”

“What about our growing girl? She needs more than orange juice.”

“Get her something healthy.”

“You do realize this is a Mobile gas station, not Whole Foods.”

“Healthy, Priest.”

“Fine. One more thing, since we’re on this business of being an ‘our.’”

“Technically we were talking about buying snacks.”

“Let’s talk about getting married.”

I froze. We were waaaaaaay off topic now. Before I could shut my open mouth he opened the car door and headed to the store.