Hannigan stands by the bullpen’s window as Willie Jones eats his final meal, a napkin tucked into the collar of his brown shirt. He’d been sitting across from Willie, but the way the boy began to eat—his eyes closed, his face transported—made Hannigan feel as if he were intruding on something personal and profound, on something that needed privacy, so he removed himself from the table.
Sheriff Grazer has left Willie and the priest in the bullpen and gone downstairs. There was a time when Hannigan might have been afraid at the thought of being alone in a room with a convict, but after eight months of spending time with the boy, he has come to think of Willie as a friend. Willie is a danger to no one; it seems everyone agrees—Hannigan, of course, but also the sheriff and the deputies, who allow him to exist daily without shackles, to write notes to his mother with a sharpened pencil, and now to eat a proper final meal, using fork, knife, and all.
Hannigan stands at the window unhappily, looking out over the grass in front of the courthouse and the concrete staircase that leads up to the building’s doors, all of it cast in the orange glow of the streetlight out front. There are sixteen steps; for no good reason Hannigan always counts them whenever he goes up or down, as he has done numberless times in the months he’s been visiting Willie Jones. A statue of Lady Justice rises from the center of the staircase; it was in the shadow of this statue that Nell approached him yesterday, asking him to bring her in with him.
Hannigan turns from the window and sees that Willie has eaten nearly everything Nell packed in the basket. Sheets of tinfoil are strewn across the table, and the china dishes that held the potatoes and the beans are empty. Only pecan pie remains; Willie has eaten one large slice. He takes the napkin from his collar and wipes his mouth, his eyes now open. Then he puts his napkin on the table and sits back. “Have some pie?” he asks, looking at Hannigan earnestly.
Hannigan hesitates. He looks at the pie, wonders if later, when he leaves with all the dishes, he should wrap it up and save it, or throw it away. Neither seems the right choice. “I’ll have a slice,” he says. He pulls out a chair as Willie fixes him a piece of pie. Willie cleans his fork with a napkin, sticks it into the pie, and slides the plate across the table. “Thank you, Willie,” Hannigan says, and he takes a bite.
Willie rubs his bald head and gives the priest a crooked grin. “Can’t get used to it,” he says.
Hannigan swallows the sweet mouthful and tries to smile back. “Bet it’s cooler, anyway.” He prepares another bite of pie, but leaves the laden fork on his plate. Distractedly, he starts to smooth and fold the sheets of greasy tinfoil, picturing Nell’s hands on the foil before his, wrapping the dinner up, and he wonders not for the first time why she cares. He’d planned to ask, earlier, but it was all he could do to leave with composure after she asked how he feels about Willie, about tonight.
When he looks up, Willie’s eyes are on him, watching. “How are you feeling, Willie?” Hannigan asks. A stupid question, really, but what else to say?
Willie frowns. “I don’t know,” he says. “It don’t seem real. Almost can’t feel.”
Hannigan nods. He smooths a sheet of tinfoil, wishing he had brought a deck of cards. “I think I understand that.” He folds the foil in half, then into quarters, and then he puts it aside and reaches for another piece to fold, even as he realizes that there is no point, that all this foil will just be thrown away. Still, he smooths and folds, smooths and folds, wondering what you say to people not while they are dying—this he has done, this he can do—but when they are scheduled imminently to die. He has never before ministered to someone on death row.
“Mostly I just want it to be over with,” Willie says. “I don’t want it to happen, but if it has to happen I just want it to be done. It’s like when I did school, I didn’t want to take any test, but I wanted test time to hurry up and come so it would be over and I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.”
“I understand that, too. And it will be over soon,” Hannigan says.
“You’re funny, for a priest.”
Hannigan looks up. Willie is looking at him quizzically.
“When my mama come she makes us pray. With you we usually just play marjolet.”
“I’m not here to convince you of anything, Willie.”
“Why not? Ain’t that what a priest is supposed to do?”
“Maybe some priests,” Hannigan says. “But I’m here as a friend.”
Willie seems to consider this. “My mama says when I get up from that chair I’m gonna start a new life with the Lord,” he says. “What do you say?”
Hannigan doesn’t answer right away. Then, “What do you say, Willie?” he asks.
“That I ain’t gonna get up from that chair.” Willie says this adamantly. He looks into Hannigan’s eyes. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t see getting up to a whole new holy life. I’ve tried and tried to make myself believe in all that stuff, but to me it’s like believing in Br’er Rabbit.”
Hannigan takes a breath, tries to formulate his thoughts, to put together a theory that will be both comforting and one he believes—but he can’t do it. “Look,” he says. “I’m going to be completely honest with you. I don’t know what happens when we die.”
“We die. Ashes to ashes.”
“Yes, ashes to ashes. For our bodies. But I believe that something must come of our souls. They can’t just disappear.”
There are sounds from outside: a man shouting, a barking dog. Willie looks toward the window; Hannigan watches him, wonders what is going through his mind. The outside sounds fade, and Willie turns back to the room. “So where do the souls go?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Hannigan admits.
“So you say there ain’t heaven.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I don’t know.”
“You believe in God?”
Hannigan swallows. Slowly, he pulls the china dishes toward him across the table. They are white china, with a blue design of sparrows among leaves, intricate and fine. He scrapes the remaining bits of potato in with the remaining beans, puts the bowl with the scraps into the empty one, slides the bowls aside. He looks at his neglected slice of pie. Then he looks at Willie. “I don’t know what I believe,” he says, finally. “I think I believe in God, but I’m always looking for a sign.” Hannigan has barely admitted as much to himself; he wonders if he’s saying this because he knows that the words will die when Willie does. “I believe in goodness, and I guess that’s a sign. But I also see the evil that exists in the world. I see the cruel way men can treat each other.” He frowns, looking at the boy before him, thinking how in the face of the accusation against him, he never stood a chance. What happened, happened, Willie himself admits this. The question is the name by which it’s called: the girl’s father calls it rape, and on the stand, Willie called it love. Grace is the only one who can truly answer, and she is not alive to say. “I see what’s happening to you,” he says, softly.
Willie shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I deserve to die. I want to die. It’s ’cause of me that Grace is gone.”