His head is still bleeding when he gets back to the rectory. His whole skull has started to ache—a deep throbbing like in the aftermath of hard tears. He shuts the rectory door behind him and sets the car keys on the table by the door, where he also drops his pocket rosary and collar, gratefully unfastened from around his neck.
He passes through the darkness to the bathroom, where he flips the light switch and waits as the fluorescent light comes on, flicker by brighter flicker until the room is a garish white. He looks into the mirror above the sink; for a brief moment, he can hardly recognize himself. It isn’t the blood on his head, and it isn’t the weariness etched into his face; it is a fundamental lack of recognition, as if he were looking at a stranger. Childishly, despite himself, Hannigan lifts a hand; the reflection in the mirror does the same.
He cleans the gash on his forehead with toilet paper soaked in iodine, which stings more than the wound itself, and when he takes the paper away the wound is clear for only a second before blood begins again to weep through the bone-white underflesh. There is nothing in the medicine cabinet aside from his razor and some shaving cream, and so he fashions his own bandage of toilet paper, which he folds into a neat square and brings with him to the living room, where he finds a roll of Scotch tape in the desk drawer. He tapes the fat white square down over his wound, carefully smoothing each piece of tape against his skin. And then he just stands there, unsure what next to do with himself, the trajectory of his night abruptly over. Sleep seems impossible.
He gazes at the telephone on the desk, wishing he had somebody to call. He blinks, lets his eyes travel to the coffee table, where the whiskey and the glass are sitting as he left them. Waiting there for him, and suddenly in his eyes they are the only thing in the room, calling him as they’ve been calling him all day, all week, for years. This time, tonight, he obeys.