Immaculate Heart by Camille Deangelis

about that,” he sighed. “I know his mother quite well, poor lady—very devout, in the second pew at Mass each and every morning, you know the way—but as I say, all I can tell you is the bits and pieces I’ve heard over time.”
    â€œWhat kind of bits and pieces?”
    â€œBy all accounts, the boy was a bad influence. Sucking down the Buckfast, rolling his own cigarettes from the age of nine, marijuana, and who knows what else.” The priest shook his head. “Your typical waster, so they tell me.”
    â€œWhat about his father? Is he still around?”
    â€œHe left when Declan was small. It happened quite often among the men of that generation, and the one before it: they left for work in England and never returned.”
    I thought of Leo, with no one to come home for—but he’d returned just the same. “Was Declan’s father from Ballymorris?”
    The priest shook his head. “He wasn’t, no. They say he was a Dublin man. Who knows what brought him here? I don’t suppose even Mrs. Keaveney could tell us now, poor woman.”
    â€œYou speak of Mrs. Keaveney as if she were—”
    He caught my meaning, and nodded. “Mrs. Keaveney, it pains me to say, goes about her days under the tragic misapprehension that Declan is coming home any day now. Sometimes it’s tomorrow, she tells me, and other times it’s sure to be next week. He’s a very busy man, she says. Up to something important down in Australia, something so important that he hasn’t yet found the time to come home and visit his poor old mam, not once in twenty years.
    â€œBut then,” he sighed, “mothers can never be brought to think ill of their sons. If only they could, then perhaps the boys would behave better.”
    I felt my mother’s arms like a lead weight around my neck, murmuring words like kind and sweet as if they applied to me, and I reminded myself that the priest was speaking only of Declan. “It must surprise you, then, to hear that he and Orla were dating.”
    Father Lynch shrugged as he drained his cup. “Sure, people change.” Then something occurred to him. “It’s a strange thing, though: in all these years, I’ve never met Orla’s husband.”
    I tapped my pen on my open notebook. “What about her sister?”
    â€œSíle?” He looked almost startled. “Surely Tess told you about Síle.”
    â€œI heard she’s living in a home. Do you know what’s wrong with her?”
    â€œNow, that would be something you’d have to talk to the family about.”
    â€œDo you know her at all?”
    â€œI’ve never met her, no, though I do know the Gallaghers quite well.”
    â€œHow did they react when their daughters told them about the apparition?”
    â€œOh, I suppose it’s safe to say they were concerned. But they’d known Tess all her life, and as I say, Tess has always been the sort of lass you can set your faith in. If Tess saw it, then no one could’ve been telling tales.”
    â€œSo you think the apparition was real?”
    I thought we’d geared up for this, but I’d miscalculated. The priest leaned back in his chair and eyed me coolly. “I believe Tess saw what she claimed to have seen.”
    â€œAh, but Father,” I said, “that’s not the same thing. Was it real?”
    He crossed his arms and glanced at the calendar on the wall to his right. “Now, that is a question I can’t answer.”
    I reached over and switched off the recorder. “Can’t, or won’t?”
    â€œWon’t,” he conceded. “Surely you understand. I couldn’t have my parishioners reading in your magazine that I believe their children were seeing things, or healing an ailment that may never have been there to begin with.”
    â€œBut you’ve just admitted that’s what you think.”
    The priest