determination returned.
“Yeah, and what exactly am I going to be doing in Massachusetts? Selling flowers at the airport?”
She smiled. “No, sir. You’re going to be the new caretaker of the cemetery in town. Hillcrest, Massachusetts to be exact. It’s a pleasant little place a few miles north of a city called Worcester. It’s very nice.”
He leaned over the table. The wrinkled hands remained flat on the surface. He whispered, “Go away now or I swear to God I’ll—”
And then her hands came up and touched his cheeks.
And the bar disappeared.
Vinnie Tarretti saw the face of God as flames, burning His commandments into the stone tablets... a terrified old man carrying them down the mountain and in anger shattering them on a stone at the sight of the idolatry before him; returning from the mountain a second time with new tablets, placing them in a tabernacle adorned with the gold from destroyed idols, carried across the desert for forty years; then King Solomon, tall with a knitted beard and flowing robes and riches beyond match, building the temple of God, and the placing of the golden Ark of the Covenant beneath angelic wings of gold and….
He vomited across the table. In the days that followed, he never found out—and dared not ask—if he’d also thrown up all over the old woman. But as Vinnie fell into unconsciousness, he felt his life and whatever remained of his soul burn away. The world he thought he knew blew apart like ash in the light of God’s vision.
When he awoke, he was in the hospital. “Alcohol poisoning” was how the medical report read. He was released as soon as he could stand under his own power, being without insurance. Vinnie walked outside, into painful sunlight and thick, dirty air. An Asian man waved to him from a cab waiting at the curb, running to open the rear door without waiting for a response. Reflexively, Vinnie climbed into the back seat. Before he could get back out, the cab pulled into traffic.
The old woman from Massachusetts patted his hand and said, “It’s time to go, Vincent.”
Twenty-six years later, Vincent pulled his Blazer to a stop at the back of his small caretaker’s house, still relishing the joy from this morning’s service. Johnson barked from inside, as he did every time his master arrived home after going somewhere without him. Johnson’s bark sounded different this morning. An angry, warning tone.
He understood why when he walked around to the front of the house, fiddling with his key ring. A short man stood on the porch, hands folded calmly in front of him as if in prayer. He wore a dark suit with a black shirt and white tie. The neat apparel, his Sunday Best , Vincent assumed, fit in well with his clipped moustache and short white hair.
As Vincent mounted the single step, the man extended his hand.
“Mister Tarretti, I presume? So glad to finally meet you.” Vincent took his hand in a perfunctory shake. “My name is Peter Quinn. I was hoping we could talk.”
Chapter Eleven
The basement of Hillcrest Baptist Church once housed the Dreyfus family’s workroom and wine cellar, but had slowly been converted to a hall for church functions. It was wider than the church itself, running under the full length of the house, with a two-foot high stage for the occasional children’s play and group meetings. This room was as familiar to Nathan as his parents’ home. Every other Sunday for eighteen years, the Dinnecks joined other families of the parish in this hall for fellowship dinner, a community breaking bread together and discussing everything from the morning’s sermon to the Patriots’ chances that afternoon. The tables usually filled quickly, though today many people chose to stand and mingle among the larger-than-normal crowd. According to Hayden, the last time Sunday service had been this crowded was Easter.
The room filled with the scent of brewing coffee, orange juice, meatballs, pasta and pies. Children wandered toward the
“Yeah, and what exactly am I going to be doing in Massachusetts? Selling flowers at the airport?”
She smiled. “No, sir. You’re going to be the new caretaker of the cemetery in town. Hillcrest, Massachusetts to be exact. It’s a pleasant little place a few miles north of a city called Worcester. It’s very nice.”
He leaned over the table. The wrinkled hands remained flat on the surface. He whispered, “Go away now or I swear to God I’ll—”
And then her hands came up and touched his cheeks.
And the bar disappeared.
Vinnie Tarretti saw the face of God as flames, burning His commandments into the stone tablets... a terrified old man carrying them down the mountain and in anger shattering them on a stone at the sight of the idolatry before him; returning from the mountain a second time with new tablets, placing them in a tabernacle adorned with the gold from destroyed idols, carried across the desert for forty years; then King Solomon, tall with a knitted beard and flowing robes and riches beyond match, building the temple of God, and the placing of the golden Ark of the Covenant beneath angelic wings of gold and….
He vomited across the table. In the days that followed, he never found out—and dared not ask—if he’d also thrown up all over the old woman. But as Vinnie fell into unconsciousness, he felt his life and whatever remained of his soul burn away. The world he thought he knew blew apart like ash in the light of God’s vision.
When he awoke, he was in the hospital. “Alcohol poisoning” was how the medical report read. He was released as soon as he could stand under his own power, being without insurance. Vinnie walked outside, into painful sunlight and thick, dirty air. An Asian man waved to him from a cab waiting at the curb, running to open the rear door without waiting for a response. Reflexively, Vinnie climbed into the back seat. Before he could get back out, the cab pulled into traffic.
The old woman from Massachusetts patted his hand and said, “It’s time to go, Vincent.”
Twenty-six years later, Vincent pulled his Blazer to a stop at the back of his small caretaker’s house, still relishing the joy from this morning’s service. Johnson barked from inside, as he did every time his master arrived home after going somewhere without him. Johnson’s bark sounded different this morning. An angry, warning tone.
He understood why when he walked around to the front of the house, fiddling with his key ring. A short man stood on the porch, hands folded calmly in front of him as if in prayer. He wore a dark suit with a black shirt and white tie. The neat apparel, his Sunday Best , Vincent assumed, fit in well with his clipped moustache and short white hair.
As Vincent mounted the single step, the man extended his hand.
“Mister Tarretti, I presume? So glad to finally meet you.” Vincent took his hand in a perfunctory shake. “My name is Peter Quinn. I was hoping we could talk.”
Chapter Eleven
The basement of Hillcrest Baptist Church once housed the Dreyfus family’s workroom and wine cellar, but had slowly been converted to a hall for church functions. It was wider than the church itself, running under the full length of the house, with a two-foot high stage for the occasional children’s play and group meetings. This room was as familiar to Nathan as his parents’ home. Every other Sunday for eighteen years, the Dinnecks joined other families of the parish in this hall for fellowship dinner, a community breaking bread together and discussing everything from the morning’s sermon to the Patriots’ chances that afternoon. The tables usually filled quickly, though today many people chose to stand and mingle among the larger-than-normal crowd. According to Hayden, the last time Sunday service had been this crowded was Easter.
The room filled with the scent of brewing coffee, orange juice, meatballs, pasta and pies. Children wandered toward the
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