After a quick stop for lunch, I suggested we go by the Cathedral. “Would that help with your work?” I asked. “I don’t know much about it, but from what I’ve seen, you usually like to—what is it—scope outa place beforehand if you can?”
Teo looked almost shocked that I’d even thought about it. “It would help,” he said slowly. “It’d help understand what that O’Hara guy has in mind for it. And I guess you wanna pray and shi—stuff?”
“And stuff,” I agreed.
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
Teo wandered around the Cathedral while I prayed; I had been there only a few times in my life, including my Confirmation. But it was nonetheless familiar as every Catholic church was familiar, and I felt a sense of home. The same sense of God that I felt in Our Lady.
It was comforting. As I prayed, I felt a great sense of peace descend on me, and I was sure of it: the ordination would go smoothly.
* * *
We haddinner again that night gathered around the table, and Conor O’Hara was there again. I enjoyed his easy manner and friendly smiles, although the Italian contingent still seemed wary of him.
There was only one point where I saw Conor look anything but smooth and charming, and that was when Finch called loudly down the table to Tara, asking if the renovators were taking good care of Innisfree, the Donovan estate west of Boston.
Tara shot Conor a look, but he didn’t notice. “It was a real shame, that fire,” he said, when no one else responded. “Ms. Donovan’s had to board up the estate for now.”
“Fire?” Finch asked. He turned to Tara indignantly. “You didn’t tell me there was afire.”
Tara, Róisín and Conor looked at each other blankly. “It was a small fire,” Tara said at last. “In the bedroom wing, though. So you see, we couldn’t…have had you there.”
“Who started it?” Finch demanded. “If it was those renovators—”
“It’s all under control, Howie,” Róisín broke in. “It’s not like you’ve been a regular visitor there over the years, so it doesn’t really affect you at all, does it?” I had the distinct impression she only said what she said to draw Finch’s attention away from Tara.
It didn’t work. Finch was still glaring at Tara when he replied, “I haven’t been invited, have I?”
I wanted to help avoid an argument, and so I spoke up and asked what the weather was supposed to be like tomorrow. The alacrity and detail with which Tara began to discuss the forecast suggested I’d been right to do so. Finch was quieter than usual for the rest of the meal, and I noticed Teo gazing thoughtfully at Tara and Conor when he thought I wasn’t watching.
I grew tired early that night, and despite Finch’s boos, I went up to bed early. Teo came too, although I begged him not to. “Really, I’ll be fine,” I assured him, but he said he was tired as well. I thought of everything he’d been through in the last few days and I believed him.
“Still sure about the rooms?” he asked as we paused in the hallway outside our respective doors. “We could swap each day. Give you a chance to soak in that tub, eh?”
I shook my head, smiling. “I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He nodded at me, and watched as I went into my room. There was a soft knock at the door as I turned away from it and, my heart jumping, I opened it again. “Yes?”
His deep brown eyes were serious. “Lock the door, Aidan. Always lock the door.”
I wanted to tell him that we could trust these people—trust the Donovans, Finch’s family—but then I remembered the strange exchange about Innisfree tonight at dinner, and I saw his point. “Okay. What about the door between our rooms?”
“Leave that one. If I gotta get into your room fast, I want it open.”
I heard him locking his own door as well, and I did as he’d told me. I felt exhausted, suddenly, too tired to even think through the conversation with Father Mike. I said my prayers quickly, put my glasses on the night stand, and then I got into bed.
But once I was lying there in the dark, in that still-unfamiliar room, with a too-soft, too-large bed and a peculiar quiet outside that I did not think would ever happen in New York, I could not sleep. I found myself staring at the door between our rooms, wondering if Teo was asleep already, wondering what he looked like as he lay there.
Without fully thinking it through, I got out of bed and went through that doorway and into Teo’s room.
Chapter Fourteen
Aidan
He sat up immediately, and I heard a familiar-yet-unfamiliar click. “What is it?”
“It’s just me. I…can’t sleep.”
