“I’ve just told Tara, but I’m glad I caught you, too.” I rose from my knees as she came closer to me. “I’m leaving. After our discussion the other day in the safe room, I was reminded of my purpose.”
My mouth fell open. “Oh, I hope I didn’t say anything—”
“No.” She shakes her head, her fingers playing with the cross around her neck. “I think you and I both know that we must go where God wants us. And right now, that means I need to leave.”
Her otherworldly air was intense that morning. I felt as though Róisín, like the Blessed Virgin, had received a visit from an angel and had been told exactly what to expect.
“How do you know?” I asked her. “How do youknowthat’s what God wants?”
She did smile, then. “Surely I don’t have to explain it to you, brother.”
“But if you were going to? If someone asked?”
Her eyes lifted to the cross on the wall behind me. “I hear God calling,” she said simply, and then looked back to me again. “It’s been lovely to meet you, Aidan. I don’t think we’ll meet again. God be with you.”
“And also with you,” I murmured, as she left the attic.
I’d been so sure this morning, so certain of what God had planned for me. Now two brief visits from Teo and Róisín had me all mixed up again.
God seemed to speak quite plainly to Róisín. Why couldn’t I hear the divine voice as clearly as she did?
* * *
While I was descendingthe stairs to the third floor and the elevator, I paused halfway down as my mother’s voice came floating up. She was in the kitchen area, talking to someone—my dad, I realized, hearing his lower rumble.
“…seemed like such aniceyoung man,” Mom said, sounding worried. “I’d hate to think Aidan might miss out on happiness.”
“He’s not a child, Nancy. We need to trust him to make his own decisions.”
“Aidan willalwaysbe my child,” she retorted.
“That may be, but he’s also an adult. And besides, I’m not sure Teo Vitali is…well, anyway, it doesn’t matter what we think.”
“Of course it does,” I said, coming into the room. The two of them were having breakfast at the little table in the alcove at the end of the kitchen, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the garden. I didn’t like eavesdropping at the best of times, and if my parents had concerns about anything, I wanted to hear them. Maybe it could help me understand God’s plans more clearly.
Or maybe I just didn’t like the way Dad sounded when he talked about Teo.
Mom bustled over and gave me a big hug. “It’s almost your big day!” she said brightly.
“I haven’t forgotten, Mom.” I sounded irritated to my own ears. I looked over to Dad and asked, “What’s wrong with Teo?”
“Nothing at all,” Mom said, before Dad could get a word in. “Your father’s just overly worried all the time, you know how he gets.”
“Overly worried” was not a term I’d ever thought of in conjunction with my father before. If anything, that applied much more to Mom.
“How long are we going to have to stay here, Aidan?” Dad asked, sidestepping the question. He put his mug down.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t see how this is any safer, this house. There are so many windows everywhere—” He gestured to the alcove.
“They’re all bulletproof,” I told him with a shrug.
He stared at me for a beat. “Bulletproof?”
“Yeah. Well. Bulletresistant, really.”
“How can you say that so casually? As though it’s completely normal to have bulletproof windows everywhere?”
