.

      “Oh, I don’t think that it’s about that, Lou,” said Meriwether. “It’s a different kind of presence that Joe has among us. It’s not about our civic life. It’s about something deeper.”

      Lou dropped his eyes. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this at all.”

      A clumsy silence followed.

      “Well,” said Sally, speaking up with a quiver of timidity in her voice, “are you interested in what is in the envelope?”

      There was silent assent and anticipation in the air.

      They were interrupted by the tailored-suited presence of Wendell Cone.

      “This is the steering committee, isn’t it?” asked Wendell.

      “Yes, it is,” said Father Frank. “Do you want to join us?”

      “Only for a moment. I don’t want to interrupt your proceedings, but I thought this was important. I want you to know that fifty thousand dollars has been electronically deposited in the Joe’s Fine Dining account.”

      The group was stunned.

      “The deposit was made by some organization known as Gemma LLC and signed by a Ms. Evita DuPont, whose name is also on the account. She authorized Sally to use the funds for ongoing operations.

      “Hmm,” said Father.

      “Does it make sense to you, Sally?” asked Meriwether. “You knew him better than most.”

      “I would have thought he would have chosen someone who had more skills with money than I do. I can hardly balance my checkbook! And I don’t know any Evita DuPont. Not at all.”

      “I think we may safely conclude several things from this,” said Father Frank, “that Joe’s not coming back right away and he wants his work at Joe’s to be carried on in his absence.”

      “We can’t know any of that for sure,” said Lou. “Who’s to say this isn’t some hoax? Maybe he’s been taken hostage or maybe his past has caught up with him. We don’t know much about him before he came here, you know.”

      “I hardly think that kidnappers would send money,” said Susanna. “They demand money, Lou! They don’t deposit it in the bank and appoint a guardian of the funds!”

      Lou scowled.

      “I suggest,” said Katye, “that we assign the parade plans to a smaller group. There are too many of us to do this in such a short time. I think Carmelita would be the obvious choice to head it up.”

      “Look,” said Lou. “We are just too close to this parade to make any big changes. I keep saying, although I have noticed nobody listens, I think we should just move on and do it as we always have.”

      Carmelita spoke up for the first time. “It would be easy to continue the parade conversation down at the station. I’d be glad to help. Marshall can handle the crowd tonight and if there’s trouble I am always on call.”

      Sally handed off the envelope to Carmelita before Lou could object.

      “May I choose the group that will work with me on this?” asked Carmelita.

      Lou grimaced.

      “I think the committee has total faith in your judgment, Carmelita. Of course, if we have any suggestions we can call you,” said Father. “I think our work is done here for this afternoon. So, it’s onward and upward until we meet tomorrow night at Argostoli’s.”

      Chapter 6

      Rocky rested his head for a moment against the garden hoe and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. With the direct July sun, it was a warm day to garden. He liked working with his hands. It gave him time to think. It was this easy kind of meandering flow of his mind that seeped like water into the cracks and crevices of creative possibilities that can’t be accomplished when he was thinking intentionally.

      Life had seemed so simple until he reached his mid-thirties. Then, the crisis hit. From then on, the world seemed to grab him by the hair and drag him along on a ride through a life that he didn’t recognize and he surely hadn’t planned.

      He had grown up in Colorado in a good stable home. He had not been coordinated enough for competitive sports, but he’d gone out for track and kept the respect of his peers by being a recognized athlete. He was not a scholar but a good student, pulling mostly B’s with a few A’s and a sprinkling of C’s, enough of the latter to keep him off the honor roll. His long light brown hair and blue eyes along with a good build, had made him popular.

      They were Catholics in a largely Protestant town, but, in school, nobody mentioned that part of life, so mostly, it didn’t matter. Religion, everybody said, was a private thing, and didn’t have to do with the rest of life. It was in the same category as a car or a pickup truck preference, and maybe a category or two below that in the town where he lived!

      Then one day, about three miles from his house, a school friend and all of his family had lost their lives in a car accident when two young men from a neighboring town with too much beer in them had swerved and met them head on.

      None of the local churches could hold enough people for the funeral so they had services in the local school gymnasium. Four coffins lined the front of the stage. It was hard for Rocky to fathom how it could be that Tom and he had just been talking on the school bus last Friday and here, on Tuesday, his voice was silenced and he was about to be buried.

      That week, Rocky went to Mass even though his parents didn’t. For the first time since he’d been an altar boy, he paid attention throughout the service. Suddenly, Mass became real rather than just some rote, form, or formula. Affected deeply, when he went out into the street again, he knew somehow life would be different.

      He made an appointment to see Father Crucey, who was polite but who really wanted to talk about the high school football team. He predicted a “building year” since last year most of the good players had graduated.

      Rocky was disappointed. Not until he went to college did he find young people who were asking the same questions he was. The second year of his college career, the campus chaplain had offered a vocations fair but nothing struck Rocky as anything that would fit him.

      “It’s all right,” said Chaplain Bill Reedy. “Just keep asking those questions.”

      No one, even Father Bill, seemed to understand that Rocky lived out of his heart. It was meaning and experience he was looking for and if they were missing, he couldn’t make up his mind about anything. After graduation, he still didn’t know what to do. He took a job with a small radio station as their program manager. His heart was calling him elsewhere. But, where would he go?

      One of his college professors had once quoted the aphorism to him, “Go West, young man!” and he had never forgotten it. Nine months later, Rocky had saved up enough money to move to California.

      Fifteen years later, with two divorces, a job loss, and financial ruin, Rocky fled the accumulated pain and landed back in his hometown. It was humiliating for him to stay with his parents, while all the good townsfolk who had praised him, now whispered about his marriage failures and his dissolute life in California.

      Six months later, he made off to Oregon, where a distant cousin lived, and took a job at the State Hospital in Salem. One day, his eyes landed on a stunning brunette, a new employee with an incredible smile and laughing, dancing eyes. They were inseparable for months. Then, she went away. He tried to find her for weeks. Finally, she showed back up at work. It turned out she had a husband in Arizona and had gone back to try to reconcile. It hadn’t worked out. She had asked for her old job back, and got it.

      Magdalena and he gradually renewed their relationship, but it took him a while to forgive her for leaving him without a word of explanation. He never understood and he never forgot. Had he not loved her, he couldn’t have gone on with her.

      Now, things had finally