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Her shoulders sagged. Her heart calmed—or perhaps started thumping again. And her two shadows drew so close to her that she could smell the garlic from their dinner.
“You goin inside, Miss Mancari?” one of them asked.
The other jerked his chin toward the door.
No, not toward the door. It was a greeting to another shadow who lounged by the entrance, who jerked his chin back.
Her brows knit. Wasn’t that one of the goons from the park the other day? The one who had reached for his belt when she and Lorenzo looked his way? One of Papa’s men, Lorenzo had said, and those chin-juts seemed to confirm it. But why was he stationed here now?
Something brushed her elbow, and she jumped a step forward.
The first guard, the one who had spoken, didn’t apologize for startling her. He just held out an arm, inviting her to go up the steps and, no doubt, stop standing on the sidewalk like an imbecile.
Every sound rang too loud in her ears as she obeyed. The scuff of her shoes against the stone steps, the squeak of the massive wooden door, the boom of its closing.
Only one of the guards came inside with her, and he took up position in the narthex rather than trailing her any farther. Good.
She turned toward the confession booth but made it only two steps before she halted again. Father Russo wasn’t in there; the curtain was pulled back to reveal his empty seat.
Of course he wasn’t there. He was never there at eight o’clock at night. What had she been thinking? A sigh leaked from her lips. She could come back tomorrow for the overdue confession, but that wouldn’t help her find her missing peace now.
The beauty of the sanctuary beckoned, the flicker of the candles by the altar promising that prayer was a light through the darkness, doing its work even after her whispered words fell silent. She aimed her feet up the long center aisle.
There were only a few other people in the pews, all of them women, most of them of her mother’s generation. Mothers themselves, she’d bet, praying for wayward sons and prodigal daughters. Sons and daughters likely led into the tares by men like her father.
Her steps dragged. It seemed like it took a century before she made it to the front, and she wondered if there was any purpose to this. Could her prayers undo her father’s work? Could the coins she dropped in the offering box to pay for the candles even matter when they were earned by violence and gambling and prostitution? Would God even hear the words of a mafioso’s daughter?
As she approached, another woman kneeling at the front crossed herself, stood, and turned to exit. She glanced up as she passed Sabina and paused, a smile wreathing her face. It was the woman from the park the other night, the one whose name Sabina didn’t know but whose face was familiar here.
The woman leaned closer, her voice barely a whisper. “I heard about the attack last week. Is your family all right? Your brother?”
Sabina nodded, her own questions easing back to make room for this near-stranger’s touching concern.
The woman rested a hand on Sabina’s forearm and gave it a friendly squeeze. “I can imagine how it’s haunted you. I said a prayer for you and your mother. I lit a candle for you.”
She had? Eyes stinging in gratitude, Sabina could only mouth a thank you and blink.
The woman withdrew her hand, smiled again, and continued down the aisle.
Sabina felt ten pounds lighter. This, perhaps, was how God assured her that He saw her. She dug a few coins from the pocket of her dress to drop into the offering box and reached to pull one of the wooden tapers from the vase of sand. She touched the end to one of the candles already burning and transferred the light to an unlit votive—a simple task she’d done hundreds of times over the years. But tonight, the light seemed to glow brighter against the gathering night. He is the Light of the world, they seemed to sing with their golden flickers. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
She sank to her knees on the padded altar rail and crossed herself. She had always not comprehended Him, truth be told. But she wanted to understand Him. She needed to know Him like Lorenzo did, like Isadora. She could understand why Mary ran headlong into the darkness instead; Sabina had tried that path, but it wasn’t the one she wanted. That wasn’t the life that would ever let peace flutter down to coo at her.
She whispered a Hail Mary to ground her, to open her heart. And then she held that heart open. She pushed aside the old familiar thoughts that whispered, He won’t hear you, you don’t matter into her ear. She tried to believe. Christ was her bridegroom, even more than Lorenzo.
Lorenzo. His face flooded her mind’s eye. His name pressed itself into her heart with such force that her breath caught. Lorenzo—the boy she’d always loved best in the world. The man she’d come to think was so far above her, so far beyond her that he couldn’t possibly love her. The fiancé whose heart she’d broken, the betrayed who had sworn he would give her another chance and begged for her forgiveness.
Lorenzo, the man who was just a man, with a man’s weaknesses. “Not so unlike the other men in our families,” he’d said an hour ago—a confession of his own. He was afraid of his own nature because it was as frail as her own.
Her thoughts flew briefly to the woman who’d just left, who’d prayed for her and Mama, who’d lit a candle for them.
It mattered. It made a difference. Maybe her prayers would too.
Lord Jesus, You were a man with a nature like ours, like Lorenzo’s. Make his nature more like yours, as I know he wants it to be. Strengthen him. Strengthen me. Strengthen us.
Help us, somehow, to be a light instead of part of the darkness.
Lorenzo parked behind his apartment building as the last colors of dusk faded into the gray of night. The streetlamps were already on, as were lights in most of the windows of the building. He could see Heidi Stein standing in front of her top-floor window, looking out into the twilight, the electric light behind her making her white hair glow. When she spotted him, she gave an enthusiastic wave.
