“This resurgence, Warren, is a gift beyond whatever voices may be speaking to us from heaven—” “Or not,” Warren interrupted. “Or perhaps,” the priest responded. Warren studied Father Carroll’s expression. He seemed different. Calmer. Almost smiling. “Do you believe in this miracle, Father?” The clerics leaned forward. St. Vincent’s was the largest church in town. What Father Carroll thought was critical. “I remain . . . skeptical,” he said, his words measured. “But I have called my bishop to arrange a visit.” Eyes darted back and forth. This was important news. “With due respect, Father,” Warren said, “the two congregants . . . they’ve been in our church for a long time. Baptist. You know this.” “I do.” “So the bishop—to be coming here—he wouldn’t be speaking with them, not as nonCatholics.”
Would he come to her house? It was terribly important. Until that point, he had dismissed these “otherworldly” claims as foolery. Fakes. The opposite would be too much to accept; that the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, had forsaken the Catholic church in revealing his eternal paradise to the living world—and had chosen the bumbling Pastor Warren over him. Tess Rafferty changed all that. In the kitchen of her home, which had survived a recent trial by fire, this thin woman of lapsed faith revealed that she too had been contacted from the other side—by her deceased mother, Ruth, whom Father Carroll remembered. More important, according to the calculations, her initial phone call had come around 8:20 a.m., several hours before Katherine Yellin’s. This was pleasing news indeed, news that Father Carroll intended to share with the anxious world. If earthly mortals were being contacted by souls in heaven, Tess, a Catholic, had been the first. On Thursday afternoon, Sully picked up Jules at school. He met him as he came out the door. “Hi, buddy.” “Hi.”
“That’s right.” “How was everything today?” Father Carroll lowered his chin. He crossed his hands in his lap. It was understood.
“OK. Peter played with me.”
There was another.
“Peter, the kid with no front teeth?”
What Father Carroll had not revealed was that two days earlier, he’d received a message on behalf of a former congregant, Tess Rafferty.
“Yeah.”