That stopped me short.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.

‘Yes you do – and don’t ask me how and why I know it. I also know you’ve been driving around a woman who props up the local abortion industry.’

‘You’ve no right to say that.’

‘Why? Because you agree with her work? Are you pro-baby murder?’

‘I’m ending this call.’

‘Brendan, I want you to drop whatever you are doing right now and get over to my parish office.’

‘I need to be working. I have a car to repair.’

‘You come to me now I promise you I’ll get someone to fix up your car and replace the windshield. Angels Assist will take care of it. And I can give you some work around here for a few days until the car is fixed to cover the money you’re losing. Eighty a day until the car is ready to go back on the road.’

‘What do I have to do in return for all this kindness?’

‘Agree that you will not drive that woman again. Then just sit down with me and a few interested parties and tell us all you know about what you saw and heard driving this woman to those clinics.’

I was suddenly angry. Very angry.

‘How the fuck do you know all this?’ I heard myself shouting.

‘Calm down, Brendan. I’ll expect you in my office in one hour.’

‘Otherwise what? You’re going to keep me after school? Slap me around the head like Father Mulligan used to do forty-five years ago after putting his hand on my crotch?’

Click. The line went dead. I found myself reeling from all that had just jumped out of my mouth. And wondering: did it take the trauma of all that went down today to get it out?

Or maybe, just maybe, for the first time in my life, I was not listening to the man in the power position whom I’d allowed to play guilt games with my conscience. Especially some guy in a clerical collar who was doing polite gangster talk with me – and threatening to break me if I didn’t play it his way.

Maybe, for the first time in my life, I’d just told the voice of authority to fuck off.

Back in the car, I allowed myself a moment to shut my eyes and black out the world. Then there was a bing on the phone, snapping me back into the air-conditioned here and now. From Elise:

We’re done. Can you please come by in about fifteen minutes?

I was in front of the clinic on time. One of the security guys came out, his hand touching his holstered Taser. I rolled down the window.

‘You got business here?’ he asked.

‘Picking up a patient.’

‘Got two women inside, waiting for an Uber guy. You the Uber guy?’

‘I’m the Uber guy.’