“They do,” agreed Lucy, whose eye was caught by an extremely unkempt man hovering around the edge of the thinning crowd. He was obviously out of place, with his long hair, shaggy beard, and ragged green Army jacket and people were beginning to notice him. Lucy watched as one older man, dressed in a gray suit, registered his presence. He reacted by taking his wife’s hand—she was a trim woman with white hair dressed in a blue linen dress—and leading her to the car. As others did the same thing, the stranger was left standing all alone, beneath the white statue of the Virgin Mary that stood in front of Our Lady of Hope church.

The symbolism wasn’t lost on Lucy and she approached him, intending to offer help. As she drew closer she saw that he was in a genuinely sorry state. Bits of leaves and twigs clung to his hair and beard, the sleeves of his jacket were frayed at the cuff and there were holes in both elbows, and his hands and face were filthy. She could tell because the tears running down his face left tracks in the grime.

“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked, fumbling in her purse for her wallet. “Do you need money?”

The man stood staring at her for a moment, then shook his head.

“Are you looking for someone here in town?”

He didn’t say anything but began to shake so violently that Lucy thought he must be having an attack of some kind.

“I’ll call for help,” she said, pulling out her cell phone. She flipped it open and dialed 9-1-1, but when the dispatcher answered, the man was already running along the front of the church.

“There’s a man in some sort of distress at Our Lady of Hope,” said Lucy, flipping the phone shut and following him. When she got to the corner of the building, however, there was no sign of him. He must have disappeared into the woods behind the church. Lucy considered following him there, but decided against it. For one thing, she didn’t know him and he might be irrational, even violent. A lot of homeless people were and that’s what this man seemed to be. But, in truth, Lucy wasn’t afraid of him; she was sorry for him. Whoever he was, he seemed to be the most sincerely grief-stricken of all the mourners at Mimi’s funeral.

She was walking back to her car when the cruiser arrived and she pointed out the path the man had taken. “We’ve had some other calls,” the cop told her, after she described the man. “So far he hasn’t broken any laws so there isn’t much we can do.”

“What about protective custody?”

“He’d have to be a danger to himself or others,” said the cop.