“Yes,” I said, to my lap. When I met her eyes, they were filled with sympathy.

“That not knowing can change you. It changed Bill for the worse and he took out his worry on Nick.”

“How?”

“Nick stopped taking communion. When I asked him about it, he said Bill was worried about Nick sharing the communion cup with men who had the virus or taking the host from someone who was sick. Then he stopped going to Mass completely. Dropped out of school. It was like Bill couldn’t let him out of his sight.”

“To protect him?”

“But you can’t,” she said. “That’s what I told Bill. You can’t lock him up against something you can’t see. Bill told me to mind my own business. He had never spoken to me like that before and afterward we didn’t have much to say to each other. Except for the time Nick came down with a black eye.”

I replied with a startled, “Bill hit him?”

“Nick said it was an accident but I know all about women who had those kinds of accidents from their husbands. This was no different. I told Bill if he ever laid hands on the boy again, he would have to answer to me. If he hit him again,” she said, “he was careful that it wasn’t anywhere I could see.”

“What happened the night Bill died?”

Her face sagged and it was a moment before she answered. “I can’t tell you much. It was very late and I was sound asleep when the firemen pounded on my door. They took me outside and told me they needed to check my apartment for a gas leak. I was scared and confused. I saw Nick in the back of an ambulance with one of his brothers, Sal, I think his name is, and then they took him away. I watched them bring down a big black bag all zipped up from Bill’s place. What’s that, I asked a fireman. The other man, he said. Another fireman asked me if I had somewhere I could go because it wasn’t safe in my apartment with all the gas upstairs. A police car came and took me to my friend Edith’s house where I stayed until the gas company said I could come home.”

She wiped her eyes again. “A few days later, Bill’s brother showed up, put a new lock on Bill’s door and asked me a lot of questions. I played dumb. I was coming home from the store and saw Nick on the porch. They wouldn’t let him in the apartment to get his things.”

“Do you know where Nick is now?”