Soon, Sarabeth fell asleep. Her breathing was audible, comforting. Beside her I stared out the window at the countryside beyond the Thruway. Now that there was no one to witness, tears welled in my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks. No idea why.

Delayed by an accident on the Thruway the Greyhound bus arrived in South Niagara thirty-five minutes late.

In a state of anxiety I ran most of the two miles from the bus station to St. Matthew’s church at the intersection of Bryant Avenue and Lock Street my backpack thudding between my shoulder blades. And when I arrived breathless and sweating the tall front doors were shut and inside a solemn high mass had begun for the repose of the soul of Joseph Gabriel Kerrigan (1908–1997).

Wasn’t sure that I’d even known my grandfather’s middle name: Gabriel.

Printed on the Sacred Heart of Jesus prayer cards, for mourners at the mass to take home with them in memorium.

A beautiful name, I thought. And this too was strange: any sort of beauty accruing to my sneering grandfather.

At the altar, a casket banked with white lilies. Grandpa would’ve laughed in derision, kicked the flowers.

God damn you all to hell.

The interior of St. Matthew’s was more dimly lighted than I recalled. And more sparsely occupied than I’d ever seen it. Mourners were in only three pews at the very front and none of these was filled.

From the rear of the church I couldn’t see the priest clearly—he didn’t resemble Father Greavy. He was older, stooped. His voice was rapid and singsong and nasal and the altar boys’ mumbled responses were near-inaudible. How annoyed my grandfather would have been, a solemn high mass being said for him. Like many—male—Irish Catholics of his generation he’d come to despise the Church. He’d known about “pervert priests” long before the media exposed them. He’d refused to attend mass for decades since my grandmother died and he’d had no way of avoiding a church funeral.

I strained to see: my parents seated in the first pew. Just the backs of their heads I saw yet I recognized them, with a sick, sinking sensation, at once.

They were seated with my grandfather’s family—most of them older, white-haired. But there was Miriam, and Katie . . . Rick? Les?

Chilling to me, to see how I wasn’t among them. As if I’d never existed.

Six years since my parents had seen me or spoken with me. That encounter at the children’s custody safe house when my mother walked out to wait for Miriam in the car had been the last time I’d seen Mom and I could not even recall clearly the last time I’d seen Daddy . . .

Strange to continue to call them Mom, Daddy.