Pat felt like hell and hobbled to the bathroom. He was no longer banned from the master bedroom, but he would be up all night with the fidgets and the sweats and the nausea, and he needed more ice, maybe something sweet, but he had no appetite, and maybe he should just have one drink to take the edge off. One drink, like medicine, that’s all, what’s the harm in that? It was a new year, and if he could just keep it to one drink a night, then he wouldn’t have a problem and he wouldn’t be in misery, and everything would be fine. One stiff drink and that’s it.

January 31

[ JANUARY 31 ]

A cold and early Sunday, the eve of St. Bridget’s, and Anne Malone put on her fake lambskin gloves to go turn over the Zephyr. Bridget, a woman who prayed for her beauty to be taken away so no one would marry her . . . God Almighty . . . the Irish mother of the Church, ladies and gentlemen. Anne sighed, thinking of her own Irish mother and all her beyond-the-pale superstitions. Bridget’s feast sat uneasily on a cross quarter day. Midway from solstice to equinox, half in, half out. On a day like this, Anne remembered her mother saying, to look at the shades of winter, it felt like you had caught something looking away from you.

The Zephyr stammered at ignition, the engine wheezing and retching before settling into something resembling internal combustion. Anne turned both defrosters on low—anything stronger would stall the car—and grabbed the scraper from the glove compartment. A cold snap had perfectly entombed the car’s windows in a quarter inch of ice.

Anne’s resolution to go to early Mass every day in the New Year was still holding. St. Bridget, hear my prayer, and grant me the strength to break this goddamn ice off the windshield. The scraping was taking such effort that Anne was now sweating under her coat and church clothes. Finally the iceberg calved and slid onto the hood. Anne paused before attempting the back windshield. It was then that she spied the paper at the edge of the Peñas’ driveway. Still visiting family in Illinois, she thought, and in her helpful neighborly fashion, Anne reached down furtively to steal their paper and Sunday coupons and stash it inside the house when the headline caught her.

RALEIGH AWAKE IN HOSPITAL POLICE, D.A. RELEASE SUICIDE NOTE

Anne pulled a glove off with her teeth and unfurled the front page of the Dallas Morning News.

Standing Raleigh had come out of his coma. He was confused but responsive. No word about when the trial would resume—Judge Samuels was unable to be reached for the story—but a quote from Henry Wade, the Dallas district attorney: “Reverend Raleigh must have his day in court and be held accountable. I will wait until kingdom come.”