| chances on getting too much sun. ‘ “I was afraid you were going to miss Father Sean.” | Shelly leaned across Andy to speak to Daria.
“When does he go up?” Daria asked.
“I think there’s a couple more before him,” Shelly said.
The day was beautiful. There was a gentle breeze off the ocean, just enough to give the gliders the lift they needed as they performed their intricate maneuvers to the delight of the crowd. But Daria had trouble concentrating. She was aware of Grace speaking to Shelly, although she couldn’t hear what was being said.
Leave my sister alone, Daria thought. There was something creepy about Grace’s attentiveness to Shelly now that Daria knew the truth about her. And she knew Grace annoyed Shelly with her incessant questions.
She wished she were sitting next her sister, so she could save her.
“There’s Sean.” Chloe pointed to the highest ridge on the dune, where a man was attaching his harness to a glider. They were quite a distance from him, and Daria marveled at the fact that Chloe was able to identify him. Sean adjusted his helmet, tugged at his harness, and most of the crowd turned in his direction to watch him prepare for his takeoff. Grace turned away from the priest to say something to Shelly. The breeze lifted her bangs from her forehead for a few seconds, and Daria saw the unmistakable widow’s peak—the same widow’s peak that had marked her daughter, Pamela.
Father Macy took a few awkward steps backward with his glider. Then he ran toward the edge of the dune, the glider above his shoulders, and took off, lifting gently into the sky to the “oohs” and “aahs” of the crowd.
“Go for the gold. Father M!” someone shouted. The priest was the undisputed favorite of the locals in the crowd.
Daria felt the sun on her face as she watched the priest and his glider slip effortlessly into the sky, flying higher than any of the other gliders had flown since her arrival on the dunes. A burst of applause swept over the dunes, and people waited in anticipation for his first maneuver. But then, suddenly, his glider appeared to stall.
It hung motionless in the air, as still as the sun in the sky above them. Was this part of his performance?
“What’s he doing?” Andy asked, but before anyone could answer, the colorful triangle of fabric pitched forward, soaring toward the ground in a nosedive. Daria jumped to her feet, horrified, as the glider and priest crashed headfirst into the sand at the bottom of the dunes.
Screams and gasps erupted from the crowd, and Daria hesitated only a moment before pushing her way through the throng, running down the dune toward the priest. She was vaguely aware of Chloe on one side of her, Andy on the other. Were there other EMTs in the crowd? There had to be. Please, let there be someone here to help me.
People were huddled in a circle around the priest.
“Don’t move him!”
she called out as she slid the rest of the way down the dune on the seat of her shorts. The sand burned the backs of her thighs.
“It’s Daria Cato,” someone said.
“Get out of her way.”
Daria broke through the circle of people to reach the injured priest. She dropped to her knees next him, but knew in an instant that moving him would not make a difference, either to help or to harm. His head was twisted at a sharp angle to his shoulders. She pressed her fingers against his throat, in what she knew was a futile effort to locate a pulse. Behind her, a child began to cry.
Chloe fell to her knees on the other side of the priest, then looked at her sister. “Is there anything you can do?” she asked.
Daria shook her head.
“His neck is broken.” Her mouth was dry; the words came out in a hoarse whisper.
Chloe lifted the priest’s hand and held it between her own. Although she made no sound of weeping, tears flowed freely over her cheeks, and she prayed quietly over the fallen priest, as the wail of sirens filled the air.
Shelly sat next to Daria in the hushed stillness of St. Esther’s Church as people took turns standing in front of the pulpit to speak in soft voices, paying tribute to Father Sean. The speakers’ faces were colored blue or green or pink by the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows. Chloe was one of the speakers, and her face had looked beautiful in the rose-colored light. She sat in the front pew of the church with the other speakers, while Shelly and Daria sat a few pews back. Chloe had already spoken, dry-eyed, about the important role Father Sean had played in the lives of the Cato family since coming to St. Esther’s twenty-four years ago. The fact that Chloe was able to say all she did without crying was pretty amazing, but it didn’t surprise Shelly. Ever since the accident on the dunes, when Chloe had wept her heart out, she had been walking around in a daze, no emotion at all on her face. Daria said she was in shock.
Old Father Wayne was standing at the front of the church now, green light on his face, telling some anecdote about Father Sean that was obviously supposed to be funny. Some people chuckled, but Shelly had trouble concentrating on what the priest was saying. She was remembering Father Sean in her own way. She remembered that during the cooler months of the year. Father Sean was full of life and laughter.
He would tell her jokes—clean ones, of course. There was always a smile on his face. And then,
summer would come, and he would lose his smile. It happened every year. Shelly had come to expect it, to feel the arrival of summer with a certain dread. As joyful as it made her, she did not like the torment that the hot, sunny weather brought to the priest. She knew some people suffered from a kind of depression that came over them in the winter months. That was common. Father Sean had the opposite problem. And she was one of the few people who understood why.
Daria pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her nose, and Shelly rested her cheek against her sister’s shoulder and patted her hand.
“It’s all right, Dar,” she said, wanting to comfort her sister. For some reason, Daria’s suffering felt worst to her than her own. That’s the way it is when you love someone, Father Sean had said to her once.
The worst time was after Pete broke up with Daria. Shelly had never particularly liked Pete. He was too
