At the time, likely because he was too preoccupied with his own grief, Patrick had resented those pitying looks that they had given him. But now, after enough years had passed to give him a little perspective, he couldn’t help but feel that he had let his aunts down. Their faith had mattered to them in a way that he had never been able to understand, and gave them a sense of comfort and security when facing an uncertain and often frightening world.
Patrick’s hand slipped into the pocket containing the wooden disc with the spiraling design etched onto its surface. He had carved those loops and whorls himself, and then carefully filled the cuts with paint mixed with sea salt, just as he’d watched his great-uncle do when he was a child. And even though he couldn’t know for certain that it would protect him if the need arose, he felt comforted knowing that he had it with him. Was that really all that different from his aunts clutching their crucifixes or saints’ medallions in times of crisis?
Patrick realized that, in a way, what he and the others were doing at the moment could be seen as reinventing a very personal kind of faith from the ground up. A faith based on their experiences and how they believed the world to work, perhaps, but that drew from multiple traditions and schools of belief. A faith that they were working out experimentally, through trial and error.
It was sobering to realize that the same could easily have been said about Nicholas Fuller five years before. And even the most respectable of faiths had a history of leading people to make less-than-ideal choices.
He thought about what Joyce had said to him on their walk back to her car the day before, and her worries that the path they were on might lead to him choosing to act outside the law. But less than twelve hours later Joyce had been seemingly unfazed when Izzie had stabbed someone in the neck with her own scalpel and then left them in the road to die. Sure, there was the complicating factor that the person in question had likely been dead already, but the fact remained that Joyce seemed to have gotten increasingly comfortable with the idea of taking matters into their own hands. As had Izzie’s friend Daphne, for that matter.
Where would all of this end? And even assuming that they survived, what kind of people would Patrick and the others be when they got there?
Patrick stepped out of the bakery on Mission with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and, in the other, a paper bag filled with island-style donuts, each of them flaky, sweet, and roughly the size of a dinner plate. He headed down the sidewalk in the direction of his house, but had only taken a few steps when he heard a voice calling out from behind him.
“Hey, sir, you get enough to share?”
Patrick couldn’t help grinning slightly as he turned around. It was far from the first time that he’d heard the request.
“Morning, guys,” he said with a nod to the three kids who were sauntering up the sidewalk toward him.
“We’re pretty hungry, sir,” Tommy Hulana said as he leaned heavily on the handlebars of the bicycle he was pushing along beside him. He didn’t look like he’d missed a meal a day in his life.
“Yeah,” added Ricky Kienga, “I didn’t even have breakfast this morning.”
“Liar.” Joseph Kienga jabbed an elbow into his brother’s side. “You ate all the biscuits before I even got downstairs.”
The Kienga twins and their constant companion Tommy were eighth graders at Powell Middle School, and all took part in the Te’Maroan Cultural Enrichment program that Patrick sponsored at the school. He was well accustomed to them trying to cadge sweets or treats out of him at any given opportunity; it was pretty much their standard modus operandi.
“Well, let me see . . .” Patrick set the Styrofoam coffee cup down on top of a metal newspaper box, and made a show of unrolling the top of the paper bag to peer inside. This was not his first rodeo, and he always made it a point to buy far more donuts that he thought he needed, just in case. “I suppose I could spare a couple,” he said, feigning deep concentration, “but I need you guys to do a favor for me in return, okay?”
The three kids didn’t bother to consult with one another, not even so far as to exchange a glance, but all three nodded immediately with enthusiasm.
“Here’s the deal.” Patrick reached into the bag and made a show of pulling out one donut. “I’m putting together a community project this afternoon, and I need you guys to round up as many kids as you can to meet me at the blacktop behind the school. Say around four o’clock? Can you spread the word for me?”
He held the donut out in front of the boys, waggling it slightly from side to side.
“Sure thing,” Tommy said, reaching for it.
Patrick pulled the donut back out of reach. “Promise?”
Nodding as one, the three boys’ expressions were as solemn as police recruits swearing in their oath of office.
“Okay, then.”
Patrick grinned as he tossed Tommy
