Frankie could not speak, but his eyes could.
"No, it can't be!" his eyes said.
He saw, not a priest coming to give him the last rites, but one of the men he had killed. He opened his eyes wide. Yes, the man the nurses called "Father Romy" was the man in the parking garage, the one he had stabbed many times, the man he killed because the wife wanted him killed.
He knew this man quite well because of all the stories about him that the wife would tell him after they had had sex. This man could not satisfy his wife. This man pretended to be interested in his wife's woes about the school she ran, but he never did anything to help her in the school. This man talked a lot about the Bible, but he seemed never to apply what he had read to how he behaved.
Frankie had, of course, a much more ulterior motive in killing him. This man was keeping the wife from giving him the money that he hoped he would get. This man was keeping the wife from maybe running away with him and sharing all that wealth. This man was the one keeping him from maybe living happily ever after with a sex-starved principal who adored his John Thomas.
Father Romy, of course, had no idea what Frankie was thinking about. He could not know how shocked Frankie was, but Frankie's eyes were eloquent. They were not the eyes of someone in pain, but in terror. Father Romy did not know anything about Frankie. All he knew was that he had to recite formulas that would help Frankie move to heaven. Father Romy wanted Frankie to go to heaven. Father Romy wanted everyone to go to heaven. Perhaps, Father Romy thought, this man lying almost dead in the Emergency Room had some big sins to confess but couldn't. Perhaps, Father Romy thought, the man was contrite or was seeing devils or had suddenly realized that he was about to really, really die and wanted to be in good graces with the Creator. Whatever.
Then Frankie did something that the doctors said could not be done, not by someone in his state. He grabbed Father Romy's arm with his own bloody hand.
Father Romy did not expect that. He recoiled instinctively. Then, he recoiled even more. Suddenly, it was not this man lying almost dead in the Emergency Room that he saw, but himself, lying also in a hospital, covered also with blood, stabbed. The vision made him step back, but the man's hand would not let go.
The touch of this man made him remember something that could not possibly have happened. He had died before. He was certain of it. How or why or when, he could not tell, but he was sure that he was once also covered with blood, like this man whose name he did not even know.
Then a woman came rushing in. Father Romy was still in a daze because of his vision. The woman seemed strangely familiar. It was the principal!
Julie broke down into tears. When she looked up, she saw Father Romy staring at her.
"Father, I'll see you later," she blurted out. Then she rushed out the door.
Father Romy stared at her as she ran out the door. Then he looked back at Frankie. Frankie was dead.
YOU ARE READING
Love After Heaven
RomanceA murder victim gets a chance to return to earth to meet his wife and her lover. He still loves his wife, despite her complicity in his murder. But he returns to earth not as himself but as a priest! How can he and his wife come together again? What...
