Read Online Last Things by Ralph McInerny - Free Book Online

from the hospital. Cronin, the hospital chaplain, a stolid humorless man whose life was lived in the misery of others, had not filled Father Dowling with confidence. Cronin’s thinning hair was cut close to his domed head, and he listened to the account of Fulvio Bernardo’s refusal to see a priest with no visible emotion.
    â€œIt happens all the time.”
    â€œWhat do you do?”
    â€œPray that they come around. Some do. You have to realize that they are usually drugged or in pain, either way not the best circumstances to think clearly. People are what they are by the time they come here. Deathbed conversions you can count on one hand.”
    â€œYou’ll talk to him?”
    â€œBut will he listen?”
    Driving to the rectory, he prayed for the old man. The defection of his son the priest was at the bottom of it according to Jessica, and he was on his way from California. Father Dowling
prayed for Raymond too, wondering what he could possibly say to his dying father.
    That evening he was having dinner with Amos Cadbury at the University Club in the Loop and was unsure he would be good company for the lawyer because of the events of the day.
    â€œEleanor Wygant tells me she has been to see you,” Amos said.
    Father Dowling smiled. “I should have guessed you would know her.”
    â€œHer late husband, or I should say her latest husband, Alfred Wygant, was a dear friend.” Amos frowned over his glass of Barolo. “His death came as a decided shock to me.”
    â€œAnd when did you see Eleanor?”
    â€œJust yesterday. I look after her affairs, and she stopped by the office. Widows like to fuss about their holdings.”
    â€œIs she comfortable?”
    â€œOh yes.” Another frown, a sip of Barolo. “Not as comfortable as she might have been, but no need to worry. I oversee her investments, and the market has been good to her.”
    â€œI saw her today at the hospital.”
    â€œThe hospital!”
    â€œI suppose you know Fulvio Bernardo? He has been in intensive care.” Father Dowling told the lawyer of Bernardo’s stroke.
    â€œAnd of course Eleanor would be there. Her first husband was Fulvio’s brother. The Bernardos continue to be her family. She had no children by either marriage, poor thing. Is it serious?”
    â€œVery.”
    â€œGod bless him.”
    Something in Amos’s tone caught Father Dowling’s attention. “That sounds grudging.”
    â€œThen God forgive me. I never really liked the man but de
mortuis nil nisi bonum.” Amos’s Notre Dame education often put in such an appearance.
    â€œOh, he isn’t dead yet. I called the hospital before coming here and learned that he had been transferred out of intensive care.”
    â€œOne of the Bernardos was a priest.”
    â€œTell me about him.”
    â€œHave they informed him?”
    â€œHe is on his way from California.”
    â€œThis is exceptionally good wine.”
    â€œI gather he wasn’t diocesan.”
    â€œOh no. An Edmundite. The Order of St. Edmund. They are said to be an old order, not quite medieval, but they have never amounted to much in this country. St. Edmund College was founded by them.”
    There are many contingencies in any vocation, one of the main ones being the priest who first discerns that a boy may be destined for the priesthood, in Raymond’s case an Edmundite named Bourke.
    â€œFather Bourke is still alive, a veritable patriarch.” Amos sighed. “Think of what a man that age has had to witness.” The remark might have been autobiographical. “In any case, he was the reason young Raymond opted for the Order of St. Edmund. His departure was a surprise and a shock. I’m on the board there, you know.”
    â€œI didn’t know.”
    â€œFor my sins. It is a sad thing to see the way we have dismantled our own institutions. I stay on to slow the process, not very