How had Bob found out about Hackett?
It must’ve been Joe McCarthy.
McCarthy and Jackson! True, the Church needed priests, but if Vince were an ordinary, his priests would know they would be disciplined. Priest shortage or not!
Bob was wrong in citing Beth and Tully as means to get even with Tony and him. That was because Bob didn’t trust in providence as Vince did. Beth and Tully had been sent to Vincent by God to make His will done on earth as it is in heaven. It was cruel of Bob to think otherwise.
Ohhh! The pain in Vince’s head forced a moan from his lips. After all, why shouldn’t God provide Vince a special measure of Divine Providence? He had passed the test with that Olivier woman. And besides the woman, Bob was the only one who knew about Vince’s major temptation.
The pain was becoming close to unbearable. It brought to mind his mother. Perhaps he should join his suffering with that of Christ, as Bob claimed his mother had.
She couldn’t have done that … not without confiding in Vince. No, it was crystal clear what she’d intended to use the morphine for. God may not have granted the miracle cure he’d prayed for, but God surely was not going to let Mother condemn herself to hell as a result of the greatest evil.
If anyone on earth, anyone in all of history, understood what Vincent had to do, it was Mother.
He was driving a steady fifty mph, the official speed limit on this section of Woodward’s boulevard. He would keep the law even though he yearned to be home in bed coping with all this pain.
He thought again of Bob Koesler. He may have won this confrontation, but there would be others. Vince would even the score. He would triumph for God.
Bob probably was enjoying himself tonight. But even though he was retiring, there would be a way to get at him. If nothing else, Vince could depend on Divine Providence.
A pain like nothing he had ever experienced washed over him like an angry wave.
He ducked involuntarily as if he could somehow elude this overpowering throbbing. When he raised his head he realized he was about to hit the left-hand curb. He tried to swerve, but it was too late; he and his car were hurtling across the median strip.
Flashing before his eyes was the image from his favorite morality tale: the disgraced priest flying off the freeway hell-bent on suicide. The greatest evil. But Vince wasn’t attempting suicide. This was an …
The car was almost wrapped around a huge tree.
Vince was above the car now. Everything seemed quite peaceful. He looked down and saw two wheels spinning in place.
Then he seemed to be somewhere else. It was dark-very dark. There was a light in the distance. It was moving toward him. It was … his mother. Her arms were open to him. Then she faded. It was dark again.
For some reason he dreaded what was to come.