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sanctity of life instead. We should pray for strength against the forces that are bent on destroying traditional structures in the home. And life itself. That’s where all the problems start. Crime and wars included.

    More tradition, more religion, more tribalism—just the cure for Yugoslavia, I thought.

    “You’ll have to help me here,” I sighed, raising helpless hands. “I don’t have much experience in a parish.”

    “Oh, we’ll look after you,” said one, vaguely flirtatious.

    The others laughed like the girls they used to be.

    I realized the flirt looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember a name. Then she was serious again.

    “The family that prays together, stays together. We have to get back to that idea, and then all the other problems will take care of themselves.”

    She said her name was Pat. Some distant image stirred. We were somewhere unremembered, and she and Sextus were together. A night-blue sky over the black glitter of the sea. I struggled to remember, eventually gave up and promised to mention the rosary from the altar sometime soon.

    On their way out, I overheard their whispering, talking about me.

    “Well, he’s different,” said one.

    The others murmured in assent.

     
    Sextus showed up unannounced on a Sunday afternoon in May. He said he was home from Toronto for an extended visit. I had trouble hiding my surprise and I suspected there was something wrong because he hugged me. Walked straight in, arms wide, and grabbed me.

    “You look fabulous,” he declared. “Maybe there’s something to this celibacy racket after all. I should try it.” He was fidgety, couldn’t stop moving, checking out the meagre contents of my dreary room. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned … It’s been at least ten years since my last visit …”

    He was smiling then, one knee slightly bent, head slightly tilted. He said it was amazing how nothing seems to have changed in the old ’hood. He was staying out at the old Gillis place, the Long Stretch. Temporarily.

    “The old place.”

    “Yep,” he said. “Me and John, two old bodags, making tea for one another.”

    I guess my face revealed my skepticism.

    “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Effie said I should check the place for firearms before venturing in. But John and I put all that crap behind us long ago.”

    Eventually he said that he’d had a small health scare. “Some medical issues,” was how he put it. He was standing in front of my bookcase and plucked a volume.

    I ventured: “So it’s been ten years since you’ve been home?”

    “More like eleven,” he said absently. “Macquarrie, eh? Funny name for an existentialist. I thought they were all French or German.” He sat, flipped open the cover. “Nineteen seventy-seven. That was just after you got back from … that place. Who was RM?”

    “Old priest. Former philosophy prof.”

    “Existentialism, eh?”

    “One of my interests,” I said.

    “Mine too, lately.”

    “I didn’t realize.”

    He sighed. “One day a Paki doctor sticks his finger up your ass and you just know by his face. This is bad, speaking existentially.”

    There was a long silence.

    “So that was the health scare,” I said, to break it.

    “I’m okay. It was a false alarm.”

    “Thank God.”

    “I did,” he said. “It’s shocking, just how quick the faith comes back.”

     
    Before he left, he stood for a while before the mantel, studying the photo of my sister.

    “Just look at her.”

    I couldn’t read the tone.

    “Believe it or not, she was a major help when I was … pretty down there, for a while.”

    “I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

    Then he picked up my photograph from Puerto Castilla. “Who’s he?” he said, pointing at Alfonso.

    “A guy I knew,” I said.

    “And the babe?”

    “Another friend.”

    Then it was the picture of our fathers and his uncle Sandy. “I think this used to be in the old place,” he