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moved. David felt strangled.
    “After you leave,” the sexton said, his voice soft with respect, “I’ll put your son’s remains in his niche, and then I’ll remove the dove.”
    “No, we’ll do it right now.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I want to be here when the urn’s put into the niche,” David said. “But first I’ll take care of the dove.”
    “No, you don’t understand. It’s in a panic. It’ll be difficult to capture,” the sexton said.
    David’s brother-in-law added, “I’ll take off my jacket. Maybe we can throw the coat over it and capture it.”
    “That won’t be necessary,” David said. “No need to worry.”
    The sexton frowned. “Then how are we going to—?”
    “It’s very simple. I’ll pick up the dove.”
    “You’ll what?”
    “Oh, sure,” David said. “Just watch.”
    For that had been David’s final precognition. The dove would let him pick it up.
    “Impossible,” the sexton said.
    “I told you, watch.”
    For David was already moving, neither fast nor slow, but steadily, with calm. The dove, its feathers ruffled in panic, darted its frantic eyes right and left toward corridors of escape, but remained where it was.
    David stopped, and though the dove flapped its wings with brief uncertainty, it stayed in place.
    David eased his hands around the dove. It didn’t struggle.
    David stood and faced his eleven witnesses.
    “And now I’ll set Matthew free.”
    He carried the dove past the urn, past his family and friends, and approached the mausoleum’s sunbright open door. Outside in the radiance of what otherwise would have been a splendid June morning, he smiled at the dove, though his tears made the gray bird misty to his eyes.
    “Matt, I hope you meant what you told me the other night. With all my love, I want you to be okay.”
    Reluctantly David opened his hands, and if the previous eight minutes had been packed with strange events, there was one more yet to come, for the dove refused to fly away. It perched on David’s open palms and, for fifteen seconds, peered at him.
    David almost panicked. His thoughts could not be verified anymore than his precognitions could. Nonetheless he swore that this is what he thought.
    My God, when I picked you up, I hope I didn’t hurt your wings.
    At that, the bird soared away, its feathers making the distinctive whistling sound of a mourning dove in flight. It sped straight out, then up, ever higher, toward the brilliant sky, toward the blazing sun.
    And was gone.
    That’s it, an inner voice told David. That’s the last sign Matt’ll give you. Three will have to be enough.
    David felt pain, yet joy. The significance of the dove having lingered in his open palms he took to be this: the extensive surgery that had removed Matt’s four right ribs and a third of his right lung was like picking up a dove and breaking a wing. But the dove had been all right, and as the firefly had said, so was David’s son.
    Matt was at peace.
    In the days, weeks, months, and years that followed, whenever David returned to that mausoleum, he scanned the grounds in hopes of seeing the dove, praying for another sign from his son.
    But he never saw it. He saw robins, blue jays, and sparrows. Never any doves.
    That day, the sexton unscrewed the glass pane of a two-foot square niche in a wall. David handed the urn to Donna, who handed it to Sarie, who then handed it back to David, who kissed it, placed the urn in the niche, and watched the sexton replace the glass pane.
    The ritual had ended. Time was now measured differently.
    Before Matt. After Matt.
    As the group left the mausoleum, David turned to the priest. “At the risk of sounding … I’ve got the feeling something spooky happened in there.”
    “David, to tell you the truth, I feel a little weird myself.”
    The group drove back to the family home, where the several hundred mourners had been invited. Because Matthew had asked for a party if he died, the largest, most animated his