Read In the Still of the Night for Free Online

Rafael is his brother’s name.”
    “José is a fine name, too,” Morrissey said, feeling like an idiot, making child’s talk.
    “She very nice woman,” José said. “Smart.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “You know.” The little demon rolled his eyes toward the door by which Kate had left them.
    “Go back to work on whatever you were doing before I interrupted,” the priest said.
    “She say I’m going to be famous artist.” The children were cutting out paper of different shapes and sizes and colors and pasting them together in such designs as they fancied or could manage. “Like Matisse.” He said the name with practiced care.
    The little girl giggled, “Mrs. Knowles calls all of us her little Matisses.”
    With lightning speed José grabbed a compass and tore it through the paste-up the little girl was working on. She howled, and Morrissey aimed a slap at the face of José—aimed it, but interrupted his own hand before it touched the boy. His dire intention became nothing more than a clap of noise. José did not even dodge what must have seemed to him an impending blow. The little girl reached over and snatched the collage José had been attempting and tore it apart. Very soon, up and down the long table, a dozen children were caught up in a frenzy of destruction. Those who reached for their neighbor’s work too late to get it tore up their own, and shrieked with pleasure.
    “Holy Mother of God,” Morrissey murmured. “How do I handle this one?” Then, “Come on, you barbarians, let’s get some exercise. On your feet and march!” He pushed one youngster in front of him and pulled one after him. He had to hunch down like Quasimodo. The only marching song he could think of was “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and he belted out the tune in a sturdy baritone. The other kids fell in and soon they were marching around the room, strung together, hand in hand. Twice around and he called a halt and set them to cleaning up the mess.
    José had joined the march, but now he sat, dark and sullen as a stone. When the little mischiefer next to him began to giggle and bite her lip, Morrissey realized something new was going on with José. He was probably peeing where he sat. If he was, his eyes never wavered from the priest’s face while he did it.
    “I always hesitate to ask you to come ’round and have a look, Mrs. Knowles,” the monsignor said. “Ah, now, I’m supposed to call you Kate, Martin says, after all the years we’ve known each other, but I shy away from that as well. All the Protestants I know are on a first-name basis with their ministers and one another. I suppose it’s all right, but I wouldn’t want one of those little colts you’re kind enough to corral after school, I wouldn’t want one of them calling me Timothy to my face. I don’t care what they call me behind my back. What was I saying?”
    “I’m not sure,” Kate said. She could no more call him Timothy than could Dan. Once in a while Dan spoke of him as the Old Man, but with reverence. Monsignor Carey had celebrated his fortieth year as a parish priest and he had trained his curates well. Two of them had been called to parishes of their own, and that, he had once told Martin, was as much as he could do for an ailing church. “It will come back to you,” she said of whatever it was he’d been going to say.
    “Things do,” he said, “and some to haunt me.” He squinted at her from under the shaggy black and white eyebrows. “You know, you don’t look a day older than when I married you and Martin? He still calls you his bride, you know.”
    “I know,” Kate said. She was sure there was nothing covert in his words, almost sure.
    “He’s a good man, Kate. There! I’ve called you Kate, and it didn’t hurt a bit. Or did it you?”
    “No, monsignor,” she said, more stiffly than she’d intended.
    He chortled. “I know when I’ve been put in my place. Well, as I was saying, I hope I’m not taking advantage of you,