He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Eleventh

On the eleventh of February the snow lay clean on Allegheny Avenue, and St. Colman's was full to the doors.

Cathal and I stood in the vestibule at five to nine, and I fixed his collar.

The bruise I had left on his throat showed above the white shirt, dark purple, with the marks of my teeth plain in it.

I pressed my thumb on it, hard, and he shut his eyes.

"Wear it," I said.

"I will."

"Let them look."

He took my hand off his throat and kissed the inside of my wrist, and we went in.

The old men of the Table sat in the first two pews on the right with their wives.

Phelim sat in the middle of them in his camel coat with the gold pin on his lapel.

My father sat alone in the last pew with his hat on his knees.

The man in the gray topcoat stood by the side door, and the man in leather gloves stood by the other.

I walked up the center aisle past the manger that nobody had taken down yet.

I walked to the fourth pew on the left, where my mother had sat for three years, and I sat down in her place.

Cathal sat beside me.

Heads turned.

Nobody sat near us, and the pew stayed empty for three rows in front and behind.

The priest said the Mass for Fintan Dwyer, thirty-one years old, killed on the eleventh of February.

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