The official diagnosis was early-onset Alzheimer\u2019s \u2014 early-onset forgetting of everything the old man had done, over 30 years ago, to eight boys in the Parish. The news had followed Mrs. Trozzo\u2019s prayer against the falling barometer and the coming ache of her lumbar spine, in the produce aisle at Wal-Mart. \u201cHe\u2019ll be a vegetable soon like my Frank was,\u201d Mrs. Trozzo said to Leonard Jimmy, \u201cthen God forgives him, like he forgives all the prodigal ones.\u201d She\u2019d been Father Scanlon\u2019s secretary at St. Mary\u2019s Elementary School for five years \u2014 she\u2019d had no clue about his offences, until the news stories, his trial, prison. How many years ago was that now?<\/p>\n
Leonard didn\u2019t hear the store security guard shout for him to stop, when he wandered out the sliding door with a shopping cart of unpaid groceries. That Scanlon should saunter into the afterlife purged of his crimes, as if forgiven by those left alive<\/i><\/em> \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone just died, right?\u201d asked the security guard, Terry or Trent or something else with a T<\/i><\/em>. \u201cJust nod. Or I got to tell your mother her boy violated his probation \u2014 again.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard hardly remembered his drive from the Wal-Mart parking lot to Vancouver where the old priest lay consumed by forgetting. Ten hours at the wheel of his mother\u2019s \u201981 Thunderbird. Gas in Creston, Osoyoos and some riverside nowhere that smelled of dead salmon and served three day old newspapers. The three bags of groceries for his mother warmed on the back seat.<\/p>\n He combed the grounds of Vancouver General Hospital for Tower 5b, the neurological wing, where Mrs. Trozzo had said Scanlon was staying for now. He shivered. The chill, November air smelled of moldering leaves and the faint snowline on the North Shore Mountains looked like a ring of salt left after a flood. The elevator from the main lobby put Leonard in a short hallway with double doors at both ends and instructions in bold red type, that he\u2019d better disinfect his hands before he talked to a patient. The dying should die from what they\u2019ve got and not what you give them. But Leonard had brought words only, words he\u2019d rehearsed, sober, drunk and high, for 15 years and now he could barely spit out hello<\/i><\/em>. A tall Hindi woman behind the long, high desk on the other side of one set of the doors asked him his business.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking for Father Scanlon,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n They had a Mr.<\/i><\/em> Scanlon. Warren Scanlon.<\/p>\n \u201cIs he your father, Mister \u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s what we called him. Back then.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re only his second visitor. A nun came by last month. She wouldn\u2019t come within three feet of him, like he had Ebola. You can\u2019t catch forgetting.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard had imagined Scanlon at the font of loneliness, dying there and it was good, better than good, just the beginning. But one of them from the old St. Mary\u2019s Elementary School days had come. Sister Ralph maybe, the old warhorse drill sergeant, loyal to the end or even beyond the end, if it was her plump specter that had shown up. Or Sister Eva who\u2019d be in her early fifties now. The laser focus of her Asperger\u2019s was the Catholic religion. It could have been as easily baseball or mathematics or trains. At least St. Mary\u2019s had always run on time. The bells for morning prayer and then recess and lunch and finally 3 o\u2019clock. Leonard craved a rye and 7, though he hadn\u2019t had one in \u2014 it was six weeks now. He had a sponsor somewhere, for emergencies. An area code 250 denturist.<\/p>\n \u201cWill he recognize me?\u201d he asked. The nurse\u2019s nametag read Sumana<\/i><\/em>. Leonard shook his head. He wanted that rye and 7 again and another and another, until he woke up in his mother\u2019s trailer or the drunk tank. He should go home. Phone his mother before she called the cops again, buy a cooler and ice for her groceries.<\/p>\n Sumana pointed at a door across the hall, where an old woman in a white bathrobe sat slouched in a wheelchair. A thick, pink scar made a question mark along the left side of her pale skull and, in her lap, her palms rested on two knitting needles and a tangled skein of red yarn. Sumana had made the word permanent<\/i><\/em> sound like a few days.<\/p>\n Leonard held his breath. The thing that frightened him most in the world was being unable to breathe and, if he could survive that, he could survive this \u2014 what was this? Twelve hours ago, the abuse he\u2019d suffered had been what it was for 30 years \u2014 the old wound he let booze him, drug him, give him an infallible, fallback excuse for all his failures, for doing nothing; for doing something, a few futile attempts at bettering himself. And now? The little hospital room had two beds and a wide, picture window that looked out on a tall, brown building and two crows fighting mid-air over a hunk of bread. A light green curtain circled the bed on the right and, through a slit in the fabric, he saw a sleeping man whose black beard was almost covered by a mask like a fighter pilot might wear. In the second bed, a pale, brittle figure lay on top of the neatly arranged covers. He lay with his back to the door, with his feet drawn up to his chest, on a row of three pillows that looked as if a croupier had dealt them. Scanlon had been stocky and powerful once, like an enforcer on a hockey team. Now the skin on his hands looked like mottled crepe paper had been stretched over bleached twigs. Those decrepit hands pinned Leonard down once. Once was enough \u2014 he never got back up.<\/p>\n Leonard felt himself shrink to the size of a child. The feeling came over him around all men with a baritone voice and a strong, self-assured nature. Diminished like this, he nodded a lot, though inwardly he disagreed, and went along, against the current of himself. He had only ever been a boy around Scanlon. He had only ever been a boy around any of them: his father, his hockey coach, his shop teacher, his college history professor. He forced his feet to move, to go around to the other side of the bed, so he could see Scanlon\u2019s wretched face. Give his speech. Get the fuck out.<\/p>\n The old priest\u2019s eyes were open, though they gazed on nothing Leonard could see. Leonard stepped between the old man and the window, but Scanlon\u2019s pupils didn\u2019t move or adjust to the shaded light. His face had thinned so much his cheekbones overhung his jaw. His dental plate hung loosely in his mouth and there was a dark gap between Scanlon\u2019s three front teeth and his gum line. Scanlon had always taken out his plate and wrapped it in a white, monogramed handkerchief \u2014 before he touched Leonard. Leonard had never stopped dreaming about that gleaming steal plate with its two claw-like clasps that looked ready to snatch eggs from nests.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t expect to see you again,\u201d said Scanlon. The old priest\u2019s plate clicked into place. His eyes took in the north side of the room and his voice came at Leonard in a low rasp. Scanlon coughed to clear his throat.<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s good to see you, Leonard. Did you bring me a paper?\u201d<\/p>\n He meant the sports section, because Scanlon also loved baseball, the numbers of the game. He\u2019d kept a journal \u2013 hidden in the top drawer of the desk in his private quarters \u2013 with stats on every boy. Percentages. Strikes. Home runs. The crown prosecutor had eaten that journal up.<\/p>\n \u201cI have something \u2014 \u201d Leonard inhaled deeply, \u201c\u2014 to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTell me something?\u201d Scanlon coughed again. \u201cHear that? He wants to tell me something. My brain is Swiss cheese. I\u2019ll forget. Perhaps in an hour. Perhaps in two. I\u2019ll forget. The doctors, maybe it\u2019s the same doctor, says I\u2019m losing my retrograde memory now. The past. My memories. Eaten away. Termites at the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard had memorized a paragraph that had taken him ten years to perfect, to whittle down from fifteen pages, but all he could choke out was \u201cpunishment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard, isn\u2019t it? Five years of jail was punishment. Recall the first letter of John: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from \u2014 \u201d For an instant, Scanlon looked as helpless as an infant lost in a forest. \u201c\u2014 from all unrighteousness. I confessed to the prison chaplain. Everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeven years?\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard searched his pockets for the wad of folded newspaper clippings he\u2019d brought. \u201cYou read anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon shook his head.<\/p>\n Leonard held the piece of paper close to his body, so his hands shook less. \u201cReverend Warren Scanlon, 50, of Nelson, has pled guilty to six counts of indecent assault and four of sexual assault involving eight boys.\u201d He unfolded a second clipping. \u201cJudge Shirley Messer sentenced him to seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon looked out the window, at the crows wheeling in the distance, the snowline, the fading world. His eyes shone like moistened ice. \u201cTermites at the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere were nine boys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou said seven years, eight boys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was the ninth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou, Leonard?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never came forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we got on so well. I drove you to hockey practice. I watched all your games. You played for the Colts. Left wing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCentre.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou went on and I went on with you. After your father died. Heart attack, wasn\u2019t it? You were eleven.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard looked at the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re sure it was centre?\u201d Leonard nodded. \u201cIt was cancer. Dad died of lung cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou see how tangled up, everything is? How impractical you\u2019re being here is?\u201d<\/p>\n Sumana, the nurse Leonard had spoken to earlier, went behind the curtain, to the patient on the other side of the room, and said, \u201cMister Dhillon, I\u2019m changing your catheter bag now. No more practical jokes, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMister Dhillon is in a terrible way,\u201d Scanlon said. \u201cA thirty-year-old man a car crash turned back into a child. His family never comes. I\u2019ve never seen \u2014 I don\u2019t remember them. He moans at night. He cries out in words I don\u2019t understand. I go sit with him, sometimes at 3 a.m. When I could still read, I read to him from this newspaper in English for Indo-Canadians. Last week, I couldn\u2019t make sense of the letters on the page. The nurse said it was in Punjabi. It was a different paper. Isn\u2019t that funny, Leonard? Everything I read now has turned into Punjabi. The baseball scores are the cricket scores. Now I just take his hand and tell him everything is going to be okay. God will take care of you. The God of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard\u2019s nausea came as a cold, dizzying wave. \u201cDid you touch him?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI held his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s a child again?\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon\u2019s voice rose. \u201cI confessed to the prison chaplain.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you touch yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon looked up at the ceiling. His eyes went blank. \u201cI thought you played left wing. I remember you played left wing opposite that other boy \u2014 the one with ears that seemed to sprout from his neck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you \u2014 ?\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d raised his voice too high. Sumana came around the curtain. \u201cIs everything alright, Mister Scanlon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy nephew get\u2019s excited about hockey. There\u2019s a lockout, isn\u2019t there? Bettman and Goodenow at each other\u2019s throats.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBettman and Fehr,\u201d corrected Leonard. He smiled to convince Sumana that everything was all right, that his insides were calm. \u201cGoodenow was seven years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon looked again as if he\u2019d just found himself in a dark forest. Alone. Pursued.<\/p>\n \u201cYour social worker will be here in ten minutes,\u201d said Sumana.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re very kind.\u201d When the nurse left the room, Scanlon said, \u201cGo to my night table and take out the notebook.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard didn\u2019t move from his seat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all I have. It\u2019s all I will have. Please.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard yanked open the drawer on Scanlon\u2019s few things. A pen. A leather-bound Bible. Readings glasses. Scanlon\u2019s amethyst rosary, which had once belonged to a Quebecois Jesuit. A black notebook.<\/p>\n \u201cOpen to the last page with notes on it. Around the middle. And read me the date.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOctober 7, 2012. The day I \u2014 you \u2014 arrived in Vancouver General. A month ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy social worker has been looking for a facility for me for a month. Could you write that on the next line and date it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you want from me, Leonard? God has already forgiven me. Turn to the front of the book. That\u2019s the date He did. It\u2019s there, even when I won\u2019t be fully here \u2014 it\u2019s always going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard wanted to vomit. He sank into the chair. \u201cThe kid with the funny ears was David Lundell. He played right wing. Kevin Biletsky played left wing. I always played centre. The NHL scouts said I was the next Ray Ferraro. On track to beat his WHL record \u2014 most goals in a season. It was my second season with the Kamloops Blazers. But I\u2019d started drinking then. I couldn\u2019t forget. I blacked out maybe three, four times a week. I just couldn\u2019t forget. I\u2019d give anything to trade places with you now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarch 12th, 1994. I still remember that night. I\u2019ll always remember that night. What does it say there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard, what does it say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt says something very important.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard hurled the book at the wall beside Scanlon.<\/p>\n \u201cGod has forgiven me for them. That\u2019s what it says. Them<\/i><\/em>. All of you. Eight or nine or however many. It doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s too late. I\u2019m forgiven \u2014 forgiven. Kevin<\/i><\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n His mother asked him where he was and Leonard didn\u2019t know what to say. He\u2019d not slept in \u2014 he looked at his watch. The second hand had frozen to the three. God, he was tired tired tired of time. How he lurched through it in a lengthening ellipse, forward until back, flung, again and again, on his only past. Now there was candlelight. A wreath of fir boughs. A mumbled prayer. Tingling warmth radiated outward from deep in his belly. He gripped the steering wheel of the Thunderbird with his free hand. He shouldn\u2019t have come to Vancouver. He had to go or he\u2019d leave himself as he did again and again in the Rectory \u2014 float as a cloud of pure awareness above what he thought was himself, his ruptured mind now and his shuddering boy\u2019s body then \u2014 and then and then and then. You can watch, but never intervene<\/i><\/em>. It was his dead father\u2019s voice, forceful, loud and cold. It was the second Sunday of Advent 1978, in Scanlon\u2019s private quarters. He was eleven and \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard?\u201d<\/p>\n He peered through the raindrops on the windshield. He saw the sign for the hospital entrance light up on the darkening street. He said that he was in Vancouver, in her car. No, he hadn\u2019t had a drink; he hadn\u2019t slept. He was looking in on a dying friend. An emergency. He\u2019d heard about it in the Wal-Mart parking lot from \u2014 he grabbed at a name that wasn\u2019t Mrs. Trozzo\u2019s. \u201cTonya Luke told me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re with Ken St. Jerome?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe died years ago.\u201d The afternoon rain came down in gobs on the Thunderbird\u2019s windshield. If he mentioned Scanlon, he\u2019d send his mother back into the hospital. The trial\u2019s coverage on the front page of the Daily Townsman<\/i><\/em> in 1989 had put her in the psych unit for two weeks. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t know this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you get mushroom soup? It was on the list.\u201d He could hear her wheeze a little now. She had to go everywhere with a portable oxygen tank. Emphysema. He wanted to ask her, again, the question that had dominated his thoughts for thirty years. Three years after the NHL scouts stopped tailing him from rink to rink, Leonard had gone to community college for two semesters. His professor, in the first class of an introductory philosophy course, had asked what was the greatest question that humanity faced? A young woman answered, \u201cWhat is the purpose of life?\u201d The rest of the whiteboard was blank space but for that question his professor wrote in its centre. For Leonard there was one greater and he\u2019d asked it of his mother whether he was drunk, high or sober \u2014 after dad died, why didn\u2019t you know what was going on?<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cRoger is coming home for Christmas,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s bringing Willa and the girls.\u201d<\/p>\n His older brother, his wife and kids. Their father had died and Roger went into cadets and Leonard went to the Rectory. Nothing could touch Roger. He came out of Somalia, out of the disgraced Canadian Airborne Regiment without so much as a blemish. He was in JTF2 now, Afghanistan and then Libya. Maybe Syria. When he had come back to the reserve three Christmases ago, they had sat on his mother\u2019s couch and Leonard had asked him about his missions. Roger screwed up his face as if he was struggling to remember a question on Jeopardy. \u201cThere was gunfire, I remember that. Tracers. Singed hair maybe. Drink up, baby brother. It helps.\u201d<\/p>\n A gull screeched somewhere above the Thunderbird. \u201cYeah, I got the mushroom soup,\u201d Leonard murmured.<\/p>\n \u201cI said Roger is coming, Leonard. He was promoted to warrant officer. Leonard?\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d left the present again. It was the second Sunday of Advent 1978, in Scanlon\u2019s private room. There was candlelight and mumbled prayers. The claws of Scanlon\u2019s dental plate. A caress.<\/p>\n Leonard went back to Scanlon\u2019s room two days later, in the evening, when the old man was likely to be tired and forgetful. There was a different nurse on duty at the desk and she said that Scanlon had had a quiet day. \u201cVisiting hours finish in twenty minutes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Scanlon lay in the same position as he had on the first day, except now he wore a blue checked robe over his pajamas. His eyes were closed. The only light came from the cold, blue fluorescent one above the headboard of his bed.<\/p>\n Leonard had wrapped the razor blade in a piece of paper he\u2019d torn off the road map of British Columbia, so he wouldn\u2019t cut his fingers when he found the blade in his coat pocket. He edged over to Scanlon\u2019s night table. The muscles of the old man\u2019s jaws had gone slack and his breaths came and went in a slow, peaceful rhythm. There would come a day when his forgetfulness ran so deep, he\u2019d forget to breathe. Leonard couldn\u2019t wait until then. His fingers felt slippery and damp on the handle of the night table drawer. He didn\u2019t need to worry about fingerprints, because he\u2019d already opened the drawer for Scanlon the other day. It was a paranoid thought \u2014 no one cared, no one would arrest him. The drawer stuck, about half way open and Leonard had to crouch down and, with both hands on either side of it, wiggle it back and forth, until it was open enough that he could slip his hand inside and grab Scanlon\u2019s notebook.<\/p>\n Scanlon coughed. His eyes flashed open and closed again.<\/p>\n Leonard lay the notebook on the nightstand, opened it to the entry for March 12th, 1994 and unwrapped the razor blade. He held his right hand with his left, so the cut would be straight. He should\u2019ve had a drink to steady himself. He should\u2019ve eaten something, but he couldn\u2019t keep anything down but water with a little of the Real Lemon he\u2019d bought for his mother. He sliced as close to the binding as he could and when he reached the bottom of the page he went back and cut the little jagged edges of the page that still clung to the binding. The entry for March 12th<\/sup> didn\u2019t continue onto the next page and the previous entry for March 9th<\/sup>, didn\u2019t continue on to the page he\u2019d just cut out for March 12th<\/sup>. He held the book up towards the light to make sure his cut hadn\u2019t scarred the page beneath it. No. Nothing, but a little bead of blood on the tip of his index finger, which he daubed on the sleeve of his dark jacket. He wrapped the razor blade in the page from the journal and stuffed it in his pocket and placed the journal back in the drawer as he\u2019d found it. \u201cDo I know you?\u201d asked Scanlon in a hoarse voice.<\/p>\n Leonard froze. \u201cI help you sometimes, Father. I\u2019m Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat were you doing there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Advent. I lit the candles as you asked.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see their light.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Rectory. These are your private quarters. You were asleep. I came to tell you I was leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard\u2019s eyes never left the old man, as he pushed the drawer shut with his leg. It stuck half way again.<\/p>\n \u201cWon\u2019t you sit with me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI only have a few minutes more. My parents will be worried.\u201d<\/p>\n He eased onto the edge of the old man\u2019s bed, beside his knees.<\/p>\n Scanlon\u2019s eyes gleamed with tears. His fingers felt hot against the back of Leonard\u2019s hand. \u201cI\u2019m dying, Kevin. I have no one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have God.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSmall consolation now. I pray, but I don\u2019t hear that echo I used to. It was a whisper that I knew was Him. I knew it as I know you now.\u201d Scanlon rolled on to his back and smiled at him. \u201cYou were always my favourite. I remember watching you fly down the ice with the puck, at the Memorial Arena. You played centre.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeft wing. Leonard Jimmy played centre.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow there\u2019s a name I haven\u2019t heard in years. Leonard Jimmy. He\u2019d be about 18 now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe NHL scouts are chasing him. Don\u2019t think it will amount to much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have hope, Kevin. He\u2019s our good friend. He could dance with the puck like no one else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey called him the next Ray Ferraro.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMost goals in a single season, I hear.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKiller wrist shot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI begged his mother to enroll him in figure skating with Jerry Knox. I paid for those lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou did?\u201d Leonard\u2019s mother had never mentioned that Scanlon had paid for his figure skating.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter his father died, I took him under my wing. He is a special boy.\u201d He looked out the window at the lights of the building opposite. \u201cIs he in the Rectory?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard? He went home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Kevin. All this talk of Leonard, when you\u2019ve been so kind to me.\u201d His hand came to rest on Leonard\u2019s thigh.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to be going, Father. My parents \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can drive you home, Kevin. I\u2019ll call your parents. Here tell me about your plans over Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n The nurse came in. Visiting hours were over.<\/p>\n Leonard\u2019s arms and legs felt impossibly heavy. He struggled to stand up. \u201cI have to go, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m dying, Kevin. Please stay.\u201d Leonard stepped back and Scanlon raked the nurse with a frightened look. His voice rose. \u201cTell him I\u2019m dying, Sister Eva. He has to stay. He has to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMister Scanlon, it\u2019s alright. You get a little agitated at night. It\u2019s normal.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon started to wail and beat the mattress with his hands. \u201cThey\u2019ve forsaken me. All of them. Leonard, Brian, Michael, Paul \u2014 now Kevin. Everything I did for them. Everything I did. I\u2019m alone.\u201d<\/p>\n The nurse looked at Leonard. \u201cPlease go”<\/p>\n Leonard called his mother late the next morning, when he knew she would have finished her bath and made herself up for a suitor that never came.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have a nice hotel?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sleeping in the car. On a back street.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get a hotel?\u201d<\/p>\n He explained that he had sixty dollars left until his disability cheque came next week, enough to get the car most of the way home with what gas he still had in the tank. He lied that he was eating the groceries he\u2019d bought for her.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mushroom soup, too?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good on the crispbread.\u201d<\/p>\n He had the page from Scanlon\u2019s notebook in his hand. March 12th, 1994. Scanlon had been in prison for four years. He\u2019d confessed everything to the prison chaplain. There were eight names. Brian, Michael, Paul, Grant, Mark, Robert, Richard and Kevin. Leonard\u2019s name wasn\u2019t there, but his memory was. He knew three of the boys. They\u2019d all gone to school at St. Mary\u2019s and played hockey with him from Junior Pee Wee to the Cranbrook Colts. Scanlon had written below their names God has forgiven me for them<\/i><\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter dad died, why didn\u2019t you know what was going on?\u201d He\u2019d blurted out the question without thinking. \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n She wheezed gently. \u201cYou can\u2019t help it, everything that happened to you. He was a priest. He was nice to you, you know? I\u2019d lost my husband. And I liked Valium quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou could\u2019ve stopped taking it.\u201d<\/p>\n Her silence went on so long, Leonard watched a traffic light turn from red to green.<\/p>\n \u201cRoger is coming for Christmas,\u201d she finally said. \u201cHe\u2019s a warrant officer now.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard folded up the page from Scanlon\u2019s notebook into a square no bigger than a postage stamp and stuffed it deep in his coat pocket. Scanlon was seated at the window. His breakfast tray sat untouched beside him. The curtain between Scanlon\u2019s half of the small room and Mr. Dhillon\u2019s had been pulled back and the blanket and sheet on the younger man\u2019s bed had been neatly folded over to one side as if Mr. Dhillon had stepped out for a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cLeonard, isn\u2019t it?\u201d asked Scanlon, though he hadn\u2019t turned to look at him. \u201cI saw your reflection in the window. You were here two days ago. I asked the nurse to let me know if any visitors had signed my journal. There was just you. I don\u2019t think we will ever forget each other.<\/p>\n \u201cMister Dhillon died last night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs that why you haven\u2019t eaten?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t eaten because the food here is worse than prison.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI gave him last rites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe man in the bed \u2014\u201d He shook his hand at the empty bed.<\/p>\n \u201cDhillon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe started to breath so terribly. To gasp. The internist \u2014 confound I forget his name \u2014 the short one with the beard at the Cranbrook Hospital \u2014 what\u2019s his name?\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cHe called it agonal breathing. And then the choking. The death rattle. Because saliva accumulates in the throat. He couldn\u2019t swallow anymore. When patients breathed like that, they\u2019d call me \u2014 Father Scanlon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDhillon wasn\u2019t Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was four in the morning. There was no one else. Do you know what that means, Leonard? You\u2019re near death and you know it. You know it in your heart and you\u2019re afraid. You look around your room for a kind face and there\u2019s no one else. Your family has abandoned you. Or you have no family. All your friends are long dead. I was the last person sixty-four people in the Extended Care facility ever saw. It\u2019s in my notebook, their names. All of them.<\/p>\n \u201cI said what I could remember. To Dhillon. Of the Last Rites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI remember the second Sunday of Advent in 1978. December 10th<\/sup>. It was minus sixteen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy father had been dead for three months.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHeart attack?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI told you two days ago. Cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI helped you, Leonard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou told my mother what I needed was a caring hand and structure. You took me to my hockey practices and my games. Three four times a week. Friday nights some of the other boys and I came over to the Rectory and you bought us pizza. Weekends you took us to Jimsmith Lake to skate and play hockey. The beginning of November, you drove me all the way to Fernie, because there was a 50% sale on a pair of Bauer Junior Supreme skates. My toes bled in my old ones. They were too small. Afterwards in your car I put on the new skates. I was so happy. My father would never have done that. Let him get a paper route and get his own skates, he\u2019d say. You patted me on the head. Let\u2019s go try those skates, you said. You drove to Tie Lake just off the highway and we skated for an hour. In the car, you patted me on my leg. Your hand stayed for a little longer than usual and you said, \u2018How would like to help me in the church. You can be my new acolyte.\u2019 How could I say no? My father was dead.\u201d \u201cI confessed to the prison chaplain.\u201d He pointed at his night table. \u201cI told him everything. It\u2019s in my notebook. March 12, 1994.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard went to the night table. He was pleased to find the notebook where he\u2019d returned it, the drawer closed. \u201cMarch 12, 1994?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a Saturday. I told him about all of you. God forgave me.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard made a show of flipping through the pages. \u201cThere\u2019s no entry for March 12, 1994.\u201d There was, however, a smear of blood on the next page, Leonard\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never forget that day.\u201d Scanlon beckoned for the book and turned the first page. \u201cIt\u2019s right here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s March 15,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cI don\u2019t see any thing about a priest forgiving you. Maybe you\u2019ve forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon\u2019s face looked desperate. He took the notebook and turned through every page. \u201cI was forgiven,\u201d he said. \u201cI told the chaplain. He made me do penance. I wrote to all the boys. Letters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing about any letters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wrote them. It took me four days.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe you weren\u2019t forgiven?\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon hands began to tremble. He dropped the notebook on the floor. \u201cI remember it so vividly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never got any letter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe chaplain, his name was Reverend \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s your condition. You\u2019ve forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhose blood is this in my book? It looks new.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s yours. You had a paper cut the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon looked at his fingers. \u201cI see no wound.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, you never did.\u201d<\/p>\n Scanlon jerked his fists. \u201cI was forgiven. I was forgiven.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard shook his head. \u201cYou forgave yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is going away, Leonard. My mind \u2014 I can\u2019t remember who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Leonard told Scanlon everything he\u2019d done to him as a boy until the old man begged him to forgive him. He called his mother and told her that he was staying in Vancouver \u2014 how long, he didn\u2019t know. He wanted to be by his dying friend\u2019s side until \u2014 \u201cYou know, like with Dad\u2019s cancer,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n He went back to the hospital two days later. Late in the day, when he was sure Scanlon didn\u2019t remember him or what they\u2019d talked about.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Leonard Jimmy,\u201d he said. \u201cI was your altar boy. Remember the second Sunday of Advent 1978?\u201d<\/p>\n He smiled when the old man shook his head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Rites<\/b>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the morning, which is better. His social worker is trying to find somewhere else for him. Somewhere permanent.\u201d A phone rang on the desk. \u201cDo you know if he has any family? He can\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
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\n<\/p>\n
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\nThe official diagnosis was early-onset Alzheimer\u2019s \u2014 early-onset forgetting of everything the old man had done, over 30 years ago, to eight boys in the Parish. The news had followed Mrs. Trozzo\u2019s prayer against the falling barometer and the coming ache of her lumbar spine, in the produce aisle at Wal-Mart. \u201cHe\u2019ll be a vegetable soon like my Frank was,\u201d Mrs. Trozzo said to Leonard Jimmy, \u201cthen God forgives him, like he forgives all the prodigal ones.\u201d She\u2019d been Father Scanlon\u2019s secretary at St. Mary\u2019s Elementary School for five years \u2014 she\u2019d had no clue about his offences, until the news stories, his trial, prison. How many years ago was that now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1884,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/1884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}