James Patterson - Woman of God

“Gilly, stay in the car with Alberto, okay?”

“Not okay,” she said. “Mom. I’m coming, too. No one is going to hurt us. I’m sure of it. Besides, the pope has given us his protection.”

“Gilly, stay.”

“No.”

Giuseppe and Alberto, big men with guns, were still with us. They cleared the way as we waded into the constricted, crowd-filled Via di Santa Maria Maggiore. I was recognized immediately. There was just nothing subtle about my tall frame, my flame-red hair, and my mini-me, tripping along beside me. People gathered around us.

I squeezed outstretched hands and said “Buongiorno” and “God bless you” as our bodyguards urged us forward.

We entered the church, an architecturally perfect ninth-century basilica with Byzantine mosaics in the apse and granite columns forming the side aisles. Behind the high altar was a magnificent oil painting of the Crucifixion.

Gilly and I genuflected before the altar, and then Sacred Heart’s priest, Father Vincenzo Mastronicola, introduced himself.

I said, “Father, I only heard about the threat last night. I am so sorry.”

“Thank you for coming here to say Mass. So many people have come to receive Communion from you.”

Within a few minutes, the crowd on the street filled the church out to the walls. After I was introduced, I spoke to the congregation about how much it meant to me to be with them during Easter week.

I had just begun Mass when a cracking boom reverberated throughout the church. People screamed and hit the floor. I ran down to where Gilly sat in a front pew and covered her body as I had done at JMJ Millbrook when Lawrence House had pulled his gun.

As I crouched on the floor, waiting for bullets to puncture flesh and ricochet off stone, I feared for Gilly and for myself. Had we lived the full extent of our lives? Was this the meaning of the visions I had experienced in the presence of the pope and of God? Was I ready to die?

I felt no breeze, no vortex, no shifting of place or time. The creaking of rusted door hinges cut through the moans and frightened sobs. Giuseppe had come through the sacristy doorway into the transept.

He shouted, “Everyone! A bomb exploded on Via San Giovanni Gualberto. This exit is the safest way to leave the church.”

Giuseppe helped Gilly and me up from the floor and out the side door, saying, “A car will pick us up on the next street. We have to get you out of here before all traffic is detained.”

As the big man led us out, people touched me, kissed my scarf. Tears wet their cheeks.

I said, “God protect you,” but I thought, I’m Brigid. Just Brigid.

“ Vai con Dio, Brigid,” Father Mastronicola called out to me. “Go with God.”

ZACH WAS pacing near the curbside check-in at Alitalia. Once I was out of the car, he hugged me, hard, and he picked Gilly up into his arms. Zach and Giuseppe accompanied the two of us to the flight lounge, where we sat with our backs to the wall until our flight was called.

Both men walked us to the check-in desk, Zach saying, “I’m glad to say good-bye to you, Red. Do you hear me? I’m happy. Keep your head down, will you, please? Call me when you get home.”

The flight to Boston was scheduled to leave on time.

We stowed our luggage overhead and buckled in, and I noticed that my normally energetic Gilly was quiet and thoughtful.

“What are you thinking, peanut?”

“About the pope, Mommy. See if Father Raphael sent the pictures.”

I turned on my phone and saw that, yes, he had.

Actually, it was a little video of the pope hugging Gilly and putting his hand on my arm, asking me to pray for him.

“We should do that now,” Gilly said.

We prayed for Pope Gregory, and moments later, the plane sailed down the runway and lifted smoothly into the air. Once we’d reached cruising altitude, Gilly fell asleep. I pulled down the window shade and tipped my seat back. There was some chance I could sleep. If only.

But I couldn’t stop examining and replaying the remarkable events of the past thirty-six hours. We had slept in a hotel suite fit for royalty. We had survived an attack that may have been directed at the JMJ church.

Between those events, I had spent the most precious time with Pope Gregory XVII, who had astounded me with his-how else can I say it?-his holiness.

Be with Brigid.

I dropped off to sleep with the hum of engines in my ears, thoughts of Pope Gregory in my mind, and my beloved child sleeping peacefully beside me.

When I awoke, we had landed. Dawn was backlighting the wing tips, and my cell phone was buzzing in my pocket.

I had a text from Zach.

Brigid, he wrote. I’m sorry to tell you. Pope Gregory died in his sleep.

THE PRESS was waiting for us when Gilly and I went through customs at Boston’s Logan Airport. Even from fifty yards away, I could see that the reporters were charged up, bordering on frenzied, and there were a lot of them.

I had a hope that they were on our side. I knew so many of these people from the morning press meetings I’d held on the front steps of the rectory at JMJ Millbrook.

But, still, the sight of the mass-media scrum was daunting.

I needed time to absorb that Pope Gregory had died in his sleep as memories of being with him just two days ago flashed through my mind. I had even more questions than before.

Why had the pope summoned me to the Vatican? To learn if I had a genuine connection to God? Did he know that he was going to die? Was he giving me a message when he asked me to pray with him and for him?

As the gang of reporters thundered toward us, I said to Gilly, “Stay close.” We had no bodyguards, and I didn’t see a hired driver with a sign bearing our name. Gilly and I were about to be mobbed.

I pushed Gilly awkwardly through the revolving doors and got into the next compartment as the reporters powered through the swinging doors beside us. When we were all on the sidewalk fronting the departure lane, Tonia Shoumatoff, a firebrand reporter and writer from the Millbrook Independent, came in close.

“Brigid. See this?”

She held up the front page of her paper. A quick glance showed a still shot from the video of Pope Gregory enclosing Gilly and me in his farewell embrace. The photo had to have been released by the Vatican. The headline read, POPE GREGORY MEETS WITH LOCAL WOMAN PRIEST.

Tonia made eye contact and spoke urgently. “Brigid, please say a few words about your meeting with the pope. What did you talk about? How did he seem to you?”

I said, “Tonia, and everyone, I just learned the news about fifteen minutes ago. I still can’t believe it. Pope Gregory looked fine when I saw him two days ago, just fine. ”

My voice caught in my throat, and as the reporters, mics and cameras in hand, waited, I saw satellite trucks parked in the bus lane. This curbside interview was going live.

Randy Norman from the Times asked what we had spoken about, and I answered, “We talked about the meaning of God in our lives.”

More shouts: “Did he criticize JMJ?” “Where is he on woman priests?” “Did the pope give you any indication that there would be any progress in the Church’s positions on divorce and remarriage?”

I reached for Gilly, but she was no longer at my side. Where had she gone? Where was she?

“Gilly? Has anyone seen Gilly?”

I frantically searched the crowd-and then she poked through the ring of reporters, saying, “Our ride, Mommy. He’s right there.”

A man in livery was holding a card with my name on it over his head. I grabbed Gilly into a hug and kept her beside me as I apologized and worked my way through the thicket of reporters, out to the curb.