Father Walter started to walk back down the church aisle, and I fell into step beside him. ‘You got time for lunch in the next few weeks?’ he asked. ‘Can’t,’ I said, grinning. ‘I’ll be doing a funeral.’ It was a joke between priests – you couldn’t schedule anything when your plans were likely to be changed by the lives and deaths of your parishioners. Except this time, as I said it, I realized it wasn’t a joke. In days, I’d be presiding over Shay’s funeral.
