143. Reunion

I sat with Agnes and again couldn't find words. A contemplative should be used to that, but I felt I should say something. How does one comfort another for whom one has little esteem? In my years as a monk I had sat with a dying brother on occasion. But Agnes was not in the throes of agony yet and I could not bring myself to feel sorry for him.

"Jesse," he said, "you don't have to sit with me."

I had found him after supper in the living room sitting on the piano bench. I settled into a nearby chair without saying anything. He had been reading his breviary, but put it down to speak to me, softly closing the leather cover and laying the book down next to him on the upholstered bench.

"I thought I'd just ... sit with you," I said.

"I appreciate it ... my Abbot," he said, and smiled.

"Thanks to you," I replied.

"You need to be responsible," he said. "You can't just retire. What if Christ had decided to retire just before Golgotha?"

"I'm tired of being responsible," I said.

"Really? I can't imagine why. You haven't done anything worthwhile since you left Africa, from what I've heard," he said

"That's rather insulting, Agnes," I said. "And from a man who came here to live a lie."

"Mea culpa, but at the moment I wasn't thinking of my own transgressions," he said.

"Perhaps you should, this close to death," I said.

"You're not tremendously farther away," he replied. "But Jesse, let's not have a joust. I have apologized for my behavior."

I said nothing.

"I am worried about you, that is all," he continued.

"So am I, to be honest," I said.

"You're too much like me," he said.

Shiver Me Timbers