Epilogue

As I read the article in the bright sunlight, the name did not immediately register. Ezekiel Penn, killed in a prison riot.

Ezekiel Penn.

I sighed, unsurprised. Thought I’d heard that Bobby and Vincent had turned their lives around after Zeke had been incarcerated those many years ago. But Zeke?

I wouldn’t miss him.

Pushing myself up from the park bench, I strode down Simcoe Street somewhat aimlessly. I always had felt somewhat lost in the city, one amongst millions. Sometimes I missed the closeness of small town life, even if I wasn’t sorry to leave it.

A Presbyterian church stood at the corner of Simcoe and King and as I passed it, the sound of a choir drifted to the sidewalk above the noise and bustle of the surrounding city.

I hadn’t stepped foot in a church in years.

Slipping through the oversized oaken doors, I sat at the back.

The service was ending, nearly as I sat.

The choir sang Amazing Grace as the congregation filed out.

The music flooded back memories of a melancholy girl, singing as an angel on the shore of a distant river. It remains the most beautiful experience in my life. I lay back my head, lost to memories.

“Can I help you? Are you all right?”

The girl had a British accent, dressed in the robes of the Presbyterian clergy. I raised my head and opened my eyes, smiling. The choir was long finished. Other than the girl, and a priest at the front altar closing up the bible in front of him, I was alone in the church.

“Thank you for the memories,” I said simply, rising to my feet.

The girl looked puzzled, but her face reminded me of Rebecca.

“Go with God,” she smiled.

I remained unconvinced of the benevolence of her higher being, but something had led me to this place with the choir and the memories. Today of all days.

Something ethereal, beyond the here and now, whispered to me that Rebecca had never found what she sought.

As I stepped back outside amongst the elms, my thoughts captivated by that hot and humid summer, I resolved that it was time to return, perhaps visit the church, the river, the elm, if it still stood, and find her, wherever she had gone.