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What with the time difference between Saskatchewan and B.C., and the rental car being actually ready for him at the airport, Gerry found himself in his room at the Sylvia Hotel just past 10 on an unnaturally bright Vancouver morning, with almost the whole day stretching ahead of him before his planned surprise visit to Lorna. As he stood at the window looking out at the metallic waters of English Bay, he felt, for the first time, a twinge of doubt. What if she wasn't pleased to see him? Lorna could be volatile, unpredictable, he knew that, but he shook the thought off, and it occurred to him that he should use the extra time searching for a gift.

He was still amazed by his audacity at even being here. But he didn't want to dwell on that - if he did, he was sure, he'd lose his nerve.

The previous day at lunch, he'd seen a woman who made his breath catch in his throat, and it had shaken him. He was standing in the lineup at the cashier in the city hall cafeteria when he caught a glimpse of her from behind, tight black tailored slacks over slim but rounded hips, and a mane of straight, luxuriant black hair, the backs of the heels of polished black pumps just disappearing from view. A minute later, as he was unloading his tray onto the table with the usual crowd, he saw her again entering the lunchroom, busty in a lavender sweater, full lipped, broad cheekbones - he couldn't tell whether she was native or Asian of some sort, Chinese perhaps, or Filipino; at any rate, beautiful. Breathtaking.

He kept finding reasons, without being so obvious that he'd embarrass himself, to look over his shoulder to catch glimpses of her, but the third time he twisted around her place was empty and there was no sign of her, the group of women she'd been with continuing their conversation as if her absence was unremarkable. His heart sank. Then he caught sight of her coming back to her table, balancing a cup of coffee and saucer and a butter tart. Lunch finished, he lingered over a second cup of coffee, changing seats when his officemates went out for their usual smoke and stretch, so he could see her better.

When the woman started to gather her dishes, Gerry rose and made his way casually in her direction, coming abreast of her table just as she was getting up. He'd been right about her body - it seemed perfect - but up close it was clear she was neither as pretty as he'd thought, nor as young. Her cheeks were more flat than broad, her skin coarse, and her eyes, when she glanced at him, without interest, were dull, almost stupid. She was chewing gum.

Standing at the elevator on his way back to his office, he was struck by how he'd been so entranced, then let down, all within minutes. For the first time that day, he thought of Lorna, who was also capable of provoking extreme responses in him, soaring highs and plummeting lows. He was suddenly pierced by a desire to see her. He missed her, of course, but it was something more than that.

It was time to do something about Lorna, but he had no idea what.

***

That evening, Lorna was still on his mind - the girl in the cafeteria long forgotten - when Gerry got home to his neat two-story house just a few blocks past the Broadway Bridge. He snapped on his computer, checked his email and was delighted to find a long message from her. The timing was perfect. Even better, she began the email with an apology for her brusque manner the last time they'd talked. He'd phoned one evening, caught her by surprise and, apparently, in the midst of something. After a few minutes of what Gerry had thought was pleasant and affectionate small talk, she had made an exasperated sound and abruptly hung up, leaving him hurt and confused. Now she began her email this way: "Gerry, I am so sorry for being rude the other day" - it was actually over a week ago - "but you caught me at a very bad time. Sorry, I can't explain, something with a parishioner. And - my cheeks are going red as I write this so it's good you're not here to see me - it's a woman thing. Understand?"

Gerry shook his head and smiled with relief.

Aggravation and apology, tension and relief - it was the pattern of their relationship, and it couldn't go on.

He'd met Lorna while on a retreat at St. Peter's Abbey the previous February, shortly after his mother's death. They were drawn to each other and, while nothing had happened that weekend except for a very clumsy kiss, he left the abbey feeling that something of significance had begun.

Back in Saskatoon, they'd not exactly dated but had seen each other a few times, going for coffee and springtime walks along the river, an occasional dinner. The kiss, familiar though it had been, was not repeated, not because Gerry hadn't wanted it to, certainly, but because an opportunity had not presented itself.

Then, at spring's end, Lorna, who had been studying for the ministry, was ordained and immediately found a church in Abbotsford, less than an hour's drive from Vancouver in the Fraser Valley. Since then, they'd become email regulars - pen pals. The disastrous phone call had been his first attempt to go beyond the computer screen and clearly was a mistake. They kept saying they should have a visit, but neither had been able to get away. They were both busy people, Lorna especially, with her new ministry and her son, who was in law at UBC - one of the attractions of the West Coast for her. Six months had passed and it was deep winter again, though mild, and Gerry was as uncertain about their relationship - was that what it was? - as he'd been on the afternoon of the kiss. If Lorna knew more than he did, she wasn't saying.

What was surprising to him about Lorna was that, while she wasn't particularly attractive - not anything like the girl in the cafeteria, at least not as he first saw her - he found her very appealing. She was a bit overweight - plush was the word that came to mind - with stringy hair and a gap between her upper front teeth he especially liked. She made him feel not aroused especially, but unthreatened and satisfied, as if sex had already occurred. Not at all like his former wife, who'd been attractive enough to always make Gerry feel slightly uneasy, as if he had to explain himself.

After the apology, her email was typical, full of pithy tales of her parishioners (Lorna had wound up mopping the floor herself after a mourner got sick at a funeral) and snappy observations (another parishioner had the obsequious manner of a hound dog). She'd been busy every evening this week, she wrote, and was looking forward to tomorrow, when she planned on relaxing and catching up on her reading in her apartment after work. As usual, the email ended with the words "love, L.," but the electronically generated "love" seemed too dispassionate to be real. Gerry sat in his darkened study staring at the pulsing light of the computer screen, thinking again of his whirlwind romance with the girl in the cafeteria - that's how he'd come, self-mockingly, to think of it - and a plan gradually took shape in his mind, like letters appearing one after another on the screen.

Surprise was part of his strategy, so he neither emailed Lorna nor telephoned, but called his office to leave a voicemail message and then, with ease over the Internet, booked a morning flight and arranged for a rental car. Everything fell neatly and quickly into place - he even, to his surprise, was able to get a room at his favourite Vancouver hotel, the usually all-booked-up Sylvia, calling just minutes after a vacancy came open. He had a bite to eat, packed a bag and was ready to go before The National came on at 10 p.m.

On the plane the next morning, Gerry had barely enough time to put his thoughts in order. Since the divorce - and he was amazed to realize it was over five years ago - he'd been at loose ends, dating a bit, throwing himself into his work, not feeling particularly satisfied at the office or home. Last winter's bout of stress or depression or whatever it was, he realized, had probably been a symptom of something larger. This thing with Lorna - even thing seemed almost too precise a word to apply to it, so nebulous was the reality it represented - was all that had captured his attention in the last year. But Gerry liked to be able to capture his ideas in a drawing, a map, a grid like those roads near the abbey they'd enjoyed walking on so much, and this was way too nebulous, too vague. Still, in every other way, Lorna was the most extraordinarily forthright woman he'd ever known. He intended to ask her a simple question - not to marry him, nothing as dramatic or romantic as that - but whether, in her view, what they were heading toward, if they were indeed heading toward something, was predictably disillusioning - a phrase she had used more than once - or enlightening.

Outside the Sylvia's window, two gulls battered each other noisily in midair. A lone sailboat struggled against gusts of wind on the shimmering bay below. Yes, a gift would definitely be in order, something to commemorate the event. Gerry headed for the elevator, turning his thoughts to this new problem. It had to be something perfect.

***

His mother's death had thrown Gerry into a slump. He wasn't in mourning so much as catching his breath - the funeral had taken place back in Alberta, where most of the family still lived, and he was there and then back in Saskatoon so quickly he didn't really have a chance to get accustomed to the idea of his mother being gone. They hadn't been particularly close - even when he was a child, she'd been cool and distant, or so it had seemed to Gerry - and she'd been sick and failing for several years, so her death was neither a surprise nor a blow. Nevertheless, two months later, he'd begun to have sleepless nights. Worn down and haggard after several weeks, he consulted his physician; it didn't take long before the loss came tumbling out.

"Whether you know it or not, you're grieving," the doctor said, and prescribed mild sedatives and a good rest. One of the other city planners suggested a long weekend at the abbey, just an hour's or so drive east at a village called Muenster. He swore by the place for its restorative powers. The bucolic setting, even in winter when the acres of raspberry canes and towering firs rose out of a blanket of crusty snow, and the presence of all those centred-looking men in black robes had a calming effect that was truly restful, Gerry was assured. His friend proved to be right.

Gerry had been raised disinterested United and was no longer religious in any way, but no one at the monastery seemed to mind that. Except for the cross in his small, narrow room in Severin Hall, which he took down from its nail and slid beneath the extra blanket on a shelf in the closet, none of the trappings or activities of the place were intrusive. The Benedictines - robed but otherwise seeming perfectly ordinary, especially the young, bearded Brother Randy, who beat Gerry three games in a row at pool and twice at ping pong - were more a visual oddity than a moral or spiritual presence, as far as Gerry was concerned. He found the Christian symbolism no more overwhelming than at the mall at Christmas time.

Gerry took walks in blustery wind through the woods to the farm, where he inspected the chickens and cattle but avoided the foul-smelling pig barn, and browsed in the library, where the forbidding collection of Christian books was leavened by a long-standing subscription to the National Geographic. After the first couple of restless nights, he slept soundly on the hard, narrow bed in his spartan room, even napped on it every afternoon. He stuffed himself on the meat-and-potatoes-and-cinnamon bun meals and the oatmeal cookies from a constantly replenished jar in the guest wing lounge. Once, at the urging of the 5 p.m. bells, he even sat in the back of the chapel for vespers, where the prayers took the form of singing, slightly off key but hypnotically pleasing, their content seemingly more Old Testament than New.

He ran into Lorna at breakfast on his second day when, without hesitation, she joined him at the large dining hall table where he was sitting alone, contemplating a bowl of library-paste porridge and prunes.

"You look like you need some cheering up," she said brightly.

He raised his eyes to see a horsy-looking woman with a long face and slightly protruding upper teeth transformed by a wide, completely guileless smile. She was about his age, early forties, with a nondescript haircut and dressed in baggy sweats. Not at all the sort of woman he would normally be attracted to but almost exactly the sort who fit with his own appearance, his own place in the world.

He laughed. "I didn't used to think I did. Then I didn't think it showed."

"Oh, it shows," the woman said. "It shows."

They immediately fell into conversation so deep that he barely noticed the porridge going down - she'd had a not-altogether-different experience with her father's death - and they were on their second cups of coffee when it came out that she was a divinity student at the Lutheran seminary in Saskatoon. She suffered from a learning block with languages and was spending a few days at the abbey preparing for a Greek exam she'd already flunked once.

"I need to build up my strength," she said.

"Moral strength or intellectual strength?" Gerry inquired mildly.

"My physical strength. My moral strength already does arm-wrestling with my intellectual strength, thank you very kindly."

Like Gerry, she was divorced, but her divorce had cost her dearly - she'd been in her second year at the Anglican seminary, on full scholarship, but the bishop had disapproved and support was withdrawn.

"My being married to a Jewish man didn't bother him," she laughed, "nor did he care about his being a bastard, but my divorcing him did. The Lutherans heard about it. They might not have liked the idea of a Jewish husband, but he was gone, so what the hell. They welcomed me with open arms - well, as open as Lutheran arms ever get."

This brought gales of laughter from two of the plumpish women among the group who had gradually filled their table, one of them, as it turned out, of Swedish background, the other, a luminous woman in round spectacles, a Finn.

"The Lutherans have too many restrictions," Lorna said with a mock sigh, "but I'm learning to live with them."

"Ya, so?" sing-songed the Finn, who was part of a group of writers spending two weeks together in the former convent on the abbey grounds. "Not restrictions, etiquette, don'tcha know."

"And you're studying to be a Lutheran minister?" Gerry inquired.

"And your point?" Lorna shot back.

"Anglicans are easier going," said one of the other writers. "All they really care about is dressing nicely on Sunday."

"Oh?" said Lorna, arching one eyebrow. "You've obviously never witnessed an argument over which type of sherry to serve with lunch."

Again laughter, but, after a pause, she added: "Still, the world would be a better place if everyone in it was Anglican. Certainly no wars. The Lutherans like to fight." She pronounced this in an almost angry tone that struck Gerry as curious.

"I don't know," piped in a thin, dark woman, another of the writers who'd been listening to the flow of conversation without saying anything, "Jews don't really care about anything but dressing nicely for synagogue on the Sabbath, but they still manage to have plenty of wars."

"Tell me about it," Lorna said, winking. Then, adopting a broad aping of a Yiddish accent: "Of Jews, I know plendy."

Over the next few days, Gerry and Lorna took all their meals together and several times went for walks through the snow after lunch. At the abbey, the noon meal was called dinner and was the heaviest of the day, homegrown pork chops or chicken swimming in cream gravy, heaps of lumpy mashed potatoes, apple pies fragrant with cinnamon and nutmeg. If Gerry didn't get some exercise after eating, he would sink into sleep back in his room. On these walks, along a straight-as-an-arrow grid road system and through long lines of planted spruce windbreak alive with chattering birds, Gerry told her how, growing up on the farm, he'd always wanted to be an artist but, getting lost in the city on his first day of university and registering late, he'd been channeled off into architecture, which he'd immediately fallen in love with. And then how, again because a course he wanted was full, he'd stumbled into city planning, which, again, transfixed him - it was the public nature of the field rather than the private satisfactions of the artist's life, even the architect's, that appealed to him, he said.

Lorna, for her part, told him about her life as a graduate student in sciences, then marriage, motherhood, the "predictable disillusionment" that seemed to feed on itself. She mentioned her husband only occasionally, and when she did she referred to him - not with bitterness but certainly not with affection - as "the asshole."

"If disillusionment is so predictable, it's a wonder people don't do something to avoid it," Gerry said, without really having thought it through.

Lorna's long, elastic face - almost rubbery, Gerry thought - stretched this way and that with smiles and frowns as she talked, and her hands fluttered about her body in wild gestures like the begging chickadees. Now, she shot him an almost glaring look and he was taken by the complete frankness of her expression and the way that, when her face was entirely in repose, the features took on a very pleasing aspect, almost pretty - no, she was pretty.

"Right, like you and your mother," she said. For a moment, he thought he'd offended her, but then those features reassembled themselves into a smile, the smile he was coming to appreciate more and more. "Anyway," she added, "without disillusionment, there couldn't be enlightenment, right?"

On the third day, the day before Lorna was to return to Saskatoon and take her exam, their walk took them to the abbey's small cemetery, where they counted forty small stones for brothers, many of the inscriptions in German, and another four larger ones for abbots. The graveyard, which was surrounded by a double hedge of evergreens - cedar on the inside, spruce on the outer row, with a muffled corridor between them safe from the constant wind - was dominated by one stone larger still, standing over the grave of the abbey's founder, Father Bruno. Lorna's Latin was good enough to be able to translate most of the mysterious bits on the stones: "Natus" for born, "Mortuus" for died, and so on. Then they stood in silent meditation for a few minutes while Gerry said - finally - a proper good-bye to his mother.

On the way back, chilled a bit by the cold wind that was reddening the tip of Lorna's nose, they stopped to feed a trio of unusually fearless chickadees, which fluttered close to their outstretched hands, darting down to snatch a broken peanut then hot-winging it to a low-lying branch in triumph. Suddenly, without warning, they found themselves in an embrace, locked in a nose-bumping kiss that was not passionate, particularly, but far more than what mere friends would share. It was as if they had known each other for a long time, had shared many kisses.

"I'm really sorry," Gerry said, disengaging himself and stepping back, embarrassed. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh?" Lorna's rubbery face made itself into a mask of mock disappointment. She didn't appear embarrassed at all. As she had in the dining hall that first morning, she adopted a parody of Yiddish accent: "Und vy not?"

***

Lorna was not easy to buy for, he knew - he'd agonized over her birthday, which fell in May, when they'd known each other barely three months, and his choice, a pass to the jazz festival, was both inspired and welcome but the ticket wound up going unused, since she'd left for the coast already when the festival came around. Her interest in clothes seemed to be nonexistent - she habitually wore sensible, almost shapeless suits with straight skirts a size too large, leaving Gerry still uncertain what her body was like. She wore next to no jewelry, no perfume at all. A book, which would have been easy, since he knew her interests, or thought he did, was far too impersonal for what he wanted to convey with this gift. Art, though bulky, seemed promising; he had in mind something like a raku vase or a delicately worked metal box, but he left his mind open and set out in the rented car to Granville Island, where, a friendly woman at the Sylvia's front desk assured him, there were a number of shops selling high-quality crafts.

He browsed through two such shops, one a co-op filled with lovely pottery, the other the studio shop of a glass-blower, without finding anything that seemed right. He took a break for a lunch of steamed mussels, thick bread and a beer at Bridges, a good restaurant overlooking the water, sitting outside in the cool sunshine and breathing in the salt air. He allowed himself to consider the possibility of living here and wondered what the job prospects would be like at Vancouver city hall. He'd managed to acquire a good track record in his half a dozen years in Saskatoon and his years in Prince Albert before that. Vancouver, with its recent influx of well-to-do Asian immigrants retrofitting narrow lots with enormous houses, was crying out for his talents and vision, he decided.

After lunch, he took in two more shops, again without success, then drove to Kitsilano, where the desk clerk had told him he might also try. As he browsed through one shop after another on West 4th Street and Broadway, he rehearsed possible speeches he might make that evening to Lorna. Twice, passing pay phones, he weakened and almost called her, fearing she might have made an unexpected date, but he fought off the impulse, determined that he'd fare better if he didn't give her an opportunity to think too long about possible replies. The memory of how she'd hung up on him still stung.

In each shop, he found several items that seemed almost right but not quite. Gerry had never been an enthusiastic shopper of any sort or particularly adept at selecting gifts - he remembered one Mother's Day when a kitchen appliance, a toaster oven he thought his mother would like, had provoked a cold, sarcastic response - and he sensed that, with Lorna, he might do more harm than good with a poor choice. He grew increasingly frustrated as the afternoon progressed. Perhaps flowers would be better. Lorna, he knew, was partial to yellow roses.

Finally, in a shop around the corner from Broadway on 8th Avenue, he found a glass and copper box that struck him as perfect. There was something Biblical about the box, the hammered copper, the pastel shades of the stained glass, that reminded him of St. Peter's and would, he hoped, have the same effect on Lorna. He remembered sitting with her in a sunny lounge area near the chapel filled with ferns of various types, a priceless fragile harp adorned with a "please do not touch" sign standing nearby, the sound of canary song drifting toward them from a large cage the monks kept further down the hall.

"I could sit here forever, it's so peaceful," Lorna had said. Gerry had been pleasantly surprised because he'd been thinking the exact same thing.

The box cost $150, but Gerry thought it well worth it. Still, for a reason he couldn't later explain to himself, he hesitated, placing the box on the counter while he took another sweep around the shop, which was empty except for him and an officious sales clerk wearing sand-coloured suede slacks and matching loafers.

"This box is exceptional," the man had said when he took it out of the display case for Gerry to examine.

Noticing the time - it was past 3, and he should be getting a move on, he knew - he suddenly remembered the rented car halfway down the street. "I'll be right back," he told the clerk and went out to feed another quarter into the meter. He couldn't have been gone more than a couple of minutes, but when he returned, his mind made up to buy it, there was a man and a woman in the shop, and the man was holding the stained glass box in his hands.

The man, who looked vaguely familiar, was holding the box up to the light streaming in through the shop's windows and smiling in what struck Gerry as an enigmatic way. He was dark-haired, handsome, no taller or heavier than Gerry, dressed in rumpled black slacks and what looked to be a cashmere sweater, cream coloured. The woman, who was obviously with him though she was a few metres away, twirling a display of earrings, was stunning, a tawny blonde wearing a tight leather miniskirt and black stockings. Her lipstick was a pale pink and Gerry could see her lips moving as she blew the man a kiss across the shop. A number of items were already stacked up by the cash register, and a shopping bag full of parcels, some of them gift-wrapped, sat on the floor near the man's feet. The unmistakable smell of money seemed to waft off the couple.

Gerry went right up to the man. "I'm sorry, but that box is mine," he said. "I mean, I already decided to buy it. I set it down there for a minute while I went out to feed the meter."

The man gave Gerry a curious glance, as if he'd just been asked for change by a panhandler. In that glance, Gerry recognized him, or thought he did: it was David Duchovny, the actor who had played the youthful FBI agent in The X-Files, a television series which Gerry knew had been produced in the city. He was less than a rabid fan, but had sometimes watched the show, and was certain that's who the man was.

"I'm buying this," the man said. There was no apology or explanation, just the simple statement of fact. Even the man's voice sounded familiar.

"You don't understand," Gerry said. "That's my purchase. I just set it down there while I went out for a minute. It's mine."

Again, Duchovny, if that's who it was, gave Gerry an odd look. "Right," he said, and started to move away, around him.

Without really thinking, Gerry reached out and took the box from the man's hand, plucking it from his grip the way he might take a memo someone in the office was handing him, except that this man wasn't handing him the box.

"Yes, right," Gerry echoed. "I'm sorry."

"The fuck you are," the man said, and before Gerry could brace himself, he grabbed the box back, using both hands.

"Listen," Gerry said. "You don't understand ..."

"I understand that you're an asshole," the man said. Could he really be David Duchovny? The show wasn't being made anymore, surely he didn't still live in Vancouver. He squared his shoulders, as if to ward off a blow, a gesture that, later, struck Gerry as ridiculous, laughable. "I'm buying this box," he added.

"Listen," Gerry repeated, frustration rising in his throat, a wash of pale red sweeping across his vision as if tiny veins had ruptured in his eyes. "That box is mine."

"You're a liar," the man said. No, it couldn't be Duchovny. "You're crazy. Get out of my way or ..."

He hesitated and Gerry, moving strictly on adrenaline, stepped forward and to the side, blocking his way. "Or what?"

The blonde woman was suddenly beside them. She placed a slim manicured hand on the man's arm and leveled a cool, long-lashed gaze at Gerry. "Why don't we ask Robert?"

At the sound of his name, the sales clerk, who'd been staying conspicuously out of the argument, stepped forward from beside the cash register. Gerry's heart sank.

"You remember, I was looking at that box," he said nevertheless. "I went out for a minute to feed the meter. It must have been clear to you that I was coming right back to buy the box. I said I'd be right back."

"Well, yes …" the clerk began.

"Didn't I ask you how much the box was?" Duchovny, if that's who it was, interrupted. "I said I wanted it." Gerry saw the two men exchange glances.

"You did," Robert agreed.

The man turned to the woman. "You heard me say it was just the thing for Priss. It was there on the counter, I picked it up."

"I put it there, for god's sake," Gerry said. He was as angry as he ever recalled being, but he knew it was hopeless. "Just for you, obviously. You must think the world is your oyster. I hope you really want that fucking box, because it's yours." He turned on his heel, but not quite fast enough to avoid the smug look that blossomed on the man's face, not even a good enough actor to mask it. Then he was out the door, the tinkling of the bell following him down the street like the bells that rang at St. Peter's for vespers or vigils.

There was a bitter taste in Gerry's mouth as he started the car and edged into the Broadway traffic. It was almost 3:30 now and he knew it would take him over an hour in rush-hour traffic to get to Abbotsford, where, he was certain, Lorna would be finishing her day around 5. At a stoplight, he noticed a shop proclaiming imports from Israel and, though he'd given up on the idea of a gift, he pulled over on the next block and walked back. As soon as he was through the door, its bell gaily tinkling, he saw something that caught his attention: it was gold Hebrew letters strung on a soft black string around the neck of a paper cutout model. "What do they say?" he asked the friendly woman who came out of back room to assist him.

"Oh, it's names. It's individual letters, see, so we can make up any name."

"It doesn't have to be a Hebrew name?"

"No, we translate the name into Hebrew phonetically. It works for any name, really."

"Could you do Lorna?"

"I'm sure we have before. I'll just ask my partner. She does the phonetics."

While he waited, Gerry admired the necklace again. Greek would be even better, he supposed, but Hebrew was inarguably biblical, and the necklace was lovely. He was certain that Lorna would like it, even if she didn't necessarily wear it often. He didn't imagine she'd want to wear it to church or church functions, or while visiting parishioners.

Within minutes, the gold necklace, in a tasteful box and gift wrapped, was in his jacket pocket and he was heading back downtown, toward the highway east and, as he'd estimated, he approached the Abbotsford exit just past 4:30. Abbotsford was a conservative community, he knew, a place where the school board banned books, homosexuals were frowned on and women ministers met resistance, although Lorna, by her own accounts, seemed to be thriving. He wondered how someone like Robert, that sales clerk, with his soft pants and soft eyes, would fare in this town, then shook his head, laughing at himself.

For the next hour or so, things went exactly as he'd planned. He'd looked up the address of the church in a phone book at the Sylvia, and found it with no difficulty, arriving at 10 minutes to 5. He parked across the street from the modern-looking building, with a sloping roof in the shape of a wing. The highest, narrow tip of the wing enclosed a stained glass window that made Gerry recall the glass and copper box for a moment, and he patted the small package in his pocket to reassure himself it was there. Had that horrible man really been David Duchovny? It seemed inconceivable now - surely he'd been wrong. But things had worked out for the best. Lorna would love the necklace, he was sure. Maybe he should see if the X Files had a website, send Dochovny an email thanking him. He could just picture the puzzled expression on the face of the actor when he read it. He got out of the car feeling lighter-spirited than he had in months.

He paused to admire Lorna's name, Rev. Lorna Williams, on the board outside the church announcing the topic for Sunday's sermon: "The role of the gospels in the new millennium." The heavy front door was unlocked, the church apparently empty, but when he called "Hello," a female voice answered and a moment later Lorna, wearing a navy blue suit and flat shoes, came through a door to the left of the pulpit, her eyes widening with surprise, her rubbery face going quickly through a number of compositions before settling on apparent pleasure.

"What on earth are you doing here, Gerry?"

"Aren't you glad to see me?" He took her in an awkward embrace, their cheeks touching.

"Of course, but .... You really should have called. I've got a million things to do tomorrow."

"I want to talk to you. Don't worry, I won't get in the way. I've got a hotel in town. You have to eat. I want to ask you a question." All of this came out in a rush and Gerry realized adrenaline was still coursing through his veins. Calm down, he told himself.

They went to an Italian restaurant Lorna said she liked, just a block from her apartment building. It was an unpretentious neighbourhood place, Tony's, with a view of the snow-capped mountains further to the east. They ordered spaghetti - Lorna's with meat sauce, Gerry's with clams - and small tomato and onion salads, a basket of Italian bread and a bottle of good Chianti. When the salads came, Gerry was careful to avoid the onions in his. He was uncertain whether to tell her about his encounter with the Famous Actor and let her carry the conversation. She was telling him a funny story about a wedding she conducted the previous Sunday and that ran into a convoluted tale revolving around the youth drop-in centre she was struggling to establish. "Honestly, some of my parishioners seem to think teenagers belong to a different denomination - why should we be doing anything for them?"

"The spirit of ecumenicalism?"

"Yeah, right." She put down her wine glass and looked at him fondly. "Gerry," she said, putting a hand over one of his. "I'm talking too much. Tell me why you're here."

"I want to ask you a question. But, wait, first I've got something for you."

He took the small package from his pocket and presented it to her gravely. "This took some doing," he said with a wry smile. "I'll tell you about it later."

Lorna looked at the box with apprehension for a moment, then carefully, using a neatly filed but unpainted fingernail, loosened the tape and removed the gift wrap. She opened the box and took the necklace out. For a moment, they were both silent.

"It's your name," Gerry said. "Lorna."

She looked up at him and something about her expression made his heart lurch. "It's Hebrew letters," he said lamely. "Phonetic letters. It says Lorna, honest." He laughed nervously. After a moment, he added: "I thought it would remind you of St. Pete's."

Lorna put down the necklace and carefully folded her napkin, laying it across her soiled plate. Her face darkened and, to Gerry's surprise, she began to cry. Very slowly - as if in slow motion, he thought later - she stood up, an ordinary looking woman, slightly overweight, in a wrinkled suit that seemed to have been designed for an even larger woman.

"You asshole," she said. Despite the sting of the word, her tone was not rancorous or bitter; rather, she sounded almost amiable, much the way she had at the abbey when she'd used that term to describe her husband.

Without a further word, she took her coat and purse and walked away from the table, out the door, down the street. Gerry sat stunned, staring at the necklace, Lorna's napkin, his plate, the smudged glass containing the dregs of his wine. After a suitable length of time, he paid the bill and began the long drive back to his hotel.