Among those in the back was a man who normally would have felt much more comfortable settled in the front, among the wealthier families and people making a show of their piety. A former United States Senator, a man who knew all about how much a show of religious devotion could boost one's social and political standing . . . and yet here he sat, in the next-to-last pew, staring up at the service with quiet, slightly confused eyes. It had been so long since he really came and heard Mass of any sort, and the memories he still retained were not serving him well. He didn't quite remember what he should be doing, what he should be feeling at that moment. He knew there were things he should know; rituals that had been ingrained in him when he was young (though never as strictly as his mother's scoldings of "Sit still. Be quiet. Listen to the bishop, and for God's sake stay awake."), but they were nowhere in his mind now as, years later, he knelt for a prayer amongst the troubled and the devout together, his aged body protesting just a little as he got down on his knees.
For not the first time in his life, and especially in the last few years, Nathan Petrelli really didn't know what he was supposed to do next.