Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

Evelyn never ceased lecturing them. Always, every day, holidays, birthdays-there was no day free of her lectures. Christine and Tony sat captive, not daring to answer back because that brought the most withering scorn and the worst punishment-and encouraged even more lecturing. She pushed them relentlessly, demanded the greatest possible accomplishments in everything they did, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing; it might even have been good for them. However, when they did achieve the best grade possible, win the highest award being given, move up to the first seats in their sections of the school orchestra, when they did all that and more, much more, it never satisfied their mother.

The best wasn't good enough for Evelyn. When they achieved the best, reached the pinnacle, she chastised them for not having gotten there sooner, set new goals for them, and suggested they were trying her patience and running out of time in which to make her proud of them.

When she felt lecturing wasn't sufficient, she used her ultimate weapon-tears. She wept and blamed herself for their failures.

"Both of you are going to come to a bad end, and it'll be my fault, all my fault, because I didn't know how to reach you, how to make you see what was important. I didn't do enough for you, I didn't know how to help you overcome the Scavello blood that's in you, and I should have known, should have done better.

What good am I as a mother? No good, no mother at all."

all those years ago.

But it seemed like yesterday.

Christine couldn't tell Charlie Harrison everything about her mother and that claustrophobic childhood of shadowy rooms and heavy Victorian furniture and heavy Victorian guilt, for she would have needed hours to explain. Besides, she wasn't looking for pity, and she was not by nature the kind of person given to sharing the intimate details of her life with others-not even with friends, let alone strangers like this man, nice as he might be.

She only alluded to her past with a few sentences, but from his expression, she thought he sensed and understood more than she told him; perhaps the pain of it was in her eyes and face, more easily read than she supposed.

"Those years were worse for Tony than for me," she told the detective."

Mainly because, on top of everything else that Eyelyn expected of him, she also wanted him to be a priest. The Giavettis had produced two priests in her generation, and they were the most revered members of the family."

In addition to the Giavettis' tradition of service to the Church, Evelyn was a religious woman, and even without that family history, she would have pushed Tony toward the priesthood. She pushed successfully, too, for he went straight from parochial school into the seminary. He had no choice. By the time he was twelve, Evelyn had him brainwashed, and it was impossible for him to imagine being anything but a priest.

"Evelyn expected Tony to be a parish priest," Christine told Charlie Harrison." Maybe eventually a monsignor, perhaps even a bishop. Like I said, she had high standards. But when Tony took his vows, he asked to be assigned to missionary work, and he was-in Africa. Mother was so upset! See, in the Church, like in government, the way you usually move up through the hierarchy is largely through astute politicking. But you can't be a constant, visible presence in the corridors of power when you're stuck in some remote African mission. Mother was furious."

The detective said, "Did he choose missionary work because he knew she'd be against it?"

"No. The problem was Mother saw the priesthood as a way for Tony to bring honor to her and the family. But to Tony, the priesthood was an opportunity to serve. He took his vows seriously."

"Is he still in Africa?"

"He's dead."

Startled, Charlie Harrison said, "Oh. I'm sorry. I-"

"It's not a recent loss," she assured him." Eleven years ago, when I was a high school senior, Tony was killed by terrorists, African revolutionaries. For a while Mother was inconsolable, but gradually her grief gave way to a. sick anger. She was actually angry with Tony for getting himself killed-as if he'd run away like my father before him. She made me feel I ought to make up for how Daddy and Tony had failed her. In my own grief and confusion and guilt… I said I wanted to become a nun, and Evelyn… Mother leaped at the idea. So, after high school, at her urging, I entered the convent… and it was a disaster. "

So much time had passed, yet she could still vividly remember the way the novice's habit had felt when she'd first worn it: the unexpected weight of it; the surprisingly coarse texture of the black fabric; the way she had continually caught the flowing skirts on doorknobs, furniture, and everything else that she passed, unaccustomed as she was to such voluminous clothes.

Being trapped within that venerable uniform, sleeping within a narrow stone cubicle on a simple cot, day after day spent within the dreary and ascetically furnished confines of the convent-it all stayed with her in spite of her efforts to forget. Those Lost Years had been so similar to the suffocating life in the Victorian house in Pamona that, like thoughts of childhood, any recollection of her convent days was apt to put pressure on her chest and make breathing difficult.

"A nun?" Charlie Harrison said, unable to conceal his astonishment.

"A nun," she said.

Charlie tried to picture this vibrant, sensuous woman in a nun's habit.

He simply couldn't do it. His imagination rebelled.

At least he understood why she projected an uncommon inner tranquility.

Two years in a nunnery, two years of long daily sessions of meditation and prayer, two years isolated from the turbulent currents of everyday life were bound to have a lasting effect.

But none of this explained why she exerted such an instant, powerful attraction on him, or why he felt like a randy teenager in her company.

That was still a mystery-a pleasant mystery, but a mystery nonetheless.

She said, "I hung on for two years, trying to convince myself I had a vocation in the sisterhood. No good. When I left the convent, Evelyn was crushed. Her entire family had failed her.

Then, a couple of years later, when I got pregnant with Joey, Evelyn was horrified. Her only daughter, who might've been a nun, instead turned out to be a loose woman, an unwed mother.

She piled the guilt on me, smothered me in it."

She looked down, paused for a moment to compose herself Charlie waited.

He was as good at waiting as he was at listening.

Finally she said, "By that time, I was a fallen-away Catholic.

I'd pretty much lost my religion… or been driven away from it.

Didn't go to Mass any more. But I was still enough of a Catholic to abhor the idea of abortion. I kept Joey, and I've never regretted it."

"Your mother's never had a change of heart?"

"No. We speak to each other, but there's a vast gulf between us. And she won't have much to do with Joey."

" That's too bad."

"Ironically, almost from the day I got pregnant, my life turned around.

Everything's gotten better and better since then. I was still carrying Joey when I went into business with Val Gardner and started Wine & Dine.

By the time Joey was a year old, I was supporting my mother. I've had a lot of success, and it doesn't matter at all to her; it isn't good enough for her, not when I could have been a nun, and not when I am an unwed mother. She still heaps guilt on me each time I see her."

"Well, now I can understand why you're sensitive about it."

"So sensitive that. when all this started with the old woman yesterday. well, in the back of my mind I sort of wondered if maybe it was meant to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe I'm meant to lose Joey. Maybe it's inevitable. Even.