Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

“Maybe. I’d probably have better luck in one of the more liberal dioceses, like Maine or New Hampshire.”

Okay. New Hampshire wasn’t that far away. Of course, coming up with an excuse to visit there would be a challenge. And traveling to see Clare would be tantamount to acknowledging, to himself at least, that they were having an affair. Whether or not they were sleeping together. He tasted the idea: him and Clare, together, somewhere no one knew his name or marital status. How long would his self-control and fidelity to his vows, both of which he took great pride in, last under those circumstances?

About forty minutes, was his guess.

She looked up at him, her face grim, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing. “It’s not getting censured that upsets me. It’s the fact that the whole time I thought Father Aberforth was talking about us, I was frantically thinking of ways to discredit what he might have heard.”

“That’s natural. Your bishop can’t get on you for your thoughts, Clare. Only for your actions.”

“Don’t you see? I wasn’t thinking about what was true, or what was right, or about being honest in my relationship with my church. I was thinking about covering my ass. Period.”

They had come to the intersection of Main and Radcliff. A wind off the mountains skirled across the open streets, rustling dried leaves and drawing a shiver from Clare. At least, he hoped it was the wind making her cold. They turned left toward the hospital. He considered, and rejected, several variations on Buck up! It’s not so bad! Finally he settled on “What can I do to help?”

Her lips curved. “You make me think of that Star Trek episode. Where Captain Kirk tells his love interest ‘Can I help’ is the most beautiful phrase in the universe.”

“Yeah, and then she gets run over by a truck. Let’s not go there.”

She looked away from him. “I’m wondering if I ought to talk with someone. About”-she waved a hand, indicating him, her, the town, everything- “the situation.” She glanced up at him again, and in the streetlight he could see her anxiety. “I wouldn’t have to name you.”

He was embarrassed. That had been his first thought, that he would be exposed. “To Father Aberforth?”

“Probably not. He hasn’t struck me as the sympathetic sort so far.”

He gagged the part of him that was yelling, Tell? Are you crazy? This was about her, not about him. “Is that what you want?” he asked carefully. “Sympathy?”

Her shoulder sagged. “I don’t know what I want. Absolution, I guess. For someone to tell me that I can sustain this tightrope act with you without hopelessly compromising my standards. For someone to confirm that what I feel for you isn’t wrong, that it’s a gift from God.”

“Some gift.” They rounded the corner and saw the Washington County Hospital sign glowing white and blue in the darkness. “ ‘Here, here’s your soul mate, the person who completes you. Whoops, did I mention you can’t actually be together? Have a nice day.’ ”

He glanced down at her. She was looking ahead, a complicated smile on her face. “That’s the nature of His gifts. He wants to see what you do with them.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stick to stuff from stores that take a return with receipt.” They had reached the walkway to the admissions lobby. Smokers clustered along the wall, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. From the parking lot, visitors drifted up in twos and threes toward the doors. A nurse and a man in a wheelchair waited for a car making its way along the circular drive.

He turned to Clare. “If you need to talk with someone, do it.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“I mean it. This”-he waved his hand in exactly the same way she had earlier, wondering why he couldn’t come up with a better way to indicate an emotional tidal wave threatening to swamp his life- “shouldn’t make you less of who you are. I don’t want that, and if you have to go to confession or talk to the bishop or whatever, you should do it.”

“And name names?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “If you have to. Although, I gotta tell you the truth, I’d rather you fudged the identity thing if you can. But if you have to, go ahead.” He settled his glasses firmly over his ears. “Just don’t make yourself smaller for me.”

She nodded.

“Let’s get inside. Talk to people who have worse problems than we do.”

The first thing Rachel said when Lisa opened the door was “You do know your house is being watched, don’t you?” “What? Where?” Lisa stepped past her sister onto the doorstep. The automatic floodlight had come on when Rachel drove into the dooryard, and the beaten dirt and withered grass were brilliantly, if temporarily, lit. “I don’t see anybody.”

“Across the road from the start of your drive. I could see the squad car. I don’t know who’s staking you out, but it’s not Mark.”

Lisa stepped back inside and pulled the door shut behind her. “How do you know?”

Madeline was sound asleep on her sister’s shoulder, her eyelids almost translucent to her fine blue veins, her pink mouth open. A tiny snore bubbled from her nose. “Here, take her for a moment,” Rachel said, easing the five-year-old off her shoulder. Lisa took her niece, grunting slightly. Maddy’s frail baby-girl look was deceiving.

Rachel stripped off her coat. “Whoever was in the squad car waved to me. Mark would’ve flashed his lights.” She wiggled Madeline’s jacket off the little girl. “She fell asleep in the car,” she explained. “Mark dropped her off with the Tuckers when he was called in. Three little girls and a hyperactive dog-she probably didn’t stop running the whole time she was there.”

“You want to put her down in my bed?”

“Thanks.”

Lisa mounted the stairs, one hand on the banister to keep her from keeling over backward beneath the unexpected weight. Rachel slipped past her in the hall, and by the time Lisa reached her bedroom, her sister had the covers drawn back on the double bed. Lisa laid her niece down. The little girl curled like a bear cub in its den and buried her face in the pillow. Rachel tucked the bedclothes around Madeline, and the two sisters stood looking at her in the light shafting in from the hallway.

“She looks like a total angel,” Lisa said quietly.

“It’s an adaptive trait,” her sister said in the same low voice. “The child who looks sweet and adorable while sleeping is the child whose parents forget what a pain in the butt she can be when awake.”

Lisa smiled lopsidedly. Rachel could afford to be cynical about kids. She already had one. Lisa had hoped, this year, maybe… but if Randy went to prison, there weren’t going to be any kids, not this year. Maybe not ever.

Rachel, perhaps reading her mind, wrapped an arm around Lisa’s waist and hugged her. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs and have a drink.”

In the kitchen, Lisa ladled out two bowls of stew to go with their rum and Cokes. Rachel dug into hers, but Lisa had no appetite. She sat and watched her sister eat and listened to her dole out sensible advice between bites.

“You have got to call an attorney. Forget the whole court-appointed thing. Believe me, when it comes to criminal trials, you get what you pay for, and you have to be willing to pay for the best.”

“How are we going to afford that?”

“Mortgage your house? Sell it? You’ll find a way. Mom and Dad may help out.”

Lisa stared into her stew. “Great. Then we can spend the rest of our lives getting out from under a mountain of debt.”

“I’m only saying. If it was Mark, that’s what I’d do.”