James Patterson - Woman of God

I was looking past him, scanning the onlookers for my husband’s face.

“Divine intervention,” said House, with great pleasure. “Di-vine in-ter-ven-tion. And you earned it. In full.”

I was staring at him, speechless with fury, when someone pulled at my arm. I spun around, ready to do violence.

It was Katherine Ross, my former bridesmaid, and she had Gilly in her arms.

I screamed my daughter’s name and grabbed a double armful of Gilly and Katherine together. Kath was saying, “Gilly is fine. She’s fine. My mom has your cat.”

Gilly reached out her arms. “Where were you, Mommy?”

Kath handed my precious toddler to me, and I kissed her and held her so tightly that she yelped.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. I was at the hospital. Kath, where is he? Have you seen James?”

She shook her head no.

I gave Gilly back to Katherine and said, “Please. Take care of her. I need to look for him.”

I ran.

I rounded the church, and I saw a crew holding hoses on the western side, the side that faced the rectory. James was wearing a fire hat and aiming a hose at the roof.

“James.”

I ran to him and held on to him as he kept the hose trained on the flames.

“I couldn’t find you!” he shouted over the crackle of fire, the roar of streaming water, and the grinding engines. “Katherine has Gillian. I was in the rectory when the fire trucks came. I called you.”

“I was in a no-phone zone at the hospital. What happened?”

James waved his hand toward the church, taking in the blackened walls all the way up to what was left of the bell tower.

“Our wonderful old church. I can’t believe this.”

But I could believe it. I remembered an image of myself floating on a glassy sea with flames leaping around me. God had sent rain. And he had enveloped me in a ball of light.

James shouted, “We hosed the rectory down so that sparks can’t set fire to the roof! Can you give me a hand with this hose, Brigid? My arms are wearing out.”

I stepped in front of my husband, and we stood together with our hands on the line, dousing the fire.

“Thank God,” he said to me. “No one was hurt. No one died.”

AT ONE in the morning, James, Gilly, and I opened the front door to the rectory. Our little home was smoke filled, water soaked, and uninhabitable. James left his phone number with the fire chief, and we drove to the closest motel on the highway.

We went to bed in our clothes, didn’t sleep, and were back at the site of the fire at six a.m. Police arrived, as did the fire chief, an arson investigator, and an insurance adjuster.

The fire was out, but the nightmare continued.

I stared at what remained of JMJ and tried to picture what had happened since yesterday morning, when I kissed James good-bye, got into my car with Gilly, and drove to work. Sometime between taking Chloe Tremaine to the hospital and getting word in the ICU that there was a go-home emergency, this devastation had occurred.

I tried to picture that first spark. Had the wiring in the old church frayed and started the blaze? Or had someone deliberately torched our dreams?

The arson investigator, a man with a deeply lined face and a badge pinned to his jacket, stopped us from going into the church. He introduced himself as Walt Harrison and said, “It’s not safe in there, folks. The rest of the roof could fall through. Same for the floor.”

We stood just outside the dripping doorway as Harrison flashed his light around the scorched and ashen interior.

“Here’s what I see. This fire started under the loft. A Molotov cocktail, or something like it, was tossed under there. Superheated smoke and poisonous gases traveled into the bell tower and steeple. As the gases ignited, the steeple, the tower, this section of the roof, collapsed.”

Pale shafts of light came through the open roof and illuminated the ancient church bell, lying on its side on the floor.

Harrison took us to his mobile office inside a van. He asked, “Who do you think would do this?”

James told Harrison about the raging controversy surrounding JMJ, concluding, “Some people”-his voice cracked-“a lot of people think what we’re doing is wrong.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Harrison. “I’d like you to look at some photos that were taken at the fire. Arsonists-if it is arson-are fascinated by the fires they set. They really cannot stay away.”

Harrison turned his computer screen toward us and clicked through shots of the crowd watching our burning church. I skipped over the faces of neighbors and friends and stabbed at the face of a man who hated us.

“I ran into him last night, Walt. His name is Lawrence House, and he told me that the fire was ‘divine intervention.’ Months ago, he pulled a gun in our church. We got it away from him before he could hurt anyone.”

James gave details to Harrison, and I thought ahead to the near future.

Our congregants would have to be interrogated.

The church would have to be rebuilt.

Even the rectory would require rescue.

I thought of my father quoting Nietzsche at my fourteen-year-old self: “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

This fire hadn’t killed us. We would come back from this. And we would be stronger.

I WAS painting the new cabinets in the rectory kitchen when Zach Graham showed up without warning, shouting, “Hello, Red!” Totally startled, I knocked over a paint can, which jumped off the counter and beyond the drop cloth, scared Gilly, who burst out crying, and sent Birdie racing across the spill, tracking powder-blue footprints across the ancient wide-board floors.

Zach laughed at the chaotic scene he’d caused, which was right out of a fifties Lucille Ball comedy, with me in the starring role. I didn’t find it funny. He got that, loud and clear.

“Uh-oh. So sorry, Brigid,” said Zach. “I woulda called, but I don’t have your number.”

“That can be remedied, Yank. Got something to write on?”

“Let me help,” he said.

His help with paper towels was pretty hopeless, but Gilly became fascinated with Zach’s attempts and stopped screaming.

“All done,” he said. “The floor can be washed, right?”

I was glad to see Zach and, at the same time, a little freaked out that he’d just shown up in my house without warning. I moved the drop cloth, the bucket, and the brushes out of the way, put on the kettle, washed my hands in the big, old-fashioned sink, and after Zach did the same, I handed him a dish towel.

I sent Gilly out to the vegetable garden with a basket for peas. The garden was safe, fenced in, and I could watch her from the kitchen windows.

“So. How ya been?” I asked Zach.

“Well, I broke a wrist playing pickup hoops. All better now.” He flexed to show me. “I’m taking Italian at the New School. And my girlfriend dumped me because, I don’t know. She said it’s not me. She likes someone else better. My best friend.”

“Oh, man,” I said. “Will you live?”

“In time. Every time a door closes, etc.”

I poured tea, brought cookies to the table.

Zach said, “So, the door that opened is actually a great door. Tall. Wide. With an awesome view.”

“Really?”

“I’ve been offered a book deal. Actually, I mentioned your name, but I didn’t expect a publisher to jump over his desk and push a contract into my hands.”

“Wait. My name?”

“Brigid, I had this idea. The Jesus Mary Joseph movement really is a phenomenon. By my last count, there are nearly a hundred JMJ churches now, is that right?”

“One hundred and two. I think. We’re not always told.”