Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

Will sat again in the silence—and spoke aloud, surprising himself.

“God.”

He stopped, confused.

God who?

His tired mind paged through memories of Sunday services: sumptuous cathedrals with well-heeled parishioners; midnight masses at lace-curtain Irish churches; wakes, baptisms, charity events… all such a pillar of his father’s political life.

There are no atheists in foxholes. Or on the campaign trail, either.

But faith? Actual faith?

Had he ever believed, Will’s father?

Had Will?

Had it ever even occurred to Will that he didn’t believe?

His mind reached for God and found—nothing. He believed in goodness, and morality, and law, and love—oh yes, love at first sight, romantic love, love of state, of country, love of justice. But God? Only in the most abstract of ways, and perhaps not even that.

Yet he had unquestioningly continued the family tradition, the Sunday Service Photo Op. And dragged his wife and daughter into it, Joanna never protesting, everything always for him.

Had there ever been any God under the politics?

And now, when actual miracles were required …

He felt on the verge of drowning. And wouldn’t it be a relief, to give in, to let his mind go and slip into an ocean of oblivion, unconsciousness, insanity…

A sudden, live stirring inside his suit jacket roused him back to the present. A small, furry nose poked out of his lapel, followed by huge dark eyes, long white ears. A rabbit.

Will felt its tiny heart racing against his own. He stroked it absently, looked up at the stained glass again, and a jolt of adrenaline spiked through him, the awareness of why he was there returning. He swallowed through a dry mouth, tried once again to pray.

“I can’t… I can’t lose her.”

He could feel his heart beat, slow spasms in his chest. Only silence answered him.

After an endless, empty moment, Will rose with effort, turned away from Christ’s frozen image in glass…

…and was startled to see he was not alone. Another man sat a few pews back, older than Will, yet somehow ageless, with deep-set eyes and dark hair. He must have been startlingly beautiful as a young man—a face Roman in its nobility, the chiseled-marble features powerfully masculine, but with an almost feminine sensuality of mouth; blue-black hair, glinting with silver, and slate-gray eyes; long limbs and tapered fingers—his Hermès suit, his bearing—all understated, faintly European elegance.

The man’s gaze lowered to Will’s chest, and he smiled slightly. Will remembered the rabbit, realized how strange a picture he must present. He tucked the bunny gently back into the carrying bag inside his lapel.

“My daughter—” his voice caught on the word and he had to swallow “—loves rabbits.”

The man nodded gravely, without surprise.

“It’s Will Sullivan, isn’t it.” It was not a question, and for a moment Will tensed, warning bells going off.

Reporter .

Just as quickly, he dismissed the thought. The man had none of the scruffiness of a journalist nor the camera-ready vacuousness of a television reporter.

The man continued, gently. “I’m sorry to see you here.” Will met the dark man’s eyes, and for a moment, saw his own pain reflected there, before the other man drew a breath, and his gaze became neutral, formal again, like a veil of gauze drawn over a wound.

“Your father was the best governor this state ever had. I expect you’ll be better.”

For a moment Will felt the heat of recognition in his chest at the man’s words. Hadn’t his whole life been guided by exactly that conviction? I can be better than my father .

Automatically his eyes warmed, his campaign smile lit his face. “I appreciate that.”

The man’s gaze was steady, and for a moment Will thought: He knows—what bullshit that is. It’s all so irrelevant, now ….

The man glanced up at the stained glass of the Christ—the look on his face was ambiguous—rueful.

“There is a way,” he said, his voice low—so low that Will frowned, not sure if he’d heard right.

“I’m sorry?”

But the man merely nodded courteously, almost a bow. “I wish you—the best.” He withdrew discreetly, moving out of the chapel with a whisper of doors. Will noted the heaviness about him, the effort with which he moved despite the elegant carriage, and wondered why he had ever thought the man was anything but what Will himself was: a desperate relative, come to bargain with a mythical God for a miracle.

He turned back to look at the stained glass Christ. His body sagged, his head dropped to his chest, as he whispered hoarsely:

“Please.”

It had been like fate, a fairy-tale curse, mythic in its construction. An impossibly beautiful day, glorious, the air crisp with fall and brilliant with sun; trees flaming with color in the Public Garden; dogs and seagulls and squirrels sharing the paths with inline skaters, lovers, parents with strollers; the whole Garden teeming with life.

The crowd that gathered that day in a circular green was hundreds more than Will’s campaign staff had even dared to hope. There was a happy, family, American aura to the event: an outdoor bandshell with a small stage festooned with red, white, and blue bunting; sweet-faced senior citizens standing behind long tables serving apple cider and Krispy Kreme; clowns handing out helium balloons to jostling children—all a bit of old-time, small-town U.S. of A, framed by a modern city skyline.

Brilliant camera flashes rippled through the crowd; reporters jostled and commented from the sidelines while Senator Flynn, Irish working-class hero, American political institution, longtime blood-brother of Will’s father, gave Will a glowing introduction: District Attorney Sullivan, ten years as a prosecutor, four on the City Council, fighter for right, defender of the weak, prince of the blood, soon to be king.

By Will’s side, always, the most beautiful woman in the world: darkly lovely, deeply mysterious, his wife Joanna; and between them, their daughter Sydney, a sparkling, imperious five-year-old, radiant and basking in the attention, yellow balloon bobbing above her from a ribbon tied around her tiny wrist.

And hovering in the wings, the kingmakers: politicos who had held court in the shadow of Will’s father, a powerful if uneasy alliance of Irish political aristocracy and blueblood patrons from his Brahmin mother’s circles, watching Will now with a predatory intensity. Will had known all too well what they were whispering:

“The very definition of shoo-in… the man can go all the way.”

And while he knew he stood there partly because of his name and pedigree, he also knew his name was the gift that would allow him to begin clean and stay clean, to do some good in the world without having to sell his soul for the chance.

Then the applause rose as the senator’s voice boomed through the park, and Will jogged out onto the platform—and onto the national stage: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the next governor of Massachusetts— Will Sullivan.”

At home that night, the applause still rang in Will’s ears as the sun went down in fiery glory outside their Tudor mansion in the woods.

He remembered Joanna taking Sydney upstairs; the backward look she gave him: heart-stopping, full of promise.

And the phone had rung—Jerry, his campaign manager, rhapsodizing about national news coverage and polling points.

Then the moment Will had visualized over and over, that haunted his dreams: Sydney and Joanna singing together in the steamy bathroom, where Joanna bathed Sydney in the clawfoot tub, their faces shining, dewy with sweat. And then Sydney flinching in pain, pulling away from the sponge.