Hillary Jordan - When She Woke

Such was her state of mind when the church office called. A part-time coordinator’s position had opened up with the First Corinthians ministry. Was Hannah still interested?

For a moment, she was too stunned to answer. She’d applied to work at Ignited Word several years before, but paying positions were rare and highly sought after, and nothing had ever come of it. The First Corinthians ministry, or the 1Cs as it was more familiarly known, was the church’s charitable arm, charged with helping the community’s neediest and most troubled members. It was also Reverend Dale’s pet project. He could often be seen behind the wheel of one of its shiny white vans, delivering food to the poor, driving addicts to rehab and homosexuals to conversion therapy retreats. He’d named it for his favorite Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 13:2, which he often quoted in his sermons and interviews, always using the original King James scripture—“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing”—as opposed to the NIV version, which replaced the word charity with love. There are infinite kinds of love, Reverend Dale liked to say, but charity is the purest of them all, because it’s the only one that doesn’t ask, What’s in it for me?

Had Aidan put Hannah’s name forward for this position? And if he had—and why else would they be calling, after all this time—was it out of kindness, or something else?

“Miss Payne?” the woman said, drawing Hannah back to the conversation. “Would you like to come in for an interview?”

Kindness, Hannah told herself, as she scheduled the appointment. Kindness and nothing more.

She interviewed with the office manager, Mrs. Bunten, a middle-aged woman with a forbidding, deeply lined face that concealed a compassionate and motherly nature. Hannah later learned that the lines had been incised by grief; Mrs. Bunten had lost her husband and two sons in one of the scourge riots and been born again soon afterward. Now, ten years later, Ignited Word was her entire universe, and Reverend Dale was the glorious sun blazing at the center of it. That much was apparent to Hannah from the beginning. Mrs. Bunten spoke fondly enough of God and His Son, but it was when she talked about Aidan that her face took on the glow of true veneration.

The pivotal moment in the interview came when they were discussing Hannah’s father’s recovery. “A miracle,” said Mrs. Bunten.

“Yes,” agreed Hannah. “I thank God for it every day. God, and Reverend Dale.”

Mrs. Bunten gave her a smile that was positively beatific. “I can see you’re going to fit in perfectly here.”

The job was twenty hours a week, most of it spent doing clerical work at the 1Cs office, although Hannah was sometimes asked to serve in the soup kitchen or make deliveries. Her first week, she didn’t see Aidan once. But then on Monday of the following week, he walked into the office carrying an unwieldy tower of brightly colored boxes of children’s toys. “Ho ho ho,” he boomed, slightly out of breath.

Mrs. Bunten hurried to help him. Hannah followed more slowly, caught between eagerness and reluctance. Mrs. Bunten took the top few boxes, revealing his face. “Thank you, Brenda,” he said. Then he saw Hannah. “Oh, Hannah. Hello.”

His smile was ingenuous, pleasantly surprised. Kind. Hannah plummeted. “Hello, Reverend Dale.”

“Now, Reverend,” said Mrs. Bunten, all but clucking as she handed Hannah the boxes and took the rest from him, “you know you shouldn’t be carrying all that. Mrs. Dale will be mad at us both if you throw your back out again.”

“Alyssa worries too much.”

Mrs. Dale. Alyssa. Hannah turned away and set the boxes down. His wife.

“How’s your father doing?” he asked.

“Daddy’s well. He’s back at work. His left eye’s still a little fuzzy, but we’re hopeful it’ll heal in time.” Aidan doesn’t feel it.

“I pray it will. Please give my very best to him and your mother.”

“I will.” He doesn’t feel it, and that’s for the best.

He asked how Hannah was liking it here, and she said very much, thank you. He inquired after Becca and sent congratulations on her marriage. Mrs. Bunten interjected, marveling at how he never forgot a person’s name once he’d prayed with them. He protested her tendency to exaggerate his virtues. Hannah made the appropriate responses. She felt numb and foolish.

Aidan’s assistant interrupted them, calling to remind him about his four o’clock meeting with Congressman Drabyak. Aidan tapped his forehead ruefully, said he’d better be on his way, welcomed Hannah to the 1Cs and excused himself.

At the door, he turned back. “Brenda, I forgot to tell you, there are a bunch more toys out in the van. They need to be wrapped by tomorrow. I’m taking them to the shelter at three.”

“We’ll see to it, Reverend,” Mrs. Bunten said.

Aidan turned to Hannah. “Would you like to come along? To the shelter? It’s wonderful, watching the children’s faces light up.”

His own held nothing but friendly interest and eagerness—to see the children. Perhaps he hadn’t put her name forward after all, not even out of kindness. Perhaps it was God’s doing that she was here, a penance for her desire: to see his face and hear his voice and know that he could never be hers.

“I’d love to,” she said.

And so it began, their long, tortured mating dance, though it was months before she recognized it as such. She existed in a state of silent longing, punctuated by bursts of guilt and fear that someone would notice. Aidan treated her as he treated everyone, with a pastor’s professional warmth.

Hannah had been working at the church for six weeks when Alyssa came into the office with Aidan. She stopped short when she saw Hannah, and Hannah knew he hadn’t told her. Because it was too unimportant to mention, or …?

“Hello, Mrs. Dale.”

“Hello,” Alyssa said. “Becca, isn’t it?”

Sensing the ignorance was feigned, Hannah said, “That’s my sister. I’m Hannah.”

“Hannah joined us just before Christmas,” Aidan said. “She’s doing a terrific job.”

The remark sounded forced and awkward. Hannah smiled uncomfortably.

“Of course she is, darling,” said Alyssa. She slipped her arm around Aidan’s waist and gave Hannah a wintry smile. “My husband inspires hard work in others. People hate to disappoint him.”

Aidan’s unease was obvious, and Hannah was all but certain Alyssa had complimented him on purpose, because she knew how he hated being praised. Perhaps their marriage wasn’t as idyllic as everyone believed.

“Oh, I’m sure Hannah would do a good job for anyone,” he said.

“Well,” said Alyssa, “let’s not keep her from her work.”

The Dales got what they’d come for—the keys to one of the vans—and left. Alyssa preceded Aidan out the door. At the last second he swiveled his head to look back at Hannah, and she had a queer sensation, as if she were pulling it with a string. Their eyes met, held, dropped away at the same time.

So, she thought. So.

AFTER THAT THE real torment began. Aidan’s behavior toward Hannah was unchanged, but there was a charged quality to their interactions that had been missing before, and she knew she wasn’t suffering alone. Their attraction grew slowly, haltingly, unacknowledged but unmistakable. To Hannah it often seemed like a pregnancy during which they were both waiting, with equal degrees of excitement and trepidation, for the inevitable emergence of the new thing they were creating between them. They were rarely alone together, and then, only briefly and by accident—a chance encounter on the stairs, a five-minute span when Mrs. Bunten was in the restroom. Aidan was constantly surrounded by people, all of them wanting something from him: his attention, his blessing, his opinion, the touch of his hand on their shoulders. Hannah grew to resent them all, even as she felt the echo of their hunger in herself.