Mark Dunn - We Five

But on this day it was a very different Jane who sat before Maggie. She was shell-shocked, frighteningly uncommunicative. Jane seemed to be locked inside her own head, running a terrible scene over and over again through the movie projector in her mind.

Carrie told Maggie what had happened to Pat. Ruth told Maggie what had happened to Jane.

Maggie was overwhelmed. She sat down. She put her hand to her mouth as if to hold back a scream.

Ruth got up and went to Maggie. “Where’s Molly’s father right now?” Maggie asked.

“Still at large. Everyone seems to be at large this morning, though we now have you back. And Cain. He’s the only one of that bunch to show up this morning.” Ruth added acidly, “Apparently, the other three can’t spare a single moment from their busy class schedules to look in on their dying friend.”

The phrase “dying friend” educed fresh tears from Molly, and Ruth found it necessary to offer a hurried apology for her callousness as Carrie descended upon Molly anew to deliver hugs and pats of sororal sympathy.

“Cain came,” said Jane, nodding. “I always knew he wasn’t like the others.”

Ruth was about to respond, but Molly preempted her: “Pat was good too. Is good. He isn’t like the others either!”

“Anyway, the two ‘good’ ones are down the hall in the men’s ward,” said Ruth. “Cain’s with Pat. He’s been with him since before I got here.”

Ruth took a deep breath preparatory to saying something that very much needed to be said. “Now that the five of us are all together, there’s something we have to talk about — something I need to tell you about our Aggie friends.” With the word “friends,” Ruth’s tone shifted from flat and reportorial to unambiguously contemptuous. “It wasn’t by coincidence they came after us the way they did. It was all planned. They planned it together.”

It was Molly and Jane who reacted the strongest to this statement. Jane, who had returned her gaze to her lap, now bolted up, her eyes flashing with sudden painful interest. Likewise, Molly, who’d always assumed her budding relationship with Pat to be engendered by nothing but the pure Ivory Soap attraction of their two hearts, tossed a hard and suspicious look in Ruth’s direction.

Ruth was ready to explain, but she was silenced by the sudden appearance of Vivian Colthurst and Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort, who had come to offer prayer and comfort to the young man who had been brutally defenestrated not four blocks from her beautiful, nearly completed Tabernacle of the Sanctified Spirit. Sister Lydia went straight to Molly. “I understand, Miss Osborne,” said the evangelist, “that you’re quite fond of Mr. Harrison and he’s quite fond of you.”

Molly nodded.

“Then by all means you must come along with me to the men’s ward. Together we shall offer up a fervent prayer of entreaty, that he will survive his injuries and live to love you even more than he does now.”

Molly wept. She nodded in full concert. Then she said falteringly, “But you need to know — you have to know, Sister Lydia — that it was my father who did this terrible thing to him.”

“Yes, I know that already, little darling,” Sister Lydia answered softly. “And I’ve been praying for your unfortunate father as well.”

Sister Lydia held out her hand for Molly to take.

“Please wait,” interposed Carrie.

Sister Lydia turned and smiled benignly at Carrie. “Don’t worry, child. We intend to visit your poor mother next.”

“That isn’t — thank you, Sister, but — Ruth — she was going to tell us something. It’s something I think we all need to hear. It’s something that, perhaps, you should hear too.”

Ruth confirmed this statement with a nod.

“It’s about those boys you were telling me about, isn’t it, Ruth?” asked Miss Colthurst.

Ruth nodded. And then Ruth told everything Cain had told her. She left out details particular to Cain’s unique status among his friends, but she didn’t hold herself back in describing each aspect of the game that was to have used We Five as pawns…or worse. Ruth couldn’t avoid including what had happened to Jane, even though in doing so Jane was forced to relive the vile memory.

After Ruth had finished, Sister Lydia placed a hand upon Ruth’s arm and said, “Thank you so much for sharing this with me. But it’s over now, thank God. These men can’t hurt any of you ever again now that their plans have been exposed.”

Sister Lydia was thinking, mulling the whole matter over in her head. Whenever Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort thought — especially when she worked on her sermons late into the night — she paced. We Five gave her a wide berth.

“No. As a matter of fact, I don’t think we can close the door on all this just yet. ‘Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord. But the Bible also tells us that the Lord helps those who help themselves. And not a one of you girls is helping yourself by walking away from men like this without making them come to terms with what they’ve done. I’m concerned, as well, about what happens in the future when they decide to play this filthy game again — this time with a different group of girls.”

Sister Lydia continued to pace as she cogitated.

“I know the president of the A&M. He’s one of my biggest financial supporters. And he’s a friend of your brother’s too, isn’t he, Sister Vivian?”

Miss Colthurst nodded.

“Then I see no reason these men shouldn’t be held to account for their actions and expelled from the college, and the sooner the better. This very afternoon, in fact. Monstrous behavior like this shouldn’t go unaddressed and unpunished.” Sister Lydia checked a smile. “I’m afraid my Old Testament is showing.”

“But you can’t mean Pat ,” said Molly in a quiet but urgent voice.

“No, darling. We won’t expel your Mr. Harrison, of course not. Sister Ruth, I assume you’d like to make the same appeal on behalf of your Mr. Pardlow?”

Ruth nodded. “He can’t have that kind of blemish on his school record. You see, Cain’s decided to leave Zenith and enroll in the U. of W. in the fall.”

“I see,” said Sister Lydia, the suggestion of a sly grin now breaking through. “It seems that ‘Old Gang’ of theirs is breaking up six ways from Sunday. And it’s all for the best, girls. Now, Molly, let’s go see your Mr. Harrison. And as for the rest of my Quintet of Songful Seraphim, Sister Vivian has told me she can get along without you for the next couple of days. But then I need the five of you back among the angels. Our inaugural service, in which you will all play so vital a part, is only a few days away.”

As Sister Lydia began making her rounds (word of her impromptu appearance at Zenith General had now begun to circulate, and the renowned faith-healing evangelist simply could not, in good conscience, confine her bedside visits to only Pat Harrison and Sylvia Hale), Ruth Thrasher and Vivian Colthurst excused themselves from the company of Maggie, Carrie, and Jane, and went down to Dunker’s for doughnuts and coffee.

“There’s something I didn’t say upstairs that you should know, Vivian,” Ruth eventually worked herself up to saying.

“Yes?”

“Cain’s asked if I might move to Mohalis with him. He proposed that we attend the university together.”

Vivian nodded. “I’ve always wondered why a girl of your intelligence and with your obvious gift for words — why you never considered going to college.”

Ruth waited to answer until after the waitress had set down the plate of doughnuts and cups of coffee. Then she said, “I never thought there was much need for it. There are plenty of writers who’ve made important careers for themselves without an advanced education. But Cain said that given the opportunity, I should take it.”