by JoAnn Ross
Lena’s desperate need for love had been born out of that tragic, horrifying Christmas Eve night so many years ago. Although Molly had only been a child herself, she’d taken it upon herself to try to protect and comfort her younger sister. That was the night she’d begun building her parapets in earnest. Constructed stone by stone over the years, the barricade had grown as high and forbidding to the outside world as an old-time convent wall. She’d truly believed she could keep her childhood at bay, but now Molly realized she’d been lying to herself all these years.
Faced with the reality of her situation, frustrated by Reece’s behavior and worried sick about Grace, she felt the gate come crashing down and the walls collapse.
The almost unbearable pain she’d managed to evade most of her life flooded over her. Clutching her stomach, she bent over and began to sob.
At first a shocked Reece couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Molly, who’d always been the voice of wisdom, calm and order, had burst into a furious storm of weeping. Her face was buried in her hands and her slender shoulders were shaking like a willow in a hurricane as she rocked back and forth, bawling the deep, gut-wrenching sobs of a suffering child.
Reece had never seen Molly so abandoned; he’d never imagined she could experience such agony. Tears flowed from between her fingers, drenching her face, her neck, her chambray blouse.
He wanted to do something, anything, to stem this tide of anguish. To calm the violent seas that seemed to be storming inside her. The shock of seeing her terrible pain suddenly had Reece, for the first time in months, feeling stone-cold sober. He pushed himself out of the chair and made his way to the couch where he gathered her to him and buried his face into her drenched and matted hair.
“Aw, Molly.” He brushed his cheek against the side of her wet face. “Hell, honey, I’m sorry.” He touched his lips to her skin and tasted the salt of her tears. It was only later that he realized that part of the wetness on her face was from his own tears. “I’m so damn sorry. For everything.”
They held each other for a long time, rocking and weeping in shared grief. Eventually, the tempest blew over, leaving behind a feeling of much-needed fresh air.
“I’m sorry.” She swiped at her wet face with the backs of her hands, looking so much like Grace, Reece felt something move deep inside him. “I didn’t mean to make such a fool of myself.”
“There’s nothing foolish about tears.” He ran his hand down her tangled hair.
“I never cry.” It was true. Not since… Molly shook her head, unable to think about that Christmas Eve night anymore. She knew she’d have to deal with it. But not right now. Not when her grief for the loss of her sister was still so fresh and raw.
“Then I’d say you’re long overdue.” He took out a handkerchief, handed it to her and once again, as she blew her nose, was reminded of Grace. “Besides, didn’t Saint Augustine say something about a saint being a man willing to make a fool of himself to prove a point to fools?”
“I don’t know.” Reece’s words reminded her of her theological contests with Thomas. Although she’d never seen him again after the rape, periodic notes from the former priest would arrive at the Mother House for her from all over the country, and she thought about him often.
“Well, if he didn’t, he should have.” Reece realized that for the first time in a very long while, he was actually almost smiling.
Then he sighed. “I miss her so damn much, Molly.”
She sighed, as well. “I know. I do, too.”
“I can’t let her go. I keep playing the answering machine tape over and over again, pretending she’s still here.”
“I called here a couple weeks ago,” Molly admitted. “And when I heard that recording, I tried to tell myself that it had all been a nightmare. That Lena was still alive.” She didn’t mention that her first startled thought was that she was hearing her sister’s voice from the grave.
“I’ve been doing a lot of reading about death.” Reece linked his fingers together between his knees. “Everyone keeps bringing me all these self-help books. Dan brought one by C. S. Lewis.”
“I read that one,” Molly said. Reece had not been the only one searching for answers. “At least part of it. I stopped when I got to the part where he decided that our loved ones don’t watch us after their death because it’d be too painful for them to watch our lives continue without them in it.”
“I wondered about that,” Reece allowed. “About whether it would hurt Lena too much to watch Grace growing up without her mother.” He shook his head. “But I can’t believe Lewis is right. I need to believe that she can still see our daughter. And me.”
“Which only makes you feel more guilty for being alive,” Molly guessed. She’d felt the same way herself, many times.
“That’s probably the understatement of the millennium.” He’d stopped reading the damn books after that.
“Dan says I’ve been romanticizing my relationship with Lena,” Reece divulged. “He says I’m idealizing the potential of my murdered marriage.”
“Since from what Theo and Alex tell me, Dan’s still into hit-and-run relationships, I’m not certain he’s an expert on marriage,” Molly said dryly.
The familiar tone made Reece grin. “That’s pretty much what I told him.”
They exchanged a smile. And both felt a little better.
“Are you going to stay?”
“For a while. If it’s all right with you.” Actually, it would take an entire team of Clydesdales to remove her from this house until she ensured her daughter’s emotional well-being, but Molly wanted it to seem as if she was offering Reece a choice.
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have here than you.”
Hearing the honesty in his tone gave Molly the first hope she’d felt in a very long time.
Grace was obviously pleased to see the woman she knew as her aunt, but Molly was concerned by the change in the child. She appeared far too grown-up.
“It’s not so surprising,” Alan Bernstein told Molly, Reece, Theo and Alex after she’d invited the psychiatrist to dinner to surreptitiously watch Grace in action. “Her mother’s death has pushed her into premature adulthood.” He glanced over at Molly. “You, more than most people, should understand how that can happen.”
“I do.” Molly shook her head with regret. “But understanding doesn’t seem to help. She’s like a miniature Mary Poppins, fetching this, buzzing around picking up after people, trying to anticipate everyone’s every need.”
“I keep expecting her to burst out singing ‘Chim-Chim-Cheree’ and fly over the rooftops,” Theo muttered.
“She feels the need to be perfect,” the psychiatrist said. “She’s already lost her mother. It’s only natural she’d develop an obsessive fear of her father abandoning her, as well.”
“Lena didn’t abandon her,” Alex pointed out.
“I’d never do that,” Reece said at the same time.
The psychiatrist took Alex’s objection first. “She’s too young to distinguish the difference between death and abandonment. One day her mother was there. The next day she was gone. That’s frightening for a little girl. Especially one who’d bonded as closely with her mother as Grace had with Lena.”
As he turned toward Reece, Molly tried to ignore the faint prick of painful envy his words caused. What kind of person was she that she could feel jealous of her dead sister?
“And, no offense intended, Reece, but you’ve already given indications of deserting her by your self-imposed isolation. So, to protect herself, she’s become like Antigone.”
“Don’t you think that’s reaching a bit far?” Theo asked.
“Not really. Don’t forget, after Oedipus realized he’d killed his father and married his mother, he stabbed himself in the eyes, then set off on a self-imposed exile—not unlike your retreat into the library, Reece.
“Antigone dutifully became his guide as they wandered the countryside. She was devoted, compliant, she never
uttered a single word of complaint about her motherless state—remember, her mother killed herself after discovering her husband was really her son. The poor kid didn’t stand a chance. She became the archetypal daughter of a helpless father.”
“Just like Grace.” Reece accepted the unflattering analysis with a heavy heart. “I’m going to make that up to her.”
“I have no doubt you will.” He smiled around the table. “Grace is fortunate to have so many loving adults in her life. Give her time, don’t hover too much, but be there when she needs to talk about her mother. Which,” he stressed, “she will. When she’s ready.”
Having always respected Alan Bernstein, Molly was not surprised when he was proven right. As Reece began to emerge from his emotional cave, Grace, in turn, began to relax her vigil. The first time she walked past a newspaper left on the coffee table without hurrying to pick it up and put it in the recycling bin like a good little housewife, Molly felt like singing hosannas.
Two weeks after Molly had arrived at the house, she was sitting at the kitchen table, coloring in the Navajo book with Grace when the little girl suddenly put her crayon down and looked up at Molly, her young face sober.
“I wanted to go to the store with Mommy that day,” she revealed.
“Oh?” Even as her nerves tangled with fear that she wouldn’t handle this long-overdue conversation correctly, Molly managed a casual, but interested expression.
“There was a carnival at the grocery store parking lot. I wanted to ride the merry-go-round again. But Mommy said we didn’t have time to play because of Daddy’s party, and she left me with Aunt Theo instead.”
Molly waited.
“I was really mad.”
“I can understand that. Riding a merry-go-round is a special thing.”
“There’s this white horse with a black mane. He’s the best. I named him Snowflake. The carnival was leaving the next day. I wanted to ride him one more time. But Mommy said they’d be back next year and I could ride him then.”
“A year seems like a very long time.”
“It is a long time.” Grace looked down at the picture of a Navajo boy riding a pony she’d colored white with a black mane. “I told her I hated her.”
Pansy blue eyes shimmering with moisture and worry lifted to Molly’s. “Do you think Mommy knows I didn’t mean it?” she asked in a frail, trembling little voice that made Molly feel as if her heart was shattering into a thousand little pieces.
“Of course she knows.” She reached out and ran her hands down the wavy ebony curls and across the thin, slumped shoulders. “And she understands.” Molly forced a smile. “You’re not the only little girl that ever said hurtful things to her mother. Lena and I used to talk back to our mama, too.”
They’d always gotten smacked and had their mouths washed out with soap for sassing, but Molly kept that unattractive little detail to herself.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I pray to my mommy every night,” Grace admitted. “Because Alex told me that she’s my guardian angel.”
“Your uncle Alex is pretty smart.”
“I know.” A breath escaped soft pink lips that she’d been worrying with her teeth. “But I still wish I’d told her in person.”
“Perhaps you can write her a note,” Molly suggested.
“How can we get a note to heaven?”
Molly smiled. “I have an idea about that….”
Three hours later, they were standing on the beach below the cliff house. Hovering above them in a sky so blue and clear, it was almost blinding, was a huge red, yellow and purple kite. The colors, Grace had explained gravely as she’d carefully chosen the bright kite at the toy store, were the same as the tulips she’d planted with her mother.
“Okay,” Molly said, “let’s have the letter.”
Grace reached into the pocket of her bright red jeans and pulled out the folded note that she’d labored over with Molly’s help.
Molly tore a slit in the letter, then folded it around the kite string. “Here it goes.”
As soon as she let go of the letter, it skimmed up the string in a flash, as if carried aloft on angel wings. Molly and Grace watched and when it had reached the kite, Molly let go of the string and the kite sailed out over the water, higher and higher, like a brightly feathered seabird until it became a tiny spot that disappeared somewhere beyond the horizon.
“I think she got it,” Molly said.
“I know she did.” Grace put her hand against the front of her Aladdin T-shirt. “I can feel it in here.”
Looking down into her daughter’s rapt face, Molly experienced a surge of love so strong, it made her breath catch in her throat. As they walked hand in hand back up the stone steps leading to the house, she felt a weight lifting from her heart, soaring off into the cobalt blue sky, along with the tulip-colored kite.
Reece had refused to visit Lena’s grave. He hadn’t been able to bear to think of his sweet, beautiful wife lying in the ground. Especially when she’d been so afraid of the dark. The first night they’d spent together, she’d insisted on keeping a night-light on. That habit had continued all during their marriage.
Although they’d admittedly had their problems in the beginning, as she’d come to trust that he wasn’t going to leave her—like all those other ill-suited men, and her own father had done—she’d changed. Indeed, during the years with Grace, the laughing woman he’d been clever enough to convince to marry him had reminded Reece of a butterfly, bright and seemingly lighter than air. Which was why, he considered as he walked through the heavy, wrought-iron gates of the cemetery, she didn’t belong here surrounded by all these ubiquitous angels and lugubrious inscriptions.
He found the simple marble marker on which her name, the too-brief span of her life, and a single line—beloved wife, mother and sister—were carved.
Mindless of the wet grass, he knelt down on one knee and, reaching out, delicately ran his index finger around those insignificant words as a blind man might trace the facial features of his beloved.
He’d thought perhaps that by coming here today he’d achieve some comfort. But although he felt pleased that he’d overcome his dread of finally seeing the stone that Theo and Alex had insisted on ordering, the weight of grief remained heavy on his heart.
Not wanting to return home when he was in such a bleak mood, Reece drove along the Pacific Coast Highway. Although the day had dawned bright and clear, a sudden storm had blown in from the sea, bringing with it heavy rains that sheeted the windshield and hissed beneath the tires of his car.
He pulled over at Malibu’s Surfrider’s Beach, parked and sat in the car, watching the reckless surfers who’d rushed to the beach at the first sign of the storm.
During his days in the ER, he’d treated numerous surfers and had never understood why they would risk life and limb to ride the high-breaking tides into the rocky beach. But now he realized that there was something to be said for laughing in the face of Death.
Mindless of the wind and rain, he got out of the car and stormed along the cliff side, shaking his face in the face of that black-hearted dark angel. And at God. He cursed a Maker who could allow such a wonderful woman to die. He cursed himself for not knowing how to live without her. He swore and he shouted and he cried. Hot furious tears mingled with the icy autumn rain and ran down his cheeks; he didn’t care. His clothes became drenched; he didn’t notice.
Reece had no idea how long he was out on the cliffs. He was unaware of more than one curious look from a surfer who’d wisely given up when the tide crashed higher and harder as the day came to an end. A hazy red ball of sun, barely visible through the driving rain, dipped into the whitecapped water.
As the water appeared to flame, Reece lifted his arms to the darkening sky and turned his face upward so that the driving rain felt like needles against his skin.
“Lena!” he cried with a great primal howl of aloneness.
The single word, rife with gr
ief and anger and regret, seemed to hover in the sky, like a seagull struggling to fly against the wind. And then it drifted away. And the water turned to a dark steel as the sun sank beneath the surface.
He stood there, a solitary figure on the edge of the western coastline, dragging huge drafts of rain-cleansed air into his lungs. The long-overdue release was cathartic, almost orgasmic.
And as he returned to the car, thinking that perhaps he’d take Molly and Grace out for a pizza tonight, for the first time since Lena’s death, Reece found himself looking forward instead of back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Under the circumstances, Sister Benvenuto released Molly from her verbal agreement to return to the Mother House and help with the postulants.
“I still wish you’d change your mind, Molly,” she said as she signed the required papers to release Molly from her vows. “But after much prayer, I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that God has a different plan for your life.”
“I only wish I knew what it was,” Molly murmured. Although she wasn’t second-guessing her decision to leave the order, the realization that she was leaving made her more than a little sad.
“It will undoubtedly be revealed in its own time.” Sister Benvenuto signed the last form with a determined flourish, then rose from behind the desk and gathered the former Sister of Mercy into her arms. “Guard your heart well, dear,” she said. “And have a happy life, whatever you choose.”
Afraid she was going to embarrass them both by breaking into tears, Molly managed a wobbly smile, assured the nun that she certainly would stay in touch, then walked out the door of the Mother House, feeling strangely let down and excited all at the same time.
The idea that for the first time in her life, she was completely free to choose whatever path she wanted was more than a little daunting. Fortunately, there were several immediate matters that needed taking care of. Such as finding a job. And flying to Flagstaff to have a long-overdue talk with Joe.
