Amazing Grace

by Danielle Steel

  “I have a lot on my mind,” she admitted. She had decisions to make, a whole life to evaluate, her future and his to decide. “I pray about it constantly these days.”

  “Don't pray too hard. Maybe if you just let it flow for a while, the answers will come.”

  “I hope so,” she said with a sigh. “Happy New Year, Everett. I hope it's a great year for you.”

  “I love you, Maggie,” he said, suddenly feeling lonely. He missed her, and had no idea how things would work out. He reminded himself, one day at a time, and said as much to her.

  “I love you too, Everett. Thank you for calling me. Say hello to Melanie for me, if you see her again. Tell her I miss her.”

  “I will. Goodnight, Maggie. Happy New Year …I hope it's a great one for us, if that's possible.”

  “It's in God's hands.” She was leaving it up to Him. It was all she could do, and she would listen to whatever answer came to her in prayer.

  As he turned off the light in his hotel room, his thoughts were full of Maggie, and so was his heart. He had promised her he wouldn't pressure her, even if sometimes he was scared. He said the Serenity Prayer to himself that night before he went to sleep. All he could do now was wait and hope that everything would turn out all right, for both of them. He was thinking about her as he fell asleep, wondering what lay ahead.

  He didn't see Maggie again for the next two and a half months, although he spoke to her often. She said she needed time to think, and space. But in mid-March, he arrived in San Francisco, sent by Scoop magazine, to cover Seth's trial. Maggie knew he was coming in, and how busy he would be. She had dinner with him the night before it started. It was the first time he had seen her in nearly three months, and she looked great. He told her Debbie, Chad's wife, had had a baby girl they named Jade the night before. She was genuinely thrilled for him.

  They had a quiet easy dinner, and he took her home. He left her on her front steps, and they talked about Sarah and Seth. Maggie said she was worried about her. It was going to be such a hard time for them both. She and Everett had both expected him to plea-bargain with the federal prosecutor at the last minute, and avoid the trial, but apparently he hadn't. So he was going to have to go through a jury trial. It was hard to believe the outcome would be good for him. Maggie said she prayed for the right outcome all the time.

  Neither of them made any mention of their own situation, or the decision that Maggie was trying to make. Everett assumed that when she had come to some conclusion, she would tell him. And so far she hadn't, obviously. Mostly, they talked about the trial.

  Sarah was at her Clay Street apartment that night, and she called Seth before she went to sleep.

  “I just want you to know that I love you, and I want this to come out okay for you. I don't want you to think I'm mad. I'm not. I'm just scared, for both of us.”

  “So am I,” he admitted. His doctor was giving him tranquilizers, and beta-blockers for the trial. He didn't see how he'd get through it, but he knew he had to, and he was grateful for her call. “Thanks, Sarah.”

  “I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight, Seth.”

  “I love you, Sarah,” he said sadly.

  “I know,” she said, sounding equally sad, and hung up. She had not yet achieved the state of grace or forgiveness that she and Maggie had talked about. But she felt sorry for him. She was expressing compassion toward him, which was all she could do right now. More was just too much to ask.

  When Everett got up the next day, he put his camera in his shoulder bag. He couldn't take it out in court, but he could take pictures of all the activity outside, and of the people who came and went. He got a shot of Sarah as she solemnly walked into the courthouse next to her husband. She was wearing a dark gray suit and looked pale. Seth looked considerably worse, which was hardly surprising. Sarah didn't see Everett. But later that morning Everett saw Maggie arrive. She took a seat in the courtroom to watch the proceedings from a discreet seat in the back. She wanted to be there for Sarah, if it helped her at all.

  Afterward she came out and chatted with Everett for a few minutes. He was busy, and Maggie had to meet with a social worker to get a homeless man she knew into a shelter. She and Everett both had busy lives, and enjoyed what they did. She had dinner with him again that night, after he finished work at the trial. They were working on jury selection, and they both thought the trial could take a long time. The judge was warning jurors it could last a month, with detailed financial material to examine, and extensive reading to do on the matter at hand. Everett told her that night that Seth had looked grim all afternoon, and he and Sarah had hardly spoken to each other, but she was there, staunchly at his side.

  It took two weeks for jury selection, which seemed agonizingly slow to Seth and Sarah, but finally they were set. They had twelve jurors and two alternates. Eight women and six men. And then finally the trial began. The prosecutor and defense attorney made their opening arguments. The prosecutor's description of Seth's immoral and illegal behavior made Sarah wince as she listened. Seth sat stonefaced, while the jury watched. He had the benefit of tranquilizers. She didn't. She couldn't imagine the defense team overcoming those arguments, as day after day, the prosecution presented evidence, witnesses, experts, all of it condemning Seth.

  By the third week of the trial, Seth looked exhausted, and Sarah felt like she could hardly crawl when she went home to her children at night. She had taken time off from work to be with him, and Karen Johnson at the hospital told her not to worry about it. She was desperately sorry for Sarah, as was Maggie. She called Sarah every night to see how she was. Sarah was holding up despite the incredible pressure of the trial.

  Everett dined with Maggie often during the agonizing weeks of the trial. It was April when he finally mentioned their situation again. Maggie said she didn't want to talk about it, she was still praying, so they discussed the trial instead, which was always depressing, but obsessed them both. It was all they talked about when they saw each other. The prosecution was burying Seth daily, and Everett said he had been suicidal to go to trial. The defense was doing their best, but the federal prosecutor's case was so damning that there was little they could do to balance the avalanche of evidence against him. As the weeks wore on, whenever she came to court to support her, Maggie could see Sarah getting thinner and paler by the hour. There was no way out but through it, but it was truly a trial by fire for them and their marriage. Seth's credibility and reputation were being utterly destroyed. It was upsetting for everyone who cared about them, particularly for Sarah's sake, to see where this was going. It became clearer to everyone that Seth should have plea-bargained for a lesser charge or sentence, rather than go to trial. It didn't seem possible that he could be acquitted given the accusations against him, and the testimony and evidence to support it. Sarah was innocent in all this, she had been duped just as his investors had been, but in the end, she was paying just as high a price, perhaps more. Maggie was devastated for her.

  Sarah's parents came out for the first week of the trial, but her father had a heart condition. Her mother didn't want him wearing himself out, or sitting through the stress of the proceedings, so they went home as the case was still building against Seth, and they still had weeks ahead of them before it would be over.

  The defense put an enormous amount of energy into defending Seth. Henry Jacobs was masterful in his demeanor, and solid in his talent as a lawyer. The problem was that Seth had given them little to work with, and their case was mostly smoke and mirrors, and it showed. The defense was about to rest the next day, as Everett and Maggie had dinner in the coffee shop across the street from her apartment, where they met often at the end of their days. Everett was writing daily items about the trial for Scoop. And Maggie was pursuing her normal activities, while spending any spare time she had at the trial. It gave her a chance to stay abreast of the proceedings, catch a few minutes with Everett during recesses and breaks, and to hug Sarah whenever possible to buoy her spirits as the nightmare
went on.

  “What's going to happen to her when he goes?” Everett asked Maggie. He was worried about Sarah too. She was beginning to look so broken and frail, but she hadn't missed a day beside her husband. And outwardly, she was always gracious and poised. She tried to exude a confidence and faith in him that Maggie knew only too well she didn't feel. She talked to her on the phone sometimes late at night. And more often than not, Sarah just sat at the other end and sobbed, completely distraught from the unrelenting stress. “I don't think there's a hope in hell that he'll get off.” After what he had heard in the past weeks, there was no doubt in Everett's mind. And he couldn't imagine the jury seeing it differently than he did.

  “I don't know. She'll have to manage somehow. She has no choice. Her parents are there for her, but they live far away. They can only help her so much. She's pretty much on her own. I don't think they have a lot of close friends, and most of them have abandoned them in this mess. I think Sarah is too proud and too embarrassed by all this to reach out for help. She's very strong, but if he goes to prison, she'll be alone. I don't know that the marriage will survive it if he goes. That's a decision she'll have to make.”

  “I give her credit for hanging in this long. I think I'd have dumped the bastard the day he got indicted. He deserves it. He took her life down with him. No one has the right to do that to another human being, out of sheer greed and dishonesty. If you ask me, the guy's a shit.”

  “She loves him,” Maggie said simply, “and she's trying to be fair.”

  “She's been more than fair. This guy totally screwed up her life, and sacrificed her and their kids’ future for his own benefit, and she's still sitting there, hanging in. It's a lot more than he deserves. Do you think she'll stick by him, Maggie, if he takes a fall?” He had never seen loyalty like Sarah's before, and knew he wouldn't have been capable of it himself. He admired her immensely, and felt desperately sorry for her. He was sure the whole courtroom did.

  “I don't know,” Maggie said honestly. “I don't think Sarah knows either. She wants to do the right thing. But she's thirty-six years old. She has a right to a better life than this, if he goes to prison. If they divorce, she could start over again. If they don't, she's going to spend a lot of years visiting him in prison, and waiting for him, while life passes her by. I don't want to advise her, I can't. But I have mixed feelings about it myself. I told her that. Whatever happens, she needs to forgive, but that doesn't mean she has to give up her life for him forever, because he made a mistake.”

  “This is a lot to forgive,” he said somberly, and Maggie nodded in agreement.

  “Yes, it is. I'm not sure I could do it. Probably not,” she said honestly. “I'd like to think I'd be a bigger person than that, but I'm not sure I am. But only Sarah can decide what she wants. And I'm not sure she knows. She doesn't have a lot of options. She could even stay with him and never forgive him or forgive him and let him go. Grace expresses itself in strange ways sometimes. I just hope she finds the right answer for her.”

  “I know what mine would be,” Everett said grimly. “Kill the bastard. But I guess that wouldn't help Sarah either. I don't envy her sitting there day after day, hearing what a dishonest sonofabitch he is. And she still walks out of court next to him every day and kisses him goodbye before she goes home to their kids.” While they waited for dessert, Everett decided to broach a much more delicate subject with her again. On the day after Christmas Maggie had agreed to think about them. It had been almost four months, and like Sarah, she had made no decision either, and avoided discussing it with him. The suspense was starting to kill him. He knew she loved him, but didn't want to leave the convent either. This was an agonizing decision for her too. And like Sarah, she was seeking answers and a state of grace, which would allow her to finally discover the right thing to do. In Sarah's case, all solutions were onerous, and in some ways, in Maggie's too. Either she had to leave the convent for Everett, to share a life with him, or she had to give up that hope and remain faithful to her vows for the rest of her years. In either case, she lost something she loved and wanted, and in either case, she won something in return. But she had to trade one for the other, she couldn't have both. Everett searched her eyes as he gently tried to open the subject again. He had promised not to pressure her and to give her all the time she needed, but there were times when he just wanted to reach out to her and hold her, and beg her to run away with him. He knew that she wouldn't. If she came toward him and chose a life with him, it would be precise, well thought out, not precipitous, and above all, it would be honest and clean.

  “So what are you thinking about us these days?” he inquired cautiously, as she stared into her coffee cup and then at him. He saw the agony in her eyes when she did, and was suddenly terrified she had made a decision that was not in favor of him.

  “I don't know, Everett,” she said with a sigh. “I love you. I know that. I just don't know what my path is meant to be now, which direction to go. I want to be sure I choose the right one, for both of us.” She had been giving it her every attention and thought for the past four months, and even before, ever since their first kiss.

  “You know what my vote is,” he said with a small nervous smile. “I figure God will love you whatever you do, and so will I. But I sure would love to have a life with you, Maggie.” And even kids, though he never pressed her on that either. One major decision was enough for the time being. If appropriate, they could discuss other things later. Right now she had to tackle a far bigger decision. “Maybe you should talk to your brother. He went through it. How did he feel?”

  “He never had as strong a vocation. And the minute he met his wife, he was out the door. I don't think he was ever as torn by it. He said that if God put her on his path, it was meant to be. I wish I were as sure. Maybe this is some extreme form of temptation to try me, or perhaps this is destiny knocking at the door.” He could see how tormented she still was, and couldn't help wondering if she'd ever really make a decision, or finally just give up.

  “You can still work with the poor on the streets, just as you do now. You could be a nurse practitioner, or a social worker, or both. You can do whatever you want to, Maggie. You don't have to give that up.” He had said that to her before. The problem for her was not so much her work as her vows. They both knew that was the issue for her. What he didn't know was that she had been talking to the provincial of the order for three months now, her mother superior, her confessor, and a psychologist who specialized in the problems that arose in religious communities. She was doing everything possible to make the decision wisely, not just wrestling with it alone. He would have been encouraged to know it, but she didn't want to give him false hope, if she didn't come through for him in the end.

  “Can you give me a little more time?” she asked, looking pained. She had set herself a deadline of June to make up her mind, but she didn't tell him that either, for the same reasons.

  “Of course I can,” he said reasonably, and walked her back to her building across the street. He had been up to see her apartment by then and was horrified by how small, spare, and depressing it was. She insisted she didn't mind and said it was much nicer and larger than any nun's cell in any convent. She took the vow of poverty seriously, just as she did the others she'd taken. He didn't say it, but he couldn't have lived in her apartment for a day. And the only decoration was a simple crucifix on one wall. Other than that, the apartment was bare, except for her bed, a chest of drawers, and a single broken chair she'd found on the street.

  He went to a meeting after he dropped her off, and then went back to his hotel room to write his report on the trial for the day. Scoop liked what he was sending them. His editorials were well written, and he had gotten some terrific photographs outside the courthouse.

  The defense took nearly a full day to rest its case. Seth sat frowning, looking anxious, while Sarah closed her eyes several times, listening with total concentration, as Maggie sat in the back of the courtroom and prayed. He
nry Jacobs and his team of defense attorneys had made a good case, and defended Seth as best they could. Under the circumstances, they had done a fine job. But the circumstances were not good.

  The judge instructed the jury the next day, thanked the witnesses for their testimony, the attorneys for their excellent work, on behalf of the defendant and the government, and then the jury retired to do their job. Other than that, court was adjourned, pending the jury's decision. Sarah and Seth were left to hang around with their attorneys and wait. They all knew it could take days. Everett walked Maggie out then. She had stopped for a minute to talk to Sarah, who insisted she was all right but didn't look it, and then Maggie walked out to the street with Everett, talked to him for a few minutes, and left for an appointment. She was meeting with the provincial again, but didn't mention it to Everett. She just kissed him on the cheek and left. And he went back inside to wait with the others, while the jury deliberated.

  Sarah sat beside Seth in two chairs at the back of the courtroom. They had gotten some air for a few minutes, but nothing really helped. Sarah felt like she was waiting for yet another bomb to hit them. They both knew it was coming. The only question was how hard it would hit, and how much destruction it would do when it did.

  “I'm sorry, Sarah,” Seth said softly. “I'm so sorry I put you through this. I never thought anything like this could happen.” It would have been nice if he had thought of it before instead of after, but Sarah didn't say it. “Do you hate me?” He searched her eyes, and she shook her head, crying as she did constantly now. Every emotion she'd ever had was brought up to the surface. She felt as though she had no emotional resources left. She had used them all to stand by him.

  “I don't hate you. I love you. I just wish this hadn't happened.”

  “So do I. I wish I had copped a plea instead of putting you through all this bullshit. I just thought maybe we could win it.” She feared he had been as delusional about that as he had been when committing the crime with Sully. In the end, both men had given each other up during investigation. So much so that their respective information about each other had only served to confirm their respective guilt, rather than saving either of them from the consequences of their actions, or diminishing their punishment. The federal prosecutors in California and New York had made no deal with either of them. They had given Seth the opportunity to plea-bargain early on, and then rescinded it later. Henry had warned him that going to trial could possibly make his sentence worse, but a gambler at heart, more than anyone had realized, Seth had decided to take the chance, and now he feared the result, as they waited for the jury to make the decision. Once they did, the judge would sentence him a month later.