“What are you all doing here?”
A woman spoke from her other side. “You wanted to see an angel.”
Elsa sat up straighter, wishing she had a way to comb her hair, and be more presentable.
“It’s all right,” said Guadalupe. “You are beautiful just as you are.”
It seemed odd and wonderful that they were all here, just as she’d wished so many times, just to talk to them and have them talk back. She knew it was a dream, if only because she didn’t think San Roque would wear Tevas. It made her laugh. “Can I ask a question?”
“Yes.”
She thought about it. Why did God punish her instead of rewarding her for the long, difficult trek to Santiago? Why hadn’t God intervened in Kiki’s death? What—
“Is she all right?”
Guadalupe stepped closer. “She is happy.”
“I don’t know why you couldn’t save her.”
The woman on her other side, a woman with large dark eyes and a green gown, said, “There is evil in the world. You know that now. You have looked it in the eye.”
That lurking memory sucked at her, something about rain, about mud—
The angel placed her hand on Elsa’s heart. San Roque stepped forward to touch her feet, and Jesus stood at her side. Their voices murmured over her, rising and falling, offering encouragement, love, affirmation. You are valuable. You are doing good work, and will do more. Thank you. The world needs you. Believe.
Their hands and their light swirled into her, all through her, touching broken places, sore places, aching places. As if from far away, Elsa saw her body on the ground on the field, and she remembered the way the world looked when she had been outside of her mortal form, everything alive with soft blue light, the energy of Spirit, flowing through all things, everything.
She remembered how peaceful she had felt, looking at her own body, and realized that Kiki, too, was made of light, energy. A forest light now, perhaps, or a saint helping someone else.
Surrounded by angels and saints, Elsa slept.
When she awakened, it was morning. She smelled coffee. Her stomach growled and she sat up, starving. Joaquin was in the room, and she said, “I need breakfast.”
His smile blazed. “You’ve got it. I’ll be right back.”
If she’d had her way, she would have wolfed down pancakes and coffee and eggs and bacon. They let her have thin oatmeal and some orange juice and—when she begged—a cup of coffee.
“I had the most amazing dream,” she said to Joaquin, and told him about the saints and Jesus putting their hands on her. “And I think I saw your angel. She wears green and has big dark eyes.”
Joaquin stared at her. “Yes.”
She took a breath. “I saw her, too, that day on the road. She looked at you so tenderly, and when I saw your hands on those prayers, all those things people had written on the walls, it was like there was light coming from you, going out into the world.” She touched his hand. “You are such a good priest.”
Tears welled up in his beautiful eyes. “I have been foolish since you’ve been back, Elsa. I am sorry.”
She shook her head.
“My vocation gives me great joy,” he said. “To feel the power of God moving in me … it is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“Don’t wear her out,” said a nurse, coming in to take vital stats. “Why don’t you go get a cup of coffee, Father, and let me tend to our patient here.”
He stood. “I’ll be back later.” The nurse moved the tray aside and took Elsa’s pulse, looked at her chart, asked if she thought she might be strong enough to go to the bathroom on her own. Elsa told her she was willing to try.
But as she put her feet down, she remembered everything. Not at a distance, but as a woman. She crumpled into a heap on the floor, weeping in fear and reaction and relief. She was alive. Alive.
The nurse helped her into bed. “Pour it all out, honey. You’ve been through a lot.”
Elsa did just that, cried and cried and cried. She wept for the assault and for Kiki and for the very real fact that evil could arrive so easily when people didn’t do the work they were meant to do. It was not the evil of demons, but the evil of despair and neglect and loneliness. Finally, she let go of the burden of her grief.
And this time when she slept, it was the normal sleep of a very tired woman.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tamsin went to a great deal of trouble to find the right materials for her letter. This very hot July afternoon, Elsa, Paris, Calvin, and Alexa had gone to the movies. Elsa was almost as good as new three weeks after she’d been released from the hospital, and she was frankly irritated with all the fussing. She was returning to her Seattle church at the end of the month. Tamsin would miss her, but for the first time, she had plans of her own.
Just now, she had a letter to write. She’d searched high and low for airmail paper and an old-style envelope to match, both very thin paper with blue banding. She’d purchased a blue fountain pen, as well, and practiced so she would be able to write elegantly with it. Now the trick was to be clear without being specific.
July 7, 20—
Darling Jim,
I have been working on a marvelous jigsaw puzzle, made up of a delicious set of clues. There was a secret drawer with jewels inside, and a hidden closet right under my nose filled with piles of valuable paper, and a posh flat in a foreign city that I really must visit. In my leisure time, I have been working on a quilt, a lovely thing of a cliff overlooking a vast, clear sea with fishes swimming around in it. I’m quite pleased with the water and the bougainvillea, which I will quilt this evening, but the damnedest song kept running through my head as I worked. That strange little song we tried to forget, do you remember? “Dominique”?
That was the last clue, of course, though it took me a little while.
The fair child is well. Her mother is well, too. Thanks to solving the puzzle, I have some time, perhaps a year, to travel. My first destination is Africa, where I will be volunteering with a teaching project designed to give young women marketable skills. I was required to commit for six weeks, and there are those who are not at all sure I am up to the task, but that Fair Child is not privy to all the internal changes that have occurred over the past months. I am deeply looking forward to the work. My life has often been shallow and has lacked focus aside from the art of the quilts. Perhaps in giving some time to women who have had so much fewer advantages than I have, I will learn more about what the next chapter of my life should be.
After I am finished in Mozambique, I will travel to the Continent, where a friend has a flat her father bought for her, and stay there for a time. I’ve never lived abroad, and Spain seems agreeable.
Hope this letter finds you well.
Lisl
P.S. Please do not mistake mercy for forgiveness.
When the letter was finished, she sealed it, stamped it, and then she addressed it to Jim Bond, c/o General Delivery, Taiohae, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. The return address was Lisl von Schlaf, c/o General Delivery, Pueblo, CO 81003.
For a long while, she only looked at it, recognizing that she was on morally thin ground here. The authorities would be very pleased to know that she’d figured out where Scott had fled. For the first couple of days after her realization, she’d tussled with herself—should she call them? Not call them?
He was undeniably a criminal. And yet, even in his darkest hour, he’d tried to take care of his wife and daughter. He was not a monster, only one more misguided human being on the planet. And after decades of loving him, she found she could not turn him in and live with herself.
Thus the letter.
Before she could change her mind yet again, she took it to the post office and dropped it into the mailbox.
AUGUST 15
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The day of the blessing of the dogs was overcast and threatening rain, and Elsa eyed the sky as she loaded the last of her things into Tamsin’s
Subaru. “Think it’ll hold off?” Tamsin asked, carrying out a suitcase.
“No. But it will put me in the mood for Seattle.”
Tamsin turned her lips down at the corners. “It’s going to be so lonely after we’ve been together all this time!”
“I know. I’m really going to miss you.” She put a hand over the hollow spot in her belly. First Alexa had left, and now she was leaving, too. Life was taking another turn.
As life did.
“But you’ll be off on your own adventure in two weeks, so you’ll have plenty to do.”
“I know.” Tamsin rubbed dust off the window, a hand in her back pocket. Her eyes were full of tears when she looked up. “It’s funny how sometimes you think life is going to be terrible and it ends up being something you’ll remember forever, isn’t it?”
“Oh, don’t cry yet!” Elsa said, blinking hard.
“It’s true, though. We both started out so miserable, and now … well, I think we’re happy.”
“I am.” Elsa brushed hair from Tamsin’s forehead. “Are you happy, sis?”
“I’m not sure what the word is, exactly. Excited? Scared?” She shrugged. “I feel like I’m getting ready for college.”
“Miss Elsa!” Calvin called from the porch. “You want this, too?” He carried a small box.
“Yes, please. Bring it down. We’ll put it on the front seat. It holds treats and poo bags for Charlie.”
“He isn’t gonna like being in that car all that time!”
“No, it won’t be his favorite thing, but he’ll be okay.” The back was packed with boxes and suitcases and she’d filled the space between the backseat and front seats, too, and then covered it with a thick mattress of blankets for Charlie.
Paris and Calvin waited on the front porch. They were going to live in the house during Tamsin’s travels. Elsa had offered to rent it to them at a much reduced rate, on two conditions—that Paris take one class per semester toward her nursing degree, and that she allow Calvin to get a dog. Deacon had taken the boy and his mother to the Humane Society, and helped them choose a dog that would be right for them. It was a three-year-old mutt with the coloring of a German shepherd, the size and pretty fur of a springer, and the kind, devoted heart of a golden retriever. She sat calmly at Paris’s feet, her pink tongue hanging out. Paris had tied a silky white scarf around the dog’s neck.
“You guys all ready?” Elsa asked.
Tamsin came out onto the porch, her blond hair cropped short in preparation for her Africa trip. Elsa was still startled each time she saw her sister—the cut made her look strong, no-nonsense.
“Let’s go,” Tamsin said.
This morning was the blessing of the dogs. It was too hot for Calvin’s seven-year-old legs to walk so far, so they piled into two cars and headed over to the church. Tamsin drove Elsa’s car.
“When do you think you’ll hear from Alexa?” Elsa asked.
“She said it could be a week or two. They’re moving ahead with their plans to be married, with or without his family’s approval.”
“That’s a better answer than eloping, in the long run.”
“Carlos’s mother is the stumbling block, but his father is on board.” She blinked suddenly. “What if I don’t want my daughter to live in Spain and have her children there? What if I want them to be in Pueblo? Or at least Colorado?”
“It’s not your life to live. Be thankful that she grew up to be so self-aware.”
Tamsin nodded. “I do like him. He’ll be a good husband.”
“Yes.”
They parked at the far end of the garden and walked down toward the church, and as she had every time since that night, Elsa remembered the blue light infusing every single thing. Now, in August, the corn had grown over her head, the squash apparently hoped to take over the world, and in their garden plot alone, there were enough roma tomatoes to feed twelve counties.
“Look at all of this!” Tamsin said.
“Good thing Paris knows all the homely arts. She’s been giving canning lessons, did you know that?”
“No, that’s perfect.”
“I still don’t know why we aren’t doing the blessing outside. It sure seems like it would be easier.” Elsa saw people carrying their dogs or leading them by leashes. Charlie trotted along beside her and Tamsin, cheerfully sticking close, as if he sensed something was in the air.
“It’s always inside,” Tamsin said. “I think Father Jack secretly likes having all that chaos in the sanctuary.”
Elsa laughed. “Speak of the devil.” He was coming toward them in his clerical clothes, his hair freshly cut, so it was out of his eyes for once. “Hey, Walking. Don’t you have a Mass in a little while?”
“I was looking for you, Reverend Elsa. I wonder if you might come with me. I have a little favor to ask of you.” He held out his elbow.
She glanced at her sister, but she only shrugged. “Sure. What do you need?”
“I’ll show you.” He led her inside, but instead of heading toward the rectory, he led her into the bowels of the nave. The smell of it—incense and sweat and beeswax—brought back a thousand memories, and Elsa stopped, inhaling it. She closed her eyes and breathed it in deeply. “I love that smell.”
Joaquin took a gold satin robe from a row of them. It was a simple thing, with a zipper and long full sleeves. He held it up to her. “That will fit. Will you put it on?”
“Because …?”
Joaquin took a sash from a wooden dowel. “Because I would like you to be the altar server today, if you would not mind.”
For a long moment, she only looked at him. He gazed back at her kindly, dark eyes knowing. She could not manage the words, so she simply nodded.
She put the robe on over her clothes and pulled her hair back as if she were going to be giving a lesson. Her hands shook a little as she adjusted the sash around her shoulders. “I don’t actually know what to do,” she said.
“That’s all right. I do. And I’ll tell you.” He donned his vestments, red for love on this day of celebrating dogs and the people who loved them. When they were both dressed, he stepped forward. “I won’t see you before you leave,” he said, taking her hands. “I kept trying to think of priestly things to say to send you off, but it isn’t Father Jack who is going to miss you. It’s Joaquin.”
She covered his big hands with her own. “My old friend.”
“I want you to be happy,” he said. “Have a lot of children you can share with me.”
“I would be honored.” She squeezed his fingers. “The way I have loved you over the years is different, Joaquin, but I hope you know that I will always love you, and our friendship is one of the best things in this life for me.”
He looked down, touched her ring finger. “Yes,” he said, in a whisper.
“I want you to be happy, too, Joaquin. Promise.”
“I promise.” In the church, music began to play, and he lifted her hands to his mouth, kissed them, and gestured for her to follow him.
And so it was, that twenty-four years after the first time she had turned her back on God, sixteen years after the second, and nine months after the third, Elsa Montgomery stood on the altar wearing satin robes. She poured the wine into the holy chalice and washed the priest’s hands and rang the bell and looked into a sea of faces, human and dog. Her heart expanded outward, upward, filling the sanctuary itself, and she whispered her thanks.
It came to her that there would always be evil in the world, that there would be error and doubt and loss and things that could not be explained, but there would also be hope and goodness and kindness and love.
Joaquin met her eyes over the chalice and smiled.
Goodness.
After the Mass, Elsa found Deacon waiting, as they had arranged, at the house. The bed of his truck was enclosed with a camper shell. Dogs stuck their noses over the top of the back gate, tails wagging, and Joe kissed Elsa as she came up. Sasha turned in a circle, then barked cheerfully. Her bottom was
swaddled in a diaper. Toby, the little Shih Tzu, would ride in the front.
“Hey, Rev,” Deacon said with his slow, beautiful smile. “You sure looked good up there. I can’t wait to hear you preach.”
She took the hand he offered and stood on her toes to kiss him. She smiled. “We call it a lesson.”
“I’ll get the lingo, don’t you worry.” He slapped the side of his truck as if it were a horse. “You ready for this? Our big adventure?”
“Are you?”
“I can’t wait.” He touched her tummy. “Let’s have some babies, huh?”
“You bet.” She noticed a little bag hanging around his neck. “What’s this?”
“Medicine bag. Mario made it for me.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’ll be fine.”
Elsa looked over her shoulder at the house, feeling a pluck of nostalgia. “I’ll never forget all this.”
“Me, either.”
“But,” she said, whistling for Charlie, “I’m looking forward to the next chapter, too.” When Charlie showed up, she opened the back door of the Subaru and he leapt in. “Let’s hit the road,” she said.
“Right behind you, sugar,” Deacon said, climbing into his truck.
As she headed for the highway, Elsa glanced back and saw Deacon singing as he drove, his old dogs in back, and she suddenly thought of Kiki, shining with blue light.
Good choice, don’t you think?
Goodness all around, she thought, and began to sing.
Chicken and Dumplings
—Elsa—
This is one of those comfort foods that fill the hollowness left by a grief or a loss or a worry. Choose a good quality chicken and let it simmer a long time. The smell alone will cure many ills.
1 4–5 lb. stewing chicken, whole, giblet and neck removed
The Garden of Happy Endings Page 35
