by Meg O'Brien
“Why did you have to meddle?” she says, her voice low and hoarse. “Why didn’t you stay out of it?”
I back away. Looking down at her hands, I see them work into fists. My own rise in an automatic posture of defense.
“What is it?” I say. “What is it you don’t want me meddling in?”
“Everything!” She takes a step toward me. “Haven’t you done enough?”
I look around for something to fend her off with. But there’s nothing here in the foyer, only the two of us. And there’s no way I can Kenpo Sister Helen.
“Murph?” I call out, and immediately my protector is at my side, ears up and alert.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say as calmly as possible to Sister Helen. “I’m only trying to find out what happened to Marti. And Justin.”
At Justin’s name, her angry expression turns to one of fear. Her eyes flick back and forth from one side to the other.
“Who’s there?” she calls out in a strident voice. “Who is it? Who’s here with us?”
I haven’t heard a sound, except for the rain on the chimney flue and the crackling of the fire. “No one’s here, Sister. Just you and me.”
She whirls back to me. “I don’t believe you! You are a vile, vile person. Almost as wicked as that husband of yours.” Pulling her raincoat tightly around her, she mutters, “Spawn of the devil, that one.”
Murphy growls in his throat, and I am at a loss. No one I’ve spoken to, either the Ryans or the women at The Prayer House, prepared me for this.
The woman who stands before me is someone I no longer recognize. My Sister Helen brought Marti and me peanut butter sandwiches in high school, when we had to stay late to retake a math test. She went down to the school kitchen and made the sandwiches herself, bringing them to us with a carton of milk. After we’d eaten, she stood over our shoulders and made “harrumphing” sounds every time one of us put down a wrong answer. She didn’t give us the right answers—that would have gone against her code of ethics. But she steered us away from the wrong ones.
I’ll never know how she justified that to herself. At the time I saw it simply as an inborn strain of kindness from an otherwise rigid, rule-dominated woman.
Where has that kindness gone?
She was homeless. On the streets.
Is that what did it? Or was there more?
“Come and talk to me,” I say softly. “We’ll work it out.”
In small increments, I manage to get her into the living room. Inviting her to sit, I clean magazines and newspapers off the end of the sofa that’s nearest the fire. She waves away that seat and chooses instead a straight-backed chair near the hearth. Sitting on it primly, she folds her hands in her lap and crosses her legs at the ankle, just as we were taught to do in the convent: Proper decorum when out in public.
It touches me that she does this. And if I didn’t know better, I might think she’s calmed down. But the shoulders are too rigid, the mouth too tight. I also suspect that the reason she’s folded her hands is that they are shaking.
Even Murph is ill at ease, plunking himself down by her feet, between us.
I ask her if she’d like something hot to drink, coffee or tea. She shakes her head and narrows her eyes at me.
“I suppose you’d serve it in gold-rimmed cups.”
“Well, no,” I say, hiding a smile, “just an old blue mug. Would that do?”
“Don’t be smart with me, young lady!”
Now, that sounds more like the Sister Helen I used to know.
“I’m not trying to be smart,” I say. “Honestly. I just feel confused. I don’t know why you’re here, Sister. I don’t even know why you don’t like me anymore.”
As I say those words, I am surprised to feel tears in my eyes. I can’t bear the fact that this woman—this woman who once cared enough to feed me peanut butter sandwiches and help me pass a math test—is my enemy now. There have been too many losses of late.
“Justin could have had a good life,” Sister Helen says bitterly. “He could have been with Marti all those years. That’s the way it should have been. She never should have given him up.”
“But he’s had a good life—” I begin before she cuts me off.
“You don’t know anything about it! You don’t know what he’s been through. And you come into it now with your meddling—”
She begins to sob—deep, hard sobs. Tears run un-checked down her face, and her mouth forms a wide O, as if frozen that way in agony. In one swift move I am on my knees, holding her.
“It’s all right,” I murmur over and over. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
Violently, she shoves me away. I fall back, stunned at her strength. Instantly, Murphy is on his feet, throwing his heavy body against her legs. Sister Helen seems not to notice.
“Nothing is all right!” she cries. “And it never will be now!”
Her face turns dark, and her breath comes in huge, harsh gasps. She clutches at her neck, as if having a heart attack.
Scrambling to my feet I try to grab her, to make her lie down on the sofa. But she’s too strong for me. It’s as if some strange force has taken over, the kind of adrenaline that makes mothers able to lift cars off their children.
“Get away from me!” she cries. “Get away!”
Rummaging desperately in a pocket, she pulls out an inhaler. Pressing it to her face she squirts it, inhaling shallowly at first, then more deeply. After a few moments her complexion and breathing return to near normal.
Asthma. I recall now that she has always had this.
“Sister, sit down,” I say firmly. This time I do not take no for an answer, all but manhandling her till I’ve got her on the sofa. “Now, sit here. I’m getting you some tea. And don’t argue with me, dammit!”
The look she gives me is inscrutable. Anger? Fear? I don’t take time to think about it, but hurry instead into the kitchen and put the teakettle on. While it heats I take crackers from the cupboard and then a jar of peanut butter. This time, it’s my old teacher who needs to be nurtured and fed.
The water boils, and I pour it over a jasmine teabag. Putting the cup, the food and some silverware on a tray, I carry it back into the living room.
“Sister, I want you to drink every bit of this—” I begin.
But I am talking to air. Sister Helen is nowhere in sight.
Dropping the tray onto the coffee table, I run to the foyer and see that her shawl is gone. I throw open the door, hoping to catch her before she can get to her car. The wind and rain drive me back, and at any rate there is no car—only the damned stupid fairy lights that come on automatically at dusk. They look sad, twinkling there in the midst of the storm. I flick the switch by the door, and they disappear.
All gone.
Like Sister Helen.
Marti and Justin.
And even Jeffrey now.
All gone.
Pretty soon, I think, I’ll be in one of those Twilight Zone worlds where I’m the only one left except for—who? The alien, of course, who has come to impregnate me in order to create a new race.
I almost think that might be preferable to what I’m up against now.
But, no—as usual, I speak too soon. The one thing I should have learned is that things can always get worse.
When I go back into the living room there is something different, a slight change. Something that gives me pause.
What is it?
Glancing around, I miss it at first. Then my gaze fixes on the fireplace mantel. I cross over to it and stop dead in my tracks. Sister Helen has left me a gift—a photograph. It rests beside others I’ve accumulated throughout the years.
The photograph, a Polaroid, is of Justin. His pale face sags against his chest. He is gagged and tied to a chair.
My hands shake so much I can barely function, but I bring the photograph close to read the writing in the white space at the bottom.
“See what you have done?” has been written in my teache
r’s crabbed, familiar script.
17
She’s crazy. A crazy old woman. I’ve done nothing.
That’s my first thought.
My second comes rapidly on its heels. Is he alive? Is Justin alive?
There is no way of knowing from the position he’s in. His head is down, eyes closed.
Oh, dear God, where is he?
What have they done to him?
And how did Sister Helen get this picture? Who sent it to her? And why?
I sit with the photograph on my lap, unable to cry, I am so afraid. Inside, I am screaming. I rock back and forth, numb with grief and rage. Is it too late? What can I do?
This time there is no answer from Marti. Nor is there word from the God of my childhood. It all seems a vast conspiracy suddenly, to have put us in a world where there’s so much suffering and pain. Surely it can’t have been planned.
Are we, then, only an eighth-grade science experiment gone wrong? Some kid thought us up, put us under a dome, then shoved us into his closet and went out to play ball? Years later he’s packing to go to college, finds us in this god-awful mess and says, “Oh, shit,” and shoves us back in there again?
It is the only explanation I can come up with. Which says something for the state of my mind.
I cannot think of any one direction in which to turn. Go to Mauro and Hillars with the photo? Show it to Ben?
They would want to know how I got it. They would go after Sister Helen, pummeling her with their questions, making her admit to—what?
Just what is Sister Helen’s involvement?
Cast light into dark corners, I hear Marti say finally.
It seems the only thing to do. This situation needs more light, and I must move quickly now. If Justin is alive, if there’s even a small chance of it, every minute counts.
I take the Green Hornet, driving through the storm to Sol’s Carmel office. The streets are deserted; it is nearly ten o’clock at night. Sol has agreed to meet me here. With Mauro and Hillars so close on Jeffrey’s tail, as well as mine, I no longer trust my phones.
For once, however, the D.C. Duo are not behind me. I suppose even the Secret Service must sleep, eat or take time for a beer in a pub now and then.
Sol’s office is in a small courtyard surrounded by shops and a restaurant, near the Britannia. Parking on the street, I follow a brick walk through an arcade lined with flower boxes. The boxes are filled with rainwater, the flowers sodden and bent over. Their defeated posture reminds me of Sister Helen, and I wonder if she got home all right. Though I dread it, I know I must talk to her again before the night is over.
Sol greets me at the door to his small office, a branch of the larger one in Monterey.
“I would have come to the house,” he says.
“I know. I just thought this would be better. More private.”
He takes me over to a chair by the fireplace. “I built a fire,” he says. “Nasty night, isn’t it? Coffee? I just made some.”
I nod. When he brings it to me and seats himself, I waste no time.
“Sol, remember when you set up that adoption for Marti, with the Ryans in Pacific Grove?”
“Sure I do,” he says. “That was…oh, fourteen, fifteen years ago, right?”
“Right. Refresh my memory, will you? How much did you know about the Ryans?”
“Well, as I’m sure I told you then, I knew Paul Ryan only as another lawyer at first. We talked several times at bar association meetings, and one day he happened to mention that he and his wife wanted to adopt a baby. He said they were having trouble going through the usual channels—not because of any problem personally, but because there weren’t any infants available. I told him I didn’t usually handle adoptions, but I’d see what I could do. It was only a few months later that you came to me and told me your friend had just had a baby and needed to give it up. I thought the Ryans were pretty good prospects.”
He gives me one of his shrewd what-are-you-up-to looks. “Why, Abby? What’s all this about?”
“I just wondered…have you noticed that Paul Ryan hasn’t been around lately? That he’s left his practice?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I heard that he’d taken a sabbatical and gone to France. I didn’t think much about it. Why?”
“I’m not sure. Just casting about, I suppose.”
Why I’m being cautious with Sol, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have that he’s been keeping something from me.
“You hear from Jeffrey?” he asks.
“Not a word. You?”
“Nothing. Abby, I’m worried. It isn’t like Jeffrey to run. He’d be more likely to assume he could bluff his way through whatever it is they’re after him for.”
“I agree, especially since he hasn’t yet been charged with anything. Sol, have you any idea why the Secret Service would want him badly enough to issue a warrant for his arrest? Do they have something that ties Jeffrey in to Marti’s murder?”
“If they do, they’re not telling me,” he answers with a distasteful grimace. “They wanted to question him and he ran, which is enough to make him a suspect in their eyes. I also take it they’re pissed that he slipped through their fingers. Could be an ego thing. He made them look like fools, so they’ve brought out all the guns.”
“Or maybe it’s something else,” I say, still fishing.
Sol folds his hands and looks me square in the eye. “All right, Abby. Give. What’s going on?”
I figure I might as well get on with it; my fish is obviously not taking the bait.
“A place called The Prayer House, Sol. Would you know anything about that?”
His reaction isn’t what I’d hoped. He seems genuinely bewildered.
“I believe I’ve heard of The Prayer House. Out in the Carmel Valley, isn’t it?”
“That’s the one. Have you by any chance filed a lawsuit against The Prayer House for Jeffrey, designed to shut them down?”
“No, I certainly have not,” he says firmly. “What kind of lawsuit?”
“Something about food poisoning, I take it. And now they’re being forced to remodel the place completely, at great cost. Enough cost that all those good women out there might lose their home, and Jeffrey would then be able to get his hands on it—something he’s been trying to do for quite a while, I hear.”
“Abby, I swear to you, I have not heard a thing about this. If Jeffrey is behind such a suit, he must have used another lawyer.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, Sol. Another lawyer like Paul Ryan, perhaps? Do you know what’s going on between Jeffrey and Paul Ryan?”
Sol is silent for a moment, then he looks away.
“Hey. Old friend,” I say. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He heaves a great sigh, and leans back in his chair.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he says. “I’ve just had a hard time with it. It hasn’t been easy, you know, over the years. It’s a fine line I walk—representing both you and Jeffrey.”
“I realize that, Sol. And I’ve always been grateful about the way you’ve looked after my interests.”
“Well, I’m not sure your gratitude is warranted. Not anymore.”
“You want to tell me what you mean, Sol? Before we travel any farther along that fine line?”
“I would rather cut off my arm than tell you,” he says. “But I will. Abby, Jeffrey hired a P.I. to tail you six months ago, when you two first talked about divorce. The P.I. followed you to the Ryans’ house several times in a three-week span, added two and two and came up with five. He figured you’d had an affair with the guy who lived in that house—Paul Ryan—and were hanging around like a jilted lover. He took photos of you sitting there in your car and gave this ‘evidence’ to Jeffrey. Jeffrey came to me with it, vowing to use your alleged affair in the divorce, to rake you over the coals.”
I am stunned. “Jeffrey had me followed? When he’s the one who’s been keeping house with Karen all
this time?”
“I’m sorry, Abby. This is dirty business, and I’ve already told Jeffrey I won’t be handling the divorce for him. I’ll do what I can to help you. But you should know, Jeffrey is adamant. He wants the house and everything in it. More than anything, he wants to hurt you. He intends to leave you penniless.”
“But he can’t do that—”
“He can try. That’s why he persuaded you to let him stay in the house. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and even with community property, it looks best if one or the other party doesn’t ‘abandon’ the family home.”
“Sonuvabitch! But Sol, he hasn’t been acting as if he’s angry enough to screw me over. Not any more than usual, anyway.”
“I’m sure his lawyer has been telling him to pretend everything’s all right. Until after the election, that is. Then he can get as down and dirty as he wants, and the media fallout won’t hurt Chase or his own position in the party.”
I stand and begin to pace. “Hold on a minute. Are you telling me Jeffrey still believes I’m having an affair, or did have an affair, with Paul Ryan?”
He sighs. “I have good news and bad news.”
I stop pacing and look at him. “Hit me with it.”
“The good news is, he doesn’t believe that anymore. The bad news is, he doesn’t believe that anymore.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, to calm him down, I had to explain why you were haunting the Ryans’ house so many times.”
For a moment, I don’t get what he means. Then it dawns on me. “Oh, God, Sol! You didn’t tell him about Justin?”
“I’m really sorry, Abby. I thought at the time I was acting in your best interests. I thought if I explained about the Ryans having adopted Marti Bright’s son, and that you felt obligated to watch over him, Jeffrey would understand you weren’t having an affair with Paul Ryan. I thought he’d drop his vendetta against you.”
“But he didn’t?”
“I thought at first he might. Then, right after that, you started seeing Ben Schaeffer. It seems Jeffrey has transferred his anger over your alleged affair to your real one.”
I stomp back to the chair and fling myself into it, folding my arms. “Dammit, Sol! Jeffrey’s the pot calling the kettle black, but if he thinks he can make me look worse than him, he’s wrong! I’ll fight him to the bitter end.”
