The Blessed (17 page)

“Thank you” barely escaped her lips.

He leaned in, slowly closing the distance between them. She leaned toward him expectantly, slowly closing her eyes again.

The pulsing storm outside providing the perfect underscore for forbidden romance.

A first kiss.

The kiss they both felt coming on was interrupted by an earth-shaking crack of thunder.

Like a warning finger wagging from above.

3
The phone rang. It was the principal. At least a reasonable facsimile.

“Due to the citywide weather emergency and out of concern for the safety of students and faculty . . . ”

A school cancellation robo call. Martha picked up the receiver, listened groggily, and hung up.
Was a call really necessary?
she thought.

“Agnes,” she called out. “Agnes!”

The wind blew hard against the windows, making it
impossible to hear or to be sure she’d been heard.

“Damn this weather!” she said, sliding out of bed and heading down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom. “Will it ever end?”

Martha reached the door with the massive, rusted
KEEP OUT
wharf sign affixed to it that Agnes had dragged back on the train from last summer’s Montauk vacation. Martha resented it. She couldn’t help but take personally that Agnes would expend so much effort to broadcast her desire for privacy. Especially when it was just the two of them living there.

Come to think of it, the problems between them could be traced back to last summer and the beginning of her relationship with Sayer, that boy who Martha disapproved of so strongly.
Mothers and daughters at each other’s throats. A tale as old as time.
Agnes would come around and it would blow over. Eventually.

“Agnes, that was the school,” she said, rapping on the door to no response. “You can sleep in.”

The irony of waking Agnes up to tell her she could sleep later was not lost on her mother, and she smiled a little. Though she was a little surprised that Agnes was able to sleep through such an epic storm. Usually she’d wake to find the girl in bed next to her. Her mood and her tone softened considerably.

“C’mon, honey. You’re not still angry, are you?”

Martha reached for the knob and turned it, fully expecting the door to be locked, but it wasn’t. The door creaked open under its own weight and Martha noticed immediately the
windswept curtains. The sill and the carpet below looked soaking wet, things had been blown off of shelves, and the room was freezing cold. She pushed at the door and it flew open wide, like her mouth. The bed was made, unslept in. Agnes’s desktop was still on, although toppled over, and her cell phone sat charging on her turquoise-painted bedside end table. Her clothes were left where they’d landed from the night before.

Martha grabbed the phone and scrolled through Agnes’s missed call list. She hit call on a contact name she recognized and moved over to the computer, checking her daughter’s e-mail, sent and received, which was still open on the screen.

“Hello, Hazel? This is Mrs. Fremont.”

She always used her married name, even though her marriage had long since ended. It was for Agnes’s sake. Having the same last name kept them connected in a way and looked better to strangers, however semidelusional it might have appeared to others who knew better.

“Oh, hi. I thought you were Agnes calling me.”

“Agnes isn’t with you?” Martha said, trying to hide the depth of her panic.

“She’s not at home?”

“No. Any idea where she might have gone?”

“I thought she might have gone to bed early to rest or whatever from her . . . you know . . . attempt.”

“Thanks,” Martha said worriedly, ignoring the lack of sensitivity. “If you hear anything . . . ”

“Don’t worry. She’s totally over Sayer. I’m sure she’ll be
back later. She’s probably just trying to piss you off.”

“But the storm and her arms,” Martha complained. “It’s hideous outside; they say they are expecting a tornado. In Brooklyn! And she’s not in the right shape mentally or otherwise to be out there right now. Alone. In this.”

“I know. Can you believe it? We haven’t had power since last night. Trees are down everywhere. You can’t even get down the street.”

Martha couldn’t have cared less at that moment. “It’s just not like her to up and leave like that. I mean, we’ve had much worse arguments.”

“She’s just really fragile right now. I’ll text everyone. She’ll turn up.”

Yes, but hopefully not in a Dumpster,
was all Martha could think.

Sebastian and Agnes opened the sacristy door and were startled to find Lucy and Cecilia standing there, about to knock and equally startled.

“Did you hear that thundercrack?” Lucy said, grabbing her arms in a shiver. “We were yelling for you.”

Agnes flushed at the momentary awkwardness and flipped her hair nervously over her shoulder, crossing her arms defensively and looking downward.

“We’re not interrupting anything are we?” Cecilia asked rhetorically.

“I was helping her with her wrists,” Sebastian said, as Agnes nodded her agreement.

“Cecilia woke up screaming. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it,” Lucy prodded.

“Good thing, too,” Cecilia said, still shaken.

“Bad weather or bad dream?” Agnes asked sympathetically.

“Nightmare.” CeCe nodded.

Agnes wasn’t sure if CeCe was talking about her actual dream or the compromising situation in which she found herself.

“It’s really hard to hear anything in there,” Agnes protested a little too much.

“Yeah, whatever,” Lucy said, instantly distracted by a glittering item poking out from a partially opened drawer she spied in the sacristy. “
What
is that?”

“It’s a vestment cabinet,” Sebastian explained.

“No, not the cabinet. Inside the drawer.”

She wasn’t absolutely sure it wasn’t floaties from the blow she’d taken to the head earlier, so she pointed, hoping the others saw it as well.

“Priest clothes?” he asked.

Lucy walked to the drawer and slid it open, revealing a neatly folded pile of the most elaborate garb she’d ever seen. Approaching the cabinet, she spied all manner of majestically embroidered linens in white, red, green, purple, and gold that had been left behind. Sewn with spun silver and gold thread. She admired their beauty even in the darkness, running her fingers over the fabric to feel the heft and detailed stitching. She beckoned the other girls over for a closer look.

“They don’t make ’em like this anymore,” she said. “These have got to be vintage.”

“Holy haute couture,” CeCe added, equally enthralled. “This is so tempting.”

“Bad girl,” Lucy said, flirtatiously thrusting her chest forward. “Good girl!” arching her back and recoiling.

“Is there a difference?” Cecilia said, unconsciously echoing her dreamspeak.

Sebastian smiled at her, as if he knew what she was thinking. Like he did in the hospital when they met.

Lucy pulled out the chasuble and swung it over her head and let it fall onto her shoulders and almost to the floor, striking holier poses. A beautiful, hand-sewn image of a young girl, crowned, holding a palm branch in one hand and a plate in the other, took up the entire back of the garment. The care in making and storing such a piece left them to wonder why anyone would ever leave it behind.

“What do you think of my Sunday best, girls?” Lucy smirked, sucking her cheeks in and posing. “Too much?”

“A wolf in shepard’s clothing,” CeCe said as both she and Agnes daintily air-clapped their approval like stone-faced fashion editors in the front row of a fashion show.

Sebastian smiled, carried along by their enthusiasm and the first truly lighthearted moment any of them had experienced since arriving.

“Fashion
The Passion
,” Lucy announced, gesturing at the cabinet like a game show spokesmodel, before throwing gorgeous ponchos to each of the other girls.

Cecilia tossed the heavy, woolen, deep purple and gold garment over her shoulder like a tunic and fastened it at the waist with one of the scapulars that had been hanging from a hook behind the door. She tied Agnes’s long hair up in a ponytail with another and helped her put the vestment on.

“Mother Cecilia!” Lucy laughed.

“And Sister Agnes,” Cecilia said as Agnes slid her arms through the gold-accented side holes of the garment and her slight frame disappeared beneath the white cloth.

Sebastian looked on, a little more preoccupied. Agnes looked up at the framed portraits and biblical paintings hanging around them. Images of faith and devotion she had seen at school but had little personal experience with.

“I have an idea,” Lucy said. “We’ve got the coolest runway ever out there. Any takers?”

“I’m always up for a show,” Cecilia added.

“The altar?” Agnes asked. “I don’t know. Inappropriate?”

“Sebastian?” Lucy squawked.

They turned to Sebastian looking for his approval but he’d already turned away, staring out a small cracked and dirty window at the deluge outside. He had barely heard the question.

“I guess that’s a no,” Cecilia concluded.

“Well, it was just an idea,” Lucy added defensively.

Sebastian didn’t react. He was miles away.

“These are heavy,” Agnes said wearily, putting an end to the festivities. She didn’t look well. Sebastian took her arm.

“Last call,” Cecilia barked, as the girls relinquished the
clerical attire, dropping it hastily and transforming the sacristy floor into a chain-store fitting room.

“We should grab some of these,” Sebastian said, taking a handful of stoles and oils to use as bandages and salves for Agnes if needed, with Lucy and Cecilia following suit.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Agnes whispered.

Sebastian squeezed her arm tenderly.

Agnes eyed the accessories as they carried them back into the church.

“I feel kind of funny about taking this stuff on my account,” she said. “Like we’re stealing from a church.”

“We’re not stealing,” Sebastian said. “I only took what we needed.”

3
“Line one,” the secretary said. “It’s Captain Murphy.”

Dr. Frey closed his office door and sat forward in his chair. He took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“Yes, Officer.”

“Captain,” he corrected.

“My mistake. What can I do for you?”

The relationship between the doctor and the captain was contentious at best, Frey having successfully testified as an expert witness on behalf of defendants to the chagrin of the NYPD and prosecutors on many occasions. It was superficially cordial, but neither was inclined to help the other much beyond what was required professionally.

“I’m surprised to find you at the hospital, Doctor.”

“We are on lockdown and running on generators, and I am needed.”

“I’m practically the only one at the precinct house.”

“I’m quite short-staffed today myself, as you can imagine, and very busy. Are you calling with news?”

“Not the news you are waiting for. I’m calling about another patient of yours who’s been reported missing.”

“Who is that?”

“Agnes Fremont. Her mother walked into an empty bedroom this morning after an argument the night before.”