Luca was the first to speak. “I’m always up for donuts.”
“It would certainly cause a stir,” Gigi said, a bit of her old spunk returning.
“I need to talk with Beth anyway,” I said, aware of Luca eyeing me.
Lisieux said, “I guess if nobody talks to me, I could read my book.”
“You have a book with you?” Luca asked.
“In my purse,” Lisieux said, like it was a strange question.
Luca’s eyes twinkled. “Of course.”
Avi was the only one who didn’t say anything.
Dad took her hand. “Come on, you can stand by me. One donut, and then we’ll leave.”
He led her from the pew. Each of us genuflected as we exited the pew. Luca went down on both knees and bowed so that his head almost touched the floor. By the time we left the church, those going to the parish hall were already there and the rest were in their cars, streaming out of the parking lot.
“This will be good,” Gigi announced. “Good to make a grand entrance.”
Twenty-Seven
The hubbub inside the hall was as loud as ever. The gawking stares were new, but part of our life these days. I felt my dad tense beside me; he wanted to run. I didn’t blame him. I did too.
“Avila, let’s get you a donut,” he said, swallowing the discomfort.
We went, in a clump, to the table that held open boxes of donuts on one end and white foam cups of coffee or orange juice on the other.
I stuck to Luca’s side, his presence providing me strength as I sensed Beth and Chastity glaring at me. It was Avi I felt the worst for. Some of the kids she used to play with started toward us, their parents quickly stopping them.
From the edge of the hall, the young mom from the funeral who had sat in front of us, blocking the glares and frowns, came to us with her daughter. She was a few years younger than Avi.
“Good morning, Avila. My little girl, Elle, has been missing you.” The mom, Jody, leaned in closer to Avi like she was telling a secret. “You know how shy she is. Can you get her to play? You’ve always been so sweet with her.”
Avi loosened her grip on our dad’s leg.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Dad said gently. “After all, you don’t want to hurt Elle’s feelings.”
Avi twisted the toe of her shoe on the linoleum floor. “Okay. If it will help Elle,” Avi said, letting her arms fall to her side.
Jody winked at Avi. “It will, thanks,” she said in a whisper.
“Come on, Elle,” Avi said, taking her by the hand. Avi led her to the side of the hall where there were some hula hoops and jump ropes laid out.
Dad exhaled in relief. “Thanks,” he said to Jody.
“It’s the truth. Elle hasn’t played with the other kids since you all stopped coming in here. I’m glad you’re here today,” she said with a kind smile. She left us to rejoin her husband and son at a square card table where the little boy was busy getting donut icing all over his face.
“That was very kind,” Gigi said.
“She and her husband have always been kind. They keep to themselves, both quiet but sincere,” Dad said, his voice stronger. “Lisieux, did you notice the twins over there?”
Lisieux’s former best friends were sitting at a far table, each reading a book while their parents chatted nearby. “I doubt they’d mind if you sat with them.”
“It is the quietest table in the room. That’s why we always pick it,” Lisieux said. “And it’s not like they own it.”
Gigi said, “They don’t own it, though I’m fairly certain they’d be happy to have you join them and not say a word.”
“My feet are sore, anyway,” Lisieux said. She bravely made her way to the table, digging through her bag for her book. When she reached the table, both girls looked up, offered the slightest of smiles, and returned to reading without saying a word. That was their equivalent of a welcome home party. Lisieux looked more relaxed than she had in weeks as she took her place between them and opened her book.
Dad put his hands in the front pockets of his slacks; his face showed an expression of gratitude. “I’m going to get a donut,” he said, stepping away.
A guy greeted him with a slight nod. Dad stood beside him as he ate his donut and drank some coffee.
Gigi said, “There’s Maribelle. I’ve been wondering if her granddaughter had her baby. I think I’ll go ask.” Gigi wandered off.
“I guess it’s just you and me,” Luca said.
“That’s how it always was before,” I said. “Not the you part, but the me part. All the rest of them had their people. I never did.”
“That’s because I didn’t know where you were. Now that I do, you’ve got me. But I, ah ….” He was focused on the donuts.
“You want a donut, don’t you?” I said.
“Can I bring you one or maybe two or three?” His eyes twinkled.
“One would be great,” I said, touching his arm briefly before he, too, wandered off.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the stares of Beth and those surrounding her. I met her glare and went toward her. I felt like Daniel walking into the lion’s den, but it had to be done.
“I need to speak with you,” I said abrasively to Beth.
“She doesn’t need to speak to you,” Chastity shot back.
I ignored her. “I get that you hate me but you sending that goon after me Friday night, that’s crossing a line.”
“Is your whole family as crazy as you?” Beth said. “Do all of you make stuff up or is it just you?”
“Keep your jerk friends away from me,” I said.
“Trust me. My friends want nothing to do with you,” she said, turning away.
I stepped between her and Chastity. “I’m serious. Tell your waiter friend to stay away from me.”
“I don’t even know any waiters,” she mumbled, trying again to get away.
I wouldn’t let her. “The waiter at the BayTree. You don’t know him?”
She stopped for a second. “Are you talking about Chase?”
I nodded.
“He might even be a bigger jerk than you. I haven’t talked to him in years.”
“Then why did he say I was just as you described?”
Beth and Chastity snorted. “Oh, I’ve posted a ton about you. He probably meant that,” she said, eyes alive with hateful satisfaction.
This time I let them walk away. How much had she posted about me? What had she said? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. She could say whatever she wanted to on social media; I couldn’t stop her or let it bother me. That was what evil wanted … for me to be so distracted by her hatred that I’d begin to hate. I would not let her win. I would not let it win.
Luca came beside me with two glazed donuts in his hand. “Looks like that went well,” he said sarcastically.
I crossed my arms. “Yeah, super great.”
“Come on, there’s room at Lisieux’s table,” he said, taking a large bite of donut.
I looked over. The twins were gone, and Lisieux was reading by herself at the card table.
“Good idea,” I said as I followed him to my sister.
“What did Beth say?” he asked once we sat down.
I could tell him about the posts, but why? How would his knowing something like that help either of us?
“She said she didn’t specifically tell the waiter anything. She doesn’t seem to be close to him. He’d just heard gossip.”
“That does seem most likely,” Lisieux said while still looking at her book.
Luca grinned at my bookworm sister. “There you go. The most likely option,” he said, taking a sip of orange juice.
I mouthed to Luca, “Does she even know what we’re talking about?”
He shrugged and finished his last donut.
“Sorry your friends left,” I said to Lisieux.
She lifted her eyes from the page for a second. “They had to go. At least they didn’t get up as soon as I sat down.”
“Dad’s ready to leave,” I said as I arose.
Lisieux and Luca followed, Lisieux reluctantly closing her book to walk through the mess of pulled-out chairs.
“I’ll grab Avi,” Luca said, and disappeared to the side where Avi was playing with two little girls along with Elle and her baby brother.
“I think she had fun,” I said to Lisieux.
“It’s good Thomas’s parents weren’t here,” Lisieux said.
“Yes, that would’ve made things more complicated.”
Dad held the door open for us as we left the parish hall. We’d been here long enough that those coming to the next Mass were starting to fill the parking lot. On the way to our vehicles we dodged several cars that were parking. When we were almost there, a familiar BMW passed us; it was Phil’s car.
“He didn’t even try to run us over,” Avi said jubilantly.
“You’re right, Avila. It is the little things in life that we must be grateful for,” Gigi teased.
“Being not run over is not a little thing. It’s a big thing,” Avi said.
Dad took Avi’s hand. “You’re right about that,” he said as he helped her into his car.
Next to Dad’s car was Gigi’s Mercedes. There wasn’t enough room in the Range Rover for all of us plus Luca. He and I got into the Mercedes.
“I’m thankful for not being run over and for a car with solid doors and windows and, most of all, for heated seats,” Luca said as I started the car.
I giggled. “Those are nice things.”
“They are nice things in Florida. They’re practically essentials for survival in Maine,” he said, pushing his hands against the hot air blowing out the air vents.
“What’s my dad doing?” I asked as his brake lights turned red in front of us.
“Maybe he forgot something,” Luca said.
A second later, his car door opened and so did his trunk. He stepped out of the SUV, removed a bag of garbage from the back, and went to the church’s dumpster. He tossed the bag into the dumpster and got back into his car. His trunk started to close as the vehicle inched forward.
“That was the kitchen trash,” I said.
“He must have wanted his stash out of the house so he wouldn’t be tempted,” Luca said. “The next several days aren’t going to be easy for him.”
“Many things aren’t going to be easy.”
We drove for a bit without talking. I was mindlessly following my dad back to our castle-like home. The trees appeared distorted from the condensation on the side windows.
Luca asked, “What are you thinking about?”
What had I been thinking about? “I guess I was trying to understand why I’ve been given these gifts, if that’s what they are.”
“To use for his glory,” Luca said.
His faith had grown from a tiny mustard seed to a mighty oak in a few short weeks. I supposed that’s what happened when God revealed himself to a person in a tangible way.
“Yes, but what does that mean?” I asked.
He was silent for a moment. “To bring light, not darkness, into the world.”
I was about to ask him to be more specific, when he spoke again.
“My mom wanted to bring light. I believe that with all my heart. But she didn’t because she didn’t listen to God’s word. She ignored the instructions he’s given to us through Scripture and the two thousand years of knowledge contained within the teachings of the Catholic Church. That wasn’t her fault,” he said sadly. “She didn’t know any better. But you do, and now I do. So we can do better. I’ve been thinking so much about the spiritual world lately—people don’t understand that it’s all around us. In this car, there are two humans and at least two angels, but there could be more. You and I don’t have a way of knowing that, which is probably a good thing. That level of truth would be too much for us … too much for most people,” he said, his voice becoming quiet.
The image of the little girl I’d seen on the trail entered my mind. I thought of her, this child I didn’t know. Somehow I understood such gifts wouldn’t be too much for her.
“I think some people could handle it,” I said, remembering the beauty that radiated from the child with the wavy brown hair and amber-speckled eyes.
“Yes, that’s probably true,” he said. “I wondered about stuff my whole life. About why I was different, why my family was different. Then, when your gifts appeared ….”
“And they freaked you out,” I said.
“And they freaked me out, I realized I had to understand more. So I spent last night searching through your dad’s books.”
“He has a ton,” I said.
“Most didn’t pertain to any of this, but some did. Did you know some theologians believed that these sorts of spiritual gifts were meant to be part of the general human experience, but because of the fall, they were stripped away and weakened?”
“Umm … no, I had no idea.” I didn’t add that it would never have occurred to me to read the writings of theologians or saints to try to understand the odd abilities Luca and I had.
“Reading that and all the other things I found,” he said, “helped me understand even more that these gifts are not from evil. No gifts are. Everything we are given is from God. But like everything else, we can choose to use it for his glory or not.”
“Right, but how do we do that?” I asked, wanting to get away from the philosophical and focus on the practical.
“We ask him,” Luca stated.
I lowered my head. I’d hoped for an actual answer.
Luca said, “Have you done that? Have you asked God what you’re supposed to do with the memories you’ve seen?”
He was right. I hadn’t done that.
Twenty-Eight
Sam pulled two cinnamon-scented casseroles of apple puff pancake from the oven. My sisters shed their coats. There was chattering around me. Happy chattering. It was a nice change. Outwardly, I tried to engage with the rest of my family as they prepared for Avi’s favorite breakfast.
Inwardly, I was asking God why he’d given me the abilities I had. Why did I see terrified children who had been dead almost a hundred years? My dad’s scar made more sense. He was my dad; the sin happened on our property. Whatever darkness he’d brought into his life, he’d brought into mine and my sisters’. Plus, he was still alive; he could be different … our lives could be different.
None of that was true for the children. They were gone; even those who had mourned their loss were gone after a hundred years. I was not going to bring them back or tell their loved ones what happened to them. I didn’t even know their names. Perhaps I would recognize their pictures, but pictures from that long ago often weren’t clear. Besides, it was the terror I saw, the terror that I would recognize, not the face of a happy child in a family photograph.
If their families were still alive, if I could bring them closure, it would be worth the pain of the vision. But they were not alive. Their nieces or nephews would be as old or maybe older than Gigi. I was sure they carried the scars of their ancestors, but I couldn’t track them down. When the children died, any darkness surrounding them left. Our Lord would’ve taken them straight to his heart. There was no time spent in purgatory for the children who were tortured in this life, not if they had even the faintest understanding of God’s love for them.
I could change nothing in their lives or their families’ lives, and they were safe in heaven, so why had I seen them?
Bring them to the light, the quiet voice in my heart said.
“Siena, would you like some?” Sam asked. She held the spatula, ready to dish a golden-brown square of appley goodness onto a plate for me.
I came back to all that was happening in front of me. “No, thank you,” I said, hanging up my coat.
As conversation bubbled and forks clinked against plates, I slipped i
nto the hallway and then into my dad’s office. Despite what Dad had done in this room the last few weeks, it still felt like the holiest place in the house to me. It was where we prayed every night and the place Luca saw the holy souls coming toward us. It was the place I’d often find my mom folding laundry when I woke up from a nap. She and my father would be discussing the growing business. We gathered around the fire here. Aside from the kitchen, this room felt most like home in our cavernous castle.
I went to the window behind the desk and pulled the drapes open. The warm morning sunlight poured into the room. On my dad’s desk lay a simple wooden cross. It was a gift from my mother, but I hadn’t seen it in years. I picked it up, the wood smooth from where his hands had rubbed the edges away. I held it tight for a moment and then returned it to the spot next to his keyboard. Where had it been the last several years? Luca was in here last night, combing through Dad’s books. Did Luca find it and put it here? Or did Dad find it when he searched his office?
I touched it gently with the tips of my fingers. I felt goodness. My hair fell into my face, the strands of red creating a striking contrast against the light wood.
“Are you all right?” Dad asked, entering the room.
Gigi was behind him. I didn’t mind their presence—now that he’d returned to being the father I’d always known and she to the grandmother I loved. Things had returned to the right order of things.
I said, “It’s good you threw the kitchen trash out.”
“I’m only so strong,” he said, sitting down on the couch, his hands wringing in anxious movements, his dark hair glistening with sweat. He’d been calm during church and afterward—a grace given to him—but now the effects of drugs leaving his body continued … and would for many days.
“How are you, Siena?” Gigi asked, never wanting to acknowledge my father’s addiction.
“What do you suppose bring them to the light means?” I asked.
Dad leaned back, his right leg subtly bouncing. “It could mean a few different things. To shine an actual light on something, to make something known, or if you think of The Light as a metaphor for God, then it might be to bring something to him, to present it to him.”
Gifted (Awakening Book 2) Page 21