The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

by Beth Moore

  With that, the kettle switched itself off. “And like many other things you learn along the way, they were wrong.”

  The next four minutes filled the room with a fragrance she’d once heard Olivia describe to David as “too good to be of this world.” She’d said, “The coffee bean, David, may indeed be man’s most persuasive argument for the existence of God.” He hadn’t argued. In those days Jillian wouldn’t have smiled over something Olivia said for all the money lost in Harrah’s Casino, but somehow she felt like doing it today. That was the kind of thing a head injury could do to you, she guessed.

  “Sorry it took me so long!” The nurse was back with a replacement bag for Jillian’s IV. She stopped in her tracks. “Did Dr. Sutherland say you could have coffee, young lady?”

  Olivia did an about-face toward Jillian as both women answered in unison, “Yes.”

  “And when was he in here, may I ask?”

  “At half past a party pooper,” Olivia quipped. The timer went off on her phone and she gave the nurse a look that would have sent a lesser woman running for the hills. “I need to press this coffee right this minute, and perhaps I’m giving you too much credit, but based on that stain on your top, I’m guessing you’re a coffee drinker. If you can manage to come up with a cup, I might consider filling it half-full. But only half. And then I’ll expect you to go about your business.”

  Jillian grinned while the nurse glanced back and forth between the two of them. It was the aroma that did it. Jillian was sure of that.

  The nurse responded, “I’ll raise you a pinch of croissant and you win.”

  “Deal!” Jillian all but shouted.

  Olivia looked disgusted but conceded under one condition: the nurse better get a move on it or that coffee was going to cool off and the scene was liable to get ugly. With lightning speed, the nurse switched out the IV bag, returned with a disposable cup, and held out her napkin for a pinch of croissant. Olivia rolled her eyes and held out the plate. The nurse wrapped the napkin around an end of a roll and pulled. Half of the insides came out.

  “A pinch, not a pull!” Olivia chided.

  The nurse turned on her rubber heels and exited the room, waving half a croissant over her head and chuckling.

  Olivia glared at the door for a moment. “Styrofoam.”

  “I saw it.”

  Olivia shook her head. She placed both the cups and saucers on Jillian’s table and poured steaming coffee from the French press into each one and a bit of cream from the thermos. One day Jillian was going to learn how to pour coffee into a china cup in such a way that it swirled like a whirlpool.

  Fifteen minutes later and two cups each, the two of them had barely exchanged a word beyond an inexplicably uncomfortable thank you and you’re welcome. Jillian couldn’t bring herself to say, “That’s the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life” one more time even though it was. Three times was enough and the repetition would only make the obvious twice as obvious.

  “The television doesn’t work in this room. Can you believe that?”

  “Purely barbaric” was all Olivia said.

  Jillian thought about pretending to fall asleep as a mercy to them both but the coffee had her so wired she could barely blink.

  After ten more discomfiting minutes, Olivia finally broke the silence. “Does it hurt?” Her tone lacked tenderness but the question itself at least defied coldness.

  Jillian tried to answer similarly. “Yes.”

  Olivia nodded and stared at a few stray coffee grounds in the bottom of her empty cup.

  “But not as bad as it did,” Jillian added.

  Olivia sucked in her top lip for a moment. She stood and took both coffee settings to the counter and set them down. When she kept her back to her for more than a few seconds, Jillian’s heart sank. We’re back to this. We’re always back to this.

  She was taken by surprise when Olivia turned around suddenly, leaned back against the counter, and held the edge of it with both hands. “I’ve never been successful at this, Jillian. I don’t expect I’ll be successful now, but I don’t think I can make it much worse. Do you?”

  Jillian didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t certain she was following Olivia’s train of thought.

  “I mean us. The two of us together.” Olivia sucked in her top lip again. “I don’t think there’s much of a chance of breaking something that never was fixed. Do you?”

  “Uh, no. I guess not.”

  Olivia continued. “So what I’m wondering is whether, years from now when you look back on this awful time, this tragic season when you suffered for someone else’s—” Olivia winced. “I’m wondering if it could mean something that a stubborn old woman came to a place where she was willing to try.” She paused, keeping her gaze toward the floor. “Even if, when all was said and done, she never got it right.” Olivia looked up at Jillian as if to test the waters and see whether she should continue ankle-deep or jump back to shore. “I wonder if we could come up with anything at all.”

  “Like what?” Jillian was so nervous, her windpipe felt the width of a coffee stirrer and the question came out with a squeak. She tried to clear her throat and asked it again.

  “Your mother is demanding you home. As well she should. I wonder if you would be willing to stay at Saint Sans until you go. These next days are promising a storm. A lot has happened. You’ll need a place to sort through the worst of it. Saint Sans is not such a bad place, is it?”

  Jillian shook her head.

  “That old house has remained standing for a hundred years,” Olivia said, “and who knows why? Maybe to spite the storms. If you’d rather go to a hotel, I have money. It’s all I do have, but I have a mound of it. It’s up to you. But you’re welcome to stay with us.”

  Before Jillian could respond, Olivia turned back toward the counter and amended her last two words. “With me.”

  CHAPTER 49

  JILLIAN WAS RELIEVED when Adella proved true to her word about bringing clothes for her to wear home from the hospital. She came strutting into the room on release day, accessorized with a black plaid scarf and charcoal derby hat, rolling a sizable suitcase behind her. “It’s yours, and I do mean the whole suitcase. If I have to see you using that ratty old suitcase of mine one more time, I’m going to zip somebody up in it and it’s liable to be you.”

  “Look at you, all dressed up, Adella. You must be going somewhere.”

  “Where I’m going is to Saint Sans with you. Do you think the hat’s too much?”

  “No way. You look good.” Jillian grinned as she said it, but not because she didn’t mean it. She’d just never known anybody in San Francisco exactly like Adella. She bent down to lift the suitcase onto the bed.

  “Don’t you even think about it!” Adella heaved the case up to the mattress and opened it.

  Jillian’s eyes popped wide open as she discovered three pairs of jeans, four tops, one pullover sweater, two pairs of shoes, and a jacket. “You spent too much money!” she protested. The marvel was that she didn’t particularly despise any of them. The fake rabbit fur on the collar of the coat was probably removable. At least it wasn’t fringe.

  “I was on your grandmother’s dime, and I don’t mind saying I twirled on it. I felt so festive and free that, for an encore, I pulled out my debit card and treated myself to the ensemble you’re blessed to behold this morning. Fifty percent off at Dillard’s.”

  Before Adella had started growing on her, it used to annoy Jillian to no end that the woman pronounced Dillard’s like billiards with a D. She’d felt the need to correct her the second time she heard her say it, but Adella had looked at her like she’d left a pair of Q-tips in her ears and said loudly, “That is exactly what I said. Dilliard’s.”

  Jillian pulled out each piece of clothing and held it up for a good look.

  “I may as well be honest,” Adella confessed. “Caryn went with me.”

  “She did good,” Jillian replied.

  “You think they’ll fit? Gi
rl, I bet you’ve lost ten pounds.”

  “They’ll fit just fine,” Jillian answered. “I’ll grow back into them.” She placed them on the bed and paused a moment. “Thank you, Adella.”

  “Thank your grandmother.”

  “I’d rather thank you.”

  When Adella retorted, “I bet you would,” they broke out in matching grins.

  “Whoa!” Jillian held up a new bra with the tags still on that had been tucked under the jacket. “I don’t think this is gonna fit!”

  “Well, we’ll stuff it with coffee filters till I can get you another one. How was I to know? Do you think I signed up for all I’ve gotten into with you? I only have sons!”

  As recently as ten days ago, Jillian would have gotten good and offended by that. But after the way Adella had tended to her over the last week, it would be embarrassingly childish. Adella meant that kind of thing as an endearment, and accepting it took a lot less energy than taking exception to it.

  “Then you better have a thick stack of filters.” When she saw the new pajamas at the bottom of the pile, her expression changed. She tilted her head and frowned at Adella.

  “Oh, for pete’s sake!” Adella exclaimed. “I do not know for the life of me why you are fixated on my old pajamas. If you’ll hold your horses, you’ll get them back. I’ve harassed the authorities all I can. Right now your luxury sleepwear is being processed by our friends at the police department as evidence.”

  “Evidence? Why?” Jillian was getting panicked over this memory blackout and no telling what was ahead with the police. Olivia had somehow managed to keep them out of Jillian’s room for a record-setting seven days, insisting they could come to Saint Sans and meet with her once she got settled there, but she knew she couldn’t avoid them forever.

  And then there would be a trial, and what if she had to testify but couldn’t remember anything? And what was she going to do if she had to see Stella face-to-face? Anxiety surged through every artery in Jillian’s body and her stitches began to throb.

  Adella blew out a breath of exasperation. “Can you just let your poor head have a minute’s peace? You’re making my head hurt. When you’re not trying so hard, it’ll all come back to you. We’ll have to deal with it soon enough. For now, get in that bathroom and put on some of these clothes and let’s see if we can light a fire under those nurses and get them to break you out of here.”

  Adella reached into the suitcase, unzipped a compartment, and pulled out a small bag. “As soon as you feel like it, we’ll go back to the store and you can pick out your own, but this will do until then. It’s time you came back to the land of the living, and I, for one, don’t know how on earth a grown woman can do that without some color on her lips.”

  Jillian glanced into the bag and saw a tube of mascara, an eye shadow palette, an eyeliner pencil, some blush, and a tube of lip gloss. Her eyes widened when she opened the eye shadow.

  “Bold, huh?” Adella was clearly pleased with herself. “Turn it over and look at the name underneath. It’s called Winter Greens. Perfect for your eye color. You use that shimmery gold shade right under the eyebrow to break it up. You don’t want to brush those greens all the way to the brow. Less is more with the bolder shades. Well, unless it’s New Year’s.”

  That was almost enough to make Jillian chuckle, if only her head wasn’t throbbing so much. “Good to know. Okay then. If I’m supposed to get this kind of ready, you may be waiting awhile.” Dr. Sutherland had told her the physical exhaustion was normal and that, actually, she was doing astoundingly well considering what she’d been through. His biggest concern, he said, was that she’d overdo it. She needed calm and quiet for a while to let herself heal.

  Glancing at her phone, Adella announced, “You have fifteen minutes. That’s about how long it will take me to answer a few e-mails, and then we’re busting out of this joint.”

  When Jillian stepped out of the bathroom half an hour later, Adella broke out in a smile and clapped her hands. “Well, look at you!”

  Jillian returned the smile with a weaker one and sat down in the chair by her hospital bed. “I can hardly stay up on my feet that long without feeling like I’m going to collapse. If I get back in that bed, I could go right to sleep.”

  “Save that nap till we get you to Saint Sans, young lady. I mean for them to get us out of here on the double. You wait here while I get the nurse.” Adella pulled the curtain in front of Jillian as she left the hospital room.

  Adella was Jillian’s designated driver to Saint Sans by Olivia’s appointment, she’d told Jillian. There was a fair ruckus in the hall as arrangements were made for which elevator she’d ride and which first-floor exit she’d be allowed to use.

  “According to hospital regulations, you have to use the circle drive at the front. That’s patient pickup,” the nurse insisted.

  “I don’t care if it’s patient stickup, that is not where Mrs. Olivia Fontaine made arrangements with your chief of staff to have her granddaughter exit,” Adella argued at considerable volume. “We have special permission to depart by a less public door.”

  “What difference does it make?” Jillian asked under her breath, anxious to leave by whatever means was most expedient. She was quickly coming to the conclusion that Olivia was being even more eccentric than Mrs. Winsee.

  The sound of a male, authoritative voice entering the dialogue brought Jillian to her feet and she peeked around the curtain to see the face it belonged to. Her thoughts raced at the sight of the security guard. Conjuring up scenarios—none of them good—that could explain why he was stationed back at her door, Jillian missed what was said. That Team Fontaine had won the match was clear, however, when the guard walked in a few minutes later beside a nurse pushing an empty wheelchair.

  Adella entered the room behind them jingling her car keys and reaching for Jillian’s new roller bag. “I’m going to get your ride while this nice gentleman will see you down the south tower elevator to a side door where I will pick you up posthaste. Then it is straight to Saint Sans with you, young lady.”

  “We’re not going to Nail Estelle?”

  “Not today. Your grandmother has rerouted us, and she is in no humor for a detour.”

  Jillian sat in the wheelchair and propped her feet on the metal footrests.

  “We got everything?” Adella asked, casing the room for any overlooked personal items.

  “The flowers!”

  “Jillian, those flowers are deader than my great-granddaddy. I’ve got the cards in my purse. That’s all you need.” When Jillian responded with an unusually agreeable okay, Adella relented. “Oh, good grief, if you’re going to act like that about it, we’ll take them.”

  Adella loaded all three arrangements onto Jillian’s lap and the small herd headed into the hall. Jillian said her good-byes to the personnel at the nurses’ station and the one who’d particularly captured Jillian’s fondness leaned over and folded her up in her generous arms. “You’re gonna be alright. You hear?”

  “Thank you,” Jillian responded, trying to mask the emotion knotted in her throat. She had yet to grow accustomed to those kinds of hugs.

  As they made their way through a maze of halls, Adella said, “Good thing we went to the trouble of arranging a secret exit since what we have here, ladies and gentleman, is the floral edition of Hansel and Gretel. Shall I just ask them to make a public announcement that we’re departing the building?”

  Jillian glanced behind her at the trail of yellow petals that had rendered the chrysanthemums in the red vase all but bald. “Nobody cares. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it.”

  The nurse hadn’t uttered a word in five solid minutes but she picked this exact opportunity to pipe up. “We haven’t seen them today anyway. Maybe they’ve moved on to something new.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jillian saw Adella shoot the nurse a quelling look.

  “Who are you talking about? Who haven’t you seen today?” Jillian asked.
>
  Instead of answering, the nurse transferred her attention to the last turn. “We’re almost there. We’ll take a right at the end of this hall and come to a set of double doors. Mrs. Atwater, we’ll let you pick her up there. Pull up under the green awning where the sign says Outpatient Surgery.”

  After issuing the nurse a “Thank you ever so much” with sharp enough sarcasm to slice a steak, Adella stomped out the door and into the large parking lot in search of her car. Her jaw was moving faster than her feet.

  “She’s giving somebody a piece of her mind,” the nurse said with a smirk on her face that only a fellow smart aleck could adequately appreciate. Fortunately, she was in the right company.

  “Oh, I know exactly who she’s giving a piece of her mind to,” Jillian said. “I just don’t know why. You want to give me a clue?”

  “I think I’ll leave that to her, except to say that no few people are itching to get to you.”

  With that the guard’s tongue was untied long enough for him to suggest with an impressive measure of frankness that the nurse stick to her job description.

  Jillian shook her head and began surveying the people in the outpatient surgery waiting room. One guy was sound asleep with his mouth wide open. An older woman no bigger than Caryn was dressed in a purple tracksuit and reading a Bible. At least it looked like a Bible to Jillian. There was one on the bookshelf at Saint Sans that looked just like it. A young man was playing a game on his phone, and the woman next to him was lost in a book. Jillian tilted her head and squinted her eyes so she could decipher the title between the woman’s fingers. Last Dance, Last Chance.

  A middle-aged man yawned loudly as he picked up a copy of the Times-Picayune. He crossed his legs and disappeared behind its full length and width. Jillian perused the headlines facing her. Then she lurched as if the wheelchair had rolled over a live wire and looked again to be sure she’d read it right.

  Hope Growing Dim for Critically Injured Officer La Bauve

  She scrambled to her feet, only dimly registering the nurse’s warning that she needed to sit down before she fainted. The guard grabbed her arm to hold her steady, but she beat her fists against his chest. “What happened?” she shrieked. “What happened to him?”