The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

by Beth Moore

  CHAPTER 50

  “WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME?” Jillian’s tears were rivers.

  It had been everything Adella could do to keep the hospital from readmitting the young woman. She’d managed to get Jillian into the car by threatening that they were going to wheel her right back to that hospital room if she didn’t straighten up. Then Adella nearly hanged herself on her plaid scarf wallowing all over the car with Jillian, trying to buckle her seat belt. On top of that, Adella had sailed through every yellow light between there and Saint Sans with the girl rocking back and forth and wailing at the top of her lungs. It was a safety hazard. That’s what it was. She couldn’t have heard an ambulance in a convertible. Then, to top it all off, when they finally made it to Saint Sans, she had to threaten a pack of local reporters within an inch of their lives if they did not get their tail ends out of the driveway—only, looking back on it, she had a bad feeling she hadn’t said tail ends. Well, if she hadn’t, it wasn’t her fault. They’d pushed a God-fearing woman to the edge of the uttermost.

  David had met Adella at the back door and helped negotiate Jillian down the hall and into Rafe’s room while Olivia tried to settle Mrs. Winsee. She was wailing her head off with Jillian without the least idea why.

  After they finally got Jillian into bed, Adella sat on the edge of the soft mattress. She let go of a sigh from somewhere so deep and tired that it nearly bruised her lungs on its way up. A few minutes later, Olivia joined them, pulling up a chair on the other side of Jillian’s bed. Both women had known all week that the question was coming. Adella went ahead and took the lead. “We couldn’t, Jillian. Dr. Sutherland even agreed. You’ve been through so much trauma yourself. You didn’t need another thing to worry about until you could start to recover.”

  “When were you going to tell me?” Jillian asked through broken sobs.

  Olivia responded this time. “When you got here and we had a little privacy, so you could process it without an inquisitive audience. Obviously, things did not go as we hoped. Adella, could you explain to me how Jillian came upon this information? We went to substantial lengths to hold that off.”

  “She saw a newspaper while I went to get the car. She read a headline.”

  Still crying inconsolably, Jillian looked up at Olivia and choked out the words “Is Bully going to die?”

  A chill shot down Adella’s spine.

  Olivia rubbed her lower lip and then tapped it. Adella had been around her long enough to know what that meant. She was searching for words from a Scrabble grid of Qs and Xs, Ys and Zs. Adella took her turn from a grid with more vowels to buy Olivia a little time. “Jillian, your grandmother has been up to see Bully’s mama every day since it happened, wearing the soles of her feet to calluses between the two hospitals.”

  Only a person who knew Olivia’s history could appreciate what those hospital visits had cost her. Withdrawal had always been her defense against the fodder her late husband hand-fed the media. He’d thrived on it. She’d died on it. Olivia would have shaken the dust of New Orleans off her feet before the man’s body cooled had her only child not been out there somewhere on those streets. Remaining reachable had been her only means of keeping vigil. And now the media hounds were not only feeding on the fresh meat of a brand-new Fontaine docudrama. They were also gnawing on rotted meat: all the old footage and all the old articles about the lawsuit, the suspected mob connections, and the suicide of Steadman Nolan. The story going full circle was a media dream come true. And Olivia had subjected herself to it day after day, just so she could walk into that intensive care waiting room to sit with a family she’d never met, to try to say words she had never said.

  Mrs. Fontaine, how do you feel about what happened to Officer La Bauve?

  Do you feel responsible for it?

  Can you comment on Stella Nolan?

  What is your memory of the Nolan suicide?

  Is it true that your late husband had mob connections?

  How do you feel about Stella Nolan being cheated out of her inheritance?

  Is it true that your own heir died penniless on the street?

  They held screens right in front of Olivia’s face replaying the footage of Sergeant Cal DaCosta leading a handcuffed Stella Nolan from the backseat of his patrol car into the police department. She looked into the camera and yelled like she’d rehearsed every syllable, “Lock me up. Hang me like my father. It won’t matter! Death and destruction will still come to the Fontaines and all they touch. They are a brood of crooks and murderers. A curse is upon them!”

  And louder and louder, over and over, until the sergeant dragged her through the door. “A curse on you, Olivia Fontaine! A curse on your blood! A curse on all that belongs to you!”

  Adella was certain that none of it had been harder on Olivia than this moment, sitting beside her lost son’s bed, trying to explain the inexplicable to all that was left of him.

  “When I made the choice to hide from you what happened in front of this house to Officer La Bauve, I determined that, when the time came to tell you, I would disclose it in full. I will tell you everything you want to know about that night and about our history with . . .” Olivia paused and clenched her eyes shut.

  Adella leaned across the bed. “Your head hurting again, Olivia?”

  Olivia winced. “About our history with the Nolans. When you’re ready. For now, let me answer your question about the officer’s prognosis. The La Bauves have been told to prepare themselves for his passing. According to the specialist, his organs are giving indications that he won’t hold out much longer. Had his body not been so formidable, he wouldn’t have lived through the first night. He has never regained consciousness and he is primarily being sustained by artificial means.”

  Jillian put her hands over her face and sobbed.

  Olivia stood, smoothed her slacks, and said, “Adella, I’m going to check on Vida and then make us all some of that tea Jillian likes. I think coffee might be too much for tonight.”

  The next several days were piecemeal with pain and sadness, with quietness and questions, with moments of gentleness, brutality, and beauty. There was no normalcy. There were no established roles. No rules to go by. No being excused. They’d all been skinned alive. All of them at Saint Sans. All of them at Bully’s bedside. All of them at the Eighth District. There was no cover. There was no doing it especially well. There was only the enduring. Thanksgiving came and went with as little fanfare as Adella had ever seen. Yes, they all had more to be thankful for than they could shake a stick at, but no, they didn’t have the time or the heart or the energy for the traditional celebration.

  Adella came early in the morning and stayed as long as she could after work hours without AJ and Trevor Don bellyaching. Emmett Atwater was as fine a man as God made these days, at least in Adella’s book. Emmett told her she had his blessing to spend several nights at Saint Sans if she felt like she needed to. “I’ll bring you over an air mattress. I don’t mean a plastic one. I mean Army-grade. I’ll even blow it up for you.” Emmett always had a twinkle in his eye when he was about to do somebody good.

  “Sheets?” Adella asked. She wouldn’t get a wink of sleep without sheets.

  “Off one of the boys’ beds. He’ll never notice. Do you think Jillian would mind if you put it on the floor in her room?”

  “No, I don’t expect she would.” Adella took a moment to think about it. “In fact, she might be glad. She does better in the day than in the dark. Between her own memories starting to resurface and her picturing Bully over and over getting hit by that awful car, the girl can hardly shut her eyes. I’ll find out if Olivia would be relieved for me to stay a few nights with her.”

  But she never asked her. When David heard of Adella’s plan, he shook his head. “She reads to her at night.”

  “What do you mean she reads to her?”

  “I mean Mrs. Fontaine sits in the chair next to Jillian’s bed and reads to her.”

  “What on earth does she read to h
er?”

  “Jane Austen.”

  “Pride and Prejudice?”

  “Emma.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well,” David responded, “if every night is like last night, she reads to Jillian until she starts nodding off, then Mrs. Fontaine gets up, turns out the lamp, and goes out.”

  “Huh. Well, I never.” Adella was flummoxed.

  “And that’s not all.”

  Adella slid the utility room door shut and turned the dryer on so nobody could hear them. “Spit it out.”

  “She turns on a small lamp in the foyer between their rooms and . . .” David raised his eyebrows all the way to his receding hairline.

  “And what?” Adella slapped the top of the washer with both words for special emphasis.

  “And leaves both their bedroom doors open all night.”

  “Boy, you watch yourself, messin’ with me.”

  “You heard me.”

  “You’re telling me that she leaves the door to her private suite open all night.”

  “Correct.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I set my alarm for 3 a.m. last night just to check. Wide open.”

  “She must be skimming off Mrs. Winsee’s medication.”

  As it turned out, Adella learned, Olivia did considerably better in the night than the day. Actually it made sense when she thought about it, since there was less talking involved. Reading wasn’t the same as talking. The officers coming and going nearly drove Olivia to drink bleach, and the way they drilled Jillian with the same questions they’d asked the day before made her want them to, she confessed.

  Olivia was not a little perturbed that Officer Sanchez wasn’t among the police officers sent to question Jillian. “She doesn’t know these men,” she complained to Adella. “She shuts down with them.” Officer Lamonte was the only officer familiar to Jillian. Nobody watching could say he wasn’t trying. For that matter, so was Jillian. He’d been kind and patient and she’d been cooperative. Just unusually soft-spoken.

  “They said Officer Sanchez is taking some time off,” Adella reminded her. “That’s understandable, since she’s Bully’s partner and all. I heard the whole unit is completely undone.”

  “I saw her twice over at the hospital where Officer La Bauve is.”

  “In the ICU waiting room?” Adella asked.

  “Once.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No,” Olivia responded brusquely. “She was in regular clothes. She looked different.”

  “That explains it.” Olivia was hands down one of the oddest people Adella had ever known. If she was taking some of Mrs. Winsee’s medication, Adella felt like suggesting she might try a higher dose.

  “The other time was on the first floor.”

  Since Olivia rarely offered information on the bloodless side of a tooth-pulling, she had to be after something. She owed Adella a debt of gratitude for agreeing to play along. “So where did you see her on the first floor?”

  “Going into the chapel.” When Adella didn’t respond by the count of three, Olivia added, “You know, the kind they have in some hospitals.”

  “Yes, I do know. And . . . ?”

  “And that’s all. There was no more to it.”

  “Okay then.”

  Olivia studied her. “You think she’s religious?”

  “Who?”

  “Who were we talking about, Adella? Officer Sanchez.”

  “I have no idea. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  Olivia never just wondered about anything.

  “Many people reach out for God when they’re in a crisis,” Adella said, “and thank goodness they do. Nothing is at all unusual about that. And his ears are open to their cries.”

  “He must have gotten an earful from Officer Sanchez.”

  The woman was exasperating. “What are you getting at?”

  “She was still in there an hour later when I left.”

  “I thought you’d only seen her twice. That would have been three times.”

  “Well, aren’t you quite the math wizard? Try this math: sixty-four minutes in the hospital chapel. Sixty-four.” Olivia gave her a pointed look.

  Before Adella could come up with a suitable response, Jillian appeared out of nowhere. “I need to go to the hospital.”

  Adella jumped to her feet, and Olivia exclaimed, “What is it? Did you have a seizure? Blurred vision? Let’s see, disorientation?”

  Had Jillian not stopped her, she would have continued in perfect order through the checklist of maladies Dr. Sutherland told them to call him about immediately. “No. I need to go to Bully’s hospital. With you.”

  “Me?” Olivia looked like she’d just seen her own picture on the back of a milk carton.

  “You.”

  CHAPTER 51

  FOUR DAYS HAD PASSED since Olivia had last come to this waiting room. Her hands had been so full with Jillian she couldn’t leave Saint Sans. She’d also feared that, if she dropped the least hint of where she was headed, Jillian would insist on joining her. Olivia had no intention of taking that chance. She’d not let Jillian be subjected to the media that had been hounding her.

  Yet here they were. This was the reason Olivia was going to have to let Jillian go back to San Francisco without a hint of resistance. She needed to be away from this place. From this history. From this curse.

  Olivia had no idea how far a curse could reach, but it would have a harder time getting its bony hand around her neck in San Francisco than at Saint Sans. It had moved right into Saint Sans, taken its shoes off, and walked around bare and bold. Look at all that had happened to Jillian since she’d been there. She was going to have to go. That’s all there was to it. The sooner the better.

  “Mrs. La Bauve, I’m sorry. We must have come at the wrong time. There’s no one else here.” Olivia felt her face scald with embarrassment.

  Bully’s mother patted the seat of the chair right beside her. Her exhaustion was palpable. “Nonsense. It’s the perfect time. Bear is in there with Billy. The nurses make occasional exceptions, but the hard-and-fast rule is one visitor at a time.”

  Olivia’s feet were stuck to the floor. In her wildest imagination, she had not pictured sitting right by the grieving mother and having to come up with something comforting to say. “Where are my manners? Mrs. La Bauve, this is my—”

  “I know exactly who this is. Jillian, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, you lovely thing?” She patted the chair on the other side of her. “Come. Tell me how you’re feeling. We were frantic about you.”

  Jillian did something she might not have felt as free to do had she been a little older. Olivia guessed she just couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears, threw her hands over her face, and said, “I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. La Bauve!”

  “Mrs. Fontaine, bring that child right here—” she patted the seat again—“and let’s you and me talk some sense into her and dry her tears.”

  Olivia was taken aback.

  “Right here.” More patting.

  Even Olivia had sense enough to know that the most grief-stricken person in the room ought not have to do so much patting. She got Jillian by the elbow, led her to the chair beside Bully’s mother, and sat down on the other side of her. Perhaps Mrs. La Bauve had missed the discomfiture.

  “How is he?” Jillian sobbed.

  “He is about the same. His doctor said he’s got the strongest heart they’ve ever seen.”

  Jillian nodded and sniffed several times.

  Olivia held the Kleenex box right under Jillian’s chin, and before Jillian could reach up to pull out a tissue, Mrs. La Bauve snatched one with a whoosh.

  “Here you go, dear,” she said, holding it right under Jillian’s nose.

  “Thank you, Mrs. La Bauve.”

  “Honey, go ahead and call me Bootsie. Mrs. Fontaine, you, too. That’s what my friends call me. Well, and Bear. He started it.”

  Jillian’
s nose was barely dry when a mountain of a man walked through the door with a younger man behind him who looked vaguely familiar to Olivia.

  “Bear, Mrs. Fontaine’s been kind enough to come back to see us, and her granddaughter just barely out of the hospital. Look how well she’s doing. Did you get to meet Jillian that night at Billy’s party? Or did you put that accordion down even once?”

  Jillian stood and stretched out her hand, and he took it in both of his. “Mr. La Bauve,” she said tenderly and earnestly, “I am so very sorry.”

  “Thank you, Jillian.” His eyes were as glassy as the Gulf.

  He reached behind him and pulled the young man out front. “Look who I found in the hall again, Bootsie.”

  Mrs. La Bauve scolded him with a smile. “Cal DaCosta, I told you I better not see you up here today.”

  He hugged her and kissed her on the forehead. “You know I had to come.”

  “This young man has been up here every day at least twice.” Mrs. La Bauve put her hand on his cheek. “He’s been in there with Billy as much as Bear and I have.”

  “Mrs. Fontaine,” Cal said, extending his hand to Olivia. He offered his hand to Jillian and said her name softly. Olivia noticed something about their eyes and a slight hesitation before they shook hands.

  “You look well. Really well. Are you feeling good?” Cal asked.

  The room was suddenly stuffy. No telling how much body heat a man Bear’s size probably gave off.

  “I’m okay,” Jillian responded. “It’s Bully.” She struggled to get the words out of her mouth. “I didn’t know what happened until the day I left the hospital.”

  “They had you shut in there pretty tight.” Cal’s eyes met Olivia’s. “We sure tried to get in.”

  Olivia didn’t utter a syllable.

  Jillian lifted her gaze and looked into his face. “I’m so sorry, Cal.”