The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

by Beth Moore

  Olivia was as far outside her comfort zone as she had ever been. “Shhhh, now. I’ve got you.” The house was pitch dark. The sheets of lightning were their only eyes. “David?” she called out. “What’s that song Vida sings sometimes?”

  “I don’t know which one you mean, Mrs. Fontaine!” he responded, sounding like he was in pain. What was Vida doing to the poor man? “Mrs. Winsee, I beg you to let go. You are about to scalp your good friend David! Mrs. Fontaine, is it ‘Chapel of Love’?”

  “No, the hymn!” Olivia scrambled through her memory for the scattered words. “You know the one. The ‘walks with me’ one. Sing it to her, David.”

  “Now?”

  Another clap of thunder. Another scream from Jillian.

  “Now!”

  The words were a little muffled at first, but David sang.

  “I come to the garden alone,

  While the dew is still on the roses,

  And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,

  The Son of God discloses.”

  Vida began to sing with him, just a few words here and there at first.

  “And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

  And He tells me I am His own;

  And the joy we share as we tarry there,

  None other has ever known.”

  Olivia rocked slightly back and forth with Jillian and hoped against hope that maybe she was listening.

  David stopped singing. “Caryn?”

  “I’m right here,” she answered.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Can you come here and sit with Mrs. Winsee for a moment?”

  Olivia could hear David walking toward the front doors and wondered what on earth he had in mind. Her question was answered when she heard whooshing pumping sounds and a few reedy notes from the old organ. So he had gotten the thing working again.

  David found the chords and continued the hymn.

  “He speaks, and the sound of His voice

  Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

  And the melody that He gave to me

  Within my heart is ringing.”

  Vida’s quavering voice joined in on the chorus, this time word for word and with full vigor.

  “And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

  And He tells me I am His own;

  And the joy we share as we tarry there,

  None other has ever known.”

  The lightning kept flashing, but the thunder grew shy and hid behind the organ. Jillian’s sobs were quieter now.

  Olivia looked down at her face and followed her gaze all the way up to the stained-glass window. The light flashed continually behind it, making the foam of the waves a frosty white and swirling iridescent blues through the waters. The hand of Jesus extended toward the storm-battered boat.

  Jillian’s words were so soft, Olivia couldn’t make out what she was saying. The organ quieted and so, for a moment, did Vida and David.

  “Help us. Please help us,” Jillian was whispering toward the man walking upon the sea.

  Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the crash of a thousand waves against her chest and the weight of a lifetime of anchorless storms.

  The clicking sound of a lighter drew the attention of all to Caryn, standing beside the dining room table. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this earlier.” She lit each of the six red candles. “I just couldn’t think. Here are a couple of flashlights, too.” She’d retrieved them from under the sink.

  Like moths to the flames, Olivia and the others went to the table where Caryn stood. No one said, “Let’s all sit down,” but one by one they did.

  They took their best shot at making small talk. “Man, that was some kind of lightning!” and “How much rain would you bet we got?” to avoid “Mrs. Winsee nearly pulled every hair out of my head” and “What in tarnation was all that yelling about?”

  Jillian spoke the quietest of all but her words hushed every other. “I woke up in there.”

  Every head turned toward her.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the flame of a single candle and spoke again. “In the storage unit. Stella’s.”

  No one said a word.

  “I didn’t know that’s where I was. It was too dark. Such black darkness I thought maybe I was blind. That whatever awful thing was hurting my head had blinded me.”

  “Oh, Jillian.” Tears welled in Caryn’s eyes.

  Olivia found herself blinking too, but only from the candle smoke, she was certain.

  “I told myself I didn’t have to see. All I had to do was feel my way around and I could find a way out. That’s when I realized my wrists and my ankles were bound. With what, I had no idea.”

  “Dear God,” David said, lowering his forehead into his hand.

  “Keep talking, Jillian.” Olivia would rather lay down her life in that bed of ashes than hear what Jillian had to say, but she’d lived long enough to know it was the only way. If Jillian could endure the horror of it, they could buck up and bear the telling of it.

  Jillian cleared her throat and covered her quivering bottom lip with her fingers. “Something crawled on my feet.” She paused to catch her breath. “I tried to scream, only my mouth was bound too. I wiggled my toes and bent and straightened my legs frantically, and whatever it was fell off.”

  A hand, creased and speckled with advanced age, reached across the table to hold Jillian’s.

  Jillian lifted her chin and peered into Vida’s eyes and reciprocated the grip of her hand. “The thunder,” the young woman said. “It just went on and on. I screamed and screamed inside my own mouth, Somebody help me! I’m in here! Can anybody hear me? Please help me! I felt something with my toes. I could tell it was cardboard and figured it was a box. I kicked my feet against it as long as I could, trying to make noise.”

  Jillian looked at Olivia, and Olivia, perceiving that she needed affirmation to proceed, nodded.

  “But you were not alone, were you, Jillian?” It was Vida.

  “Yes, I was! I was so alone. I was terrified. The pain in my head. It was excruciating. I could tell my hair was wet and I knew it was blood. Nothing could hurt that bad and not bleed. And I was freezing.” She caught her breath and shook her head like she was trying to toss the memories somewhere far away. “It was unbearable.”

  Tears spilled down Jillian’s cheeks as well as Caryn’s and David’s.

  Olivia watched the peculiar way the candlelight shimmered in the streaks on their faces. Tears pooled in her own eyes, but she willed herself not to set them free. She fought to keep her jaw strong and her face dry. Her grandchild needed courage to reach in and draw out whatever words remained on the floor in that black darkness. She’d withheld too many things from Jillian in the last twenty years out of nothing but pure spite. She would not withhold the one thing she had to offer her: iron in her blood.

  Through the equal gift of shared sobs, Caryn spilled out the words “I don’t know how you stood it.”

  Jillian stared back at the flame, transfixed, like she didn’t hear her. “And then it was over,” she said.

  David spoke next. “Over how, Jillian?”

  “All of it. The thunder. The pain. The terror. It was just over.”

  “You went into shock,” Caryn explained.

  “I guess I did. But I’d never heard anyone describe it like that. I guess you hear this all the time, Caryn, but it felt just like a heavy blanket. So warm. So real. Like something I would have sworn at the time I could feel on my skin. It was so vivid that I thought, Someone’s in here with me! I told myself to be afraid because no one good knew where I was. But I couldn’t muster up my fear. I couldn’t even muster up my pain. I think it was the shock, like you said.”

  Caryn offered no response.

  “Then what, Jillian?” Olivia prompted. “Tell us every single thing.”

  “Then I must have fallen asleep.”

  “What do you remember happening next?�
�� Olivia had no intention of letting her stop until that black hole was an empty well.

  “I heard voices. I opened my eyes and saw Adella. Then you, Caryn. And you, David. You, Mrs. Winsee.” Jillian glanced at Olivia, held her gaze, and reached out her other hand. “And you, O.”

  Olivia fixed her jaw but several tears fought their way free. She placed her hand on Jillian’s.

  “Tonight,” Jillian said. “Tonight I remembered.”

  “Christmas is the time for remembering.” It was a strange thing for Vida to say. No proper time for Merry Christmases. But everyone there knew the old woman’s heart. This night had been hard for her, too.

  Olivia looked at David, who, with elbows on the table, had dropped his face into his hands. He didn’t appear to be crying. His shoulders were still. He was just sick at heart, Olivia supposed, like all of them were.

  They all sat silently at the table for what seemed a good while. Both hands on the mantel clock had now reached twelve. Olivia opened her mouth to suggest they blow out the candles and get to their rooms with the flashlights. The electricity would surely come back on before morning.

  Before she could say a word, David spoke. “‘For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it.’”

  David reached over to the gold-plated brass paten and pulled it over in front of him. As the others watched wide-eyed and puzzled, he lowered his chin, whispered the words “Thank you,” and tore the popover into five pieces. He took one piece and handed the plate to Caryn. She stared at him questioningly. When he nodded, she took a piece and passed the plate to Vida. The paten shook slightly in the old woman’s hands, but she steadied it with one hand and took her portion with the other. She passed it to Jillian, who knew nothing to do but imitate the others. With one piece of bread remaining on the plate, Jillian passed the paten to Olivia.

  David spoke again. “‘And the Lord said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”’”

  He put his portion of bread in his mouth. The others hesitated for only the briefest moment before they followed suit.

  Once more David spoke. “‘In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”’”

  He reached for the chalice, cupped it in both hands, and held it just below his chin. Unable to look away, Olivia studied David carefully and watched him squeeze his eyes shut. His jaw tightened for several seconds and he pressed his forehead to the lip of the cup. Then he opened his eyes and sipped from it.

  When he passed the cup to Caryn, she did not hesitate. She lifted the chalice, took a deep breath, and drank. She held the cup out to Vida, and when she took it in her trembling hands, Caryn wrapped her own hands around the woman’s and helped guide it to her mouth. Vida turned toward Jillian, smiled the warmest smile, and extended the cup to her.

  Jillian took the gold-plated chalice in both hands. That she carefully and meticulously reenacted David’s every move was lost on no one at the table. Jillian squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead to the lip of the cup. After holding it there for several seconds, she opened her eyes and sipped.

  At last the chalice passed into Olivia’s hands. She stared at it for what felt like a full minute. She lifted her eyes first to David. She shifted her gaze to Caryn. Caryn’s eyes met hers and the young woman smiled. Olivia next studied the lined and kind face most familiar to her at the table. Then she looked at the face that most resembled her own, the face of the only one who’d been a stranger to her just months ago.

  Lastly Olivia stared at the place at the table Vida had set for an unseen guest. And she took the cup and she drank it.

  CHAPTER 59

  CHRISTMAS WAS THE FIRST DAY Jillian and Olivia had ever spent alone together at Saint Sans.

  David had told Jillian he always spent the day with a circle of unmarried friends who’d migrated together from the school district. Some had kids, and some on occasion brought dates, but all had a place and an annual assigned dish. Heralded the Nobel laureate of world-class eggnog, David was in high demand. Mrs. Winsee’s great-niece from Slidell always sent a driver for her on Christmas morning and sent her back Christmas night pleased as punch with a thermos of virgin wassail. First- and second-year medical students did grunt work at city hospitals all Christmas Day, so that was where Caryn would be celebrating.

  Exhausted and completely wrung out, Jillian slept late that morning. The electricity had come back on around two o’clock, turning on nearly every light in the house just as she’d fallen asleep.

  They had gingerbread cookies for breakfast and, between them, one full pot of French press and half of another. Over the last cup of coffee, Olivia brought out a gift meticulously wrapped in gold foil paper and red satin ribbon. When she placed it in front of Jillian, she said, “Next year, if you’re still here, we’ll get a tree. I should have gotten David to fetch us one this year once I knew we’d have you for Christmas.”

  “No worries, O. My mom and I really didn’t do that kind of thing either.”

  That seemed to perturb Olivia to no end. “Do you think any lots are open today?”

  Jillian didn’t know Olivia well enough yet to read whether or not she was serious. “Probably not, but anyway, what kind of shape do you think the trees would be in by this time?”

  Olivia picked up the gift and set it down forcefully in front of the large flower arrangement on the kitchen island. “There,” she said. “Make like that’s a tree and I’ll have you one no later than December 1, next go-round.”

  Jillian hopped up from the stool and hurried into her room to get the two gifts she had for Olivia. “I didn’t know if I’d have guts enough to give these to you or not. David let me use the gift wrap he had left over.”

  Olivia appeared to be completely taken aback. “You shouldn’t have gotten me anything.”

  “Why?”

  “You just shouldn’t have.”

  It was nearly a scolding, tempting Jillian in the worst way to shift into her defensive gear with a dramatic “Well, forget it then.” Instead she said, “Well, I did. It’s not store-bought, so relax.”

  Olivia’s lips were pressed shut like they’d been superglued. Jillian lifted the tape gradually on the gold foil wrapping of her gift and unfolded it with such care, she could have reused the paper. Inside she discovered a printout of a registration confirmation under her name for the spring semester at the New Orleans School of Cooking.

  Jillian was slack-jawed. “What? Are you kidding?”

  “Does that sound like anything you’d want to do? I didn’t know if it would be presumptuous.”

  “It’s perfect! I can’t wait!” She scanned the page again. “I can’t believe this. Thank you, O!” She stopped short of hugging her for Olivia’s sake. “I start in just two weeks!”

  “I’m pleased that you like it.” Olivia pulled a key out of her pocket. “This is the extra key to my car. At some point, of course, you will want to get your own car. But until then we can share mine. Much of what I have to do away from Saint Sans is flexible. We’ll have to work around each other a little, but I think we can manage it just fine.”

  “I can take the trolley.”

  “You can. But it must get exhausting thinking about the streetcar schedule when you need to run to the grocery store or pharmacy. Or want to go out with friends.”

  “I don’t really have any friends outside Saint Sans.” Jillian didn’t say it with self-pity. She just stated it as a fact.

  “Well, you will at some point.”

  Taking the key, Jillian said, “That’s very kind of you. I probably would enjoying using it some. I won’t overdo it.” Butterflies fluttered in Jillian’s stomach as she slid the two gifts she’d wrapped for Olivia in front of her. “Your turn.”

  The
butterflies intensified to something nearer to panic when Olivia unwrapped them and looked at the two framed five-by-sevens without uttering a single syllable or cracking the least smile. In her right hand was Rafe’s first-grade picture, freckled face and front-toothless. In her left hand was a picture of an older Rafe holding a curly-haired, dark-headed little girl whose arms were wrapped tightly around his neck.

  Someone needed to break the silence and Jillian was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be Olivia. “I found them in the closet in Rafe’s room. Gosh, I hope this wasn’t presumptuous. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Jillian squirmed, feeling queasy.

  “He was about your age here,” Olivia said, looking at the picture of Rafe and Jillian. “You were, if I’m remembering right, about three.”

  Jillian paused to muster some courage. “O, can I ask you something?”

  Olivia turned her head toward her without answering. Jillian had never known anybody who seemed more comfortable saying no, so she took Olivia’s silence as a yes and pounced headlong where angels might fear to tread. “Are there others?”

  “Other children?” Olivia looked aghast. “No. Of course not.”

  “No, not other children. Are there other pictures? Of me—” Jillian hesitated—“and him.”

  “Probably. I haven’t looked in those boxes in a good while.”

  Needing to give some measure of recognition to the other picture, Jillian pointed toward it and said, “He was cute. The hair and all.”

  Olivia abruptly scooted back the stool and stood. “Thank you for the gifts.” With that, she turned on her heels and started in the direction of her room.

  Jillian’s face burned with embarrassment and disappointment as she watched Olivia walk away. She paused at the edge of the great room, however, just before she got to the hall. She set the photo of Rafe and Jillian on the buffet across from the dining table and appeared to inspect it. After a tad of rearranging, she left it there before walking to her room and closing the door.

  Flummoxed, Jillian retreated to her room as well and spent the next little while showering and getting dressed and replaying the scene over and over in her head. By the time Jillian heard pots and pans clattering around in the kitchen, she was in a stew. She knew what she’d do. She’d march herself right into that kitchen and demand an explanation.