“I know we have troubles,” said Mark. “I know we’re in trouble. I’m a priest: a fallible, corruptible, rescued priest.”
Alex looked at him, at his exposed face and his honesty. Why was it so difficult?
“I do love you,” he whispered, and now he clenched his left hand into a fist. “I’ll always love you for taking me on, despite everything I’ve done.”
Mark’s face shifted into sadness. “And I will always love you,” he said. “As I also forgive you.”
Tears blurred Alex’s eyes. “I need to move out,” he said. “Now.”
“I know,” said Mark. “It is the right time. But help me to understand, Alex.” Mark grasped his shoulder. “Why are you choosing this path?”
Alex frowned, and looked at Jesus on the cross, as he released his left fist.
“It is the only way,” he said. “The only way to overcome cursing and death.”
“This is the hardest path,” said Mark, “this ‘Way’.”
“I know,” whispered Alex. “I know.”
“It will strip you bare,” said Mark. “It will chew you up.”
“I know,” said Alex, looking at Jesus’ face – at the blood, and the crown of thorns.
“It will test you like nothing else,” said Mark. “All of your weaknesses will emerge; all of your agony will emerge. You will be like a lamb led to the slaughter.”
Alex’s vision blurred. He took a deep breath, and spun around to find Mark’s gaze had intensified.
“You will be just like him,” said Mark, gesturing to the cross, his eyes wet – and then he stepped back, and released Alex from his grip.
Alex stared at him, and then shifted on his feet. “A broken lampshade,” he said. “You do know that, don’t you? I’m just a broken lampshade.”
“So much the better,” murmured Mark. “So it was with Paul.”
“Paul?” asked Alex, looking back up to the stained glass windows to Paul, the missionary, overwhelmed by the light of Christ, carrying it beyond the borders of Israel.
“The thorn in the flesh,” said Mark. “God’s strength in Paul’s weakness. [1] All the pieces are in place. We must look to Paul now.”
Alex reached out to touch his face.
“A bearer of the light,” said Mark. “The light for the Gentiles. Shine it well beyond the church, Alex: shine Christ’s light to the very ends of the Earth.”
And now Mark was praying over him.
Alex closed his eyes. Light! Light, in the darkness; light, in the growing darkness…
“Today is your graduation day, Alex,” said Mark. “Today is your choice. Which path will you take? May God bless you and keep you, in choosing the hardest way. May he make his face shine upon you, and give you peace.” [2]
“Amen,” whispered Alex, and he straightened his shoulders, gripped Mark’s hand and walked down the aisle, leaving his academic gown, degree and medal far behind.
CHAPTER TWO: A Vocation
Rachel stood in the medical ward. It was early, still quiet at the end of night shift. She wandered over to a window, in the empty room, and gazed outside toward the hills of the Hutt, to the bright pink sky of the rising sun.
“Congratulations, Doctor Connor,” said a voice behind her. “Your first day as a fully qualified specialist.”
Rachel turned. Her father was standing leaning casually against a bed, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, his tie, for now, abandoned. He was smiling gently at her.
“Your mother would be proud,” he said, and Rachel stiffened and spun back to the window.
“Don’t,” she said, drawing her white coat more tightly around her.
“You did it all yourself,” said her father.
“Sure did.”
“I couldn’t be more proud.”
Now tears pricked her eyes. She stared up at the hills, at the lightening sky. She quickly blinked the tears away.
“Finishing a year early,” said James Connor. “Trying to beat your brother?”
Rachel frowned, reaching to finger the stethoscope on her chest. It was cardiology grade; the stethoscope of James Lester.
Suddenly she was in Saint Peter’s again, staring up at her husband John as he clutched the silver chalice of Christ’s blood. Suddenly she could feel her brother’s gun at her temple.
“Who knows how much time any of us have?” she asked.
“I suppose as much time as we are given,” replied Connor.
The sun had risen. Confused, Rachel gazed at the light in the valley. The night time was over? It couldn’t be, not yet. The gun! The gun was still to her head…
“And what about you?” she asked, turning again to Connor, shaking the memory away. “You’re actually acknowledging James as my brother now? After all these years?”
Connor shifted uneasily on his feet. “I don’t know…”
“You abandoned him.”
Her father’s eyes were set on her. “He went missing,” he said. “I didn’t know where he had gone.”
“You didn’t look for him,” said Rachel, shaking her head.
“Of course we looked! Your mother…”
“Don’t talk to me about her.”
“She tried…”
“Bullshit. She was glad to see him go.”
“Rachel!”
“She was glad to see him go!” Rage filled her, and she jabbed her finger at the ground at his feet. “He was her child, Dad!” she said. “He was my twin! But, no, focus on the good child; abandon the difficult child into some shitty life. Let him rot in prison.”
“He pulled a gun on you.”
“I don’t care.” She shrugged his comment away.
“He was going to kill you!”
“Yeah, well who can blame him?” she roared, glaring at him. “Maybe he was just following his father’s example!” And now the memory of Joshua Davidson’s shooting filled her vision: Tristan Blake, commanded by her father! Five bullets!
Her father’s face whitened, and his eyes widened.
“Rachel!” he cried. “I’ve already told you I’m sorry for that! I’m sorry for everything!”
Rachel felt her face contort, and regret seized her chest.
“I know,” she whispered swiftly. “I’m sorry.”
Her father’s eyes filled with tears. “This was supposed to be a good day, Rachel!” he said, jabbing his own finger toward the floor. “It was supposed to be a good day!”
“It’s not a good day!” she said. “Not when there’s nothing but dead bones inside!”
She pulled off her stethoscope, and dragged off her white coat.
“Don’t,” her father whispered.
“It’s all a charade, Dad!” she cried. “All pretence!”
“No…”
“Why would I have anything to offer to anyone else?” she asked. “Why, when my own family…”
She shook her head, and tightly closed her eyes. “I need time off,” she whispered. “I need time.”
“Then take time,” said her father, his voice cracking.
“I need…” She wandered back over to the window, without her white coat, and searched the hills and the sky. “I need…”
“Something stronger than humanity.”
Surprised, Rachel looked back at him. They were her words to Alex, after his decimation – after she had watched his father violently stripped from him.
“Come,” said her father suddenly.
“Where?”
Connor smiled sadly. “To another kind of work.”
“I’m needed here.”
“Not yet,” said Connor. “You’ve shown up ridiculously early for your first day, as I knew you would.”
Rachel grinned at him. Then she reached for her white coat, where she had tossed it on a bed, straightened it up, placed it over the bedpost, and put James’s stethoscope into her pocket.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s do this your way.”
And she followed her father down the corridor an
d out of the ward.
The Beehive loomed above them: ten storeys of grey.
“So, Prime Minister,” asked Rachel, as they wandered toward the entrance to Parliament. “How’s the state of the nation?”
Connor shrugged. “A whole lot better than it was straight after the disaster,” he said.
“Which disaster?” muttered Rachel. “I’m starting to lose count.”
“It’s all one to me,” said Connor. “Temperature heating up, Davidson’s movement, my…” he hesitated, and seemed to make himself continue, “my complete mess.”
“You might as well say it clearly,” said Rachel.
“It makes me gag,” said Connor, “but so be it. My arrangement of his assassination.”
He shuddered. “And now, here I am back again,” he said. “It’s been over two years, and I’m still feeling bewildered.”
“It was Alex,” said Rachel, remembering him now, young, blonde, sagging on his knees, poisoned in the Debating Chamber. “He exposed his father’s plot to take over Parliament. He had you reinstated.”
“I know,” said Connor. “Kensington might have destroyed us all.”
Kensington? Rachel suddenly remembered a worse image: Alex, forced back onto the altar of Saint Peter’s, his father’s gun to his head, with his invasive kiss. Shoot! She had cried out to Tristan and James. Save the boy!
“His father?” she said. “Don’t think about him. He was a malicious bastard! Like some kind of insidious force, setting us up, moving around and through us all, manipulating the pieces…”
“Like Satan?” muttered Connor. “As if there really was literally such a beast.”
Rachel suddenly stopped, as something caught her eye. There was a young man sitting across the courtyard, under a pohutukawa, staring at something in his hands.
“Dad,” whispered Rachel, “I think it’s him.”
Connor stopped next to her, peering in the same direction. “Who?” he asked. “Kensington? Satan?”
His gaze settled in the same direction. “Oh,” he said, “you had me worried for a moment. I thought I’d be seeing some ghostly apparition, some red thing with horns…”
Rachel flicked her hand against his arm, and then suddenly seized him. Alex was here? Why now?
Connor shifted awkwardly against her.
“Listen,” he said quietly, “we all saw what happened to him. We all watched him traumatised.”
“I was there,” whispered Rachel, her gut twisting. His scream, after his father was torn away! “I was a part of it.”
“We were all a part of it,” said Connor. “And now he comes and sits outside of the Beehive, every morning, spending hours staring into his hands.”
Rachel frowned, and then looked at her father again. “You brought me here for him?”
Connor smiled sadly at her. “Well, you are a fully qualified specialist now, aren’t you?” he said.
“I…” Rachel stared at him, looked back to Alex, and frowned again. “I’m not a specialist in trauma.”
“Are you not?”
Now she met the sorrow in her father’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said. “I don’t know what else to do. But maybe you do. Maybe you know more than I do. Maybe you get it.”
Rachel bowed her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t know anything,” she whispered, “not really. I can’t begin to save someone who has lost all of his family.”
“If anyone knows what to do,” said Connor, “it’s you. You were there. You are a doctor. You’ve felt it too. You’ll know what he needs. As for me, I’m just a politician who’s feeling a bit nervous having the son of Kensington sitting repeatedly on my doorstep looking a little bit mentally unwell…”
Rachel grimaced. “Do it for national security?” she asked.
Connor held her eyes. “This is your chance, Rachel,” he said. “This is your chance to try to stop the flame passing on before it is too late.”
Rachel glanced across the road at Saint Peter’s Cathedral. Alex had shot out the windows! But now they were replaced. She lowered her eyes to look at his forlorn figure, under the tree.
Her father’s hand came to her shoulder. “You are a doctor,” he said. “You will help him.”
“All right, all right,” she said. “I’m here. I’ll try to help him.”
Alex was before her, sitting alone on the park bench, in jeans and an old T-shirt. He was staring down at his palms.
“Hey,” said Rachel, and Alex lifted his head. His eyes widened, and his face paled.
“Oh, shit!” he said, and he reached out to grab the park bench with both hands.
His body was stiffening, his breathing quickening.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “It’s just, I haven’t seen you since…since…”
Since the hospital ward, Rachel suddenly realised, after his near death. He had exposed his father in Parliament, and brought about the reinstatement of Connor.
She was bringing back the memory. “Sorry,” she murmured, as she sat down on the bench beside him.
“Breathe,” she murmured. “Breathe.”
“Breathe?” he gasped. “That’s what I already try to do…”
“Gently,” she murmured. “Slowly.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder, breathing deeply and slowly for him, and he followed her lead.
His tension was easing, under her hand. His breathing was settling. She released him.
Something had fallen next to them; from his hands, in his shock, he had dropped something to the ground.
Rachel bent over to pick it up. It was sparkling, in the sun – a golden chain. She lifted it hurriedly, and a golden crucifix, Jesus on the cross, swung from it.
She held it in front of his face.
“Staring at this a lot?” she asked.
He drew in a deep breath and reached for it. “This was my mother’s,” he said, taking it.
“Your mother was Catholic?” asked Rachel, tilting her head.
“Both my parents were Catholic,” he said.
Rachel grimaced. His father had also been Catholic.
“We’re Anglican,” she said.
“I know,” said Alex. “This is your Cathedral.” He gestured behind them, to Saint Peter’s.
Rachel glanced up again at the church, and then looked back to Alex, clasping the crucifix in his hand.
“What was your mother like?” she asked, and he bowed his head over the crucifix, closing his eyes.
“I only have early memories,” he said. “She died when I was seven.”
“How did she die?”
“She was shot,” he whispered, and Rachel stared at him. His mother was shot, too?
“Unbelievable!” she cried, and he opened his eyes, wrapping his arms around himself.
“It’s as if my whole family was cursed, from that moment on,” he muttered. “My father found her! He found her. That’s…when everything changed…”
Rachel watched as he started to shake. His eyes began to drift…
“Alex,” she said, and he shook his head.
“What?” he whispered.
“Look at me.”
He dragged his eyes to her, fear filling his gaze, his breath quickening again.
“Breathe,” she murmured, “remember? Breathe.”
He reached out, placed her hand on his shoulder, and followed her deep breathing. She held his strained gaze, and soon he was still.
“You haven’t dealt with this,” said Rachel gently. “You haven’t dealt with any of it.”
“How do you deal with it?” asked Alex, grimacing, looking away. “The one who murdered my mother killed my entire family.”
“Did they ever find the one?”
“I don’t know,” muttered Alex. “I think they shot him. But that doesn’t fix anything.”
His face contorted. “Nothing was enough for my father,” he whispered. “It didn’t bring her back. Nothing could bring her back. God…” And now his body tensed again, as if in
anticipation. “God himself must pay…”
“God?” asked Rachel.
“He hated him,” said Alex.
Rachel grimaced. Enough of his father, time for his mother! There must be more about his mother. “What was she like, Alex?” she asked. “Your mother?”
His eyes found her again, widening, his brow breaking into a crevice.
“I remember her,” he whispered. “Blue eyes, looking down at me…strong arms, holding me… warm, and gentle, with the crucifix! The crucifix always lying on her chest…”
Rachel reached out a hand to lay her fingers over his face. “You will see your mother again,” she said. “Joshua was alive, after death. We both believe in a resurrection.”
“And what about my father?” asked Alex, rising to his feet, stepping back away from her touch. “Will I see him again?”
Rachel swallowed. In that moment she remembered again Alex stretched out on the altar, with Kensington’s gun to his temple.
“Why would you want to?” she breathed, and Alex frowned.
“You think he was a psychopath,” he said, and Rachel shifted uncomfortably before him.
“Was he not?” she asked. Kensington, a psychopath? Of course! Or something worse…
“I knew him!” said Alex, his face contorting. “I knew him, before he changed! A psychopath doesn’t change!”
Rachel lifted herself to her feet before him. “Alex,” she started carefully, “he had a gun to your head.”
“So did James Lester,” said Alex. “He had a gun to your head.”
Rachel stared at him, and swallowed hard. “It’s not the same!” she cried. “James changed!”
“Only after shooting my father!” said Alex.
“He was going to kill you!” cried Rachel, and Alex shook his head.
“And what’s your great solution now, doctor?” he cried back. “If you’re going to stop my escape, what next?”
“What?” breathed Rachel.
“Don’t you get it?” cried Alex. “You, a doctor? Don’t you get what it’s like? Every living moment I feel him! Every night I see him being shot! Even studying at twice the pace didn’t take it away!”
The Crux of Salvation Page 2