Nothing Sacred

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He grunted. Pushed. His movements became rhythmical as he worked his way down one strip and then turned to start a second, back the way he’d come.

  Back the way he’d come. Was that what he was doing? Suddenly, without his being aware of it, all his newfound peace was being challenged by things from his past. Not only because of Ellen’s attack. But with her mother.

  And his own mother’s critical condition as well. In spite of almost daily phone calls to Higley Lakes, he still hadn’t been granted permission to visit.

  So, he was out here exhausting himself, so he wouldn’t think. About any of it.

  He’d prayed to have thoughts of Martha Moore removed from his mind.

  So far, David knew God hadn’t answered that prayer yet. Or if he had, he’d said no.

  David had spent two hours that night sitting in the Explorer with her outside the building, stimulated by the way her mind worked, answering personal questions that he customarily avoided, with her understated feminine scent lingering in the air.

  And he knew he was attracted to Martha Moore. Abundantly attracted. And for the first time since he’d started his new life, he couldn’t seem to shut the feeling off.

  He mowed and turned. Mowed and turned. Hoping to focus, to get to that place deep inside himself where he could get back in touch with his purpose in life. Realign himself with what mattered most.

  The blades whirred. The grass flew. And no matter how deep he went, Martha Moore was still there.

  “Why?” he finally said out loud, sweating as he stopped the mower at the end of the last strip.

  Because it’s time.

  David didn’t bother to hide his frustration. “Time for what?”

  No answer. Which meant he already had the answer and just wasn’t looking. Or listening.

  “Because it’s time for another challenge?” he asked.

  Perhaps.

  Great. He could be right. He could be wrong. And it wasn’t telling, this voice or intuition or angel, whatever it was.

  “I’m not giving in, no matter how great the temptation,” he announced.

  He was not willing to pursue his attraction to Martha Moore.

  Okay. “I’m not.”

  Fine.

  “It’s uncomfortable as hell.”

  Perhaps not that bad.

  Oh. Right. “I know what to do.”

  Yes.

  He pushed the mower back to the tool shed. Put it inside. Locked the padlock on the door.

  “I just have to immerse myself in my studies, in the lives of all the people I can help. I’ll pay another visit to Whitney Hines’s father…” The man had politely refused David’s previous attempt to initiate any kind of communication. “I’ve got Shelley Moore to watch, Ellen’s investigation to help with. And I was thinking about talking to Bonnie Nielson about holding services at the senior center once a month. More if they’re well attended…”

  Okay.

  His hand on the door leading into his kitchen, he stopped again, looked up at the stillness in the night sky. “You don’t sound too enthusiastic. Is this not what you want me to do?”

  I want what you want.

  Good. Inside, he locked the door, turning off lights as he went, and headed upstairs to bed.

  What he wanted was to remain part of the bigger picture, to provide guidance and support to the people of Shelter Valley, to live a life of integrity and simplicity, a life dedicated to others.

  That was all he wanted.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BECAUSE ELLEN HAD a midterm exam the third Friday in March, Martha arranged to leave school early to fetch the younger kids from school—a job Ellen had taken over a couple of years before when Martha had gone to work full-time.

  Shelley and Rebecca were finished first, which was why Martha was sitting outside the high school just before the last bell rang, dismissing the students for the weekend. Or rather, she’d attempted to park right outside the school. It hadn’t been that long since she was a regular there and because she’d been among the few parents present—most kids in Shelter Valley lived close enough to walk—she’d had a spot right outside the gym door, one she’d considered her own. Her kids even called it “the spot.” Martha had cried more than once after going to work full-time and losing those few precious moments every afternoon when her kids jumped in the car still filled with the day’s emotions—whatever they might be, from despair to euphoria depending on who’d talked to them, asked them out, praised them in gym class or given them test results. She used to learn in the first five minutes what it now took her hours to extract. And, she was fairly certain, there was much she used to get that she missed completely these days.

  More than her communication with her kids had changed in a very short period of time. Cars were lined from one end of the high school to the other and down both sides of the street. Pulling in behind a white Ford Windstar—belonging, she thought, to the mother of Ellen’s friend Barbie, who still had a sister at Shelter Valley High—Martha worried that her girls would even find her. She’d had to settle for a space on the first sidestreet past the school. She turned off the engine and rolled down the windows, figuring she might be in for a longer wait than she’d originally expected, then looked around, disturbed by the numbers of parents there.

  Parents worried about their daughters’ safety in a way they hadn’t been a couple of months before. In a way they’d never been. Not in Shelter Valley.

  She was also afraid she might not make it to Tim’s practice at the ball field in time. She’d had a call last night from her son’s coach. Apparently, while Tim’s ball-playing skills were as remarkable as always, he was getting a little too mouthy for his coach’s taste. Nothing to worry about, Coach Andrews had said. This was typical behavior for young teenage boys just coming into their own, but it was something that, if left unattended, could become more of a problem.

  Martha had no intention of leaving anything unattended where her kids were concerned. Chances were that Tim would be just fine, but she’d given up placing her bets on chance. From now on, Martha planned to be in complete control. Going for the sure thing every time…

  “Hey, stranger.” Barbie’s mom, Sheila, poked her head in the window on the passenger side of the car.

  “Hey, yourself. How’ve you been?”

  “Good.” Sheila smiled. “Getting more gray hair with every day my kids get older.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You off work today?”

  “Took off early,” Martha said, missing all over again the days when she’d visited with the other moms every afternoon. As much as she loved her job, she’d lost so much she’d never be able to recapture. Another thing Todd had to answer for. “Ellen usually makes the after-school run, but she had a two hour midterm.”

  “Shakespeare?” Sheila asked, leaning her arms on the window frame.

  “Yeah.” She’d helped Ellen study the night before.

  “Barbie, too,” Sheila was saying. “I’d forgotten why I was so glad to be done with all of that.”

  “Me, too,” Martha said. Still, as she’d been helping Ellen, she’d found herself nostalgic for her own college days. Of course, Sheila had finished her degree after Barbie was born. Martha had quit college to work full-time to put Todd through school. She’d settled for using her theater-production skills on a volunteer basis.

  “So, everything okay?” Sheila asked, her face suddenly serious.

  “Sure. Great. Why?” Had she been too obvious?

  “Barbie’s been worried about Ellen, that’s all,” the other woman said, her eyes warm with concern rather than alight with curiosity. It was a collective Shelter Valley concern from which, more and more, Martha yearned to draw strength. But she couldn’t. Not when it meant Ellen’s exposure.

  “Ellen’s fine,” she said, trying to believe that if she hoped hard enough, it would become reality. “Just bogged down with studying. She’s determined to maintain her 4.0.”

 
“Barbie’s studying a lot, too, but she says there’s something different about Ellen. She seems to be worried about something. Maybe it’s just the breakup with Aaron, huh? I remember those days well. First love. It’s so hard.”

  Swallowing, maintaining her smile with every ounce of effort she could muster, Martha nodded agreement. And then, just as extra insurance, added, “We had a call from Todd a couple of months ago. He announced that he’s going to be a new daddy at the end of the summer. The kids are taking it kind of hard.”

  Concern turning to instant empathy, Sheila said, “Oh, Martha, I’m so sorry. As hard as it is on the kids, it’s got to be rougher on you. Him off having a new family while you single-handedly raise the one he deserted.”

  She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t a crier. People would start to suspect something for sure if she cried. But tears pushed against the backs of Martha’s eyes, so she just nodded again, and looked desperately around.

  “There’s so many cars,” she blurted, not quite as casually as she would’ve preferred.

  “It’s been this way ever since the rape,” Sheila said.

  The last thing Martha wanted to discuss… She shouldn’t have mentioned the cars, damn it.

  “Nobody wants their daughters out walking the streets when we don’t know who the guy is. He could be living right here among us and we’d never know.”

  “Yeah,” Martha said, allowing only a little of her concern to show through. “I’m watching my girls, too.”

  “It’s horrible,” Sheila said, glancing toward the school as though checking to make sure the kids weren’t coming out unnoticed. “All our lives, this was a place where we were safe from the rest of the world, a place where you just knew things were going to be okay. Mike passed up some good job opportunities to stay here because of that. Because the safety and security of our family meant more than financial success. But lately, Mike’s been talking about moving to Phoenix. If he gets a good enough offer, I’m afraid we might….”

  Her heart filling with dread, Martha commiserated as best she could, and thanked the Fates for remembering her, when the girls appeared just a couple of minutes later.

  Ellen’s attacker might or might not still be physically present in this town, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that he was living among them. He’d taken up residence in their lives, instilling a fear that might never leave them.

  “WE GOT OUR REPORT CARDS,” Rebecca said, getting to the car ahead of her sister and climbing into the coveted front passenger seat, leaving the back for Shelley.

  “How’d you do?” Martha asked, leaning over to kiss her youngest daughter’s cheek. Rebecca was the most energetic and joyful of her kids. Though that liveliness was somewhat diminished these days, there was still enough of it to brighten the day.

  “All A’s,” Rebecca said, bouncing one long skinny leg as she handed over her report card. The child didn’t seem to notice the heavy backpack she’d flung from her shoulders to her lap as she’d climbed in.

  “That’s an awful lot of ice cream,” Martha said, glancing over the perfect scores with a sense of pride that she shared only with herself these days.

  “You don’t have to take me out for every A anymore, Mom. I’m too old for that.”

  “Hey,” Martha said, unwilling to accept yet another change in their family. “You think those trips are for you? Who do you think gets you up every morning, drives you to school, buys your supplies and helps with homework? Who nags you to get those good grades? I’m the one who deserves the ice cream.”

  Giggling, Rebecca said, “You’re nuts, Mom.”

  “I know. But I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Rebecca’s words were almost drowned out by the opening of the back door and Shelley’s goodbyes to a friend Martha had never met.

  “Hi, sweetie, how was your day?” Martha asked, turning to smile at a daughter who didn’t even look at her.

  “Fine,” Shelley said, staring out the side window and chomping loudly on a piece of gum. “Can we go now?”

  Before someone sees us, Martha translated, reminding herself to remember what it was like to be sixteen, how she’d felt at that age.

  Of course, being embarrassed by her mother hadn’t been an issue, since she’d never had one. As for her father, if he’d ever remembered to pick Martha up from anywhere, it would’ve been such a miracle, she’d have forgotten to be embarrassed.

  But she’d heard from other parents that kids typically went through a stage where being seen with their parents was akin to social death. Ellen hadn’t been like that, so Shelley was her first experience of teenage rebellion.

  “How were your grades?” she asked her recalcitrant daughter as she pulled away from the traffic surrounding the school.

  “Fine.” That was all.

  Martha glanced in the rearview mirror. Shelley was still staring outside.

  “You going to tell me what they were?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t remember. Get off my back, already! You can see for yourself when we get home.”

  Filled with dread, Martha didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to face another challenge that day. That week. Hell, a year without unrest would be okay by her.

  Shelley was halfway out of the car the second Martha stopped in the driveway.

  “Hey, Shel!”

  “Yeah?” The girl poked her head, hateful purple hair and all, in the door, but still managed to avoid her mother’s eyes.

  “I’m on my way to Tim’s practice, but I’ll be home before dinner,” she said. “Leave the report card on the table.”

  “Right.” The girl backed away.

  “Shelley!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t go anywhere.”

  With a whispered exclamation that Martha did not care to have repeated; her daughter slammed the car door and tramped, in a new pair of black army-type boots that Martha personally hated, up to the front door.

  “What’s with her?” Rebecca asked. The younger girl was still sitting in the car.

  “Your dad, what happened to Ellen—it’s hard on all of us, sweetie,” Martha said, hooking a stray lock of hair that had fallen from Rebecca’s ponytail back behind her ear.

  “Right, it’s hard on all of us,” Rebecca said with uncharacteristic sharpness. “That doesn’t mean she gets to act like a jerk!”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Rebecca showed no sign of getting out of the car. Martha wished she had all day to sit there with her, but she had to get to Tim’s practice.

  In that moment, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed. How had a perfect life with four lovely children turned into a nightmare with four angry children who had needs she couldn’t seem to meet?

  “Can I come with you to practice?”

  “Of course!” Martha frowned. “But why? You hate Tim’s practices.”

  “I hate being home alone with that ho even more.”

  “Rebecca!”

  “Well, she is, Mom. Last night she stole money from my wallet!”

  Oh, God.

  “That’s a pretty serious accusation, young lady. I’m assuming you have proof?”

  “No,” Rebecca said, her face downcast. “And that’s what she said this morning when I told her to give it back.”

  “You can’t accuse someone unless you’re sure, sweetie,” Martha said, enjoying the small bit of relief. “You probably just spent it. Or lost it.” Rebecca was known for misplacing things.

  “I know she took it,” Rebecca said again, in the whiny tone that set Martha’s nerves on edge. “I had it there when I came home, I know I did, because Katie asked me to go to the movies this weekend and I checked to make sure I still had enough allowance left. And when I came out of the shower because I forgot my pajamas, Shelley was in my room.”

  Oh, God. Again.

  “Did you ask her what she was doing?”

  �
�Yeah, she said she was getting a shirt.”

  “The one she was wearing today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there you go then.” It was good enough for Martha. Her middle daughter was belligerent. Dressing terribly. And chewing far too much gum. But she was no thief.

  Besides, Rebecca and Tim didn’t know it but, now that Shelley was driving and helping out with household errands and being around for the younger two, she got twice the allowance they did. There was no reason she would’ve needed her sister’s money.

  “TIME’S RUNNING OUT, Ms. Carr. Could you please ask her again?”

  “I understand how you feel, Mr. Marks, believe me, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do,” the Higley Lakes administrator replied patiently that third Saturday morning in March.

  He’d been calling the floor nurse almost every day, checking on his mother’s progress or lack thereof, but David had only spoken with Helen Carr once, the day she’d phoned to tell him his mother was sick. And then called back to say that she still refused to see him.

  “I won’t come if she won’t see me. I don’t want to upset her. But I really need your help, Ms. Carr. Could you try to convince her it’ll be okay?”

  “I have tried, Mr. Marks. She just becomes hysterical, and then we have to sedate her.”

  “It’s been twenty-three years since I’ve spoken to her, Ms. Carr.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Marks, I just can’t ask her anymore.”

  Thanking the woman for nothing, David rang off. He’d just heard from the floor nurse that his mother’s condition was worsening.

  If she died before he got to see her, to beg her forgiveness, to forgive…

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO COME to every game, you know.” Martha wasn’t sure if she was irritated because she was so glad to see David Marks on Saturday afternoon, or because he was there at all.

  “I told Tim I would,” he said, settling his long legs behind the edge of the metal bleacher seat in front of them. “How’s he doing?”