Tazio Chappars was a young architect who had won a big commission from The University to build a new sports complex. From this, other large commissions soon flowed. She kept her office in Crozet. The encroaching fame didn’t go to her head. She served on the vestry board with Harry, both women exhibiting a lot of common sense. They worked well together.
Herb kissed each woman on the cheek, then hurried out the door.
“He may be the best man I have ever met.” Susan put her hand in her pocket.
“And here comes one of the worst.” Harry put her hand on her hip, calling to the curly-haired man who stepped through the door, “You’re stalking us!”
Bo Newell, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, owner of Mountain Area Realty, grinned as he beheld the ladies. “The Three Amuses. I’m not stalking you, I’m seeking divine inspiration.”
“Buying food for the Almost Home Center?” Susan asked, since Bo and his wife, Nancy, along with Bette Grahame, spearheaded a drive to build a no-kill shelter in Nelson County.
“Yes.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Thought I’d go up and pray on Afton Mountain for an angel. We need contributions.”
“Not today. Another storm is brewing,” Susan replied. “And the monks have locked the gates.”
His light eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding?”
“No,” Susan said. “Harry forced me to go up there.”
“At gunpoint, I’m sure,” he slyly replied.
“Kidnapped,” Harry said.
“Held hostage against her will.” Alicia picked up on it.
“Is this like the rape of the Sabine women where they were carried off against their will? Harry just carried you off to the mountain?” Bo solemnly asked.
“Well, not with the two of us.” Susan’s mood was passing. “Murder maybe.”
“Me!”
“Harry, it really does occur to me on the odd occasion.” Susan nodded.
“Right here in Pet Food Discounters.” Bo, voice rising, rubbed his hands. “But really, Susan, the monks have locked the gates?”
“Yes.”
“That will keep Nordy out. Jesus, that guy is like a hemorrhoid. He slips down and hangs around.” Bo was warming up, his typical outrageous humor in play. He paused, lowered his voice, now sounding achingly sincere. “Actually, I don’t have to drive to Afton Mountain. The Madonna is in front of me.” He kissed Alicia’s hand.
“Bo, you are so full of it,” Harry said.
“Think of me as Divergent Mary,” Alicia quipped.
Bo loved a witty woman. “I’ll think of you often.” He sighed. “Well, ladies, I’ve got strays to feed. That must be how Nancy thinks of me. Was I lucky or what! I practiced my hangdog look.”
“You were lucky.” Susan smiled as he waved, heading toward the stacks of fifty-pound chow bags.
Alicia watched Bo for a moment, then turned to the two friends. “My friend Maggie Sheraton will be visiting me next week. I thought I’d give a small dinner party and invite Herb. Maggie lost her husband a few years ago. I think the two of them would get along.”
“You mean Margaret Sheraton the actress?” Harry’s jaw dropped.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t she win an Oscar?” Susan rummaged her brain for the film.
“Best Supporting Actress. Um, twelve years ago. She works now and then but, you know, Maggie is in her early sixties. The business ignores actresses who age. It’s a sin to grow old in Hollywood. She’s still good-looking. A man with Herb’s strong character and warmth would appeal to her.”
“He’s not too fat?” Harry blurted.
“Harry.” Susan elbowed her.
“Sorry.”
“He is portly. She’ll overlook it, but if a spark should fly between them, I bet he gets himself in better shape. He’s let himself go.”
“Miranda did that after George died,” Harry remembered.
“Look at her now. She looks years younger. Lost the weight. Found love—another one of those miracles.” Alicia smiled.
“Maybe there’s one left over for me,” Susan said plaintively.
“Honey, now, everything will be all right. Really. I just know things aren’t what you think.” Harry hugged Susan. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“I hope so.” Susan sighed.
Alicia reached for Susan’s hand. “Courage. Life calls for courage.” She squeezed her hand. “And Harry is right, it will all turn out.”
“Think you’ll find love again?” Harry couldn’t help herself. She shouldn’t have asked this directly and not in a public place.
“Yes,” Alicia forthrightly replied. “Love may not make the world go around, but it certainly makes the ride worthwhile.”
“I never thought of that.” Harry folded her arms across her chest.
“If it has anything to do with emotions, you don’t think of it. You’re worse than any man I’ve ever met.” Susan rolled her eyes.
“Poop to you. If we weren’t in the middle of Pet Food Discounters, I’d say worse.”
“You two can’t live without each other.” Alicia stood up straight.
“I could try.” Susan giggled.
“Be bored.” Harry giggled, too.
“I have two children, Harry. I don’t need a third.”
“Let’s not talk about me.” Harry turned back to Alicia. “Are we too country for you now? When you were here as a young person, you hadn’t seen the world. You weren’t a big movie star.”
“Oh, Harry, I’d rather fall in love with someone country than the president of the largest entertainment group in the world. Trust me. I am so glad to be home, home with real people with real lives. Hollywood gave me many opportunities and a great deal of money. I’m grateful for that, but if you’re not careful it can erode your sense of reality and, ultimately, your sense of self. It’s a debilitating environment.”
“I’m so glad.” Susan corrected herself. “Not about a debilitating environment but that you could fall in love with a Virginian, a farmer, a banker, a—” She stopped.
Alicia looked from Susan to Harry, back again to Susan. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“You do?” they asked in unison.
“Will I fall in love with a man or a woman?” Both women’s faces reddened, then Susan nodded that Alicia had hit the nail on the head.
“It’s none of our business.” Harry picked up the mousies.
“Coming from you?” Susan was incredulous.
Alicia laughed. “Better get some mousies for Mrs. Murphy and Pewter. Since you’re interested in my life, let me say one thing: anyone who refuses love is a fool. That may not answer your question, but that is a truth I have learned. Do I know? In a way, I do. While I have loved two men in my life, there was always a part of me on guard. I like being totally relaxed with another human being. Just being myself.”
“Ah.” Susan understood. “But Alicia, aren’t all women on guard with men, even the men they’ve lived with for decades?”
“Susan, I can’t believe you’re saying that.” Harry’s eyes opened wider. “On guard?”
“I am. There’s a part of me I keep to myself.”
“Is that being on guard?” Harry puzzled. “I don’t feel on guard with Fair. I can’t say I feel on guard with men, anyway.”
“Because you’re a man in a woman’s body, a beautiful body. I don’t mean that as an insult. Harry, you’ve got bigger balls, forgive the phrase, than most of the men I know,” Susan said.
“Oh, come on, that’s not true. I’m tired of hearing that. Just because I don’t ooh and goo and carry on about what a caretaker I am, ooze love and all that bullcrap, doesn’t mean I think like a man. I’m logical. Big deal.”
“You two have been having this argument since first grade. I’m heading to the checkout. Susan, I believe you can love a man and not be on guard. The reason I was on guard, even though I loved and was loved, was that I wasn’t being true to myself. And, Harry, a good man is in l
ove with you. You won’t find anyone better. You all spoke directly to me, I’m speaking directly to you. Susan, drop your guard. Harry, seize love.”
As Alicia left, Susan’s face looked as though she’d been slapped hard. What the unusual woman said had cut deep down to the bone.
“Susan? Susan, are you all right?” Harry, also affected, touched Susan’s face, which burned.
“Huh? Yes. Come on, let’s get what we need. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker will shred the truck seat.”
Outside in the truck, the three animal friends constantly looked through the windshield for sight of Harry. They had little to say to one another since coming down the mountain. The sight of the frozen monk wasn’t grotesque, but it was macabre, startling, and it had sobered all three of them.
12
Bruised air hovered over the friars as they ate in the common room. The meal was so silent, one could hear bread being torn from the freshly baked loaves. Brother Handle ate at a table perpendicular to the others. His scowl, etched on his face, accentuated the general discomfort.
Brother Mark, the youngest, sat with the other younger men—in this case, “younger” being anyone in their forties.
Brother Frank, head full of numbers, counted things. He couldn’t help it. He’d count the number of loaves of black bread. He’d count the pencils on Brother Handle’s desk, noting those with broken lead, with erasers chewed off. He’d count the number of steps from his cubicle to another cubicle. He’d count the number of long-needle pines from the large arched door of the main building to the chandler’s shop. He’d count the bee boxes at the edge of the meadows. Sitting there, he counted heads. One was missing. He made a mental note to check the infirmary.
Once the meal concluded, prayers and song again given, Brother Frank walked nimbly down the long, cold corridor to the infirmary, the flagstones shooting cold upward through his shins. Brother John and Brother Andrew, both physicians, oversaw the infirmary. Cleaner than most hospitals, it contained the basics for emergencies. Both men kept certain drugs in a locked refrigerator and a locked cabinet. Some blood packets and plasma packets were also in the refrigerator. Brother Sidney needed his transfusion but in the event of a life-threatening emergency, blood types other than O, Brother Sidney’s, were on hand. Since keeping blood in such a manner was against the laws, the two doctors felt no need to inform the Prior as to regulations. He assumed they knew what they were doing and they did. The laws about private physicians giving transfusions outside of a hospital or regulated clinic just didn’t make sense at two thousand feet above sea level in, say, a bad storm. They needed the blood. Brother Frank knew what those drugs were, since he paid the accounts. Other than the two doctors and Brother Handle, it was assumed no one else knew of these powerful painkillers. A stainless-steel table dominated the center of a small operating room, used for routine sufferings such as stitching a wound. Anything more serious was performed at Augusta Medical Center, with one of the brothers, in scrubs, in attendance. Both men kept their licenses current, which meant they attended medical conferences and did whatever was necessary to stand in good stead in their profession.
Each had left lucrative practices for different reasons, but both were regularly off the monastery grounds to serve the poor at various local clinics.
Brother Frank also attended special conferences, if they addressed new methods of accounting or finance. He picked things up speedily. He could learn from the Internet, although the computer screen in his office hurt his eyes. This irritated him enormously, since a whole new computer system had been purchased just this past summer. Each shop had a terminal and a laser printer. Each computer could talk to every other computer. The cost just about sent Brother Frank over the edge. This expensive purchase did help keep track of sales and accounts, though. Much time was saved in each of the shops. And Brother Frank could keep current with each day’s financial activities. That was all to the good, but the screen still hurt his eyes.
Some men retreat to a monastery for a life of contemplation, hoping to find a peace, an understanding, a closeness to God. Brother Frank had arrived out of profound disgust for the world.
As Brother Frank walked from sickroom to sickroom, twenty-five flagstone steps in between, door to door, Brother Andrew entered the infirmary.
Neither man felt compelled to remain silent in the other’s presence. Neither would censure the other. Both men respected Brother Handle, his iron rule, but neither especially liked him.
“Can I help you?”
“Brother Andrew. Has anyone been in sick bay?”
“No, but these beds will fill up in the next three weeks as that new flu strain works its way through Virginia.”
“Thought you gave us our flu shots?”
“Works for some.” Brother Andrew half-smiled.
“I see. Shall we consider the flu a scourge sent from God to punish our sins?” Brother Frank liked probing, finding out what the other person really felt. Despite his cold demeanor, he respected a confidence. He earned the trust the other monks felt for him.
“I don’t,” Brother Andrew simply replied.
Brother Frank shrugged. “Microbes? Bacteria? Viruses? Haven’t you asked what God wants with these tiny monsters?”
“I don’t question God, I question man. But as a scientist, I hold that many of these seeming pests have a positive function on the whole.”
“Just not positive for man?”
“Precisely. God gave us powers of reason. As a physician, it is my task to use that reason for the good of others. You might say I’m at war with the latest virus, bacteria, even deer ticks.”
“Lyme disease.”
“It’s devastating. People don’t realize how dreadful Lyme disease can be.” Brother Andrew, relieved to actually be speaking with another intelligent person, sat down, drawing the folds of his robe around his legs. The infirmary wasn’t as warm as it might be, although it was warmer than the corridors of the main building.
Brother Frank sat next to him, both men leaning back on the upright wooden school chairs, their sandaled feet stretched out before them.
“What do you make of all this?” Brother Frank turned toward the lean monk.
“The tears of blood?” Brother Andrew held his palms upward. “I didn’t see them. And now that we’re held here, I expect I won’t until tomorrow, Sunday. Surely we can walk the grounds on Sunday?”
“I saw them.” Brother Frank crossed his arms, his hands inside the sleeves up to his elbows. “I kept it to myself; four of us saw them and promised to keep it among us for twenty-four hours. Someone didn’t.”
“But I’d heard the tears were first seen by Harry Haristeen and Susan Tucker. They could have revealed this.”
“I called Harry. I asked her to button her lip.” He shrugged. “She probably couldn’t do it. Too good a story.”
Brother Andrew drew his feet in toward him. “Misogynist.”
“My observations lead me to conclude that most women are superficial, emotional, and gossips.”
“You’re foolish, Brother Frank. Just because one woman wronged you doesn’t mean they’re all the devil’s temptresses. Has it ever occurred to you that you asked for the wrong woman?”
Brother Frank’s face darkened. “I gave her everything.”
“That’s not the point. The point is we often attract our own doom in the form of another person. If it’s a woman, if it involves sex, so much the worse. The light by which we seek is the fire by which we shall be consumed.”
“If you love women so much, why are you here?”
“One woman.” Brother Andrew smiled a slow, sad smile. “Much as I understand a life of contemplation and prayer, I think we would all do ourselves much good by sharing our pasts. We learn from others. I’m a physician, and I couldn’t save my wife from cancer. In the end I couldn’t even stop the pain.” What Brother Andrew did not divulge was that he finally injected a lethal dose of morphine into his wife to end her hideous suffering. He
wondered, was he truly a murderer, or did he send to God a soul he loved more than any other, a soul at last free from pain? The monastery was his refuge from his perceived inadequacy.
“I’m sorry,” Brother Frank said genuinely.
“I tell myself it was God’s will.” Brother Andrew put his hands on his knees. “Back to Harry. I see her more than you do when I go out to clinics. I’ll stop by Crozet sometimes for fruit or an ice cream, my guilty pleasure. I’ll talk to Harry at the post office. She would keep her promise. Someone else has disturbed our peace here. Would the other men have been indiscreet, not kept the promise?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine Brother Prescott doing this. I can, however, imagine Brother Mark, who is convinced this is a miracle, the Miracle of the Blue Ridge, Our Lady of the Blue Ridge.” He grumbled, “People will pour through that gate once Brother Handle unlocks it, as he must sooner or later. How can we handle the numbers and the hysteria? Keeping silent, pretending the Blessed Virgin Mother isn’t weeping, isn’t going to cut it.”
“I agree, but perhaps our leader thinks this diffuses the situation among ourselves.”
“And perhaps it gives him time to think.” A long pause followed. “We could make a great deal of money from this, you know.”
“Ah.” Brother Andrew nodded appreciatively.
“Will it fatten our coffers without violating our order?” He held up his hand as if in supplication. “As one who wishes to withdraw from the world, I don’t like the idea of people beating their breasts, crying, making a spectacle of themselves in front of the Blessed Virgin Mother or, I confess, in front of me.”
“She’s seen worse,” Brother Andrew wryly said.
“Ha.” Brother Frank allowed himself a rare laugh, then stood up, his feet feeling slightly numb, tiny little pinpricks of pain slowly awakening them. “At least Brother Handle lets us wear socks with our sandals in winter, but my feet never feel warm. I hate it.”
Brother Andrew stretched his feet out again. “I do, too. I think I can pray in here as easily as in my room, and it’s a tad warmer.” Brother Andrew wiggled his toes to make his point.
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