by Meg O'Brien
“Isn’t it lucky we women have learned to protect ourselves, then,” Abby said. “And by the way, I’m keeping Jancy until Alicia can come and get her. Don’t mess with that. You won’t win.”
He held himself stiffly as he left, spine straight, chin high. There he goes, Abby thought. Mover and shaker…adviser to presidents…man with the world on a string. If only people knew.
And they will, as word gets around.
Abby gathered up the night’s gear, putting ropes, tape, knife and camcorder into a cardboard box. Glancing around, she vowed to redo the chapel first chance she got. Never again did she want to see this place and be reminded of this night.
Before Ben came to her apartment the next day, Abby wasn’t sure what she was going to say. When he arrived, however, it all came clear. He was loving and solicitous. He had been worried about her. He was sorry he couldn’t have been with her and helped her more.
He was everything she’d always wanted in a man. And yet…
She’d been thinking that since she was nearly killed two years ago, she’d been on a journey of healing. For a long time she had leaned on Ben, and that had been good. But leaning had a way of bending a person, like a young sapling, out of shape. She’d lost some of her own strength in the process, at least until the past few days. The moment she’d taken charge of the two bodyguards on the field at Emerald Gardens that night, she had felt something new rising in her. A new energy, a sense of personal power.
On the way home from Houston she had realized, too, that the paintball exercises with Ben had been her way of fighting with him, of getting her anger out at feeling diminished as a woman because of what had happened to her that night two years ago—even though he’d had nothing to do with it. She knew now that she’d been using Ben, and that what she had thought was love, was not.
The sex afterward? It had been fun, but she’d always known that for both of them it had been largely a way of using up the adrenaline they’d amassed from the hunt.
Nothing wrong with that. Ben was a good man. She just didn’t want to do this to him anymore.
So when Ben came and told her how bored he’d been in Carmel and that he wanted to quit the force and work for the FBI in San Francisco, she congratulated him on the decision. And when he asked her to put someone else in charge of the Prayer House and Paseo, and come with him, the answer leapt to her lips without hesitation.
“I think this is the end of the road for us, Ben. Don’t you?”
It was a difficult goodbye, but Ben had agreed that he, too, had felt them growing apart, each of them going their separate ways. They made promises, of course. Let’s stay close…let’s keep in touch…let’s talk on the phone. And they both professed that they would always love each other—as friends.
Abby accompanied Ben through the rose garden to his car, and sat there waving as he drove off. If she shed a tear or two, it was only natural, after all this time. But she felt a burden lifting, and knew she’d made the right decision.
In her apartment again she packed a bag with a few things and spoke with Sister Helen, Sister Binny and Narissa about taking care of Jancy and anyone else who might show up looking for sanctuary. In effect, she turned her work over to them. Then she met Jancy in the kitchen and told her she’d be gone for a while.
“I’m sorry to leave you again right away,” she said, “but I have to make this a priority or I’ll never do it.”
Satisfied that everything would run smoothly without her, Abby got into her car and headed north on I-5. A few hours later she was in Berkeley. Turning onto a street she hadn’t seen in far too long, she pulled up to a two-story condo. Parking, she stepped out—painfully—and went along a flowered path to the front door. When a woman with dark hair streaked with gray opened the door, Abby smiled. Just before collapsing in her mother’s arms, she said, “You keep complaining I never visit, Mom. This goes under the heading of ‘Be careful what you ask for.’”
“I don’t know why you can’t stay longer,” her mother said three days later over bacon, eggs, English muffins and jam. “Your aunt Kate will be here tomorrow.”
Abby dabbed at her mouth with a French linen napkin. “You know what Benjamin Franklin said, Mom. Fish and company stink after three days.”
“Well, I haven’t noticed you stinking yet,” her mother said.
“That’s what you always say.”
And that, in fact, was one of the reasons she hadn’t been home for a while. No matter how long she stayed, it was never long enough for her mom.
She had to admit that this time was a bit different, though. For a change, she actually hated leaving. Especially with Aunt Kate coming.
But she had to get on with her life. That was what she’d promised herself the day she’d left the hospital in Houston. A new life.
“To be honest, Mom,” she said, “I have a date.”
“Really? With Ben Schaeffer?”
“No…it’s not with a person. Well, it is, but not exactly.”
“Are you going to tell me who, what, when and where?” her mother asked. “Or are you trying to make me crazy?”
“I think I’ll save you from impending insanity,” Abby said. “The ‘where’ is Phoenix. And the ‘who’ is a lawyer.”
Her mother, who looked and acted more like thirty than the sixty she was, chuckled. “Is this serious? Tell all.”
So Abby told her. “It’s not serious, Mom, not the way you mean. There’s a clinic down there that specializes in the kind of physical therapy I need from that spider bite, and this lawyer—well, let’s just say he wants to help me out, and I think he deserves the chance to do that. You know how sometimes we have to let people do something for us, but it’s really for them?”
“He’s that Jimmy Delgado you told me about, isn’t he?” her mom said. “The one that landed you in this mess. So he needs to salve his guilt?”
“Something like that, Mom. To tell the truth, I don’t really care.” She tapped the arm of her wheelchair. “I only need this now and then. Right now, my muscles are weak because I overdid things a bit. Tomorrow, I could be doing cartwheels.” She grinned. “Well, not exactly, but I do need to start working out so that hopefully I won’t hurt so much. That’s what this clinic can do for me.”
She rolled the wheelchair away from the kitchen table and took her coffee cup to the sink. In Phoenix, she’d have water therapy, massages and plenty of sunshine.
She would probably never do Kenpo again. That left her with a hole in her heart that was worse than the one in her arm.
But hey, life wasn’t too bad. She still had the Prayer House, and she had enough money to buy a plane ticket now and then to get away from her small, isolated apartment and exercise her mind.
Maybe this was just the push she’d needed. Everything happens for a reason, her aunt Kate always said. Her mom might follow it up with, God never closes a door without opening two windows.
And the best one: Clichés become clichés because they’re true.
Well, God only knew what she’d been missing the past two years in her Prayer House ivory tower. But right or wrong, good or bad, wise or not so wise—Abby was about to find out.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6377-5
THE FINAL KILL
Copyright © 2006 by Meg O’Brien.
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