by Tonya Hurley
“No, I don’t.”
“You’ve ruined our lives, Agnes.”
“For being who I am?”
“Who you are? A saint who is destined to show us the path to true love? What matters is who those people think you are. You played along. Encouraged them. Don’t you see?”
“Some people have more faith than others, Mother.”
“You have been revealed, Agnes. Their virgin saint has turned out to be a whore. A pregnant one at that. The joke of it is that it’s all a lie. But then it’s been a lie the whole time.”
“It’s not a lie, Mother. I’m sorry this has come out but it’s not a lie and I’m not ashamed!”
“Have it your way. Just get packing. We’re leaving today.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t worry. Even the Virgin Mary took off on a donkey, Agnes,” Martha sniped. “It’s not safe here.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You are sick, Agnes. First you deluded yourself with the whole romantic love thing that put you in the hospital, and then you let that crazy boy and those girls delude you into believing something that is impossible. And look where it got them.”
“Eternal life?”
Martha was unrelenting and not in any mood for sarcasm.
“You let those silly desperate people outside worship you and now they’re gone. You know why? Because the worst feeling in the world is to be disappointed. When they fully realize what you’ve done, you won’t have to worry about being hunted by some nefarious force or shadowy villains, Agnes. They’ll come for you like some kind of medieval witch that’s been outed.”
“You’re the sick one, Mother!”
Agnes was beginning to shake. Not just from anger.
“You are like one of those reality show charlatans that claim to speak to ghosts, except you even go them one better. You got pregnant by one.”
“How dare you mock me!”
“Mark my words, Agnes. And now even the one man who was willing to help you, who could have helped you, made you well, wants nothing to do with you.”
Agnes was bristling. The veins in her neck bulging at the mention of the source of her distress.
“Doctor Frey? Have you spoken with Doctor Frey? Did you tell him about me?”
“Yes. Yes, I did! I would do anything to help you.”
“What have you done?” Agnes felt faint. “He told the newspapers!” She began hyperventilating.
“Agnes, what’s wrong?” the maternal tone in Martha’s voice suddenly returning.
“I don’t know. I’m not feeling well,” Agnes said quietly reaching for her stomach.
“Take the stupid overcoat off. You’re overheating for nothing. Hiding nothing.”
“It’s not that,” Agnes insisted.
“Agnes, you are not pregnant!”
Martha’s attempt to drum some sense into her daughter fell on deaf ears. She could see that Agnes was pale and weak and in distress. Agnes moaned loudly and Martha ran to her. She grabbed her daughter under one arm and steadied her with the other hand over her abdomen. What she felt nearly knocked her backward. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped.
“Mother, what is it? You’re scaring me.”
Martha replied in a barely audible murmur. She was stunned.
“It’s a baby. It’s kicking.”
It was late for most people, but not for Jesse. He was a night owl by trade, or had been until recently. Barely leaving his apartment before midnight for any reason. The streets of Cobble Hill were thinned of people by now. Just a few workaholics arriving home from their offices and horny couples heading back to their love shacks after a few too many drinks. A few blocks farther up to Gowanus and it was a ghost town. Which was the perfect environment for what he was planning. Few witnesses, no collateral damage.
He turned the corner at Bond and DeGraw and saw Tony and his guys leaning up against a shuttered deli. In this neighborhood, at this time of night, they fit right in.
“Hey,” Jesse said, fist-bumping Tony and the rest.
“Ready to do this?” Tony asked.
“Ready. When you got a wasp problem, you go right for the nest.”
“There’s more of these pricks around, you know that, right?”
“I know,” Jesse agreed. “But just because you can’t do ’em all, doesn’t mean you don’t do what you can.”
Tony nodded. “Let’s send a message.”
“Special delivery to Doctor Frey. He’s done,” Jesse added, tossing the bottle in his hand. “I just wish I could stick around to see their junkie killer faces when their world blows up around them.”
“This is serious shit, Jesse. You sure you want to do this?”
“I’m so sure.”
They pulled their hoodies over their heads and walked the few blocks to Born Again. Tony shimmied up the lamp-posts on either side of the house, put a towel over the glass lampshades to muffle any sound, and smashed each of them, plunging the sidewalk and the entire front of Born Again in total darkness.
“Looks like a haunted house,” Tony observed wryly.
“It is,” Jesse said flatly.
“Okay, when I whistle, it’s go time.”
Tony put on his gloves and handed Jesse and his men bottles filled with kerosene, a wick made from a shoelace jutting out of the top of each one. Tony silently directed each man around the facility. Within a few seconds they had the place surrounded. Tony reached into his sweatshirt pocket and pulled out his lighter, lit his cigarette, and then brought the flame to the wick. He inhaled deeply, took the cigarette from his mouth, and whistled loudly. Jesse and the guys lit their wicks and threw the Molotov cocktails through the windows of Born Again.
“Burn in hell, bitches!” Jesse cursed as he heaved his firebomb.
It was an old-fashioned torch job. Half the buildings in this area had been lit up for insurance money, but Jesse was looking for a different kind of payoff. Revenge first among them.
Born Again was up in flames in seconds. Fire spread quickly from the lower floors to the upper ones and shouts from the residents were heard from inside. Jesse and Tony waited just long enough to make sure the job was done, then ran off in separate directions like teenagers on Mischief Night, minus the rotten eggs and toilet paper. Police sirens and fire horns filled the night within seconds. By the time the first units arrived, Jesse was long gone. He got home, cleared a place on his couch, and turned on the news.
The fire at Born Again was the lead story, breaking news. Crews were already dispatched and on the way. He watched the reporting intently, waiting to see their faces.
“Watch your ass, Dr. Frey.”
3 As Agnes left home for school, the first thing she was greeted with as she closed her front door was the sound of silence. At the bottom of the brownstone steps, where once crowds of adoring faithful had gathered, was just a squad car and some wilting flowers. The sort you might see at a grave site several days after the holiday visits were over. They were beginning to stink. The metaphor was not lost on Agnes. It was all beginning to stink. A wretched, noxious stench of confusion, betrayal, and death.
“Hazel, wait up,” Agnes called out. The two girls hugged. Agnes was ready to be bombarded with questions.
“It must have been awful for you,” Hazel said. “Cecilia and everything. I’m so sorry.”
“I know it happened, but it doesn’t seem real yet, you know? I’m numb.”
Agnes reflexively reached for her stomach and Hazel swallowed hard.
“Agnes, I swear I didn’t say anything,” Hazel said tearfully. “I would never.”
“I know,” Agnes reassured her.
“Who then?”
“My mother.”
“No way!”
“She all but admitted it.”
“And one of those gossipy bitches called the newspaper?”
“No, it was nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Hazel, there’s
a lot I can’t tell you.”
“I know, you still haven’t even told me who the father is. I thought we were best friends.”
The hurt in Hazel’s voice was real. These weren’t the curious questions asked by just anyone.
“I’m not trying to keep secrets. It’s for your own good,” Agnes insisted. “You just have to trust me, okay?”
Hazel sniffled, and then laughed. “It’s not a teacher, is it? That’s, like, epidemic right now.”
“No.”
“Okay, ’cause I thought it might be our science teacher, Mr. Monastero. I mean no harm, no foul if it is. He’s hot. I’d do him.”
Agnes just shook her head and laughed.
“No, Hazel, but at least I know your type now.”
“Silver fox? Yes please.”
“Got daddy issues much?” Agnes teased.
“Don’t we all?”
With all that had happened, it felt good to have a light, silly moment, even if it couldn’t last very long. The door of the school building came in sight and Agnes stopped. There were already stares and whispers building like a thundercloud.
“I’m okay,” Agnes repeated, steeling herself.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Jealous bitches,” Hazel snarked. “They only wish people would talk about them.”
“Yeah, jealous. If you say so.” Agnes smiled, resigned to what she knew was to come.
Hazel took Agnes’s hand in hers. “Seriously, would you trade places with any of them?”
It was a much bigger question than Hazel could have imagined, but it inspired Agnes, the way that only a true friend, even unknowingly, sometimes can. They waited until the very last minute. Until the morning bell sounded, and then hurried up the steps.
“Let’s go to school,” Agnes said.
The mocking she expected didn’t take long, arriving right on cue just as she and Hazel entered the hallway. A wall of students had formed to block their path.
“Slut,” one girl growled through her pretend cough.
“Hypocrite,” another taunted.
Agnes kept her head up and her hand over her stomach, protecting it, walking toward her locker.
“That’s all you got, bitches?” Hazel shouted, getting up in their faces.
Agnes took Hazel’s arm to hold her back. The hall monitor felt a fight about to break out and intervened.
“That’s enough,” he said sternly. “Class. Now!”
Agnes and Hazel passed through the crowd, trading icy stares and bumping cold shoulders with the gaggle of girls that had attempted to intimidate them.
“I’m surprised they didn’t throw stones,” Hazel said.
“I’m sure they thought about it,” Agnes replied.
Her locker quickly came into view and so did a much welcome visitor waiting there for her.
“Hello, dear,” Sister Dorothea said, reaching out warmly for a hug.
“So happy to see a friendly face,” Agnes replied.
“Hey,” Hazel said, elbowing her friend in the arm.
Agnes smiled back at her. “You know what I mean, Hazel. I don’t have to tell you how much I love you, do I?”
“Yes, you do,” Hazel quipped.
“All right, I love you.”
Agnes kissed Hazel on the cheek as they parted.
“You’re in good hands,” Hazel observed. “See you at lunch.”
“That’s a good friend you have there,” the nun observed.
“I know,” Agnes agreed. “One of the few left.”
“I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, Agnes, but the others simply do not understand. It might be asking too much considering the world we live in.”
“I don’t blame them, Sister. It just hurts.”
“There is always suffering for people that are different, Agnes. And you are different in ways that no doctor or scientist could ever explain.”
“Diagnosis, martyr.”
The nun smiled at the subtly and profundity of Agnes’s joke.
“In some ways, it is an affliction,” Sister Dorothea mused. “But hard as this may be to process, all this is not about you, but about the example you set. About how you live with the cross you have to bear.”
“It’s hard not to take it personally, when I’ve got classmates kicking me out here in the hallways and a baby kicking from inside my belly.”
“True, and yet you are here. Willing to accept the torment as those who came before you. The slings and arrows, as Shakespeare once wrote. It speaks well of you, Agnes, and of your lineage.”
“My mother thinks we should leave.”
“She may be right. It is not safe for you or the child you carry.”
“Not safe for Jude either then?” Agnes wondered.
“That is what I came to tell you. I thought you should know that he is back in Dr. Frey’s care.”
“What? Why would you allow that?”
“It is what he wanted.”
“What possible purpose could that serve? What good can come from that?”
“Only Jude and God know.”
Martha, wearing a black lace veil and a beige trench coat, approached the church slowly. Its majestic towers and stonework made it appear like nothing less than a fortress, which was fitting, considering the treasure it was believed by many to contain. The patrolman outside only reinforced for her the sense that there was something precious within, something worth guarding. Worth protecting.
She walked up the steps to the church doors and was greeted by a parishioner who’d clearly been stationed out there. It was someone she recognized. One of the people who’d congregated outside her home. She approached the man sheepishly. “I’m Agnes’s mother.”
“I know who you are,” he answered.
“I’d like to visit the chapel.”
“You are welcome here.” He opened the door for her and stepped aside. She entered and as the door was closing behind her, she turned to him.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you and the others. I was afraid for my daughter,” Martha apologized.
“I understand. You are a mother. I would expect no less.”
“Thank you,” Martha said sincerely.
“You cannot be too careful these days, Mrs. Fremont. Not everyone is well-intentioned.”
“So it seems.”
“The chapel is toward the back and downstairs. There, they rest.”
Martha continued in through the vestibule and into the church, and blessed herself with holy water in the stoup at the entrance of the massive nave. She was struck immediately by the silence. How loud it was. Beyond the stands of candles, she saw the door to the chapel and walked slowly toward it, taking in the awesome stillness of the space. She entered the old refurbished sacristy, charred in places and still smelling of burnt wood, and headed down the stone staircase. It was a holy place, she knew, but she was afraid.
However still it was in the church above, the stillness was magnified exponentially the farther she descended. As if each step downward was a step upward, her anxiety replaced by understanding. Martha entered the chapel and was immediately overwhelmed by the heady mixture of roses and incense. The cool space, decorated with dry, bleached bones and lit by burning candles, was the most peaceful place she’d ever been, and whatever anxiety remained within her quickly abated. She walked over to the glass casements displaying Cecilia and Lucy flanking the statue of Saint Sebastian. She admired their beauty, their serenity. Like paintings. Sculptures. Pieces of fine art frozen in time and space. Like icons. Relics.
She couldn’t help but notice that there was room for one more casement directly in front of the statue, and was overcome with emotion. At first, with anger. “Why?” she asked.
“They’re so young.”
She wept.
“Not my child too, goddamnit! You can’t have my child!”
Her harsh words rang out in the old chapel without reply.
She read the text on the wal
l inscribed behind them out loud:
ET PAX DEI, QUÆ EXUPERAT OMNEM SENSUM, CUSTODIAT CORDA VESTRA, ET INTELLIGENTIAS VESTRAS
(And so shall the peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds).
As a churchgoing woman, she knew the phrase; she knew the passage from Saint Paul’s letters to the Philippians, extoling those who had stood fast against their enemies and sacrificed for their faith. She never imagined these words read from the pulpit on Sunday could ever have such personal meaning. Martha felt almost as if those words had been put there for her.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, bringing her hands to her face in grief. “I misjudged you all. Please, please, forgive me.” She dropped to her knees between Lucy and Cecilia, one hand resting on each of them. “Please, I beg you. Forgive me. Please.”
The candle flames flickered with each heaving gasp. Martha sat in the front pew and prayed silently for a long while.
She felt at peace.
She felt forgiven.
Doctor Frey arrived at the police station on time. He thought the meeting unusual, but it was clear to him that Murphy’s suspicions had been raised and that he’d best cooperate. The police-beat photographers gathered on the stoop in front of the station house and raised their eyebrows as he approached, snapping a few photos of the local celebrity for the record. Murphy was waiting at the front desk to welcome him into the dingy facility.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
“Good morning, Captain,” Frey said politely.
“If you’ll follow me please,” Murphy requested.
The two men walked down a dark hallway lined by walls of chipping green paint and scuffed, water-stained hardwood flooring. It felt very nineteenth century to the doctor, musty and old. The sound of typewriters pinging, a sound that he hadn’t heard for more than a decade, only reinforced his first impression.
“Not a very up-to-date facility, is it, Captain? I could help with that. Push for some funding from the mayor.”
Even Frey’s quips were pregnant with meaning, reminding the captain of his wealth, power, and influence.
“We do just fine, thank you, Doctor.”