Ash Wednesday (28 page)

"I thought you would. You're the only one I thought would understand."

"When was this?"

"Six years ago. And I haven't told anybody about it. Just Bob and I know, that's all. How could the people here understand something like that?"

"Six years," said Alice. "That's when you stopped coming to New York, isn't it?"

Kay nodded. "Maybe I wanted to punish myself, I don't know." Her mouth twisted in an attempted smile. "I've been punished anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"About two years ago Bob and I thought the time and the money were right. For a baby. And we couldn't." She laughed hollowly. "
Can't
, I guess I should say. It's not Bob's fault, it's mine. I can't seem to get pregnant." She sighed heavily.

Alice took her hand. "Ain't life a kick in the ass," she said.

Kay gave a sharp, little laugh. "My God, I haven't heard that for—"

"For a dozen years? I was the only girl in our class low enough to say it."

"
Worldly
enough, you mean. Besides, once you set it loose,
everyone
was saying it. 'Ain't life a kick in the ass?' " she repeated. "You remember when my mom heard me say that?"

Alice laughed. "I remember. She went red. I was surprised she didn't wash out your mouth with soap."

They laughed again, then sat back, looking at the ceiling, their heads resting on the sofa's high back. Finally Kay spoke. "What made you come back, Alice?"

Alice didn't answer.

"Is it what I think?"

"Tim," she whispered. "Is that what you thought?”

“Yes." A moment passed. "But why?"

"I . . . did wrong," Alice answered, her eyes still on the ceiling. "I haven't been able to forget what I did.”

“You were young."

"I shouldn't have."

"It wouldn't have made any difference."

"Yes, it would. He wouldn't have died alone."

"He didn't. He had his parents."

"He didn't want them. He wanted me. And I ran.”

“Nobody blamed you."

"I don't believe that. Besides, it doesn't matter what anybody else thought, or who they blamed, or didn't blame. They weren't in New York.
I
was.
I
knew who to blame. I didn't need them to tell me."

Kay didn't know what to say. From the moment she'd seen Alice step out of the police car, she knew why she'd come back, and it amazed her and dismayed her at the same time. It should not have stayed with Alice for so long. Twelve years had passed since Tim Reardon, or what was left of him, had returned from Vietnam. Alice and Tim had dated steadily ever since their sophomore year in high school, and the Army had gotten him as soon as he graduated. Nine months later he came back without legs, with only one arm, and with plastic tubes doing what his own inner organs were no longer able to accomplish. Kay recalled that Alice had gone to see him in his parents' home and had not gone back again. When she asked her what had happened, Alice told her it was not Tim, but someone else. She would not talk further about it, did not return to the
Reardons
', and a month later left for New York City. Kay stayed in touch through Alice's parents, who seemed confused but supportive of their daughter's decision to plunge into theater, and Alice, in a tremendous brush of luck, got a role in an industrial her first month. That led to an agent audition, and the agent took Alice on, finding her freshness a highly marketable commodity. The agent, a fiftyish gay, guided Alice to the right teachers and the right auditions, her parents footing the bills and paying for her room and board at an Upper East Side hotel for young women.

Six months later Tim Reardon died (of natural causes, the
Messenger
reported), and Kay sent the clipping in a letter to Alice. Alice responded as always, though she made no mention of Tim's death, and neither of them had spoken of it in all the years since.

"So what are you going to do?" Kay asked.

"Go to his house. See him. Talk to him."

"He won't hear you."

"Maybe he will."

"Why, Alice?"

"I've got to make up for it."

Kay turned to face her friend. "There's nothing to make up for. And even if there were, it's too late. Alice, it was a long time ago. I'm surprised that it's still . . . bothering you enough for you to come all this way."

"I had to."

Kay grimaced. "This isn't a play, Alice."

"I know that.” Alice seemed confused, so that the tragic mask dropped for a moment.

"I don't think you do."

"You think I've been in a play that I wrote myself for the last twelve years?"

Kay looked away. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you've gone through."

Alice grabbed Kay's hand. "Kay, I know it must seem crazy. And maybe it is. But it's something that's been bottled up inside me for too long. Maybe seeing . . . Tim won't matter, won't change anything. But maybe it will. Maybe I'll be free of it then. I just felt that . . . when I heard it on television last night . . . I thought I had another chance." She laughed self-consciously. "That sounds stupid, doesn't it? All this just to give me a chance to get loose."

"It doesn't sound stupid."

"Self-centered, then. But I wonder how many other people think the same thing. One more chance to see a mother again, or a husband or wife, to tell them what you never told them in life, either because you were too shy, or because you didn't
know
what you know now. Some of those people who got off the train today looked as anxious as . . . as pilgrims heading for Lourdes." She picked up her cup, found it empty, and set it back down.

"That reminds me," Kay said. "Do you want to go to church with us tomorrow morning? Our pastor called this afternoon. He's after everybody to show."

"I don't know, I—"

"Why don't you, Alice? You'll see a lot of people you haven't seen for a long time."

"I'm pretty tired."

"The service isn't until ten-thirty."

"Maybe. I'll see how I feel in the morning."

~*~

That night Alice and Kay went to bed at 11:30. Jim Callendar went to bed at 11:45, but didn't sleep for a long time. Clyde Thornton watched himself on the 11:00 news, and was so buoyed by the experience that he kept taking hits from his bottle of scotch until 12:30, when he fell asleep on his solid motel room bed. Brad Meyers joined a sleeping Christine at 1:30, after
Nightowl
Theater
was over, and Robert Craven entered his bed at 2:00 in the morning, still not quite sure of what he would say the following day.

~*~

The church was full. Though there was no need to put up extra chairs, the pews, both on the main level and in the balcony, were packed shoulder to shoulder. The congregation whispered and murmured in unease when they saw the red curtain erected around the right-hand pulpit, but for the most part they felt comfortable there with their fellows. The hymns were sung, the offering taken up, and then it was time for the sermon.

Pastor Craven stepped up to the pulpit on the left, and as he looked out over the people, it seemed to them that he had changed in some way. The lines of his face were no longer softened with piety and quiet devotion, but instead seemed edged with determination, even with anger. He grasped the front of the pulpit with white-knuckled fingers, as though trying to break it, and spoke more loudly than he ever had before.

" 'Since we are justified by
faith
,' " he
boomed
out, " 'we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.' So said Paul to the Romans.

"Suffering. Tribulation. All suffering is not of the body. The suffering and tribulation that every one of God's men, women, and children in this town is feeling is not of the body, but of the mind. Even the soul. What we have seen in the past few days has been hard. We've seen the people we loved returning in their bodily forms as they were at the moment of death. Terrible? Frightening? Awesome? Of course. And as yet, no one has been able to tell us
why
, to give us a logical, physical reason for it. And that
terrifies
us. What we cannot understand, we fear.

"There are those who would give us explanations. But up to this point it has been mostly our nation's religious leaders. You've heard them interviewed on television, read what they have to say in last night's or this morning's paper. One television minister said that it heralds the end of the world. Others said it gives definite proof of life after death. Still others are more cautious, saying that it could be a scientific phenomenon, but that since it's occurred, it might be taken as proof of
some
sort of further survival after death.

"They're wrong. It proves nothing. Because God
doesn't give us proof
. God gives us only
faith
and
love
. What's the condition? How does suffering make us rejoice? 'Since we are justified by
faith
,' says Paul.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking. Take it on faith, take it on faith, we always have to take it on faith.
Yes you do
. Because what else have you got? God isn't a lawyer, or a scientist. He doesn't give us evidence, he doesn't offer data. Because if he did, then faith would not be necessary. And without faith, we have nothing.

"So what am I saying, then? Just this, and in as simple terms as I know how: This is a tribulation. This is a testing. For some reason that we do not and cannot know, God has caused this to be. So accept it and trust Him to do His will.

"Right here, right now in this church is an example of this thing that God has done. You've all seen the draperies, all talked about them, now look behind them."

Craven crossed the space between the two pulpits and tugged at the curtains, pulling them back until the form of Pastor
Dunson
was revealed. A loud gasp came from the congregation, and Craven had to raise his voice to be heard over their continuous, shocked remarks.

"Many of you recognize this man. This was Pastor
Dunson
, pastor here before I came. He was among the best and finest men I ever knew. But
this
is not him. At the least this is not his soul. His soul is with God. This is only some empty shell that God has chosen to put here.

"But why? Why? Why? I don't have an answer. I can only guess. But my guess is that he is here to teach us something, perhaps the relative brevity of our lives, perhaps that life is only the preparation for death, and the time of our being with God. Perhaps there are as many lessons as there are people on the earth.

"Merridale is not cursed. On the contrary, it has been touched by God's hand. This town and what has happened here is a manifestation of his purpose. Remember that.
Remember
it. And if you doubt or fear or worry, call me, come see me, and talk to me. We are one in Christ.

" 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depths, nor anything else in all creation, 'will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.' "

He raised his hand in blessing. " 'May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are absent, one from the other.' "