Hold Fast (25 page)

* * *

“
A
re you cold
, Courtney?” Casey asks me.

“Oh no, I’m fine,” I tell her. “Thank you for asking. It’s actually quite warm and toasty in here. Just the way I like it.”

It’s an old house, company-owned and tucked away on a corner of the estate near the gate, but the heating system works
very
nicely. Just looking at the snow outside the window makes me shiver. I was so cold, for so many years that it’s reflex.

“It is definitely that.” Her voice carries so much conviction that I wonder if I’m not over-heating the place. “I hear that pregnancies wreak havoc with a woman’s thermostat.” She smiles and glances down at my belly with something that might be wistful envy. Whenever Tom McGuire gets around to marrying her, I’m guessing there will be more babies on the estate in short order.

I would love to ask but we’re not close enough for me to do so. Not yet. Maybe one day. This is a budding friendship, and it’s been so long since I’ve made a new friend that I’m probably the most awkward person she’s ever met. And of course, there’s the other minor detail—Mr. McGuire might not
quite
be her husband, but he is
definitely
my husband’s boss.

“No, nothing like that,” I say pouring her another cup of tea. “It’s just habit.”

It’s only been a few months since my father got Sean a job working night shift security at the shipyard and the oil terminal, but that didn’t last. Once my dad’s boss saw Sean’s resume, she poached my husband – even after five months it’s still a thrill to think of that!
– and then
her
boss did the same thing, over and over again. I don’t think anyone ever climbed the corporate ladder so quickly here, but I’m pretty sure he’s done moving up. Mr. McGuire doesn’t
have
a boss. Most days Sean works at a desk in the corporate headquarters, but whenever Mr. McGuire travels, Sean goes with him. He’s also in charge of the estate security, which means we get to live in this lovely old house on the estate.

“How’s college going?” I ask.

“Just fine,” she says with a grimace. “Nothing really exciting. I go to class and I study and truth be told, I can’t wait for it to be over so I can finally get on with my life. I’ve been trying to pack in as many extra classes as I can, and I
think
I’ll be able to graduate after the summer session.” Casey is so full of enthusiasm that sometimes she makes me feel positively ancient. We’re not so far apart in age, but her life has been more sheltered than mine was. “I hope everything’s okay,” she sighs. “This snow, the roads…”

We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, looking out the bay windows toward the gate. Any minute now, our men should be driving through it, and back to us.

“When I talked with Tom last night, he said you guys had some good news, but he didn’t tell me what it was! Since they’re not back yet, I thought I’d ask you directly,” she whispers conspiratorially, leaning over close to me even though we’re alone in the house.

Curiosity is obviously eating her up, but I don’t mind. I know she means well. As far as she’s concerned my life has been this extraordinary adventure, a fairy tale in which Sean plays the part of the knight in shining armor.

It’s true, he is my hero, but now I have to share him with her and Tom, sometimes.

“Well, first thing, the State Police have finally closed the books on everything that happened up north,” I tell her.

“I was sure they would,” Casey says, waving her hand dismissively. “What happened in Portland was
obviously
self-defense. You’d been gone from that horrible place for a
week
before the…” She trails off, not wanting to say the word.

“The mass suicide,” I finish, fill in the blank that she’s avoiding. “It’s okay, Casey. I’m familiar with the term, and I know what happened there.”

“Yeah,” she says, and this time she’s the one that shivers. “But still, it’s just so
horrible
.”

“It was,” I agree. “Very.”

It was not Jeremiah’s death that had me worried. The Portland Police Department had concluded their investigation quickly enough, and the Cumberland County District Attorney had said in a press conference that it was the most clear-cut case of justifiable homicide he’d ever seen come across his desk.

No, what had kept me up late at night was everything that happened at the compound the night before that.

When the state police came to question us, I thought they were going to be suspicious, but no. Not in the slightest. They came for information about life at the compound, and to tie up the loose threads connecting what happened in the kitchen of our parents’ home with the mass suicide. Witnesses remembered seeing me run from the farmer’s market in Greenville the weekend before, so
obviously,
I couldn’t have been there, and testimony from surviving members of the Church of the New Revelation had confirmed absolutely that I had
not
been back since. At all. I didn’t understand that part, not at first.

“Every time I think of what happened there, I can’t help but think how much of a miracle it is that Sean found you when he did. Just one week later… ” She doesn’t need to finish her sentence for me to understand she thinks I would have been a victim like all the others who fell in the collective suicide. “Or, if that guy, that one that came to Portland with your…” Again, she tries to be delicate with a difficult word.

“Jeremiah,” I say. “And my mother.”

The State Police investigation had concluded that they had come to Portland to catch the runaway and make sure that she joined them in their trip to eternity, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue the point. The fires at the compound had been intense enough to destroy almost every shred of evidence that could implicate my husband in anything. The only things left was the shower of empty shell casings around the penance box, but the gun that matches those was locked away safely in the hands of the SEALs in Virginia.

We’re finally in the clear, but that isn’t the reason for my broad, happy smile now.

“The
second
piece of good news is that the adoption will be final soon,” I say. “All the paperwork has cleared, and the judge should sign off on it Monday. The last thing they were waiting on was the State Police investigation to be closed, and then she’ll be Jennie Pearse.”

“Oh, that’s
wonderful
news, Courtney!” Casey’s face lights up and she gives me a quick, excited hug. “That little girl is
so
adorable.”

“Isn’t she, though?” I beam like a proud mother, because I am. Or in a few days I will be, legally. My poor little darling Jennie
does
miss her parents. She cries for them at night sometimes, but I’ve been taking her to a counselor, and it helps. Helps
me
, too.

I thank God every day that my sweet little soon-to-be-daughter had
not
gone back to the dorm like I’d told her. My clever baby had gone a different direction entirely, and had hidden with Matthew and Sister Andrea.

No, not Sister Andrea. Never again. Just Andrea now.

Andrea’s instinct to protect her child had, yet again, been stronger than her brainwashing. When Lucas’s shotgun sounded the alarm that woke up the compound and set everything in motion leading up to the mass suicide, Andrea fled into the woods, taking her son and my Jennie with her. They were the only survivors, and it was Jennie’s quick thinking and her loyalty and love that convinced the others to tell a story of the terrible night in the northern Maine forest that left me entirely out.

“And how’s Matthew’s mom doing?” Casey’s expressive face shows real concern for Andrea.

“She’s getting some help, but she needs a lot more than me. She’s at Spring Harbor,” I tell her, referring to the psychiatric hospital in Westbrook, over by Exit 8. “They’re taking good care of her, and I take Matthew to see her whenever I can. The only thing that worries me is how Jennie will do when Andrea gets out of the hospital and Matthew leaves us to live with her.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think of that,” Casey says. “They’re so close.” She looks around my living room, as if just noticing that we really are alone in the house. “Where
are
your two little monsters today, anyway?” she asks.

“Sean’s mother came and picked them up earlier,” I tell her. “She knew Sean was coming back tonight and she swapped shifts with someone so we could have some time alone together.”

“Most couples don’t have such a full house after only a few months of marriage.” Casey laughs. I just smile at her.

“Oh, yes, a
very
full house, and in just about another four and a half months, little Angela will be here, too,” I say patting my growing belly.

I’m in on the joke now, and I know that Max Anghelescu’s parents didn’t name their son Angela.
Our
little Angela will be a girl, though. Fortunately for her, Sean and I will never get to find out for ourselves what kind of parents would name a boy Angela.

“You look so happy!” Casey gushes. “You guys seem like the perfect couple, and you’re going to be
such
a good mom.”

“I hope so,” sigh. I flatter myself that I’ve learned from my mother’s example. I know how
not
to be, but does that automatically mean I know how
to
be?

My mother has been on my mind constantly, since she died. Was the woman that heard the voice of a twisted and brutal God in her mind the real Heather Dwyer? Or was it the woman that pulled Jeremiah’s gun into her belly? I only had a chance to meet that woman in the final moments of her life, but I wish I could have had more than that minute with her, cradling her head in my lap as she died. I think I would have liked her. I wipe away the beginnings of tears, unwilling to let Casey see me cry.

Sean’s friend Doctor Moloney went over the autopsy report with us, explaining the information-dense medical terminology in a way we could understand. The impact of her head against the counter had caused a hairline fracture in my mother’s skull, and broken a blood vessel with a long and complicated name. It wasn’t the gunshot that had killed my mother, but bleeding in her brain.

At the same time, the head injury and the bleeding are likely what saved her from
His
terrible voice. And that saved
me
from Jeremiah’s bullet. In those final moments of her life, my mother was lucid, and whether or not she still heard
His
commands, she was able to resist them.

Jimmy pointed out something else on the X-ray as well: traces of another skull fracture, much older and long-since healed. A childhood injury, vaguely hoof-shaped. Could the two injuries have been bookends to her madness? Caused by one, and repaired by the other? Could that be why my mother always seemed more
herself
after Emmanuel hit her? Our doctor friend shrugged away the question. Brains are complicated, and we don’t really understand them.

He’s right, of course. Brains
are
complicated, but they
can
heal, every night brings me more proof of it. Sean’s dreams are better now. The nightmares of that terrible alleyway, the ambush that almost killed him, have been getting fewer and ever further apart. At first, it was just
not every night
but that quickly turned into
not every week
.

It’s been twenty-nine days now since his last nightmare, so soon it will be
not every month.

The sound of a big diesel truck rumbling up to the house makes us both turn our heads toward the window. Our men have returned, in one of the estate’s big four-wheel drive trucks.

“I’m glad they drove that,” Casey says. “Tom wanted to take the Porsche, and I had to work hard to talk him out of that. He thought sure the storm would hold off longer.”

The front door opens, admitting a flurry of puffy snowflakes along with two very bundled-up men.

I stand to meet my husband, but he rushes over, easing me back down into my chair.

“No, no, don’t get up!” he tells me, and I roll my eyes. “You just stay there!”

“I’m not made of glass, Sean,” I grumble at him, but I’m secretly pleased. He’s so careful and thoughtful of me, and of our baby. He’s going to be a wonderful father. I have no doubt of that. My husband had a great example to follow as a husband and father.

While Sean strips off the layers of heavy outerwear, emerging from underneath a virtual Michelin Man arrangement of insulated clothes, his boss takes a knee next to my chair.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Pearse,” Tom says. “I’m so happy for you guys on the adoption. It’s wonderful news.”

“Thank you, Mr. McGuire. We’re glad to be finally closing the books on everything there,” I answer. “Casey and I were just talking about that.”

“And Tom,” Casey cuts in, “we probably ought to be getting back to the house. I think Courtney has some plans for her husband since you kept him away overnight,” she says tugging at his sleeve and winking at me. “They have the house to themselves tonight. We don’t want to take up their time.”

“True, very true,” my husband’s boss chuckles, rising to his feet again and holding out his hand to my husband. “Sean, good idea on the security plan for that excavation. See if you can’t work up a list of names for it. We’ll talk about it more Monday, though. Congratulations again, to both of you,” he finishes as Casey drags him toward the front door.

“I hope you left the truck running,” she says, zipping up her coat and pulling a knit cap down tightly over her ears. “It looks
cold
out there.”

“It’s nasty,” Tom tells her. “Now, let’s get on home so we can rattle around in that big empty house all by ourselves.”

“I think we can find some way to stay entertained,” she tells him with a warm smile and raised eyebrow as they vanish into the Maine winter.

Getting up out of my overstuffed chair is a little more awkward than it used to be. It’s not difficult – yet – but it’s definitely a preview of things to come. Sean rushes to my side, holding out a hand to help me.

“Oh, stop it!” I tell him with a baleful glare, but I can’t hold back the smile that gives the lie to my scolding. “I’ve missed you,” I tell my husband, patting his clean-shaven cheek. “I like this look on you.”