When She Woke

The silence in the den grew awkward. Cole’s eyes skimmed over their faces before settling on Becca’s. “So, you agree with Reverend Dale,” he said.

“ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ ” said Hannah’s father.

“We believe that only God can give life, and only He has the right to take it.”

“Innocent life, yes, but murder’s different,” Cole said. “It says so right in the Bible. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ ” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Becca. Hannah could feel the force of his will pressing against her sister.

Becca hesitated, looking uncertainly from Cole to their father. “Genesis does say that,” she said. “And so does Leviticus.”

“Leviticus also says people should be stoned to death for cursing,” Hannah said. “Do you believe that too?”

“Hannah!” her mother rebuked. “Do I have to remind you that Cole is a guest in our house?”

“I was speaking to Becca.”

“That’s no way to talk to your sister either,” Hannah’s father said, in his most disappointed tone. Cole’s eyes and mouth were hard, but Becca’s expression was more stricken than angry.

Hannah sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Becca, Cole.”

Becca nodded acceptance and turned to Cole. The naked hopefulness with which she looked at him told Hannah this was no mere infatuation. Her sister couldn’t bear conflict among those she loved.

“No, it’s my fault,” Cole said, addressing Hannah’s parents. His face turned rueful, but his eyes, she noted, were a few beats behind. “I never should have brought the subject up in the first place. My mama always said, ‘When in doubt, stick to the weather,’ and Lord knows my daddy tried his best to beat it into me, but my tongue still gets the better of my manners sometimes. I apologize.”

Becca beamed and shot Hannah a look: See? Isn’t he wonderful?

Hannah made her lips curve in answer. She did see, and she could only hope that she was wrong. Or if she was right, that Becca would see it too.

But Becca’s feelings for Cole only grew stronger, and Hannah’s qualms deeper, especially after their father was injured. He was in the hospital for ten days and incapacitated for another month after that, and his absence left a void into which Cole stepped eagerly. He became the unofficial Man of the House, always there to fix the leaky sink, oil the rusty hinges, dispense advice and opinions. Becca was delighted and their mother grateful, but Cole’s ever-presence in the house put Hannah’s back up.

More than anything, she disliked his high-handedness with Becca. Their parents had a traditional marriage, following the Epistles: a woman looked to her husband as the church looked to God. John Payne was the unquestioned authority of the family and their spiritual shepherd. Even so, he consulted their mother’s opinion in all things, and while he didn’t always follow her counsel, he had a deep respect for her and for the role she played as helpmeet and mother.

Cole’s attitude toward Becca was different, with troubling overtones of condescension. Becca had never been strong-willed, but the longer she was with him, the fewer opinions she had that weren’t provided by him. “Cole says” became her constant refrain. She stopped wearing green, because “Cole says it makes my skin look sallow,” and reading fiction, because “Cole says it pollutes the mind with nonsense.” She gave up her part-time job as a teaching aide because “Cole says a woman’s place is with her family.”

Hannah kept her growing aversion to herself, hoping that Becca’s ardor would cool once their father was well again, or failing that, that he would discern Cole’s true character and dissuade her sister from marrying him. In the meantime, Hannah did her best to be cordial to him and was careful not to challenge him openly or express her doubts to Becca. Confrontation was not the way to defeat him; better to bide her time and let him defeat himself.

But she’d overestimated both her skill as an actress and her forbearance, as she discovered on Becca’s birthday. Their father had been home for two weeks, but he still wasn’t strong, so they kept the party to the immediate family—and Cole, of course. Hannah made Becca a dress out of soft lavender wool, and their parents bought her a small pair of opal earrings to match the cross they’d given her the year before.

“Oh, how beautiful!” she exclaimed when she opened the velvet box.

“Let’s see them on you,” their father said.

Becca froze, and her eyes darted guiltily to Cole.

“Go on, Becca,” Hannah urged. “Try them on.”

Looking trapped and miserable, Becca put on the earrings.

“They look lovely on you,” their mother said.

“Yes, they do,” Hannah agreed. “Don’t you think so, Cole?”

He gazed at Becca for long seconds, his expression unreadable. “Personally I don’t think Becca needs any adornment to look pretty,” he said, with a tight smile. “But yeah, they’re very nice.”

After he left, Hannah cornered her sister in the kitchen. “What was that all about?”

Becca shrugged uncomfortably. “Cole says the only jewelry a woman should wear besides a cross is a wedding ring.”

Hannah’s antipathy toward him crystallized in that moment. Even more than his opinions, she disliked their absoluteness and the hypocrisy that underlay them. “But it’s perfectly fine for him to wear all those big shiny belt buckles and turquoise bolo ties.”

“It’s different for men,” Becca said. “You know that.”

It was different, and Hannah had been well-schooled in the reasons why. Still, the double standard had always bothered her. And applied to Cole Crenshaw, it was infuriating. “No, I don’t. But I’m sure Cole could give me a nice long lecture on the subject.”

“I know why you don’t like him,” Becca said, her tone hard-edged. “You’re jealous because I have a man in my life, and you don’t.”

“Is that what Cole says?”

Becca crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t think he hasn’t noticed your coldness to him all these months. It hurts his feelings, and it hurts mine.”

“I’m sorry, Becca. I’ve tried to like him, but—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Becca said, turning away. “I love him, and I want to spend my life with him. Can’t you just be happy for me?”

And that was that. Becca wed Cole as soon as their father was well enough to walk her down the aisle. Hannah made her sister’s wedding dress and stood at her side holding a bouquet of calla lilies while she vowed to love, honor and obey Cole Crenshaw for all eternity. Then Becca was gone. She and Cole lived only a few miles away, but they might as well have moved to Maine. Hannah tried to make nice with him now that he was her brother-in-law, but he wasn’t having it; the damage had been done. The sisters saw each other mostly on family occasions, and even then, Cole made sure they had little time alone together. Hannah felt Becca’s absence keenly. As different as they were, they’d always been close. Now, Hannah had no one with whom she could share her inner life.

Part of it, she wouldn’t have dared share. Though she hadn’t seen Aidan Dale in over two months, he was still an insistent presence in her thoughts. As she sewed pearls onto veils and rosettes onto bodices, she remembered his many kindnesses to her family, the fervency of his prayers for her father, the comforting warmth of his hand on her shoulder. Again and again, she relived the moment when she’d looked into his eyes and seen her own feelings reflected there, or thought she had. Two things kept her from dismissing it as a wishful figment: He hadn’t come back to the hospital after that day. And Alyssa Dale had.

She’d paid them a visit the very next morning. Hannah and Becca were alone with their father; their mother was home resting. The previous day’s excitement and the long, tense buildup to it had left them all spent. Hannah was catnapping in the chair beside her father’s bed. She was distantly aware of a murmured conversation taking place between Becca and another woman, but that wasn’t what drew her up out of sleep. Rather, it was the prickling sense of being watched. She opened her eyes to find Alyssa Dale standing at the foot of the bed, exactly where Aidan had stood, staring down at her. Disconcerted, Hannah looked around the room, but Becca wasn’t there.

“Your sister had a call, and she went outside to take it,” Alyssa said softly. “She didn’t want to wake your father.”

“Oh,” Hannah said. She felt slow and stupid. She knew she ought to get up and greet her visitor, but Alyssa’s frank, assessing gaze seemed to pin her to the chair. In public Alyssa Dale was the quintessential minister’s wife: demure and gracious, pretty without being beautiful enough to cause resentment, dignified without being aloof. Now, for the first time, Hannah perceived the intelligence that inhabited the other woman’s mild hazel eyes. Had she missed it because she hadn’t expected to see it there, or because Alyssa usually kept it hidden?

“Congratulations on your father’s good news. You must be very relieved.”

“We are, thank you.” Hannah pushed herself to her feet, stretched out her hand. “I’m Hannah.”

Alyssa nodded but didn’t extend her own. “Yes, my husband has mentioned you. In his prayers.”

Hannah let her hand fall to her side. “It’s kind of you to have come.”

“Aidan told me the Lord worked a miracle yesterday. I wanted to see it for myself.”

Alyssa’s eyes didn’t leave Hannah’s. The scrutiny made her want to squirm. “Well,” Hannah said, “we’re all incredibly grateful for his concern.”

“The Lord’s or my husband’s? People do tend to confuse the two.” Alyssa’s tone was gently acerbic. “Of course, that’s only because they haven’t been around him before he’s had his morning coffee.”

Hannah said nothing, nonplussed by the image that popped into her mind of Aidan in his pajamas, his hair disheveled, his eyes heavy-lidded. Alyssa watched her with a knowing expression that held a hint of warning, and Hannah’s cheeks burned as it occurred to her just how many women must have fancied themselves in love with Aidan Dale over the years. She must be one of dozens, hundreds even, who’d fantasized about him. Wished him unmarried to this astute, composed woman.

“Hannah,” Becca said in a loud whisper. She stood in the doorway, holding up her port. “Mama wants to talk to you.”

Hannah suppressed a sigh of relief. “Please excuse me, Mrs. Dale.”

“No, I should be going,” Alyssa said. “We’re off to Mexico tonight, and South America and California after that, and I’m still not completely packed.”

“A long trip, then,” Hannah said.

“Three weeks. Long enough.” She didn’t need to add, For him to forget you.

For a while, it seemed he had. Summer gave way to fall, and the temperature finally dropped down into the double digits, and as the first holos of cavorting skeletons and witches on broomsticks began to appear on her neighbors’ front lawns, Hannah’s memories of Aidan started to lose their definition, taking on the hazy quality of images seen through tulle. If he’d ever had feelings for her—and she was becoming doubtful that he had—he must have since come to his senses, as she herself needed to do. Even to think of being with him, a married man, a man of God, was a grave sin. And so in Bible study, she made a point of sitting next to Will, a shy young man who’d been casting yearning looks her way for weeks, and when he finally got up the courage to ask her out, she accepted.

She’d had two serious boyfriends, one her senior year of high school and the other in her early twenties. They were nice young men, and she’d enjoyed their company and attention, but neither of them had stirred anything deeper in her than affection and a sporadic sexual curiosity she had no intention of exploring, not with them. That wasn’t enough. They weren’t enough.

Nor, she soon realized, was Will, though by every rational measure he ought to have been. He was a veterinarian, sweet, shy, funny in a self-deprecating way. They started dating in mid-October, and by mid-November, when the oak leaves began to drift to the ground in spiky brown curls, she knew that Will was falling along with them, and that she was not. “Please, Hannah, give him a chance,” her mother urged, and so she continued to see him. He became ardent, spoke of love, hinted at marriage. She stilled his roving hands and deflected his near-proposals. Finally, when his frustration turned to anger, she cut him loose, bleeding and disoriented, her own heart perfectly intact.

Aidan wouldn’t leave it intact, she’d known that from the first. Long before they became lovers, she could foresee that there would be an after, and that it would lay waste to them both.

Still. She hadn’t envisioned this: herself a Red, an outcast, while Aidan went on with his life and his ministry, moved with Alyssa to Washington to take up his new post as secretary of faith, continued to inspire millions by his words and example. Hannah knew he thought of her, missed her, grieved as she did for their lost child. Blamed himself and tormented himself with what-ifs. Probably hated himself for not coming forward.

Still.

She watched the fly buzz busily around the room. When it landed on the floor beside her, she killed it with a vicious smack of her hand.

I AM A RED NOW.

It was her first thought of the day, every day, surfacing after a few seconds of fogged, blessed ignorance and sweeping through her like a wave, breaking in her breast with a soundless roar. Hard on its heels came the second wave, crashing into the wreckage left by the first: He is gone. The first subsided eventually, settling into a dull ache, but the second assailed her with relentless fury, rolling in every ten, twenty minutes, gone, gone, gone, swamping her with fresh grief. The sense of loss never diminished. If anything, it seemed to grow more raw as the day of her release neared. She wondered how her heart could hold so much pain and still continue its measured, insistent thumping.

If only he were here, I could go to him. The notion was absurd, a puerile fantasy, and though she dismissed it at once, its ghost lingered, flitting about at the edges of her thoughts and stirring up memories of the first time she’d gone to him, at the hotel in San Antonio. With them came the inevitable twinge of desire. Even now, after all that had happened, she still felt it.

It had started with a call, a couple of weeks before Christmas. The despondency that had weighed on her like a lead apron during the last weeks with Will had lifted, leaving her more determined than ever not to settle for anything less than a bone-deep love. She’d felt it once, or the beginnings of it; she could and would feel it again. Aidan Dale, she swept forcibly from her mind. She begged God’s forgiveness for having desired him and swore to Him and herself that she’d never be so weak again.

Such was her state of mind when the church office called. A part-time coordinator’s position had opened up with the First Corinthians ministry. Was Hannah still interested?

For a moment, she was too stunned to answer. She’d applied to work at Ignited Word several years before, but paying positions were rare and highly sought after, and nothing had ever come of it. The First Corinthians ministry, or the 1Cs as it was more familiarly known, was the church’s charitable arm, charged with helping the community’s neediest and most troubled members. It was also Reverend Dale’s pet project. He could often be seen behind the wheel of one of its shiny white vans, delivering food to the poor, driving addicts to rehab and homosexuals to conversion therapy retreats. He’d named it for his favorite Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 13:2, which he often quoted in his sermons and interviews, always using the original King James scripture—“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing”—as opposed to the NIV version, which replaced the word charity with love. There are infinite kinds of love, Reverend Dale liked to say, but charity is the purest of them all, because it’s the only one that doesn’t ask, What’s in it for me?

Had Aidan put Hannah’s name forward for this position? And if he had—and why else would they be calling, after all this time—was it out of kindness, or something else?

“Miss Payne?” the woman said, drawing Hannah back to the conversation. “Would you like to come in for an interview?”

Kindness, Hannah told herself, as she scheduled the appointment. Kindness and nothing more.

She interviewed with the office manager, Mrs. Bunten, a middle-aged woman with a forbidding, deeply lined face that concealed a compassionate and motherly nature. Hannah later learned that the lines had been incised by grief; Mrs. Bunten had lost her husband and two sons in one of the scourge riots and been born again soon afterward. Now, ten years later, Ignited Word was her entire universe, and Reverend Dale was the glorious sun blazing at the center of it. That much was apparent to Hannah from the beginning. Mrs. Bunten spoke fondly enough of God and His Son, but it was when she talked about Aidan that her face took on the glow of true veneration.

The pivotal moment in the interview came when they were discussing Hannah’s father’s recovery. “A miracle,” said Mrs. Bunten.

“Yes,” agreed Hannah. “I thank God for it every day. God, and Reverend Dale.”

Mrs. Bunten gave her a smile that was positively beatific. “I can see you’re going to fit in perfectly here.”

The job was twenty hours a week, most of it spent doing clerical work at the 1Cs office, although Hannah was sometimes asked to serve in the soup kitchen or make deliveries. Her first week, she didn’t see Aidan once. But then on Monday of the following week, he walked into the office carrying an unwieldy tower of brightly colored boxes of children’s toys. “Ho ho ho,” he boomed, slightly out of breath.

Mrs. Bunten hurried to help him. Hannah followed more slowly, caught between eagerness and reluctance. Mrs. Bunten took the top few boxes, revealing his face. “Thank you, Brenda,” he said. Then he saw Hannah. “Oh, Hannah. Hello.”

His smile was ingenuous, pleasantly surprised. Kind. Hannah plummeted. “Hello, Reverend Dale.”

“Now, Reverend,” said Mrs. Bunten, all but clucking as she handed Hannah the boxes and took the rest from him, “you know you shouldn’t be carrying all that. Mrs. Dale will be mad at us both if you throw your back out again.”

“Alyssa worries too much.”

Mrs. Dale. Alyssa. Hannah turned away and set the boxes down. His wife.

“How’s your father doing?” he asked.

“Daddy’s well. He’s back at work. His left eye’s still a little fuzzy, but we’re hopeful it’ll heal in time.” Aidan doesn’t feel it.

“I pray it will. Please give my very best to him and your mother.”

“I will.” He doesn’t feel it, and that’s for the best.

He asked how Hannah was liking it here, and she said very much, thank you. He inquired after Becca and sent congratulations on her marriage. Mrs. Bunten interjected, marveling at how he never forgot a person’s name once he’d prayed with them. He protested her tendency to exaggerate his virtues. Hannah made the appropriate responses. She felt numb and foolish.

Aidan’s assistant interrupted them, calling to remind him about his four o’clock meeting with Congressman Drabyak. Aidan tapped his forehead ruefully, said he’d better be on his way, welcomed Hannah to the 1Cs and excused himself.

At the door, he turned back. “Brenda, I forgot to tell you, there are a bunch more toys out in the van. They need to be wrapped by tomorrow. I’m taking them to the shelter at three.”

“We’ll see to it, Reverend,” Mrs. Bunten said.

Aidan turned to Hannah. “Would you like to come along? To the shelter? It’s wonderful, watching the children’s faces light up.”

His own held nothing but friendly interest and eagerness—to see the children. Perhaps he hadn’t put her name forward after all, not even out of kindness. Perhaps it was God’s doing that she was here, a penance for her desire: to see his face and hear his voice and know that he could never be hers.

“I’d love to,” she said.

And so it began, their long, tortured mating dance, though it was months before she recognized it as such. She existed in a state of silent longing, punctuated by bursts of guilt and fear that someone would notice. Aidan treated her as he treated everyone, with a pastor’s professional warmth.

Hannah had been working at the church for six weeks when Alyssa came into the office with Aidan. She stopped short when she saw Hannah, and Hannah knew he hadn’t told her. Because it was too unimportant to mention, or …?

“Hello, Mrs. Dale.”

“Hello,” Alyssa said. “Becca, isn’t it?”

Sensing the ignorance was feigned, Hannah said, “That’s my sister. I’m Hannah.”

“Hannah joined us just before Christmas,” Aidan said. “She’s doing a terrific job.”

The remark sounded forced and awkward. Hannah smiled uncomfortably.

“Of course she is, darling,” said Alyssa. She slipped her arm around Aidan’s waist and gave Hannah a wintry smile. “My husband inspires hard work in others. People hate to disappoint him.”

Aidan’s unease was obvious, and Hannah was all but certain Alyssa had complimented him on purpose, because she knew how he hated being praised. Perhaps their marriage wasn’t as idyllic as everyone believed.

“Oh, I’m sure Hannah would do a good job for anyone,” he said.

“Well,” said Alyssa, “let’s not keep her from her work.”

The Dales got what they’d come for—the keys to one of the vans—and left. Alyssa preceded Aidan out the door. At the last second he swiveled his head to look back at Hannah, and she had a queer sensation, as if she were pulling it with a string. Their eyes met, held, dropped away at the same time.

So, she thought. So.

AFTER THAT THE real torment began. Aidan’s behavior toward Hannah was unchanged, but there was a charged quality to their interactions that had been missing before, and she knew she wasn’t suffering alone. Their attraction grew slowly, haltingly, unacknowledged but unmistakable. To Hannah it often seemed like a pregnancy during which they were both waiting, with equal degrees of excitement and trepidation, for the inevitable emergence of the new thing they were creating between them. They were rarely alone together, and then, only briefly and by accident—a chance encounter on the stairs, a five-minute span when Mrs. Bunten was in the restroom. Aidan was constantly surrounded by people, all of them wanting something from him: his attention, his blessing, his opinion, the touch of his hand on their shoulders. Hannah grew to resent them all, even as she felt the echo of their hunger in herself.

Most of all, she resented and envied Alyssa Dale. Aidan’s wife had become a frequent visitor to the 1Cs office, pitching in wherever help was needed. Mrs. Bunten commented on it one day, saying how nice it was that Mrs. Dale was taking such an interest in their work. With Hannah, Alyssa was coolly polite and, when Aidan was around, watchful. When it was just the women, she was more relaxed, though she always maintained a certain reserve, an air of apartness. Still, she worked as hard as any of them, was generous with praise and kept them amused with her wry sense of humor. Mrs. Bunten and the other women adored her, and even Hannah began to admire her. It occurred to her more than once that in different circumstances, she and Alyssa Dale might have been friends.

In the meantime, the tension between Hannah and Aidan continued to mount. At times it was so palpable she half expected it to materialize, sinuous and glistening, in the air between them. Every night before bed, she prayed for God’s forgiveness. And every night, she lay sleepless and imagined Aidan lying beside her. She knew she should quit the 1Cs and remove herself from the temptation of being around him. She even composed a letter of resignation to Mrs. Bunten, but she couldn’t bring herself to say “Send” any more than she could make herself ask God to help her stop loving Aidan.