Mirror, Mirror (Otalia, 2/8)
Title: Mirror, Mirror
Pairing: Otalia
Word Count: 59,995 (complete)
Rating: R
Summary: forgiveness is a tricky thing.
Blue
“Did somebody ever throw you a shower, when you were pregnant with him?”
“Sixteen, Catholic, unmarried? What do you think?”
Side 1
Natalia wandered listlessly in the gardens outside the cloister. Once again, despite the beauty around her, she had little regard for her surroundings. A week here, and she remained as confused as when the nuns had first escorted her out here, telling her that afternoon walks were good for women in her condition.
As if she didn’t already know that.
She reminded herself that these women knew nothing of her history--and that she was already in enough trouble without taking out her frustrations on nuns.
She walked over to the small fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and lowered herself to rest on the tiles that framed the shallow pool. She studied the mosaics beneath her fingertips, patterns of ivory and faded blue. She could barely make out the meaning behind the designs, which seemed very appropriate. There was still so much she didn’t understand.
It was funny, all those years ago, she’d thought if she just had the father of her child present when she found out she was pregnant, if Nicky had been there, everything would have been fine. She had feared telling her parents far more than she had feared telling him. Oh, she knew he might not initially be thrilled by the news. He had made all these plans, wanted to travel. But she also knew that his references to wanting a family of his own were equally sincere, and he loved her, and so disappointed or not, she knew they could work something out.
Except that Nicky never came back. By the time she met him again, he was Gus. Equally committed to her and to their family, as it turned out, but not the same boy that she would have trusted, completely, with troubling news.
She had another chance now, though. Frank was back there in Springfield, waiting for her. She knew, if she told him, he would be thrilled.
And yet she felt more shame at the thought of telling him, than at the thought of telling--
--anyone else. She hadn’t felt this way since the night she had sat down with her parents, the cross around her neck pressing its pattern into her skin.
She had talked around the subject for awhile, before she finally shortened the discussion by placing her hands on the front of her sweater and molding the material to her stomach. She had been rambling about Nicky and commitment and she didn’t even remember what else now - later discussions had made her memories of that first one suspect - but she had stopped talking, seeing if they would make the connection without needing the words. They had. Her father had gotten there first, but her mother had been only seconds behind.
***
“Are you saying...?” he asked, not quite able to look at her, and then Natalia saw it, the dawning horror on her mother’s face as she realized the cause of the silence that had descended between them.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m pregnant.” She looked down at her shoes, tense, waiting for their reactions. She could feel the swell of her stomach against the waistband of her pleated skirt. She had waited as long as possible to tell them, waited for Nicky to come home, but she had seen the curves of her silhouette grow week-by-week and she knew that she had been too slim to hide it for very long.
***
She had sat between them, miserable in their disappointment. They hadn’t yelled, hadn’t been physically intimidating. They never threatened to disown her or to throw her out of their home. To her face, they hadn’t even been angry--just disappointed. The word ‘abortion’ never came up in conversation.
If she hadn’t heard them discussing her in their bedroom late at night, after they thought she had fallen asleep, Rafe might have spent his early years in the same house as his grandparents.
***
“She should give it up for adoption.” Her mom spoke quietly, but the street traffic had died down hours ago and in the resulting silence, sound carried. “There’s no reason this should ruin her life.”
“She should have to live with the consequences of her actions. God has seen fit to punish her for her sins.”
Her mother said something, voice low, in protest, that Natalia couldn’t hear, but her father’s next sentence rang out clearly.
“Maybe if she hadn’t-”
Natalia didn’t understand what his next words meant. It would be years before she heard them again, when the economy was bad enough that she took a job at a motel she normally wouldn’t even consider entering. The night she heard them, finally understood them, she had gone back to her apartment, stared out the window at the condemned building across the street, and cried. Her rosary beads had been wet with her tears as she slipped them through her fingers, and she couldn’t speak the words as she asked for forgiveness again.
However, it appeared her mother understood his words well-enough, because she said his name, once, harshly, and after that their voices quieted down to whispers Natalia couldn’t hear.
She had laid awake all night, staring at the ceiling. Until then, she hadn’t really thought about the baby inside her as a punishment. She had considered it a consequence, of course; she still didn’t know how they had been so careless. But it hadn’t occurred to her to think of Nicky’s baby as a punishment from God.
In theory, she knew what she and Nicky had done was a sin; the Church had been very clear on that particular subject. Yet it hadn’t felt like one at the time, all tenderness and awkward fits-and-starts and laughter--so much laughter. Nicky had looked so awestruck the first time she let him unbutton her dress; the joy he took in her body seemed like something God had made.
Still, she had known they should have waited--but they were promised to each other, and she wanted him so badly. Her parents would never allow them to marry, not until they graduated from school, and they would fight her even then, if Nicky didn’t manage a good job.
So they decided not to wait. They figured it was just practice, for their future--at least they wouldn’t have to worry about an awkward wedding night.
And now here she was, alone, five months pregnant. As punishments went, it now seemed very obvious. She had committed a sin.
But it was her sin, unconnected to the child inside her. It deserved no blame.
If she stayed here, with her parents, she feared this distinction would be lost. The child would be held equally guilty, either dismissed or judged more harshly.
And if she didn’t leave, her parents would start pressuring her as soon as she was done with school, to marry, and it would be difficult to fight them.
It would be hard, in part, because she understood some of their motivations. They would want to ensure her safety--give her a chance to live without constantly worrying about her ability to afford day-to-day necessities. With her present skill set, her job prospects were not encouraging, and she had seen enough people around her struggle to support families with incomes far below the poverty line to understand what such a future held for her.
But it would also be hard to fight her parents because, in some ways, it would be so very easy to submit to their wishes. She knew that she was pretty, knew that even with a baby it wouldn’t be so very difficult to find someone, possibly in her church, willing to accept her as a wife. Some would even enjoy the idea that they had played a role in her reformation. They would probably be very nice, and she wouldn’t have to deal with so many of the worries that were keeping her awake right now.
And yet...
It had been so good with Nicky. She had loved him - still loved him - and having known the real thing, she didn’t want to commit herself to anything else. It wouldn’t be fair to her, to her husband--or to her child. She didn’t want this baby growing up with a mother who married only out of fear.
And she didn’t think that two wrongs could make a right. If marriage was sacred in the way the Church claimed, trapping a man in a loveless union could be nothing less than profane. She couldn’t stand there, before God, and pretend it was anything else.
In the dark, she clutched her quilt to herself, willing herself to stick to her decision.
By the time that the sun finally came up, she knew what she was going to do.
***
She had waited until a few months after she had Raphael before she disappeared.
The time that had intervened between when she had made her decision and when she carried it out had only reinforced to her the necessity of her choice. Even so, her first night alone in the shelter, her meagre savings in a suitcase below her cot, left her feeling shaken. Had she been forced to stay there more than a few nights, she might not have managed to keep to her resolution. However, she found a job much more quickly than she anticipated, in a small hotel where they needed extra hands badly enough to not inquire too closely as to the precision with which she stated her age.
It was the first time Natalia traded on her perceived innocence, as no one believed that the act that resulted in Rafe’s conception had been a knowing one. She overheard a conversation late one night between one of the desk clerks and his wife that caused her to flush with shame.
“...must have tricked her, or worse, for her to have that baby.”
She caught a few pitying glances over the next few days that let her know that this wasn’t an isolated opinion, and suddenly everything made sense. She had wondered why several of the employees had taken such an interest in her. The hotel manager had gone so far as to help her find an apartment nearby. It wasn’t in the best part of town, and it was small, but it was better than what she had thought she would be able to afford, and she had been grateful.
Once she found out, she tried to correct the misconception, but she had already accepted the favors, and with Nicky apparently gone for good, she didn’t have much evidence to back up her assertions. So she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the fact that everyone around her thought she was a victim.
Mostly, she concentrated on trying to survive. It was a difficult life, but it was an honest one, and she worked her best to make sure that Rafe knew that he was the one thing in her life she had never regretted. That she saw him only as a blessing, and nothing else. In time, she even started questioning her father’s assumptions about God and punishment.
Because, if God punished all her sins by giving her gifts like Rafe, she didn’t know how it discouraged her from continuing to sin. In the end, she left that to her prayers and to the Bible, to her conscience and to confession. She focused on her faith, and on her and Nicky’s son.
***
But in her secret heart of hearts, she always wondered. And then, as Rafe approached adulthood, her fears seemed to be confirmed. The detention center, Daisy’s abortion, Jeffrey, prison--
The sins of the parents are always visited upon the children.
Through all of it, she never said a word. Not to Olivia, not even to God. She convinced herself that she still had her faith, and that no one was being punished.
Natalia placed her hands over the curve of her stomach and bit down on her lip.
But now, there was this.
She couldn’t help it, she had to ask: had she resisted God’s will back then? If she had given Rafe a father, would any of it have ever happened?
She had resisted marrying, twice. The first time, Rafe had borne the consequences.
If she resisted God’s will again, what burden would she place on this child?
She felt no more inclined to marry Frank for the sake of this child, then she had to marry a nameless, faceless husband all those years ago. Once again, it seemed a betrayal of both herself and her principles. But she’d had so much trouble praying lately...
Worst of all, the image she couldn’t get out of her mind was one of Olivia shattered-apart and crying, desperately trying to do the right thing on Natalia’s wedding day.
How could she even think of doing that to them again?
***
Blue
“You have got to stop doing this. You've got to stop seeing yourself as this put-upon woman who is just waiting for the next catastrophe. Do you even know who you are? You! You raised a kid all all by yourself from the time you were a teenager...
“...your son's in prison and you still haven't lost faith. You don't feel sorry for yourself. You don't run around hurting other people or drinking too much or sleeping with losers. You're a freaking superhero, Natalia.”
Side 2
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
At first, Olivia couldn’t even process the words. It was like the sharpest of cuts; for a moment she felt absolutely no pain.
Then she took a deep breath--and she ran. She concentrated on getting away from everyone, hoping she could get out of sight before the truth of what Blake had told her seemed real. She barely made it.
When it hit, she didn’t even try to stop the tears. She cried so hard that her body shook; she knew she would be sore in the morning. Not that it mattered. Natalia had hurt her in the only way that mattered.
She should have known about this. Should have been prepared for this. Had it been anyone else, anyone but the one person she really trusted, she would have been looking for the signs. Already she could feel herself cataloguing all the warnings, too-aware of how many she must have missed.
She knew what this was like. She had practically memorized the script.
She had watched too many people she loved walk away.
Except this time, it was different. Natalia was different.
And this time, for the first time, Olivia didn’t even know why she had been left here, alone.
***
Emma didn’t know what to do when her mom’s cell phone started ringing. She wasn’t supposed to answer it.
She glanced towards the bed where her mom was sleeping to see if the sound had made her wake up. She frowned when she saw that it hadn’t made her move at all; her mom was in the same position she had been in since she had driven them home from the school.
Emma knew what she had been taught to do. She was supposed to let the call go to voicemail. But that’s not what she wanted to do. She knew who was calling and she liked him. Talking to him always made her mom happy.
Slowly, she picked up the phone, pausing before she actually pushed any buttons. She decided it was like talking to strangers. She wasn’t supposed to do that either, but she was allowed to talk to people she did know.
She pressed the top button and quickly put the phone to ear, afraid that he would already be gone.
“Uncle Sam!” she said.
***
Sam smiled at the voice on the other end of the phone. Although he had seen her only a handful of times since her birth, in her excitement, Emma always reminded him of Olivia, when she was in one of her very best moods.
“I didn’t know you had your own phone,” he said, knowing very well that she did, and this was not it. “What? Are you driving now too?”
“No.” Emma giggled, but it was an oddly hushed sound. “And this isn’t my phone.”
“That must make it your mom’s. Where is she, by the way?”
“She’s asleep.”
Sam checked his watch again, just to be sure, but it was around the time he had thought. What was Olivia doing sleeping, when it was still afternoon in Springfield? He tried to ignore his guilt that it had taken him this long to call. He had meant to call Liv months ago, but his work schedule had been so brutal lately, and she had sounded so good the last time he talked to her...
“Has she been sick again, Emma?”
“No. She’s sad. And Natalia’s not here to make her feel better.”
Well, now that was an interesting development, he thought. Olivia had very few female friends, and she had never mentioned this one to him. He would have to congratulate her, when he saw her again, for being able to put away the claws.
“Who’s Natalia?” he asked, curious as to Emma’s take on her mother’s new friendship.
“She’s my other mommy.”
“Your other-” Sam caught himself. Emma didn’t seem self-conscious about the subject, and he didn’t want to be the one to change that, if what she had just said meant what he thought it meant.
“I did a school presentation about her and my Mom for family day,” Emma said proudly. “It’s online--do you want me to send you the link?”
“Sure,” Sam managed, glad that Emma couldn’t see his face. He wondered if his sister would ever stop surprising him.
Or, for that matter, if she would ever stop worrying him. Because, as he thought back over the conversation, it didn’t take very long to put all the pieces together--and he really didn’t like the picture that was forming.
What kind of trouble had Olivia gotten herself into now?
***
Olivia hadn’t realized she could feel this type of frustration. Usually, when she felt this devastated, this alone, sex was exactly what she needed. For a while, she didn’t have time to think or regret or do anything else besides please and be pleased. It took her whole attention--she never lost focus.
Except that, this time, she couldn’t lose herself.
In some ways, the reasons were obvious. In and of itself, Josh’s beard broke her illusions. But in most ways, it was more subtle. She had wanted to look Natalia in the face, when she touched her, and she knew what Natalia’s breath felt like on her lips. This wasn’t it--this wasn’t what she wanted. Or at least not all of her.
Her body was not as confused as her mind, her heart. Her body recognized Josh’s body, and it had been so long for her that it wasn’t particularly surprising that she had responded immediately to the feel of his hands, warmth flaring into a burn as his fingers slipped underneath the material of her shirt.
She had never felt this kind of a division within herself. Her body wanted the release so badly, needed the release and the oblivion it would provide, and yet...
She pulled back from him and shook her head, barely able to meet his gaze. Logically, there was no longer any reason for her to stay celibate, but logic seemed to have abandoned her when Natalia did--she didn’t know the reason for anything, anymore.
When he asked her what she needed, she surprised herself with the honesty of her response-- “Can you just hold me?”
She saw something flicker in his eyes, most likely the memory of the last time he had done that for her, and everything that had come afterwards.
When he agreed to her request, she worked to hold back the tears he had to have seen welling in her eyes. He put his arms around her, and she didn’t even care if he was doing it out of guilt, or friendship, or because he felt like he owed her.
She just wanted to be held.
***
Olivia walked inside her hotel room and dropped her purse on the floor, too tired to avoid stumbling as some of its contents rolled under her feet. She was not expecting the words that came out of the darkness.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been the one waiting up for you.”
The undeniable familiarity of that voice was the only reason she wasn’t in immediate need of another transplant. Still, she could feel her heart beating in her chest, and she glared in his direction as she flipped on the light.
“Jesus, Sam, you scared me.” Her irritation at his method of announcing himself in no way prevented her from enveloping him in an enthusiastic hug. She had missed him.
“You’re pretty scary yourself,” he said, returning the hug. He looked down at her, his demeanor studiously nonchalant. “What have you been up to tonight?”
The way he searched her face made Olivia want to look away. This close, she knew he could see the ravages of the past month in her appearance. She couldn’t hide the circles under her eyes or the dropped weight, and she knew the smell of alcohol had to be strong on her breath.
She pulled away from him as she answered his question. “Errands.”
“Errands. In the middle of the night?”
“Who let you in anyways?” she asked, moving towards the area in the room that functioned as a makeshift bar. She pulled out two glasses as a way of distracting herself from asking him questions to which she'd really like the answers. Such as, who had filled him in on her situation here in Springfield? In this instance, the usual culprits didn't seem very likely.
“Your daughter greeted me at the door, accompanied by the woman who was watching her-” he thought a moment, “Jane.” He moved over to stand beside her. “She’s very protective, by the way. It’s a good thing Emma still recognizes me, and that you have me listed in your emergency contacts.”
“Where is Jane?”
“I let her go early tonight. Before she left, she filled me in a little on how busy you’ve been keeping her.”
“Not anymore,” Olivia muttered. She reached for the vodka. “You want yours with tonic?”
He put his hand on the bottle, preventing her from picking it up. “I like to party as much as the next guy, but I think you’ve had enough.”
“Sam-”
“You’ve got to stop this, Liv. And I’m not just talking about the drinking. You can’t keep punishing yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Sam, but I’m fine.” She forced herself to take her hand off the bottle and look up at him. “Really.”
“You are not fine.”
“Oh, come on, Sammy. We all go through rough patches.”
“A rough patch? I heard the door open from down the hall, and I know who lives there. You were with Josh Lewis. Please explain to me the line of thinking that leads you back into that man’s bed.”
“Don’t you start with me. You just got here--I don’t want to have to start accusing you of sounding like Reva before we’ve even had a chance to make fun of her.” She sighed at the determined look on his face. “Josh and I didn’t sleep together, okay? We just-”
He held up his hands. “I don’t need to know any of the details. I saw more of you and Josh together back when you were married to him than is good for a developing mind. I think you still owe me some therapy.”
“That can probably be arranged-”
“I don’t want to joke, Sis. I didn’t like what he did to you then, and I’m not convinced I’m going to change my mind now.”
“You always seem to forget that I’m a big girl, Sam. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but you’re not. What you’re doing right now is not good for you.”
She turned away from him and started fidgeting with the glasses again. “Thanks for not judging me.”
“That’s not what this is about.” He looked at her for a moment, silent, and she could see the worry etched in his face. She wondered how much he had guessed. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle, and Olivia had never been so glad to have him here, in her life. “I’m concerned about you, that’s all,” he said. “I talked to Emma on the phone the other night...”
Olivia closed her eyes in understanding. Of course. “Emma told you.”
“Not everything, I think.” He reached out and slid the vodka bottle towards her. “Why don’t you pour us both a drink, and tell me about it. I‘m a very good listener.”
“And so modest, too,” she said, blinking back the tears that seemed ever-present these days. She reached for the bottle and started pouring their drinks.
“Must run in the family.”
Olivia looked over at him then, and managed her first genuine smile of the day. She handed him his drink and they moved to sit side-by-side on the bed.
“How much do you know?” she asked him.
“Emma only gave me the basics.”
“But you’re a very bright boy.”
“Hey, your life is too complicated for me to be able to fill in all the blanks.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, what happened?”
Olivia shrugged and ran a finger along the top of her glass. “You know how it always seems to start.” She couldn’t help the emotions that crept into her voice as she allowed herself to think of Natalia. “I fell in love.”
***
“I get that you’re hurting, Olivia,” he said to her, hours later, when she had finally stopped speaking. She didn’t know when she had last felt this drained, and she felt indescribably thankful when he put another drink in her hand. “But you’re worrying your daughter.”
“I know. I thought about maybe sending her to stay with Ava for awhile, but now that you’re here-”
“I think you need Emma right now, and after her scare last year, dealing with your transplant, she needs you.” He leaned towards her, his expression earnest. “You know me. I’ll take care of her. I’m sure Ava would take care of her. But we shouldn’t have to. You’re stronger than this, Liv. I know you. I’ve seen you bounce back from worse-”
“No, Sam.” Olivia felt shame as her voice cracked, but it quickly faded. In the list of things she had done while grieving, it was passing, unimportant. “You haven’t. I loved Natalia. I trusted her. She was it for me. And I screwed it up.”
“How? How is this your fault?”
“I should have seen...” Olivia took a deep breath and tried to steady her voice. “She had to have been in so much pain...”
“Olivia-”
“I had convinced myself I was good for her, that she was happier with me. Maybe even...a better person...with me. But for her to do something like this...”
Despite her best efforts, Olivia started crying. Admitting defeat, she did nothing to stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks. She could barely see her brother anymore. “This is the type of thing I do, Sam. Do you understand? Not her.”
“Liv,” he said gently, taking her hands. “If there’s a pattern here, it’s that you’ve been let down before. Don’t you think-”
“I’ve done nothing but think. Early on, I thought she might leave one day. But I thought it would be because I pushed her away. You know, got scared, slept with someone like Josh, betrayed us. My usual. Not like this.”
“Look at me, Sis.” He waited until she complied, before he continued, carefully emphasizing his words, “She betrayed you.”
For one moment, Olivia didn’t try to hide any of her pain. “I’ve never seen her break a promise,” she whispered.
“Didn’t she promise to marry Frank?”
“She left him at the altar. She couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t lie, not in front of God. But she could lie to me.” She dropped her head forward, let it rest on her brother's shoulder. It was so much easier to admit it, when she didn’t have to look at him. “I didn’t make her a better person, Sam. I can’t do that for anyone. It’s probably good for both of us that she left me.”
“I get it,” Sam said, and she felt rather than saw his shrug. “She’s good, you’re bad.” He let her cry for a few minutes, waiting until the worst of it had passed before he said, softly, “If that’s true, then how come you’re the one sitting here with a broken heart?”
***
Sam saw Ava standing by herself at the funeral and, as a family member, felt compelled to walk over and provide her company, even though he would rather stand off to the side, by himself.
When she saw him approaching, she attempted a smile. It was almost a success.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Ava.” He nodded respectfully. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Although her gratitude seemed genuine, he couldn’t help but notice she was already distracted. He followed the line of her gaze and realized she was staring at Olivia.
“Do you want me to get her for you?” he asked.
“No, she’s talking to Josh, and I think that makes her feel better.” Sam kept his opinion on that statement to himself, but felt his respect for Ava grow as she continued to speak. “She needs that right now.”
“Yes, she does.”
She turned back to him. “I’ve never seen her like this. Have you?”
“No. I mean, it was bad with Josh, but nothing like this.” He had thought that it couldn’t get any worse than after her first marriage collapsed, when she had closed herself off to everyone and let bitterness eat away at so many of the parts of her that he loved. But nothing could compare to this quiet devastation.
“I couldn’t believe how much she shared with me today. It’s not like her.”
“She’s changed,” he agreed. In exactly what ways, he was still working to figure out. A lot of what he saw seemed good, but then there was also the fact that he had never seen her so utterly defeated. Before, she had always managed a brave face, always came up with some new project to distract herself from her relationship woes. Now, she didn’t even seem to want to try to get over this woman. Natalia.
Ava offered him a sideways glance. “So, you know about...?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever meet Natalia?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t even know she existed until very recently.”
“How is that possible?”
“Before I cam here, I had last talked to Olivia in the fall. She mentioned something at the time about hiring an assistant who had become her live-in caretaker. I was so relieved she had someone to look after her that I didn’t pursue the matter further.” The fact that he had left the country two days later hadn’t helped, but he was hardly going to make excuses for himself. “Now, of course, I wish I had followed up.”
“We both need to be better about staying in touch with her."
He thought that maybe Ava's declaration was meant as a rebuke to him until he realized that her expression held no judgement. Olivia’s daughter, then.
“What was she like?” he asked. “The woman who broke my sister’s heart?”
“Until recently, I would have said she was the nicest person I ever met.”
He looked over at his sister and saw only pain. “You’ll pardon me if I remain unconvinced.”
***
Olivia didn’t know why she was sitting on the church steps. This was not a place where she found comfort. She thought maybe it had more to do with her search for answers that she might never find. All she knew was that this was the place where Natalia had made the choice to leave.
"Olivia?"
She looked around at the sound of her name and felt a dull sort of surprise as she recognized the woman walking towards her. “Sister?”
She could see Sister Anne pause, whatever greeting she had planned left unspoken. Olivia would give people credit--everyone around her seemed to realize the inanity of offering her cheerful greetings right now. She just wished people would come right out and tell her she looked awful. It irritated her to watch them talk around the subject.
Sister Anne continued to study her for a moment, then moved to sit down on the steps. Olivia liked that she chose a place a little distance away; she always appreciated people who respected her space.
“Can I offer you something, Olivia? Maybe someone to talk to?”
Olivia shook her head. She really didn’t want to to talk to a member of a religious order right now, not even one whom she actually respected.
“There’s nothing I can do to help?”
“Unless you’re willing to break someone out of a convent, I don’t think we have very much to say to each other.” The confusion on the Sister’s face gave Olivia no satisfaction--it only made her tired. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’ve had a bad week.”
“I had thought to find you happier. I had heard...”
“You too?” Olivia laughed, unable to hide her bitterness. “I don’t know why we were even going to bother with the barbecue.” She gestured to herself, sitting alone on the church stairs. “Are you happy with the answer to your prayers?”
“I don’t believe I gave any indication of engaging in such prayers the last time we spoke,” Sister Anne said, and her response was made with such quiet dignity that Olivia couldn’t feel offended by the reproof.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
To her surprise, Olivia found that she did. It was as close as she would ever come to a confession. “She left me, Sister,” she said. “Right here. I know she had to have made the decision inside this church. Father Ray said-” Olivia caught herself before she insulted Natalia’s priest to a nun. Besides, what he said didn’t really matter. He couldn’t have convinced Natalia to go if she didn’t want to leave.
“Father Ray...” Sister Anne pressed her lips together and glanced back towards the church. Olivia didn’t know her all that well, but she thought the look that passed across her face might have been one very near to anger.
***
The door to the study was open, so she walked in without waiting for an invitation. Father Ray was immediately aware of her presence, looking up from his writing with a smile of greeting.
“Anne,” he said, “I see you’re as early as usual. Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you,” she said as she followed their weekly routine and pulled one of the straight back chairs closer to the front of his desk. She sat down with the economy of movement she had perfected over the years and clasped her hands in her lap.
She watched as he put everything aside, minimizing distractions. His pen went in the top drawer, his handwritten pages inside a folder on the left side of the desk. She used the few moments of silence he had given her to calm herself--and to send up a quick prayer. When he looked up again, she was ready.
“Father,” she said evenly, “we need to talk.”
***
Part 3
Pairing: Otalia
Word Count: 59,995 (complete)
Rating: R
Summary: forgiveness is a tricky thing.
Blue
“Did somebody ever throw you a shower, when you were pregnant with him?”
“Sixteen, Catholic, unmarried? What do you think?”
Side 1
Natalia wandered listlessly in the gardens outside the cloister. Once again, despite the beauty around her, she had little regard for her surroundings. A week here, and she remained as confused as when the nuns had first escorted her out here, telling her that afternoon walks were good for women in her condition.
As if she didn’t already know that.
She reminded herself that these women knew nothing of her history--and that she was already in enough trouble without taking out her frustrations on nuns.
She walked over to the small fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and lowered herself to rest on the tiles that framed the shallow pool. She studied the mosaics beneath her fingertips, patterns of ivory and faded blue. She could barely make out the meaning behind the designs, which seemed very appropriate. There was still so much she didn’t understand.
It was funny, all those years ago, she’d thought if she just had the father of her child present when she found out she was pregnant, if Nicky had been there, everything would have been fine. She had feared telling her parents far more than she had feared telling him. Oh, she knew he might not initially be thrilled by the news. He had made all these plans, wanted to travel. But she also knew that his references to wanting a family of his own were equally sincere, and he loved her, and so disappointed or not, she knew they could work something out.
Except that Nicky never came back. By the time she met him again, he was Gus. Equally committed to her and to their family, as it turned out, but not the same boy that she would have trusted, completely, with troubling news.
She had another chance now, though. Frank was back there in Springfield, waiting for her. She knew, if she told him, he would be thrilled.
And yet she felt more shame at the thought of telling him, than at the thought of telling--
--anyone else. She hadn’t felt this way since the night she had sat down with her parents, the cross around her neck pressing its pattern into her skin.
She had talked around the subject for awhile, before she finally shortened the discussion by placing her hands on the front of her sweater and molding the material to her stomach. She had been rambling about Nicky and commitment and she didn’t even remember what else now - later discussions had made her memories of that first one suspect - but she had stopped talking, seeing if they would make the connection without needing the words. They had. Her father had gotten there first, but her mother had been only seconds behind.
***
“Are you saying...?” he asked, not quite able to look at her, and then Natalia saw it, the dawning horror on her mother’s face as she realized the cause of the silence that had descended between them.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m pregnant.” She looked down at her shoes, tense, waiting for their reactions. She could feel the swell of her stomach against the waistband of her pleated skirt. She had waited as long as possible to tell them, waited for Nicky to come home, but she had seen the curves of her silhouette grow week-by-week and she knew that she had been too slim to hide it for very long.
***
She had sat between them, miserable in their disappointment. They hadn’t yelled, hadn’t been physically intimidating. They never threatened to disown her or to throw her out of their home. To her face, they hadn’t even been angry--just disappointed. The word ‘abortion’ never came up in conversation.
If she hadn’t heard them discussing her in their bedroom late at night, after they thought she had fallen asleep, Rafe might have spent his early years in the same house as his grandparents.
***
“She should give it up for adoption.” Her mom spoke quietly, but the street traffic had died down hours ago and in the resulting silence, sound carried. “There’s no reason this should ruin her life.”
“She should have to live with the consequences of her actions. God has seen fit to punish her for her sins.”
Her mother said something, voice low, in protest, that Natalia couldn’t hear, but her father’s next sentence rang out clearly.
“Maybe if she hadn’t-”
Natalia didn’t understand what his next words meant. It would be years before she heard them again, when the economy was bad enough that she took a job at a motel she normally wouldn’t even consider entering. The night she heard them, finally understood them, she had gone back to her apartment, stared out the window at the condemned building across the street, and cried. Her rosary beads had been wet with her tears as she slipped them through her fingers, and she couldn’t speak the words as she asked for forgiveness again.
However, it appeared her mother understood his words well-enough, because she said his name, once, harshly, and after that their voices quieted down to whispers Natalia couldn’t hear.
She had laid awake all night, staring at the ceiling. Until then, she hadn’t really thought about the baby inside her as a punishment. She had considered it a consequence, of course; she still didn’t know how they had been so careless. But it hadn’t occurred to her to think of Nicky’s baby as a punishment from God.
In theory, she knew what she and Nicky had done was a sin; the Church had been very clear on that particular subject. Yet it hadn’t felt like one at the time, all tenderness and awkward fits-and-starts and laughter--so much laughter. Nicky had looked so awestruck the first time she let him unbutton her dress; the joy he took in her body seemed like something God had made.
Still, she had known they should have waited--but they were promised to each other, and she wanted him so badly. Her parents would never allow them to marry, not until they graduated from school, and they would fight her even then, if Nicky didn’t manage a good job.
So they decided not to wait. They figured it was just practice, for their future--at least they wouldn’t have to worry about an awkward wedding night.
And now here she was, alone, five months pregnant. As punishments went, it now seemed very obvious. She had committed a sin.
But it was her sin, unconnected to the child inside her. It deserved no blame.
If she stayed here, with her parents, she feared this distinction would be lost. The child would be held equally guilty, either dismissed or judged more harshly.
And if she didn’t leave, her parents would start pressuring her as soon as she was done with school, to marry, and it would be difficult to fight them.
It would be hard, in part, because she understood some of their motivations. They would want to ensure her safety--give her a chance to live without constantly worrying about her ability to afford day-to-day necessities. With her present skill set, her job prospects were not encouraging, and she had seen enough people around her struggle to support families with incomes far below the poverty line to understand what such a future held for her.
But it would also be hard to fight her parents because, in some ways, it would be so very easy to submit to their wishes. She knew that she was pretty, knew that even with a baby it wouldn’t be so very difficult to find someone, possibly in her church, willing to accept her as a wife. Some would even enjoy the idea that they had played a role in her reformation. They would probably be very nice, and she wouldn’t have to deal with so many of the worries that were keeping her awake right now.
And yet...
It had been so good with Nicky. She had loved him - still loved him - and having known the real thing, she didn’t want to commit herself to anything else. It wouldn’t be fair to her, to her husband--or to her child. She didn’t want this baby growing up with a mother who married only out of fear.
And she didn’t think that two wrongs could make a right. If marriage was sacred in the way the Church claimed, trapping a man in a loveless union could be nothing less than profane. She couldn’t stand there, before God, and pretend it was anything else.
In the dark, she clutched her quilt to herself, willing herself to stick to her decision.
By the time that the sun finally came up, she knew what she was going to do.
***
She had waited until a few months after she had Raphael before she disappeared.
The time that had intervened between when she had made her decision and when she carried it out had only reinforced to her the necessity of her choice. Even so, her first night alone in the shelter, her meagre savings in a suitcase below her cot, left her feeling shaken. Had she been forced to stay there more than a few nights, she might not have managed to keep to her resolution. However, she found a job much more quickly than she anticipated, in a small hotel where they needed extra hands badly enough to not inquire too closely as to the precision with which she stated her age.
It was the first time Natalia traded on her perceived innocence, as no one believed that the act that resulted in Rafe’s conception had been a knowing one. She overheard a conversation late one night between one of the desk clerks and his wife that caused her to flush with shame.
“...must have tricked her, or worse, for her to have that baby.”
She caught a few pitying glances over the next few days that let her know that this wasn’t an isolated opinion, and suddenly everything made sense. She had wondered why several of the employees had taken such an interest in her. The hotel manager had gone so far as to help her find an apartment nearby. It wasn’t in the best part of town, and it was small, but it was better than what she had thought she would be able to afford, and she had been grateful.
Once she found out, she tried to correct the misconception, but she had already accepted the favors, and with Nicky apparently gone for good, she didn’t have much evidence to back up her assertions. So she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the fact that everyone around her thought she was a victim.
Mostly, she concentrated on trying to survive. It was a difficult life, but it was an honest one, and she worked her best to make sure that Rafe knew that he was the one thing in her life she had never regretted. That she saw him only as a blessing, and nothing else. In time, she even started questioning her father’s assumptions about God and punishment.
Because, if God punished all her sins by giving her gifts like Rafe, she didn’t know how it discouraged her from continuing to sin. In the end, she left that to her prayers and to the Bible, to her conscience and to confession. She focused on her faith, and on her and Nicky’s son.
***
But in her secret heart of hearts, she always wondered. And then, as Rafe approached adulthood, her fears seemed to be confirmed. The detention center, Daisy’s abortion, Jeffrey, prison--
The sins of the parents are always visited upon the children.
Through all of it, she never said a word. Not to Olivia, not even to God. She convinced herself that she still had her faith, and that no one was being punished.
Natalia placed her hands over the curve of her stomach and bit down on her lip.
But now, there was this.
She couldn’t help it, she had to ask: had she resisted God’s will back then? If she had given Rafe a father, would any of it have ever happened?
She had resisted marrying, twice. The first time, Rafe had borne the consequences.
If she resisted God’s will again, what burden would she place on this child?
She felt no more inclined to marry Frank for the sake of this child, then she had to marry a nameless, faceless husband all those years ago. Once again, it seemed a betrayal of both herself and her principles. But she’d had so much trouble praying lately...
Worst of all, the image she couldn’t get out of her mind was one of Olivia shattered-apart and crying, desperately trying to do the right thing on Natalia’s wedding day.
How could she even think of doing that to them again?
***
Blue
“You have got to stop doing this. You've got to stop seeing yourself as this put-upon woman who is just waiting for the next catastrophe. Do you even know who you are? You! You raised a kid all all by yourself from the time you were a teenager...
“...your son's in prison and you still haven't lost faith. You don't feel sorry for yourself. You don't run around hurting other people or drinking too much or sleeping with losers. You're a freaking superhero, Natalia.”
Side 2
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
At first, Olivia couldn’t even process the words. It was like the sharpest of cuts; for a moment she felt absolutely no pain.
Then she took a deep breath--and she ran. She concentrated on getting away from everyone, hoping she could get out of sight before the truth of what Blake had told her seemed real. She barely made it.
When it hit, she didn’t even try to stop the tears. She cried so hard that her body shook; she knew she would be sore in the morning. Not that it mattered. Natalia had hurt her in the only way that mattered.
She should have known about this. Should have been prepared for this. Had it been anyone else, anyone but the one person she really trusted, she would have been looking for the signs. Already she could feel herself cataloguing all the warnings, too-aware of how many she must have missed.
She knew what this was like. She had practically memorized the script.
She had watched too many people she loved walk away.
Except this time, it was different. Natalia was different.
And this time, for the first time, Olivia didn’t even know why she had been left here, alone.
***
Emma didn’t know what to do when her mom’s cell phone started ringing. She wasn’t supposed to answer it.
She glanced towards the bed where her mom was sleeping to see if the sound had made her wake up. She frowned when she saw that it hadn’t made her move at all; her mom was in the same position she had been in since she had driven them home from the school.
Emma knew what she had been taught to do. She was supposed to let the call go to voicemail. But that’s not what she wanted to do. She knew who was calling and she liked him. Talking to him always made her mom happy.
Slowly, she picked up the phone, pausing before she actually pushed any buttons. She decided it was like talking to strangers. She wasn’t supposed to do that either, but she was allowed to talk to people she did know.
She pressed the top button and quickly put the phone to ear, afraid that he would already be gone.
“Uncle Sam!” she said.
***
Sam smiled at the voice on the other end of the phone. Although he had seen her only a handful of times since her birth, in her excitement, Emma always reminded him of Olivia, when she was in one of her very best moods.
“I didn’t know you had your own phone,” he said, knowing very well that she did, and this was not it. “What? Are you driving now too?”
“No.” Emma giggled, but it was an oddly hushed sound. “And this isn’t my phone.”
“That must make it your mom’s. Where is she, by the way?”
“She’s asleep.”
Sam checked his watch again, just to be sure, but it was around the time he had thought. What was Olivia doing sleeping, when it was still afternoon in Springfield? He tried to ignore his guilt that it had taken him this long to call. He had meant to call Liv months ago, but his work schedule had been so brutal lately, and she had sounded so good the last time he talked to her...
“Has she been sick again, Emma?”
“No. She’s sad. And Natalia’s not here to make her feel better.”
Well, now that was an interesting development, he thought. Olivia had very few female friends, and she had never mentioned this one to him. He would have to congratulate her, when he saw her again, for being able to put away the claws.
“Who’s Natalia?” he asked, curious as to Emma’s take on her mother’s new friendship.
“She’s my other mommy.”
“Your other-” Sam caught himself. Emma didn’t seem self-conscious about the subject, and he didn’t want to be the one to change that, if what she had just said meant what he thought it meant.
“I did a school presentation about her and my Mom for family day,” Emma said proudly. “It’s online--do you want me to send you the link?”
“Sure,” Sam managed, glad that Emma couldn’t see his face. He wondered if his sister would ever stop surprising him.
Or, for that matter, if she would ever stop worrying him. Because, as he thought back over the conversation, it didn’t take very long to put all the pieces together--and he really didn’t like the picture that was forming.
What kind of trouble had Olivia gotten herself into now?
***
Olivia hadn’t realized she could feel this type of frustration. Usually, when she felt this devastated, this alone, sex was exactly what she needed. For a while, she didn’t have time to think or regret or do anything else besides please and be pleased. It took her whole attention--she never lost focus.
Except that, this time, she couldn’t lose herself.
In some ways, the reasons were obvious. In and of itself, Josh’s beard broke her illusions. But in most ways, it was more subtle. She had wanted to look Natalia in the face, when she touched her, and she knew what Natalia’s breath felt like on her lips. This wasn’t it--this wasn’t what she wanted. Or at least not all of her.
Her body was not as confused as her mind, her heart. Her body recognized Josh’s body, and it had been so long for her that it wasn’t particularly surprising that she had responded immediately to the feel of his hands, warmth flaring into a burn as his fingers slipped underneath the material of her shirt.
She had never felt this kind of a division within herself. Her body wanted the release so badly, needed the release and the oblivion it would provide, and yet...
She pulled back from him and shook her head, barely able to meet his gaze. Logically, there was no longer any reason for her to stay celibate, but logic seemed to have abandoned her when Natalia did--she didn’t know the reason for anything, anymore.
When he asked her what she needed, she surprised herself with the honesty of her response-- “Can you just hold me?”
She saw something flicker in his eyes, most likely the memory of the last time he had done that for her, and everything that had come afterwards.
When he agreed to her request, she worked to hold back the tears he had to have seen welling in her eyes. He put his arms around her, and she didn’t even care if he was doing it out of guilt, or friendship, or because he felt like he owed her.
She just wanted to be held.
***
Olivia walked inside her hotel room and dropped her purse on the floor, too tired to avoid stumbling as some of its contents rolled under her feet. She was not expecting the words that came out of the darkness.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been the one waiting up for you.”
The undeniable familiarity of that voice was the only reason she wasn’t in immediate need of another transplant. Still, she could feel her heart beating in her chest, and she glared in his direction as she flipped on the light.
“Jesus, Sam, you scared me.” Her irritation at his method of announcing himself in no way prevented her from enveloping him in an enthusiastic hug. She had missed him.
“You’re pretty scary yourself,” he said, returning the hug. He looked down at her, his demeanor studiously nonchalant. “What have you been up to tonight?”
The way he searched her face made Olivia want to look away. This close, she knew he could see the ravages of the past month in her appearance. She couldn’t hide the circles under her eyes or the dropped weight, and she knew the smell of alcohol had to be strong on her breath.
She pulled away from him as she answered his question. “Errands.”
“Errands. In the middle of the night?”
“Who let you in anyways?” she asked, moving towards the area in the room that functioned as a makeshift bar. She pulled out two glasses as a way of distracting herself from asking him questions to which she'd really like the answers. Such as, who had filled him in on her situation here in Springfield? In this instance, the usual culprits didn't seem very likely.
“Your daughter greeted me at the door, accompanied by the woman who was watching her-” he thought a moment, “Jane.” He moved over to stand beside her. “She’s very protective, by the way. It’s a good thing Emma still recognizes me, and that you have me listed in your emergency contacts.”
“Where is Jane?”
“I let her go early tonight. Before she left, she filled me in a little on how busy you’ve been keeping her.”
“Not anymore,” Olivia muttered. She reached for the vodka. “You want yours with tonic?”
He put his hand on the bottle, preventing her from picking it up. “I like to party as much as the next guy, but I think you’ve had enough.”
“Sam-”
“You’ve got to stop this, Liv. And I’m not just talking about the drinking. You can’t keep punishing yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Sam, but I’m fine.” She forced herself to take her hand off the bottle and look up at him. “Really.”
“You are not fine.”
“Oh, come on, Sammy. We all go through rough patches.”
“A rough patch? I heard the door open from down the hall, and I know who lives there. You were with Josh Lewis. Please explain to me the line of thinking that leads you back into that man’s bed.”
“Don’t you start with me. You just got here--I don’t want to have to start accusing you of sounding like Reva before we’ve even had a chance to make fun of her.” She sighed at the determined look on his face. “Josh and I didn’t sleep together, okay? We just-”
He held up his hands. “I don’t need to know any of the details. I saw more of you and Josh together back when you were married to him than is good for a developing mind. I think you still owe me some therapy.”
“That can probably be arranged-”
“I don’t want to joke, Sis. I didn’t like what he did to you then, and I’m not convinced I’m going to change my mind now.”
“You always seem to forget that I’m a big girl, Sam. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but you’re not. What you’re doing right now is not good for you.”
She turned away from him and started fidgeting with the glasses again. “Thanks for not judging me.”
“That’s not what this is about.” He looked at her for a moment, silent, and she could see the worry etched in his face. She wondered how much he had guessed. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle, and Olivia had never been so glad to have him here, in her life. “I’m concerned about you, that’s all,” he said. “I talked to Emma on the phone the other night...”
Olivia closed her eyes in understanding. Of course. “Emma told you.”
“Not everything, I think.” He reached out and slid the vodka bottle towards her. “Why don’t you pour us both a drink, and tell me about it. I‘m a very good listener.”
“And so modest, too,” she said, blinking back the tears that seemed ever-present these days. She reached for the bottle and started pouring their drinks.
“Must run in the family.”
Olivia looked over at him then, and managed her first genuine smile of the day. She handed him his drink and they moved to sit side-by-side on the bed.
“How much do you know?” she asked him.
“Emma only gave me the basics.”
“But you’re a very bright boy.”
“Hey, your life is too complicated for me to be able to fill in all the blanks.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, what happened?”
Olivia shrugged and ran a finger along the top of her glass. “You know how it always seems to start.” She couldn’t help the emotions that crept into her voice as she allowed herself to think of Natalia. “I fell in love.”
***
“I get that you’re hurting, Olivia,” he said to her, hours later, when she had finally stopped speaking. She didn’t know when she had last felt this drained, and she felt indescribably thankful when he put another drink in her hand. “But you’re worrying your daughter.”
“I know. I thought about maybe sending her to stay with Ava for awhile, but now that you’re here-”
“I think you need Emma right now, and after her scare last year, dealing with your transplant, she needs you.” He leaned towards her, his expression earnest. “You know me. I’ll take care of her. I’m sure Ava would take care of her. But we shouldn’t have to. You’re stronger than this, Liv. I know you. I’ve seen you bounce back from worse-”
“No, Sam.” Olivia felt shame as her voice cracked, but it quickly faded. In the list of things she had done while grieving, it was passing, unimportant. “You haven’t. I loved Natalia. I trusted her. She was it for me. And I screwed it up.”
“How? How is this your fault?”
“I should have seen...” Olivia took a deep breath and tried to steady her voice. “She had to have been in so much pain...”
“Olivia-”
“I had convinced myself I was good for her, that she was happier with me. Maybe even...a better person...with me. But for her to do something like this...”
Despite her best efforts, Olivia started crying. Admitting defeat, she did nothing to stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks. She could barely see her brother anymore. “This is the type of thing I do, Sam. Do you understand? Not her.”
“Liv,” he said gently, taking her hands. “If there’s a pattern here, it’s that you’ve been let down before. Don’t you think-”
“I’ve done nothing but think. Early on, I thought she might leave one day. But I thought it would be because I pushed her away. You know, got scared, slept with someone like Josh, betrayed us. My usual. Not like this.”
“Look at me, Sis.” He waited until she complied, before he continued, carefully emphasizing his words, “She betrayed you.”
For one moment, Olivia didn’t try to hide any of her pain. “I’ve never seen her break a promise,” she whispered.
“Didn’t she promise to marry Frank?”
“She left him at the altar. She couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t lie, not in front of God. But she could lie to me.” She dropped her head forward, let it rest on her brother's shoulder. It was so much easier to admit it, when she didn’t have to look at him. “I didn’t make her a better person, Sam. I can’t do that for anyone. It’s probably good for both of us that she left me.”
“I get it,” Sam said, and she felt rather than saw his shrug. “She’s good, you’re bad.” He let her cry for a few minutes, waiting until the worst of it had passed before he said, softly, “If that’s true, then how come you’re the one sitting here with a broken heart?”
***
Sam saw Ava standing by herself at the funeral and, as a family member, felt compelled to walk over and provide her company, even though he would rather stand off to the side, by himself.
When she saw him approaching, she attempted a smile. It was almost a success.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Ava.” He nodded respectfully. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Although her gratitude seemed genuine, he couldn’t help but notice she was already distracted. He followed the line of her gaze and realized she was staring at Olivia.
“Do you want me to get her for you?” he asked.
“No, she’s talking to Josh, and I think that makes her feel better.” Sam kept his opinion on that statement to himself, but felt his respect for Ava grow as she continued to speak. “She needs that right now.”
“Yes, she does.”
She turned back to him. “I’ve never seen her like this. Have you?”
“No. I mean, it was bad with Josh, but nothing like this.” He had thought that it couldn’t get any worse than after her first marriage collapsed, when she had closed herself off to everyone and let bitterness eat away at so many of the parts of her that he loved. But nothing could compare to this quiet devastation.
“I couldn’t believe how much she shared with me today. It’s not like her.”
“She’s changed,” he agreed. In exactly what ways, he was still working to figure out. A lot of what he saw seemed good, but then there was also the fact that he had never seen her so utterly defeated. Before, she had always managed a brave face, always came up with some new project to distract herself from her relationship woes. Now, she didn’t even seem to want to try to get over this woman. Natalia.
Ava offered him a sideways glance. “So, you know about...?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever meet Natalia?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t even know she existed until very recently.”
“How is that possible?”
“Before I cam here, I had last talked to Olivia in the fall. She mentioned something at the time about hiring an assistant who had become her live-in caretaker. I was so relieved she had someone to look after her that I didn’t pursue the matter further.” The fact that he had left the country two days later hadn’t helped, but he was hardly going to make excuses for himself. “Now, of course, I wish I had followed up.”
“We both need to be better about staying in touch with her."
He thought that maybe Ava's declaration was meant as a rebuke to him until he realized that her expression held no judgement. Olivia’s daughter, then.
“What was she like?” he asked. “The woman who broke my sister’s heart?”
“Until recently, I would have said she was the nicest person I ever met.”
He looked over at his sister and saw only pain. “You’ll pardon me if I remain unconvinced.”
***
Olivia didn’t know why she was sitting on the church steps. This was not a place where she found comfort. She thought maybe it had more to do with her search for answers that she might never find. All she knew was that this was the place where Natalia had made the choice to leave.
"Olivia?"
She looked around at the sound of her name and felt a dull sort of surprise as she recognized the woman walking towards her. “Sister?”
She could see Sister Anne pause, whatever greeting she had planned left unspoken. Olivia would give people credit--everyone around her seemed to realize the inanity of offering her cheerful greetings right now. She just wished people would come right out and tell her she looked awful. It irritated her to watch them talk around the subject.
Sister Anne continued to study her for a moment, then moved to sit down on the steps. Olivia liked that she chose a place a little distance away; she always appreciated people who respected her space.
“Can I offer you something, Olivia? Maybe someone to talk to?”
Olivia shook her head. She really didn’t want to to talk to a member of a religious order right now, not even one whom she actually respected.
“There’s nothing I can do to help?”
“Unless you’re willing to break someone out of a convent, I don’t think we have very much to say to each other.” The confusion on the Sister’s face gave Olivia no satisfaction--it only made her tired. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’ve had a bad week.”
“I had thought to find you happier. I had heard...”
“You too?” Olivia laughed, unable to hide her bitterness. “I don’t know why we were even going to bother with the barbecue.” She gestured to herself, sitting alone on the church stairs. “Are you happy with the answer to your prayers?”
“I don’t believe I gave any indication of engaging in such prayers the last time we spoke,” Sister Anne said, and her response was made with such quiet dignity that Olivia couldn’t feel offended by the reproof.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
To her surprise, Olivia found that she did. It was as close as she would ever come to a confession. “She left me, Sister,” she said. “Right here. I know she had to have made the decision inside this church. Father Ray said-” Olivia caught herself before she insulted Natalia’s priest to a nun. Besides, what he said didn’t really matter. He couldn’t have convinced Natalia to go if she didn’t want to leave.
“Father Ray...” Sister Anne pressed her lips together and glanced back towards the church. Olivia didn’t know her all that well, but she thought the look that passed across her face might have been one very near to anger.
***
The door to the study was open, so she walked in without waiting for an invitation. Father Ray was immediately aware of her presence, looking up from his writing with a smile of greeting.
“Anne,” he said, “I see you’re as early as usual. Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you,” she said as she followed their weekly routine and pulled one of the straight back chairs closer to the front of his desk. She sat down with the economy of movement she had perfected over the years and clasped her hands in her lap.
She watched as he put everything aside, minimizing distractions. His pen went in the top drawer, his handwritten pages inside a folder on the left side of the desk. She used the few moments of silence he had given her to calm herself--and to send up a quick prayer. When he looked up again, she was ready.
“Father,” she said evenly, “we need to talk.”
***
Part 3