The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,94

female voice asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

Lucy was startled. In the neighborhood, she was usually left alone.

“The coffee?” the girl asked.

Lucy looked up. It was Sadie. She hadn’t seen her since the ER that night.

“Sadie?” Lucy said, sheepishly standing up. “Ah, how are you?”

There was a sadness in the girl’s eyes and Lucy girded herself for the accusations she certainly had coming and the judgment she most certainly deserved. She prepared her defense quickly. Jesse made me do it was the first thing that came to mind. It was the truth but a very thin excuse for ratting out Sadie to him. She should have been able to keep her pregnancy and what she had done private. Lucy looked down at the girl’s belly almost reflexively, but there was no sign of life that she could spy.

“I just want to thank you,” Sadie said.

“For what?”

“For helping me turn my life around.”

“Really?” Lucy said, genuinely shocked. “How?”

“You exposed me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When the story ran with the picture you took, and the nasty looks from everyone started, the gossip, I realized what my life had become. Who my true friends really were. What was really important to me.”

It didn’t sound much like a compliment to Lucy, more like a cleverly crafted dis, in fact. Something Sadie had been expert at.

“I still don’t quite see . . . ”

“I didn’t have an abortion, Lucy. I had a miscarriage.”

Lucy bit her lower lip to keep it from shaking. Could she have been more wrong?

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said, genuine concern and remorse welling up in her face.

She was sorry. Sorry for making the abortion joke, for taking the picture, and even more sorry for the tremendous loss that Sadie had to bear either way.

“It’s okay,” Sadie said. “I’m out of that world now. For good.”

“What about Tim?” Lucy asked. “How’s he taking it?”

“He’s fine,” Sadie explained, forcing a smile through her tears. “He is back with his girlfriend. He did tell his grandmother. She said that the baby would have been so beautiful, the angels wanted to keep it for themselves.”

“I’m sure she’s right,” Lucy said, reaching for the girl’s hand. “I know she is.”

Lucy looked down at her cooling cup of coffee only to realize she’d lost her appetite.

“Just talking about it with you is making me feel so much better. I haven’t told anyone yet outside our family. I don’t care what everyone else thinks. Their minds are made up already anyway.”

“You know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?” Lucy queried sympathetically. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you.” Sadie sniffed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Lucy cringed at how easily she’d betrayed the girl in her hour of need, just as she had Sebastian. The tears began to come and she knew she had to make it right.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said again, hugging Sadie as tightly as she could.

“I forgive you.”

One by one they arrived at the church as evening fell. In the order in which they’d originally come.

Lucy. Cecilia. Agnes.

All out of breath and filled with foreboding. Looking over their shoulders. They met only a little unexpectedly in the vestibule and smiled empathetically at one another. No hugs or air kisses. No words. None were necessary. Just sighs of relief and commiseration.

“You felt it too, right?” Lucy said to them.

They knew what she meant. It was a pull at the center of their being. A fire in the back of their heads and at the bottom of their hearts, burning hotter the longer they were away. A restlessness they’d each had even as children, and then more intensely as teenagers, that something bigger was in store for them. But more than anything, it was the desire to return to him. It was all the same compulsion.

“Yes,” Cecilia responded.

“Yes,” Agnes said.

Agnes explained to them about their namesakes. The legends of their saints and the influential roles they played. Their martyrdom.

“I told you, I’m not religious,” Lucy said.

“Virgin?” Cecilia said. “That lets me out.”

“That’s not the point. It was a different time,” Agnes rebuffed them. “It’s about realizing what’s most important, what you are meant to be, meant to do. And what you are willing to sacrifice for it. They gave all they had for what they believed in. Gladly. A love, a duty, a calling beyond themselves.”

“Oh, yeah, and what is our calling?” CeCe asked.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, I believe it’s something we can’t do alone. Like opening the door to the chapel,” Agnes