Healing Waters (22 page)

It was definitely better than
Power Praying
. And I was going to need something stronger than skim milk.

I dumped my mug in the sink and foraged in the refrigerator for that half-and-half. I opted for the whipped cream instead.

When I got to Sonia's room, Marnie was frantically poking at her BlackBerry while Sonia paced. I busied myself making the bed.

“And I want some kind of worship service this morning,” Sonia said to her. “It's Sunday, isn't it? I lose track of time.”

Marnie looked at her warily.

“What?” Sonia said. “Darlin', just say it.”

“There isn't anybody here to do a worship service. Everybody left.”

“They'll be back.” Sonia stopped by the window, hand on the brocade drape. “After that I want to go down to the exercise room.”

Good. And work up a sweat and get dehydrated.

I gave the sheet a yank. “Physical therapy is going to burn plenty of calories.”

“Physical therapy.”

“I called that therapist they recommended at Crozer yesterday. She's coming Monday.” I chewed momentarily on my lip. “I'm not sure your insurance is going to cover someone coming to the house, since there's rehab available locally. I don't know who handles the financials for you—”

“What insurance?”

“Excuse me?”

Sonia reached back to undo her mask. “They dropped me because I left the hospital against Dr. Abernathy's advice.”

Just when I thought the situation couldn't get any more complicated.

“This way I can choose whoever I want,” she said cheerfully. “And I want a Christian.”

No doubt the person in question would have to sign an affidavit to that effect.

I punched a pillow into place. “Let's get your face done so I can see about Bethany.”

“Yvonne can—”

Marnie jerked her face up from her current text message. “Bethany's going to Sunday school. Francesca's picking her up.”

“Good,” Sonia said. “That will make her happy.”

It would be the first thing I'd see bring a smile to that child's face. Besides a Hershey bar. Just how I was going to acquire one was still a question.

A phone rang, and Sonia ignored it.

Marnie looked momentarily puzzled, and then laughed. “Oh my gosh, that's the landline. Nobody calls on that.”

She reached for the telephone tucked onto a tiny table behind a chair, but Sonia shook her head impatiently.

“Let Lucia get that,” she said. “I want you to start calling people about a service this afternoon.”

So now I was the receptionist too. I made a mental note to add

• disconnect the landline

to my growing list, and snapped a hello into the phone.

“Is this—egad, is this Lucia Marie?”

I closed my eyes and turned toward the window. “Dad?” I whispered.

“It's you, all right. Your sister never calls me anything but Tony.”

My father coughed juicily and gave me a moment to corral all my responses inside one pen. I hadn't spoken to him for six months, since my forty-first birthday, when he'd called to tell me that I was officially over-the-hill and that he hoped my downhill slide would be more of a joyride than his had been.

He hadn't contacted Sonia at the hospital as far as I knew, to Agent Schmacker's surprise but not to mine. Sonia herself had said she'd not seen him since he relapsed from the rehab she'd paid for. Tony Brocacini might have been a drunk, and maybe he still was, but his strongest suit had always been his pride. I couldn't imagine him crawling to Sonia's bedside, begging for forgiveness out of fatherly guilt.

The coughing subsided, and he apologized in the same gruff voice he'd always used with me, whether to ask me to get him a beer or to say he loved me.

“Are you sick?” I said.

“Aaaah—the doctors want me to quit smoking—and don't go gettin' all nursey on me. I know those cancer sticks are gonna kill me eventually.”

If the booze didn't first. Although he didn't seem drunk. I knew the sounds of under-the-influence well.

“Listen, Lucia Marie, I'm glad I got you.”

I glanced over my shoulder, but Sonia was engrossed in giving Marnie instructions. Still, I kept my voice low.

“Really?” I said. “When I picked up you sounded surprised to hear my voice.”

“That's because last time I tried to get in touch with your sister I had to go through fifteen levels of that operation she has going there. What the Sam Hill do all those people do, anyway?”

“Ya got me there, Dad. I'm still trying to figure that out myself.”

“I should have left well enough alone, because when I did talk to her, she preached me a sermon and hung up.” He coughed again. “She hasn't given you religion yet, has she?”

I almost laughed. “You make it sound like a disease.”

“It's more hazardous to your health than my cigarettes, evidently. Tell me the truth, now, Lucia Marie—how is she?”

I tried to look nonchalant as I passed Sonia and Marnie and slipped into the bathroom so I could close the door. I turned on the exhaust fan before I gave him a synopsis of Sonia's condition.

“I got a glimpse of her on the TV,” he said when I'd wrapped it up. “I was surprised to see her walking around, to tell you the truth. You looked good, by the way.”

I let that go without comment.

“I'm glad you're there with her. That's what I called to say. I don't trust that crowd she's got working for her. She needs family with her.”

I scrubbed at a dried blob of toothpaste on the counter with my fingernail. “What about you?” I said.

“What about me?”

“You're her family too.”

“Not according to her.” His gruffness went to a coarser grit. “She told me she only had to answer to her heavenly Father, not me, so I should stop trying to make her feel guilty.” My father emitted a hard laugh that didn't convince me he was amused. “All I called for was to wish her a happy birthday.”

I wanted to reach through the line with a large piece of cheesecake, my traditional means of comforting the man who at this point made more sense than anybody else I had to talk to.

“That was before, Dad,” I said. “And I could use some help.”

“You think I could help out?”

“For openers, the FBI carted the gardener off.”

“It's bad, isn't it?”

“I'll talk to her,” I said. “Just hold on.”

I pressed the phone to my breastbone before he could protest and stepped out of the bathroom as Marnie hurried from the room.

“Who's on the phone?” Sonia said. “If it's the press, you need to refer them to Marnie.”

“It's Dad,” I said.

Sonia's gaze bulleted through the holes in her mask. “He's been drinking,” she said.

“I don't think so. He wants to come and help, and I think we should let him.”

“Absolutely not. You can make me take pain medication, but you cannot make me take him.”

“He can—”

“Is he still on the line?”

“Yeah.”

“Give me the phone.” She was close enough to grab it from me and jammed it to her ear.

“Hello, Tony,” she said. “No—I'm fabulous, I'm sure Lucia told you. Now let
me
tell you.”

I pressed my fingertips to my now throbbing forehead and went for the door.

“No,
sorella,
you stay. I want you to hear this too.”

She missed the glare I delivered as she lifted her eyes to the ceiling. My father had been telling the truth: a sermonette was in our future.

“Have you come to the Lord since the last time we spoke?” she said. “There is no need to swear. A simple no will do . . . My stand is no different now than it was before. If anything, I am more firm than ever when I say to you that I will open my home and my heart to anyone who repents and is willing to go to the foot of the cross with me.” She put up a hand. “I know you've heard this from me before, but it apparently hasn't sunk in. I will not have you under my roof if you refuse to give your sin to Jesus Christ and let Him heal you.”

I didn't have to hear my father to get the gist of what he said. Sonia held the phone away from her ear before she spoke into it again.

“Do not come here, Tony,” she said. “Or I will have you removed. I cannot be surrounded by unrepented sin when I am being healed by the Holy Spirit.”

I heard the click. Sonia pressed the receiver to her chest and then handed it to me.

“Bless his heart,” she said. “He could be healed so easily.”

I let the phone drop into its cradle and headed for the door, determined to get out this time before I imploded.

“You understand why I had to do that, don't you,
sorella
?” she said.

“I'm going to go get your saline,” I said. “It's time to do your face.”

By the time I got through Sonia's morning routine, Francesca pulled into the driveway with Bethany, and I still hadn't had an opportunity to inform Sonia that Yvonne had ridden off into the sunset and nobody was taking care of her child.

The one moment when I was about to broach the subject, she'd barked at Marnie, “So, were you able to get hold of anyone to come worship with us today?”

The eleven between Marnie's eyebrows went to an all-time depth.

“What?” Sonia said. “Why are you acting like you're afraid of me?”

Because you're acting like Meryl Streep in
The Devil Wears Prada, I wanted to say.

“I had conversations with several of the volunteers.” Marnie avoided Sonia's eyes. “And, uh, they all basically told me the same thing.”

“Which was?”

“They're going with what Egan said and giving you some space.”

Sonia turned toward the bedroom window, and the face that couldn't move took on a paralyzed anger.

“Get my laptop,” she said. “We are going to blog.”

She was talking to Marnie, but I escaped to the kitchen just in case. I was taking inventory of the pantry when the door from the breezeway opened, and Francesca and Georgia swept in. Boys were suddenly everywhere. There were at least enough for a platoon, but in reality I could count only four. Bethany was the only stationary being in the room.

“We thought Bethany might enjoy a little play date,” Georgia said, as the small males opened the refrigerator and hoisted one in their party up to view the top shelf.

Bethany stared at the floor like she would enjoy nothing less.

“Shall we go up to the playroom?” Francesca said.

She put her hand on the back of Bethany's head and guided her toward the back staircase while the boys, ranging in age from six to eight, abandoned the open fridge and swarmed ahead of them.

“We heard about Yvonne,” Georgia said, sotto voce, to me as we brought up the rear. “I never thought she was that good anyway. We can help out a bit till you find somebody else.” At the top of the steps she stopped and looked down at me, shaking back her blonde bangs. “This is all Sonia needs right now.”

The boys had already assembled in the playroom and, apparently, ransacked it by the time we got there.

“This is all girlie stuff,” was the verdict.

Ya think?

I wanted to ask Georgia and Francesca if they had ever actually met Bethany. Even I knew you didn't bring in four trainees for WWE to play with a little girl who didn't even ask for a glass of water.

Bethany shrank against the doorway and watched with round eyes as Francesca's twins, who I gathered were Isaac and Jacob, used a Barbie doll for a missile and launched it at the back of the head of Caden, one of Georgia's. They were both assaulted by the fourth kid, also one of Georgia's, judging from his blondness and command of the situation. His name sounded like a partner in a prestigious law firm.

I went to Bethany and squatted beside her. “So what do you and your friends want to do?” I said.

She looked at me, blue eyes somber, and said, “They aren't my friends.”

“Bethany, honey, of course they are,” Francesca said.

To prove it, Isaac—or Jacob—yelled, “Here—catch!” and hurled Barbie in her direction.

Bethany covered her eyes, but she didn't hightail it down the hall the way I would have. The way I wanted to.

Georgia looked down at me, running the fingers of one hand over the pristinely manicured nails of the other. “We brought a picnic. What do you say we take this party outside?”

“Sweet!”

“Dude, I'm goin' swimmin'!”

“I'm there!”

As they bowled past us, I wondered why they all sounded like half-grown men instead of little boys.

“Get your swimsuit on, girl,” Georgia said to Bethany before she went after her boys, who were clattering down the stairs, throwing dares at each other.

I personally hadn't been swimming in years for various reasons, the first one being the swimwear situation. But at least it might be fun for Bethany. I hadn't seen anybody take her down to the river since I'd been there. At her age I would have at least been catching minnows, bathing suit riding up over my then-small bun cheeks.

I looked down at Bethany. Her buns were anything but small, though that didn't usually bother your average six-year-old. But something bothered her. The cherub face went as white as anything in my room, and she kneaded her hands like wads of dough.

“You okay?” I said.

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

She took in a big breath and held it as she nodded.

“I found your suit, Bethany,” Francesca sang out from the hallway. “It's precious.”

“I'll put it on her,” said Didi, who had also appeared—even on a Sunday. “Ya'll go on. I set up your picnic in the gazebo. I'll bring her down.”

Bethany followed her dutifully, and Francesca looked at me.

“Are you coming, honey?” she said. “You probably need to stay with Sonia, don't you?”