Not a Sparrow Falls (44 page)

Gerry was leaning forward, head in his hands. “Well,” he asked the others, “what do we do now?”

Forty

The first night back, after Alasdair had posted bond and brought her home, after Lorna had hugged her and kissed her cheek and patted her hand, after she’d spent a half hour talking with Samantha, who seemed to be energized rather than traumatized, after she had crept in and peeked at Cam and Bonnie, Bridie went to the kitchen to find that Alasdair had prepared dessert for her. Apple pie. Store-bought, but he’d heated it and served it with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream on top. The tea was steeped and ready, and there was a fat candle in the center of the table—a new one—vanilla. Its scent mingled with the aroma of the cinnamon and apples.

“I didn’t see the apple trees at your home,” Alasdair said, pouring her a cup of tea and putting in a teaspoon of sugar, the way she liked it. “We’ll have to go back soon. We’ll bring the children, and you can give us a proper tour.”

Bridie blinked.

“Eat your pie,” he suggested, “before the ice cream melts.”

She picked up her fork and took a bite. She forced herself to swallow it. She wasn’t very hungry. “I can’t pretend nothing happened,” she said bluntly.

Alasdair put another spoonful of pie into his mouth, watching her intently as he swallowed and chased it with a sip of tea. “I would never suggest you should. On the contrary. I think when someone moves close to another, all the while guarding secrets and pretending to be someone they’re not, they not only owe an explanation, but an apology.” He set down his cup. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “You haven’t been the only one with a secret.”

“It’s hardly the same.” She looked away from his eyes. She felt so ashamed, coming back like this with her disgrace laid out for all to see. So humiliated. She suddenly thought of the newspaper article and looked at Alasdair’s calm expression
in a different light. She wasn’t the only one who’d been exposed, and she could almost hear her grandmother telling both of them it was a good opportunity to humble down and let God lift them up. Her eyes smarted. She picked up the paper napkin and dabbed at them.

“Not so different. No one died from your neglect,” he said quietly.

“That I know of.”

He lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “So how long do we punish ourselves? I suppose that’s the question. No torture can ever pay the price, can recapture what we’ve lost or undo what we’ve done.”

He watched her face. “What is it?”

She gave her head a shake and traced a pattern on the tablecloth with the tine of the fork. “I was just remembering one of those hundred verses.”

“Which one?”

“ ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ ”

Alasdair looked past her for a moment, then back. He smiled the barest beginning of a smile. “Well, then,” he said. “I think our answer is perfectly clear.”

“There you go again, thinking you know everything.” She took another little bite of the pie. It wasn’t so bad.

He smiled, full face.

“I never intended things to turn out this way,” she said.

“How did it happen?” His face was open, kind. His eyes were full of compassion.

She hesitated just a moment, then set down her fork, and beginning this time where she’d always trailed off before, she told him.

****

Samantha didn’t listen too long, just until she was sure
they were on the right track. Bridie would be okay now, she thought, finally flipping shut the heat vent. Now that she was talking about it and all. She climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up. The quilt was heavy and soft against her face, and it felt like someone’s arm around her shoulders. She rolled over and closed her eyes. Maybe they would all be okay.

Forty-One

Sondra was finally getting near the bottom of the stack of cases she had to dispose of. She opened Mary Bridget Washburn’s file and tapped it with a nicely manicured finger. “How about this? She agrees to testify against Porter, pleads to simple possession, suspended sentence.”

Tom Dinwiddie gave her a skeptical glance. “You think I’m going soft?”

Sondra smiled. “I think you don’t want to put this girl in jail any more than I do. She’s changed her ways. Besides, we both know who the real players were.”

Dinwiddie gave her a wry smile in return. “Call me a sentimental fool,” he said and signed his name to Mary Bridget Washburn’s plea agreement in an undecipherable flourish. “Tell her I said to go and sin no more.”

“I’ll pass that message along. She’s back in Alexandria. The minister posted bail the day she was arrested.”

Dinwiddie nodded and pressed on to their next item of business. “Now. About Mr. Porter.”

Sondra reached for his file and scanned it. He wouldn’t be so lucky. Somehow he’d ended up waving his gun at a Nelson County sheriff’s deputy who’d been trying to arrest him. When Jonah Porter got out of the hospital, he’d be looking at years, not months, in prison.

“He’s going down for this,” Dinwiddie said flatly.

Oh well, Sondra wanted to say. She didn’t though, just gave her shoulders a slight lift, which she hoped rode the fence nicely. “All right, then,” she said, “I guess that about wraps it up.”

Dinwiddie nodded and followed her to his office door. “Come by Wednesday, and we’ll have those employment papers ready for you to sign.”

“I can’t wait,” she said and held up Mary Bridget
Washburn’s file. “Filing this will be my last official act as a public defender. Glory!”

Dinwiddie rewarded her with a smile. “It’ll be good to have you on board.”

****

Bridie put her arm around Samantha, who pressed close. “Look,” Bridie said, “the Lord decorated the churchyard just for your mama’s funeral.” They walked through the budding crab apples and cherry blossoms toward the small crowd of parishioners who waited at the grave.

“I’m glad you decided to do this, Alasdair,” Lorna said, giving her brother a squeeze on the arm.

“Anna deserves it,” he said. “I should have done it long ago.”

Winifred was silent for once. Fiona dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

The new headstone was beautiful, carved with the face of an angel, who even looked a little like Anna, surrounded by three small cherubs.

Anna Ruth Williams MacPherson
Free from every bond
She rests with all the saints in the joy of her eternal home

The service was short but sweet. There were tears. Samantha sobbed quietly on Bridie’s shoulder. Lorna wept, wiping away her tears against Cameron’s shirt. Bridie cried, too, for everything lost. For mothers and childhoods, for time that would never be regained.

Alasdair read some Scriptures, then prayed. His face was tired, but finally peaceful. No more tortured eyes peering out from the chained soul.

“Father, we entrust Anna to you. She has returned to the One who formed her out of the dust of the earth, now surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses beyond all time and
space. We thank you that Christ himself welcomed her as she went forth from this life. May He, the Lord of Glory, who was crucified for her, grant her freedom and peace. May He show her the glories of His eternal kingdom as she sees her Redeemer face-to-face. Amen.”

He closed the Bible, then knelt by the grave. The people filed by one by one, each leaving their offering. When they were finished, a bank of fresh flowers mounded at the foot of the marble stone. Afterward they went back to the parsonage, and Bridie was glad to have the task of serving and pouring to keep her busy. Finally they left, all but the family. Bridie went through the house, gathering up the empty cups and plates, and it might have been her imagination, but she thought she could feel a difference. There was a sense of peacefulness. Not happiness. Not yet. But the possibility that it could exist someday, even within these very walls. The cold presence that had haunted it for so long was gone.

Forty-Two

They were all waiting in the hallway when Alasdair returned home from the meeting—Winifred, Fiona, Bridie, and the children. He supposed their anxiety was to be expected. It had been a little unsettling to have the president of the denomination travel all the way from Richmond to meet with the congregation’s pastor and ruling elders. Alasdair held the door open for Lorna, then followed her in.

They all looked at him, faces expectant. He thought about making a joke, but they were too intense. Each one wore a slightly different expression. Winifred was waiting to pounce. Fiona politely concerned. Bridie . . . It was hard to read her face, and hers was the one he was most interested in. He decided not to prolong their agony.

“Gerald Whiteman said that the persecution our family endured was inexcusable, and he would like to do whatever he can to make amends. The Big Three agreed. I have my choice of any open position in the denomination or a continued ministry here at the church with the elders’ full support. It was a unanimous resolution. Even Edgar Willis voted yes.”

Winifred gave a satisfied little nod. “I suppose they’ve come to their senses,” she pronounced. Alasdair understood. This would soothe a little of the blistering she’d taken as a result of the newspaper article. It had hit her the hardest. Fiona had been slightly distressed, but mostly for him. Lorna had said it was good—get everything out in the open for once. Samantha said the picture made him look like a dork. He smiled.

“They’re probably seeking to head off a lawsuit,” Winifred continued. “I heard Bob Henry was fired.”

“What did you tell them?” Samantha interrupted, earning a frown from Winifred.

Alasdair smiled broadly. “I resigned,” he said, still hearing the wonder in his own voice.

“Yes!” Samantha exclaimed, jubilant.

“That’s impossible!” Winifred burst out.

He ignored her.

“How do you feel?” Bridie asked, concern in her voice and on her face.

“Good,” he said. “It feels right. I had to ask myself if I was doing it out of spite or anger, but I don’t think so. I just have the feeling there’s something else I’m supposed to be doing now. Whiteman said the denomination will buy the house and we can divide the proceeds. Given today’s real estate prices, we should each end up with a nice little nest egg.”

“What will you do?” Fiona queried. “Devote yourself to your radio ministries and writing?”

He shook his head. “I made the calls this morning. I’ve given up my radio program and magazine and told my publisher I’m taking some time off from writing.”

Winifred had paled and looked as if she might faint. “But what will you
do,
then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” How free he felt saying those words. How light and full of peace.

Winifred’s face was a blank mask of disbelief. He took a quick glance at Bridie. Her face was pale but stoic. He could read no emotion whatsoever. He cleared his throat. “Another member of the family has news as well. She
will
be taking a position at denomination headquarters.”

Winifred was truly outraged now. “Fiona, you never mentioned a word,” she accused.

Fiona shook her head. “It’s not I.”

“I wasn’t speaking of Fiona,” Alasdair said. “Congratulations go to Lorna. Meet President Whiteman’s new personal assistant.”

“No!” Winifred’s disbelief showed all over her face. Lorna’s pinked with pleasure.

“It pays more than both my jobs combined, and he said I can work my way into administration.”

Bridie clapped her hands with delight, and joy lit her face.
When the moment passed it went back to the sober expression.

“What about you, Bridie?” Lorna asked, reading his mind. “What will you do? Have you decided?”

Alasdair tensed, the question taking him off guard. He’d had a scenario planned, and this wasn’t how he’d worked things out. But there was nothing to be done for it now. He took a deep breath and waited to hear her answer.

Bridie paused before speaking, and those bright blue eyes filled with tears. But when she spoke, her voice was quiet and sure. “I want to go home,” she said.

Alasdair felt his heart come untethered and softly float to the bottom, where it settled. Well, then, that was that. He looked down at the floor, willing his face not to betray him.

After a moment he looked up to meet her eyes, but instead of the matter-of-fact resolution he expected to see, or perhaps the detached decision, he was met with yearning—pure, raw, and undisguised. And that look had the same effect on him as a call to battle, the sound of a ram’s horn being blown, the early morning whine of the bagpipe rousing the sleeping soldier. And whatever else was unclear, one thing became perfectly obvious. He could not lose her. He moved into the chaos without considering at all, and as he opened his mouth, the words that spilled out bore no resemblance to the eloquent speech he’d practiced.

“We’ll take you there.” The nonchalance of offering a ride, yet the meaning was lost on no one in the room. The silence was deafening and no less shocking than if, instead of mere words, he’d taken out a gun and fired off a few rounds at Mother’s crystal chandelier. Winifred’s jaw slacked open. Fiona arched one of her beautiful eyebrows and curved her mouth into a slight smile. Lorna looked as if she would burst with joy. Samantha began jumping up and down and shouting, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

But the one face that counted was unreadable. Only the wideness of her eyes indicated she’d heard him at all. And
suddenly he experienced a new emotion, one he hadn’t felt in years. What if he had overstepped? What if she didn’t want him along, complicating her life? An old man, after all, with tons of baggage, trailing along after her? What if she didn’t want him?

It was as if there were just the two of them in the room. His mouth was dry. He swallowed. “If you would like that,” he said, and then waited for her to answer, heart thumping in his throat.

The tears spilled out from the wide eyes. She bit her lip and gave her head a small shake, and Alasdair felt his heart scrape bottom. But just as he was opening his mouth to say whatever it would take to help her shake free of them, she came toward him. He opened his arms, and she stepped into them. He buried his face in the silky white hair, felt it slippery and cool beneath his hand, and smelled her fragrance, like summer air with a hint of honeysuckle. He still couldn’t remember his speech, but it didn’t matter. He kissed her, then let what was in his heart come out of his mouth.