Olivia hesitated outside the door of the chapel. No one should be afraid to set foot in a church, but Olivia was terrified, frankly, and with good reason. Every time she’d pushed open those heavy oak doors, crossed the threshold, and seated herself in a pew, something terrible had happened. It started on the day her mother had forced her into a dress and itchy white tights and dragged her into a church near their apartment in the Double Rock Projects, where they’d dropped to their knees to pray. That very night, the jury had returned with a decision—guilty—and the police carted her father away to the place he still called home. Prison.
“Going inside?”
The voice, a man’s, belonged to the hand on the bronze door pull. The door pull that stood between her and the curse which had begun with her mother at Holy Name’s in San Francisco, but hadn’t ended there. Not even close. The man’s nails were clean and cut short. His grip, strong and capable. The middle knuckle bore a faded bruise and a small knife scar marred the skin between his thumb and forefinger.
The man opened the door without effort, and held it there expectantly, while she gaped at the somber crowd already gathered inside.
“You expecting a formal invitation?”
Olivia bristled at his tone. She could go toe to toe with any smartass even on her worst day. But when her eyes left his hand, she went mute, swallowing the razor-sharp comeback on her tongue. Not because he carried a gun and wore a Fog Harbor police badge on his waistband, but because she didn’t recognize his face. And in Fog Harbor—population 6,532—that was something of a miracle.
“Thank you,” Olivia managed, taking a quick breath as she breached the doorway. Done. No turning back now. At least it was warm inside.
She took a vigil candle from the basket at the entrance and lingered near the back of the church, assessing her options while Mr. Wise Guy Detective settled himself into the last row of pews. A few up, she spotted a smattering of familiar faces, some of the fifteen or so staff members she supervised as chief psychologist at Crescent Bay State Prison. Leah waved her over, but Olivia couldn’t bear to walk down the aisle.
The moment she’d start that walk she’d be eighteen again, with the trumpet announcing her arrival, the organ playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”. The congregation would stand and Erik Ziegler, not Bonnie McMillan’s family, would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle the way he had seventeen years earlier, his eyes brimming with the kind of love she’d hoped would fill the dad-sized hole in her heart. But they hadn’t even cut the wedding cake before she’d caught Erik in a broom closet with one of her bridesmaids. And the worst part? She’d been so desperate to leave Fog Harbor that she’d given him five hundred and fifteen more days of her life before she’d sent him packing. Him and his last name.
So there you go. She leaned against the wall, claiming this spot as her own, the sting of betrayal as sharp as ever. Cursed.
Anyway, she liked it better back here where she could make a quick getaway. As she watched Bonnie’s husband drag himself up to the podium, their two boys clinging to either hand, she suspected her position close to the exit would come in handy. She already felt hot, stripping off her coat and lifting her hair from the nape of her neck.
Olivia scanned the crowd for her sister. Emily had promised to be here. Granted, she’d been half asleep and still hungover when she’d mumbled yeah, yeah, yeah to stave off Olivia’s nagging. But Emily had known Bonnie, too, even better than Olivia. Since the state cutbacks a few years earlier, Crescent Bay’s education department had shared space with the dental clinic, where Emily worked as a hygienist. She’d even babysat the boys a few times. Yesterday afternoon they’d both joined the search outside the prison grounds and beyond, tromping around with the other volunteers. Looking for the tiniest clue that might tell them where Bonnie had gone. What had become of her.
Olivia checked her phone again. No new messages. She did another sweep of the crowd. No Em. Plenty of cops though, everywhere, in plain clothes and uniform. She understood it, but the unease that had been swirling in her stomach since Bonnie disappeared ratcheted up a notch. Cops meant something bad had definitely happened. Cops also meant she might see Graham. Which meant she might have to explain why she’d never called him back. Why seven perfectly adequate dates and one semi-awkward night were enough.
When the church bells marked 4 p.m., the doleful peals thrummed straight through her and resurrected another long-dead memory: her mother lying cold and still in a cherrywood coffin in this very church two years ago, Emily falling apart at her side. Little sisters could do that, while big sisters had to prove their mettle, had to put up prison-worthy walls around their hearts. Big sisters got stuff done. Big sisters showed up, curses be damned. And little sisters, well—Olivia searched once more for Em’s strawberry-blonde curls—they arrived late or not at all, leaving big sisters alone and fretting.
James McMillan tapped the microphone, bringing everyone’s focus to the front of the church. She squinted up at him, trying to recognize him as the boy she’d gone to Fog Harbor High with years ago. Somehow, in the last four days, he’d grown smaller. His frame shrunken, his cheeks sunken in. Grief and worry could do that to a body. She’d seen it in her father. In the inmates who sat across from her every day. In her mother too, and then, for a time, in herself.
James lit the candle in his hand and dipped the flame toward the vacant-eyed woman on his right who looked a lot like Bonnie. Her mother, Olivia guessed. The woman did the same, reaching up toward a somber Warden Blevins. One by one, the candles began to glow in the dim room, casting shadows and light that reflected in the stained glass.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through this, but I’ll give it my best shot. As you all know, Bonnie has been missing since early Thursday morning, and the boys and I…”
He wrapped his arms around the two of them, pulling them to his sides and squishing their little faces against his hips. Holding them close or holding himself upright, Olivia couldn’t tell which.
“Well, the boys and I have been a total wreck. Bonnie is the light of our family. She never complained. So many of you probably don’t realize all the things she gave up to move here with me eight years ago when I was reassigned to Crescent Bay State Prison. Before that, Bonnie studied film at UC Berkeley, and she’d won awards for her screenwriting. But she’s been even more impressive as a wife, a mother, and a teacher. We asked some of her inmate students to put down their thoughts to share with you so you’d understand, if you don’t already, just how special Bonnie is…”
Is. Such a small word brimming with hope. Olivia’s throat ached.
The flame had traveled through the room like a whispered secret, finally reaching her, full and bright and perfect. She extended her unlit candle to the woman next to her, who she recognized as Jane Seely, a bartender at the Hickory Pit, and the wick slowly began to flicker. Then, she leaned over, carefully offering the flame to the mohawked teen on her left. He juggled his candle and his cell phone, trying to capture the exchange on video.
“…and how much we miss her and need her home with us. The first poem was written by Drake Devere, one of Bonnie’s most accomplished students. With Bonnie’s help, Drake self-published his own novel last year, donating all the proceeds to a domestic violence shelter.”