The Soul Catcher

Another blush, but this time it came with a smile. “I think he’s upset with me, but I don’t know why.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“He told me he was just tired. That everything was fine.”

Kathleen leaned closer to the girl. “It’s been my experience with men that they’re just as confused as we are. If he says he’s just tired, he may just be tired.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Sure.”

It seemed to bring the girl relief and she relaxed in her seat. “I was worried, because I really don’t have very much experience with boys.”

“Really? A pretty girl like you?”

“My parents were always very strict. They never even let me date.”

“Where are your parents now?”

Alice got quiet, and Kathleen wished she hadn’t pried.

“They died in a car accident two years ago. A month later, I went to one of Father’s rallies. It was like he could see how lost and alone I was. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found the church. I have no other family.” She was quiet for a while, then she looked at Kathleen. “Why did you join the church?”

Good question, she wanted to tell the girl. For the last twenty-four hours she had been asking herself that very same thing. She needed to remember all the good things she had found since joining, like self-respect and dignity. Things the alcohol had stolen from her. Yet, after tonight’s humiliation…It was hard to think of anything except sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said. “You probably don’t want to talk about stuff like that after tonight’s meeting.”

“No, it’s okay.” She wanted to tell the girl that she hadn’t betrayed the church. That she hadn’t told Maggie anything and she wasn’t sure why Stephen thought she had. But she knew it wouldn’t matter to Alice or probably any of the other members. Most of them were simply relieved they hadn’t been the ones called up. “I suppose I was lost in a different sort of way,” Kathleen finally said.

“You don’t have any family, either, huh?”

“I have a daughter. A beautiful, smart, young woman.”

“I bet she looks a lot like you. You’re very pretty.”

“Well, thank you, Alice. It’s been a long time since someone has said that to me.” Tonight she certainly didn’t feel pretty.

“So why aren’t you with your daughter?”

“We have a…well, a strained relationship. She’s been angry with me for more years than I can remember.”

“Angry? Why would she be angry with you?”

“Lots of reasons. But mostly because I’m not her father.”

“What?”

She saw the confusion on Alice’s face and smiled. “It’s a long, boring story, I’m afraid.” She patted Alice’s hand. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

She rested her own head against the seat again, but now her mind was filled with thoughts about Maggie and thoughts about Thomas. Dear God, she hadn’t thought of him in years. At least, not without getting angry all over again. Maggie still idolized the man. And Kathleen had promised herself years ago to never tell Maggie the truth about her father. So why had she? Why now after all these years?

She remembered the disbelief, the hurt on Maggie’s face. The surprise when she slapped her. Those sad, brown eyes-they were the eyes of a twelve-year-old little girl who still loved her daddy so much. How in the world could she have tried to destroy that? And why would she want to? What was wrong with her? No wonder her own daughter didn’t love her. Maybe she didn’t deserve her love. But Thomas didn’t, either.

Kathleen still remembered getting the phone call from the fire station in the middle of the night. The dispatcher had been calling in every available man to answer the three-alarm blaze. She had lied to the dispatcher and told her Thomas was upstairs, asleep. And then she had to call him. She hated that she knew exactly where he was. And she hated even more that she had to call him at that woman’s apartment. But she had to. She had no choice but to call and give him the message, so that no one else would know the lie.

She had always imagined she had interrupted their lovemaking, their passionate sex-fests, which Thomas had told her she wasn’t capable of. Maybe that was why she had spent the last twenty years trying to prove him wrong, sleeping with any man who wanted her, and unlike Thomas, there had been plenty of men who had wanted her. But back then, that particular day, she had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t take it anymore, that she would take Maggie and leave. And then the son of a bitch had to go and get himself killed. Not only killed but made into a hero.

There had been many times she’d wondered what Maggie would think of her saintly, heroic father if she knew the truth. So many times in a drunken fit, she had come close to telling her. But somehow she had always managed to stop herself.

After Thomas’s death, she had moved as far away as she could. It was part of the pact she had made with the devil, with the whore who claimed she was carrying Thomas’s child. In order to keep Maggie from knowing the truth about her father, she had to also keep Maggie from knowing her half brother. At the time it seemed a small price to pay. It had seemed like the right thing to do. But now she wasn’t sure.

The other day Maggie had been so angry, so unwilling to accept the truth about her father. Would she also not want to accept that she had a brother, a half brother who had been kept from her for all these years? Would she be too angry to believe?

The woman had even named the boy Patrick, after Thomas’s brother who had been killed in Vietnam. Kathleen wondered if he looked like Thomas. He’d be a young man now-twenty-one years old, the same age Thomas was when they first met.

Kathleen felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to find Reverend Everett standing in the aisle. He smiled at Alice, and then to Kathleen he said, “There are some things we need to discuss, Kathleen. Perhaps we can discuss them in my compartment.”

She crawled over Alice and followed him to the small space at the back of the bus. Her knees were unsteady and her stomach tense. He hadn’t said a word to her since her punishment ceremony. Was he still upset?

The compartment was small, with a bed that filled most of the area and a tiny bathroom in the corner next to a desk. She could hear the roar of the engines. He closed the door behind them, and Kathleen heard him turn the lock.

“I know how painful that was for you tonight, Kathleen,” he said in such a soft, gentle voice that she immediately felt relieved. “I would have stepped in, but it would have looked as though I was playing favorites, and that would have only made it harder on you. I do care about you and that’s why I’m willing to do this special favor for you.”

He motioned for her to sit on the bed and make herself comfortable. Despite his soft and gentle voice, she saw a coldness in his eyes that she didn’t recognize, that unnerved her. She sat, anyway, not wanting to make him upset, especially if he was willing to do some special favor for her. He had been so kind in the past.

“I’m very sorry,” she offered, not knowing what explanation he hoped to receive. She knew he didn’t like it when members made excuses, and no matter what she told him, he might misconstrue it as an excuse.

“Well, that’s in the past. With my special graces, I’m sure you’ll not betray us like that again.”

“Of course,” she said.

Then with that same cold look in his eyes, he began unzipping his pants while he said to her, “I’m doing this for your own good, Kathleen. Now you must take off all your clothes.”

CHAPTER 69

Gwen found Maggie down in her office, curled in the overstuffed chair, her legs thrown over an arm, a stack