Solomon's Grave

a peek into the Weirdo Club. No one home tonight, though. First time that had happened on a Friday. He looked over his shoulder at the club’s soaped-over windows. Dark and lonely.

Josh rubbed his eyes. Driving home was getting too routine. He was doing it in his sleep. Not good. He pulled onto Main Street, only then remembering that he wanted to grab a movie from the rack. No, better get home and catch up on his sleep.

Peter Quinn watched the car drive away. He stood silhouetted against the club’s lighted window. His experimental prodding into the store manager’s head on the occasions they’d spoken paid off well tonight. According to Manny Paulson, he and the new minister were close. Now the boy was snooping around. Checking up on Art, no doubt. It wasn’t the first time, either. Controlling him was becoming easier each time. Peter thought he might prove useful to him some day. Maybe. It was good to have options.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Elizabeth O’Brien looked one more time into the mirror over the fireplace mantle, pushing a stray hair back into place and inadvertently releasing three others from captivity. It was no use. Keeping the mop on her head pulled back was the only way to manage some semblance of neatness. Before the night was over, though, she’d be ripping the scrunchy out in exasperation. Her unruly mane would be free to fall back into her face and her food. Some impression that would make.

She wondered again why she cared. Five and a half years and he hadn’t sent one letter, one email or Christmas card. Of course, neither had she. She’d learned Nathan was back in town both from Mrs. Conan, and in a call from Josh Everson. All morning Tuesday she’d walked on pins and needles, expecting the inevitable confrontation. When she walked by Mrs. Conan’s room and saw Nate sitting at the bedside, her first reaction was to turn around and hide in the break room.

Then she heard his voice, the voice that sounded so much like home. She stopped and listened to him work. He was reading from the Bible, of course. He was always reading from that book.

She envied him his unwavering faith, but felt frustrated at how pointless it was. She’d reconsidered her convictions only once, six years ago when she’d prayed for the first time in her life. There was never the need to ask Nate’s God for anything before. Even that one night, leaning exhausted against her mother’s hospital bed, she felt like she was whispering her prayer to the walls and nothing else. Still, was it so much to ask? Her father was gone. All she had left was that woman. Nate was only around for short intervals before jaunting back to school. If her mother died he would come home, but not to stay. His plans to become a minister had always been stronger than what he and Elizabeth had. That much she couldn’t deny.

The summer after the funeral, after her pleas were ignored and her mother was stolen away, she sat in his room as he packed for his senior year and thought, it’s time to move on. Nate knew she was alone, knew she needed him, but still was packing up to serve a God who didn’t give any thought to her. Then Nate had the gall to ask her to come to his church again.

After returning to her empty house that night, she’d cried, knowing it was over. For a long time, the loneliness felt too strong. She’d lost her father, her mother, and Nathan Dinneck forever. It occurred to her that there was nothing else to live for. She could end it, walk away from life and maybe, if the New Agers were right, come back as someone else. Get a second chance. Elizabeth was usually smart enough to ignore thoughts like that, but one night the urge was so strong she filled the bathtub. Standing there, fully-dressed beside the tub, she began to plan the best way to die.

Since her mother passed on there had been two conflicting voices in her head, both of them her own. Both had their own opinions. One was quiet, whispering, telling her that things would be OK, time heals, all that yadda yadda. The second had darker thoughts which she’d eagerly been nurturing. Nothing was going to get better, the second voice said. Thinking otherwise was pointless. She deserved better and if she couldn’t get it, then why continue?

With uncharacteristic assertiveness, the first voice chimed in with, If you take your life in this way, what will be waiting for you on the other side will make today’s problems glorious in comparison. That night, standing by the tub in a moment of indecision, she chose to listen to this other voice. It wasn’t Nathan’s, though it did sound like something he might say. It got her thinking. This might indeed be her only chance to live in this world. What was waiting after death? She never held much stock in the concept of Hell. What if there was nothing at all? The idea sent a wave of fear through her. She put her hand on the lever to open the drain, ready to forget the whole thing. Still, she hesitated. The voice, once so subtle but in that moment more insistent than ever, said, Use the life you have, if not for yourself then for others. Be patient, believe in yourself. There are other people, with their own trials. Help them....

It was an idea filled with inspiration. She thought of Nathan. He was giving up so much for his own calling. He was a smart kid, would have succeeded at anything he tried, but he chose a path of service.

Elizabeth understood then, her hand lingering on the lever, that this was an option for her, too. Obviously not the same as for him, but if she was so ready to throw her life away, why not... recycle it? Since it wasn’t doing much in the way of helping her own situation, change it to one that helped another’s.

She’d thought often about going to school for nursing. She’d inherited the house from her parents, and its mortgage had been paid off with the money from her father’s life insurance policy. She had enough money from her mother’s insurance and bank accounts to carry her. And there might be financial aid out there. She supposed she could give school a shot.

And if the voice was right, it might be the only chance she had left.

It was odd, thinking these thoughts as if they’d come from someone else. She was alone in the world, in the same small bathroom where her mother used to sing while baby Elizabeth took a bath, where her mother would wash her hair, pat her dry.

She knew the tub would still be there if this new idea didn’t pan out. A disturbing thought, and one which had prompted her on that lonely night to push the lever down and send the water swirling into the drain.

Now as she waited for Nathan, five years later, Elizabeth thought about that night again. She was a different person from the one crouched by the tub. At least she hoped so. Over time she had dated other men, including Nathan’s best friend Josh—though she often worried about revealing that bit of news to him. Josh never had. He’d said as much when he called to tell her Nate was coming home. The relationship had lasted almost a year, then fizzled out. He and Nate were too close, his presence always lingering between them. They’d started as friends, and ended their romance the same way, though with more distance between them afterwards.

Headlights on the street outside, pulling to a stop in front of her house. Her heart raced with a mixture of fear and apprehension. The more she thought about this date, the more she wondered if this was taking a step backwards. She’d built a life for herself here, and she was happy. Alone, but happy.

Nate got out of the car and walked the path toward the door. Maybe, she thought, adjusting the scrunchy in her hair and opening the door, it wasn’t so much falling back as stepping forward. They’d taken time to become their own people. Maybe they were ready to try again.

Yeah, right, she thought. The Atheist and the Pastor. Would make an interesting movie-of-the-week. Perhaps not all her cynicism had been washed down the drain that night. The idea worried her.

“Hi,” Nate said after walking onto the porch.

In her mind, she dropped the tub’s lever again and sent that dark inner voice swirling away. She moved forward and held him in a long, quiet hug. She was showing too much weakness, but at the moment she didn’t care. She needed to be held, by Nate and no one else.

“I missed you,” she said.

He must have understood she needed this closeness since he did not move away. Instead he whispered, “I missed you, too.”

Elizabeth stopped thinking then; simply breathed in the comfort and love which she thought was lost forever. Maybe it still was. For the moment, though, she was happy.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Sole Proprietor in Worcester had tripled in size since he’d last been here. In a way it was a relief to