make that disappear by writing me a letter. Were you listening to your sermon? I was. You can’t make yourself dead again when you’ve come alive. So you’re scared. Christ knows, I am, too. But like you said. We have to have courage.”
She bent over, breathing deeply.
“Clare?” He tried to see her face. “Clare? You’re not going to faint, are you?”
She let out another short laugh. “No.” She sat up, took a breath, then stood. “Come here.”
He grabbed the cane he used to help him get around in his walking cast and followed her up the aisle, across, to a place where the pews had been cleared away. He could see from the water damage that this was where the roof had given in.
“This is the window that Mrs. Marshall gave in her mother’s memory. It’s hard to see at nighttime, but you can make the details out.”
He looked at it.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ketchems. About what went wrong for them, and for Allan Rouse. I think they all saw something they wanted, something they were tempted by, and they said, ‘I deserve this.’ ” She looked up at him. “I don’t want to make the same mistake.”
He reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m not trying to talk you into an… an affair. I don’t want to be unfaithful to my vows.”
She smiled, a shaky, crooked smile. “Me, neither.”
“There’s something in me that recognized you. Right from the start. The parts of me that always felt alone, the parts of me that I always kept hidden away, out of sight-I could see that you had them, too.” He smiled a little. “Sorry. I’m not saying this very smoothly.”
She stepped closer. “I never asked you to be smooth. Just to be yourself.”
He had to close his eyes for a moment, to get himself under control. “That’s just it. I know I can tell you, ‘This is who I am.’ And your answer will always be-”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want to fall in love with you,” she said. He tightened his grip on her hand. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was on the edge of crying.
“Oh, love.” He let his cane clatter to the stone floor and pulled her to him. “Why?”
She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Because we’re going to break our hearts.”
He wanted to reassure her, but what could he say? She was right. So he rocked her back and forth and they clung to each other, while the candles burned down and the sad-faced angels held out their glass promises.
Julia Spencer-Fleming
Julia Spencer-Fleming is an American novelist. She lives in Maine with her husband and 3 children.
