Castles in the Sand (35 page)

The corner of herself that Kenzie had declared off limits to Aidan already protested. The ache in her chest was almost unbearable. Should she give it one last shot?

“Aidan, you said you have to go back up to the hospital tomorrow?”

“First thing in the morning. I’d better spend the night at my folks’ house so I can pack some things Mom and Dad need. Then tomorrow I’ll take Mickey with me. We’ll see how it goes. The doctor wasn’t too optimistic about Dad leaving before Sunday. But Mickey and I might spend the night there, in a motel. Since I’ve got Mom’s van, I don’t need mine. You can keep using it, no problem.”

“I wasn’t asking for a vehicle. I’m suggesting I could go with you and help out, especially with Mickey J.”

“Thanks, but that’s all right. You’ve got work tomorrow and Saturday. Dad wants me to take seats out of the van so he can lay in the back. Ha! Mr. Tough Guy. He really shouldn’t move at all. An ambulance has to bring him home. But who knows? God could glue him all back together by then.”

He squeezed her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

She figured that happened only because she was the nearest object. At that moment he probably would have kissed a fence post.

Like the day he and Pepper rushed off, she felt totally invisible to the Carlucci family. She wasn’t sure which hurt worse: cutting herself off or letting them do it.

The invisible routine continued at the beach house. It expanded to her own mother and the Martha Mavens.

Kenzie stood just inside the front door. No one even bothered to wait for her to introduce Aidan. The Marthas knew who he was, of course, and they went a little nuts meeting him. A bunch of full-on delirious magpies. Her mother kissed his cheek. Millie blushed and giggled, looking seven instead of seventysomething. Frosty Tess hugged him like some long-lost relative. Emmylou shook his hand and then laid it on her abdomen. “It’s his foot!” Leona gave him two cookies. Gwyn offered him tea.

Kenzie watched his reactions with surprise. Aidan could be moody and standoffish, especially when he was composing and arranging music. Onstage, singing and playing keyboard, he was totally at peace, oblivious to the world around him, lost in worship. But rarely, very rarely, was he extroverted like now, and never with strangers.

What was up?

He thanked the women nonstop for their prayers for his dad. They wanted to hear details, and so he expanded on the story.

Kenzie left them and searched the house in vain for her aunt. Besides the Marthas, at least two dozen other people filled the living room and kitchen area. More were outside on the patio. Many she recognized from the church; quite a few were seniors like Millie and Leona. They greeted her with hugs and best wishes.

She also saw Emmylou’s hunky Marine husband, the neighbor Julian, and the wild-looking street pastor Zeke. She found Pugsy cowering under a bed and nuzzled him for a while. But Aunt Nattie and Uncle Rex were nowhere to be found.

The group had assembled for a communion service right there in the beach house. Millie and Leona had organized it and asked Zeke—who said he held preacher credentials, although her dad disbelieved him—to lead it. Millie told her they were commemorating the Lord’s Last Supper.

Since nothing was going on at her dad’s church that night, the real boycott wouldn’t happen until tomorrow, Good Friday. The twins planned to hold a solemn memorial-type service then in remembrance of Christ’s death.

As she reentered the living room from the bedrooms, she noticed the lights had been dimmed. Aidan caught her eye and pointed to the loveseat where Emmylou sat, her husband on the floor beside her. Other people were sitting down in whatever space they could find, the older folks on the couch, armchairs, and kitchen chairs, younger ones on the floor. Conversations quieted.

Aidan smiled. “Loveseat’s reserved for soon-to-be mommies.”

Soon-to-be mommy?
He had never referred to her like that.

She sat next to smiley Emmylou, who reached over and patted Kenzie’s stomach. Aidan slid onto the floor, leaning against her leg.

The rectangular kitchen table had been moved so it ran lengthwise, making it look sort of like an altar facing the living room. A white linen cloth covered it; white tapered candles glowed from four tall crystal holders; an open Bible lay in the middle. Beside it were the communion elements: bread and wine. A chunk of whole-grain bread, torn from a loaf, sat on a small plate. The wine sparkled in a crystal goblet.

Behind the table, the countertop was covered with baskets and trays. Earlier, before Aidan arrived, Kenzie had watched the Marthas complete their preparations. Leona’s homemade unleavened bread was torn into bite-size pieces and piled into napkin-lined baskets. Mildred uncorked bottles of red wine—real red wine with alcoholic content and a California label. Tess nodded in her somber “right on” expression. Susan’s eyes got big, but she didn’t say a word as she helped pour wine into the cough syrup-size tumblers on the trays. Gwyn’s lips scrunched as though they were holding in a smile. She murmured something about how a thimbleful wouldn’t hurt anyone, except for maybe her two recovering alcoholic friends, but they would know better and besides, they weren’t coming.

Now Zeke stepped behind the makeshift altar and a broad smile split his face. He looked imposing. His deep chocolate skin and dark hair contrasted with the whites of tablecloth, candles, and shirt. “Brothers and sisters! Welcome to our Lord’s Table! We gather here to remember Jesus when He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. It was the night He was arrested, the night His Passion began, the night His blood started to pour out for our sake.”

He lifted the open Bible. “In Luke 22 we read, ‘And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’”

Zeke looked up. “In essence He told them He was going to be sacrificed and that they should not forget it. Tonight, we do not forget it. We remember it. We know Sunday’s a-coming, but for now we turn our hearts toward His Last Supper and we linger there a spell. We remember that God’s own Son prepared to take the world’s sins into Himself. He shared supper with His friends with the shadow of tomorrow’s cross looming within His sight. And we ponder His offer. He says to take and eat and drink this new life He makes available through the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood.”

Zeke set down the Bible, placed one hand over the goblet, the other over the bread, and shut his eyes. “Lord, we ask Your blessing on these gifts of bread and wine. We ask that we might receive them in remembrance of Your Son’s death and that through His sacrifice we might receive remission of all our sins.”

He opened his eyes. “Sister Millie has made copies of an ancient prayer for us to read together to prepare our hearts before we come to the Table. Does everyone have one?”

Papers rustled. Aidan held a sheet of paper high enough so Kenzie could read along with him the typed words. In unison, the group spoke.

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou are…”

The print jiggled. A whooshing noise filled her head. Kenzie could read no further and heard only the last phrase. It reverberated in her head:
not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table, not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table, not worthy, not worthy…

No way could she eat His body and drink His blood.

Blindly, she made her way through the crowd, people seated on the floor and in chairs shoved together. Some now stood; some moved toward the table. The Table.

She walked to the back corner of the kitchen, through a doorway, past a bathroom and the side door that opened onto the sidewalk between the house and Julian’s. She went into a small bedroom where she kept her things.

Aidan spoke from behind her. “Kenz, what are you doing?”

She found her backpack on the floor. “I’m not worthy. I’m out of here.”

“What did you say?”

“I’m not worthy,” she mumbled again, ignoring the concern in his voice. Her vision cleared long enough for her to see his face, but she couldn’t read it. She could only read her heart, and it was black. Christ didn’t want her. Her own family didn’t want her. The Carluccis didn’t want her. And even if Aidan thought he did, that wouldn’t last. It was already on its way to becoming history.

“Kenzie, are you sick?”

“No. I just need to be alone.”

“Now? Before the service—”

“I’ll go to the apartment. Please, Aidan, this is just too much right now, okay? All this church stuff. All these people from my dad’s church. I can’t handle it.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Please don’t. I want to be alone. And I need you to tell my mom for me. Please?”

Before she could slip around him to the side door, his arms were there, pulling her to himself. “It’s going to be okay, Kenz. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. Your mom and dad. Our baby—”

With force, she untangled herself from his hug. “I know,” she lied. “It’s just one of those times I need some major space!” More lies.

He would never let her go if he knew it wasn’t one of “those times.” This was something altogether different and further outside herself than she had ever felt. She tumbled headlong down a black tunnel. She sensed only that she had to leave. That if she stayed with Aidan and her mom and the Marthas and Zeke, she would hit bottom.

“I’m all right, Aidan. Go take care of your family.”

“You’re my family.”

You have a funny way of showing it
. She shoved aside the hand he held out and strode from the room.

He followed her outside into the dark night and down the sidewalk. They reached the van in the carport and she unlocked its door.

Pulling it open, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Drive safe. I’ll call you.”

She nodded, climbed in, and started the engine.

He’d always understood when and how to give her space.

Either that or he knew how to let her go. No fuss, no muss.

Not worthy. Not worthy
.

“You poor baby, you!” Susan cooed the words of comfort in a high-pitched voice. Her face mere centimeters from Pugsy’s, she ignored the doggie breath as best she could. “Did Gwyn scold you? Did all those people frighten you?”

Evidently it was a night for breaking rules. First of all Pugsy was
on the bed
, a practice Drake abhorred. At least the dog wasn’t on the sheet…although he came pretty close to sharing the pillow with her. A short while ago Mildred had served
wine
, a no-no in the Starr household. At least it happened at the beach house and not, strictly speaking, in the Starr household. Zeke—who, if Drake were correct, purchased his “Reverend” license from some fly-by-night operation—
preached
from God’s Word, an event Drake never would have allowed in his church. At least the Holy Cross Fellowship congregants were not sitting within their own church walls when they listened to him and partook of the communion served by him and the twins.

“But you want to know the one that takes the cake, Pugs? The alpha of all rules that I broke tonight? Sorry, it’s not you on the bed, big as that is. Nope, it concerns me. I sang.” She smiled. “Yes, sirree. I sang a
solo
in public. Well, sort of public. I bet Pepper Carlucci would call singing at an informal gathering in a beach house semi-public. Anyway, it was a rule buster and it was wonderful.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Thank You, Lord, for tonight. For the breaking of rules that bind us from seeking You. Thank You for music. For the voice You gave me. For the sheer joy of singing for You in semi-public. Amen. Hold on, Pugs.”

Susan reached over the dog and turned off the bedside lamp. Scooting back down under the covers, she kept Pugsy in the crook of her arm and stroked his silky coat. The busy evening had unnerved the poor thing.

“You’re like Kenzie, I guess, hmm? Things totally unnerved her tonight too. If you’d both just stay by my side where you belong…But that won’t work with her. Aidan said she needed space. That the church stuff was getting to her. It’s understandable. All those familiar faces, all the gracious welcomes, all the Scripture talk about forgiveness. Reminders of unhealed issues between her and her dad. My poor baby.”

Pugsy snored softly.

“That’s okay. I wasn’t addressing you, anyway.” She grinned in the dark. “Lord, am I losing my mind?”

Sleep eluded her. An odd mixture of joy and peace and unease kept her eyes wide open. She prayed for Drake. She prayed for Kenzie, Aidan, and the baby. She prayed for Mick. She prayed for Natalie and Rex, who hadn’t shown up for the service or phoned. She prayed for Emmylou, so heavy with child.

What wouldn’t go away, though, was the question of her future. How long could she live at the beach house at her brother-in-law’s expense? How long could she have phone conversations with her husband that were left unfinished and unsettled her?