When She Woke (19 page)

She needed her port, but her father had it, and after all that she’d borne today, the thought of calling him, of weathering his dismay and frustration and worry over her departure from the center, was overwhelming. Of her parents, he was the one she most dreaded disappointing. Hannah’s mother had always, on some level, expected to be disappointed by her, whereas her father had an almost childlike faith in her. Her failings bewildered him, and her rebellions left him crestfallen rather than angry. When she was twelve, she’d snuck out of the house on Angeles Day for an illicit bike ride. She’d been restless and tired of the day’s solemnity, of kneeling all morning with her parents and praying for the souls of the innocent dead, of waiting for the clock’s hands to reach the fateful moment of 11:37 and the bells of the neighborhood churches to begin their mournful tolling; and then afterward, of watching the familiar montage of images on the vid: the mushroom cloud rising over the Pacific, the miles of rubble strewn with the charred bodies of the victims, the mass burials and funerals, the bombs falling on Tehran. And so, in the afternoon, she’d climbed out her bedroom window and ridden her bike around the neighborhood for a glorious half hour. When she’d returned home, breathless and invigorated, her father had been waiting for her on the porch steps.

“Come and sit with me a minute,” he said quietly. His expression was pained, and Hannah wished it were her mother sitting there instead, angry and accusatory. “Did you have a good time on your bike ride?”

She considered saying no, but she hated to lie to him. “Yes.”

“What did you enjoy about it?” She shrugged, at a loss, and picked at some peeling paint on the step. “What did you enjoy?” he pressed.

“Being outside, I guess,” she said, in a voice made small and strained by the lump in her throat.

“What else?”

“Getting chased by the McSherrys’ dog. Going really fast down the hill on Maple.”

“What were you thinking about?” Hannah shook her head, staring unseeing at the step, her eyes burning. “Tell me,” her father said.

“The wind was whooshing against my face, and I thought how . . . how good it felt.” She started to cry, and he sat with her in silence as the sobs ripped through her; as she pictured a carefree twelve-year-old girl much like herself, coasting down a hill on her bike in Los Angeles on a day much like this, her face lifted to the wind, to the sudden searing blast of air from the bomb that would incinerate her and her family and seven hundred thousand others.

When Hannah had cried herself out, she felt her father’s arm go around her. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said, leaning into him.

“I know.”

A
SIREN WAILED
nearby, startling her. Hannah looked around her and realized she was near the Harrington Library. She headed toward it, feeling her spirits lift a little when she saw the familiar cream-colored stone building with the American and Texas flags waving proudly in front. Even as a child, when Plano had still had several public libraries to choose from, the Harrington had been her favorite, because it had the most books and the best librarians, the kind who never raised a reproving eyebrow over her selections. Until she was sixteen, she hadn’t been allowed to go to the library without one of her parents, a prohibition she’d broken every chance she got. She hid the books she checked out under her mattress and then, after her mother discovered that hideaway, inside her old stuffed lion. Even if her parents hadn’t monitored her port for forbidden downloads, she would still have preferred to read real books. She liked the smell of them and the weight of them in her hands, liked turning the pages that other hands had turned before her and imagining the faces that went with them.

Unlike the library at her Christian high school, whose collection was limited to books and vids considered wholesome influences on young minds, the Harrington had a wealth of enticingly inappropriate material. The Satan’s Pen list distributed by her school became Hannah’s reading list. She discovered Hogwarts and Lyra’s Oxford, met Holden Caulfield and Beloved and Lady Chatterley, whose amorous encounters made Hannah’s body ache in unaccustomed ways. And of course, there were the fashion magazines:
Vogue
and
Avant
and dozens more, which excited her imagination so much at times that she had to get up and pace. No one even noticed, much less reproached her. No one cared what she was reading or thinking about; they had their own passions to explore.

More than anything, the Harrington had always been a place where Hannah felt safe and welcome, so it was with some trepidation that she opened the door and stepped inside. Ostensibly, they couldn’t deny her entry; discrimination against Chromes was illegal in municipal buildings. In fact, it was illegal in any building open to the public, but the law was rarely enforced in privately owned businesses, and N
O
C
HROMES
A
LLOWED
signs were commonplace.

The guard was a young, tough-looking Latina, and her expression turned wary when she saw Hannah. But it was a professional wariness, cool and assessing rather than hostile. She scanned Hannah’s NIC without comment and read the information that came up on her vid. When her eyes lifted, the watchfulness had been replaced by compassion. Mortified, Hannah realized the guard knew she’d had an abortion; that every person who scanned her card from now on would know it.
Stupid, stupid.
Of course they would. Why hadn’t she anticipated that?

“There’s a room with private carrels in the back,” the guard said.

The kindness was intolerable. “I’m familiar with the library,” Hannah replied curtly.

The main reading room was perfectly quiet, or so Hannah thought until its occupants caught sight of her. As awareness of her presence traveled across the room, the silence deepened and congealed with animosity so oppressive she could hardly breathe. She hurried through and slipped gratefully into an empty vid carrel in the back room. She activated the privacy mode, scanned her NIC and said her PIP: “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Once, this had been a guiding credo of her life; now, it was just a hollow string of words.

When she opened her mail, the computer informed her that she had 1,963 messages. The number startled her. Even for a five-month absence, that was a lot. She flicked through them. There was the usual marketing spam, but there were also a large number of messages from individuals with unfamiliar names. She touched the screen, opening a vidmail at random. B
URN IN
H
ELL
, M
URDERER
! it said, the flaming red letters hurtling toward her face. Just a holo, but she recoiled as if she’d been struck. She opened another and heard an infant wailing. Over it, a woman’s voice said, “I hope you hear the cries of the baby you killed every night for the rest of your life.”

“Delete all mail from all unknown contacts,” Hannah said.

“Deleting.”

She was left with a paltry half a dozen messages. But one was from Edward Ferrars. Hannah’s heart contracted painfully as she stared at it. Ferrars was the name under which she and Aidan had registered at hotels. Hannah had chosen it; of all Jane Austen’s amiable clergymen, Edward Ferrars had always been her favorite.
But I’m no Elinor,
Hannah thought. Alyssa was his Elinor: mild, virtuous, sensible.

It was a vidmail, which surprised Hannah. There was no such thing as truly secure netspeak, and so she and Aidan had messaged each other rarely, and only in text. The vidmail was dated August 20—prior to the trial, when she’d still been in jail. She hadn’t been in communication with him since before she was arrested, hadn’t seen him until he’d spoken on her behalf at the sentencing hearing. He’d been stern and mournful that day, but whatever else he’d been feeling, he’d concealed it well. Had he been outraged by what she’d done? Disillusioned? Sickened to the point where he no longer loved her? Had he testified out of compassion only, as her pastor?

She had to know. She couldn’t bear to know. And so she went through the other five messages first: Two tearful vidmails, one from her aunt Jo and the other from Mrs. Bunten, saying they’d pray for her. A brusque note from her employer at the salon, informing her that her services were no longer required. A distinctly wistful vidmail from her former boyfriend Will, who evidently hadn’t heard about her disgrace, saying he’d moved to Florida and was engaged to be married and thought she’d want to know. A note from Deb saying how sorry she was that this had happened, it was just awful, if there was anything she could do, anything at all.

There was no more putting it off. Hannah swallowed hard and said, “Play message from Edward Ferrars.”

And there floating in 3-D before her was her beloved. He was sitting in a darkened office she didn’t recognize, illuminated by a single lamp. He looked melancholy, and as always, it became him, lending him a poignant beauty.

“I pray you get this, Hannah. I can’t imagine what you’re enduring at this moment, in that jail. I hate that you’re alone in this, that you’re bearing the brunt of our sin all by yourself. I hate that you did this thing for me. That our child—” His voice broke. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with one pale, long-fingered hand. Hannah’s arms ached to pull his head into her lap, her fingers to smooth the care from his brow.

“By the time you watch this, the trial will be over. I hope you were honest. I hope you cooperated with the police and named the abortionist. And I hope you named me as the father and revealed me for the hypocrite I am. God help me, I know I should come forward. I tell myself I keep silent for Alyssa’s sake, but maybe I just don’t have the will and the courage to speak the truth. And how can I shepherd the nation to God if I can’t go through the narrow door myself ?” A ripple of revulsion ran through Hannah as she remembered her initiation at the Straight Path Center.

“If you’d told me you were pregnant, I would have acknowledged the baby. I hope you know that, Hannah. I think you must, or you wouldn’t have done this thing. What a perfect irony, to have lost the only child I might ever have fathered. What a divine jest! God is truly a brilliant teacher.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile.

“I know you must have wondered why Alyssa and I don’t have children. Everyone does, though they don’t ask. It’s because of me, because of my weakness and arrogance and selfishness. Just before I met Alyssa, I went on a mission to Colombia, and I slept with a woman I met there. Only once, but it was enough to give me the scourge. This was in the early days, before they started the testing, and I had no symptoms. It didn’t even occur to me that I might be infected; how could something like that possibly happen to
me?
And then I met Alyssa and we fell in love and got engaged, and I didn’t want to wait. And I cajoled and begged and pushed her and finally, about a month before the wedding, she relented and let me make love to her. For which I handsomely rewarded her.” Aidan let out an ugly bark of laughter. “We found out when we got the results of the blood test for the marriage license. If I’d just been patient and respected her wishes, if I’d respected
God’s
wishes, I wouldn’t have infected her. As it was, she went through almost five years of hell before they found the cure. By that time she was sterile, of course.”

So much that Hannah had never understood about Aidan now made terrible sense: his bouts of darkness, his devotion to children, his stoic attitude toward his wife.
I can never leave Alyssa. I won’t bring that kind of shame on her.
The unspoken word being
again.

“She forgave me somehow, and we went on with our lives and our ministry. Our ministry became our life. I’ve tried many times to talk her into adopting, but she’s always refused. I think it’s her way of avenging what I did to her. God knows she’s entitled to some form of retribution.” He bowed his head. “So now you know what kind of man you once loved.”

Stung by his use of the past tense, Hannah said, “And still do.”

As if he’d heard her, Aidan said, “How could you love me, after everything I’ve brought on you? You’d have to hate yourself to love me. And I don’t want you to hate yourself, Hannah. This isn’t your fault, it’s mine. Do you remember when you told me that our love had to have come from God, that He’d brought us together for a purpose? At the time I thought you were just rationalizing our sin, but now I know you were right.
This
was His purpose: to punish me for what I did to Alyssa.”

Hannah felt a hot pulse of anger. So this was how he saw her: as a mere instrument of his punishment, a flail or a cudgel lacking any volition of her own?

“I deserve to suffer, but I can’t bear it that you’ve had to. And if they convict you . . .” He broke off, swallowed. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you. I doubt the governor would pardon you, but perhaps I can persuade President Morales to, when I’ve known him longer. In the meantime, I’ve transferred some money to your account to help give you a start once they release you. I know how proud you are, but you mustn’t be reluctant to use it. Your safety could depend on it. If you need more, if you need anything at all, send a message to this address.

“I’ll pray for you, my love,” he said. “I won’t ask you to forgive me, but I’m truly sorry for everything.” His hand reached out as if to touch her, and then the holo collapsed, and the vid returned to the first frame.

Hannah stared at Aidan’s face, frozen in rue, and felt her anger intensifying. In all the time she’d loved him, she’d never once felt sorry about it. Not when she was lying on the abortionist’s table. Not when she was examined, interrogated, incarcerated. Not when she was disowned by her own mother, convicted of murder, injected with the virus that would make her a pariah. Not when she saw her red self for the first time. Not when she sat in her father’s car or Mrs. Henley’s parlor or Becca’s kitchen. All of this she had endured, without ever regretting her love for him. The rage that had been building in her erupted.

“How
dare
you be sorry?” she shouted at the screen. She wanted to hit it, to hit him, to make his features contort in pain or rage to match her own—anything but regret.