Blood Runs Thicker Than Truth by Katy Abel
When a minister runs over one of her parishioners in her car, she is asked to face some difficult truths.
The sky was as dark as a good cabernet and yes, she had been drinking. Not drinking like a fish but swimming through the kitchen after dinner, warm from the wine brought by members of the board who knew her penchant for a merlot with cherry undertones. Afterwards, guests departed, bottles open-mouthed and waiting, she had paused as if there was an actual decision to be made about whether to pour the remnants down the drain. Tossing the question instead of the wine, she drank while gathering plates and goblets and wiping counters. Then she turned off the lights to get ready to head up to the church. It was a ritual everyone enjoyed; dinner at the minister's house followed by the quarterly board meeting in the parish house.
The dinner had gone well, Sarah thought. Moroccan chicken, a heaping platter of saffron rice studded with pistachios and barberries, an olive oil cake made from a recipe brought home from a conference in Jerusalem. Sarah enjoyed cooking for the board, hearing their sighs of appreciation as they savored each bite. She felt confident and proud of what she could do, what she had taught herself to do, whether cooking or preaching.
It was dark and starting to drizzle when she left the house and drove nine tenths of a mile to Grace Episcopal to meet with the board. There were challenging items on the agenda, but this group of lay leaders seemed particularly capable. They were adept at resolving matters facing the church, whether to raise the rent on the Montessori preschool occupying space in the basement or spend scant resources to repave the parking lot. Church membership was on the rise after years of decline, bucking national trends, and the board gave Sarah full credit for that.
By the time the meeting ended and Sarah and the others headed back out into the night, the rain had become relentless. Soaked through, Sarah climbed into her Prius, tossed her wet backpack onto the passenger seat and turned on her headlights, illuminating the small white sign that reserved her space with the single word "MINISTER." It always thrilled Sarah, the fact that she had her own designated parking spot. The church lot was seldom full, but it was a small perk of a job that, while emotionally and spiritually fulfilling, offered few financial rewards. Not that Sarah had ever coveted a big salary. She was 53, single, no children, no expensive hobbies save for a love of cycling vacations in Europe. She had managed to save enough to buy a small bungalow, and someday there would be a modest pension.
Sarah turned on her wipers and looked in the rear view mirror. She checked the screen on her dashboard but the rain had fogged the camera. She checked the screen again, put the car into reverse and moved her foot onto the accelerator.
There was a dull thud beneath the downpour, then a faint cry. Sarah stopped breathing. She put the car in park and stepped back out into the rain.
An elderly woman lay on the ground, legs splayed under the bumper of Sarah's car. Mascara ran in dark tributaries down her cheeks. Her thin blouse clung like a second skin, revealing the shadow of a lace bra.
"Rosalind!" Sarah cried, dropping to her knees, spreading her arms to try to shield the woman's torso from the downpour. "My God, what happened?"
Rosalind was blinking rapidly, seemingly unable to speak. Other board members had left their cars and rushed toward them; they crouched around Rosalind, knees in puddles, asking where it hurt, if she could move. One of the board members, Christine, gently lifted Rosalind's head into her lap, using a scarf to wipe her soaked face.
"I'm not sure we should be moving her," Sarah cautioned.
"We've got you, Rosalind, don't worry," Christine said, ignoring her. "We've called 911."
Sarah felt dazed. Harold, another board member, reached out to touch her arm.
"Sarah, are you all right? What happened?"
Harold lifted her to her feet. Sarah put her hand over her mouth and pressed her wet face into his shoulder.
"I must have hit her when I was backing up," Sarah said, voice muffled. "I don't know how it happened. Maybe she slipped? I didn't see her. She's wearing black. It's so dark."
A cruiser arrived, then an ambulance. Rosalind was strapped onto a gurney and lifted into the back. A police officer, pink-cheeked in the cold and dressed in fluorescent yellow rain gear, approached the huddled group. He looked extremely young to Sarah. He asked if someone could tell him what had happened.
"Officer, this is my car," Sarah said. "I'm the minister here. I was backing out of my space and of course I always check my rear view - and then I heard a bump and got out and Rosalind - she's a member of our board - she was on the ground. I don't know how it happened."
The police officer asked what time Sarah had arrived at the church, when she had exited the building, and what she was doing before the accident.
"We were all at the board meeting," Harold said. "And before that, we were at Reverend Fuller's for dinner."
"Ma'am, any alcohol tonight?" the officer asked, looking at Sarah. Harold stepped toward him.
"Officer, this is our minister. Our spiritual leader."
The police officer nodded at Harold and looked back at Sarah.
"Any drinks tonight?" he continued. "Before you got to church?"
Sarah tried to wipe the rain from her face. Harold motioned the group to move under a portico that protected an access ramp leading into the building.
"Officer, I appreciate your need to ask these questions, but the board had just been meeting about some challenging topics and frankly I was thinking about those issues when I got into the car," Sarah said. "I'm incredibly sorry about what's happened, but I've never had an issue driving."
He asked for her license and registration. Sarah retrieved her purse from the car and handed him the documents, watching as he returned to his cruiser. Board members waited, their heads bent, shoulders hunched against the rain. Sarah wondered what they were thinking. When the officer returned, he handed Sarah her license and adjusted his belt.
"Just due to the circumstances here, ma'am, I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to take a field sobriety test."
Harold shook his head and glared at the officer. "Are you new on the force? This seems excessive. Sarah."
"What does this involve, Officer?" she asked.
"Just standard, ma'am, not a breathalyzer."
Sarah nodded at the officer and looked at Harold. His bare scalp was dripping. Harold told the others they should go home, that he would stay. She was grateful for his show of support.
The officer beckoned Sarah to move toward him as Harold kept watch from a short distance. He instructed her to follow the movement of a pen he held in front of her face, to follow it with her eyes only, without moving her head. Sarah did as he asked and watched for a reaction, but the officer's expression remained blank. He then instructed her to walk nine steps forward, placing the heel of one foot directly in front of the toe of the other. Sarah worried about her balance. She wondered what Harold was thinking, the spectacle of an ordained minister - his minister, the one he'd helped select two years ago, when he was on the search committee - being tested for drunkenness.
When she approached the officer after her walk, she asked, "Was that ok?"
"One more, then we're done," he said, asking her to raise one leg six inches off the ground and count aloud starting at one thousand.
"This is nuts," Harold growled. Sarah ignored him and lifted her leg, voice shaking: "One thousand-one, one thousand-two..."
She tried not to sway or flap her arms. The officer watched and put his hand up when she reached one thousand-twenty-nine.
"OK, ma'am, we're good."
He told her that she would not need a breathalyzer and suggested they go home and get into dry clothes.
"Careful on the road. Enough excitement for one night, right?"
Sarah thanked the officer and Harold and walked carefully to her car, resisting the urge to run. She was shaking as she lowered herself into her seat and covered her face with wet hands.
They were in the kitchen of the old apartment on Standish Street the morning Ralph decided to teach his eldest daughter to drink. Sarah was nine, seated on a stool by the stove watching her father adjust the flame under the frying pan. Each of his pancakes was a beautiful trick, his daughter thought, round and brown, chocolate chips spaced just so, melting into dark eyes and a delicious grin. Sarah had not finished eating when Ralph put down the flapjack, turned off the gas and wiped grease off his hands. He pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes from his back pocket, lit a match, took a deep drag and handed the cigarette to Sarah as if passing her a pencil for a spelling test in school.
"Go ahead," Ralph said, motioning her to take a puff. He chuckled when she choked and then apologized when he saw her eyes fill.
"Kitten, I'm sorry. But you need to learn."
He reached into a cabinet and brought down a dark green bottle of Cutty Sark and a shot glass, pouring it half full.
"Wash it down," he directed, showing Sarah how to throw back her head and let the scotch honey-coat her throat. When she choked a second time, he pulled her in for a hug. He smelled of tobacco and maple syrup and Old Spice.
"I'm just trying to make sure you don't smoke and drink like me," he growled into her hair. "You're a good kid. Now go play in the traffic."
In the morning the clouds were heavy, but the rain was gone. Sarah stood in the kitchen and gazed out at the back yard, wondering whether to call Rosalind. Of course she should call, she chided herself. She wanted to know if the hospital had kept Rosalind overnight, if anything was broken, God forbid. Sarah made oatmeal and then thought it might be better to wait a bit longer before calling. She tried to imagine what Rosalind might say to her after being hit - no, bumped - by accident. Of course, she'd understand, Sarah thought, hardly a case of attempted murder. Not as if she'd been looking for someone to mow down.
She caught herself then, realizing she was thinking more about Rosalind's reaction than what she'd done. The woman was a church member, first and foremost. Not a favorite, Sarah conceded, remembering times when Rosalind had been prickly. Last Easter she'd pulled Sarah aside to complain that the church hadn't ordered enough lilies for everyone to be able to take one home after the service, and didn't Sarah know that was a beloved tradition at Grace Episcopal, dating back many years? She'd insisted Sarah needed to project her voice more forcefully when delivering sermons because while Rosalind could hear her just fine, others were struggling to catch her words and therefore her meaning.
None of this was relevant, Sarah knew. She was the leader of the congregation; it didn't matter whether a parishioner in need was difficult or easy-going.
She went out and knelt in the garden, moist after the evening rain. She grabbed hold of strands of spring onion that were spreading like disease, wrapping the hydrangeas in a suffocating embrace. Her day would begin soon enough, and it was full: a budget committee meeting, working with the office administrator to schedule the summer retreat, remarks for an upcoming conference of clergy in Denver, some time alone to work on next week's sermon. A few calls, a visit to a parishioner making a difficult transition to a nursing home, then dinner, and finally a meeting with a young couple getting married at the church in June.
Sarah turned on the hose. How had she missed seeing her? She remembered opening the car door as the rain pounded the roof, unlatching the glove compartment to see if there was any Kleenex to wipe her dripping nose. Had she turned around in the driver's seat, actually twisted her body to try to see out the back of the car? Checked the side mirrors? Even if she had, would she have been able to see the diminutive Rosalind standing there, a dark shadow in the rain?
She went into the kitchen and picked up her phone from the counter, scrolling through her contacts.
"Rosalind?" It was still early, a little after nine.
"This is her daughter Suzanne. May I help you?"
"Suzanne, this is Reverend Fuller, the minister at your mother's church. I'm calling to check on her. Is she home?"
A moment of silence on the line.
"I'm not sure she's up yet."
"So she's home, very glad to hear it. I didn't know if they'd keep her at the hospital. Tell me, how is she doing?"
"I guess that depends on what you mean. She'll be okay, but she's fractured her wrist and a small bone in her foot. There's some pain. She'll be on crutches for a while. Also a mild concussion."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Suzanne. I'm sure you heard what happened. I would love to come visit, bring some soup, flowers -"
"Thank you. But right now, not sure how to say this, but I think seeing you would be hard for her."
Sarah dropped into a chair.
"I guess I understand. I'll give it some time."
"I think that'd be good."
The sun was coming out. Sarah thought about her day and made a note to stop at an organic grocer between her visit to the nursing home and dinner at home. She would get something she could microwave for dinner quickly, and look for the Argentinian Malbecs, mentioned in the store newsletter as having just arrived, before returning to church for her meeting with the engaged couple.
The night of the accident, Sarah and her younger sister Diane were asleep in their bunks, tucked under plaid sheets and matching blankets. Their mother Joyce was also asleep when, after midnight, the hospital called.
"Your father's been in car crash," Joyce said the next morning after pouring the girls two bowls of Fruit Loops. "He's got broken ribs. They think he hit someone. He was driving back from the VFW, and you know what happens there."
"He drinks too many beers," Diane said, head bowed, crunching her cereal.
"He doesn't drink beer," Sarah said. "He drinks whisky."
"Your father drinks anything he can get his hands on," Joyce said, grimly. "And I've had it up to here."
After breakfast Joyce left her daughters to go to the hospital to collect Ralph. Sarah and Diane did not go to school; Joyce told them they were having a snow day, even though it was still foliage season. They stayed in their pajamas and watched reruns of Eight is Enough and Mork and Mindy. Sarah made her sister eat cottage cheese and carrot sticks for lunch before allowing her a pack of Twizzlers.
Later that afternoon, they heard their parents on the stairs. Once inside the apartment, they watched their father limp to the La-Z-Boy and ease himself down slowly. Sarah stared at their father's arm in a sling, the cuts on his forehead, his swollen eye. Joyce went down the hall to the bedroom and turned on the small television that sat atop the bureau, blaring Hollywood Squares.
"Your mother's mad at me, girls," Ralph sighed. Sarah knelt beside his chair, wrapping her arms around his knees.
"Easy on the old man," Ralph croaked.
"Leave him alone," Joyce yelled from the bedroom. "He's damaged goods."
"Did you crash somebody?" Diane called out from the kitchen table. She was swinging her legs under her chair while coloring a picture of unicorns riding a merry-go-round.
"I don't know," Ralph answered, and closed his eyes.
Harold sat at Sarah's kitchen table, his hands around a mug of coffee. Sarah had summoned him for an update, having suggested he visit Rosalind on her behalf and convey her deepest apologies for the accident.
"Better, I think," Harold said, raising his cup. He paused. "Although she thinks you were very careless."
"I don't know what to do about this," Sarah said. She stared across the room.
"There's nothing you can do except give her time," Harold said. "Well, maybe one thing, if I may be so bold." He cleared his throat.
"One thing," Sarah repeated.
"Have you considered whether you were, in fact, careless that night?"
"Oh Harold, I have gone over it and over it in my mind, again and again, you have no idea how many times. The camera was fogged. I turned. I looked over my left shoulder. Then my right. It was pouring. I saw nothing, no one behind the car."
"The police officer, leading you through that little test."
"Yes. It was awful."
"But, I mean, you had been drinking."
"We all were, remember? We all had a glass or two with dinner. Christine brought the wine."
"Did you have anything else after we left? When we went up to the church?"
Sarah looked at Harold and said nothing for a minute. She went to the fridge to put the milk away. She turned back to him. "I'm sorry, but I'm struggling to understand this. You stood there. You watched me pass that test."
"I'm not accusing you of anything. But Rosalind is wondering how this happened. If I'd been injured, I'd wonder too."
"Well clearly you are wondering, otherwise you wouldn't be asking what you are, in fact, asking me, which is whether I had too much to drink."
"Do you think you did?"
"No, I think the problem was, it was dark and raining. And she was wearing black. Wearing black in the dark on a rainy night. Honestly, Harold. You know me."
"And I'm not questioning your moral fiber or allegiance to God Almighty. I just wonder if you had maybe a tad too much to drink and maybe that threw off your judgement. For a split second."
"No." Sarah got up from the table and took Harold's mug to the sink. She leaned against the counter, folded her arms and looked at him.
"My father was a raging alcoholic," Sarah said. "His father before him. I know what it looks like. It's never been an issue."
"All right then," Harold said, standing, reaching for his jacket.
They were walking through Harvard Yard, past the Widener Library. The trees were ablaze with yellow and red leaves. Students in plaid shirts sprinted across the quad, whirling frisbees. Ralph said it looked like a movie.
"My kid's going to Harvard, unbelievable," he said, tilting his head back to gaze up at the colonial-era brick dormitories. Sarah and her father were passing through on their way to convocation at the divinity school.
"You're the reason I'm here," she told him.
"Get out."
"You told me I could do anything."
Ralph laughed. "I think I was hoping you'd be a lawyer or something, maybe bring home a couple of bucks for the old man. But no, you sign up for a life of poverty."
"Not like I'm going to be a nun, Dad."
"Close to it."
They turned and left the yard and walked toward an open plaza in front of the Science Center. She noticed Ralph's gait was stiff, stiffer than she imagined it should be for a sixty-one-year-old man. He was coughing a lot, still smoking unfiltered Camels, and his hands trembled as he stopped to light up. She waved away the smoke and told him she was worried about him.
"Nothing to worry about, kitten. I'm the luckiest man alive."
Hardly, Sarah thought to herself, considering all the things that were slowly killing him. She wondered if she could get him to quit his job at Sullivan's, a bar where he drank for free in return for mopping the floors and bringing the beer kegs up the cellar stairs on his back.
"How do you think I'm going to do in grad school if I'm worried about you all the time?" Sarah asked. "Shouldn't you be trying to make things easier for me?" She knew she sounded petulant, but her father only laughed.
"I can't help it if you want to waste your time that way," Ralph said.
Sarah persisted. "Dad, I need to study ancient Hebrew. Decode biblical texts. Learn how to preach, comfort the sick and suffering. And I will never forgive you if I can't pass my classes because I'm wondering if you fell down the stairs or passed out in the subway."
Ralph turned on the sidewalk to face Sarah. He placed his tremoring hands on her shoulders.
"Who's asking for forgiveness?" His blue eyes narrowed. "You live your life. You're doing great."
That's not fair, Sarah wanted to say. Her father patted her on the back.
"Your job is to go out there and make this God-forsaken world a little better," he told her. "And when my time comes, just roll the body into the street, call the cops and say there's a drunk in the middle of the road. They'll come pick me up and you're done."
Sarah rolled her eyes and turned away. She tried to walk as fast as she could, worried that convocation had already begun, knowing he didn't have the stamina to keep pace.
Sarah tried to put the accident away like a sweater in a drawer, but it clung, static and fuzzy. As time went on it felt as if Rosalind had hit her, not the other way around.
She tried to find ways to relax. If only the people who had sold her the house had not replaced the bathtub with a walk-in shower. She would fill the tub each night and submerge herself in warm, silky water - oh, to experience such a baptism after long days spent listening to parishioners pour out grief and regrets.
There were other ways to let go, she knew. A friend had invited her to go forest bathing, whatever that was. The church offered meditation classes on Monday nights. She had thought about tai chi. But all these things took more time than uncorking a bottle of wine.
Sarah dialed Rosalind's number. It rang only once. Sarah asked if she was willing to see her, and this time Rosalind paused only a moment before saying yes.
They sat at either end of a small table wedged between the galley kitchen and the living room in the apartment in the senior housing complex where Rosalind lived. Sarah had picked up coffees and croissants and placed a bouquet of sunflowers in a blue vase on the coffee table.
"This is all so unnecessary," Rosalind said, looking at the flowers and then down at her lap, where her wrist lay in a cast. There was a boot on her foot, pale toes peeking out. "But very kind."
"I have been thinking of you and praying for you every day," Sarah said.
"And I have been praying for you," Rosalind said, lifting her chin.
"I am always grateful for prayers, so that means a great deal to me. I was so thankful you agreed to see me. I've been very concerned about you."
"I've been concerned, too, about you," Rosalind said. Sarah was silent, wondering how to respond. The conversation felt like a tennis match, verbal volleys back and forth with no real connection.
"I'm OK, Rosalind. I really am. Thank you."
"You should not have been driving. I watched you. You had three glasses of wine at dinner."
"Oh Rosalind, I wouldn't have driven if I'd had that much, really. I -"
"I know what I saw."
"It was raining, and I never saw you behind the car."
"Someone needs to tell you. At every potluck, every event, even the softball game last summer - there you are with a glass of wine or a can of beer in your hand."
Sarah took a breath.
"I feel like I'm on trial, Rosalind. It's not unusual for people to have a drink or two at social occasions. Please."
Rosalind looked out the window. She was silent.
"How do we move past this?" Sarah asked. "What can I say or do to communicate how terribly sorry I am?"
Rosalind looked down at her foot. She then raised her head and set her lips in a grim line.
"This is not about me forgiving you," she said. "I'm healing every day. I'll be fine. This is about you and who you really are and what you want for yourself."
Instead of responding, Sarah put her hand on Rosalind's shoulder, recited a quick blessing and made the sign of the cross. As she rose to get her coat, she wondered what Rosalind meant about who she really was, and what that had to do with a car accident in the rain.
That evening, Sarah began to write a sermon. She would communicate with Rosalind from the sanctity of the pulpit, the place she felt most confident and in control. Perhaps the writing process would silence the noise in her head.
She sat down at her desk in the small study off the kitchen, turned on a lamp and found Matthew 18:21, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. She read the familiar words, Peter asking Jesus, "How long shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "Seventy times seven," and told Peter the story of a king who forgave a servant's debt, only to later discover the servant had refused to do likewise, assaulting a fellow servant who owed him money. The king, outraged, ordered the servant's torture.
Sarah closed the bible. While the parable affirmed the importance of forgiveness, Sarah feared Rosalind might focus on the severe punishment awaiting those unwilling to bestow it. Perhaps the sermon should focus instead on her own discovery that forgiveness could not be expected, or sometimes, even sought. That made more sense, she thought, telling the story of her eagerness to right a wrong and her realization that despite the best intentions, sometimes acceptance, finding the means to live with the unfortunate consequences of one's actions was the only answer.
She texted her sister. You there? Have a sec? Diane was a professor at a state university in New Hampshire. She lived in a cozy post and beam on a country road with views of Mount Monadnock where, this time of year, the leaves were glorious. Diane was the divorced mother of two teenaged girls and Sarah imagined the three of them in the kitchen, peeling apples.
"You go first," Sarah said, when she called a few minutes later. Diane was grading papers, not making a pie, and eager to talk about her daughter Matty, who was refusing to eat after a bad breakup with a boyfriend who had posted pictures of himself with another girl on social media.
"Oh, that's rough. And here I was, hoping we could have a scholarly chat about the nature of forgiveness. Probably not a big word in your household right now."
She hadn't told Diane about the car accident. She did now.
"A sobriety test. Wow, that's unfortunate."
"Well, I passed it. I didn't need to blow into a tube or anything."
"Still, how awful. In the church parking lot, with the board there..."
Sarah was silent, regretting the call. She had explained what happened in a matter-of-fact tone and now her sister was making her feel ashamed. Diane had been sober since her divorce fourteen years ago.
"Sarah, are you ok?"
"I am completely fine. I'm turning this episode into a sermon for next week."
"Gutsy. What do you want to say?"
"I'm closing in on it, not there yet, but something about forgiveness, that we can't assume forgiveness will come our way even when we take steps to repair the damage we caused, but we can accept any outcome because God will always forgive us."
"That's lovely! That's so you."
Sarah felt relieved. She thanked her sister.
"But will you talk about why the accident happened? Beyond the dark stormy night?"
Sarah clenched her jaw. She noticed the shadows in the corner of the study and wondered if something was moving. A bear lumbering toward her.
"Diane, it was raining. I had zero visibility."
"I am not accusing you of anything. It's just that issues with alcohol present differently with women. It's not always that we're chugging a case of beer every night -"
"Please don't project your experience onto me."
"You're not me, not Dad, I know, but for the record in all my years of getting shitfaced I never had a police officer give me a field sobriety test."
"He was very young. He still had acne."
Sarah heard her sister sigh. "It's a family disease. Not a moral failing. I know you think you're the one who got away, and maybe you did, but let me ask you. Do you think about your next glass of wine the way you do, say, bags of baby carrots?
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, do you spend a lot of time thinking about alcohol? Whether you have enough to drink or need to make sure you always have a few bottles of wine in the house? I'm assuming you don't open the fridge every day to make sure you haven't run out of baby carrots. Do you track whether you have bags of baby carrots in the house, whether they'll last you through the week, whether the cashier at the grocery store notices that you were just in last night to buy baby carrots?"
Sarah was thinking about how to end the conversation without appearing defensive.
"I am reaching through the phone to give you a hug," she told her sister. "You are asking these things because you care and that means everything to me. Go bring Matty some ice cream. For the record, I do think about how much ice cream I have left in the freezer. Constantly."
When she put the phone down, Sarah went into the kitchen. In the freezer, behind the boxes of shumai dumplings and bags of frozen peas were two nips of lemon-flavored vodka. They'd been there a while; vodka was not her drink of choice, but there was nothing else in the house and she couldn't go to the liquor store after the call with Diane. She felt completely rattled. She twisted off the caps and poured the nips into a water bottle filled with ice. She sipped through a built-in straw as she made her way to the yoga mat in her bedroom. She would do a class on Zoom, she told herself. She hated downward dog, but she was desperate to feel healthy. And then she would work on her sermon.
That night Sarah dreamt her father was in the bowels of a wooden schooner, the kind once used by New England fishermen to haul cod and mackerel. The wind was tipping the boat and whipping her hair and she kept trying to push it off her face as she peered down the stairs into the cargo hold, looking for Ralph, calling his name, not getting an answer. She could hear him laughing with the crew, could see the men sloshing around knee-deep in seawater. Instead of fish there were casks of beer and whisky starting to bob and float as the water rose. She descended a few steps and saw her father, with the strength of a younger man, pick up a cask and hold it over his head as if it were a trophy. Sarah screamed at him to put it down. Ralph grinned and lowered the cask to his chest, twirling with it like a dance partner while the sailors watched and cheered.
"The water!" Sarah shouted from the stairs, but her father did not respond. She watched as his grip loosened and the cask bobbed away, and he turned from her to swim after it.
Sarah woke in a fog, her mouth dry. She had neglected to close the blinds before she passed out and now the morning sunlight stung her eyes. She blinked and rose from the bed, feeling her way out to the kitchen where she made coffee and looked out in the yard. That's it, she thought. I'm done.
She had said this before.
The cavernous stone church was only half filled, a typical Sunday turnout. As parishioners sang the final verse of a hymn and the organist blared his trumpet finale, Sarah lifted the hem of her long vestments and climbed into the pulpit. She placed the pages of her sermon on the lectern and glanced over her reading glasses at the people in the pews. She saw Rosalind bending to put away her hymnal, leaning on a cane.
"In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," Sarah began. She reminded the faithful that it was All Saints Day, which is why they had read the Beatitudes from Matthew's gospel.
"It was Jesus Christ's version of an inaugural address," she continued. "He calls our attention to the unfortunate - the poor, the hungry. And then he mentions the righteous - the pure in heart, the peacemakers - and blesses them as well.
"We all want to be in that second category, am I right? Receiving our Lord's blessing because we are righteous, not because we are unfortunate. Matthew dares us to be honest with ourselves, because the righteous path to purity and peace in our lives begins with honesty. With rigorous self-appraisal."
Sarah's hands were shaking.
"I want to share a story from my own experience, a time when I sinned but had absolute faith that my own righteous character would prevail, that I would be seen as pure, that I would be bestowed with blessings I sought and forgiveness I deserved."
Sarah looked directly at Rosalind, who looked back, waiting.
"As some of you know, I accidentally struck a member of this church while backing out of our parking lot a few weeks ago. It was a rainy night, and it was hard to see out my rear-view window. And..."
Sarah took a deep breath.
"And, yes, I had been drinking."
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The dinner had gone well, Sarah thought. Moroccan chicken, a heaping platter of saffron rice studded with pistachios and barberries, an olive oil cake made from a recipe brought home from a conference in Jerusalem. Sarah enjoyed cooking for the board, hearing their sighs of appreciation as they savored each bite. She felt confident and proud of what she could do, what she had taught herself to do, whether cooking or preaching.
It was dark and starting to drizzle when she left the house and drove nine tenths of a mile to Grace Episcopal to meet with the board. There were challenging items on the agenda, but this group of lay leaders seemed particularly capable. They were adept at resolving matters facing the church, whether to raise the rent on the Montessori preschool occupying space in the basement or spend scant resources to repave the parking lot. Church membership was on the rise after years of decline, bucking national trends, and the board gave Sarah full credit for that.
By the time the meeting ended and Sarah and the others headed back out into the night, the rain had become relentless. Soaked through, Sarah climbed into her Prius, tossed her wet backpack onto the passenger seat and turned on her headlights, illuminating the small white sign that reserved her space with the single word "MINISTER." It always thrilled Sarah, the fact that she had her own designated parking spot. The church lot was seldom full, but it was a small perk of a job that, while emotionally and spiritually fulfilling, offered few financial rewards. Not that Sarah had ever coveted a big salary. She was 53, single, no children, no expensive hobbies save for a love of cycling vacations in Europe. She had managed to save enough to buy a small bungalow, and someday there would be a modest pension.
Sarah turned on her wipers and looked in the rear view mirror. She checked the screen on her dashboard but the rain had fogged the camera. She checked the screen again, put the car into reverse and moved her foot onto the accelerator.
There was a dull thud beneath the downpour, then a faint cry. Sarah stopped breathing. She put the car in park and stepped back out into the rain.
An elderly woman lay on the ground, legs splayed under the bumper of Sarah's car. Mascara ran in dark tributaries down her cheeks. Her thin blouse clung like a second skin, revealing the shadow of a lace bra.
"Rosalind!" Sarah cried, dropping to her knees, spreading her arms to try to shield the woman's torso from the downpour. "My God, what happened?"
Rosalind was blinking rapidly, seemingly unable to speak. Other board members had left their cars and rushed toward them; they crouched around Rosalind, knees in puddles, asking where it hurt, if she could move. One of the board members, Christine, gently lifted Rosalind's head into her lap, using a scarf to wipe her soaked face.
"I'm not sure we should be moving her," Sarah cautioned.
"We've got you, Rosalind, don't worry," Christine said, ignoring her. "We've called 911."
Sarah felt dazed. Harold, another board member, reached out to touch her arm.
"Sarah, are you all right? What happened?"
Harold lifted her to her feet. Sarah put her hand over her mouth and pressed her wet face into his shoulder.
"I must have hit her when I was backing up," Sarah said, voice muffled. "I don't know how it happened. Maybe she slipped? I didn't see her. She's wearing black. It's so dark."
A cruiser arrived, then an ambulance. Rosalind was strapped onto a gurney and lifted into the back. A police officer, pink-cheeked in the cold and dressed in fluorescent yellow rain gear, approached the huddled group. He looked extremely young to Sarah. He asked if someone could tell him what had happened.
"Officer, this is my car," Sarah said. "I'm the minister here. I was backing out of my space and of course I always check my rear view - and then I heard a bump and got out and Rosalind - she's a member of our board - she was on the ground. I don't know how it happened."
The police officer asked what time Sarah had arrived at the church, when she had exited the building, and what she was doing before the accident.
"We were all at the board meeting," Harold said. "And before that, we were at Reverend Fuller's for dinner."
"Ma'am, any alcohol tonight?" the officer asked, looking at Sarah. Harold stepped toward him.
"Officer, this is our minister. Our spiritual leader."
The police officer nodded at Harold and looked back at Sarah.
"Any drinks tonight?" he continued. "Before you got to church?"
Sarah tried to wipe the rain from her face. Harold motioned the group to move under a portico that protected an access ramp leading into the building.
"Officer, I appreciate your need to ask these questions, but the board had just been meeting about some challenging topics and frankly I was thinking about those issues when I got into the car," Sarah said. "I'm incredibly sorry about what's happened, but I've never had an issue driving."
He asked for her license and registration. Sarah retrieved her purse from the car and handed him the documents, watching as he returned to his cruiser. Board members waited, their heads bent, shoulders hunched against the rain. Sarah wondered what they were thinking. When the officer returned, he handed Sarah her license and adjusted his belt.
"Just due to the circumstances here, ma'am, I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to take a field sobriety test."
Harold shook his head and glared at the officer. "Are you new on the force? This seems excessive. Sarah."
"What does this involve, Officer?" she asked.
"Just standard, ma'am, not a breathalyzer."
Sarah nodded at the officer and looked at Harold. His bare scalp was dripping. Harold told the others they should go home, that he would stay. She was grateful for his show of support.
The officer beckoned Sarah to move toward him as Harold kept watch from a short distance. He instructed her to follow the movement of a pen he held in front of her face, to follow it with her eyes only, without moving her head. Sarah did as he asked and watched for a reaction, but the officer's expression remained blank. He then instructed her to walk nine steps forward, placing the heel of one foot directly in front of the toe of the other. Sarah worried about her balance. She wondered what Harold was thinking, the spectacle of an ordained minister - his minister, the one he'd helped select two years ago, when he was on the search committee - being tested for drunkenness.
When she approached the officer after her walk, she asked, "Was that ok?"
"One more, then we're done," he said, asking her to raise one leg six inches off the ground and count aloud starting at one thousand.
"This is nuts," Harold growled. Sarah ignored him and lifted her leg, voice shaking: "One thousand-one, one thousand-two..."
She tried not to sway or flap her arms. The officer watched and put his hand up when she reached one thousand-twenty-nine.
"OK, ma'am, we're good."
He told her that she would not need a breathalyzer and suggested they go home and get into dry clothes.
"Careful on the road. Enough excitement for one night, right?"
Sarah thanked the officer and Harold and walked carefully to her car, resisting the urge to run. She was shaking as she lowered herself into her seat and covered her face with wet hands.
They were in the kitchen of the old apartment on Standish Street the morning Ralph decided to teach his eldest daughter to drink. Sarah was nine, seated on a stool by the stove watching her father adjust the flame under the frying pan. Each of his pancakes was a beautiful trick, his daughter thought, round and brown, chocolate chips spaced just so, melting into dark eyes and a delicious grin. Sarah had not finished eating when Ralph put down the flapjack, turned off the gas and wiped grease off his hands. He pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes from his back pocket, lit a match, took a deep drag and handed the cigarette to Sarah as if passing her a pencil for a spelling test in school.
"Go ahead," Ralph said, motioning her to take a puff. He chuckled when she choked and then apologized when he saw her eyes fill.
"Kitten, I'm sorry. But you need to learn."
He reached into a cabinet and brought down a dark green bottle of Cutty Sark and a shot glass, pouring it half full.
"Wash it down," he directed, showing Sarah how to throw back her head and let the scotch honey-coat her throat. When she choked a second time, he pulled her in for a hug. He smelled of tobacco and maple syrup and Old Spice.
"I'm just trying to make sure you don't smoke and drink like me," he growled into her hair. "You're a good kid. Now go play in the traffic."
In the morning the clouds were heavy, but the rain was gone. Sarah stood in the kitchen and gazed out at the back yard, wondering whether to call Rosalind. Of course she should call, she chided herself. She wanted to know if the hospital had kept Rosalind overnight, if anything was broken, God forbid. Sarah made oatmeal and then thought it might be better to wait a bit longer before calling. She tried to imagine what Rosalind might say to her after being hit - no, bumped - by accident. Of course, she'd understand, Sarah thought, hardly a case of attempted murder. Not as if she'd been looking for someone to mow down.
She caught herself then, realizing she was thinking more about Rosalind's reaction than what she'd done. The woman was a church member, first and foremost. Not a favorite, Sarah conceded, remembering times when Rosalind had been prickly. Last Easter she'd pulled Sarah aside to complain that the church hadn't ordered enough lilies for everyone to be able to take one home after the service, and didn't Sarah know that was a beloved tradition at Grace Episcopal, dating back many years? She'd insisted Sarah needed to project her voice more forcefully when delivering sermons because while Rosalind could hear her just fine, others were struggling to catch her words and therefore her meaning.
None of this was relevant, Sarah knew. She was the leader of the congregation; it didn't matter whether a parishioner in need was difficult or easy-going.
She went out and knelt in the garden, moist after the evening rain. She grabbed hold of strands of spring onion that were spreading like disease, wrapping the hydrangeas in a suffocating embrace. Her day would begin soon enough, and it was full: a budget committee meeting, working with the office administrator to schedule the summer retreat, remarks for an upcoming conference of clergy in Denver, some time alone to work on next week's sermon. A few calls, a visit to a parishioner making a difficult transition to a nursing home, then dinner, and finally a meeting with a young couple getting married at the church in June.
Sarah turned on the hose. How had she missed seeing her? She remembered opening the car door as the rain pounded the roof, unlatching the glove compartment to see if there was any Kleenex to wipe her dripping nose. Had she turned around in the driver's seat, actually twisted her body to try to see out the back of the car? Checked the side mirrors? Even if she had, would she have been able to see the diminutive Rosalind standing there, a dark shadow in the rain?
She went into the kitchen and picked up her phone from the counter, scrolling through her contacts.
"Rosalind?" It was still early, a little after nine.
"This is her daughter Suzanne. May I help you?"
"Suzanne, this is Reverend Fuller, the minister at your mother's church. I'm calling to check on her. Is she home?"
A moment of silence on the line.
"I'm not sure she's up yet."
"So she's home, very glad to hear it. I didn't know if they'd keep her at the hospital. Tell me, how is she doing?"
"I guess that depends on what you mean. She'll be okay, but she's fractured her wrist and a small bone in her foot. There's some pain. She'll be on crutches for a while. Also a mild concussion."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Suzanne. I'm sure you heard what happened. I would love to come visit, bring some soup, flowers -"
"Thank you. But right now, not sure how to say this, but I think seeing you would be hard for her."
Sarah dropped into a chair.
"I guess I understand. I'll give it some time."
"I think that'd be good."
The sun was coming out. Sarah thought about her day and made a note to stop at an organic grocer between her visit to the nursing home and dinner at home. She would get something she could microwave for dinner quickly, and look for the Argentinian Malbecs, mentioned in the store newsletter as having just arrived, before returning to church for her meeting with the engaged couple.
The night of the accident, Sarah and her younger sister Diane were asleep in their bunks, tucked under plaid sheets and matching blankets. Their mother Joyce was also asleep when, after midnight, the hospital called.
"Your father's been in car crash," Joyce said the next morning after pouring the girls two bowls of Fruit Loops. "He's got broken ribs. They think he hit someone. He was driving back from the VFW, and you know what happens there."
"He drinks too many beers," Diane said, head bowed, crunching her cereal.
"He doesn't drink beer," Sarah said. "He drinks whisky."
"Your father drinks anything he can get his hands on," Joyce said, grimly. "And I've had it up to here."
After breakfast Joyce left her daughters to go to the hospital to collect Ralph. Sarah and Diane did not go to school; Joyce told them they were having a snow day, even though it was still foliage season. They stayed in their pajamas and watched reruns of Eight is Enough and Mork and Mindy. Sarah made her sister eat cottage cheese and carrot sticks for lunch before allowing her a pack of Twizzlers.
Later that afternoon, they heard their parents on the stairs. Once inside the apartment, they watched their father limp to the La-Z-Boy and ease himself down slowly. Sarah stared at their father's arm in a sling, the cuts on his forehead, his swollen eye. Joyce went down the hall to the bedroom and turned on the small television that sat atop the bureau, blaring Hollywood Squares.
"Your mother's mad at me, girls," Ralph sighed. Sarah knelt beside his chair, wrapping her arms around his knees.
"Easy on the old man," Ralph croaked.
"Leave him alone," Joyce yelled from the bedroom. "He's damaged goods."
"Did you crash somebody?" Diane called out from the kitchen table. She was swinging her legs under her chair while coloring a picture of unicorns riding a merry-go-round.
"I don't know," Ralph answered, and closed his eyes.
Harold sat at Sarah's kitchen table, his hands around a mug of coffee. Sarah had summoned him for an update, having suggested he visit Rosalind on her behalf and convey her deepest apologies for the accident.
"Better, I think," Harold said, raising his cup. He paused. "Although she thinks you were very careless."
"I don't know what to do about this," Sarah said. She stared across the room.
"There's nothing you can do except give her time," Harold said. "Well, maybe one thing, if I may be so bold." He cleared his throat.
"One thing," Sarah repeated.
"Have you considered whether you were, in fact, careless that night?"
"Oh Harold, I have gone over it and over it in my mind, again and again, you have no idea how many times. The camera was fogged. I turned. I looked over my left shoulder. Then my right. It was pouring. I saw nothing, no one behind the car."
"The police officer, leading you through that little test."
"Yes. It was awful."
"But, I mean, you had been drinking."
"We all were, remember? We all had a glass or two with dinner. Christine brought the wine."
"Did you have anything else after we left? When we went up to the church?"
Sarah looked at Harold and said nothing for a minute. She went to the fridge to put the milk away. She turned back to him. "I'm sorry, but I'm struggling to understand this. You stood there. You watched me pass that test."
"I'm not accusing you of anything. But Rosalind is wondering how this happened. If I'd been injured, I'd wonder too."
"Well clearly you are wondering, otherwise you wouldn't be asking what you are, in fact, asking me, which is whether I had too much to drink."
"Do you think you did?"
"No, I think the problem was, it was dark and raining. And she was wearing black. Wearing black in the dark on a rainy night. Honestly, Harold. You know me."
"And I'm not questioning your moral fiber or allegiance to God Almighty. I just wonder if you had maybe a tad too much to drink and maybe that threw off your judgement. For a split second."
"No." Sarah got up from the table and took Harold's mug to the sink. She leaned against the counter, folded her arms and looked at him.
"My father was a raging alcoholic," Sarah said. "His father before him. I know what it looks like. It's never been an issue."
"All right then," Harold said, standing, reaching for his jacket.
They were walking through Harvard Yard, past the Widener Library. The trees were ablaze with yellow and red leaves. Students in plaid shirts sprinted across the quad, whirling frisbees. Ralph said it looked like a movie.
"My kid's going to Harvard, unbelievable," he said, tilting his head back to gaze up at the colonial-era brick dormitories. Sarah and her father were passing through on their way to convocation at the divinity school.
"You're the reason I'm here," she told him.
"Get out."
"You told me I could do anything."
Ralph laughed. "I think I was hoping you'd be a lawyer or something, maybe bring home a couple of bucks for the old man. But no, you sign up for a life of poverty."
"Not like I'm going to be a nun, Dad."
"Close to it."
They turned and left the yard and walked toward an open plaza in front of the Science Center. She noticed Ralph's gait was stiff, stiffer than she imagined it should be for a sixty-one-year-old man. He was coughing a lot, still smoking unfiltered Camels, and his hands trembled as he stopped to light up. She waved away the smoke and told him she was worried about him.
"Nothing to worry about, kitten. I'm the luckiest man alive."
Hardly, Sarah thought to herself, considering all the things that were slowly killing him. She wondered if she could get him to quit his job at Sullivan's, a bar where he drank for free in return for mopping the floors and bringing the beer kegs up the cellar stairs on his back.
"How do you think I'm going to do in grad school if I'm worried about you all the time?" Sarah asked. "Shouldn't you be trying to make things easier for me?" She knew she sounded petulant, but her father only laughed.
"I can't help it if you want to waste your time that way," Ralph said.
Sarah persisted. "Dad, I need to study ancient Hebrew. Decode biblical texts. Learn how to preach, comfort the sick and suffering. And I will never forgive you if I can't pass my classes because I'm wondering if you fell down the stairs or passed out in the subway."
Ralph turned on the sidewalk to face Sarah. He placed his tremoring hands on her shoulders.
"Who's asking for forgiveness?" His blue eyes narrowed. "You live your life. You're doing great."
That's not fair, Sarah wanted to say. Her father patted her on the back.
"Your job is to go out there and make this God-forsaken world a little better," he told her. "And when my time comes, just roll the body into the street, call the cops and say there's a drunk in the middle of the road. They'll come pick me up and you're done."
Sarah rolled her eyes and turned away. She tried to walk as fast as she could, worried that convocation had already begun, knowing he didn't have the stamina to keep pace.
Sarah tried to put the accident away like a sweater in a drawer, but it clung, static and fuzzy. As time went on it felt as if Rosalind had hit her, not the other way around.
She tried to find ways to relax. If only the people who had sold her the house had not replaced the bathtub with a walk-in shower. She would fill the tub each night and submerge herself in warm, silky water - oh, to experience such a baptism after long days spent listening to parishioners pour out grief and regrets.
There were other ways to let go, she knew. A friend had invited her to go forest bathing, whatever that was. The church offered meditation classes on Monday nights. She had thought about tai chi. But all these things took more time than uncorking a bottle of wine.
Sarah dialed Rosalind's number. It rang only once. Sarah asked if she was willing to see her, and this time Rosalind paused only a moment before saying yes.
They sat at either end of a small table wedged between the galley kitchen and the living room in the apartment in the senior housing complex where Rosalind lived. Sarah had picked up coffees and croissants and placed a bouquet of sunflowers in a blue vase on the coffee table.
"This is all so unnecessary," Rosalind said, looking at the flowers and then down at her lap, where her wrist lay in a cast. There was a boot on her foot, pale toes peeking out. "But very kind."
"I have been thinking of you and praying for you every day," Sarah said.
"And I have been praying for you," Rosalind said, lifting her chin.
"I am always grateful for prayers, so that means a great deal to me. I was so thankful you agreed to see me. I've been very concerned about you."
"I've been concerned, too, about you," Rosalind said. Sarah was silent, wondering how to respond. The conversation felt like a tennis match, verbal volleys back and forth with no real connection.
"I'm OK, Rosalind. I really am. Thank you."
"You should not have been driving. I watched you. You had three glasses of wine at dinner."
"Oh Rosalind, I wouldn't have driven if I'd had that much, really. I -"
"I know what I saw."
"It was raining, and I never saw you behind the car."
"Someone needs to tell you. At every potluck, every event, even the softball game last summer - there you are with a glass of wine or a can of beer in your hand."
Sarah took a breath.
"I feel like I'm on trial, Rosalind. It's not unusual for people to have a drink or two at social occasions. Please."
Rosalind looked out the window. She was silent.
"How do we move past this?" Sarah asked. "What can I say or do to communicate how terribly sorry I am?"
Rosalind looked down at her foot. She then raised her head and set her lips in a grim line.
"This is not about me forgiving you," she said. "I'm healing every day. I'll be fine. This is about you and who you really are and what you want for yourself."
Instead of responding, Sarah put her hand on Rosalind's shoulder, recited a quick blessing and made the sign of the cross. As she rose to get her coat, she wondered what Rosalind meant about who she really was, and what that had to do with a car accident in the rain.
That evening, Sarah began to write a sermon. She would communicate with Rosalind from the sanctity of the pulpit, the place she felt most confident and in control. Perhaps the writing process would silence the noise in her head.
She sat down at her desk in the small study off the kitchen, turned on a lamp and found Matthew 18:21, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. She read the familiar words, Peter asking Jesus, "How long shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "Seventy times seven," and told Peter the story of a king who forgave a servant's debt, only to later discover the servant had refused to do likewise, assaulting a fellow servant who owed him money. The king, outraged, ordered the servant's torture.
Sarah closed the bible. While the parable affirmed the importance of forgiveness, Sarah feared Rosalind might focus on the severe punishment awaiting those unwilling to bestow it. Perhaps the sermon should focus instead on her own discovery that forgiveness could not be expected, or sometimes, even sought. That made more sense, she thought, telling the story of her eagerness to right a wrong and her realization that despite the best intentions, sometimes acceptance, finding the means to live with the unfortunate consequences of one's actions was the only answer.
She texted her sister. You there? Have a sec? Diane was a professor at a state university in New Hampshire. She lived in a cozy post and beam on a country road with views of Mount Monadnock where, this time of year, the leaves were glorious. Diane was the divorced mother of two teenaged girls and Sarah imagined the three of them in the kitchen, peeling apples.
"You go first," Sarah said, when she called a few minutes later. Diane was grading papers, not making a pie, and eager to talk about her daughter Matty, who was refusing to eat after a bad breakup with a boyfriend who had posted pictures of himself with another girl on social media.
"Oh, that's rough. And here I was, hoping we could have a scholarly chat about the nature of forgiveness. Probably not a big word in your household right now."
She hadn't told Diane about the car accident. She did now.
"A sobriety test. Wow, that's unfortunate."
"Well, I passed it. I didn't need to blow into a tube or anything."
"Still, how awful. In the church parking lot, with the board there..."
Sarah was silent, regretting the call. She had explained what happened in a matter-of-fact tone and now her sister was making her feel ashamed. Diane had been sober since her divorce fourteen years ago.
"Sarah, are you ok?"
"I am completely fine. I'm turning this episode into a sermon for next week."
"Gutsy. What do you want to say?"
"I'm closing in on it, not there yet, but something about forgiveness, that we can't assume forgiveness will come our way even when we take steps to repair the damage we caused, but we can accept any outcome because God will always forgive us."
"That's lovely! That's so you."
Sarah felt relieved. She thanked her sister.
"But will you talk about why the accident happened? Beyond the dark stormy night?"
Sarah clenched her jaw. She noticed the shadows in the corner of the study and wondered if something was moving. A bear lumbering toward her.
"Diane, it was raining. I had zero visibility."
"I am not accusing you of anything. It's just that issues with alcohol present differently with women. It's not always that we're chugging a case of beer every night -"
"Please don't project your experience onto me."
"You're not me, not Dad, I know, but for the record in all my years of getting shitfaced I never had a police officer give me a field sobriety test."
"He was very young. He still had acne."
Sarah heard her sister sigh. "It's a family disease. Not a moral failing. I know you think you're the one who got away, and maybe you did, but let me ask you. Do you think about your next glass of wine the way you do, say, bags of baby carrots?
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, do you spend a lot of time thinking about alcohol? Whether you have enough to drink or need to make sure you always have a few bottles of wine in the house? I'm assuming you don't open the fridge every day to make sure you haven't run out of baby carrots. Do you track whether you have bags of baby carrots in the house, whether they'll last you through the week, whether the cashier at the grocery store notices that you were just in last night to buy baby carrots?"
Sarah was thinking about how to end the conversation without appearing defensive.
"I am reaching through the phone to give you a hug," she told her sister. "You are asking these things because you care and that means everything to me. Go bring Matty some ice cream. For the record, I do think about how much ice cream I have left in the freezer. Constantly."
When she put the phone down, Sarah went into the kitchen. In the freezer, behind the boxes of shumai dumplings and bags of frozen peas were two nips of lemon-flavored vodka. They'd been there a while; vodka was not her drink of choice, but there was nothing else in the house and she couldn't go to the liquor store after the call with Diane. She felt completely rattled. She twisted off the caps and poured the nips into a water bottle filled with ice. She sipped through a built-in straw as she made her way to the yoga mat in her bedroom. She would do a class on Zoom, she told herself. She hated downward dog, but she was desperate to feel healthy. And then she would work on her sermon.
That night Sarah dreamt her father was in the bowels of a wooden schooner, the kind once used by New England fishermen to haul cod and mackerel. The wind was tipping the boat and whipping her hair and she kept trying to push it off her face as she peered down the stairs into the cargo hold, looking for Ralph, calling his name, not getting an answer. She could hear him laughing with the crew, could see the men sloshing around knee-deep in seawater. Instead of fish there were casks of beer and whisky starting to bob and float as the water rose. She descended a few steps and saw her father, with the strength of a younger man, pick up a cask and hold it over his head as if it were a trophy. Sarah screamed at him to put it down. Ralph grinned and lowered the cask to his chest, twirling with it like a dance partner while the sailors watched and cheered.
"The water!" Sarah shouted from the stairs, but her father did not respond. She watched as his grip loosened and the cask bobbed away, and he turned from her to swim after it.
Sarah woke in a fog, her mouth dry. She had neglected to close the blinds before she passed out and now the morning sunlight stung her eyes. She blinked and rose from the bed, feeling her way out to the kitchen where she made coffee and looked out in the yard. That's it, she thought. I'm done.
She had said this before.
The cavernous stone church was only half filled, a typical Sunday turnout. As parishioners sang the final verse of a hymn and the organist blared his trumpet finale, Sarah lifted the hem of her long vestments and climbed into the pulpit. She placed the pages of her sermon on the lectern and glanced over her reading glasses at the people in the pews. She saw Rosalind bending to put away her hymnal, leaning on a cane.
"In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," Sarah began. She reminded the faithful that it was All Saints Day, which is why they had read the Beatitudes from Matthew's gospel.
"It was Jesus Christ's version of an inaugural address," she continued. "He calls our attention to the unfortunate - the poor, the hungry. And then he mentions the righteous - the pure in heart, the peacemakers - and blesses them as well.
"We all want to be in that second category, am I right? Receiving our Lord's blessing because we are righteous, not because we are unfortunate. Matthew dares us to be honest with ourselves, because the righteous path to purity and peace in our lives begins with honesty. With rigorous self-appraisal."
Sarah's hands were shaking.
"I want to share a story from my own experience, a time when I sinned but had absolute faith that my own righteous character would prevail, that I would be seen as pure, that I would be bestowed with blessings I sought and forgiveness I deserved."
Sarah looked directly at Rosalind, who looked back, waiting.
"As some of you know, I accidentally struck a member of this church while backing out of our parking lot a few weeks ago. It was a rainy night, and it was hard to see out my rear-view window. And..."
Sarah took a deep breath.
"And, yes, I had been drinking."
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