Rosary girls

68

Scholars believe that a storm rose over Calvary on the day of Christ's death, that the sky grew dark over the valley as He hung upon the cross.

Lauren Semanski had been very strong. Last year, when she tried to take her own life, I had looked at her and wondered why such a determined young woman would do such a thing. Life is a gift. Life is a blessing.Why had she tried to throw it all away?

Why had any of them tried to throw it away?

Nicole had lived with the ridicule of her classmates, an alcoholicfather.

Tessa had survived her mother's lingering death, andfaced her father's slow descent.

Bethany had been the object of scorn for her weight.

Kristi had problems with anorexia.

When I had treated them,I knew that I was cheating the Lord.They had set themselves on a path and I had diverted them.

Nicole and Tessa and Bethany and Kristi.

Then there was Lauren. Lauren had survived her parents' accident only to walk out to the car one night, start the engine. She had brought her stuffed Opus with her, the plush little penguin toy her mother had given her for Christmas in the fifth year of her life.

Today she had resisted the midazolam. She was probably back on the meth. When she punched open the door we were moving at approximately thirty miles an hour. She jumped out. Just like that. There was far too much traffic for me to turn around and get her. I had to just let her go.

It is too late to change plans.

It is the Hour of None.

And although Lauren was the final mystery, another girl would do, one with shiny curls and a halo of innocence around her head.

The wind picks up as I pull over, cut the engine. They predict a massive storm. There will be another storm tonight, a dark reckoning of the soul.

The light inside Jessica's house…