The Darkest Evening Of The Year

Chapter 48

At a few minutes past two in the morning, Amy woke from a dream full of the sound of wings. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she did not recognize her surroundings.

An end-table lamp draped with a towel served as a night-light.

Santa Barbara. The motel. They had found accommodations that accepted dogs, one room that had not been taken for the night.

Brian had finally gotten her into bed; but it was her own bed, one of two in the room. And a watchdog slept with her.

As she had shaken off sleep, she had thought that the thrumming of wings was in the room, not in the dream. That could not be true because both Brian in the other bed and Nickie beside her remained asleep.

She remembered nothing of the dream, only the sound of pinions plying the air. In sleep, she must have returned to Connecticut, and the gulls must have been startled into flight yet again.

According to psychologists and sleep specialists, you could never see yourself die in a dream. You might be in prolonged high jeopardy, but at the penultimate moment, you would wake. Even in dreams, they claimed, the human ego remained too stubborn to admit to its mortality.

Amy, however, had seen herself die in dreams. Several times, always in that Connecticut night.

Perhaps subconsciously she had a death wish. That didn’t surprise her.

On that winter night almost nine years before, she had fought for her life and survived. Then for a while, ironically, she’d had no compelling reason to live.

In the days immediately after, she wondered why she had fought back. Death would have been easier than living. The pain that nearly tore her apart could have been avoided by submitting to the knife.

Even in her darkest moments, she would never have committed suicide. Murder included self-destruction.

Her faith got her through, but not faith alone. Her ability to see patterns in chaos, when others saw more chaos, served her well.

Patterns implied meaning. No matter how inscrutable the meaning might seem, no matter that an understanding of it might forever elude her, she was encouraged by the perception that meaning existed.

She read the patterns in life the way other people might read tea leaves and palms and crystal balls. But her interpretation wasn’t guided by a code of superstitions.

Intuition alone determined for her what the patterns meant and what they suggested she should do. To her way of thinking, intuition was a word for perceptions that were received on a level far below the subconscious. Intuition was seeing with the soul.

Plugged in and charging on the nightstand, her phone rang. She disliked all the musical tones and the cartoon-voice tones and the raucous sounds with which phones “rang” these days. Hers just burred quietly.

Surprised to get a call at this hour, she snatched up the phone before it could wake Brian, and said softly, “Hello?”

No one responded.

Although Brian continued to sleep, Nickie had awakened. She raised her head to watch Amy.

“Hello?” she repeated.

“Oh. Is that you, dear? Well, yes, of course it is.”

The sweet, high-pitched voice was unmistakable. Amy almost said Sister Mouse, caught herself, and said, “Sister Jacinta.”

“You’ve been in my thoughts so much lately, Amy.”

Amy hesitated. She thought of the slippers. She felt now as she had felt then, when Nickie insisted she take the slippers. “Sister…You too. You’ve been in my thoughts.”

Sister Jacinta said, “You’re always in my heart of course, you were one of my very favorites, but lately you’re in my thoughts all the time, all the time, so I thought I better speak to you.”

Emotion tied a knot in Amy’s vocal cords.

“Dear? Are you all right with me-I mean, the middle of the night like this?”

Speaking hardly above a whisper, Amy said, “Just tonight I told Brian, a friend…told Brian about back then, our mascot Nickie.”

“That wonderful, wonderful dog.”

“And the locket you gave me.”

“Which you still wear.”

“Yes.” With her forefinger, she traced the contours of the canine cameo.

“This friend, dear, do you love him?”

“Sister, I’m sorry, but I’m kind of…struggling here.”

“Well, love is or it isn’t. You must know.”

Amy merely murmured now. “Yes. I love him.”

“Have you told him?”

“Yes. That I love him. Yes.”

“I meant have you told him all of it?”

“No. I guess you know. I haven’t yet.”

“He needs to know.”

“It’s so hard, Sister.”

“The truth won’t diminish you in his eyes.”

She could barely speak. “It diminishes me in my own.”

“I’m proud you were one of my girls. I say, ‘See her, she was one of my Mother of Mercy girls, see how she shines?’”

Amy had come to tears again, quiet tears this time. “If only I could believe that was true.”

“Remember to whom you’re talking, dear. Of course it’s true.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just tell him. He very much needs to know. It is imperative. Now get some sleep, child, get some sleep.”

Although Amy heard no change in line tone, she sensed that they had been disconnected. “Sister Jacinta?”

She received no reply.

“Oh, Sister Mouse, sweet Sister Mouse.”

She placed the phone on the nightstand.

She turned on her side, toward Nickie. Face to face, Amy put one arm around the dog. Those eyes.

Amy shuddered, not because of the call itself, but because the call must mean that something terrible was coming.

Sister Jacinta, Sister Mouse, had been dead for ten years.