Darby sat back and thought about what to do. When Erin, a young, vibrant woman with a PhD, took the job at Little Academy, the parents all thought it was something of a miracle. Preschool Poppins had appeared out of the clear blue sky, not with an umbrella, but a rainbow-colored maxi skirt, and who were they to look a gift horse in the mouth? But here lies the reason. Erin Nierling changed her name to Erin Ollie to conceal her identity from a pastor at the RiverRock church. It made sense. He wouldn’t recognize Erin even if she used a name that would honor her dead brother. He might not even know Ollie Nierling had a sister. He wouldn’t put the pieces together until it was too late.
“It’s for the youth center,” Darby told Marcus. It felt like she was turning a camera lens, turning it and turning it and she was finally finding the right focus. “Which means Erin wasn’t stealing money from the church, really. I think she was taking it from Ben, that it was Ben who was siphoning it off already.”
Now what? She half expected confetti to rain down from the ceiling as if she were on a game show—you’ve done it, Darby Morton! Achievement unlocked. But she finds instead that the ends are still loose and floppy and her fingers are too thick and clumsy to tie them together into a bow. Detective Bright is apparently unreachable in Tulsa and Officer Princep still carries the firm belief that a child—most likely Lola—killed Erin. Will Marcus’s evidence be enough to sway him?
It will, she thinks, if she can recruit backup.
Golden hour sinks over the empty playground and the climbing stalks of wildflowers in the garden and the handprint path and its stone steps, and the whole place has the smell of freshly cut grass. Somebody’s left a basketball out on the court, where it sits still and forgotten, and she thinks she hears the faint voices of a choir practicing inside one of the church buildings. So when she climbs out of her car, she experiences a silly, inexplicable little moment in which she’s filled with warm, gooey, heartrending love, the kind that strikes her every so often and without warning and which she always watches and appreciates, like a particularly impressive bubble blown by one of her children that either floats off or pops immediately.
She hasn’t prayed since she was a teenager, but she gives it a try, channeling her inner Mary Beth. She asks God （if he’s up there） to help her discredit Ben Sarpezze, the pastor who—she’s now 100 percent sure—has had every reason to turn on not just her child, but all the children affected. When Darby thinks about the way that man used four-year-olds, with their terrible teeth and bloody tongues, sure, but also their sweet questions about whether ghosts are real and what kind of animals make bacon and whether people can be pets, all the love built up in her heart drops like a stone.
Just then, a tall, shadowy figure crosses the buildings before her eyes. “Was that—？” She looks around as if someone else might be around to confirm, but she’s alone. Alone with her thoughts and her decisions. He disappears into the preschool building and she holds her breath, thinking: What do I do next?
Does God answer prayers this quickly? Are they expedited when sent from church grounds?
If only she didn’t hesitate, she will think. If only she charged after him like a superhero. Her mind will run through the scenario.
She tries Griff. Maybe he’ll know what to do. She tries Mary Beth. Those four minutes will stretch to an eternity when she replays them later, and later, and later.
Because by the time she follows Pastor Ben into the hall, she knows where Mary Beth is—9–1–1, what is your emergency—and it’s already too late.
FORTY-THREE
On the other side of this life, Mary Beth Brandt would tell you that you don’t walk toward a bright light or cross over a rainbow or even hear the voice of God. But you do see your children.
Time works differently during the last few moments of consciousness, she’d let you know. Of course, in those remaining heartbeats, there couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but she felt the weight of each of her daughters on her chest, their smooth backs, softer than peaches underneath her palms, the smell of their toothless breath. She sang to them in the middle of the night, small heads in the crook of her elbow, the world asleep around them. She patted their freshly diapered bottoms. And gradually they grew into toddlers and she counted each new word—Mama, Dada, ball, bear, turtle, duck. She saved locks of hair. They were frightened of Halloween decorations. They learned to share and then forgot. Soon, they were little girls, a stage that for Mary Beth’s youngest, she hadn’t yet seen. But there it was. Jean shorts and camp T-shirts. One loved art, the other karate. They fought and cut their own hair so badly Mary Beth cried. The family had cake when each started their period and Doug tried to play it cool. There were training bras and electric razors and soon enough she had young women with the stress of grades and choices of colleges. There were disappointments and friend fallouts that sank craters into their hearts only to be filled back up again by trips to the movies and secret sister hugs. They made bad fashion choices and left home, broke up with significant others who would have made good partners. They started jobs first doing things they hated and one of them would grow up to do something she loved. Doug saved newspaper clippings. Mary Beth saw her daughters grow up inside her eyes in the time it took her to blink—it all went by in a flash—in the time before she lost it all. Those moments taken from her seemingly forever, never to be returned.
Now sounds filter in slowly, like an AM/FM radio searching for a station. She has no sense of whether she’s hearing the sounds with her ears or whether she even has ears—lobes and ear-piercing holes stretched with age, as they were. She waits, listens, until there’s a sense of gravity and with that the sense of a blanket beneath her fingertips, her body sinking on a mattress.
“I can’t believe she had a stroke,” says a voice. “Can she talk?”
Mary Beth listens in part because it doesn’t occur to her that she can do anything else.
“The doctors think it could take up to a week before she fully recovers normal speech.” Doug. Her Doug. She has so much to tell him, but can’t quite work out how. “We can’t thank you enough. You saved her life.”
Somebody saved Mary Beth’s life? When? Who? She listens with interest, all news to her. She would like to do something to be part of the conversation, but what?
She attempts to move her fingers but finds it extraordinarily difficult. Not impossible, just probably not worth the effort. She opens her mouth and finds that it’s in working order. Up, down, tongue side to side. Okay, then, that’s a relief.
“Does she know?” a third voice asks.
“We’re not sure,” answers Doug. “We’ve explained to her the extent, but it’s hard to tell what all has stuck. We’re taking things slowly.”
“Oh gosh. I— If there’s anyone who can handle it, it’s Mary Beth.”
What a nice thing to say, thinks Mary Beth from within the cave of her mind. Even though she doesn’t have the faintest idea what “it” refers to. Still, she should say a proper thank-you. It’s not right to lose one’s manners even under trying circumstances, maybe especially so. It occurs to her that the best way to join in would be to open her eyes and let everyone know that she is, in fact, awake, so she’s not just eavesdropping.