“You look like a queen. Regal. As you should.”
I look sad. Lost.
A memory flashes of that giggly afternoon with Fatima, when she took me to try on bathing suits. How nervous I was to see my reflection in a bikini. How excited I was to finally pick one out. Fatima didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with showing off my body at the beach. She thought it was normal and fun. How is it that what is normal for so many people is forbidden for me? A threat to my gift? Why did people make it this way? Why did God make it this way?
“You could at least smile,” my mother says. “People have come from far and wide to see you on this day.”
I plaster a smile on my face.
The car is silent as José drives us to the church.
He is in the front, my mother and I are in the back. I can barely fit inside wearing this dress. My mother is in one of her signature white outfits. The scenery goes by in the window, and I see it, but also I don’t. I know there is ocean and seawall and eventually the church up ahead. The closer we get, the more I wonder if I might pass out. Not because of the tight-fitting gown, but because I am terrified.
What will happen today?
Will I feel my gift returning to my body?
Will it finally be there when I need it? When others do, too?
“José, please pull around back,” my mother directs.
He does as she asks silently.
Don’t we all?
The parking lot is full. Cars spill onto the street. A crowd of people has gathered on the lawn and snakes up to the doors, which are not yet open.
“People are here so early,” I say.
“I’m not surprised,” my mother says. “This is a very special day.” I feel her eyes on me. “And of course, this is your first audience in weeks.”
José pulls up to the private entrance and opens my mother’s door. Then he runs around and opens mine. He doesn’t extend his hand to help me out, even though I’m struggling in this gown. We are back to the way things were. I am Marlena the Untouchable. I don’t even meet José’s eyes as he waits for me to get both feet on the ground. I focus on the task of arranging my skirt and righting myself so I can walk inside. I am halfway to the door when I stop.
What am I doing? Why am I really here? What do I truly think is going to happen when I walk out there onto the stage? That all will be fixed?
“Marlena, hurry. You don’t want people to see you before the audience starts.” My mother acts like I really am a bride and the crowd gathered in front is my groom.
“Marlena?”
I hear José behind me. The way he says my name is an invitation to turn around and go, it informs me that he is willing to drive the getaway car and whisk me to safety. My eyes lower to the ground, to the sand that covers the asphalt in a thin layer, swept here from the beaches. I pick up my skirts and follow my mother inside, the door clicking shut behind us.
There are so many flowers. Their scent is everywhere.
My mother hasn’t let me go out into the church for fear that I will be seen, which will ruin everything and because I am always on the verge of ruin. Isn’t that how I got here in the first place?
She walks through the door to where I wait backstage. “Let’s go over the list of special guests.”
I nod, and listen as my mother explains where the people are sitting, how things are supposed to go. I stop myself from asking how much money each one paid in exchange for my touch.
“What sort of surprises do you have planned today, Marlena?” she wants to know. “I’d rather you clue me in ahead of time.”
The truth is, I’ve avoided thinking about what might happen when I go out there. Or what might not happen.
“Marlena?” My mother’s tone is impatient and a warning.
I shake my head. “Nothing, Mama. I don’t have any plans other than what you tell me I should be doing.”
She studies me. “Of all days, Marlena, this would be the one when you go off script. Give the crowd a little something extra. Something unexpected.”
“Okay, Mama. I’ll see what happens then.”
She eyes me suspiciously. She still doesn’t know what to make of my newfound obedience. “All right then.” My mother glances at the clock. “It’s almost showtime.”
Showtime? Is that what we’re calling it now?
With her heels clicking, my mother comes over to primp and puff my gown. “I’m going to go out and open the audience, Marlena.”
I nod.
My mother is still staring. “Marlena?”
“Yes, Mama. I’m ready.”
I barely hear her heels clicking as she heads out the door again.
So much is riding on this audience.
Everything that matters.
Finn. His life.
I pray to Hildegard, I pray to Julian. I pray to Teresa, with her little sword, and Margery, with her endless tears, and Hadewijch, with her poetry. I beg every one of the mystics and visionaries and healers I have ever read about, known about, studied, because they seem closer to me than God ever has. They seem so much realer than God. Like they might understand where I am coming from because they were human once, too. Women and girls who wanted and hoped and yearned for things like me. Maybe even who loved, once upon a time.
When I walk out onto the stage, all I feel is shame. Shame that I left and came back. Shame for the reasons I did. Shame for what happened while I was gone from this life and shame at the thought that people have heard rumors about me. Shame at the size of the crowd, so many people I abandoned without warning. Shame that they’ve come back as though I never stepped away, as though all is forgiven, just like that. Like maybe I didn’t even need to apologize in the first place.
If they can forgive me, will God?
A tiny flower of hope blooms. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, the moment when I might find out that everything is going to be okay, if I might give Finn back his life, his dreams, his future. Even if it’s a future I won’t be in.
I bite my lip hard, so hard I taste blood.
I take one step, then another, until I am standing at the center of the stage, shoulders back. Chin lifted. Watching. Waiting.
The church looks both familiar and different. My mother went all out on the flower arrangements. It could be Easter, with so many lilies and big white blooms. There is a banner to commemorate the day, and even more people than usual packed in the back. But the seating is the same, the placement of the altar is the same, the platform where I walk out into the crowd is the way it’s been ever since my mother had it installed.
So why does it feel so strange to be here? What am I not noticing or seeing?
I do my best not to focus on any one particular person in the church. I don’t want to have to look anyone I know in the eyes. Not Gertie, not Mrs. Lewis if she is here, not Mr. Almeida, and especially not Fatima or José or Helen. I know Helen is here somewhere, because my mother told me she was coming. I make my eyes go blurry, so I see only colors and movement, until it’s like I’m watching the world from under the ocean.
People start to whisper.
I close my eyes tight.
I search for that familiar feeling, for the physical tug of my gift within me. I wait and I wait and I hope.
Then I hear rustling nearby on the stage.
“Marlena,” my mother hisses. “What is taking you so long?”
I don’t look at her.
Her sigh is worried. Or maybe it’s angry.
The clock ticks by the seconds and minutes.