EXPECTING AND EXPECTATIONS

(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with JOAN OF ARCADIA. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it.

(Author's Note: This story is part of a series that takes place in the year after the show ended. A listing of the other stories is on my profile. As far as this story is concerned, the two main changes are:

Helen knows Joan's secret but has not decided yet what to do about it.

Kevin has married Sister Lily and the couple are expecting a baby).

(Author's Note: Unit7 suggested a story focusing on Lily after marriage, so I decided to write this)

Chapter 1 The Dream

In the parking lot of the Church, Lily Girardi opened her car door and slipped behind the wheel. Her swelling abdomen made the motion a little awkward, and she reflected that it would get worse as the pregnancy progressed. It didn't bother her too much. Her husband Kevin was partially paralyzed; making do with a physical problem was a daily part of their lives. Besides, having a baby would be worth the little inconveniences.

She drove to the parking lot entrance. Sydney Street was busy with traffic, and she patiently waited for a safe chance to turn left.

A few dozen feet away, she saw her former Mother Superior emerge from the church's main entrance and stand at the curb waiting for the traffic light to change before walking across. Lily would have to wait for that, too, since her route took her across that crosswalk.

The light changed and the abbess started across. A car approached on Sidney Street, going too fast. It hit the brakes on seeing the red light, but not soon enough.

"WATCH OUT!" Lily yelled.

Nobody could hear her, her window was up. She watched helplessly as the car hit the older woman and she fell out of sight.

"NOOOOOO!" Lily screamed.

Then she woke up.

Lily sat up, frightened and disoriented. She wasn't in a car at all. She and her husband were in their bedroom, in her in-laws' house, and it was dark night.

"Lily, are you OK? Is it the baby?" asked Kevin's voice.

Lily hastily put her hand on her stomach. "The baby's OK. I just had a nightmare."

"Hate those. Something preying on your mind, or do you think it's just hormones?"

"Dunno." She lay back in bed and snuggled up against her husband, who wrapped an arm about her. It was in bed that Kevin's disability could be most easily ignored: no wheelchair in sight, the crippled legs hidden under bedclothes, and no reason to move the entire body. It was only when making love that things got awkward. If Lily had had prior experience of sex she might have called them downright weird, but she had stayed a virgin until her wedding night with Kevin. Anyway they had managed, well enough for her to be carrying his baby now. Focusing on happy family life, rather than an imaginary dream crisis, she managed to fall asleep again.

Breakfast the next day involved just Kevin, Lily, and Helen. Will had had to go to the office early, and Kevin's younger siblings, Joan and Luke, were both away at college. Lily described her dream.

"Aren't you meeting with the Mother Superior today?" asked Helen.

"Yeah, she's coming to visit Father Ken, but she did ask if I'd be there."

"Nervous about it?"

"A little. But why would I want her to get hurt?"

"No, no, Lily, you shouldn't look at a violent dream as wanting somebody to get hurt," said Kevin. "I had therapy when dealing with the consequences of my accident, and they explained some things about dreams. They come from the unconscious mind, the id, the animal mind. They aren't under the control of the superego, what you would call your conscience, and there's no reason for you to feel guilty about dreaming something."

"But it must mean something."

Helen looked pensive, and Lily remembered how, on one odd occasion, she had asked Lily about the power of dreams. Finally she said, "Not necessarily, Lily. Just random thoughts flitting around in your head. The Mother Superior was once an important part of your life, and nowadays you must sometimes brood about Kevin's car accident. The two thoughts collided, that's all."

"I suppose so. I'll just forget about it."

Lily almost forget about them during the day. She dropped Kevin and his wheelchair off at his newspaper job, then drove to the church to perform her counseling duties. There were two appointments scheduled today. The first was a pregnant woman, as big as Lily herself, but unmarried and anxious about the future. It was wise of Father Ken to let a woman like Lily handle a uniquely female problem. But it was a long session, and afterwards Lily had to visit the ladies' room. When she emerged, she saw her former mother abbess walking down the hallway toward her. That sparked a memory of her dream, but Lily thrust it out of her mind.

"My, Lily, you look radiant. How much longer--?"

"I'm due in early spring."

The other woman raised her hand tentatively. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

The Mother Superior placed her hand gently on Lily's abdomen. "Bet you never thought you'd be doing this with one of your nuns," Lily said lightly. She felt a little awkward as the abbess touched her stomach.

The other woman smiled. "No, but I cannot make or see the future. Only God can do that, and this was your future."

"So you don't resent my leaving the abbey?"

"Your calling is between you and God, Lily. As you younger generations might put it, I am "cool" with it if God is."

They spoke a little more, and Lily's anxiety was calmed. She was at last assured that the abbess didn't take her departure as a personal reflection on her leadership and that Lily had had issues that had nothing to do with the Mother. Feeling much better now, Lily decided to go out and do some shopping.

The modern parking lot always looked weirdly prosaic next to the ornate church. Lily supposed that there had always been contrast where the church bordered the everyday world. A century or more ago, this area would not consist of parking spaces but hitching posts for horses, and the lot would probably be filthy with their droppings, just a few dozen feet away from the abode of God. Weird thought, but she was having a lot of weird thoughts today.

At the entrance of the parking lot, she watched the thick traffic on Sydney Street. To her left, she saw her mother abbess leave by the church's main door and start across the street, heedless of the fact that one car was going too fast to obey the red light.

"WATCH OUT!"

No effect. Lily watched helplessly as the car hit the older woman and she fell out of sight.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

And this time, Lily did not wake up from a dream. This was for real.

TO BE CONTINUED

(Author's Note: Sir Philip Sydney was a writer in Shakespeare's time, and he wrote a story called ARCADIA. It would be natural for a city named Arcadia to give his name to a street)