Chapter 10

He could not do it, ever. He could not go through with it. To allow Julia to carve him up, as painfully as possible, without any respite...

Not even for Maggie and Joe...

Was it true that it was needed? Or was it a delayed revenge? He had done terrible things to her in 1967... and while she said that she had forgiven him, had she really?

He would not allow her to do that to him...

Not even for Maggie's sake? for Joe's? For Tammy?"

He owed Maggie... Still he owed her? After all the way she had exploited him, did he still owe her? And Joe? And Tammy?'

Maybe Julia had lied. Maybe she relished the idea of carving him up...

And yet...

He was just afraid, that was it.

What if it was up to him that Maggie and Joe lived or died?

"I might have loved you, I might have spared you, but now you must die."

No!

Maggie had come looking for trouble. She had found it. Why should it be now his responsibility?

But Joe had done nothing to deserve this.

Nor Tammy.

What was he going to do?

George crouched in the cellar of the old house. He did not like waiting here, the gun in his hand, but he was afraid of what Barnabas might do.

Someone had to stop him.

It might not happen. He might have misjudged him... But someone had to protect Maggie and Joe...

Barnabas went down the stairs, slowly, his head bent, his face troubled.

George's heart shrank.

"Stop!" he shouted.

Barnabas looked at him with surprise.

"George..."

"You are not smashing the statues."

"Smash the statues?" There was surprise in Barnabas' voice.

"If you don't want to, we'll find another way. We'll try Verhoff again. Strike some deal. Or go around him. Just don't destroy the statues. Give them a chance."

"I never thought of it." Barnabas lowered his head. For a fleeting moment he had though of it. Because he had been tempted to say to Julia to he'd do it. And then the only way not to give to the temptation... but the moment had passed. "I could not do that to Tammy. Not the way she looks at me, full of hope. I cannot take that hope from her."

"Barnabas..." George lowered his gun. "I am sorry."

"Don't be. The way I act these days. And my past behavior could make you doubt,... and the temptation is always there." Barnabas shivered "George, please hold me."

George did so.

"I am so tempted to say yes to Julia. And so scared at the same time. It is torture, George... And I do not know how long I can bear it... But Tammy is the closest thing I have to a daughter. And Maggie... I owe her, I put her through Hell, and then pretended that nothing had happened. She had forgotten, and I was happy to keep it that way..."

"She got her pound of flesh from you."

"Not in a way that gave her satisfaction. Not in a way that healed her."

"It is the best."

"I am a healer now. In Wyncliffe I can heal people, I can see them straighten up their lives. But I cannot heal Maggie. I have to see the ugly thing that I did twist her, and I want to make it right, but I cannot... Maybe this way...

The words that the man had said remained with Julia. Sometimes the best thing that you can do with someone you damaged greatly is not inflict yourself on them anymore, and let them go on... Maybe when she finds more important things to do, she will be able to forgive me...

Or at least tolerate them...

Maybe that was all that she and Barnabas could hope with Maggie... Keep their distance. Let her lead her own life, carrying her scars, and stop pretending that they could make things right for her. They could not, anymore than they could return Barnabas' family to him. Sometimes all you could do is keep going, and know that there were things that were not in your power to fix.

The friendship between Maggie and Barnabas was poisoned. he wanted to make it right for her, to erase her scars. And she wanted some way to get back what she lost... And it could not be done.

Barnabas had to get off her life, stop trying to offer what he could not deliver. And she had to accept that she would carry scars, and make the best of the life she had...

That friendship had been impossible from the start. A potential minefield ready to go on any seconded She shivered when she recalled him courting Maggie in 1969-70 thank God, it had gotten nowhere...

He had hurt Maggie beyond what was possible. And she had betrayed Maggie, betrayed her oath as a physician...

Only, a stern voice told her, Maggie was not the first patient she had abused... only the last...

It could not be fixed now. There was no magic wand that would remove the damage she had done. People had to live with the results of her own bad choices...

And she had to live with the knowledge what an ethical failure she had been, and not known it...

So why torture Barnabas? to make it right for Maggie?

No, just to give her a chance to go on living, to seek her own path, and to reach the point where she had better things to do than to get even with Barnabas..

Sam Evans' face hung in the air facing him. Not saying a word. Looking at him with blind eyes.

Eyes that he had destroyed by putting him in Angelique's way...

And then his eyes focused, and it was the expression he had when he had come deliver his portrait, unknowingly to the house where his daughter was held prisoner.

Sam Evans's eyes as he looked for hope and found none...

And Maggie watched from above, gagged, how he tortured her father.

"You can return my daughter." Sam said hollowly " Why don't you do it? Is your blood so damn precious?"

"It is not the blood... it is. how it will be taken, he tried to explain."

Sam gave him a withering look and vanished.

Barnabas knew that he could not stay inside. He had to find refuge, some way to think straight, some calm.

So he found himself in front of the church.

He entered it. All alone in the dark. He could not banish his fear and his shame, but he could pray. He could use the gift he had been given.

He went down to his knees, thinking again of Bathia... She had not been afraid, even though she would burn to death...

She was not afraid.

But he was...

Sam Evans' reproach hung on him. He had done a cruel thing once, kidnapping Maggie and tormenting her and her family, and one thoughtless thing, make Sam the target of Angelique's wrath...

And now he was asked to do one selfless thing. One brave thing.

And he was not brave enough.

He bent his head and prayed...

Prayed for courage, for being able to go to Julia and tell her that he would do it.