St. Martin's Episcopal Church

Woodley Park

Washington DC

Elizabeth

It took her a few moments to make her way through the crowd lingering n the courtyard and gathering in the hall. Everyone always wanted to say hello, to tell her one small thing, good or bad, about their week, to connect. And she would listen to them, would connect with as many of them as she could. But eventually she made her way up the stairs to the library to find the one person who she now knew, actually needed her.

She stood in the doorway a moment, just looking. He had to be strong, she knew, to have made it this far, but at this moment there was something so young and vulnerable about him. Something about the set of his shoulders as he bent over his books, the back of his neck above his collar, his seemingly eternally mussed hair. She wanted to defend him and protect him and throw her arms around him and kiss him all at once.

I can't make him talk to me, she thought, I can't make him start to heal. This has to happen in his own time. I just wonder how close he is, I remember how afraid I was when I couldn't carry it all any longer.

Then

Office of Rev. Harold Wickham D. D.

Department of Philosophy

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

She couldn't. She couldn't do it. She couldn't even consider it. She couldn't even breathe. "I'm sorry sir," she managed to stammer out. "I don't think I can do that."

"Now don't be silly Miss Baxter." Rev. Wickham said in that booming British voice. "The student health clinic is open and free to all students. According to reports you practically rode down the steps of the Widener library on your backside yesterday. I understand that ice is an unusual occurrence in Georgia but you simply must me more careful. Now since you seem to be unable to sit down today I must insist that you seek medical attention."

And then I'll have to take my clothes off, she thought, and they'll know and..and… "I'm sorry, sir, I just can't."

She couldn't meet his eyes. She couldn't meet his eyes, she couldn't bear it if..if… But he was reaching out and taking her hand and… "Look at me Bess." His voice was quieter than a moment ago, impossibly gentle. "Look at me." She looked up and saw nothing but sorrow and compassion. "Your grandmother told me what happened. Now will you tell me as well? Let me help you."

She sobbed, a broken lost sound, and it began.

Now

St. Martin's Episcopal Church

Woodley Park

Washington DC

Spencer

The small library was the perfect place to spend an hour or so. It was blissfully quiet, gently lit by the large windows, and smelled of old books and polish and coffee brewing downstairs. That it was also on holy ground was a point that Spencer noted, along with noting that he had neither headache nor stomach at the moment, and then set aside for consideration at a later time. For now he was quite content to lose himself in the stack of books he'd placed on the table before him.

He was so lost that he only dimly noted the sound of someone in heels coming up the stairs and down the hall, only vaguely realized that that someone had entered the room or slipped a book off the shelves. It wasn't until she lightly cleared her throat that he realized that Elizabeth was standing behind him.

"I HAVE done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did ;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now to impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he, which can have learn'd the art
To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,
Others—because no more
Such stuff to work upon, there is—
Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes."

She read in the quiet hush before coming to sit beside him at the table.

"You should finish it." He said, when the faint, calming spell of the words was broken.

She shook her head. "It's not polite to flatter oneself."

Silliness, he thought. He took the book from her and finished,

"If, as I have, you also do
Virtue in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too,
And forget the He and She ;

And if this love, though placèd so,
From profane men you hide,
Which will no faith on this bestow,
Or, if they do, deride ;

Then you have done a braver thing
Than all the Worthies did ;
And a braver thence will spring,
Which is, to keep that hid."

He closed the book and looked at her.

"Are you all right?" She asked, as she reached up and brushed that curl back from his forehead.

He reached up and clasped her hand to his temple. She smelled like gardenias, he realized, and incense and something very warm. No, he thought, I am not all right. I cannot watch you in mass because when I hear someone read the bible I end up back in two of the worst days in a life made up of some very bad days. And I don't want to tell you because I don't want you to be afraid or to know how I failed or to know just what a broken mess I am. But I am coming undone here in a way I do not deserve. "If you're looking for someone with a perfectly clean slate I'm afraid you're on the wrong bench." He said, finally looking at her.

There was something sad and kind in her eyes. She reached down and took his other hand in hers. "Well I'm not changing benches." She said so quietly.

There was a bit of a commotion on the stairs. "Reverend Bess? Reverend Bess?" Some overstuffed church lady was coming around the corner and caught them sitting there, far too close.

Spencer instinctively took her hand down to where they were knee to knee, and could feel Elizabeth mature a good ten years even as he sat up straighter and put on the sensation of being an Agent and pushed down that emotion that had very nearly choked him. "Yes, Marge?" She was asking.

"Oh. Um. Mercy Roberts is here with her new baby. I, uh, thought you'd want to see."

"I'll be down in a moment. Thank you." Elizabeth waited until the now befuddled woman went back downstairs before turning back to him. "You're welcome to stay, if you like. But I think we're about to be the talk of the kitchen."

"I think you're right." They both managed to grin, if only for a moment. "I'll have some coffee. I thought I saw Doctor Hargrove in the courtyard. If he's still here I should say hello."

"Yes, he usually stays through coffee hour. We have a number of people here from the universities, you may know a few."

Spencer had yet to let go of her hands, they rested so easily in his. "So what happens now?' He asked.

"Well, I have an hour to say hello to everyone, hold Mercy Robert's baby, eat about a half-dozen or so cookies and hopefully my sandwich, then I have to prep for another mass at three. Then I have the monthly vestry meeting at 4:30, after which I usually go home and eat cold cereal and watch Star Trek until my brains stop leaking out my ears."

He frowned just a little at all that. "That's not exactly what I meant." She knows, he thought, she knows something's wrong with me. She knows.

She smiled and squeezed his hands a little tighter. "How about take out at my place tonight? If you don't mind Star Trek."

And she's not sending me away. "Never. Deal." They smiled and finally let go and he turned to gather his notes back into his bag. Only then did he realize what she was wearing. It was a long black dress, fitted to the waste then full to her ankles, with a high, Roman collar and Doctoral chevrons on her full sleeves.

Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde…

"What are you wearing?" He asked her.

"A cassock." She told him. "It's what you wear under vestments. I decided to go with one dress weight; it's easier than trying to change in and out all day. Why?" She looked over and frowned. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I know what you were planning to do with her…

"No. No, I'm fine. I was just curious." It was just a dream, he thought, just a dream. "What do you want for dinner tonight? I'll go pick it up while you're in your meeting."

"What ever you like."

"Pizza?" At her nod he went back to straightening the books. "Do you know what a Gaga Twitter is?"

That stopped her a moment. "We have teen-agers downstairs, we can ask."

"Isn't that kind of embarrassing? I mean, to admit you don't know. I've found it makes you look really..geeky."

Elizabeth shrugged. "I'm a minister, I'm supposed to be a geek."


Poem is The Undertaking by John Donne. Written before 1635 and no longer under copyright.