Pastor Huntley's three o'clock appointment, a married couple who emerged from his office smiling through tears and holding hands, finally departed after shaking the pastor's hand a few minutes after four. Augusta had been scheduled to see the pastor at 3:30 and had waited on a comfortable tapestry sofa balanced on little claw feet, in the tiny waiting room outside Pastor Huntley's office while the pastor's secretary answered a phone that never seemed to stop ringing and chatted and joked with the smiling assistant pastors and church employees who dropped by every few minutes to visit. Watching the parade of happy, content people, Augusta was so distraught she felt ill. But what had finally nearly sent her fleeing from the church was a group of children from the church preschool filing by clapping, laughing, and singing a song led by their teacher. Augusta's stomach knotted and she had to look away.
There were so many people here living normal lives without her burden, and Augusta desperately wanted to be one of them, coming to chat with the pastor's secretary or calling to ask a question about this mission trip or that Sunday school class. Instead, here she sat, waiting to talk to her pastor about a thorn of guilty despair that had quickly grown into a stabbing thicket since she had moved here at her grandmother's invitation to Asheville a few months before. It tore at her whenever she saw children's clothing in the department stores at the Asheville Mall or Biltmore Square Mall when she went shopping, baby food at the supermarket, or tourists coming into the visitors center at the Chamber of Commerce where she worked, who bought ball caps or shirts for their toddlers who often sat contentedly in their strollers and gurgled happily as they tried to catch the colored bits of light that fell from sun-catchers hanging in the windows. Augusta could barely hold her tears back if a baby cried in a restaurant, and she stared, feeling dead inside if a group of schoolchildren on a field trip ever wandered by the Chamber of Commerce as they scrutinized the statues, sculptures, architectural treasures, and other artworks along the Asheville Urban Trail.
Since moving to Asheville, she had felt listless, and numb to the city's beauty and to her grandmother's concern. She couldn't tell her grandmother. Couldn't tell anyone. She couldn't tell a soul she had killed her child – that she had let a man she hated now and wasn't especially fond of then convince her to kill a child that she had grown convinced would have been a daughter. She wanted to die, except she was sure she would burn in hell because after all, that was what happened to murderers. So she had come here to her church first – she could barely stand it, but the truth was that she had come to speak to Pastor Huntley to learn how to make peace with her dead little girl. She might even try to make peace with herself, though she doubted that was possible. Then she would go home to her nice apartment in that beautiful old building – just one in the sea of beautiful old buildings that made up downtown Asheville – and she would kill herself. Or perhaps she would drive out on the Blue Ridge Parkway, "America's Most Scenic Drive," which ran through Asheville on its way to the tallest mountains in the Eastern United States to the east and to the Cherokee Indian Reservation to the west, drive somewhere far out on the Parkway and jump from an overlook. Or, and this seemed the best option, find some way to sink her car in Lake Lure or the French Broad River, then walk far into the forests of the Western North Carolina mountains, where her remains wouldn't be found for months, if ever at all, and kill herself there. If she just disappeared it would probably be gentler to her grandmother. If she left a mess of blood and bone chips for someone else to clean up it would just break Granny's heart, because the poor old woman would have thought there could have been something she could have done to stop it. Yes... better to "disappear."
"Ms. Jackson?" Pastor Huntley leaned down and Augusta looked up to see him gazing at her with warm concern. Behind him, his secretary had half-risen from her chair and was staring with the same concern, as if there was nothing more important for her to do than help the pastor comfort this woman who had murdered her child.
And Augusta realized she had been weeping into her hands, and tried to stop, and to dry her eyes on her sleeve.
"I'm sorry," she said, her breath hitching, "Please, can we talk now? I can't wait another minute... I've been waiting since about 3:15, and I saw the children walk by..." – she fought not to burst into tears again and felt the blood vessels in her eyes throb – "I saw the children walk by and I can't stand it any more. Help me, please."
Pastor Huntley didn't bother leading her into his office. He sat down beside her on the sofa and listened as she talked. His secretary brought a box of tissues and cups of coffee, then sat back down behind her desk, switched off her phone, and began to work a crossword puzzle, and to Augusta's relief, did not eavesdrop. It was as if the worst sins imaginable were poured out on the tapestry sofa on its little claw feet every day, and she thus had no need to listen in or be shocked because to her the gravest sins had become commonplace. Augusta didn't know if that was admirable or terrible, but she was grateful, and told the pastor about the dead places in her heart.
"I moved here back in the winter," she said, wiping her eyes with a crumpled, soggy tissue, "I had to get away from my boyfriend – my ex- boyfriend."
Pastor Huntley nodded.
"We'd been living in a town in Illinois called Silent Hill. It's in between Springfield and Bloomington-Normal. It's hilly there, and Silent Hill is built beside a big lake and surrounded by Paleville National Park. We'd moved there from Hot Springs, Arkansas – that's were we were both from – because he got an offer to manage a hotel in Silent Hill. And me... well, I worked at the visitors center in Hot Springs, and I worked in the visitors center in Silent Hill, and now I work in the visitors center here in Asheville. It's something I've always been good at – I just love places, and I like working with people, and if I can help someone enjoy a beautiful place, then I'm happy..."
"I'm sorry. I'm rambling –"
Pastor Huntley interrupted, "No, honey... You take all the time you need. Just say what's on your mind; tell me what's upsetting you. This may be one of the biggest churches in town, but we all love you here. You just let it all out." Which was something her grandmother would say, and Augusta smiled in spite of herself at the thought of this man, at least six foot seven, balding and white, and bulging with muscles that refused to turn to fat in his middle age, could sound so like that little black woman who kept a front yard overflowing with flowers despite her arthritis, who had never stood more than five feet tall, and was so thin and wispy that to walk across a parking lot on a breezy day was to be pushed about wherever the wind wanted her to go.
"Thank you," she said, and dabbed at her eyes again. "We – my boyfriend and I – lived together. We weren't married and I know that was wrong, and I got pregnant, and I know that was wrong too. But then..."
She paused, knowing that to say it was to never stop sobbing again.
"But then..."
She covered her face with her hands.
"He said we weren't ready. He said maybe after things were more settled, or maybe when we both had more money and better jobs. Maybe just some other time." She stopped and couldn't say any more.
Pastor Huntley took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His church, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, had more than two thousand members, and every day he spoke to people in the worst pain of their lives. He comforted people who had contracted AIDS or had developed cancer. He prayed with those whose loved ones were gravely ill and in one of Asheville's hospitals or hospices. He counseled married couples working toward forgiveness for infidelity. And from time to time, he talked with women who had gone through abortions – now he was talking with Augusta Jackson, who attended the eleven o'clock service every Sunday morning with her grandmother, who was the apotheosis of a little old lady and was never to be seen on church property not wearing one of her stylish hats. Augusta's grandmother, Louisa Jackson, had been a member of Mount Pisgah Baptist for decades and had talked of nothing for the past year except for how excited she was that her beautiful granddaughter was finally moving close by, the first Jackson to come back home to the mountains since Augusta's daddy and his brothers had joined the military and all gone off to the Little Rock Air Force Base down in Arkansas – and why a North Carolinian would want to live in Arkansas was beyond her.
It was nice to finally see someone in the family showing a little sense Louisa would always say with a laugh.
"Well..." Pastor Huntley began, "You aren't the first woman who's ever gone through this, and I'm sorry to say you won't be the last."
" I thought I was stronger than that," said Augusta, "How can anyone be so weak they'd actually agree to abort their own child, their own flesh and blood – kill that little baby growing inside them – just to make that awful son of a bitch happy?" She was shouting now and stopped, swallowed, and apologized.
"There's no need for any sort of apology," Pastor Huntley smiled. "I told you to let it all out, and I expect you to. And I think it's a good sign that you're sorry about what happened and that you're angry about why it happened. That tells me you can heal and go on and live a good life. It tells me you don't have to let this eat at you for the rest of your time on this earth. And it tells me that by the end of it all, you're going to have quite a testimony to share with other women, especially those unwed and pregnant who might be thinking about having an abortion. And lastly, it tells me you've likely got a lot more on your mind, so tell me about it. That's what I'm here for and what this church and everyone in it are here for, so get it all out while you're surrounded by people who care about you."
Augusta stared at him, agape. She hadn't expected this. She looked over to the pastor's secretary, who was still working her crossword puzzle as calmly as before. She hadn't thought about how it might feel to have hope, for the first time since leaving Silent Hill, and it shocked her. She hadn't thought about healing, or going on to live a good life.
"Didn't think you'd hear someone say that, did you?" asked the pastor. "I believe you're going to find that praying for forgiveness will solve a lot more problems in life than you'd expect."
Augusta's heart sank in an instant. Something like this couldn't be forgiven, especially since she had aborted her daughter – she was sure the baby would have been a little girl if given a chance to be born – because she was too chickenshit to stand up to Joseph, who had said they weren't ready for a child when in fact they were are ready as they were ever going to be. Especially when she had killed her daughter because her boyfriend, Joseph North, simply hadn't wanted a child. Because he had wanted to concentrate on his work at the expense of a woman who loved him – had loved him, perhaps briefly, perhaps at the very beginning of their relationship since he seemed to have been working diligently since then to smother even the small spark of affection she had for him, Augusta corrected – and who thought that perhaps to do as he suggested would be to win security with him, perhaps even love, even though there was probably no chance in hell of that. Especially when she had murdered her daughter because Joseph had as much as admitted that he didn't have time for her and sure as hell wouldn't have time for a child in his life, and wouldn't want to have to support his unwanted child. After all, it would fuck up his concentration on his work and his plans to move up to a hotel even bigger and better than the venerable Lake View. As if someone couldn't raise a child and take care of a woman and manage a hotel at the same time. It was a sorry bastard who couldn't, but at the end, Augusta had realized that Joseph was tolerating her, and nothing more, and that she hadn't loved him in months and only stayed with him because the money he made managing the Lake View Hotel provided her with quite a comfortable life.
Maybe if he had loved her and she him, together they could have raised a child and cared for each other and he could have managed his grand old hotel, all at the same time. But the past was dead and rotting in its grave. She had learned that a union built on hope for love instead of love itself was not worth killing a baby girl for. After her love for him died and his initial affection for her had burned out, she had hoped he would love her again and nourish the memories of her love for him, and coax them to bloom again into new love. And until then she was enjoying his money, and had agreed to anything she thought might have a chance to transform her hope into something other than a months-long waste of time.
And to pray for forgiveness for that sort of weakness, which had led to the death of her daughter in hopes perhaps a man who had, she had learned, never loved or cared about her even as little as she had cared about him suddenly would, was to pray in vain. Augusta couldn't believe that God was inclined to answer the prayers of cowards.
There were so many people here living normal lives without her burden, and Augusta desperately wanted to be one of them, coming to chat with the pastor's secretary or calling to ask a question about this mission trip or that Sunday school class. Instead, here she sat, waiting to talk to her pastor about a thorn of guilty despair that had quickly grown into a stabbing thicket since she had moved here at her grandmother's invitation to Asheville a few months before. It tore at her whenever she saw children's clothing in the department stores at the Asheville Mall or Biltmore Square Mall when she went shopping, baby food at the supermarket, or tourists coming into the visitors center at the Chamber of Commerce where she worked, who bought ball caps or shirts for their toddlers who often sat contentedly in their strollers and gurgled happily as they tried to catch the colored bits of light that fell from sun-catchers hanging in the windows. Augusta could barely hold her tears back if a baby cried in a restaurant, and she stared, feeling dead inside if a group of schoolchildren on a field trip ever wandered by the Chamber of Commerce as they scrutinized the statues, sculptures, architectural treasures, and other artworks along the Asheville Urban Trail.
Since moving to Asheville, she had felt listless, and numb to the city's beauty and to her grandmother's concern. She couldn't tell her grandmother. Couldn't tell anyone. She couldn't tell a soul she had killed her child – that she had let a man she hated now and wasn't especially fond of then convince her to kill a child that she had grown convinced would have been a daughter. She wanted to die, except she was sure she would burn in hell because after all, that was what happened to murderers. So she had come here to her church first – she could barely stand it, but the truth was that she had come to speak to Pastor Huntley to learn how to make peace with her dead little girl. She might even try to make peace with herself, though she doubted that was possible. Then she would go home to her nice apartment in that beautiful old building – just one in the sea of beautiful old buildings that made up downtown Asheville – and she would kill herself. Or perhaps she would drive out on the Blue Ridge Parkway, "America's Most Scenic Drive," which ran through Asheville on its way to the tallest mountains in the Eastern United States to the east and to the Cherokee Indian Reservation to the west, drive somewhere far out on the Parkway and jump from an overlook. Or, and this seemed the best option, find some way to sink her car in Lake Lure or the French Broad River, then walk far into the forests of the Western North Carolina mountains, where her remains wouldn't be found for months, if ever at all, and kill herself there. If she just disappeared it would probably be gentler to her grandmother. If she left a mess of blood and bone chips for someone else to clean up it would just break Granny's heart, because the poor old woman would have thought there could have been something she could have done to stop it. Yes... better to "disappear."
"Ms. Jackson?" Pastor Huntley leaned down and Augusta looked up to see him gazing at her with warm concern. Behind him, his secretary had half-risen from her chair and was staring with the same concern, as if there was nothing more important for her to do than help the pastor comfort this woman who had murdered her child.
And Augusta realized she had been weeping into her hands, and tried to stop, and to dry her eyes on her sleeve.
"I'm sorry," she said, her breath hitching, "Please, can we talk now? I can't wait another minute... I've been waiting since about 3:15, and I saw the children walk by..." – she fought not to burst into tears again and felt the blood vessels in her eyes throb – "I saw the children walk by and I can't stand it any more. Help me, please."
Pastor Huntley didn't bother leading her into his office. He sat down beside her on the sofa and listened as she talked. His secretary brought a box of tissues and cups of coffee, then sat back down behind her desk, switched off her phone, and began to work a crossword puzzle, and to Augusta's relief, did not eavesdrop. It was as if the worst sins imaginable were poured out on the tapestry sofa on its little claw feet every day, and she thus had no need to listen in or be shocked because to her the gravest sins had become commonplace. Augusta didn't know if that was admirable or terrible, but she was grateful, and told the pastor about the dead places in her heart.
"I moved here back in the winter," she said, wiping her eyes with a crumpled, soggy tissue, "I had to get away from my boyfriend – my ex- boyfriend."
Pastor Huntley nodded.
"We'd been living in a town in Illinois called Silent Hill. It's in between Springfield and Bloomington-Normal. It's hilly there, and Silent Hill is built beside a big lake and surrounded by Paleville National Park. We'd moved there from Hot Springs, Arkansas – that's were we were both from – because he got an offer to manage a hotel in Silent Hill. And me... well, I worked at the visitors center in Hot Springs, and I worked in the visitors center in Silent Hill, and now I work in the visitors center here in Asheville. It's something I've always been good at – I just love places, and I like working with people, and if I can help someone enjoy a beautiful place, then I'm happy..."
"I'm sorry. I'm rambling –"
Pastor Huntley interrupted, "No, honey... You take all the time you need. Just say what's on your mind; tell me what's upsetting you. This may be one of the biggest churches in town, but we all love you here. You just let it all out." Which was something her grandmother would say, and Augusta smiled in spite of herself at the thought of this man, at least six foot seven, balding and white, and bulging with muscles that refused to turn to fat in his middle age, could sound so like that little black woman who kept a front yard overflowing with flowers despite her arthritis, who had never stood more than five feet tall, and was so thin and wispy that to walk across a parking lot on a breezy day was to be pushed about wherever the wind wanted her to go.
"Thank you," she said, and dabbed at her eyes again. "We – my boyfriend and I – lived together. We weren't married and I know that was wrong, and I got pregnant, and I know that was wrong too. But then..."
She paused, knowing that to say it was to never stop sobbing again.
"But then..."
She covered her face with her hands.
"He said we weren't ready. He said maybe after things were more settled, or maybe when we both had more money and better jobs. Maybe just some other time." She stopped and couldn't say any more.
Pastor Huntley took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His church, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, had more than two thousand members, and every day he spoke to people in the worst pain of their lives. He comforted people who had contracted AIDS or had developed cancer. He prayed with those whose loved ones were gravely ill and in one of Asheville's hospitals or hospices. He counseled married couples working toward forgiveness for infidelity. And from time to time, he talked with women who had gone through abortions – now he was talking with Augusta Jackson, who attended the eleven o'clock service every Sunday morning with her grandmother, who was the apotheosis of a little old lady and was never to be seen on church property not wearing one of her stylish hats. Augusta's grandmother, Louisa Jackson, had been a member of Mount Pisgah Baptist for decades and had talked of nothing for the past year except for how excited she was that her beautiful granddaughter was finally moving close by, the first Jackson to come back home to the mountains since Augusta's daddy and his brothers had joined the military and all gone off to the Little Rock Air Force Base down in Arkansas – and why a North Carolinian would want to live in Arkansas was beyond her.
It was nice to finally see someone in the family showing a little sense Louisa would always say with a laugh.
"Well..." Pastor Huntley began, "You aren't the first woman who's ever gone through this, and I'm sorry to say you won't be the last."
" I thought I was stronger than that," said Augusta, "How can anyone be so weak they'd actually agree to abort their own child, their own flesh and blood – kill that little baby growing inside them – just to make that awful son of a bitch happy?" She was shouting now and stopped, swallowed, and apologized.
"There's no need for any sort of apology," Pastor Huntley smiled. "I told you to let it all out, and I expect you to. And I think it's a good sign that you're sorry about what happened and that you're angry about why it happened. That tells me you can heal and go on and live a good life. It tells me you don't have to let this eat at you for the rest of your time on this earth. And it tells me that by the end of it all, you're going to have quite a testimony to share with other women, especially those unwed and pregnant who might be thinking about having an abortion. And lastly, it tells me you've likely got a lot more on your mind, so tell me about it. That's what I'm here for and what this church and everyone in it are here for, so get it all out while you're surrounded by people who care about you."
Augusta stared at him, agape. She hadn't expected this. She looked over to the pastor's secretary, who was still working her crossword puzzle as calmly as before. She hadn't thought about how it might feel to have hope, for the first time since leaving Silent Hill, and it shocked her. She hadn't thought about healing, or going on to live a good life.
"Didn't think you'd hear someone say that, did you?" asked the pastor. "I believe you're going to find that praying for forgiveness will solve a lot more problems in life than you'd expect."
Augusta's heart sank in an instant. Something like this couldn't be forgiven, especially since she had aborted her daughter – she was sure the baby would have been a little girl if given a chance to be born – because she was too chickenshit to stand up to Joseph, who had said they weren't ready for a child when in fact they were are ready as they were ever going to be. Especially when she had killed her daughter because her boyfriend, Joseph North, simply hadn't wanted a child. Because he had wanted to concentrate on his work at the expense of a woman who loved him – had loved him, perhaps briefly, perhaps at the very beginning of their relationship since he seemed to have been working diligently since then to smother even the small spark of affection she had for him, Augusta corrected – and who thought that perhaps to do as he suggested would be to win security with him, perhaps even love, even though there was probably no chance in hell of that. Especially when she had murdered her daughter because Joseph had as much as admitted that he didn't have time for her and sure as hell wouldn't have time for a child in his life, and wouldn't want to have to support his unwanted child. After all, it would fuck up his concentration on his work and his plans to move up to a hotel even bigger and better than the venerable Lake View. As if someone couldn't raise a child and take care of a woman and manage a hotel at the same time. It was a sorry bastard who couldn't, but at the end, Augusta had realized that Joseph was tolerating her, and nothing more, and that she hadn't loved him in months and only stayed with him because the money he made managing the Lake View Hotel provided her with quite a comfortable life.
Maybe if he had loved her and she him, together they could have raised a child and cared for each other and he could have managed his grand old hotel, all at the same time. But the past was dead and rotting in its grave. She had learned that a union built on hope for love instead of love itself was not worth killing a baby girl for. After her love for him died and his initial affection for her had burned out, she had hoped he would love her again and nourish the memories of her love for him, and coax them to bloom again into new love. And until then she was enjoying his money, and had agreed to anything she thought might have a chance to transform her hope into something other than a months-long waste of time.
And to pray for forgiveness for that sort of weakness, which had led to the death of her daughter in hopes perhaps a man who had, she had learned, never loved or cared about her even as little as she had cared about him suddenly would, was to pray in vain. Augusta couldn't believe that God was inclined to answer the prayers of cowards.