Chapter Five
Confession
Later that evening, after having spent a pleasurable two hours in the Mess Hall during the viewing of the movie 'Independence Day'; which Malcolm Reed particularly enjoyed for the number of things that were blown up, Reverend Patricia McCabe is just about to enter her quarters when she sees Ensign Elizabeth Cutler approaching from the opposite direction, waving to get her attention. She stops just outside her closed door, and allows the younger woman to catch up. "Mother McCabe, I – er, could I ask a favor?"
"Of course, child."
"Would … um, I'm embarrassed to ask." She looks up at the taller woman who wears, as she normally does in 'public', her clerical garb consisting of black trousers and back button royal blue shirt, the high collar of which is an inch high band of stiff white. From a short blue cloth collar which matches the shirt is suspended a red Roman, white Maltese, and black and red Temple cross upon which was another gold cross, all framed in gold, a combination of those of several 'Faiths'. "Would…" She hesitates and looks about carefully, but they are alone in the corridor. Still, Liz lowers her voice further. "Would you hear my Confession?"
"Of course, child." She says again, empathizing with the woman's caution, even though it is hardly the shameful matter the other's manner seems to make it.
McCabe's Pastoral office is on the opposite side of the saucer, but as it is a converted crew quarters with the bed removed and replaced by extra chairs, it has little to recommend it over her own quarters. She doubts the younger woman, uncomfortable as she already is, is up to the walk. Instead, she touches the button controlling her own door, indicating to Cutler that she should enter first.
When the door closes behind them, Cutler takes a moment to glance about, trying to calm her nerves. She has never been here; the last time she had visited McCabe was in the woman's office, near the beginning of the 'Tigat Affair'. It was strange to think of the Security Guard sitting alone in the brig, awaiting transfer to Starbase 2 at Alpha Centauri to face her Court Martial ... but this was getting her nowhere, dwelling on such useless thoughts, when she should be focusing on the here-and-now.
x
There is little to distinguish these quarters from Liz's own, save that they are something of a starboard mirror image of her own portside rooms. There are a few personal items, but Liz tries not to linger on these. The woman has been aboard barely a month, and had come with very few personal possessions of any kind. There is little of the Priest imprinted on this room yet.
McCabe, giving the biologist a few moments to prepare herself, steps over to her clothes closet set into the bulkhead and opens it. There is little inside; six pair of 'uniforms' identical to the one she wears are on the left side, the right side given over to her few dresses. Hanging from a rack on the left metal door are ten long cloths which, folded in half, hang almost to the floor. In order, they are arranged red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. There is a short space before a set of three; purple, white and black. Otherwise, all are identical, embroidered a foot from the ends, and then on the folded middle, with a gold crown within which is set a slanted red cross.
She draws the purple one from the rack, kisses the middle and then drapes it over her shoulders, lifting her chestnut hair over it to settle it in place so it hangs down the front of her body. "How do you know which one to use?" Cutler asks.
"Hmm? Oh, by the Season. The Liturgical Season, that is; or for use on special Feast Days; or for the specific purpose for which it is intended. In this case, Penitence, we use purple." She closes the closet. "Would you like to sit down?" She offers, indicating the chair at her desk.
"I don't know." Liz admits, uncertain and uncomfortable. Somehow, though the woman is not so much taller than she is, at the moment she feels very, very small. "Aren't I supposed to kneel, or something?"
McCabe smiles. "If you like. I've always found confession to be hard enough in itself." She brings the chair by the head of her bunk closer to the one at her desk so they may sit reasonably close. Cutler sits down only after McCabe does. The Priest can see the woman is still very uncomfortable, and does not press her.
"I don't really remember what to say." Liz confesses apologetically. "I guess I'm kind of a lapsed Catholic. I think it's something like 'bless me, Fa – um, Mother, for I have sinned. My last confession was …" she shrugs helplessly, "…sixteen years ago?" McCabe reaches out, taking her hand.
"Child, don't worry about the form. Just say what's on your mind."
Liz takes a deep breath, holds it a moment; lets it out completely, trying to drain some of the tension from her body. She takes another deep breath and declares: "I don't know what to do."
x
Mother McCabe waits a few moments, then a few moments longer. Finally: "That's it?"
Liz shrugs. "That's the gist of it."
"That was barely worth putting the stole on for."
Liz laughs, grateful for the chance to do so. "But that's my problem. Everyone seems to know what's best for me, but I don't! I literally do not know what to do!"
"Child, that's no sin. That's being human."
x
Liz looks at her curiously. "You keep calling me 'child'."
"Does it bother you? I call everyone 'child'. Something about the job; I'm supposed to be Mother to all of you. I'd even call the Captain 'child', or Commander T'Pol, and I have it on reliable word that she's at least a generation older than I am."
"How old are you?" The words are out of her mouth before Liz can bite them back, but the woman seems to show no offense.
"Old enough to know better."
Liz laughs again, and this time it feels a lot better.
"I'm as old as Malcolm Reed, if that's an answer." Liz knows the two have a very long history together, for decades before Reed even came to Enterprise.
"Do you call Lt. Reed 'child'?"
"I call Malcolm a lot of things."
x
Liz finds that, this time, the laughter carries a lot of the tension away with it. "Thank you. I haven't laughed in days."
"Why is that?"
"Lately I haven't had much to laugh about."
"Do you want to tell me why?" She believes she knows the answer already, but wants to hear it in Liz's own words.
Liz hesitates, still very uncomfortable. She does not know if she really wants to reveal the cause of her distress, but forces herself to remember that she had come to the woman, not the other way around. "I had thought that the worst thing that could ever happen to me was when those pictures surfaced, and everybody saw … well … I thought that what Mary Tigat had done to us was the worst thing that would ever happen in my life. But it wasn't!" She looks down, unable to meet the Priest's eyes, barely able to continue. She stares at her hands, clenching them so tightly it hurts, but the pain only serves to distract her, not to strengthen or focus her.
"I found out the other day that …" It is still so hard to say, and she stares at her hands, wringing them tightly upon her lap, but she swallows heavily and forces herself. "That I'm pregnant."
She braces herself for the condemnation, but is surprised when it does not come. She is so surprised she looks up, fearing but seeking this expected condemnation, even more surprised not to find it. Neither, in fact, is there any indication of surprise in the other woman's eyes.
"The thought doesn't seem to make you happy." Patricia says softly.
"It…" She considers, even at this late point, lying. But she is not here to lie. She shakes her head. "It doesn't. I mean, it should, and I'm probably a horrible person for feeling like this, but it caught me off guard. I never expected to get pregnant!" Once the word was out, she was surprised how hard it was to stop talking!
"I mean, I'm in a relationship, and I was seeing Phlox for … for… well, I forgot! I lost track of the days, and I didn't even expect to do anything, but one thing led to another and … well, it was the day after you came aboard. I … I just…forgot." Her voice trails off, overcome by misery. But she can not stop.
"And everyone is so thrilled. All my friends say I should have the baby, my best friend won't even hear anything else, and Jim even wants it; at least he says he does, now… But I – I just don't know! I don't know what to do! If I do nothing, I'll have this baby in just a bit under eight months, but … I don't know!"
x
She feels tears about to break through her control, and shuts herself up lest they come. Patricia waits, allowing her to fill the silence when she is ready. "We've already named it. 'Michael'. I already know it's going to be a boy. One of the 'advantages' of being in Life Sciences. But I think the naming of it – of him, is the worst thing I could have done! It made him … him. He's not just an embryo anymore. He's my son!"
"You're considering aborting?" Patricia phrases the question, and her tone, very carefully. For a long moment Liz cannot answer, finally she can no longer look at the woman, but looks down again at her hands clutched on her lap, nodding miserably.
"I – I don't know anymore. It's my body, I should have a say! But it's not just my decision anymore! But it is. I shouldn't be pregnant! I'm not even married. I mean, I never even thought of marriage! Not seriously I mean. I mean, I thought of it; I really, really like – I mean 'love' him. I think! But spend our lives together? Raise a son, be a family? I don't know! I'm scared to death over it all!
"I don't know what to do! And I know that all I have to do is nothing, and everything will happen without my say so!"
She looks up at McCabe imploringly. "What should I do?"
x
Patricia McCabe is silent for a long moment. "It seems to me," she says finally, "that you have enough people telling you what you should do. I dare say that every one of your friends, and a fair number of acquaintances, have expressed their opinions already."
"Darn right!"
"My thought is this: You and Jim Cein began this without any input from anyone else. No one else was there. So it seems to me that the same conditions apply. You two have to make the decision.
"I can offer only this: Your true friends will support whatever decision the two of you make. Those that do not… well, you'll know where they stand."
For a long moment Liz is silent, weighing this grim reality. She cannot deny the truth, but it is still painful. Which of her friends would…?
"Thank you." She stands up, unable to last any longer, and is about to leave when she stops, still facing the door. Patricia does not push her, but just waits. Finally, she turns. "Mother McCabe…" She sighs feelingly. "God, that just sounds so formal!"
"Call me 'Mom'." McCabe offers with a small smile.
"Mom?" She asks, surprised.
"At least in here."
Liz thinks about it. "My own Mom's a long way away. Yes, I think I'd like that, please."
"'Mom' it is. Now, child, what's your question?"
"If I – if we – should decide that… Where will you stand on it?"
x
Patricia McCabe knows this is her pivotal question, the one that will determine how Liz will trust her new Chaplain and friend, now and in the future. "I won't try to talk you out of a decision you two mutually arrive at. If asked, I'll give any advice I am capable of giving before the decision is made. But after it is made, my say is finished. But I am not going to turn my back on either of you. On any of the three of you. I will advise you as best I can, but I'm not going to add my influence to an already muddy situation.
"But if you do decide you cannot carry this child, I will ask you to come back and talk to me before you take any action. That's a decision that is going to have some very real consequences for you – especially since you are already thinking of him as your son. You're going to need someone to support you no matter which decision you make, and I'd like to be here to give you that support."
Liz so badly wants to take her new friend up on her offer, but is still apprehensive. After all, is McCabe really able to offer all she does, or is there a limit?
"But isn't the Church's doctrine one of preserving life?" She tries to keep the suspicious tone out of her words, but fears she is unable to do so. McCabe, however, does not appear to have noticed any.
"The Church's doctrine is complex; and complicated by the question of whose life." She tells the younger woman. "I can't give you any rule in that matter. There used to be hard and fast rules, but rules are for math, not humans."
x
Patricia stands up, removing from her shoulders the purple stole, opening the closet door and returning it to its place on the bar, closing the door and turning back, having needed those seconds to frame her answer.
"In past millennia, Religion dictated everything; and you obeyed or else. Things are vastly different now. We try to guide people into living the kind of lives that God would wish us to lead, but the older I get the less simple that simple sentence becomes. And since I've gotten out into space, and especially on board this ship, it's grown more complex by the moment.
"But let me ask you a question. Are you abdicating the right to decide and giving the decision to me?"
"No."
"Then in the final count, I cannot tell you what to do, nor enforce any 'ruling' I might make. I am not here to rule anyone in matters of the Spirit, to make decisions of Faith or duty nor to enforce Doctrine. My mandate here is to Guide, and any time you want to trade your tightrope for mine I'll give it to you in a flash."
"No thanks." Liz says with a grin in answer to hers. "My life is complicated enough already, thank you."
"Darn."