When She Woke. Hillary Jordan
interviewed with the office manager, Mrs. Bunten, a middle-aged woman with a forbidding, deeply lined face that concealed a compassionate and motherly nature. Hannah later learned that the lines had been incised by grief; Mrs. Bunten had lost her husband and two sons in one of the scourge riots and been born again soon afterward. Now, ten years later, Ignited Word was her entire universe, and Reverend Dale was the glorious sun blazing at the center of it. That much was apparent to Hannah from the beginning. Mrs. Bunten spoke fondly enough of God and His Son, but it was when she talked about Aidan that her face took on the glow of true veneration.
The pivotal moment in the interview came when they were discussing Hannah’s father’s recovery. “A miracle,” said Mrs. Bunten.
“Yes,” agreed Hannah. “I thank God for it every day. God, and Reverend Dale.”
Mrs. Bunten gave her a smile that was positively beatific. “I can see you’re going to fit in perfectly here.”
The job was twenty hours a week, most of it spent doing clerical work at the 1Cs office, although Hannah was sometimes asked to serve in the soup kitchen or make deliveries. Her first week, she didn’t see Aidan once. But then on Monday of the following week, he walked into the office carrying an unwieldy tower of brightly colored boxes of children’s toys. “Ho ho ho,” he boomed, slightly out of breath.
Mrs. Bunten hurried to help him. Hannah followed more slowly, caught between eagerness and reluctance. Mrs. Bunten took the top few boxes, revealing his face. “Thank you, Brenda,” he said. Then he saw Hannah. “Oh, Hannah. Hello.”
His smile was ingenuous, pleasantly surprised. Kind. Hannah plummeted. “Hello, Reverend Dale.”
“Now, Reverend,” said Mrs. Bunten, all but clucking as she handed Hannah the boxes and took the rest from him, “you know you shouldn’t be carrying all that. Mrs. Dale will be mad at us both if you throw your back out again.”
“Alyssa worries too much.”
Mrs. Dale. Alyssa. Hannah turned away and set the boxes down. His wife.
“How’s your father doing?” he asked.
“Daddy’s well. He’s back at work. His left eye’s still a little fuzzy, but we’re hopeful it’ll heal in time.” Aidan doesn’t feel it.
“I pray it will. Please give my very best to him and your mother.”
“I will.” He doesn’t feel it, and that’s for the best.
He asked how Hannah was liking it here, and she said very much, thank you. He inquired after Becca and sent congratulations on her marriage. Mrs. Bunten interjected, marveling at how he never forgot a person’s name once he’d prayed with them. He protested her tendency to exaggerate his virtues. Hannah made the appropriate responses. She felt numb and foolish.
Aidan’s assistant interrupted them, calling to remind him about his four o’clock meeting with Congressman Drabyak. Aidan tapped his forehead ruefully, said he’d better be on his way, welcomed Hannah to the 1Cs and excused himself.
At the door, he turned back. “Brenda, I forgot to tell you, there are a bunch more toys out in the van. They need to be wrapped by tomorrow. I’m taking them to the shelter at three.”
“We’ll see to it, Reverend,” Mrs. Bunten said.
Aidan turned to Hannah. “Would you like to come along? To the shelter? It’s wonderful, watching the children’s faces light up.”
His own held nothing but friendly interest and eagerness—to see the children. Perhaps he hadn’t put her name forward after all, not even out of kindness. Perhaps it was God’s doing that she was here, a penance for her desire: to see his face and hear his voice and know that he could never be hers.
“I’d love to,” she said.
And so it began, their long, tortured mating dance, though it was months before she recognized it as such. She existed in a state of silent longing, punctuated by bursts of guilt and fear that someone would notice. Aidan treated her as he treated everyone, with a pastor’s professional warmth.
Hannah had been working at the church for six weeks when Alyssa came into the office with Aidan. She stopped short when she saw Hannah, and Hannah knew he hadn’t told her. Because it was too unimportant to mention, or …?
“Hello, Mrs. Dale.”
“Hello,” Alyssa said. “Becca, isn’t it?”
Sensing the ignorance was feigned, Hannah said, “That’s my sister. I’m Hannah.”
“Hannah joined us just before Christmas,” Aidan said. “She’s doing a terrific job.”
The remark sounded forced and awkward. Hannah smiled uncomfortably.
“Of course she is, darling,” said Alyssa. She slipped her arm around Aidan’s waist and gave Hannah a wintry smile. “My husband inspires hard work in others. People hate to disappoint him.”
Aidan’s unease was obvious, and Hannah was all but certain Alyssa had complimented him on purpose, because she knew how he hated being praised. Perhaps their marriage wasn’t as idyllic as everyone believed.
“Oh, I’m sure Hannah would do a good job for anyone,” he said.
“Well,” said Alyssa, “let’s not keep her from her work.”
The Dales got what they’d come for—the keys to one of the vans—and left. Alyssa preceded Aidan out the door. At the last second he swiveled his head to look back at Hannah, and she had a queer sensation, as if she were pulling it with a string. Their eyes met, held, dropped away at the same time.
So, she thought. So.
AFTER THAT THE real torment began. Aidan’s behavior toward Hannah was unchanged, but there was a charged quality to their interactions that had been missing before, and she knew she wasn’t suffering alone. Their attraction grew slowly, haltingly, unacknowledged but unmistakable. To Hannah it often seemed like a pregnancy during which they were both waiting, with equal degrees of excitement and trepidation, for the inevitable emergence of the new thing they were creating between them. They were rarely alone together, and then, only briefly and by accident—a chance encounter on the stairs, a five-minute span when Mrs. Bunten was in the restroom. Aidan was constantly surrounded by people, all of them wanting something from him: his attention, his blessing, his opinion, the touch of his hand on their shoulders. Hannah grew to resent them all, even as she felt the echo of their hunger in herself.
Most of all, she resented and envied Alyssa Dale. Aidan’s wife had become a frequent visitor to the 1Cs office, pitching in wherever help was needed. Mrs. Bunten commented on it one day, saying how nice it was that Mrs. Dale was taking such an interest in their work. With Hannah, Alyssa was coolly polite and, when Aidan was around, watchful. When it was just the women, she was more relaxed, though she always maintained a certain reserve, an air of apartness. Still, she worked as hard as any of them, was generous with praise and kept them amused with her wry sense of humor. Mrs. Bunten and the other women adored her, and even Hannah began to admire her. It occurred to her more than once that in different circumstances, she and Alyssa Dale might have been friends.
In the meantime, the tension between Hannah and Aidan continued to mount. At times it was so palpable she half expected it to materialize, sinuous and glistening, in the air between them. Every night before bed, she prayed for God’s forgiveness. And every night, she lay sleepless and imagined Aidan lying beside her. She knew she should quit the 1Cs and remove herself from the temptation of being around him. She even composed a letter of resignation to Mrs. Bunten, but she couldn’t bring herself to say “Send” any more than she could make herself ask God to help her stop loving Aidan.
In June, Hannah turned twenty-five. The morning of her birthday she walked into the office to discover a large potted orchid sitting on her desk. It looked as exotic and out of place in the spartan 1Cs office as a zebra pelt would have, or a Ming vase. The petals