Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Later that night, all of the extended family had piled into cars and gone to the cathedral in the nearby town of Mount Angel for midnight mass. On the way, from the window of the old station wagon, Alvarez had viewed rolling fields and farmhouses decorated with colorful lights, cedar garlands and fir boughs. The old Ford had passed many nativity scenes as well, each elaborately displayed and always offering a sense of peace and serenity, reminding her of the story of the Christ child’s birth.

She’d always been in awe of the man-made re-creations of that holy night. Never, in her life, even as a somewhat jaded adult, would she have associated them with something as ugly and vile as murder.

Now, however, she felt as if everything good in the world was slammed right up against the bad. Black-and-white, no room for a slice of gray in between.

She raced to her bedroom and changed her clothes, all the time wondering what was keeping O’Keefe. He’d been following her as she’d pulled away from the station, but she’d lost him in the traffic and hadn’t worried about it.

Nor should she be concerned now. He knew his way here. In the bathroom, she turned on the tap and found that, gratefully, hot water had been restored. “There is a God,” she whispered, then grabbed her brush and swept her hair away from her face, snapped a rubber band in place and braided the strands. She’d just finished tying off the end with a second band when the doorbell rang.

“About time.” Hurrying down the stairs, she nearly tripped on Jane, who scurried up the steps to hide in the shadows of the upper landing.

At the door, she took a deep breath, and before she worried too much about how she was going to break the news that she was very possibly Gabriel Reeve’s birth mother, she checked the peephole, assured herself the man on the other side was O’Keefe, then pulled it open.

It’s now or never, she thought, determined to confide in him.

“I come bearing gifts.” O’Keefe stood under the lamp on her doorstep, a pizza box extended in front of him. “Figured you might be hungry.”

Not really; not with what we have to discuss. The last thing she wanted was food. “You figured right,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

“I bet. Couldn’t help but hear about the body found in the church crèche. Figured you haven’t had much to eat today.”

“Unless you count day-old Christmas cookies,” she said, opening the door wider and standing aside, allowing him to enter. Though she hated to admit it, she was so nervous the pepperoni pizza he brandished and set on the table didn’t look the least bit appealing. Her stomach was already in knots and she didn’t see how tons of spicy tomato sauce, stringy cheese and greasy rounds of pepperoni would help the situation.

“And look. I brought my own.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a can of beer. “Got one for you, too.” He pulled a second can from his other jacket pocket.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” she said as she fished into one of her kitchen drawers and finally came up with a pizza slicer she’d had since college. “Let’s cut those pieces smaller.” She tossed him the slicer and tried not to notice how familiar this all felt. She took down a couple of small plates from the cupboard, found some sparkling water and, feeling a little bit like a nun for not accepting the beer, scraped her chair back and sat at the small table on the opposite side from him.

“You said you had something you wanted to talk about,” he said as he sliced the pizza and drew a piece away from the pie, long tendrils of mozzarella refusing to let go. After swiping them with the cutter, he dropped the piece onto her plate, then went after another for himself. “So what is it?”

Oh, God.

Now or never, Selena. Go for it.

“There’s a chance ... well, probably a good chance, that Gabriel Reeve is my son,” she said, forcing the words over her tongue and ignoring the buzzing in her head. “I, uh, I’m not certain, of course—I haven’t kept up with him—but I did have a baby boy about the same time as your cousin adopted Gabriel. The records are sealed, of course, until he’s eighteen or something, I’m not really sure, but, at the time I gave him up, I asked that neither he nor his adoptive parents try to contact me or even find me. It was a closed adoption and that’s the way I wanted it.”

She swallowed hard and the weight of sixteen years of not knowing seemed heavy upon her shoulders.

“There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought of him, but ...” Shaking her head, staring down at the rapidly cooling slice of pizza, she fought a rash of tears that she’d bottled up forever. “I always wondered what happened to him, how his life was, what he looked like ...” Clearing her throat, she glanced away and went to that mental place she’d found a lifetime ago, a haven that allowed her to push the pain into a corner of her mind that she kept locked.

She felt her chin start to wobble, then set her jaw. This was not the time for regret or recriminations and she refused to break down. Refused.

For a second the silence stretched between them and the house seemed empty aside from the soft rumble of the furnace. She felt unburdened, and yet, stupidly ashamed. Forcing her chin up, she met the questions in his eyes.

If she expected to see recriminations or silent accusations, she was disappointed. “You were just a kid,” he said softly.

“About his age now.”

“Jesus, Selena, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell anyone?” She sniffed loudly and refused to let the tears in her eyes fall. “Because I didn’t want anyone to know. I ... I still don’t. But it looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”

Frowning, his jaw jutting a bit, he looked away, then said, “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Don’t patronize me, okay? It’s not going to be okay. It never has been and it never will be, but somehow, we’ll just deal with it. I’ll deal with it.” She was in control of her ragged emotions again, the tears no longer threatening, her emotions turned from regret to determination.

O’Keefe said, “Okay. Then time for the hard question: You think Reeve knows that you’re his mother and that’s why he ended up here?” Clearly, O’Keefe was skeptical.