EXCERPT
Mr. Vickers' mouth spasmed,
maybe a smile, maybe not. “That's a start,” he remarked.
“And I'm not getting drunk
anymore!” she continued, not sure whether the joke was over yet.
“Something must be getting through.”
The old priest stepped back and
leaned on the counter, regarding her earnestly with piercing eyes. He
waited for so long to speak that Anna suddenly feared that she had
offended him somehow. He licked his lips, then squinted at her with a
strange look in his eye. “So, how long do you think either of those
achievements will last?”
Anna was taken aback. “How
long? I dunno, hopefully forever.”
Mr. Vickers held her eyes with
his, still squinting at her. “Forever? That's your best guess?”
“I think so. Why?”
He looked down at the floor but
his voice still filled the space between them with its quiet weight.
“And when the original reasons for the drunkenness and sleeping
around return, what then? What motive will you have to deny those
temptations? Will you truly have the freedom to say 'no'?”
Anna frowned at him. “Are you
suggesting that I can't be a good and decent person just the way I
am? Are you already questioning my resolve?”
Still staring at the floor, the
old man answered her bluntly. “Yes, I am. Until what you've heard
with your ears and understood with your head filters into your heart
and becomes its lifeblood, you will fall. Maybe not today, but the
time will come when your resolve will be severely tested, possibly
beyond its limits.” He lifted his head back up and locked stares
with her, and somewhere deep inside his eyes Anna detected a flicker
of paternal fear. “And when that day comes, that's when we find out
where your strength really comes from, yourself or from
above.” He cast her a grim smile. “Everyone fails the ideal, even
saints. But we don't trash the ideal just because we don't always
reach it.”
Anna's face contorted in a storm
of mixed emotions. She sat down at the table and put her head in her
hands, stroking her temples through her mussed hair and trying to
hide from the man's gaze. “I'm not the person I was then,” she
offered by way of placating him. “Jesse's out of my life. I've
stopped drinking. I'm not that woman anymore.”
Mr. Vickers pushed off from the
counter and approached the table. “So, your transformation is all
negatives? Jesse is gone, the drinking has stopped,
you've stopped thinking the way you did before? How does one
live a life full of things that are not present?”
Anna looked back up at him and
shook her head. “You're damn confusing sometimes, you know that?”
He frowned at her. “You know
what I'm talking about, Annalise. Don't play stupid.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I
do know. But I might disagree.”
