Willis came closer every moment. His shoes entered my downcast vision, only two people away as the priest put the wafer in my hand saying, "The body of Christ; the bread of heaven." Willis stood before me and I looked up at him. "Lily," he said, putting the cup to my lips. Then, providing the sign I craved, he touched my hand supporting the base of the cup. "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation." He lingered a beat longer in front of me than with any other communicant. I made the sign of the cross over my chest while the wine blazed a warm path to my heart.

*   *   *

As I left the church, scattering birds, it occurred to me I'd left without reciting the funeral liturgy for my mother. I could still go back and say the words for her, but it seemed unnecessary. My mother had moved beyond the need for a funeral. Perhaps I should recite the liturgy for my father next time. I sat on a bench outside the church with My Jane Austen and some birds. Our relationship had been cool since the Lost Letters debacle. Now we all waited; his folded jacket in my arms, birds pecking nervously in the pebbles. Willis would be shaking hands with the congregation as they filed out to join the reception at Newton Priors. He would remove his vestments in the sacristy. My Jane Austen stood and paced once birds began landing where her lap would be, and I focused on shedding any artifice I might have recently accumulated.

It seemed Willis and I shared The Look at communion but I couldn't be sure. He should be here by now. Sun and breeze conspired, causing leaves to flicker in my peripheral vision. Perhaps he had departed by another exit and missed me altogether. But then I saw him in the door, shading his eyes, looking toward Newton Priors. At that instant, the clock started. Time sped recklessly and I resented the passing of every precious second.

"Willis." I ran to meet him, slipping on the pea gravel.

"Lily." He came down the steps and held out a hand.

"You left this again," I said, surrendering the jacket.

"Yes, another abrupt ending, I apologize." I denied his expression and ignored the word ending.

"Look what I found." I held up my necklace. "Can you believe it?"

"No." He held the cross; examining the piece he'd heard so much about. "Where was it?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Around a neck in a London pub."

"Naturally," he said. And then, "How is your Jane Austen?"

"The same," I said, "timeless and sparkling, swirling in my subconscious, folded into my existence."

Willis smiled and reached for a lock of my hair blowing across my eyes.

"Although she did get me in big trouble," I told him, birds eavesdropping under cover of pecking nearby, the breeze blowing my skirt.

"How?"

I tried to communicate how she'd spoken through me at my one-woman show but Willis wasn't listening. Talking to him felt like running in a dream without making forward progress. The connection failed on his end and I heard desperation propping up my voice.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

How to answer that? I would be all right if he'd give me a sign. I could bear anything as long as the promise of Willis secured my future. But I wasn't all right. I was terribly not all right, on the brink of suffering emotional torment as ferocious and debilitating as an abscessed tooth because Willis wasn't listening to me and he hadn't been looking for me when he stepped out the church door just now.

I asked him quietly, "How's the sorting going?"

His expression reminded me of Martin when he said he didn't want a scene.

"This has been terribly awkward for you." Willis shook his head.

"Yes," I said. My Jane Austen stood behind me, revisiting her hero list with a cloth for erasing in one hand. I looked hard at Willis, memorizing his features for future recall. Even as he asked about my well-being, sincere and penitent, he would leave me as soon as I answered. He'd gotten the distance he needed to carry on with his original plans. He'd done his sorting and I was out. Only he wouldn't tell me. He'd join Philippa at the reception and beyond, suppressing all the fear he'd entertained in the attic, and I would start the waiting again, far less certain than I'd been before the service, the black abyss seeping into my future. Waiting forever.

"Willis," a voice called.

"Over here," he said, without turning.

Philippa stood in the church door looking down at us. In the moment our eyes met, I understood two things: Although Philippa had perhaps sensed that something in her relationship was not right, she had not known what, and now she knew. Willis had told her nothing. What she knew, she inferred from the tension around my eyes and the stress in my jaw. "I lost track of you," she said, smiling, scattering birds with the snap of her heels on the stone steps.

"Pippa," Willis said, eyes still on me, "you remember Lily."

"Of course," she said, both hands busy adjusting her purse strap.

"I'm so sorry about your grandmother," I said.

"Thank you." Even behind her dark glasses, I could read her fearless expression. She whispered to Willis, "I'll go on. The costume drama awaits us," patting his arm to fortify him for what he must do to me. A clergy wife braces herself for these things, all in the line of duty.

Willis looked at me, tilting his head in silent question, but this was not as complicated as I would like it to be. Quite simple really, Willis would soon walk away and I would be alone. I moved my mouth, speaking very quietly, watching Philippa in case she should turn around and catch me. "I can see where this is headed." I touched my heart and shook my head. "I'm not going to wait for you."

His eyes widened and his smile faded. He understood.

"Good-bye, Willis," I said, releasing him.

Willis rubbed his nose, looked at the ground in a helpless way I couldn't bear, and then whispered, "I understand." Time came to a screeching halt. Birds froze, the breeze ended, the sun dipped behind a cloud, and all color drained as Willis turned away from me and followed Philippa down the path to Newton Priors.

Twenty-Five

Omar joined me in the library one week after the memorial service. We sat at the table we'd occupied two months ago. I lost myself in Bronte while Omar read books on Shaw, working on his dissertation. I spent all my time in the library now. As soon as I was free, I retreated to the east wing, traveling the same worn planks, passing Nigel at his desk discarding papers into a large metal waste bin, passing Vera calmly typing schedule revisions. Only cloistered in the library, reading from the endless supply of mind-altering smelly books, did I find peace. Any page of any book would do.

"Omar?" I asked.

He looked up, obviously straining to return to England and place me. "Yes?" he said, turning a page.

"I owe you an apology," I said.

He looked up again with less effort. "For what?"

"For avoiding you after the follies."

Omar waved a hand, dismissing the sentiment, although he had been cool and distant since that evening almost three weeks ago.

"I know you were trying to help," I said, routing a cuticle on my left hand, "and I appreciate your concern."

Omar closed his book and removed his glasses. "You're crushed, aren't you?"

"Yes." I pressed my lips as tears filled my eyes.

"That was pretty brutal of him," Omar said.

I couldn't speak.

"I don't know what his problem is." Omar took my hand. "Willis did not treat you well, Lily. If this were the olden days, you'd be a ruined woman."

"I don't think he meant to mislead me," I said.

"Right." Omar smiled and shook his head.

We looked up as Vera opened our door and stuck her head in. "Randolph's here," she said. "Come quickly." She gestured with one hand, glancing behind her as if he were in the hallway. I scooted my chair out, noting Omar's disapproval. "He's in the front," she said, leading the way.

Randolph's silver Jaguar sat parked outside, just beyond the window where Vera and I watched through the swirly glass and pouring rain. Like Sheila, he'd crashed the gates, passing horse-drawn carriages to park outside our door. His door. "Look at his car," Vera whispered, her head suddenly next to mine.

"Hmm," I said.

"Why isn't he getting out?"

"It's raining." My breath fogged the window.

"Perhaps we should take him an umbrella."

"That would be awkward," I said, awkward being my new favorite word since Willis used it on me.

"Or maybe he's on the phone." Vera grabbed my hand and we both gazed at the silver auto against the majestic landscape, dreamlike through the distorted glass. Lately, as things seemed more desperate, the adrenaline from her ideas had been going straight to her mouth. "You could hold your wedding at Newton Priors," Vera said. "Your children could grow up playing on this lawn."

I said, "This is a business meeting." She'd become so inflamed by her hope of saving the organization that the line between business and self-delusion blurred.

Vera whispered, "You made an impression on him. And, as the book says, 'A young man in possession of a fortune...'" She looked at me earnestly. "The world needs a new Lady Weston."

"He probably has me mixed up with someone else he met in the hospital that day. He must meet many people. If his face falls when he meets me, we'll know it was a mix-up," I whispered back.