Unexpected Dismounts by Nancy Rue Page A

more time.”
    “Rehab is a joke for somebody like Zelda,” I said.
    “But it’ll keep her from killing herself with another overdose.”
    I shivered, but I nodded.
    “I’ll stay on it and keep you posted,” Chief said. “What else do we have on the agenda?”
    “Brain food,” Hank said. She tapped the edge of the tray. “Anchovies are proven to be good for thought processing.”
    “That must be why I am clueless about half the time,” India said. “But do let me taste that cheese. Now that looks like it could put a few more dimples on my thighs.” She smiled again. “Which means it is absolutely scrumptious.”
    Chief was looking at me.
    “I got nothin’,” I said.

    Actually, that wasn’t true. I had plenty of God-work to keep me busy over the next several days. There was the usual counseling of Sister meltdowns and backslides, as well as the chauffeuring of everybody to NA meetings and the never-ending dental appointments to repair meth damage. Plus the hauling of Desmond to the Harley store for yet another pair of boots.
    Still, Zelda crammed herself into my thoughts. I was talking up C.A.R.S. to HOG friend Rex, whose Toyota needed a paint job, and suddenly there she was in my head, ramming somebody’s vehicle into a utility pole. Who did it belong to? The same guy who gave her a cocktail she couldn’t handle?
    Anything could trigger the questions. I walked past the front door on Palm Row where she had first come to me and found myself aching. What happened? Why was she so anxious then to do anything to change, and so angry now at the God who tried to change her into herself? I spit in the sink while brushing my teeth and felt the pain all over again, the pain that asked, Why did she so easily take drugs from Satan, when we were offering her Jesus?
    I tried to see her, despite Chief’s protest. I say protest. It was actually just a look that said, You’ll regret it. Just sayin’.
    And of course, I did. Evidently Chief’s being hot was no match for Detective Kylie’s new edict that only attorneys were allowed to see their clients during anything but visiting hours. Those were held on Sunday, which by that time I’d already missed. I told myself that maybe that was a God thing. Maybe I needed that time to figure out how to get Zelda back to God. Because if she wasn’t willing to do that … Yeah, maybe I needed time.
    Meanwhile, there were the Sisters’ baptisms to prepare them for. And Desmond’s. With the women, it was a delicate dance, trying to balance their enthusiasm for denying themselves everything and their deeper need to go within. Desmond just wanted to give up homework for Lent.
    We had a rousing discussion in the living room at Sacrament House the Wednesday after Ash Wednesday. Jasmine and Mercedes and Sherry and Hank and Desmond set about discussing their respective “stuff.” If left to their own devices, the Sisters would have referred to their struggles as their—well—some form of excrement. Stuff, though somewhat euphemistic, served us well. At least the three Sisters, and even Hank, were able to put words to their confusion and begin to untangle it. Desmond was less forthcoming, although he did begrudgingly admit that he still had a snack-hoarding habit—shocking—but he was working on it.
    “I’ll get that beat ’fore I get baptized,” he told us.
    As for me, I played moderator. Fortunately nobody called me on my lack of transparency about my own where-is-God-what-am-I-doing “stuff.” But I couldn’t avoid it in the silence we observed before the communion.
    As we stood around the table in the dining alcove, chins to our chests, eyes fluttered closed, Sacrament House settled into a quiet so still I was afraid the rumblings in my head would rattle the Sisters out of their private conversations with God. All conditions were right for hearing the Divine Voice—the just-cleaned smell of Mercedes’s relentless scrubbing discipline, the singe of the candle curling