Chapter 6 - The Wednesday Communion
Saint Jude’s Episcopal Church was quiet on Wednesday mornings, smelling of beeswax, lemon oil, and old hymnals.
The low autumn sun cut through the stained glass along the south transept, casting long pools of ruby and sapphire light across the red carpeted aisle.
At 10:45 AM, the communion service concluded. The six elderly parishioners who attended the mid-week liturgy shuffled down the aisle toward the narthex, murmuring polite pleasantries to Father Thomas.
Mom stayed behind in the third pew from the front, kneeling on the velvet cushion, her head bowed in deep, ostentatious prayer. Her silver hair was neatly pinned in an elegant French twist; her camel-hair coat was draped gracefully over the oak bench beside her.
Two pews behind her sat Brenda Higgins, wearing a floral scarf and packing silk altar ribbons into a wicker basket.
Kendra and I walked down the center aisle together. The sharp clicks of our boots against the stone floor echoed in the empty sanctuary.
Brenda looked up first. Her pleasant, church-lady smile flickered, then froze when she saw the manila expanding file under my arm and Kendra walking beside me in locked step.
“Mara? Kendra?” Brenda said, lowering her voice out of reflex for the sanctuary. “Goodness, what a surprise. The parish hall coffee isn't ready yet, girls.”
Mom turned around slowly, her face instantly adjusting to that familiar, pained expression of maternal martyrdom she had perfected over four decades.
“Mara,” Mom said, her voice a soft, tremulous sigh. “You broke my heart at Eleanor’s school yesterday. The principal was so rude to me. I was only trying to bring Ellie a little surprise to let her know her grandmother still loves her, despite how cold you’ve become.”
I didn't sit down. I stopped at the entrance to Mom’s pew, blocking the aisle. Kendra moved past me and took a position directly behind Brenda Higgins, leaning her hands on the back of the pew where Brenda was packing her wicker basket.
“Brenda,” Kendra said, her voice dropping into a register so cold and steady that the older woman flinched. “How much does an administrative retainer cost on an empty LLC registered to your home address on Heather Lane?”
Brenda’s hands stopped moving. A bundle of violet silk ribbon slipped from her fingers and rolled across the crimson carpet.
Mom’s face hardened instantly. The pious, fragile posture vanished, replaced in half a second by a sharp, predatory calculation.
“What are you girls talking about?” Mom snapped, rising to her feet. “This is God’s house. If you have some petty grievance about Thanksgiving sleeping arrangements, you do not bring it to the sanctuary.”
“This isn't about Thanksgiving,” I said, opening the manila folder and laying three documents on the polished wood of the pew right in front of her prayer book. “This is about the petition for modification of fiduciary appointment filed in New Hanover Superior Court on November 18th four years ago.”
Mom didn't look down at the papers. She kept her eyes fixed on mine, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
“You forged my signature, Mom,” I said. My voice was quiet, even, and entirely devoid of emotion. “You had Brenda notarize a legal attestation claiming I was in an inpatient psychiatric facility while I was planning Dad’s memorial reception.”
Brenda Higgins let out a sharp, wheezing breath and stood up so fast her knees struck the pew in front of her. “Evelyn, you told me Mara had consented! You told me it was an emergency protective filing to keep the creditors from freezing the accounts!”
“Shut up, Brenda,” Mom hissed without turning her head.
The venom in her voice was so raw that Brenda shrank back against the stained glass window, her face turning the color of dough.
“You don't know what you’re talking about, Mara,” Mom said, stepping closer to me until I could smell the familiar lavender water and mints on her breath. “Your father left me with debts you couldn't possibly understand. He was weak. He spent twenty years making bad investments behind my back, and I had to clean it up to keep this family respectable!”
“Dad didn't have debts, Mom,” Kendra said from behind her, her voice trembling with fury. “We saw the accounting from Julian Vance. Dad had nearly seven hundred thousand dollars in unencumbered liquid funds and a paid-off mortgage. The only debts on the Bennett estate are the four hundred thousand dollars you wired to Cypress Peak Holdings in Reno to cover your casino lines.”
Mom turned slowly to look at Kendra. For the first time in our lives, the grand, untouchable Evelyn Bennett had no rehearsed speech, no manufactured tear, no pre-packaged maternal guilt to deploy.
Her mouth opened, then snapped shut like a turtle’s beak.
“We’re giving you one choice, Evelyn,” I said, using her first name for the first time since I was a child. “One single choice before Julian Vance walks into the District Attorney’s office with the criminal referrals for both you and Brenda.”
Brenda Higgins dropped to her knees on the prayer stool, her hands clasped against her chest. “Please, Mara! I have grandchildren! My husband is on the vestry! If this gets out, it will destroy us!”
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“Then you’d better listen very carefully to what my sister is about to say,” Kendra told her, her voice cutting through the sanctuary air like a razor.
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