Men and Angels by Mary Gordon Page A

die. She was thinking that she could have killed her.
    Then it came. It was not anything she saw or heard. She knew only that it was with her. She knew she had been chosen. In her heart she knew the words, “You are the chosen one, the favored of the Lord.”
    She was not frightened, for she knew it was the Spirit of the Lord inside her, coming with power and with love. She walked back into her grandmother’s kitchen. That was the beginning of her power. No one was there but her father.
    “I’m sorry,” said her father. “I guess your mother got a little carried away.”
    She smiled at him with her new smile, the smile that she always had now, the smile that had the wisdom of the Spirit, and the Spirit’s peace. “It doesn’t matter,” she said to her father.
    And it didn’t. Before the Spirit came, she would have been grateful to her father. Angry that he had not spoken sooner, but grateful that he was on her side. But she knew then that she would never need him anymore. Her poor father. She prayed that he, too, would one day find the Spirit. Her mother’s flesh was choking him. But with her mother dead, he would find the Spirit. She prayed for him to find it, but no more than for anyone else. He meant nothing special to her. Once she had needed him to love her. But now she was loved in the Spirit. She was the chosen of the Lord. Now people needed her.
    She was good with children; she understood them, and they liked her, she was sure they did. Even that time with the Chamberlains, the children had liked her. Only the parents hadn’t understood. They said the things she told the children gave them nightmares. But it wasn’t true. It was the presence of the Spirit that made the parents uneasy. She showed them their uncleanness by her life among them, by the presence of the Spirit. It was the darkness in the parents that gave the children nightmares. Her power was not great enough, the evil in the Chamberlains had beaten her. Now she knew, from Jesus’ words to the apostles, how she must proceed with Anne and with her children. She had not been wise with the Chamberlains, she had spoken the name of the Spirit too early, and the darkness had overcome them. Now she would not speak the name of God, not speak of the Spirit, until the time was right. They would not know the Spirit was among them until the power of the Spirit had subdued their darkness. Then she would conquer. Then they would all be saved.
    The Chamberlains had asked her to leave. But they had said they would recommend her to another family. Their children had learned a great deal, the Chamberlains said, from Laura. She had taught the little girl to cross-stitch, the boy to make flowers, birds and animals from clay. Perhaps another family, the Chamberlains had said, with a more religious background…. As it is, we are not believers.
    Not believers. Of course not, you are choked with wickedness. She had not said this to them. She wanted them to recommend her.
    It would be different with Anne Foster. Now she knew more; now the power of the Spirit was much greater. It would not be difficult to save them all. She would begin with the children.
    As a little child, she had wanted the heat that jetted round her mother’s body. But her mother said, “Don’t hang on me.” Once, when Laura was a child, her mother had pushed her off the arm of the couch and she had cut her lip and bled and bled so that everyone was frightened. “Well, I told her not to hang on me,” her mother said, cleaning Laura’s face with quick, sharp hands that did not linger, did not treasure. “Why can’t you be more like your sister? Do you see her hanging on me all the time?”
    Debbie was quick and dark and like the mother dancing. She sang and snapped her fingers. She told stories with mistakes in them just to make people laugh. She hung upside down from the trapeze on the swing set. The children in the swimming pool were her friends, dove and rose up from the water holding