The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Four

The Rosen House

Sanibel Island

Florida

"You really do this every week?" Mena Forbes asked as Brianna Palmer attached a thick mantle to her poke bonnet for her, covering her face below the eyes, and then pulled down a layer of black lace across everything. "After all this time?"

"Church on Sundays...on the island...in full costume." Brianna confirmed, checking that no one would be able to recognise Mena. Not that anyone she knew was likely to be attending the little Reformist church on the beach at Pelican Point. But her face was recognisable, she was one of the most photographed women in the world during almost thirty years married to Alistair Forbes, and they were not going to take any risks. "Gideon and I got married in that church...it was an independent Baptist church way back then, and I went to school with the Pastor's daughter and knew him quite well...so, he did us a favour, even though neither of us were believers. But...ironically as it turned out...he had met Michael Winstanley and the church was affiliated to the Church of Christ the Reformer...and that meant that the marriage was legitimate in the eyes of the British court...my birth father had to let me go. That church saved my life? Going back there feels appropriate?"

"But you have been home for forty years?" Mena said quietly. Her own need to attend the Sunday service was more understandable. She could justify it to herself as a habit, a routine that she could not just shake off simply because there was no one there to make her worship for her sins. She was still praying every single morning. Maybe not as much as she would have done when her husband was alive, and certainly not as much as she did in the convents as a nun, but she had to do it. She felt compelled to ask for forgiveness. Even the idea of not going to church on a Sunday scared her. But Brianna had been free for so long and only in thrall to her birth father for four short years.

"Silly, isn't it? I can't explain it...hundreds of hours of therapy have failed to get to the bottom of it, and help me kick the habit...but I think now that I go to give thanks...and I pray for Caitlin...because she was not as lucky as me?" Brianna sighed, finding it so easy to talk openly to Mena Forbes, because Mena knew what she was not talking about. Neither of them wanted to revisit what had happened to them in Britain, regardless of how long ago those bad memories were. But they understood each other, and their shared experiences made them instant soulmates. "I dress quite modestly...all the time...by American standards...but every Sunday, I put on a proper gown and I ask for forgiveness, give thanks for my good fortune and pray for my little sister?"

"It is not silly at all," Mena sighed, turning to look at herself in the mirror. Her gowns had appeared from somewhere. Provided by her hosts. She had been offered other clothes, more casual garments, but she had been taught that showing any flesh in public, or the shape of her body, was indecent, and those harsh lessons were quite impossible to ignore. "Will we be chaperoned?"

"Only by my protection detail...and don't worry, people are used to that with me...Sharon and Jacob always had security...and now, I am the President's sister. It is a short walk along the boardwalk...barely a mile...and the congregation are very welcoming. You will not find the atmosphere so...formal?" Brianna suggested, again not having to elucidate. She had left Britain six years before Mena arrived, so they had not known each other, but Mena was only four years younger than Caitlin, and their eventual husbands had been friends. Mena knew Caitlin well, and that intrigued Brianna. There were so many questions she wanted to ask but she did not want to push Mena too far, too soon, for fear of upsetting her. "Some American congregations are...Boston and Washington have some very traditional congregations...I am told that even the leashing craze has even caught on in Boston...but Pelican Point caters mostly to liberal Sunday Reformists like me...not a keeper in sight?"