Chapter Twelve: Nancy

Nancy is somewhere between Amarillo and McLean when El Burro’s ‘check engine’ light blinks on. She’s been driving for ten hours straight, driving through the night. It’s 5am, still pitch black beyond the beam of her headlights, and the orange warning light glares in contrast, the visual equivalent of a scream. Nancy casts her eyes Heavenward. “The Trials,” she can hear Pastor Frank declaring, “will appear before you when you are on your Way, offering an opportunity to prove your Love for Him.” 

The Trials! She smiles, a beatific smile. Yes, she is on her Way. She is on her Mission! 

Nancy is not afraid. Not of anything. Least of all that El Burro will break down here in the night, in the panhandle, half way to her destination. Because, this road she drives, Route 66, from Clarkdale to the Outer Banks, it is the road chosen for her by Him. She feels the power of this. The protection. 

She winks at the warning light, just a little test of her faith, and depresses the gas pedal, speeding onward, speeding eastward, toward where the sun will rise. 

They bought the minivan the first time she got pregnant. Not even immediately. They waited until she’d made it six months. They thought they were in the clear. They were painting—Jesus was painting—the second bedroom they’d planned to fill with children. The room that’s sat empty, waiting, these nine years. The room she thinks of as her heart. He’d assembled the crib they inherited from her sister. She was knitting a sweater for the girl, due in December. Every part of their lives was a preparation for the birth, The Event that Nancy knew would mark the true beginning of their lives, revealing everything before it to have been merely a prelude. 

Little did she know! She would never make it across that threshold, through that door, on to the next phase of her being, her becoming. 

They didn’t think of selling the van, just like they didn’t think of turning the room into anything other, an office or a den or a guest bedroom. After all, they were going to try again. If it wasn’t now, it would be next year. It would be next year. It would be next year. 

How long can you hold out hope? How long, believe in a dream that refuses to come true? Nancy’s faith first wavered after the third. That time, it hardly hurt. It felt like her body had grown accustomed to miscarriage. But her soul had not. 

That time, she went to Pastor Frank, a little shy to speak of something so personal—so bodily—with a man, but he was God’s man, after all. And she was lost like she’d never been. 

“Nancy,” he told her. “The Lord sees you. Never forget that He is watching over all things at all times. This Hardship you endure, mark my words: one day you will count it a Blessing.” 

Of course, she took his words to mean: one day you will hold your child—your children—in your arms. But he never promised that, did he? He never said what the Blessing would be. 

Is this it? Is today the day? And were all those years of loss, the most visceral loss, her dreams slipping out from between her legs again and again and again, were they in fact a preparation to perform this great act of salvation? 

Nancy believes it. Because…when she found the Inflammatory Blog…when she saw the post at the top of the page: “The Reason for Our Suicide”…when she saw that the date beside it was tomorrow’s date, August 18, 2026…when she understood that by some miracle the post had gone up too soon, that she was glimpsing only a possible future, and she still had the chance to prevent it—to save these seven women from their intended demise—then she felt the feeling she’d thought she would feel when she gave birth: of purpose flooding her life. Of certainty prevailing. 

And she heard Pastor Frank’s words, so recently spoken: “It is time! The time has come when there can be no more hesitation. Therefore, go forth and find your Mission with haste! With the urgency that a Crisis demands.” 

It was truly like the clouds parting, like the light of the Lord shining down upon her, there at Desktop 6 in the Clarkdale Public Library. A revelation. Such as she had only dreamed of. 

It had to be His work. How else could she have ever happened upon that blog? She’d just logged on to check her email. She can’t explain the trail that led from her inbox to the site. A targeted ad, a web search, someone’s TikTok. Click, click, click. She wasn’t thinking, just following a trail of breadcrumbs. And then, all of a sudden, there it was! And in the nick of time, too, just in time for her to be able to do something about it. She googled the drive: 36 hours, almost due east. She googled the hurricane, predicted to reach Cape Hatteras late on Tuesday morning. 

There was no question, no hesitation. She stood right up and walked right out, sped home in El Burro and commenced packing. Which is to say, chucking her phone charger and a random assortment of snacks into her largest bolsa.

“¿Qué pasa?” Jesus looked up from his phone, from his seat on the couch, only when she began filling her third water bottle—because she would be driving through deserts and you never knew. 

Jesus had been glued to that screen ever since he’d gotten back, last week, from his trip to Phoenix, where he’d gone to look for work but found, instead, a preposterous dream. 

Tengo buenas noticias! he’d texted from the home-bound Greyhound. But her heart hadn’t leapt, it had sunk, seeing the words. Because, she knew him, didn’t she? Knew his idea of good news, and how rarely it squared with her own. Jesus lived in a state of perpetual revelation, of high hopes and fever dreams and breakthroughs; the evergreen conviction that things would get better. 

She’d loved this about him once, and for a long time. It had taken her that long to realize the pattern: that he’d be struck by one of his ideas and the world would appear all glittering and new, a lush rainforest of possibility…only for his vision to evaporate as he—as they—approached it: another mirage, sinking him into despondency until the next revelation was at hand. 

She’d been blind to this loop for so long because she’d been caught in a loop of her own, caught bodily in it, the beginning of life giving way to…death, it was death, though she couldn’t say it, right there inside her, at her core. And his optimism had been her life raft. “No pasa nada, mi vida, we’ll try again,” he would say, and she would nod, and he would wipe the tears from her eyes and kiss her sweaty, fevered forehead. 

Yes, he’d been her savior. She knows it’s true. But somewhere along the way, she couldn’t say exactly when, she noticed not one of his ideas had ever born fruit. His mind was as treacherous as her womb. In the wake of which realization his bouts of happiness became, for her, a cause for concern. 

Here we go again, she’d thought when he’d texted. Tengo buenas noticias! And she’d been right to think it! No sooner had he arrived home, than he was proudly proclaiming that he’d found something better than a job, there in the heatwave of Phoenix. He’d found his calling! He was going to be an actor! 

What do you know about acting? Nancy might have asked, but she didn’t have the will to bring him low when life certainly would before long. Instead she’d fixed a smile to her face and nodded along to each twist and turn of his breathless account. It was kismet! It was destiny! Sure, sure. One flier on the right telephone poll and he was on his way! 

He’d been living on the internet ever since, searching for casting calls, googling how to get noticed in Hollywood, putting out feelers for a couch to crash on if he went out to the coast for a week or two or three. 

Not once, in the intervening week, had he asked her about her Sunday. Which had felt, to her, just as momentous as his had felt to him. Because, even before she discovered Red’s Inflammatory Blog, Nancy sensed that the idea of the Mission was the key she had been missing all these years, which would unlock the closed doors of her life. Pastor Frank’s words had sounded like a bell, struck in the temple of her being. Had resounded through her soul, and she’d been vibrating ever since. She had wanted to share this experience with Jesus, but by the time he had run out of breath, finished raving about his own awakening, her subtle observations felt too tender to disclose. 

She tried, though, when he finally looked up from his phone yesterday, when he asked her what she was doing, filling all those water bottles at the sink. She recounted the words of the sermon, as best she could recall them, and the logic that led from Crisis to Mission, the imperative of the moment. She must have explained it well enough because,“¡Exacto! ¡Así es!” Jesus cried, “That’s what has happened! I have found my mission!” 

Seeming to forget that he’d been curious about her flurry of activity, returning to thoughts of his own glory, his eyes fell back to his phone before she’d had the chance to explain how Frank’s sermon had led her to this moment of frenzied packing, and the rescue she was planning. “Mi misión!” he repeated the words to himself, running off, in his mind, with her revelation. 

Had he always been so self-obsessed? She didn’t think so. And, anyway, why shouldn’t he get to think of himself, when he had thought of her for so long? Still, it hurt to feel indifference where once she had felt support. Even in the midst of her elation she felt the sting of it. And she bristled at the idea that his “mission,” a glorified, ill-advised ego trip, could have anything in common with her own—her capital ‘M’ Mission—a genuine call from God to be of service to her fellow man—her fellow woman.

It hurt, but it also drove her further into her conviction. “You will not be understood!” Pastor Frank had warned. “You must hold fast to your Beliefs. No one else will see, but you will know what is in your Heart!” 

Nancy knew alright. And she didn’t need to prove it to Jesus to believe it. 

“I’m going,” she said, when she had gathered all she could think of, when she stood in the doorway, already half way gone. 

“¿Dónde?” he asked, not looking up.

“En mi Misión!” Nancy slammed the door. 

Backing El Burro onto the road, she felt a twinge of sadness and a twinge of guilt. But as she shifted into drive, as she pulled away from what she was already happy to call her past life and floored it toward the future, the sadness pretty quickly fell alway. 

The guilt was harder to shake. Why couldn’t she have stayed five minutes longer and told him of her plans? Hadn’t the past nine years been hard on them both? Didn’t he deserve the happiness he’d found, whether or not it would last? 

Her righteousness gave way to regret as she drove, and two hours out from Clarkdale she texted, Lo siento, cariño.

To which he replied with two thumb’s up emojis, but still no question about where she was bound. After which she did not think of him. 

After which she only thought of them. 

She thinks of them. The women. As the sun begins to rise before her. Thinks of the mysterious Seven from the internet. Whose lives she will soon save. What will she say to them? When she finds them on Cape Hatteras, about which she knows nothing but its location on a map. Nancy isn’t sure. But she feels certain that, when they are before her, she will find the words. The words will come, with the same ease with which she discovered their suicide note, and for the same reason: because He wills it. By his Grace she will be made eloquent. 

She’s on the outskirts of Oklahoma City now, thirteen hours into her thirty-six. El Burro’s ‘check engine’ light has blinked off and on twice, and finally settled into a flicker. 

Nancy hums “This Little Light of Mine” with a smile and drives on. 

It felt heroic to be driving through the night; now it feels exalted to be driving through the day—right into the sun’s blaze, blinding just as the face of God would be. 

Four and a half hours to cross Oklahoma. 

Four more to cross Arkansas. 

She stops only to refuel and avail herself of the rest stops’ Ladies, to buy a coffee or a diet cola. She pats El Burro’s dash each time she stops and starts, as if the car really were a donkey, as a way of saying thank you and also please. 

What does she think of as she drives? Everything. She sees the whole of her life spread out before her, clearly for the first time, with every joy and sorrow now revealed to be an equal blessing, leading her to this day, to this road, to her moment and her Mission. She recalls, one by one, her seven miscarriages, each with its particular pain. It is not lost on her that there are seven women wanting to end their lives to match the seven lives she lost. It is one more sign from Him that this Mission is for her. And so she thinks of the two sevens, and she thinks of her own beginning, her lineage, all the women who made her life possible. 

It is just as Pastor Frank said, “When you have found your Mission nothing in your life will be misaligned.” 

The ecstasy of it sustains her for a long time, well into the afternoon. But the body has its limits if the spirit does not. Nancy has been driving for twenty hours, awake for thirty-two, and she’s approaching the Tennessee state line when her eyelids begin to flicker, much like the light on her dash is flickering. They flicker and then they blink shut, and when she wakes moments later it’s to the thrum of the rumble strip and a furious honking behind her. 

Nancy swerves to right her course, El Burro groaning as she does. If she is being guided by the signs and symbols of the Lord, she has to consider that this is another. She has to admit she will not make it to the Outer Banks if she does not stop now and sleep. 

When the next exit appears, she throws on El Burro’s turn signal and swings into the lane, following the arc of the ramp down, descending into the maze of Memphis. 

By Nancy’s reckoning, she can afford to sleep for two hours and still make it to the Outer Banks in time to save The Seven. She’s looking for somewhere nondescript to park and nap, with enough activity to ensure her safety but not so much that she will be disturbed. 

She passes the Extra Space Storage, the Tire Express, EH Ford Mortuary Services; there’s a Subway and an Exxon and a Taco Bell, and then, on her left, there’s what she wanted: a large lot, belonging to a sprawling hotel. If there’s a sign at the entrance naming the place, she doesn’t notice it. She signals, turns in and pulls into a vacant spot, cuts El Burro’s engine and dutifully pats the dash. “Just a little farther,” she tells the car. “But now, we rest.” 

The only thing Nancy needs more than to sleep is to pee, so she dismounts and heads for the hotel, which seems more massive the closer she gets. Six stories tall, with wings to the right and left that triple its capacity; a facade of columns, a massive porte-cochère, twin chimneys…gaudy, she would call it, especially as she she steps through one and then another pair of automatic doors, entering into the lobby to find the marble floor, the velvet sofas, the mirrored ceiling mosaic. This is The Guest House at Graceland, the branded welcome mat informs her. 

The place is bustling, and with every sort of person. Families, couples, a bachelorette posse, impersonators, even some perfectly normal looking folks. There are babies and grandparents. There are white folks, mostly those, but also Brown and Black. There’s a huddle of Japanese tourists. A Native American couple she’d bet just got hitched. Who doesn’t love Elvis? 

Nancy has never cared much for The King, never understood the appeal of those leather suits, those hips, those capes, that shock of hair, that baby face; nor his crooning, nor his vibrato. No, none of it ever stirred her. 

But this melting pot, this does move her. Less and less is this how she thinks of America, but here at Graceland the phenomenon is as advertised: all ages, races, sexes, creeds, brought together by a common love. Not of country, but of The King.  

She’d be more touched if her bladder weren’t about to burst. She scans the grand room for the sign she needs, and makes a b-line for the Ladies. 

In the bathroom, where she finds herself alone, it’s easier to hear the music that’s been playing all along. Of course it’s Elvis. Probably they play nothing else here. His catalogue’s long  enough for a good rotation. There’s an Elvis for every mood, isn’t there? A little bit like the Almighty, he can meet you wherever you are. 

It’s Gospel Elvis singing to her now. And he’s singing a song she loves, though she listens to Carrie Underwood’s version. “How Great Thou Art.” A song for this moment, if ever there were one. 

Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee… 

In the stall, overcome by exhaustion, overcome by feeling, Nancy Hernandez bursts into tears.