Read Online The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan - Free Book Online

were able to see visions that had remained hidden to others. I still don’t know, really. Certainly, there have been people here in McLean who are no relation to me who have had the visions as well.”
    “Were all of the visions seen by women?”
    “Oh, yes, I forgot that part. Anytime Mary has been seen alone that I know of, it has been by another woman. When she appears with Jesus, it has been to both sexes. But still, very rarely are the apparitions seen by men. Or maybe they are, but I think men are less likely to talk about it in public.”
    “I see.” Maureen was nodding. “Rachel, how clearly did you see Mary? I mean, could you describe her face in any detail?”
    Rachel continued to smile in that beatifically knowing way that Maureen found strangely comforting. Speaking with someone about visions as if it were the most natural thing in the world made Maureen feel surprisingly safe. At least if she did turn out to be completely nuts, she was in pleasant enough company.
    “I can do better than describe her face. Come over here.”
    Rachel took Maureen gently by the arm and led her to the back of the shop. She pointed to the wall behind the cash register, but Maureen’s eyes had already found the portrait. It was an oil painting; the subject was an auburn-haired woman with an exquisitely beautiful face and the most extraordinary hazel eyes.
    Rachel was watching Maureen’s reaction closely, and waiting for her to speak. It would be a long wait. Maureen was speechless.
    Rachel offered quietly, “I see you two have already met.”

    As stunned as Maureen had been by the face in the frame, she was even more shaken by what followed. After the initial moment of shock, she began to tremble just before the sob burst through her body.
    She stood there and cried for what must have been a minute, maybe two, sobs wracking her small frame for the first few seconds before waning into a softer cry. She felt such terrible sorrow, a deep and aching pain, but she wasn’t entirely sure that the sadness was her own. It was as if she were experiencing the pain of the woman in the portrait. But then it changed; after the initial outburst, Maureen’s crying felt more like relief, and she surrendered to it. The oil painting represented a type of validation; it made the dream woman real.
    The dream woman, who just happened to be Mary Magdalene.

    Rachel was kind enough to brew some herbal tea in the back room of the shop. She allowed Maureen to sit in the small stockroom for some privacy. A young couple looking for astrology books had entered the store, and Rachel glided off to help them. Maureen sat at a small desk in the back, sipping chamomile and hoping that the claim on the tea box, “soothes the nerves,” was not just advertising hype.
    When Rachel had finished her transaction at the front of the store, she came back to check on Maureen. “You okay?”
    Maureen nodded and took another sip. “Fine now, thanks. Rachel, I’m really sorry about the outburst, I just, well…did you paint that?”
    Rachel nodded. “Artistic ability runs in my family. My grandmother is a sculptor; she has done several versions of Mary in clay. I have often wondered if that’s the reason Mary appears to us — because we have the ability to express her somehow.”
    “Or maybe it’s because artistic people are more open,” Maureen was thinking out loud. “Sort of a right-brain thing?”
    “Possibly. I think it’s a combination of the two, at least. But I’ll tell you something else. I believe with all my heart that Mary wants to be heard. Her apparitions have increased here in McLean over the last decade. She was all but haunting me over the last year, and I knew that I had to paint her in order to find any degree of peace. Once the portrait was finished and displayed, I was able to sleep again. In fact, I haven’t seen her since.”

    Back in her hotel room later that night, Maureen swirled the red wine in her glass and gazed absently at