Acts of Contrition (15 page)

“It’s nice running into you, Mary. I guess the chances were good,” he says, laughing. “It’s pretty much what I do these days. Hit twenty small towns in a day. Make appearances. Shake hands with worthy kids.” He looks around, nods, then focuses his too-blue eyes on me. “I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your day by being here.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sally’s beautiful. Both your daughters are,” he says. “I can’t believe I was onstage with them and didn’t even know.”

“I really need to get back,” I say, pointing in Tom’s direction.

I’ve taken a step when Landon says, “My grandmother died. In her sleep, just a few months ago.”

Landon shared little with me about his family. I knew the basics: His father left early on, destroying his mother, a young woman saddled with three boys. I knew that he was closest to his grandmother. She was the one who’d occasionally call his cell phone while we were together. Once when Landon was in the shower, his cell phone rang and I saw that it was his grandmother: Millicent James. I answered, introduced myself, and said that I’d heard lovely things about her. In a too-polite manner that reflected her generation, she proceeded to meddle in Landon’s and my relationship, hitting the love notes that Landon wasn’t able to reach. She told me that Landon spoke of me often; that he was a sweetheart, but that he’d need a “little coaxing,” if I knew what she meant. “Don’t be afraid to push his hand,” she told me. She was concerned about him, wanted him to be happy and married, worried he’d end up old and alone. Before she hung up, she reminded me to keep our conversation to myself.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Landon now. I look over my shoulder and see Tom glaring in our direction. “I’m sorry, Landon. But I’d really better scoot along.”

“Really good seeing you, MM.”

“See you,” I say.

Landon exhales, looks down, and then peers up at me from under his flop of hair. “Take care of those beautiful girls.”

“Bye,” I say, and walk in the direction of my family.

Tom and I barely talk on the way home. Luckily, the kids are nonstop, regaling one another with stories from the morning. Emily belts out “Silent Night.” Sally—who has forgotten that she was mad at me—holds her hand to her mouth like a microphone, introducing and reintroducing the mayor. The boys chant “Jingle Bells” over and over.

When we get home, Martina is pulling a frittata out of the oven. Teresa pours Tom and me big mugs of coffee. Angie slides a piece of coffee cake onto our plates, next to the eggs.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, running upstairs to throw on a pair of sweatpants and a sweater. Tom follows me, and when we get inside our bedroom, he closes the door.

“What were you and Landon James talking about?”

“Basically, nothing,” I say. “Just chitchat.”

“What kind of chitchat?” he asks. “What exactly did he say to you?”

“That he was campaigning, that he hits twenty towns in a day, blah, blah. Just stuff like that.”

“Are you sure?” Tom asks, pressing. “Nothing I’m going to find out about later? Nothing I’m going to find stashed in your desk drawer?”

“Tom,” I plead, “come on. Let’s not do this. He didn’t say anything, just chitchat, I promise.”

I look at Tom and shake my head like he’s being silly. I know it’s unfair of me, suggesting that he is being paranoid, especially since his compass needle is pointed in the direction of something less worrisome—Landon and me talking. It terrifies me to think that his needle would magnetize to true north, where Sally’s paternity lies.

“Are you ready to go down for brunch?” I say to Tom, taking his hands.

“I’m ready,” he says. “But Mary, you
act
different around him. What’s that about?”

“Of course I act different,” I say. “I felt weird as hell talking to him, knowing you were right down the road.”

“Not weird nervous,” Tom says. “Weird happy. You fluffed your hair, did this thing where you shifted your hips.”

“
Shifted
my hips?” I say. “What the heck does that even mean?”

Tom attempts an imitation of me leaning back and forth, like a smitten schoolgirl.

“You’re nuts,” I say, and because the burden of bringing us back to normal always falls on me, I clap my hands on his cheeks and kiss his mouth. “You’re nuts, you know? Shifting my hips. Like I’d want to show off my fat ass.” I kiss him again, pat him on the butt, and tell him to knock it off. He relaxes a bit, but we’re far from back to normal. An uneasy wedge has lodged itself between us, preventing us from closing the door on this.

That night as I curl into Tom, I make a silent promise to him. I vow that the truth is coming…soon.
Let us get through Christmas,
I pray,
and then I’ll tell you, once and for all
. And because we’re the Morrisseys, the proof will speak for itself: our ironclad familyhood, our ardent loyalty, and our profuse love for one another. The evidence will be overwhelming.
There’s enough good to overpower the bad,
my defense will show. I may be put on
probation, forced to wear a cuff around my ankle, but I won’t be taken from my home.

On Christmas morning it snows—fat, juicy flakes that summon the children. After presents have been opened, the cousins bundle in snow gear and go outside to play. Snowmen are made, fights are had, and sleighs careen down the hill at lightning speed.

PART THREE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Confession

THE FIRST DAY OF JANUARY
is cold and still. The snow that fell on Christmas morning lingers, covering our lawns, pushed up against the edges of the roads, now slick with a layer of silver ice. As we shuffle up the church steps, on our way to Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, I hold tight to the boys’ hands, warn Sally and Emily to watch for patches of ice, keep an eye on Tom, whose dress shoes provide little traction. Once in the church, I relax and smile at my family. I slide onto my knees and pray that this year is going to be a good one, though an uneasy feeling hovers over me, a sticky film of discomfort stemming from seeing Landon James only a little more than a week ago. I wonder how a decade has passed and he and I have managed to avoid each other so successfully. Up until that moment at the parade. Suddenly the metropolitan DC area seems too small for the two of us.

The priest speaks of the Blessed Virgin, her unselfish love, how Christ’s birth was made possible by Mary’s fiat:
Be it done
unto me according to thy word
. When I pray the Hail Holy Queen, I feel consumed with an emotion that’s too big to contain in my mortal body.
Let me be just a little bit like you
, I pray.
Let me not hesitate.
But I know that I’m nothing like Mary, a woman who took the ultimate risk so that something great could be achieved. While I have been bold with my risk taking, my motivation has been selfish. I’m aware of the distinction.

After Mass, I stand in line to make my confession. When the person before me exits and the light turns green, I slip into the box and onto my knees.

“Hello, Father,” I say. I make the sign of the cross and say “Amen.” Then I begin, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three months since my last confession.”

“What are your sins, my child?” It’s Father Mike and I’m glad. He’s more relaxed than Father Tucker, who often borders on sanctimonious, making me feel worse, not better, than before I confessed my sins.

“I’m holding on to a piece of information,” I say. “I’m withholding the truth. I guess that’s the same as lying.”

“What is the nature of this lie?”

Words are too small to describe what I’ve done. “I’ve lied to my husband.”

“And has this lie hurt him?”

“It hasn’t, but if he knew…”

“Are you looking for absolution or advice?”

“Both,” I say. “I’m thinking about coming clean, of telling the truth. Should I?”

“I can’t tell you that, dear,” Father Mike says. “My job is to hear your confession. Your penance is three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers.”

“But Father,” I say. “I want to know how it works. If I tell the truth, what will happen? And if I don’t tell the truth, what will happen? I need to weigh my options.”

Father Mike chuckles, and the tone of it rings of Teresa—Teresa who accuses me of going at my faith like a lawyer, all bargaining and negotiating. “I have no idea what will happen,” he says. “But God does. And if you trust in His will, I’d say that you’ll be fine.”

“But Father, isn’t it always best to tell the truth?”

“It’s best to confess your sins, my child. And it’s best to tend to your marriage at home.”

I make the sign of the cross and say, “Amen.” Then I say, “Father? So this is enough, confessing my sins?”

“There is nothing greater than cleansing your soul of sin,” he says. “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.”

“His mercy endures forever,” I respond, rote, the words from my entire life, but I’m still thinking it through. Did Father Mike just advise me not to tell Tom the truth? I should feel relief, but all I feel is dread, because something inside me knows that the time to come clean is upon me, to confess and hope for leniency.

Later that night, Tom and I lay in bed. “I talked to my brother today,” Tom says.

“How’s he?”

“He’s working—odd jobs,” Tom says. “But I worry, you know?”

“I know you feel that he got a rough shake; that the alcoholism is a curse. I know you worry about him. He’s your brother. I’d be the same way with my sisters.”

“A lot of it is his fault, of course,” Tom says. “He’s a grown man. But he’s also a Morrissey, and God knows there are plenty of Morrisseys who hit the bottle too hard.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Patrick was made in your father’s image. It’s a lot to fight against.” I snuggle into Tom and pull my fingers through his waves of hair. “You, on the other hand, were made in your mother’s image—good and kind.”

“What about you?” Tom asks, reaching his arm around my back. “Whose image were you made in? Robert or Regina Russo’s?”

“Neither,” I say, and mean it. “They’re
good
people, my parents. I’m only partially good. Certainly not enough like them to say I’m in their image.”

I’ve plucked up my courage and dropped the bait, and now I wait for Tom to bite.
Crack me open, Tom, so you can finally see my truth
. I squeeze my eyes shut and prepare myself for the blow. It’ll hurt, but I’m ready.

What do you mean you’re only partially good?
Tom will want to know.

But Tom doesn’t take the bait. “I think they would claim you,” he says.

“That’s because they don’t know the half of it.” I stare at Tom and try to modulate my breathing. My heart is thumping like a gong.

“Mare, just because you lifted Post-it Notes and paper clips from the law firm you worked at ten years ago doesn’t make you a delinquent.”

On any other day, Tom would have put me on the stand, would have drilled me to explain the meaning of my inflammatory remark “because they don’t know the half of it.” Today, the one day I want him to press me, prosecute me, force me to come out with it all, he isn’t in the mood—his thoughts are elsewhere.

Coward that I am, I luxuriate in the wave of relief washing over me and settle back into cozy chitchat. “It wasn’t Post-it Notes and paper clips,” I remind him. “It was toilet paper and coffee filters.”

“That’s right.”

“We were on a tight budget. Remember, we were just married and both working and we were living in that little apartment.”

“And you were pregnant with Sally,” Tom adds.

Pregnant with Sally.
“We were saving up for our house,” I drift on, though my heart is pounding again. “And eating a whole lot of tuna casserole.”

“Hey, I love tuna casserole,” Tom defends. “A few potato chips crushed up on the top.”

Now all at once I throw myself back on the stand. I can’t let this chance pass. I’m so close. “I was pretty stressed back then,” I say, the witness leading the prosecutor, taking another whack at provoking him into pressing me for the truth that’s all but bursting out of me.

“You were a nervous wreck,” Tom agrees. “Worrying that Sally wouldn’t be perfect, and then she blew you away by being a thousand times better than perfection.”