All for a Sister (39 page)

And she said, “Yes, yes. Our Father hears your confession. Our Father forgives your sin. Do you feel it? Can you feel his love and mercy?”

I could. If only I had any one of my many physicians by my side, I would have turned to him and said, I am healed. For in that moment, there was no pain. In fact, there wasn’t
anything
. I looked over to Christopher only to see his head bowed in prayer, for which I was relieved, because he would not have approved nor allowed what happened next.

I stood.

With my own strength, without assistance, I stood. And then, I walked. Unbidden and uninvited, I walked—slowly, carefully, as my body seemed to be propelled by a force not my own—to the stage, where Sister Aimee paced, microphone in hand, shouting above the noise of the crowd, lapsing at times into an unfamiliar tongue. Nobody tried to stop me. In fact, when I reached the steps, a lovely gentleman took my arm to lead me. I remember thinking at the time that I might already be in heaven, he was so handsome, dressed in a suit the color of the sky.

He stayed beside me, his hand on the small of my back, more intimate than any touch I’d felt in years, and he whispered, his breath tinged with the scent of cigarettes, “Would you like Sister Aimee to pray over you?”

I nodded, and he asked, “Can you share with me the nature of your illness?”

And I said, simply, I am dying.

The compassion in his face served as the perfect prelude to
any prayer, and he lifted his hand—the ring on his pinkie finger glinting in the light—to catch her attention.

“Sister,” he beckoned, and she came.

She looked at me, and all disappeared save for the three of us—she in her milky-white satin, he with his touch, and me with my yearning to live.

Sister Aimee held the square silver microphone in her hand but spoke directly to me. “My sister, have you come to be healed?”

Yes.

“And have you been cleansed of your sins by claiming the saving grace of Jesus Christ?”

Yes, I said. It was by that grace I was able to stand.

“You live with pain?”

Yes.

“Then I ask you, who is it you need to forgive?”

I said nothing.

She pressed on. “From whom do you need to seek forgiveness?”

If not for the strength of that man’s hand on my back, I might have collapsed. She looked at me with eyes that seemed to see clear to the end of time, mining my secrets.

“You’ve lost a child?”

Yes.

“More than one?”

Everything.

“And for that, you hold bitterness in your heart.”

I didn’t need to tell her; she knew. She handed the microphone to the man behind me, and she laid her hand on my chest. A burning pain seared through me, as there were tumors grown nearly to the point of bursting through my very flesh, but the sharpness of that pain brought a certain, perfect clarity.

Long before this moment, it crossed my heart more than once
to think that I might find healing in forgiveness. Yes, forgiveness, begged for and granted. To grant dispensation to the girl, maybe even offer apology and restitution for the life—the
lives
—I stole from her. I sensed that it would not only temper the bitterness that haunted my every thought, but might even effect a deliverance from this disease before I knew it had a name. My life restored for such a small token. And yet, in that moment, I had only one answer.

I cannot.

Her countenance awash in judgment, she moved her hands to my face, drew me close, and kissed my forehead, my left cheek, and my right. “I would tell you, my sister, to go in peace. But I fear that you shall have none unless you forgive.”

It’s too late.

“While there is breath, there is hope. God has shown you great mercy so that you can do the same.”

By then, she had the microphone, and she wasn’t talking to me anymore. The pain returned with a vengeance I could not have anticipated, and I collapsed against the man, who now held me upright.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I have you.”

He turned me around, and there was Christopher, waiting. Weeping. He came up to the stage and, gentle as the Good Shepherd, lifted me. Back up the aisle we walked, as the choir sang:

“I’ve wandered far away from God,

Now I’m coming home.

The paths of sin too long I’ve trod;

Lord, I’m coming home.”

Abandoning the wheelchair, he shouldered his way through those making the pilgrimage to Sister Aimee’s altar, through the
lush lobby, and outside to where, right on cue, the young man waited with the car.

The ride home was excruciating, as I felt every twist and turn and bump of the drive. At home, upstairs, Graciela had changed my linens and had a fresh, new soft gown waiting for me. As she helped me change, she said, “I listened, on the radio. I heard every word.”

Exhausted, I crawled into my bed, took a sip of the water she offered, and asked her if she thought my forgiveness would save my life.

“No,
mamá
. You are going to die. But you know that. And he keeps giving you day after day to do what is right for your heart. To give you peace before he takes you to eternity. You cannot change the past, but you can make a better future.”

My future, I knew, might well be measured in minutes, and I asked her to go see if Mr. Parker still lingered downstairs. When she came back, confirming his presence, I asked her to bring him to my room, along with the other young man (his name was Angus Farland, I soon learned), and once there, with what I was sure would be my dying breath, I instructed Christopher to find her and give her half of everything I have.

It would be my substitute for mercy.

If the girl has given herself over to the mercy of the Lord, so be it. If we share anything, it is the endless source of his grace. I give this confession as an exoneration of my own guilt, not hers.

May God have the same mercy on her soul as I trust he will have on mine.

CELESTE, AGE 20

1925

“‘MAY GOD HAVE THE SAME
mercy on her soul as I trust he will have on mine.’”

Celeste listened to her mother’s final written words. Or, at least, this woman who had claimed to be her mother. Neither she nor Dana were up to the task of confronting the long-hidden truth, so Werner, at their invitation, agreed to read aloud for them. The accented depth of his voice gave enough distance from the words to make them bearable. Often, though, she had to urge him to stop as she tried to reconcile the woman she’d known with the woman revealed in this series of handwritten pages. And yet, it answered so many questions, the sadness that seemed always to plague the corners of her mother’s life. Her irrational, protective fear.

Still, it left one question unanswered.

The question of her mother.

She looked to Dana.
Their
mother.

They were gathered in Celeste’s home, cozy around the kitchen table, with Graciela in the background. She’d said nothing during the reading, save to walk over and clarify Marguerite’s
penmanship, as there were great passages she herself had written when Mother was too weak.

“And so you knew this?” Celeste had said not far into the reading. “All of this? And you never said a word to me?”

“It was not my place,
mija.
I knew it would be made known to you in God’s time. And how beautiful, now, that you can share this with—”

But she’d interrupted herself, before Mother herself revealed Celeste and Dana to be sisters, and as the truth slowly dawned, they joined hands to hear the rest of the tale together.

“She slept so soundly that day when she got back from that church,” Graciela said, pouring fresh coffee into a carafe. Nearly a full minute of silence had passed since Werner read the final words. “I kept coming in and checking, leaning close to make sure she was still breathing. Even in the night, and then I saw her up and awake and writing. But when I ask does she want help, like I did sometimes before, she said no. That she needed to finish herself. It took her four days, and then she passed.” She made the sign of the cross.
“Dios la tenga en su gloria.”

“God rest her soul,” Celeste alone repeated.

“Why don’t you take your coffee out on the patio?” Graciela placed three cups, the carafe, and cream and sugar on a tray as if the decision had already been made. “I built a fire in the chimenea. It is such a beautiful night.”

Celeste looked to the others, who seemed agreeable, and led the way outside. It was a beautiful, clear night, with enough breeze to bring in the scent of the orange groves and the ocean, but not too cool. Nobody had felt much like eating after the afternoon’s visit to Mr. Parker’s office, but they’d picked around what was left in the kitchen as a way to stall the inevitable exposure to Mother’s pathetic, hidden past.

They gathered the patio chairs to make a semicircle around the chimenea, and though the evening was far from chilly, the warmth from the fire within provided a nostalgic comfort. The crackle of the flames stood in place of conversation. She stole a glance over to Dana, who stared into the flames, and then to Werner, only to see his eyes focused on Dana. Celeste’s own heart clutched at the affection laid bare. She’d never once seen her father look at her mother that way.

Again, not her mother, and a new question formed.

“If you two will excuse me for a moment.” It was the polite thing to say, though neither acknowledged her.

In the kitchen, she was greeted with the same scene that had been her sign of welcome and comfort since she was a child. Graciela, busy at the counter, preparing food. This time, a dough she’d mixed earlier had been rolled and cut, and the first of the pieces now fried in sizzling hot oil.

“Sopaipillas?” They were Celeste’s favorite.

“
Sí
, Celita.” Her expert hands worked the dough. “And there is fresh honey in the pantry.”

Celeste obeyed the unspoken request to fetch it. Any other day, and she would have opened the jar right away and plunged a spoon in for a treat to sate her sweet tooth while Graciela fried the pastries. But now, her stomach felt full already. Full . . . or shriveled. Either way, there was no room.

She came out of the pantry and set the jar on the table. Graciela, absorbed at the stove, offered a distracted acknowledgment over her shoulder. With the last out of the pan, she would give them a dusting of sugar and cinnamon.

She was everything Mother had never been. Nurturing. Kind. Beautiful.

“Graciela?”

“Sí, mija?”

“Usted y mi padre eran amantes?”

Graciela’s hand stilled, and she slowly set the shaker down.
“Qué has dicho?”

“
Tú y mi padre
—you and my father. Were you lovers?”

“
Ay
, Celita. Your papa, he was a complicated man. He was
embrujado
. Haunted, by that girl and her mother.”

“
My
mother. And how long have you known that?”

“After your papa died, when she told me the whole story.”

But she didn’t meet Celeste’s eye with her response. “I don’t believe you.”

Graciela busied herself with the hem of a tea towel. “In some way, he always knew. He told me once, after your brother . . . that it was almost impossible that you were his child. And that, looking back, you might not even be your—his wife’s. But—” she shrugged, helpless—“what was to be done?”

She began to busy herself, moving the sopaipillas to a bright-yellow plate, as if the conversation had ended.

“I’m not a little girl anymore,” Celeste said. “I haven’t been for a long, long time. What do you know about my mother?”

“Oh, Celita—” her brown eyes filled with tears—“
déjalo.
Let it rest. It is too much for one night.”

“Tell me,” Celeste insisted with an admittedly childish stamp of her foot.

Just then, Werner walked in and headed straight for the pages left abandoned on the table.

“Dana and I were talking,” he said, flipping through, “and it’s unlikely that Mrs. DuFrane would simply omit Celeste’s birth and the fate of her mother. She spared no details in any other case, and she doesn’t allude to any unconfessed sin. It must be that . . .” His voice trailed. “Here, there have to be some pages missing.”

He left with the papers, and Celeste returned her attention to Graciela.

“You didn’t answer my question. About my father and you.”

She sighed, and Celeste braced herself for a truth she didn’t want to hear.

“For a time, before you were born, he was here—now that I think, it must have been
right
before you were born. My dancing days had already come to an end, but I was still singing in a little cantina, and your father came in with some colleagues. He was supposed to stay here for a week but ended up staying for much longer.”

“With you?”

“At first, he shared a house with some of the other professors, but after we met, he rented a small apartment, not far from here. One night, we borrowed a car and went for a drive and saw this house. He fell in love with it and said if he could have any other life, it would be in this house, with me.”