The Passion of Mary-Margaret (38 page)

I turned to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling his face to mine.
This is it
, I thought.

There were no parlor tricks on Jude's part, he didn't pull fast moves out of a hat. He simply loved me with his body, and I loved him in return with mine. For all his experience, he'd never given himself away, and this he did. I hadn't either, of course, so in that, we were on equal footing.

I forgot about the syphilis.

Later I asked him about that night, if he had forgotten too.

He said he did, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why; he just saw me there, thought,
This is what love should be. You're
a fool if you don't take it,
and reached out. I didn't tell him sometimes miracles are small and, to the naked eye, even a little insane.

The next morning I was scrambling some eggs for our breakfast as he unplugged the percolator and poured our coffee when I realized I held all the cards.

“I've decided what's good for the goose is good for the gander.”

“I'm almost scared to ask,” he said.

“I'm not going to get the penicillin if you don't.”

He set down his cup. “Mary-Margaret, don't be so silly.”

“No. I'm serious, Jude.” I lifted the pan off the hot burner and set it on a cool one. “If I take the medicine and you don't, I'll be back to sleeping on the floor beside the couch. So I want you with me.” I pressed my body against his.

He sighed, cradled my face in his hands, and kissed me softly on the mouth. “I did this to myself, didn't I?”

“Yes. Thank God,” I said, dryly.

He placed two pieces of bread in the toaster. “I know you better than to try and talk you out of your plan.”

This surprised me. “Are you calling me stubborn?”

“Yep. Think about it, Mary-Margaret. What have you wanted in life that you haven't gotten eventually? You've always done what you wanted. You even convinced me somehow to marry you when I knew marrying you would be the worst thing for you.”

If he only knew. He never knew about my talks with Jesus. I never even remotely slipped in letting that out.

It was fine if he thought I was stubborn. People thought worse of me and will continue to. At least he didn't think I had horns! At least he liked my artwork.

“I only did it because I thought I'd be dead in a few years.”

“Really, Jude? Really? You know syphilis can take up to twenty years to kill a person.”

“I figured mine was worse than that.”

“I don't believe you. It was more than that and you know it.”

He set our mugs on the table, scratched his temple. “I think the worst thing I could've done was come up to you that day in the schoolyard,” he said.

“So you'll get the penicillin too?” I turned off the burner and set the pan of eggs aside.

“You really want to live with me for the rest of my life, Mary-Margaret? Really? What if I go back to heroin, or my old life?”

“Will you?”

He cocked his head in the direction of the lighthouse. “Will you keep her away from me?”

“Yes.”

“I've been clean for a long time, Mary-Margaret. I've got good reason to stay that way.”

“Why did you marry me, Jude?”

“Because I just couldn't resist anymore. It's as simple as that.”

“I wore you down?”

The toast popped up.

“Mary-Margaret, you managed to succeed with me about something I tried to convince you of for years.”

I ran a hand down his arm. “You just wanted to sleep with me.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I just didn't know any other way to tell you that I loved you. And really, back then, maybe I just felt it was safer that way.”

I took his hand. “That sounds closer to the truth.”

He turned his head and looked out the window. “Go ahead and make an appointment with a doctor. Let's finish this business.”

The next morning Petra stood at our door and banged and banged, for three hours, yelling, “Judey! Oh, my lovely son!”

And other sweet phrases that made my skin crawl. “Let your mommy give you a hug!”

We never did find out who told her where he was. Brister swore up and down it wasn't him.

After she finally left, Jude had me go down to Brister and tell him he wouldn't be coming on the boat for a couple of days.

I explained the situation. Brister said that was fine. And it was a good thing, because if he hadn't, I would have just let a thing or two fly out of my mouth and it wouldn't have been pretty.

She kept coming. Jude looked just plain spent, wandering around our apartment, sitting down, standing up, trying to read, doing the cooking, and smoking twice as many cigarettes as usual. At night, he sat up in bed and stared into the darkness until he fell asleep from exhaustion. Thankfully, he'd sleep through Petra's morning barrage.

By the third day I'd had enough.

“This is ridiculous.” I slipped on the low-cut nightgown LaBella had bought for me for a wedding present and mussed up my hair. I slapped my cheeks to redden them and pinched my lips until they were red and swollen. By this time, Jude awakened, sat on the bed, whiter
than an altar cloth.

I faced him, straddled his legs as he sat on the bed, and kissed him. “I'll get rid of her for you. Maybe it won't be for good, but hopefully she'll get off our backs sooner or later.”

I truly felt in my spirit it was best to keep her from Jude for as long as possible. I wasn't crazy. I figured she'd find her way to him eventually as evil finds its way into our lives no matter how good we are, and I knew he'd have to face her himself, but then, while our love was young and finally growing toward the sunlight, we didn't need to have Petra around shadowing our life.

Should I have reached out to her? Well, sisters, I don't know. Maybe. I'll let you be the judge of that. But I was more worried about Jude's ability to maintain a distant forgiveness than Petra's need for repentance. And while both she and Jude were in God's hands, Jude alone was given to me as my mate, my holy calling. I took my sacramental marriage vows seriously.

I yanked open the door, raised my arm along the door frame, and leaned against the wood, my hip thrust out to the side. “Can I help you?” I said, pretending to arrange my hair. I made my voice sound slightly sleepy and tried to go for a “just made love” tone, but I didn't even know what that was. I think I nailed it, though.

“Mary-Margaret?”

“And you are?”

“Mrs. Keller.”

“You mean Petra Purnell? I'm Mrs. Keller.”

Let me take a moment to describe Petra. Her hair still jumped around her head in curls, and now behavior I once thought was so carefree I could see for someone acting girlish, someone acting younger than she was, someone trying to get her son's attention.

It made me sick too.

She wore a tight-fitting sheath dress, cut low enough for an inch or so of cleavage to peep over the top of the scooped neck line. Her eyes were lined on top in the Egyptian fashion and she'd painted her lips a cotton candy pink.

Still and all, it couldn't beat my youth or my emerald green, satin nightgown. With my red hair, well, I hate to sound prideful, but I sizzled. LaBella would have been proud.

“I took back my original married name,” she said, eyeing my chest. So the larger breasts were finally coming in handy.

“I'd like to kindly ask you to stop beating our door down day in and day out. If
Judey
wanted to see you, he would have opened it by now, don't you think?”

She winced, then her eyes flickered up and focused over my shoulder. Her quick intake of breath told me all I needed to know.

He stood just behind me and I felt his fingers curve over my collarbones and the length of him press itself behind me.

“Mother.”

She pouted. “Oh, Judey, I'm your mommy. Why have you been ignoring me like this?”

Jude moved me aside, lightly pressed his mother onto the landing as if he was going to speak to her, and as he shut the door, leaving her alone on the hot iron steps, he said, “I've forgiven you, so leave it at that. If you come here again, I'll hate you for the rest of my life.”

He latched the door and leaned against it, staring down at the floor. “I wanted to say, ‘I'll kill you,' but I don't think I would. I feel like it sometimes. Some of the dreams I've had.”

He shook his head.

I approached, placing my arms around him, laying my head against his chest. He was sweaty and yet cold.

Her heels clicked on the metal steps, sending a hollow ring down the length of the staircase and her sickening wails filled the neighborhood. She didn't go back to the lighthouse. In fact, nobody knew what happened to her after that until ten years later when Brister told us a friend of his saw her obituary in the
Baltimore Sun
. She had lived in Dundalk, was survived by a husband, Forrest Blanchette, no children. I thanked God he kept her away.

I just finished up with Samkela for the day. I brought out the watercolor paints, and he started giggling. I want to take him home with me!

Today I'm going down to Siphewe's house. I'm taking her some laundry soap, a sack of rice, a sack of beans, and other nonperishable items from the little grocery store about a mile away.

Siphewe has a story that made me laugh the first time I heard it, although it isn't at all funny.

She was much like Jude as a young man, I think, only with a violent streak. John had been ministering to her, had invited her to Mass on Sunday at the small chapel on the grounds of the mission. She was dating a young man and they were quite the wild couple and she started bringing him, said she liked the quiet for once during the week, loved the soft chanting of Father Luke (who grew up in the Eastern Rite), and John said she'd sit there with her eyes closed.

During the week she might as well have been a demoniac, she got in such fights with her boyfriend. Fistfights, knife fights, and they'd come back together and do all the things they shouldn't have. She was lucky she didn't get pregnant.

Finally, her boyfriend left her and she was so angry, she stormed over to his house and hacked at his legs with a machete. I'm telling you, she was a mess!

Now the poor fellow can barely walk. He can't work and to top it all off, a windstorm ripped across the plains about a month ago and Siphewe's house, about fifty years old and not in good shape whatsoever, lost its roof and its western wall. Now she lives in a tent the Red Cross set up.

Of course the priests at the mission have helped her out during this time, bringing her food and caring for the bruises and gashes she sustained during the storm.

Her boyfriend is furious at John and the others and won't come to church anymore. But Siphewe, well, she's changed. She saw love in action, believed, repented, was baptized, and will take her first Communion next week just after she is confirmed. It will be a big day for John, Luke, and Amos. Father Ignatius too.