The Passion of Mary-Margaret (40 page)

No wonder Jesus wanted him for his own.

John came to me one night as I sat out on the dock behind our house at sunset, plopping down next to my lawn chair. He was already almost six feet, all elbows and knees. “I wanted to tell you first, Mom.”

“Did you fail your English test?”

“No, I got a C.”

“Not bad.”

He was definitely more the science/math type.

“I feel like God is calling me to the priesthood.”

If the heavens had opened, spilling their light upon us, and if angels themselves had sung the Gloria, the moment wouldn't have felt less holy.

“And . . . I think he wants me to be a missionary.”

“So, not a diocesan priest?”

“I don't think so.”

“We'll pray God shows you.”

As if that was doubtful, but sometimes God does seem to wait until the last minute and that, sisters, can be so utterly frustrating, can't it?

OH MY, I WANTED TO START WRITING ABOUT MY MOTHER yesterday, and don't you know, John came squealing up in the Rover to the mission and jumped out in a cloud of dust. Precious there in the hospital had finally passed away and because no family came to claim her, he volunteered to take the body and bury her here at the mission.

I'd gone into Manzini with John twice a week these past four weeks to feed her, and we even arranged for a woman who attends the Cathedral of the Assumption downtown there to come in once a day to feed her supper. She lay there getting weaker, unable to speak but to say, “Amen,” and I read to her from Scripture, particularly the Psalms, as well as from her copy of
The Imitation of Christ
, and a little Thomas Merton always did a soul good. My father provided me with writings that would encourage a dying soul and John did his part too. I was able to bring Communion to her as well.

“She definitely had AIDs, Mom,” John said as we drove down the highway, him honking and waving at the kids as usual. “But at least her last few weeks weren't filled with starvation.”

“It makes me want to cry how that can happen.”

“Don't move over here, then.”

Don't worry
, I thought. I was more than happy to be with my folk on Locust Island. Although the people in this nation would be lovely to live with.

I wanted to ask him how his view of God has changed since he arrived in this land, but the Spirit stayed me. Perhaps another time. And certainly his faith seemed rock solid. John's stories and thoughts are his own to tell.

So anyway, we brought Precious back, and Luke and Amos built a casket out of spare planking in the shed. I took some leftover room paint and decorated the outside because I had a feeling Precious liked bright colors.

We gave her a Mass of Christian burial and lowered the box by ropes into a hole John and some of the neighbor boys dug together. Women who didn't even know her gathered and cried. They knew her story. They
were
her story. Or would be soon enough.

IT'S LATE NOW. I JUST TUCKED MY FATHER IN AND I SUPPOSE I'll tell you this, because by the time anyone reads this, he'll be dead and so will I. He has AIDS as well. Being a medical worker here, it seemed to be inevitable. Nurses are dying too fast to be adequately replaced. I fear for John, but since it doesn't seem to bother him, I say nothing.

We've had a good time in the past month, my father and I. I simply call him Joe. At our ages, it does seem a little silly to be all starry-eyed and call him Daddy. I've had a Father all my life and he's been wonderful to me. I see that now.

But Jesus told me deep inside of us is a need to know what is true. The truly true, not what we've convinced ourselves is true. And I had done a lot of convincing myself over the years as to who my father was.

So, here's the tale, what truly happened, according to my father, back in 1929. Mary Margaret Fischer (my mother) left Locust Island after high school and graduated with a teaching degree from the College of Notre Dame, according my grandmother. She'd procured a job teaching in South Baltimore and continued to move forward toward her final vows. This was a point of great pride for my grandmother due to the fact that she bore her daughter out of wedlock and that same progeny ended up a college graduate. Who would imagine?

Indeed.

And a religious sister? Even more wonderful.

But my mother never graduated at all. Yes, she wanted to be a teacher, and she planned to be a religious, but she lasted a month having met a fellow who led her down “the wrong path,” as people call it.

“It was then she was introduced to opium,” he said.

My father and I sat in the chapel at the mission. We'd eaten some of my vegetable stew and a bit of boiled meat over rice, drank a little of the wine, and eaten a square of the Dairy Milk chocolate bar I'd brought from Manzini.

As I write, I'm watching over him as he sleeps. John wanted to head over to Siphewe's house to make sure she has enough supplies now that she's housing three orphans. Only Jesus knows what will happen to that makeshift little family.

Anyway, back to my mother.

My father placed his arm along the back of the pew behind me but did not touch me. He sighed with such sadness, I wondered how any breath was left inside of him. “She went downhill from there, such as is the tale with that substance. The more she smoked or ate opium, the thinner she became. The fellow flew the coop, so she stole, begged on the street, making up stories to finance her habit, becoming more and more dissipated looking. Finally, she ended up at our mission.”

“Weren't you still in seminary?”

“Yes. My third year, actually. I'd always taken an interest in rescue work. Sort of the emergency room of social justice I guess you might say.”

Outside, the sun had set almost completely, the great clouds still tinged golden, the mountains purpled in the twilight and ready to deflate just a little upon the coming of the darkness.

By this age, my father's voice had hushed itself to just above a whisper, a little early-morning gravelly, but still possessing a throaty bit of warmth at its core, something that said he wasn't going to hurt you. Did my mother feel that way when she entered the mission?

“So she came into the mission on a winter night. Somebody had stolen her coat and her purse, and she was highly inebriated.”

“You can say drunk, Joe, I won't mind.”

“Oh, I wouldn't want to defame her like that.”

He said the words with such sincerity, I knew for certain I was about to hear a new version of this man, one completely unlike what my mother, or my grandmother, or even myself, had concocted.

And yet.

There I sat in all my humanity, having been sired and conceived and then born. So something untoward happened, because I doubt they'd married beforehand.

He cleared his throat, holding his fist up to his mouth. “I want to say this as delicately as possible, Mary-Margaret. You're my daughter—”

“And you
are
a priest,” I joked.

“Yes, that too. Your mother had nowhere to go. She was skin and bones, her stare glassy and frightened, darting all around. And jumpy. Yet still beautiful. You've seen pictures?”

I nodded. “We had a couple.”

“Then you know. So we set up a cot for her in the women's dormitory and she began to withdraw. Do you know much about opium?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it starts off well. A nice sense of euphoria. But the body soon becomes tolerant of it, causing you to smoke or eat incrementally more to experience the same sensation. So you can imagine the resulting, addictive cycle. The skin develops a rash such that, by the time she came, she had scratched her skin until it bled, sometimes using a metal comb.”

“Oh, goodness me!”

“She was in terrible shape. Father Frank, who was in charge of the mission at the time, said she'd have to go to the hospital, but she went crazy at the idea. He was a brusque man and went back to his work, not up to convincing someone who was hell-bent on throwing her life away anyway.

“I felt I only had one option left—to accompany her to a motel somewhere and sit with her, take care of her while she withdrew.”

He told me about a little place out Route 40 that looked like a collection of little storybook cottages. “I had a little money from my family, so I checked us in and sat with her. Have you ever been with somebody while they're withdrawing?”

“No. You took care of Jude for me.”

“Oh yes. His was one of the worst I'd ever been through.”

“Really?”

“Most assuredly. God forgive me of such little faith, but I think I was more surprised than anyone that he kicked it for good. I suppose sometimes it depends on why they started using in the first place. Did he use in high school?”

“No. He rowed out on the bay a lot though.”

“Hmm.”

The moon broadcast its thin beams through the clear glass of the narrow window, two panes by four, and shone on his slender hands, crabbed a bit, yes, but still lithe and expressive as he moved them for emphasis. I wondered what they would have felt like as they helped me learn how to ride a bike or tie a shoe. I bet he would have been able to do a little girl's hair too.

“Had you known, would you have given up the priesthood for me?”

The words came out before my brain even realized they materialized somewhere in the dark creases of its folds.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But until your wedding day, I had no idea you even existed.”

“You left so suddenly. Didn't Jude blame it on the crabs?”

“He did.”

“You were so pale.”

“Well, you can imagine what was going through me at the time.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No. No, Mary-Margaret. I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth. If anyone suffered in this situation, it was you. You didn't deserve any of it. Honestly, I don't know how you turned out so well. Other than the grace of God,” he added quickly.

I laughed. I wasn't about to tell him. But he was right. Maybe my life didn't seem to be one fraught with tension and horrible people, but it was only that way because I was protected. I suppose I could have rebelled against the Divine plan, but honestly, deep in my bones I knew I wouldn't escape, and can I just admit something I've never admitted to anyone? I was afraid to do anything else. I'd lost my mother, had no father, no family. What else could God take from me to put me back on the straight and narrow? My legs? My art? No, I wasn't about to take that kind of chance.

Jesus asked a lot of me, yes, but it all worked out in the end, didn't it? And these days, that's something nobody wants to hear about. But I tell you this, my sisters, because sometimes it takes many decades for it all to become clear. If I had been writing this story just after Jude died, or following my hysterectomy after John was born, the tone would be quite different.

My life wasn't perfect, sisters, but here I am, telling the tale. There's always something to be said for the ability to pass on the details.

But I've rambled. I'm a bit tired after the funeral. And so sad. I haven't cried like that in years. God knit Precious and me together in her listening silence.

My father finished the tale with his confession, one I knew I wasn't the only one to hear. “I stayed with her in that room, cleaning up her vomit and her diarrhea, wiping her forehead when the fever raged. And I loved her. Perhaps it was because I was so weakened and tired from helping her, but the night before we left, she took me in her arms and you were the result. Not that I knew that then.” He cleared his throat. “I'd had a past I'd left behind only a few years before. Believe me, it's easier to go back to where you've been than to where you never were.”

I nodded. “What happened after that?”

“I was ecstatic! Happy and in love with her and I had so many plans. All that night I lay in bed dreaming of running off, leaving seminary, of course, but I had a little money that would tide us over, and perhaps just get an advanced degree in theology and teach at a seminary somewhere. Of course, those were just rushed thoughts of a person destined to save lives, hers being no exception, and who knows if it would have all worked out that way. I wasn't the only one involved in the matter. Honestly, I didn't have much time to think beyond that.”

His voice strengthened a bit and his closed eyes held the memories in tightly.

“What did my mother say about all that?”

“It never came to that, you see. I remember falling asleep at daybreak, I was so excited, you see, and fell into a dead slumber after having been up most of the night, and I was simply exhausted after caring for her.” He gripped the pew in front of him. “She was gone, Mary-Margaret. When I woke up, she'd left. And I tried to find her. People only knew her first name, and in Maryland . . .”

“It's a pretty Catholic state,” I said, my voice dropping.