We Were the Mulvaneys (15 page)

Those years. They'd still been young, and they'd certainly seemed to themselves blundering, humble, groping, inexperienced; inventing their lives as they went.
You Mulvaneys! how lucky are you!
the refrain went. (For Michael was proving himself as a Mt. Ephraim merchant, too, at this time—a dynamo of energy guiding Mulvaney Roofing.) Such pronouncements left them, Corinne in particular, uneasy, apologetic, vaguely guilty.
Yes but we don't deserve. Do we?
Their beautiful Baby Marianne, their precious Patrick and Mikey—already, as in a dream, they'd harvested of their love
a family
.

Lying beside her husband in bed, at night, as his breathing slowed and thickened, Corinne tried to sleep, for she was always exhausted, yet she couldn't prevent her mind from racing—flying—sorting through the memories of the day as one might rummage through a drawer in search of some utterly commonplace household object; as if searching for a clue; and suddenly, awake after all, Michael would murmur, “Of all of them”—requiring no preamble, no explanation, as if simply voicing Corinne's worries, a continuous stream of thought flowing through both mother and father, parents, “—it's her I wonder about.”
Her: our baby girl Marianne.
(Asleep in her crib a few feet away.) And Corinne would say quickly, “Wonder what?” The more uneasy Corinne was, the lighter, more jovial-joshing her middle-of-the-night tone. Michael would say, shrugging in the dark, “Oh hell, it's hard to explain, it's a little crazy I guess—like God is trusting us with something we're possibly not good enough, not strong enough, to deserve.” And Corinne would laugh, sliding an arm across her husband's burly, warm chest, feeling the prickly-wiry hairs through the thin cotton of his T-shirt and nuzzling against him. “Michael Mulvaney, what a thing to say! As if God doesn't know what He's doing. That's about the silliest thing I've heard from you, yet.” Her eyes starkly open in the dark, her lips drawn back from her teeth.

 

And what, in this recitation of Mulvaney babies, of “Judson Andrew”? I'd almost forgotten to speak of myself. It's easy for me to forget myself! I'm told I was a “perfectly adorable” baby, by which I think is meant a “perfectly ordinary” baby—no distinguishing features, no memorable acts. A predilection for wakefulness, a puppy-like devotion to my older brothers and sister. There are snapshots of the three of us—I mean, the four of us—in which Mikey-Junior, a husky curly-haired little boy, cuddles me, a small infant, in his arms, with a dazzling grin at the camera; there are snapshots of the four of us posed with family pets, or perched atop porch railings, or ponies—Dad or Mom steadying the smallest of us from behind, crouched out of sight. One of my favorite snapshots, which I'd stolen away with me when I left High Point Farm, is pencilled on the back in Mom's handwriting,
Chickadee & Baby Judd, Xmas 1964;
it shows my beautiful five-year-old sister, all smiles and bouncy curls, posed with me, a rather odd-looking, astonished-appearing toddler in a green playsuit, posed amid a glittering mound of Christmas presents.

Marianne was “Little Mother”—helped take care of me, feed, bathe, clothe me. Mom boasted that “Little Mother” was as capable as “Big Mother” in many ways. Changing diapers, helping with toilet training. On the potty, Baby Judd had been “eager to please” and what that meant exactly, I didn't want to know. Naturally there are fewer snapshots of me than of the other babies in the overflowing family album, which I didn't interpret as a lack of interest in me personally (I know Mom loved me, a lot) but a diminution of
baby
as a subject. After all, who could blame my parents? To announce my birth, Mom sent out several dozen brightly inked cards she'd made herself, depicting a cartoon caboose at the end of a long, winding freight train:

I
hadn't known, God help me I hadn't guessed. Yet I think it must have been partly my fault. I'm her mother, it must have been partly my fault. I'm waiting, O God I'm hoping to understand.

 

St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church, at the hilly crest of Mercer Avenue, a snowy-glaring cemetery behind it, was one of the few Mt. Ephraim churches Corinne had never once stepped inside. Not just that St. Ann's was a Catholic church (and Corinne, Protestant to her fingertips, had a nervous apprehension of the Holy Roman Faith) but, somehow, she and Michael Sr. didn't seem to have any close friends in the parish who might have invited them to weddings, baptisms, funerals.

Corinne wondered: Did Marianne have a special friend in St. Ann's?—was that the connection?

She parked the station wagon hurriedly in front of the church, one wheel up on the curb and she hadn't even noticed. Thank God, her husband wasn't a witness. Thank God, the church parking lot was almost empty, no mass at this hour of midafternoon, no one around. Corinne hoped. She brightened at the thought that the heavy wooden doors were probably bolted shut from the inside.

St. Ann's Church was large by Mt. Ephraim standards. Dark red brick, weatherworn; aged, but dignified; bell tower overhead. Mourning doves fluttered about its eaves and their droppings were like ossified tears, streaking downward. The church was in an affluent residential neighborhood in north Mt. Ephraim, attractive tree-lined streets of single-family dwellings in acre-sized lots. A neighborhood in which many members of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club lived. Corinne felt a tinge of old, automatic dismay and had to check herself. There came Michael Sr.'s laughing-chiding voice in her head:
Look, kid, you're one of those people yourself.

It occurred to Corinne, a bit desperately, that the LaPortes lived only a block or so away. Trisha was Marianne's closest friend. Might that be the connection?

A stained-glass rose window overlooked the sidewalk. Corinne had a love of stained glass, especially old pieces. So beautiful, if skillfully executed, especially seen from inside a building, sunshine behind it. Maybe that was what attracted Marianne to a Catholic church?—things to
see
? Stained glass, statues. Altars decked with gold leaf. The somber little wood-frame country churches to which Corinne took her children (the First Church of Christ of South Lebanon was their current place of worship) were all so plain and spartan and scrubbed-looking. Not much for an adolescent imagination to seize upon. But wasn't that the point, after all?

Jesus is a spirit
in
us. Not an object to behold.

Corinne tried one of the heavy doors, cautiously—it opened. Her heart was beating painfully. She stepped inside the dim-lit vestibule and a sweet-rancid odor made her nostrils pinch. Incense. An undercurrent of mildew. That unmistakable smell of so-aged-it-can't-really-be-cleaned-any-longer linoleum tile. As if rehearsing a way in which to speak of this adventure, a way of most artfully recounting it to make her listeners laugh, Corinne thought
Why, you know right away it isn't one of our churches, it's one of theirs!

In a flash it came to her: of course she'd known something had been wrong with her daughter, these past few days. Something not-right. Since Sunday. Since the telephone call. A mother always knows, can't not know. But Corinne had been so busy, hadn't gotten around to investigating. And hadn't she always been proud she wasn't the kind of mother to “investigate”—on principle.
I want my children to trust me. To think of me as an equal.

A cruel counterthought mocked
No, you're just afraid of what you might discover.

A new church is always forbidding and St. Ann's with its high ceiling and ornamental interior seemed to Corinne not-welcoming. There were statues positioned along the walls, statues meant to represent Jesus, His mother Mary, and other saints—richly robed, life-sized, Caucasian. To be worshipped as pagans might worship: the eye fastened to an object, confused about what an object
is
. And the spirit indwelling. Near the back of the church was a miniature side altar before which votive candles had been lit, their flames flickering. An elderly woman knelt before this altar, head bowed, whispering prayers with a rosary clutched in her fingers. Up the wide aisle, at the front, was the main altar, prominent as a stage, glittering with gold or gilt; draped in satiny white, with much ornamentation, and vases of flowers beginning to wilt. Overhead was a large cross upon which was impaled Jesus Christ, crowned with thorns, dabbed with blood, a dark-haired dark-bearded tender-eyed Savior, contorted in an ecstasy of suffering. Corinne stared. The wonder and horror of the crucifixion swept over her anew.

Jesus forgive us, we know not what we do.

In fact, St. Ann's was not deserted. There were several persons scattered amid the wooden pews. At the far right, in a slanted net of pale amber light from a stained-glass window, sat Marianne. She was wearing her sky blue parka, the hood lowered; her hair was unkempt and her head sharply bowed, a hand lifted to her eyes. It looked as if her lips were moving silently. Corinne tiptoed to her and leaned over. “Marianne?” she whispered, straining her mouth in a smile. “Honey—?”

It was as if she'd shouted into the girl's ear. Marianne started, drawing back. Her eyes were puffy-lidded and glassy and she seemed scarcely to show, in that first instant, any sign of recognition.

“Honey? It's just—me.”

Marianne stood, and a book fell from her lap, noisily to the floor—Marianne's own Bible, a long-ago Christmas present to her from Corinne.

Instinctively, Corinne reached out to touch her daughter. She drew a shaky hand across Marianne's matted hair, smoothed it from her forehead. Corinne's heart was beating terribly hard now. She knew, she knew—but what did she know? Wanting to close her arms tight around her daughter, poor child, poor unhappy child, but she didn't dare. Others were watching. And Marianne, with a teenager's finesse, eluded her, groping to pick up the Bible and to gather gloves, bookbag, purse beside her on the seat. You might almost have thought, observing, that Marianne had been waiting for her mother to come by, pick her up and drive her home as she so frequently did.

“Well. Maybe we should—go?” Corinne whispered. She was smiling so hard her face seemed to her, from inside, one of those ridiculous happy faces.

 

Never beg any child of yours,
Corinne's mother had warned her, long ago.
Of all things, never that.

What a strange, unexpected remark for Ida Hausmann to have said, impulsively, to her own daughter.

As if she, Ida Hausmann, had ever begged any of her children—for anything.

Yet here Corinne was, confused, hopeful, pleading with her daughter whose vague eyes, grainy skin, windblown hair frightened her—“We'll just go home, honey? Yes?”

Going home, to High Point Farm: Corinne's remedy for any sorrow.

She was driving the Buick station wagon along streets she barely saw. Keeping up bright, nervous chatter. And the radio was on, to her favorite station—WYEW-FM out of Yewville. No point in upsetting Marianne, or herself, so she spoke gently, repeating her simple questions: What was it? Had something happened? Why wasn't Marianne in school? What was
wrong
?

Stiff beside her in the passenger's seat, like a stranger in dread of being touched, Marianne seemed scarcely to hear. Her lips were dry and chapped; her skin that was always so smooth and fresh looked shadowed, a sad-tinctured skin. Puffy eyes—she'd been crying. Of course, crying. And her hair, the child's lovely wavy hair, matted, tangled, needing to be washed—how had she ever left the house that morning, without Corinne noticing? Was Corinne
blind
?

To her questions, Marianne murmured, near-inaudibly, what sounded like
I don't know, Mom.

Corinne asked, more daringly, “Is it about last weekend?—the prom? Did something happen at the prom—or after?”

Marianne shook her head, not emphatically but as one might shake one's head to clear it. She was hunched in the seat, her sky blue parka zipped to her chin. A wintry light, qualified by the splotched windshield, so badly in need of cleaning, made her appear diminished, child-sized. On her lap, clutched in both hands, was her plain black simulated-leather Bible, Chickadee's Bible crammed with brightly colored Sunday school cards and bookmarks.

“Did you have a—quarrel? Disagreement? With one of your friends?”—Corinne persisted. “Honey, you can tell
me
.”

Recalling with a sensation of dismay how, the previous evening, instead of sitting down at dinner with her family, Marianne had stammered some excuse, a headache, cramps, she'd taken a bowl of cottage cheese with mashed banana up to her room, but how could Corinne know she'd actually eaten it? And that morning, rushing at the last minute, a hurried breakfast or perhaps none at all, in the commotion of the morning kitchen, who could tell? And what about the previous morning?

Was Corinne
blind
?

“Does Patrick know? I mean—that you've been missing school, and—whatever it is, that's wrong?” Corinne spoke confusedly, suddenly furious at her son. Patrick who rode the school bus into Mt. Ephraim five mornings a week with his sister, Patrick who might have noticed she wasn't attending classes. Even granted they were in different classes, he should have known. Damn that Pinch, so wrapped up in himself!

If Marianne replied, Corinne hadn't heard. She was approaching a railroad crossing, braked to avoid colliding with another vehicle—winced, and waved, with a contrite smile, as someone, a man (anyone she knew?—the pickup truck looked familiar) sounded his horn at her irritably. “Oh! Sorry, honey.” She looked anxiously at Marianne who was turned from her, gazing sightlessly out the side window. A hurt girl, a damaged girl. A girl Corinne didn't know.

If only she'd turn to Corinne, give the slightest sign, Corinne would have seized her in her arms and held her tight.

Instead, Corinne continued driving, bumping across the Chautauqua & Buffalo track, approaching the shabby edge of downtown Mt. Ephraim without exactly knowing where she was, now saying, in her anecdotal manner, “—Lydia Bethune—you know
her
!—happened to mention to me—we'd run into each other in the post office—she'd seen you in the church?—where apparently
she
goes?—not in school—and I said, ‘There must be some mistake. I'm sure Marianne is at school. She never misses a day of school.' And
she
said—‘Well, I thought you'd want to know, Corinne. I would want to know if it was my daughter.' So I said—” Corinne's voice rushed, plummeted. As if she could not stop the flow of words, as if Marianne's silence were a space that had to be filled; the interior of the station wagon (so cluttered in the rear with family debris, it was shameful) had to be filled. She heard herself say, in a wounded tone, as one might speak to a very young child, “Now what a surprise that was, Marianne: to learn about something so private—I mean, it should be private, kept within the family, shouldn't it?—from a total stranger. Oh not that Lydia Bethune is a
total
stranger, but—”

And on and on, breathless. Trembling, her tongue absurdly numb, cold. Though the heater was on full blast, in her face. And she was fumbling with the radio dial: the announcer's overloud phony-excited voice reading an ad (and the announcer was Ted Wintergreen she'd known back in high school: in those days a timid sallow-skinned farm boy) was distracting. Beneath the grungy over-pass and up the steep potholed hill past the Blue Moon Café where, years ago, when he'd just started the business, Michael used sometimes to have lunch—the Blue Moon Special, he'd joke about, kidding Corinne she should make it at home, greasy-salty hash with ketchup, a big plate of it, absolutely delicious. There was the dilapidated rear of the old Civic Center, a brownstone slated for razing, rebuilding with county funds. (The builder was a friend and associate of Michael Mulvaney's and the understanding was, Mulvaney Roofing would get the contract.)
FOR SALE / LEASE
signs like sprouting weeds. So many aging buildings. Even the Odd Fellows Lodge, a “historic” local mansion donated for tax purposes—shabby amid heaps of tattered snow.

Corinne turned up a backstreet, parallel with South Main. Passing from the rear (it looked as if a delivery was being made, from a big tin-colored truck) Mulvaney Roofing. Only later would Corinne realize she'd never so much as considered saying to Marianne,
Shall we go see Dad?

Now on Fifth, passing the YM-YWCA with its new, spiffy façade fronting an old stone building of the 1940s. Corinne recalled how, a lifetime ago, when she'd been a young teenager, she'd used sometimes to swim in the dank chlorine-smelling bluish water of the Ransomville YM-YWCA pool on one of her infrequent outings in town. If you were a country girl, a farmer's daughter, you valued such outings in ways no Ransomville children did. What thrilled you—a gift from providence!—was just routine to them, taken for granted. Boring, even. Like graduating from high school (Corinne Hausmann was the first in her family), like insisting upon going to college at Fredonia (what an audacious step that had been). With a pang of sentimental, embarrassed affection Corinne saw herself hurrying along the street, a tall lanky rawboned girl with cheeks that looked perpetually windburned, bright eyes, heart brimming with excitement for—oh, everything! For life. For love. Falling in love. Marrying, and having babies.