The Passion of Mary-Margaret Read online

  “I had hoped . . .” I didn’t know what else to add.

  “That I’d come up here and end up a banker or a lawyer or something?” He laughed again, the sound brittle enough to blow away as powder. “I grew up on Locust Island. I never went to college like you did.”

  “You could have.”

  “With what money?”

  “Did you say you made a lot selling drugs?”

  “Yes. But I spent it all. We always spend it all. Cautious people don’t sell drugs in the first place, Mary-Margaret.”

  “You’re right. So you’ve got fine clothing. I assume you’ve upped the status of your clientele?”

  “You could say that.”

  I wanted to ask him how many clients he’d had, but I knew he’d lost count. At least, in a way, I hoped so, because when you lose count of something, you stop holding on to each individual occurrence.

  “You mentioned a wife.” I held up my coffee cup to the waitress for a refill.

  Jude did too. She left the table with a shake of her head. “I’ll leave you a big tip, sweetheart,” Jude said. And he would. Though obviously one of dubious morality, Jude was, and remained, a truthful man throughout his life. Figure that one out if you can.

  Jude rarely exhibited a loss for words, but that night, as we sat in the diner, everything seemed to close in around us as I waited. He lifted his cup to his lips—the ceiling descended a few inches. He straightened his tie—the walls moved toward us. He cleared his throat—the waitresses grew large. Everything took on a close importance. “Remember us,” the vinyl booths and the large plate glass window mouthed.

  So I sat in silence, waiting for his story to emerge and I blinked my eyes, taking pictures with each shutter of my eyelids. The streetlight outside backlit little fingerprints at the bottom of the front window. The chrome coating on the push bar of the front door was worn to the left where folks laid their hands and gained entrance. The floor, green and white linoleum tile, was laid in a large checkerboard pattern, four squares of green, then four squares of white, and so on. And a middle-aged, blond man wearing navy blue coveralls ate a piece of lemon meringue pie at the counter that lined the left side of the room and drank his cup of coffee, holding the mug without using the handle. I remember thinking that he was carrying a great deal of heaviness, as if his coveralls weighed a thousand pounds, and when he got up to leave, he left all the spare change he had.

  Finally Jude spoke at the same time as he looked into my face.

  “I was bouncing at one of the clubs for a while, just taking a break from the other things.”

  “I imagine that chips at your soul.”

  “I have no soul.”

  You do, I thought. But theology had to take a back seat.

  “I started seeing one of the dancers. She reminded me a little of you, Mary-Margaret.”

  Indeed?!

  “Just in the way she was kind to me. She was hardened like a lot of the others, but there was something left untouched underneath.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Bonnie.”

  “That’s nice. Did she have a stage name?”

  “Of course, but I won’t say it in front of you.”

  The older he got, the fewer lines he would cross with me, the less he sought to shock me. Good thing, that. I would have grown tired of the comments had he kept it up. There’s only so many ways a person can mutter lewdness before it just seems like a little boy making flatulence noises with his hand tucked under his armpit.

  “Bonnie and I entered into a relationship. Of course most of the girls would have sex with a man for extra money, and she was no exception. She did have a taste for the finer things, so I stopped bouncing and went back to my old job so she wouldn’t have to subject herself to prostitution.”

  “Job?” I laughed.

  He shrugged. “I’m trying to say this all as delicately as I can, Mary-Margaret.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  My heart felt pummeled, bruised, and more fists landed on the bruises until, like Jesus’s face upon the cross, it became unrecognizable. The bit of pity I always felt for Jude due to his home life turned into something almost maternal.

  “I’m going to make a long story short.” He thrust his hands in his jacket pockets and slumped down in the booth. When he looked up at the ceiling, the heat rose to his neck. “She took sick. I moved in to help her. She got pregnant. I continued to bring in money; she continued to ask for more and more and more. It turned ugly, but she was carrying my kid. The pregnancy took it all out of her. She wouldn’t go to the doctor no matter how much I tried to convince her.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “Cancer, maybe. I talked to one of my clients, a doctor, describing the symptoms and he said it was most likely colon cancer. The baby, a little boy, was stillborn eight months into the pregnancy and Bonnie died a few hours later.”

  “You said you were a widower.”

  “I married her when she was six months along.”

  “Despite the life you were living? Forced to turn tricks for her?”

  “Nobody forces me to do anything, Mary-Margaret. She was pregnant with my child. That was that. By the time we got married, we weren’t even sleeping together.”

  Such were the times, my sisters.

  “This is terrible.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does your father know anything about it?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in years. Hardly anybody else knows.”

  “Not even Gerald or Hattie?”

  “Hattie does.”

  “That makes sense. And she’ll take it to her grave.”

  The waitress, scratching her scalp with the sharpened end of her pencil, approached with our tab. “We’re about to close.”

  Jude paid for our food and we turned back out onto the avenue. We walked toward the center of town, passing by Pacey’s Bridal and Formal. I stopped and, standing in front of the shop, squeezed his arm.

  “Did you ever once in your life wish for this?” I cast a sweeping arm beside the display windows showing off white cupcake bridal gowns and foamy, pale pink bridesmaids’ dresses.

  “Honestly? Nope. This sort of thing has never entered my mind. At least not in this traditional way. What about you?”

  I nodded. “I have to be honest with you, Jude. I do.” I could hardly believe I was admitting it to myself. “But not for the wedding or the marriage even. You know I’ve never been one that needed male company.”

  He laughed. “An understatement.”

  “But I’d like to have a little baby. There’s something inside of me that so desires a baby of my own.”

  “You were orphaned. It only makes sense to want someone all your own, someone you’re related to, someone you have to put up with because they’re family.”

  “You don’t do that.”

  “But you would. That’s the point.” He touched the glass window. “I don’t know what I want, Mary-Margaret. I may have a brother and parents, but there’s where you’re ahead of me.”

  He was right.

  “So what’s next for you?”

  “I buried Bonnie and the baby about two weeks ago—”

  “I didn’t realize it was so fresh.”

  “Yeah.” He tucked my arm in his and laid his free hand over mine and we continued down the street toward Haussner’s Restaurant, the glass panes in its art deco doorway dark.

  “Did you name him?”

  “No. At least not out loud. But I think he’d have liked the lighthouse.”

  “Well, how about after your dad then?”

  By this time, Mr. Keller had retired and Gerald was running the light.

  He shook his head. “I just can’t. Sometimes you just can’t look back.”

  “Where is your dad, Jude?”

  “Still over on Tangier, crabbing along the shore with his string and his bits of raw chicken. That’s what Geral
d says.”

  Disdain coated every word.

  “Heard from your mom?” She’d left Brister not long after Jude ran away.

  “Nothing. Probably for the best.”

  “Will you ever go back to Locust Island?”

  We approached the motherhouse.

  “Only to be buried.”

  “You hate it there that much?”

  “I couldn’t begin to find the words.”

  “So where to next?”

  “I’m going away for a while. To Europe. With . . . well, who doesn’t really matter, I just know I’ve got to get away from Baltimore for a while after all that’s happened.”

  “Male or female?” I asked, instantly regretting it. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

  “Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to. Where you headed after this stint?”

  “I’ll be leaving for Georgia to teach.”

  “Oh, they’ll love you down there,” he said, tone as dry as toast. “But you’ll have your Jesus, right, Mary-Margaret?”

  I laughed. “Right.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with your religious delusions.”

  What could I say? If Jude had known how close to the mark he’d come with that statement, I might never have seen him again. Then again, if I was delusional, Jude was obviously so lacking in perfection, he’d be in no position to judge.

  “You put up with it because when we care about people, we make concessions.”

  I let him kiss me good-bye, praying nobody saw us.

  Nobody did. Or if so, they never told me.

  After a year at the motherhouse, I packed up a trunk into which I placed all my belongings including nothing new other than an afghan Mrs. Bray crocheted me and the habit of our order, light gray, floor-length with a white veil. I began my mission novitiate, a two-year assignment with a group of our school sisters in Bainbridge, Georgia. Angie accompanied me. We felt like explorers in a way, heading into a clearly non-Catholic area and yet, I was a little frightened. I was finally going to be teaching.

  What if I loved the children too much? I’d have to leave them after all was said and done. It might tear my heart out. For an orphan these sorts of possibilities are a little larger than you might imagine if you’ve grown up with two parents and a sibling and a couple to spare.

  I pressed my habit and a spare veil, packed the replacement pair of shoes I bought two years before, pajamas, slippers, bed linens, two towels, my prayer books, Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain, and my copy of the Scriptures. Had I left two years earlier I would have packed Aquinas, but a few months before I’d realized his total disregard for women and there went poor Tom. (Don’t tell anybody I said that.) These days, however, I do like to read the bits I agree with. I still find some of Augustine’s writings a little hard to stomach, so I stay away from him for the most part. We have two thousand years of people to choose from. Why get caught up on the same old, same old?

  And yet, the Church is such a motley collection of pilgrims, which is why I fit in so well.

  So off I headed to Georgia to teach at a parochial school, boarding school, and home for foundlings (read orphanage). Oh dear! I do hope Angie writes down some of her experiences at St. Teresa’s too. I stepped off the train and was immediately blasted by south Georgia heat, in my woolen habit and my veil.The stares felt just as oppressive, but I understood. It wasn’t like Georgia was crawling with Catholics!

  I looked at my directions, grabbed my suitcase, and walked down Shotwell Street toward the Flint River. Moss dripped from the trees. I’d seen that sight in pictures, but the real-life experience of it helped me to realize I’d entered another world.

  As I unpacked my trunk in the small room, eight feet by ten feet, painted bright white, I hummed a tune. I always felt at home in institutions where children were present.

  “I knew you’d like it here. You’re going to have a good time.”

  I turned, crucifix in hand.

  Jesus sat on the straight-backed chair near the small desk beneath the room’s only window, a large enough window, granted, to take in the fields behind our dormitory on the second floor of what was once a plantation home. I was given the job of dormitory attendant. Unfortunately, I wasn’t any good at keeping order. I simply outlasted them. Cards? You want to play cards? Chinese checkers? Popcorn, you say? I was always the last one standing. Not one girl ever spilled word of our nighttime escapades to the director.

  “Will there be some excitement?”

  He nodded. “Some good, some bad. You know how it usually works by now, T—.”

  “How’s Jude?”

  “Off-limits to ask, my dear.”

  “Okay. Grandmom?”

  “Good. She’ll never be beatified by the pope, but she’s with me.” He laughed.

  I sighed and fell on my knees by his chair. He put his arms around me as I lay my head on his lap.

  After hours—days? years?—I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. He cupped my chin in his hand. “You’ll suffer in my name here. Are you ready for this?”

  I nodded. “If you’ll be with me.”

  “I’m always with you.” A shaft of sunlight illumined the golden brown of his eyes. “You know, I was in a tattoo parlor the other day disguised as a prostitute when I heard the artist say something I liked. ‘If Jesus takes me to it, he’ll take me through it.’ The things my children come up with. It’s delightful though, isn’t it?”

  “It pleases you?”

  “If it’s from the heart. And in that man’s case, yes, it was. He and I have been through a lot together.”

  “Does he know you’re the prostitute?”

  “In a way, yes. He always gives me a cup of coffee and lets me warm myself before I head back out onto the street.”

  I sighed and put my arms back around him. “I love you.”

  And I laid my head against his chest this time, heard his sacred heart, real flesh and blood, beating in time with the universe, and I heard how much he loved me too.

  All righty. It’s been long enough. Let’s find out what was in Jude’s letter.

  Angie, who always locks up Mercy House around ten, had gone to bed at least an hour before I unrolled the papers. My bed light cast a yellow hum down on the aging sheets, and in my head I heard the words to the Agnus Dei.

  Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi. Miserare nobis.

  Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi. Miserare nobis.

  Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata amundi. Dona nobis pacem.

  Lamb of God. Oh Lamb of God, have mercy on me. I smoothed out the papers. Lamb of God. Grant us peace. Grant me peace.

  I half expected Jesus to show up. But he didn’t. The Spirit surrounded me with a warm breath. Still I shook, from the skipping of my heart, outward to the tips of my fingers as they skated across the smooth, onionskin paper.

  And there was his signature. Just his given name.

  Jude. The boy who had always loved me.

  “All right,” I whispered into the gloom surrounding the circle of light. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The quiet of the room—my plain white room like so many others before it—grew dense, thickening like foam in my eardrums. I pictured the blazing trees of autumn in the darkness outside and their steady beauty gave me courage.

  November 1960

  Dear Mary-Margaret,

  I’ll just cut right to the chase. I think someday you might need to get to know your dad. I figured out who he was a few weeks ago but don’t feel the time is right to tell you. If you find him and learn the truth about your mother, I don’t know if you could handle it. At least right now.There’s a lot to adjust to as it is these days. And you don’t seem to be yearning for your dad or anything and this could screw you up.

  We all mess up. Obviously he did. But you’re here reading this letter and I think you need to know that somehow it’s all in the bigger plan of things. Maybe you already do know that. Heck, maybe you’re a realist like me
. Bad things happen. But still, we both know somebody’s up there looking down on us. You’ve given me the proof of that. But I’m rambling.I don’t feel too good right now. And I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for this disease to progress.

  His Christian name is Brendan Connelly. I knew you knew he was a seminarian at the time of the rape. I think he’s from an old Baltimore family. He went to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg. You can find him from there, if you want to. I could say more, but that info should be enough to get you started.

  I quickly counted up the years. He would be ninety-five now. Most likely a dead man. Although I’m getting old and feel great, so maybe I’m taking after him. Perhaps he’s privy to those yogurt-consuming, mountain-spring-water-drinking genetics. No, I doubted he was alive.

  “So why this? Why now?” I whispered aloud.

  Jesus doesn’t appear at my whims, you see. And he didn’t that night either. I was left with the same wonderings everyone has: wondering if this was truly important, wondering if this was just some sort of crazy plot of Satan to trip me up and keep me from my true mission, wondering if God was in this or it was merely a crazy coincidence.

  And now. Wondering about my mother? Mother? Jude knew how much everybody had loved her here on the island. Her picture hung at St. Mary’s School all during my growing-up years, in memoriam. We put flowers on her grave once a month. What could possibly be so bad?

  But no. Jesus told me to take Gerald out to that light. So I clung to that. Lately I’d been wanting to know if my father felt bad about what he did, if he’d turned around, if he tried to find me. My mother would be okay if I did a little digging.

  I’m telling Hattie to hide this here at the light so you won’t find it at the apartment. If you don’t get this information while I’m alive, I’ve told her to give it to you after I’ve died, but only when you’re over what happened to me. And she has no idea what’s inside this letter, in case you want to shoot the messenger.

  For now, I don’t think you’re ready. You’re still pretty angry with the guy and I doubt he’ll be able to take it if you meet him now. I’ve got your number even if you don’t, Mary-Margaret. That red hair of yours tells the true tale even if you try to keep things under wraps.