Full of Grace

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  And then the Thing That Could Not Be Contained spoke.

  “So, Michael?” Marianne asked. “Does all this mean that you’re going to go to church now and become a decent Christian again?”

  Michael could have said anything to her and the whole table would have overlooked it. The sudden silence of the room was deafening. She was beyond a tactless idiot. Michael had been through so much and neither of us had any idea that a cure could be as tiring as an illness. He had been talking since our arrival, which was unusual for him. I could see he was completely exhausted from being the center of attention. But Michael, ever the gentleman, leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat.

  “Marianne? I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  “A simple yes or no would be fine,” she said, and giggled.

  I thought, A slap across your face would be fine.

  “Well, maybe for you but not for me. You see, I am still trying to figure it all out. I mean, why me? Apparently there is a reason for me to be kept alive. I don’t think that the power that healed me is arbitrary and without some kind of rationale. But yes, I am going to start attending church and we will see where that leads us.”

  Michael had used too many big words for Marianne and it was plain to see that she was trying to figure out what he just said. I couldn’t control myself.

  “Marianne? He means that his healing wasn’t an accident and it happened for a reason.”

  “I knew that!” she said, and repositioned herself for a big sulk.

  “Of course you did. Well, Michael? You do think God healed you, don’t you?” Mom asked.

  They were putting Michael on the spit. I wanted to crawl out of the room and go live in Nairobi or somewhere.

  “To be honest, Mrs. R, I can’t come to any other conclusion. And you know enough about me to know I tried.”

  “More potatoes, anyone?” I said, and stood up. I did not have to call a mover.

  “Sure,” Michael said. “The mashed potatoes are the best I have ever had, Mrs. R.”

  “I made them, not Connie,” Nonna said. “The secret is to heat the milk and melt the butter, Grace. You, too, Marianne.”

  I gave Michael seconds of everything and turned to Dad.

  “More?”

  Of course he wanted more. That dinner was his favorite and he was going to eat as much as he could. So was Michael, and even George said he thought he might like another plate of food.

  By the time we served cake and decaffeinated coffee and Dad had opened his presents, everyone was nearly dozing off in their chairs. Dad loved his pajamas and book. Mom had bought him a new pair of golf shoes and a branding iron with his initials for the grill. Marianne bought him a framed picture of herself with Nicky. Naturally. And Nonna gave him the complete recordings of Frank Sinatra.

  Nonna stood.

  “I’m going to say good night,” she said. “My hip is a little sore and I spent too much time on my feet.” She walked around to my father’s place, kissed him on both cheeks and said, “You’re a wonderful man, Al. Happy birthday.” Then she kissed each of us good night. When she got to Michael, she said, “Say a little prayer for me now and then, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Michael said.

  George, knowing this was his signal to pull the rip cord, got up and left the room with her, wishing Dad a great year and thanking Mom for dinner. Nicky, recognizing an opportunity when he saw one, said he was going to take Marianne home. She objected, saying she wanted to help with the cleanup, but Mom stepped in.

  “No, sweetheart. Next time. It’s getting late.”

  With a flamboyant hug and kiss for everyone, Marianne reluctantly bid the deeply saddened crowd adieu.

  “Parting is such obnoxious sorrow,” I said when they were gone.

  “Here, I’ll get all the flatware,” Mom said. “That was a great dinner, don’t you think?”

  “Michael and I can handle it, Mom. You go get a bath if you want.”

  “Well, you know what? All right!” she said, and led my dad from the room.

  “Hey, Grace? Michael?” Dad said. “Having both of you guys here really and truly made my day. Thanks for everything.”

  “No problem, Dad. Happy Birthday. Love you!”

  He blew us kisses and left with Mom.

  I said, “You know, even two years ago, they would’ve been up with us until the crack of dawn. They’re slowing down.” I got up and started gathering plates and glasses.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Michael said. “I mean, you are a better judge than I am, but I think birthdays and holidays put stress on people—stress to make them larger than any other old regular day of the week, you know?”

  “Yeah, all those expectations, right? You scrape and I’ll rinse.”

  “No problem. Are we saving the potatoes?”

  “Are you kidding? You never heard of potato gnocchi? There’s a container in that cabinet. Know what?”

  “What?”

  “I never thought I’d be standing around doing dishes with you in my mother’s kitchen. I could scrub pots all night long.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. I love you, you know.”

  “As you should. If I hadn’t dragged you to Mexico, this whole thing might not have happened and we’d still be in the soup.”

  “You’re terrible to remind me,” he said, “but that does bring us to another point. Give me a sponge and I’ll wipe the counters.”

  “Here. And the point is?”

  “That you’re right. Do I think this would’ve happened here? Like in this kitchen? Maybe, but no. No, I don’t think it would have.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, obviously it could’ve happened here. But it didn’t and I think that’s because it was like a double whammy.”

  “You mean like if it happened in the steam room, you might have thought the steam cured you?”

  “Yeah. That just about sums up my faith until it happened. But it happened in a church, right? Therefore, even I can deduce that it is of a miraculous nature. Yes?”

  “Well, I have to say that I agree with you.”

  “And what do we do about everything? Our lifestyle?”

  “I’ve given that some deep thought, Michael, and I think the answer is that we need Father John to help us figure it out.”

  “Definitely. I think he’s a great guy. There has to be a way back into the good graces of the Church without us being hypocrites, don’t you think?”

  “I say, let’s find out what our options are and then we can decide. I’m still on the fence about a lot of things.”

  “Whew! Am I glad to hear you say that because there’s nothing worse than a fanatic who goes around spouting chapter and verse. I can’t deal.”

  “Me either.”

  “But I’d like to go someplace and feel okay about it—especially after this. Basically, God fingered me. Shouldn’t I be able to say thanks in a church without feeling like the son of Satan for not attending church for all these years?”

  “I’d say yes. You should. But let’s let Father John help us kick our way through all that.”

  I looked up at the kitchen doorway and there was Mom, standing there in her bathrobe, pale and clearly in some kind of trouble.

  “Mom! What’s wrong?” Something terrible had happened. I could feel it in every one of my bones.

  “I just…I just saw Nonna.”

  “Yeah, so?” I was confused because their bedrooms were at opposite ends of the house and I thought Nonna had gone off to bed a long time ago.

  “Her feet…her…She wasn’t touching the floor.” Mom was shaking from head to toe.

  “Oh, God!” I screamed, threw down my towel and ran to Nonna’s bedroom. Michael had his arm around Mom and they were right behind me. When I got there I stopped at the door. “I’ll look, if you want me to, Mom.”

  Mom nodded and said, “You can if you want to, but I know she’s gone. I just know it.”

  “Well, somebody needs
to see for sure,” I said. I opened the door and went in, standing by Nonna’s bedside. There wasn’t a bit of life in the room besides me. Nonna was lying in her bed, on her back, with her rosary in her hands. She looked like she was sleeping, but she was dead and gone. “Call Dad.”

  The next few hours were as you might expect. We called EMS and the paramedics were on the way. Nicky came crawling in, half in the bag. He was very surprised to see us all awake and walking around the house.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s Nonna, Nicky,” I said. “She’s gone.”

  “What? You mean she’s…she’s dead?” he said. “Oh, my God!”

  I gave him a hug and he choked up. Then I choked up.

  “She went to bed, was saying the rosary and either fell asleep and had a heart attack or she had a heart attack and just went.”

  “I’d like to think she died in her sleep,” Dad said.

  “I would, too,” I said.

  “Wow. This is terrible! Oh, my God! I can’t believe it,” Nicky said. Then he returned to himself as he said in almost a whisper, “We got anything to eat?”

  “Kitchen’s closed, Nicky. It’s like two in the morning. If you want anything, help yourself and clean up behind yourself, too,” I said, thinking he was probably stoned. But then, I wasn’t sure because Nicky could always eat no matter what time it was.

  “You want a sandwich, Ma?” Nicky said. “You doing okay? You all right?”

  Mom was sitting on a kitchen barstool with her hands folded on the counter, staring into space.

  “No,” she said.

  Dad came over to Mom and said, “You know, I got that letter she gave to open on her death. I should get it, huh? While we’re waiting for EMS?”

  “Yeah,” Mom said. She sounded like a zombie.

  Dad returned in a few minutes and sat down at the counter next to Mom. There he was in his bathrobe and slippers, and as he put on his reading glasses he sighed, expelling his sadness over the sorrowful job he had to do. Mom was in no shape to take over and so Dad just assumed he was the one who would direct everything.

  Dear Al,

  When you read this I will be gone to heaven to be with Nonno. If I go during the middle of the night, don’t call Theresa and Tony until morning. It won’t change anything. They need their rest as they are on their feet all day.

  These are my final wishes for my funeral. Since Nonno is buried in New Jersey and you and Connie are here, we have a little bit of a dilemma. I want to be with him and I want to be with you. So the best solution is, after a requiem Mass, have my body cremated. I know, I know! I always said never, but that’s the only way. Give half my ashes to Theresa. She can keep them in the bakery or at home for a while, but eventually I would like them buried next to Nonno. You and Connie keep the other half. I don’t care what you do with them, just don’t stick them in the bottom of a closet. I’m claustrophobic as it is…

  “It sounds just like her,” Al said.

  “Well, she wrote it, didn’t she?” Mom said.

  On any other occasion Dad would’ve said, Hey! Watch your mouth with your husband! But at that moment he was so upset that he just agreed with her.

  “No viewing, she says. Well, that’s good because they skeeve me anyway. Just a Mass and a get-together back at the house. She wants the Twenty-third Psalm read and she wants the organist to play ‘Ave Maria.’ Okay, that’s fine. For pallbearers, she wants Tony, Nicky, Frank, Paulie, Tony Junior and Michael Higgins!” Dad looked up. “Hey! She wants you to be a pallbearer, Michael! How do you like that?”

  “It’s an unexpected honor,” Michael said.

  “Right, but nice. Okay, she says to look in the freezer in the garage. There’s three trays of lasagna with Bolognese for the gathering after the Mass…”

  “Oh, my God! How weird is that?” Nicky said. We all looked at him. “I mean, how did she know she was going to die now? Man! That like spooks the crap out of me!”

  He was such a moron it was almost intolerable. “Maybe she would’ve used it for something else and then replaced it?” I suggested. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, yeah. Maybe.”

  “Okay, I know what we gotta do,” Dad said.

  Dad called the funeral home Nonna wanted, and when EMS arrived, Dad went into Nonna’s room with the paramedics and took Nonna’s rosary from her hands. He brought it to me.

  “Here,” he said. “She would’ve wanted you to have it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and started feeling weepy again. I didn’t think I had any tears left.

  While they were taking Nonna’s body away Mom refused to look.

  “I just can’t look at my mother like that,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you. Mom? I know you’re not going to be able to sleep very well,” I said. “Can I give you something? Warm milk?”

  “No. I’m just going to lie down and hope sleep comes. Who’s going to tell George?”

  “I will,” Dad said. “Come on, Connie. Let’s go rest.”

  “My mother is dead,” Mom said, and began to sob.

  “Come on, sweetheart, there now,” Dad said. “I’ll rub your back.”

  She put her head on his shoulder and they left the room, breaking my heart.

  Nonna’s funeral Mass was arranged for Tuesday, so Michael and I stayed in Hilton Head. My mother gathered her strength and appeared to be getting a handle on her loss. She was, after all, a practical woman.

  “You all right, Ma?” I must have asked her that every thirty minutes between Sunday morning and Tuesday night.

  “I have to be all right,” she said. “Every time I sleep, there’s my dead mother giving me more instructions. How would you handle it?”

  “With wine. A lot of wine. Or maybe medication. Ma! Tell her to give you a break!”

  “She didn’t listen to me when she was alive. What makes you think she’ll hear me now?”

  “Are you sure you’re not just dreaming all of this?”

  “Well, here’s one way to find out. Ask Michael what he did with the wine buckets his father bought his mother. Nonna claims Michael’s mother came to her and said to tell Michael a few things.”

  “Oh, brother! What?”

  “To use the wine buckets from Tiffany and fill them with flowers, that she had prayed hard for his miracle and is thrilled it was given to him, and something else…oh, well, never mind.”

  “What? Come on! That’s the worst thing to say. Hey! Oh! Never mind. Come on.”

  “That Michael is meant to do great things.”

  I was sure my mother was lying. “Yeah, sure, Mom. Come on. What did she say?”

  “Something about him making a good confession, and you, too.”

  I stared at her. In the past, I would’ve flown into a rage. Now, instead, I started laughing. Having a hotline to Nonna on the Other Side was going to be interesting.

  “Well, I know you won’t believe this unless I can produce sworn affidavits, but Michael and I are going into counseling with Father John. You know, to see what we can do about the future of our immortal souls. I promised to call him this week.”

  “Oh! Grace! That’s wonderful, sweetheart. You know there are a lot of reasons to be in a church besides the benefits of Mass.”

  “Like what, Miss Connie with the Eyes That Pass Through the Veil?”

  Mom laughed at that. “For community, Grace. It gives you a place where you belong.”

  “I know where I belong, Mom. With Michael and with my family.”

  We shared a long-overdue hug and sighed. Nothing was more consoling or comforting than my mom’s arms.

  Nonna’s funeral service was lovely, and to my surprise a lot of people were there—parishioners who had known her, people from “the facility” and, of course, George, who sat with our family. Nonna’s obituary had asked that donations be made to the church in lieu of flowers, but flowers came from Bomze and other friends anyway.

  Afterward, Mom and I served lasagna, sal
ad and garlic bread as Nonna had asked. For once, Marianne didn’t say anything stupid. That in itself was another miracle.

  Michael was wonderful. The following day, he suggested that he and I go to the airport to drop off Uncle Tony and Aunt Theresa.

  On the way back I said, “So, Michael?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take this exit. Um, by any chance do you have a pair of wine buckets that belonged to your parents? From Tiffany?”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “You don’t want to know. Here. Turn right here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Frank and Regina were leaving in the morning, and so were we. Once again, we were up late at night with them, this time toasting Nonna with a nightcap.

  “Nonna was a good egg,” Frank said. “She made a helluva Bolognese. To Nonna!”

  “To Nonna!” we all said.

  “Michael, with all that’s happened, we haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on your clean bill of health,” Frank said.

  “Thanks, Frank. It’s incredible, isn’t it?”

  “Amazing! Regina and I were ecstatic when we heard,” said Frank.

  “Oh, Michael, we prayed for you, and our prayers—all our prayers—were answered,” Regina said.

  “Thanks!” Michael said. “Now I realize what prayer really means.”

  “I knew your heathen brain would come around,” Regina said. “Just kidding, okay? Listen, seriously, we both just want you guys to know how happy we really are for you. Miracles don’t happen every day.”

  “No, they sure don’t. I called Monsignor Mirenda, the priest I met in Mexico, a couple of days ago and we had a great discussion. This guy spent a lot of years at the Vatican and he’s no dummy. So we got into this business of miracles and you know what he said?”

  “I’d love to know,” Frank said.

  “He said that when you start digging into the mystical part of the Church and all the apparitions and miracles, you realize that science fiction has bubkes.”