We Were The Mulvaneys

by Joyce Carol Oates

  By contrast, Patrick, born when Mikey-Junior was four, was a fretful, nervous baby. The kind that flails and kicks as a mode of expression. They'd laughed at him, in delight-his oddly long, narrow little feet like flippers. His pale blue bug-eyes, earnest like Corinne's. Fair brown hair growing in peculiar little tufts on his eggshell head, like inspired thoughts imperfectly formed. A baby with high standards, the Mulvaneys boasted. A baby to keep you on your toes. Think-think-thinking like a clock ticking in your hands. Yet capable of heartrending sweetness-that was Patrick, little "Pinch." By eleven months teetering on his feet and chattering high-decibel nonsense with the aplomb of a baby Mozart, to the astonishment of his parents. Corinne was enchanted, mystified. Her infant son was as opinionated and as assertive in expression as his father, and as strong- willed. He wanted his "own" way yet, a moment later, dissolved in tenderness, he wanted only to be hugged, comforted. He might have been overwhelmed by his older brother Mikey except he was in awe of Mikey-so much more physical and forcible than Patrick. No doubt he couldn't distinguish, for some time, among "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Mikey" as figures of household authority. Even as a baby Patrick had an instinctive sense of n-ht and not-right, and frequently embarrassed his parents by screwing up his earnest little face at people he didn't like, as if in the presence of a bad odor. Patrick would rear back, thrust out his lower lip, point and jabber disapprovingly. "No like, no like" he seemed to be declaring. Overly made up or perfumed women disturbed him, Reverend Earkin (of the First Baptist Church of Eagleton Corners) who spoke in a highpitched, nasal voice, people who spoke too emphatically, or laughed too loudly, or condescended to him, or overstayed their visits at High Point Farm. In those years before he'd settled into knowing who Michael Mulvaney was, in Mt. Ephraim terms, Michael Sr. was friendly with a number of local mnen-Wally Parks, for instance, who operated a small airport in Marsena, "Haw" Hawley who owned a tavern at Wolf s Head Lake and was stocky and blackbearded and smoked a bitter-smelling ropy cigar. These men Patrick particularly disliked, and let his feelings be known. "Lucky the kid approves of me," his father said dryly.

  Then came, unexpected, Corinne's third pregnancy. Her third!- so soon after Patrick's birth. Breathless, a bit dazed, Corinne told her little boys that God was sending them a surprise because they'd been such special babies, He wanted to make more of them to send to High Point Farm. Mikey was thrilled, but Patrick was too young to comprehend. When, one day, the tiny girl-baby was brought home, and presented as "your baby sister Marianne," he'd stared at the infant, thrust out his lower lip, and, wide-eyed, began to jabber excitedly.

  Years later Patrick would insist he remembered that day. He'd thought his baby sister was a baby pig.

  So came the miracle baby to High Point Farm, the Mulvaneys' little girl.

  Corinne joked that God had sent Marianne a little quicker than they'd anticipated (yes, they were practicing birth control-sort of) to prove that a baby could be, well-an experience just a little different from the usual.

  It was no exaggeration: Marianne was a beautiful sweet-natured baby with gray-blue eyes, dark curly hair, features exquisite as a ceramic doll's. So lovely, Corinne hung over her crib just to stare and stare and stare. A baby who slept, and woke, with a smile. Who nursed at the breast, and allowed herself to be bathed, her wriggly little body dried and powdered and diapered and dressed, with a wet cooing-clucking sound as of perpetual surprise and delight. Why, l!fe is fun! I love you! Her crying spells were infrequent, her tantrums rare and brief. (Unlike Patrick, who'd raised the art of tantrum-throwing to new heights.) As soon as anyone, dogs and cats included, entered her field of vision, Marianne raised her little arms eagerly to be

  JUDSON ANDREW MU-VANEY

  July11, 1963

  lbs., 4 oz.

  brown hair, brown eyes, pug nose

  PRAISE GOD THE MULVANEY CABOOSE HAS ARRIVED-

  hugged or lifted. There were older women, mothers with grown children, who, to Corimne's embarrassment, burst into tears at the mere sight of her, as of memones too precious to be borne.

  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 hut 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 afamily.

  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 womes, 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 jovialjoshing 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 myselfi 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 Re: when I left High Poimit Farmn, 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. Morn 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 faniily album, which I didn't interpret as a lack of interest in i-ne 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:

  DAMAGED GIRL

  I hadn't known, God help me I hadn't guessed. Yet I think it must have been partly myfi-ult. I'm her mother, it must have been partly my fault. I'm waiting, 0 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. Ephraiin churches Corinne had never once stepped inside. Not just that St. Ann's was a Cathol
ic church (and Corinne, Protestant to her fingertips, had a nervous apprehension of the Holy Roman Faith) but, somehow, she and Michael Sr. didn't seeni 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 niidafternoon, 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. Ephrairn standards. Dark red brick, weatherwom; 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 treelined 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 Connne 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-itcan'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 ftliy, 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 notright. Since Sunday. Since the telephone call. A mother always knows, can't not know. But Connne 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. Iwant my children to trust me. To think of tne 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 Connne 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 honor 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. Puff-y 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, Morn.