Between Before and After

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Wallabout Market no longer flourished between Flushing and the East River. But many of the old buildings remained, and with a little squinting and a great deal of imagination, I could see Pop, with his cap set at a jaunty angle, going in through the doors of Drake Brothers Bakery. Fort Greene Park was still a lovely place for a picnic even in the autumn, as Uncle Stephen and I found out. We basked in almost seventy-degree sunshine and ate Chinese food right out of the box. The croquet lawn was still there, where Mom and Uncle Stephen experienced their very first picnic, and where Howie presented Mr. Seward with the mynah bird.

  The two places I wanted to see most were Sacred Heart, with the pigeon coops on the roof, and the Gossleys’ house, where so many wonderful and terrible days passed. Both were still standing. On the corner of Adelphi, taking up almost the whole block, Sacred Heart Church was in all its brick glory, still home to hundreds of parishioners.

  “And there, Molly, is where the pigeon coops were kept, on the top of the gymnasium.”

  “Can we go up there?” I craned my neck, trying to see if any of the coops remained.

  “Well, it looks like the fire escape’s closed off now.” Uncle Stephen looked as disappointed as I felt on discovering the chain and padlock across the bottom of the fire escape. “But there is someone you might want to meet.”

  He led me down the street, past the church property to a new coffee shop. It was a small, bland building full of people chatting over cups of coffee and sweet rolls. At a corner table, near the back, sat a solitary old man wearing the distinctive collar of a priest. He rose when he saw us and extended a freckled hand. His eyes, sunk into a web of wrinkles, were the faded blue of flax. “I would have known ya anywhere. I thought it was Elaine coming through the door all over again, except your hair’s a different color,” he said, looking straight at me.

  Uncle Stephen and the old man embraced. “Molly, this is Father Kearny, the man who was like a father to me.”

  I took his warm hand in my cold one and tried to imagine him young and excited to be working in his first parish. He pulled out a chair for me, and we sat down while Uncle Stephen went up to the counter to order some tea.

  “I hear this uncle of yours has been causing quite a stir out West. You know he was the best altar boy I ever had?”

  “He’s still pretty remarkable. He healed a boy from a tumor by laying a hand on his head and praying for him,” I said.

  “And what did your mother think of that?” he asked.

  I wondered why that was his first question, but because he was very old and a priest, I allowed for a certain eccentricity. I thought for a minute and remembered the conversation I overheard from the linen closet.

  “She wanted to know about all the others who weren’t healed.”

  “Ah, that would be our Elaine. And what do you think?”

  I pushed some spilled sugar into a white ridge on the plastic tablecloth. “I think it’s a good question. There are too many prayers that are never answered.” I looked into his warm eyes. “I think being a miracle worker isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Father Kearny laughed so hard he began to wheeze and had to wipe his eyes. “Maybe the question should be why God interferes at all. Miracles don’t grant wishes. They aren’t for our comfort.”

  “Robert Crater, the miracle boy, jumped off a barn wearing a pair of wings my brother made. He broke a leg and an arm. The bone stuck out through the skin.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I guess he thought nothing could happen to him since God was saving him for something special.”

  He shook his bald head. “Saving us from ourselves is God’s work.”

  “Did you really raise pigeons on the roof of the church?”

  Uncle Stephen returned, balancing two cups of tea and three doughnuts, one for each of us. I kept my eye on the one with coconut.

  “I certainly did, but it was on the roof of the gymnasium. Of course, that was years ago. Birds are all gone now. Your uncle had a particular fondness for pigeons. I remember that your mother once sent a pigeon post from the roof of the church. It was the most peculiar message I ever sent; I guess that’s why it stuck with me all these years.”

  I leaned in. Mom sending a pigeon post. “What did it say?”

  “Just one word: wonder.”

  I rolled that over in my mind while Uncle Stephen talked about teaching school and becoming a local celebrity. But still I couldn’t understand why she’d written wonder and sent it by pigeon. I was gradually coming to the conclusion that there was still a lot about Mom I didn’t know, more than enough to fill one biography box. And that was surprising. It simply didn’t seem like parents should have so much life behind them.

  Uncle Stephen tried to talk Father Kearny into visiting us in San Jose, but he only laughed. “I’m a New York boy, born and bred. I don’t plan on dying on some foreign soil. But I will put in a few good words with the Big Fella for you when we meet up.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  ROOM FOR MIRACLES

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—OCTOBER 1955

  Molly

  It wasn’t easy to make our way to the East River. Businesses marched in tight procession along the waterfront, not to the mention increased security at the Navy Yard, but we managed. We followed a worn and muddy path through weeds and discards to the river’s edge. I could see Manhattan on the far shore; its tall buildings scalloping the skyline gleamed in the October sun. We stood between two bridges, the famous Manhattan Bridge to the south, and to the north, a span Uncle Stephen called the Williamsburg Bridge.

  “Did you used to come down here when you were growing up?’

  Uncle Stephen kept his gaze fixed on the gentle swells of the river. “In summer, kids who couldn’t afford the trip to Canarsie or Coney Island came here to swim. I did it a few times myself, but never when your mother knew about it. She said she didn’t like the crowd, they were hooligans, and she was probably right.” He smiled. “She usually was.”

  We listened to the river lapping on the banks. A pair of ducks glided by. “There’s a river that rushes inside all of us, Molly. It bears us along for good or ill unless we paddle hard. Your mom was the best paddler I knew until you came along.”

  “Me?”

  “You changed everything. You brought Arthur to us.”

  “I almost killed Robert too.”

  “But you didn’t. Robert made his own choice. And I suspect you’ve learned something about the power of words.”

  I looked at Uncle Stephen, his spare frame silhouetted against the current. The sun glinted off the water, and I had to shield my eyes.

  “You’re not content to go where the river takes you. You’ve lived in New York and California, and you’re a miracle worker.”

  Uncle Stephen took my hand in his bony one. “I was caught in the current, Molly. I figure the only true evidence of miracles is transformation.”

  “You mean what happened to Robert?”

  “Robert may have been the impetus, the first stone in the river. It seems to me that miracles spread transformation everywhere they travel—the rings keep widening like when a rock breaks the surface of the water. Take your mother, for instance.”

  “Mom?”

  “Your mother thought she knew the ending to her story a long time ago, but now it’s transforming into something different than she ever expected, like all good stories do. It’s like I’ve always told you about writing and storytelling—every story should leave a little room for miracles.”

  I brushed the hair out of my eyes. The smell of the river surrounded me, damp and musty, the smell of mud and living things all mixed up together.

  “She always claims that her story didn’t have any miracles.”

  “We don’t always know what a story means up front. In fact, we can’t know until we experience the beginning and the end.” He picked up a smooth, flat stone and sent it sailing out across the water. It skipped five times, leaving a widening trail
of circles, before it sank. “I was looking at that Hansel and Gretel book the other day, the one that was your mom’s. Most people don’t remember the ending. They think the story ends when the witch is pushed into the oven.”

  “The children find their way home again.”

  “Yep. That’s the part most people forget. The children find their way home and their miserable father is waiting for them. The stepmother has died. Some people would say it was a miracle the two children survived. In real life, it can take years to find your way through the woods. Your mother, Arthur, and I aren’t the family any of us expected.”

  I liked it when Uncle Stephen talked philosophy, even when I wasn’t completely sure what it all meant. “Do you think you’ll ever perform another miracle?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be in the way of another miracle, but it seems that once you open yourself to the possibility of miracles, they start showing up all around you.”

  I chose a flat stone the gray-green of the river. It flew out of my hand and sank without a single skip. “That’s not what the investigators said. They said that ‘the occurrence of the miraculous is rare.’”

  “Rare and common all at once, I expect. Here, Molly, pick a stone that’s not too heavy, but not too light either.”

  I closed my hand around a smaller stone, felt its smooth warmth fill the hollow of my hand. With one flick, it skimmed the surface of the water, kissed it twice, and dropped.

  A tremendous honking interrupted my concentration. It sounded like every car in Brooklyn was leaning on its horn.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Uncle Stephen ran a hand through his wild red hair. “I guess we’d better go find out.” We hurried up the muddy path back toward Flushing Avenue, that unexpected October sun still warm on our backs.

  People were out in the streets. A lady leaned from a second-story window beating two pot lids together. I began to worry that the whole town had gone mad or that we’d been invaded by the Communists like my teacher was always predicting.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Uncle Stephen shouted through the rolled-down window of a car stopped at the corner.

  “Haven’t you heard? The Bums just won the Series!”

  The children, having discovered that the wooden trunks in the old woman’s house were full of precious stones and jewels, filled their pockets and set out once more to face the dark forest, for both of them still longed for the promise of home. A dove, perched on a branch right outside the candy door, cooed and chortled. It fluttered to a branch just a few yards beyond them. The children did what all children in fairy tales know to do; they followed the bird into the woods.

  The dove was soon joined by a second and then a third bird. As the children trudged through the woods’ perpetual twilight, daylight began to filter through the branches of the trees. The path grew straight and wide. Holding hands, Hansel and Gretel followed the dove to the very edge of the forest. Now their journey became a familiar one; although the rest of the story could not be predicted, the children had found their way home.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  FINDING THEIR WAY

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—OCTOBER 1955

  Molly

  In the dark, I rolled over to the edge of the bed, leaned down, and quietly as I could unzipped the outer pocket of my suitcase. Tomorrow we were flying home, and I didn’t want to risk waking Mom up. It had been a long day. Our new dresses were hanging side by side in the hotel closet, and Angus was sleeping in the room next door with Uncle Stephen. From the bed next to mine, Mom’s breath was a steady snore, a low rumble.

  I’d crammed my journal into the outside pocket of my bag. I pulled it out, along with a small flashlight. But it was dark, my hands were slippery, and the flashlight crashed to the wooden floor.

  Mom snorted. I froze.

  Her form, backlit by the faint glow of a streetlight, rose from the covers. “Molly, was that you?”

  “Sorry, Mom. I dropped my flashlight. Go back to sleep.”

  “Well, I’m awake now.” She leaned toward me but didn’t turn on the light. “What are you writing about?”

  “How did you know I was going to write?”

  “I know you. You’ve been keeping those notebooks of yours for years. Of course you’d have one with you.”

  That caught me by surprise. I’d never suspected she paid attention. “I wanted to write about the trip, so I wouldn’t forget.”

  She may have surprised me, but I had a surprise as well. In the bottom of my suitcase was the cigar box, still only partially full of her biography. I’d added a few notes to it after my day with Uncle Stephen. I planned on giving it to her in the morning. I smiled with secret satisfaction as I waited for her to tell me to sleep now. But she caught me off guard again. Was this the way it was going to be now, each of us surprising the other from here on out?

  “I never heard all about what you and your uncle did yesterday.” She yawned. “Tell me one favorite thing, and then we’ll go back to sleep.”

  I lay on my back, supported by three fluffy hotel pillows.

  “Before we met Father Kearny, we saw the church where he used to keep his pigeons. I’d like to send a message that way.”

  Mom’s chuckle was soft and low. “It was pretty extraordinary—the idea of messages being sent by birds. I always loved pulling the rolled-up paper out of the little tube and waiting to see what it said.”

  A question had been rumbling around in my brain all day. I thought about how it’s always easier to have conversations in the dark. “Father Kearny said he remembered one of your posts.”

  “He did? What did it say?”

  “He said it was one word . . . wonder. Why did you write that?”

  She was quiet so long, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

  “I’d forgotten about that. It was the day your uncle got sick, right before we moved in with the Gossleys. Things had been difficult; most of the time I was exhausted. But there was something about being up on that roof, above the city, that made me feel like all the struggle was down below me. Seeing the pigeons, knowing they could take a secret message and carry it through the sky—that felt extraordinary. There wasn’t much extraordinary in my life.”

  While I was still thinking about what to say, she added in a quiet voice, “It felt like wonder was possible, like being inside a poem.” She turned onto her side and slid back down under the covers. “It’s been a long time since I thought about that feeling. Stephen told me you two went down to the river. That was another one of my favorite places.”

  “We did. He said it’s where all the kids used to go swimming.”

  “He always wanted to do that, but I never let him. It was my job to take care of him, and sometimes I tried too hard.”

  I could almost hear her thinking in the silence between us.

  “Molly, I shouldn’t have expected you to keep your brother off the roof. I’m sorry for what I said. He would have tried the wings himself no matter what you said. Now, tomorrow’s going to be another long day, and we need to get some sleep.”

  Then I heard her roll over away from me.

  “That’s okay.” I don’t know if she heard me, because the words came out small and feeble, a newborn revelation just finding its legs.

  I lay on my back staring into the dark, my whirring brain fuzzy now with fatigue. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to separate ordinary and extraordinary. Uncle Stephen’s miracle was extraordinary, but we still didn’t know, and might not know for years, if it would be recognized. The best thing was that he still was here with us, a part of our family whether he was a miracle worker or not. I thought about his words, the ones I’d planned on writing down. Once you open yourself to miracles, they start showing up all around you.

  I would like to able to say things changed at that one moment in time, when Mom finally met the son she’d abandoned. If I had been writing the story, they would have. But that’s not how it happened. I ha
ve learned that most change involving people is as gradual as glacial melting, sometimes unperceived for years until you look back at the way things used to be. Like miracles, a series of events are set in motion with much of it spreading underground. There was a loosening in Mom, as if a sliver of ice had melted, changing the shape of her interior landscape in ways that were only beginning.

  Of course, Arthur wanted more from her than she could give right away; he had been waiting so long. In that expectation, he was disappointed. I think he wanted more from Angus and me as well. And in this I surprised myself; I really was more like Mom than I realized. I could be friendly up to a point, but a dam of reserve was always in place. What did he know of our growing up, our longing, and our secrets? Angus, on the other hand, had always had more of Uncle Stephen’s open good will. He was thrilled to have another relative, even a half brother twenty-five years older.

  We didn’t hear from the Craters again after the incident. I don’t know if they blamed us for a lack of supervision, or do I know if they continued to believe that Robert was a miracle boy, set aside for some great purpose. Years later, when I had graduated Stanford and was starting my first job as a journalist, determined to be a serious writer, a newspaper story caught my eye. Robert Crater, the 1955 miracle boy, was a featured guest on a new TV game show, Hollywood Squares, hosted by Bert Parks. I’m not convinced that Hollywood Squares is the great work his parents had in mind.

  From the bed next to mine, a soft snore rose and fell. Behind the curtains it was the earliest hours of the morning. Life was waking up. Light was seeping in through the cracks.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The 1918–1919 influenza pandemic killed more people than any other flu outbreak in human history. The virus, which often led to pneumonia, killed over 600,000 in the US and 20,000 people in New York alone. My grandmother was one of them. She died in the third wave of the virus, in the spring of 1919, and it was her death and the stories my father told me about life afterward that set me on the path to writing this novel. She left three children behind. My father was ten years old when he, along with hundreds of other flu orphans, flooded the orphanages, and when they were full, the streets and alleys of New York. I grew up hearing stories about what it was like to survive as a child on the streets of Brooklyn, about Wallabout Market, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Prospect Park.