by Jan Burke
The next day, on my front lawn, I found a pile of dog droppings so large, it could have been collected from a kennel. The war, it seemed was on. Thinking of her gesture at the door, I decided to buy a bottle of herbicide.
On the next trash day, my husband put the trash out. From my kitchen window, I could see that the lid was propped open. I walked out to the curb, and sure enough, there were extra bags of trash in our container. Consumed by curiosity, and ready to prepare for a little payback, I surreptitiously pulled the two Nabbit bags out and took them to the backyard.
Donning my trash-searching outfit again, I began carefully removing items from one of the bags. Most of the garbage was food waste that could go directly into a new bag. That done, I studied what remained, paying more attention to the contents this time. I began to know Nola Nabbit.
She smoked Winston filtered cigarettes and whatever she rolled up into ZigZag cigarette papers. She drank a variety of budget beers, and had polished off one bottle of cheap white table wine. She had been late on her mortgage payment this month. She drank a lot of coffee and her family ate a lot of fast food. She had been to see a podiatrist, and apparently hadn’t paid him on time. She had been invited to a wedding. She had received a reminder card for Daisy’s next dental appointment.
She had thrown away a pair of medium black stockings with a run in them, and replaced them with another pair of the same expensive brand. Apparently, a good pair of stockings were important to her. Objectively, I had to admit that Nola had nice legs. She knew it, too.
She had written notes while on the phone, mostly first names, but on one sheet, a misspelled reminder: “Pay $30 by the 10th to Ricky’s psichologist.”
A list caught my eye. Stained with coffee grounds, I could still make out its title: “Ruls of the House.” Beneath that,
1. Chors must be dun befor you play ball.
2. No going out at nite w/out teling me were you are going and who.
3. Crewfew is at ten.
4. No lies.
Braking of ruls will be delt with.
I stared at the list for some time, thinking of all the parents whose children become impossible strangers. Even Nola, poor example that she might be, had struggled with this problem.
My curiosity was stronger than my sympathy. I opened the second bag. It was from Daisy’s room. Here was scratch paper with seventh grade math problems on it, and several false starts on a report on California Indians. There were notes from a Bible study class on Corinthians. (In her neat printing: “Now comes a time to put away childish things…”) Hidden in some of the wadded up sheets of notebook paper were foil candy wrappers. I pictured a terrified Daisy sneaking chocolates from a hidden candy-sale canister, finding some solace in forbidden sweetness.
At the bottom of the bag was a letter:
Dear Cathy,
Sorry we can’t come to the wedding. There is big trouble with Ricky. Mom took money he had been saving and paid for a window he broke. It made him mad, and you know Ricky. He robbed our neighbor. He’s done it before but this time I think he will be in jail a long time. I know what he did was wrong, but I will miss him so much. He makes me laugh.
I guess I shouldn’t be writing sad news to someone who is getting married.
The letter stopped here, and I imagined her suiting action to word, discarding this letter and writing a happier one. Living in that household, what could she possibly write?
I sat there in the winter sun, staring at the letter for a long time.
I gathered the Nabbit’s trash together and put it in a new bag. I took the bag out to the curb and shoved it down into our container. After that day, my husband always took the trash out. I made room for whatever the Nabbit’s brought our way.
The Suburban Avenger was laid to rest. I put away childish things.
Mea Culpa
It was going to be my turn next, and I should have been thinking about my sins, but I never could concentrate on my own sins-big as they were-once Harvey started his confession. I tried not to listen, but Harvey was a loud-talker, and there was just no way that one wooden door was going to keep me from hearing him. There are lots of things I’m not good at anymore, but my hearing is pretty sharp. I wasn’t trying to listen in on him, though. He was just talking loud. I tried praying, I tried humming “Ave Maria” to myself, but nothing worked. Maybe it was because Harvey was talking about wanting to divorce my mother.
It was only me and Father O’Brien and Harvey in the church then, anyway. Just like always. Harvey said he was embarrassed about me, on account of me being a cripple, and that’s why he always waited until confessions were almost over. That way, none of his buddies on the parish council or in the Knights of Columbus would see him with me. But later, I figured it was because Harvey didn’t want anybody to know he had sins.
Whatever the reason, on most Saturday nights, we’d get into his black Chrysler Imperial-a brand spanking new, soft-seated car, with big fins on the back, push-button automatic transmission and purple dashlights. We’d drive to church late and wait in the parking lot. When almost all the other cars were gone, he’d tell me to get out, to go on in and check on things.
I would get my crutches and go up the steps and struggle to get one of the big doors open and get myself inside the church. (That part was okay. Lots of other folks would try to do things for me, but Harvey let me do them on my own. I try to think of good things to say about Harvey. There aren’t many, but that is one.)
I’d bless myself with holy water, then take a peek along the side aisle. Usually, only a few people were standing in line for confession by then. I’d go on up into the choir loft. I learned this way of going up the stairs real quietly. The stairs were old and wooden and creaked, but I figured out which ones groaned the loudest and where to step just right, so that I could do it without making much noise. I’d cross the choir loft and stand near one of the stained glass windows that faced the parking lot and wait to give Harvey the signal.
I always liked this time the best, the waiting time. It was dark up in the loft, and until the last people in line went into the confessional, I was in a secret world of my own. I could move closer to the railing and watch the faces of the people who waited in line. Sometimes, I’d time the people who had gone into the confessionals. If they were in there for a while, I would imagine what sins they were taking so long to tell. If they just went in and came out quick, I’d wonder if they were really good or just big liars.
Sometimes I would pray and do the kind of stuff you’re supposed to do in a church. But I’m trying to tell the truth here, and the truth is that most often, my time up in that choir loft was spent thinking about Mary Theresa Mills. Her name was on the stained glass window I was supposed to signal from. It was a window of Jesus and the little children, and at the bottom it said it was “In memory of my beloved daughter, Mary Theresa Mills, 1902-1909.” If the moon was bright, the light would come in through the window. It was so beautiful then, it always made me feel like I was in a holy place.
Sometimes I’d sit up there and think about her like a word problem in arithmetic: Mary Theresa Mills died fifty years ago. She died when she was seven. If she had lived, how old would she be today, in 1959? Answer: Fifty-seven, except if she hasn’t had her birthday yet, so maybe fifty-six. (That kind of answer always gets me in trouble with my teacher, who would say it should just be fifty-seven. Period.)
I thought about her in other ways, too. I figured she must have been a good kid, not rotten like me. No one will ever make a window like that in my memory. It was kind of sad, thinking that someone good had died young like that, and for the past fifty years, there had been no Mary Theresa Mills.
There was a lamp near the Mary Theresa Mills window. The lamp was on top of the case where they kept the choir music, and that case was just below the window. When the last person went into the confessional, I’d turn the lamp on, and Harvey ’d know he could come on in without seeing any of his friends. I’d wait until I saw him
come in, then I’d turn out the lamp and head downstairs.
Once, I didn’t wait, and I reached the bottom of the stairs when Harvey came into the church. A lady came down the aisle just then, and when she saw me she said, “Oh, you poor dear!” I really hate it when people act like that. She turned to Harvey, who was getting all red in the face and said, “Polio?”
I said, “No,” just as Harvey said, “Yes.” That just made him angrier. The lady looked confused, but Harvey was staring at me and not saying anything, so I just stared back. The lady said, “Oh dear!” and I guess that snapped Harvey out of it. He smiled real big and laughed this fake laugh of his and patted me on the head. Right then, I knew I was going to get it. Harvey only acts smiley like that when he has a certain kind of plan in mind. It fooled the lady, but it didn’t fool me. Sure enough, as soon as she was out the door, I caught it from Harvey, right there in the church. He’s no shrimp, and even open-handed, he packs a wallop.
Later, I listened, but he didn’t confess the lie. He didn’t confess smacking me, either, but Harvey told me a long time ago that nowhere in the Ten Commandments does it say, “Thou shalt not smack thy kid or thy wife.” I wished it did, but then he’d probably just say that it didn’t say anything about smacking thy stepkid. That’s why, after that, I waited until Harvey had walked in and was on his way down the aisle before I came down the stairs.
So Harvey had been in the confessional for a little while before I made my way to stand outside of it. I could have gone into the other confessional, and I would, just as soon as I heard Harvey start the Act of Contrition-the last prayer a person says in confession. You can tell when someone’s in a confessional because the kneeler has a gizmo on it that turns a light on over the door. When the person is finished, and gets up off the kneeler, the light goes out. But I knew Harvey ’s timing and I waited for that prayer instead, because since the accident, I can’t kneel so good. And once I get down on my knees, I have a hard time getting up again. Father O’Brien once told me I didn’t have to kneel, but it doesn’t seem right to me, so now he waits for me to get situated.
Like I said, I was trying not to eavesdrop, but Harvey was going on and on about my mom, saying she was the reason he drank and swore and committed sins, and how he would be a better Catholic if there was just some way he could have the marriage annulled. I was getting angrier and angrier, and I knew that was a sin, too. I couldn’t hear Father O’Brien’s side of it, but it was obvious that Harvey wasn’t getting the answer he wanted. Harvey started complaining about me, and that wasn’t so bad, but then he got going about Mom again.
I was so mad, I almost forget to hurry up and get into the confessional when he started the Act of Contrition. Once inside, I made myself calm down, and started my confession. It wasn’t hard for me to feel truly sorry, for the first sin I confessed weighed down on me more than anything I have ever done.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I killed my father.”
I heard a sigh from the other side of the screen.
“My son,” Father O’Brien began, “have you ever confessed this sin before?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And received absolution?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And have you done the penance asked of you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“You don’t believe in the power of sacrament of penance, of the forgiveness of sins?”
I didn’t want to make him mad, but I had to tell him the truth. “If God has forgiven me, Father, why do I still feel so bad about it?”
“I don’t think God ever blamed you in the first place,” he said, but now he didn’t sound frustrated, just kind of sad. “I think you’ve blamed yourself. The reason you feel bad isn’t because God hasn’t forgiven you. It’s because you haven’t forgiven yourself.”
“But if I hadn’t asked-”
“-for the Davy Crockett hat for your seventh birthday, he wouldn’t have driven in the rain,” Father O’Brien finished for me. “Yes, I know. He loved you, and he wanted to give you something that would bring you joy. You didn’t kill your father by asking for a hat.”
“It’s not just that,” I said.
“I know. You made him laugh.”
I didn’t say anything for a long time. I was seeing my dad, sitting next to me in the car three years ago, the day gray and wet, but me hardly noticing, because I was so excited about that stupid cap. We were going somewhere together, just me and my dad, and that was exciting too. The radio was on, and there was something about Dwight D. Eisenhower on the news. I asked my dad why we didn’t like Ike.
“We like him fine,” my father said.
“Then why are we voting for Yodelai Stevenson?” I asked him.
See how dumb I was? I didn’t even know that the man’s name was Adlai. Called him Yodelai, like he was some guy singing in the Alps.
My dad started laughing. Hard. I started laughing, too, just because he’s laughing so hard. So stupid, I don’t even know what’s so funny. But then suddenly, he’s trying to stop the car and it’s skidding, skidding, skidding and he’s reaching over, he’s putting his arm across my chest, trying to keep me from getting hurt. There was a loud, low noise-a bang-and a high, jingling sound-glass flying. I’ve tried, but I can’t remember anything else that happened that day.
My father died. I ended up crippled. The car was totaled. Adlai Stevenson lost the election. My mom married Harvey. And just in case you’re wondering, no, I never got that dumb cap, and I don’t want one. Ever.
Father O’Brien was giving me my penance, so I stopped thinking about the accident. I made a good Act of Contrition and went to work on standing up again. I knew Harvey watched for the light to come on over the confessional door, used it as a signal that I would be coming out soon. I could hear his footsteps. He’d always go back to the car before I could manage to get myself out of the confessional.
On the drive home, Harvey was quiet. He didn’t lecture to me or brag on himself. When I was slow getting out of the car, he didn’t yell at me or cuff my ear. That’s not like him, and it worried me. He was thinking hard about something, and I had a creepy feeling that it couldn’t be good.
The next day was a Sunday. Harvey and my mom went over to the parish hall after mass. There was a meeting about the money the parish needed to raise to make some repairs. I asked my mom if I could stay in the church for a while. Harvey was always happy to get rid of me, so he said okay, even though he wasn’t the one I was asking. My mom just nodded.
The reason I wanted to stay behind was because in the announcements that Sunday, Father O’Brien had said something about the choir loft being closed the next week, so that the stairs could be fixed. I wanted to see the window before they closed the loft. I had never gone up there in the daylight, but this might be my only chance to visit it for a while. As I made my way up the stairs, out of habit I was quiet. I avoided the stairs which creaked and groaned the most. I guess that’s why I scared the old lady that was sitting up there in the choir loft. At first, she scared me, too.
She was wearing a long, old-fashioned black dress and a big black hat with a black veil, which made her look spooky. She was thin and really, really old. She had lifted the veil away from her face, and I could see it was all wrinkled. She probably had bony hands, but she was wearing gloves, so that’s just a guess.
I almost left, but then I saw the window. It made me stop breathing for a minute. Colors filled the choir loft, like a rainbow had decided to come inside for a while. The window itself was bright, and I could see details in the picture that I had never seen before. I started moving closer to it, kind of hypnotized. Before I knew it, I was standing near the old lady, and now I could see she had been crying. Even though she still looked ancient, she didn’t seem so scary. I was going to ask her if she was okay, but before I could say anything, she said, “What are you doing here?”
Her voice was kind of snooty, so I almost said, “It’s a free country,” but be
ing in church on a Sunday, I decided against it. “I like this window,” I said.
“Do you?” she seemed surprised.
“Yes. It’s the Mary Theresa Mills window. She died when she was little, a long time ago,” I said. For some reason, I felt like I had to prove to this lady that I had a real reason to be up there, that I wasn’t just some kid who had climbed up to the choir loft to hide or to throw spitballs down on the pews. I told her everything I had figured out about Mary Theresa Mills’s age, including the birthday part. “So if she had lived, she’d be old now, like you.”
The lady frowned a little.
“She was really good,” I went on. “She was practically perfect. Her mother and father loved her so much, they paid a lot of money and put this window up here, so that no one would ever forget her.”
The old lady started crying again. “She wasn’t perfect,” she said. “She was a little mischievous. But I did love her.”
“You knew her?”
“I’m her mother,” the lady said.
I sat down. I couldn’t think of anything to say, even though I had a lot of questions about Mary Theresa. It just didn’t seem right to ask them.
The lady reached into her purse and got a fancy handkerchief out. “She was killed in an automobile accident,” she said. “It was my fault.”
I guess I looked a little sick or something when she said that, because she asked me if I was all right.
“My dad died in a car accident.”
She just tilted her head a little, and something seemed different about her eyes, the way she looked at me. She didn’t say, “I’m so sorry,” or any of the other things people say just to be saying something. And the look wasn’t a pity look; she just studied me.
I rubbed my bad knee a little. I was pretty sure there was rain on the way, but I decided I wouldn’t give her a weather report.