The Crooked Heart of Mercy

by Billie Livingston

  Ben shakes his head. “All kinds of sedatives—Lunesta, Xanax, Ambien, Ativan, whatever he can get hold of. I don’t know what all’s in his system right now.”

  “He drinks cough syrup. Anything with dextromethorphan,” Vera blurts.

  “If there’s acetylsalicylic acid in the kind he drinks, that might be lowering his platelet count.”

  “What?” the old man shouts, his shriveled lips caught between a sneer and a pout. “What are you whispering about?”

  Cola puts his arm around Vera as though she is his blankie.

  VERA DRIVES BEN back to his car, her hands at precisely ten and two on the steering wheel. Riding shotgun, Cola gulps down her every word.

  “Seriously,” she says, “you two need to move your father into a facility. The fact that he was able to hide what was going on—he could have died. If it were my father—” Nip nip nip, snap snap snap.

  The old fucker should be in a facility all right, the kind with bars on the windows and three squares.

  EIGHT THAT EVENING, Ben is on the couch brooding at the ceiling of his apartment. You two need to move your father into a facility.

  “You two” means “one Ben.” It means that if Ben gave a shit he’d get a second job, he’d get a third. If Ben were any kind of man he’d take up bank robbery or pimping and get his father into a facility.

  Veterinary technicians make good coin, don’t they? Why doesn’t Vera fork over five grand a month if she’s so fired up about facilities?

  His mind has just driven headlong into And what the hell is a know-it-all like Vera doing with a fuckup like Cola? when his phone rings. It’s the hospital. The old man has gone into surgery.

  Immediately after Ben hangs up, Cola calls. He tells Ben that at Critter Care Veterinary, where Vera works, a twelve-year-old schnauzer had the same colon surgery and the dog came through with flying colors. “Dog’s older than Dad in dog years.” There’s a long pause. Then Cola’s voice gets small and pleading. “Ben, what if this is it?”

  What if? Damn well should be it. If the universe were just. If there were a God, the old man would’ve fallen out a window and not Ben’s kid. Then again, who knows: If the old man won’t come to the window, maybe the window will come to the old man.

  THREE HOURS LATER, Ben’s eyelids have dropped. He is knocking at the door to sleep when the phone jangles him awake. Midnight.

  Hospital calling. The old man is in recovery. He should heal nicely, the surgeon says. There won’t be any need for a colostomy bag.

  Bully for him. Ben hangs up.

  He paces the living room. At the window he looks down. Staring at the pavement below, he opens his cell phone and dials.

  He listens to her number ring. Goose bumps prick as though he’s been splashed with ice water.

  Answer. Come on, answer!

  When she finally does, a little jolt shoots through his limbs. His voice slides in his throat like warm, golden honey. “Is that Mrs. Cecily G. Riley? Hello, Mrs. Riley. I’m calling about your prescriptions. Mrs. Riley, are you aware that Xanax is a controlled substance? It’s illegal for you to give your prescribed pills to another person. And you did that, didn’t you, Mrs. Riley? You gave away dozens. Hundreds.”

  “Why? Why are you doing this? What—” Her words catch and stumble.

  Ben pictures her sitting in an armchair, one gnarled hand trembling over her eyes in fear and grief. Holding the receiver to his ear, he feels, for a moment, as if someone has cut the noose around his neck, as if he can breathe again. He hangs up.

  FOUR

  Maggie

  We aren’t in the car thirty seconds before Lucy starts in with the questions. “Do you go to church?” “What about when you were a little girl?” “What religion are you?” “My Lloyd used to call himself a recovering Catholic. Do you believe all that stuff about the virgin birth?” “What self-respecting woman could stand being in the Catholic Church?”

  I haven’t driven a car much lately. It’s dark and rainy and I don’t need an interrogation. Especially while driving someone else’s fat old box of a Volvo. I turn the tables. “So how did you become a children’s writer?”

  “Oh!” Her tone changes to one of delight. “I used to be a doctor’s receptionist, which I never enjoyed. Retiring was even worse. Then Lloyd said to me, ‘Why don’t you write more of those kids’ poems?’ When Lloyd’s niece was a little girl, I wrote her a story-poem about a duck and an alligator. Dori Duck and Arty Alligator. She loved it.”

  “Mmhmm.” I squint ahead at the glittering wet street.

  “He bought me one of those children’s writing market books. Since then, I’ve had over a hundred poems published in children’s magazines—Turtle Diary, Chipper, Alley-Oop—all thanks to Lloyd. I thought some of my long poems could make a nice picture book, so I started sending to publishers. I was turned down by forty-six publishing houses! Some of them complained that they didn’t like anthropomorphism.” Lucy huffs in disbelief. “Kids love talking animals! Anyway, finally I sent a manuscript to FlyHigh Press in California and I got a contract! Did I tell you that Pennywhistle won a silver medal in the Strawberry Shortcake Awards? As of this year, it’s sold almost twenty-eight thousand copies!”

  “Wow! That’s terrific.”

  “I wrote a second one called Pennywhistle Flies, but it didn’t do as well. Here it is—this is us on the right.”

  We pull into the parking lot at five to seven. The place appears to be a former residence: someone’s white clapboard converted into a house of worship. Lucy is suddenly quiet. She looks at the front doors, and then takes out her compact and reapplies a coat of pink lipstick.

  The small gravel lot only holds about a dozen cars and with our arrival it is maxed out. I glance at the lighted entrance. Through the drizzled windshield I can just make out UNITED CHURCH. Two small, birdish women huddled under a single umbrella make their way in.

  “Okay. I’m ready.” Lucy tugs the door handle.

  I pull up the hood of my coat, jump out, and run back to the trunk. Hauling out her walker, I wheel it to the passenger side before I pop her umbrella. Lucy takes hold of the walker and hoists herself up. She pauses again and pats her hair. “Do I look okay?”

  “Beautiful.”

  She smiles as if it’s not raining, sets her purse on the seat of the walker, and shoves off toward the front doors. It’s not coming down all that heavy now but I walk alongside holding the umbrella centered over her head.

  As we get closer, I notice that the stained-glass window is not the usual depiction of saints, but flowers and doves and a kind of cross I’ve never seen—it has two curved hooks at its base, like an anchor. Above the door, the sign says UNITED CHURCH OF SPIRITUALISM.

  Spiritualism. The word knocks around my head—that old canard people like to trot out: I’m not religious, but I am a spiritual person.

  Light and heat wash over us as I open the door.

  “I’m here, Lloyd,” Lucy says and pushes her walker inside.

  That’s when it begins to sink in. Spiritualism—talking to the dead. Messages from the dearly departed.

  I fold the umbrella, dump it into the stand. Just inside, a wooden box is set on a small table. The lid has a three-inch slit and a sign reads: $5 SUGGESTED DONATION. Lucy stuffs in a folded ten-dollar bill and I follow her as she rolls through the vestibule toward the chapel.

  About fifteen people are scattered around twelve pews in the small room, some staring straight ahead, hands clasped in their laps, while others hang over the backs of their seats and chat with neighbors. I have, of course, heard of spiritualism, but I didn’t imagine it happening in a church. If I’d had to put a picture to a gathering like this, it would have involved a round table, dim lights, and a Ouija board.

  “I can understand why you don’t go to church anymore,” Lucy tells me again, “but this is different.” I’m hoping she’ll pick a back pew, but she keeps on going up the center aisle and stops at the third row. “It’s not like th
e Catholics. They ordain women here.”

  Once she’s seated, I fold her walker and start for the back of the room.

  “No. Keep that here. I like it close by.”

  “Won’t it get in the—”

  “Just fold it and rest it beside us.”

  I do as I’m told, lean the walker against the pew’s end, and sit down next to her.

  “Catholics,” she says, and shakes her head. “Even the Episcopalians say that creed of theirs, ‘I believe in one holy blablabla Catholic Church!’ They start their services with it!”

  Looking up at the wooden rafters, I pick at a hangnail and say, “That’s catholic with a small c. Catholic just means ‘inclusive’—it means ‘universal.’”

  “I was kidding,” Lucy says. “You’re so sensitive.” She looks around as if she is changing the subject. She leans over to me and whispers, “Some of them can be a little nutty in this place, so I like to sit by myself.”

  On the right is an organ. The pulpit is on the left. Don’t know why I find this churchy setup so surprising.

  “I used to take the Seniors TransRide out here, but it always brought me so damn early and I’d get stuck sitting around, talking to crackpots. I used to show them Pennywhistle.” She opens the cotton bag in her lap enough that I can see the copy of her children’s book. “People love it when I show them. ‘Wow! I never met a real author before!’ Makes them happy.” She closes her bag and twists her head around to see who else might be here.

  Sitting across the aisle in the first row is a woman wearing a hooded royal blue cape. She’s resting against the pew end as she knits what looks to be a snood.

  Lucy leans into me again. “That one in the blue cape, the one with the bad skin—she’s Catholic. I met her at a channeling event. She used to give me a ride sometimes, but she’s obsessed with medieval stuff. Knights in armor and all that crap. Thinks she’s some reincarnated Lady of Camelot.”

  In the sanctuary are two soft armchairs, each bathed in a single shaft of light from fixtures directly above. The chair on the right holds a big woman, tall and thick, swathed in a violet pashmina. She had been ambling up and down the aisle a minute before, smiling and nodding. She gazes around the room now, sleepy-eyed.

  Lucy gives me a light elbow in the side. “See that fat one sitting in the chair up front—she’s the medium tonight. She’s new, but she’s good. Strange that someone can know so much about the afterlife and still be so fat.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. I have no answer for much of what comes out of Lucy’s mouth.

  “Hello, everyone.” A small, thin man walks to the space between the pulpit and the organ.

  The woman in the blue cape puts her knitting down. Everyone settles in and faces the front.

  “You’ll like this guy,” Lucy says. “He’s cute.”

  “Welcome,” the man says. “Thanks for coming out on such a rainy night. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Danny. Why don’t we start with a song? The first hymn tonight is number twenty-two in your books. ‘Amazing Grace.’ Shirley our organist couldn’t make it tonight, but I think you all know the tune.”

  Beside me, Lucy opens a thin, spiral-bound hymnal and then she and the people around us begin to sing. I didn’t expect them to sing about God in a place like this. “I once was lost but now am found,” Lucy sings. She glances at me. I feel obliged to join in, but I can’t. The sound of voices together like this always makes my throat go tight. Ever since I was a kid. It feels too big and sad somehow. So I stay quiet and move my lips.

  When the song ends, Danny says, “Beautiful. You guys make my heart swell up!” He sets the mic down on top of the organ. “I’d rather skip the microphone when there is such an intimate little group. Can everyone hear me all right?”

  “We can hear you!” Lucy shouts. A couple of heads in the first two rows turn to look at her. Some smile, murmur agreement.

  Danny grins. “Great! We’ve got some good energy in the room tonight. I can feel it!” He tells us that he is from the Cree Nation and that he grew up in a family who was very much involved in the spirit. As a shaman himself, he has done a lot of work with healing circles, especially using the healing vibrations from gongs.

  I can feel my brother roll his eyes. Ever since we were kids, Francis has believed in one God, the Father Almighty and one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. He is definitely a capital-C Catholic. He told me a joke once that went: A Catholic gets stranded on a deserted island. After a few years, someone else comes to the island and notices that the castaway has built two chapels. The castaway explains, “This is the church I go to, and that is the church I’ll never go to.”

  “I was named True Coyote Walker by the elder who taught me,” Danny says. “The main message from my teacher has always been a question: Where are you going? What are you going to do?” He looks around the room. “The question from my teacher is a question from the Great Spirit: How do we let go of fear and pain and move forward? Right?”

  “Right!” shouts Lucy. She gives me another nudge.

  I move my butt a couple of inches away from her, I hope out of elbow range.

  “There was once a man in one of my healing circles,” says Danny. “The man was very depressed.” He pauses to let those words sink in. “When someone is that depressed, the next step up isn’t happy. It’s too hard to believe in happy when you are down in that dark, dark place. I asked him the Question: ‘Where are you going?’ He was so depressed he didn’t have an answer. So I reframed the Question. ‘Where is better than here?’ Sometimes we forget that moving forward comes in little steps. For someone down so low, that one little step might be anger. Anger isn’t happy but it’s sure closer to happy than depressed is.”

  I shift around. As an angry person, sitting in this pew, I find it very difficult to contain the agitation I feel hearing True Coyote Walker and his question from the Great Spirit. I’m so sick of religious quacks. No one wants to admit the most likely scenario: This is all you get. You get what you get and no amount of rage or providence is going to change it. I don’t know what’s worse: some Very Reverend Father Know-It-All telling me to pray harder or Sweat Lodge Danny here inviting me to listen to the Great Spirit.

  Beside me, Lucy is riveted. Maybe I’m just jealous. I want to believe in something. Anything. Of course, tonight isn’t about me and my pissy little opinions. Lucy is paying me twenty bucks an hour to be present and pleasant, to help her get from point A to point B and back again. That’s it. That’s my job.

  She glances at me, smiles, her expression almost beatific.

  Smile back. Breathing through my nose I remember to force the corners of my mouth up, feel my cheeks crowd my eyes a little.

  Mr. Coyote Walker is talking about meditation now. He says he is going to lead the room in a guided meditation using the vibrations of the gong.

  He pulls two stands with him into the center of the sanctuary. There are four gongs, two sets of two, one suspended above the other. He picks up a mallet with a soft, bulbous head. Around me, people close their eyes. I glance at Lucy, who is already breathing deeply, eyes closed.

  Just do your job. Present and pleasant.

  I close mine too.

  A soft, low thrum, and the room fills with tremulous vibrations that I feel so bone-deep, my eyes snap open. No one else seems bothered.

  Shut them again. Faking it works.

  Another gentle punt of a gong and the air ripples against my skin like lake water. Just breathe. Who’s it going to hurt? I take in the reverberating air and let it tremble through my lungs. A lower vibration from another gong joins the first.

  Thoughts drift to Francis, long ago trying to tell me the reason for ritual, the smells and bells, the solemn visceral chants that transport the mind to somewhere it doesn’t normally go. It begins to feel as if my frame is melting against the pew.

  Long, slim strains weave through the reverberations, fading into a gentle tide so warm and thick, it’s as i
f I am floating in a womb filled with honey.

  Then it comes, the soft hint of his breath in my ear. Milky, warm breath. The sense of him reverberates like another gong. I’m awake but it isn’t scary this time. He can be here. He belongs here. The weight of him, the feel of Frankie’s little bum settling into my lap, his warm back against my chest—I want to hold him, to touch his warm fingers, but the only way to keep him here is to keep still. I know it.

  Soon the gongs ease, but the vibrations linger. Frankie’s head thumps gently against my clavicle, the wisp of his fine hair under my jaw. I can’t look. I won’t.

  There is a long silence. A genuine smile creeps onto my lips and if I cry tonight it will be something different, something like bliss and love and sky and fullness. I wish I could dissolve into this sensation and never come back.

  A woman’s voice slips quietly into my mind and at first I wonder if I have created her. “My name is Reverend Kalinda Fetherling. I am a medium,” she says. “This is the portion of our evening where we connect with spirit. I will ask you if you want a message. Say yes, no, or maybe. Please don’t nod if you don’t understand. Okay? I have someone here. This spirit who is with me . . . I’m getting a name like Joan, or Jen. Maybe Jan—she wants to speak to the lady with the earrings. You, yes. Does this J-name make sense to you?”

  A couple of rows back, a voice says, “Yes! It’s Jan!”

  “Jan. Yes, Jan is here with us tonight. She has such a rush of love for you. She says, ‘I’m really doing all right. You should see the place!’ I get the sense that she wasn’t able to do a lot with her space when she was here—Does this make sense to you? Yes? But she has everything now. She knows now that those things weren’t important, but you were important. ‘I should have faced up to it,’ she says, ‘loved you and hugged you and thanked you. And wow, things are going okay with you too. Wonderful things!’”

  “Yes, I can feel her.”

  I am drifting with Frankie. Sleepwalking between worlds, curled around the heat of him. Listening and drifting.