The Empty Jar

by M. Leighton

  I manage to keep my composure all the way up to our room. It’s when I unlock the door and walk in to find Nate standing in front of the television in nothing but a towel that I can’t hold onto it anymore. As soon as he turns toward me, his jewel-like eyes passing softly over my face, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile, I lift my hands, bury my face in them, and burst into tears.

  I want to blurt that I’m carrying his baby. I want to see his mouth drop open in shock and pleasure. I want to feel his strong arms wrap around me in soul-deep happiness. I want to hear his voice become thick with emotion.

  But I can’t have any of that.

  Not yet.

  Not being privy to the secret I carry, Nate rushes to my side. Being my hero and protector, he’s ready to disembowel the person who caused his sick wife to cry. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asks, his fingers curling tenderly around my upper arms. “What happened? Did someone hurt you?”

  All I can do is shake my head. And sob.

  Nate winds his arms around me, holding me tight against his bare chest. His lips brush my hair as he speaks. “Then what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  “I-I-I just love you s-so much,” I stammer brokenly. And that is one hundred percent true.

  At my words, I feel the muscles in his chest relax. He’s no longer ready to go to battle; he’s ready to comfort.

  “I know. Because I love you that much. Maybe even more. I hope you know that.” His voice cracks on the last as he struggles to control his own emotion.

  “I do. I do,” I assure him. “I wanted so much for our life. If I could have done it any other way, I would have. I would’ve given you everything.”

  “You already have. All I ever wanted was you.”

  I weep onto my husband’s skin as he holds me. I weep for what will never be. I weep for what I hope can be. I weep for the secret I carry. I weep for the tiny life I might not be able to sustain. But most of all, I weep for the future, the future I will never see and the family I will never get to share with my husband. He will have to do it all alone.

  Without me.

  Forever.

  But still, he will have our baby. Hopefully. He’ll finally have the best pieces of both of us, all wrapped up in a little person he can watch grow and thrive, play and laugh.

  If I can just make it that far…

  When I collect myself enough to pull away from Nate, I drag my stinging eyes to his face. I reach up to cup his cheek, now smooth from a recent shaving, and I wonder what his expression will be like when I give him the news. If I could carry the baby until we get back to the States, I will tell him right after I see the obstetrician and my oncologist. I’ll tell him when I know there is a chance that this could work. Then I will watch his mouth drop open, his eyes mist over, and I will see a pleasure erupt from his face, like the warm spray of a deeply hidden geyser.

  But until then, I have to keep it together. For Nate. I will protect him as long as I can.

  “What are you thinking?” he asks when I say nothing, just holding his cheek in the palm of my hand.

  “That I can’t wait to see Vatican City with you,” I answer with a watery smile.

  “You sure you feel up to driving over there? We can go another day if—”

  “No. I want to go today.” I’m firm on this. I’m prepared to pull out every stop, exhaust every resource to make our baby a reality.

  That includes trying to believe in a God that my father briefly introduced me to so many years ago.

  ********

  Vatican City.

  If the outside of St. Peter’s Basilica could be called breathtaking, the inside would be called magnificent.

  Spectacular.

  Glorious.

  Every ornate carving, every beautiful brushstroke, every carefully selected detail is so superb that I could spend the entire day simply enjoying the splendor of it. Even the light, the way it pours through strategically placed glass in the ceiling of the dome, seems to shine in exactly the right way, the sun itself a part of the artistry.

  Believed to be the house of the tomb of Saint Peter, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, the Basilica has long been considered one of the holiest locations in all the city, if not all the world. And while I would never have considered myself to be a religious person (at least not after the death of my father), even I am not immune to the piety of the place. In fact, I’m moved to tears by it more than once as we tour the hallowed halls.

  Earlier, when we arrived at the base of the wide, graceful sweep of stairs that led to the Basilica, Nate, standing silently at my side, reached down and laced his fingers with mine. It wasn’t a casual gesture, not as any onlooker would suspect. It was a slow twining of his fingers, his life, his hopes, and his fears, with mine. He was comforting and drawing comfort, supporting and receiving support. We are two halves of one whole, in it together until the bitter end, whenever that might be and whatever it might bring.

  The moment we entered the church, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and rightness. I could practically feel the prayers of countless generations humming through the air as one long, peaceful vibration. I stood quietly at the entrance, letting the tranquility of it wash over me. I needed something from this place; I just didn’t know what. Healing from my disease? Absolution from my deceit? A miracle for my child? Something I couldn’t name and didn’t understand?

  Maybe.

  Maybe one of those.

  Maybe all of them.

  Neither Nate nor I spoke as we made our way to see some of the most revered sights on the planet—Bernini’s Chair of St. Peter with its crown of golden angels, the long nave with its intricately arched ceiling, the Pieta by Michelangelo with its heartbreaking depiction of Mary holding the body of her dead son, Jesus.

  The last spoke to me like no other. Life, now more than ever, had taken on a sacredness that I’ve never known before. Maybe it’s that my own existence is drawing to a close. Maybe it’s that I will struggle in my last days to give life to another. Or maybe it’s that I’m contemplating life as it relates to the loss of it. I can’t be sure, but the sight of a woman holding her dead child was nearly my undoing.

  Every square inch of the church is bathed in beauty and grace. From the floor, intricately designed and polished to a high shine, to the walls, all adorned with ornate columns and sculptures, the Basilica is grand. Even the ceilings are decorated with gilt stucco and richly framed windows that allow natural light to pour in and illuminate every divine detail to perfection. It has to be one of the most awe-inspiring places on Earth.

  Hours later, as we come back through the nave, we reach the area at the south transept cordoned off for those seeking to make confession. Nate squeezes my fingers and whispers, “Let me find the bathrooms before we head over to the Sistine Chapel, k?” He kisses my temple and starts off in the opposite direction. “Be back in a few.”

  I nod, perfectly content to just…be. I turn a slow circle, once more taking in the glorious sights laid out before me. I glance at every sculpture, absorb every sound, and commit every detail of Bernini’s Baldachin, arching protectively over the altar, to memory before I make my way toward the velvet ropes that protect those who come to confess from the foot traffic of those who come only to look.

  Impulsively, I walk around to a divide in the barrier and head to the first row of seats. I slide through the aisle to a chair in the middle. None of the others are occupied, which I find odd since there had been many people sitting here when we’d passed through the first time, earlier. I glance quickly left and right, at the confessionals sprinkled along each wall, to make sure I’m not going to be evicted. I feel as though I’m wearing my non-Catholic status like a robe, brazenly, for all to see.

  When I’m certain I’m not offending anyone (there seems to be no one around to offend), I relax and focus on the painting inset into the wall at the end of the transept. It depicts a grown Jesus holding a child in His arms. I feel a stab of envy. And fear. And som
ething I can’t readily identify.

  Tears mist my eyes as I take in the scene.

  A gentle voice from near my right shoulder startles me.

  “Are you enjoying your tour?”

  My head whips around, and I see an older man, a priest standing beside me, two chairs down. He is dressed in the traditional holy vestments, black soutane with thirty-three buttons down the front. Upon his head is a shock of short, graying hair. His eyes are a brilliant blue, and his hands are clasped in front of him as though he has all the time in the world.

  And he is taking a minute of it to speak to me.

  I nod, recovering quickly. “Oh yes! Very much. It’s an incredible place.”

  The priest’s serene smile widens, and his head bobs once. “Very good.” His voice is soft and lightly accented, and he has a placid quality that surrounds him like a calming cloud. I feel immediately at ease and wonder if all men of the cloth have such a soothing presence about them. “Are you here to give confession?” He raises a hand to indicate one of the many free-standing confessionals dotting the wall to my left.

  “Oh, no. I’m not Catholic.”

  Blue eyes steadily search my face. The way he watches me would’ve made me squirm had it been anyone else, but today, with this man, I sit perfectly still and hold his gaze.

  For some reason, I don’t feel guilty or out of place. I don’t feel ashamed or condemned. I don’t feel wrong or unworthy. Somehow, I just feel…comforted by the way it seems he can see right through me, see right into me and not judge me for what I’m hiding.

  “You might not be Catholic, but you are in need just the same.”

  It’s an observation not a question. A statement of fact. Like he knows.

  Like he knows.

  “How—” I was going to ask how he knew, but I don’t. I don’t need to. Something deep within me feels the answer.

  Something within me knows.

  “Come. Let us seek the privacy of the confessional,” he says, once more indicating the wooden booths behind us.

  “Can we do that since I’m not a Catholic?”

  “You don’t have to be Catholic to confess your sins; you only have to be a sinner, as we all are. Or troubled and in need of guidance, as we all can be from time to time.”

  I don’t question what makes me rise from my seat and turn to walk through the row toward the first confessional. I merely give in to the overwhelming need within me, the need to share my burden with another person.

  Maybe there really is a God.

  And maybe He really does listen to the soul.

  I stop in front of the box. Despite its friendly label that declares it appropriate for those who spoke English, I’m still intimidated. The large wooden structure is stained a rich mahogany and, as with every other centimeter of the church, no detail has been spared. It’s beautiful in an artistic as well as in a meaningful way.

  I turn to ask the priest what I’m supposed to do next, but he’s gone. I look around, wondering if I missed him going in another direction, but within a minute, I hear a muffled voice from somewhere inside the booth bid me to, “Come. Kneel.”

  I approach the opening. The interior is dark and smells of timber and varnish mingled with a subtle tang I can’t quite describe. I imagine it is decades of misery and forgiveness carried on hot breath and held carefully within the grain of the wood. They linger here,like remembered promises.

  After my eyes adjust, I can see where I’m supposed to kneel and where my elbows are supposed to go, placing me in the pose of someone praying. Once I’m in position, I clasp my hands and drop my forehead onto my interlocked fingers. “What do I do?” I murmur.

  “Tell me what’s on your heart,” the priest’s disembodied voice answers.

  “Do I tell you that I’ve sinned?”

  “Have you?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “We have all sinned. We do so daily. That’s why confession is so important. We need forgiveness. We need it from our God, and we need it for ourselves.”

  To this, I say nothing. I don’t know what to say.

  But I feel.

  I feel his words, and the truth of them, in a place I can’t identify.

  When I fall silent, the priest guides me further into the ritual, his tone comforting and conversational. “What brings you here? To Rome?”

  I clear my throat and slowly begin to tell him my story, carefully opening that closet door so that the skis won’t fall out.

  “My husband brought me to Europe for three months. Sort of a once-in-a-lifetime trip.”

  “And what about this trip has you so troubled?” he asks, perceptive in ways I don’t understand.

  “We…I…” I consider how much I should tell this stranger, uncertain whether there is such a thing as “too much” in confession. But before I’ve done more than ponder my predicament, the closet door bursts open, and the skis—and every other hidden thing—come tumbling out in a rush of words that fall at his feet.

  “Two months ago, I was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer. You see, my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for years. It was a very stressful time each month, waiting to see if it worked, mourning it for days when it didn’t. I was anxious…always anxious it seemed, and my stomach was upset a lot. But any time I felt nauseous or bloated, I got excited, thinking it was pregnancy. I didn’t really look for any other reason for the symptoms. I just always wanted it to be pregnancy, I guess. But I’m a nurse practitioner. Eventually, I climbed out of my hopeful shell long enough to notice that something was wrong. Very wrong.”

  My chin trembles, and I swallow hard so that my voice remains strong, so that it won’t shake with the tears that have pooled in my eyes. I haven’t cried about my cancer since the day I was told that it was stage four. It seemed pointless to spend the last part of my life crying over milk that had long since been spilled.

  “By the time I was diagnosed, it had already spread to my liver and two of my lymph nodes. Being a nurse, I knew what that meant. Besides that, I’ve seen it before. With my father.”

  The priest says nothing. He merely gives me time and space and quiet. It is in that quiet that I reach for and give this holy man all that is in my heart.

  “My dad died with stage four esophageal cancer. It’s very similar to my condition, and it had spread to his liver and lymph system, too. I was a little girl at the time, so I didn’t know much. And they hid things from me. But still, I knew. I could see that he was sick. Very sick. I could see what he was going through. That’s how I know what’s coming for me. I know it all too well.”

  My pause is short. Everything is rushing to the surface now, a tide beyond my control.

  “My older sister had cancer, too. Childhood leukemia. So, you see, I’ve seen more than my fair share of what this disease can do. What it will do. I’ve watched it wreck families too many times, and I’m not going to let it wreck mine. That’s why I refused treatment.”

  The priest is quiet, contemplative.

  “And what did your husband have to say about that?”

  I shrug. “Nate loves me. He would never ask me to do something I didn’t want to do. Besides, he was part of the reason I made that choice. I watched cancer eat away at my father and my sister. I watched them fight it like there was hope and then lose the battle anyway. My mother watched it, too. Only she never recovered. She died in their battle, too. And I don’t want that to happen to Nate.”

  “Your mother died as well?” he asks.

  “No, not technically, but she might as well have. She more or less checked out of life after Dad died. She checked out of life, out of motherhood, out of participation in being a human. Seeing them die that way…it broke her. She just gave up. It didn’t even matter to her that she had another child to raise. She stopped caring and trying, or even pretending to care or try. She just…stopped.”

  Before the priest can say anything, I continue, my lips curving into a darkly bitter smile.


  “But I was lucky, I guess. Lucky that I was fourteen when he died. I was mostly grown and able to take care of myself, so when Mom quit doing it...” I shrug, even though the priest can’t see it. “I did it for myself. For both of us, most of the time. I guess in some ways, I ended up raising her rather than the other way around. I wasn’t able to grieve. I lost my dad, but Momma lost her soul. And I had no choice but to take up the slack. I held my mother while she cried. For hours sometimes, way up into the night. I gave her a bath when she wouldn’t get out of bed to shower and the whole house smelled like sweaty feet. I nursed her as well as a grieving girl could nurse her mother and still try to keep her own life from falling apart. That’s one thing I can sort of be thankful for, I suppose. Taking care of Momma is when I realized I had a pretty good knack for it—nursing. That awful time gave me a dream, a dream that I held onto when there was nothing else. I focused on going to college even when I had to learn to forge my mother’s name so I could cash the Medicaid checks and buy necessities. I focused on getting out when I walked down to the corner market once a week to buy us food. I focused on college so I could get through high school, while I learned to cook and clean, while I did my homework and then did the laundry. College is why I didn’t miss a single day of school. No matter how tired I was, I didn’t miss a day. And I still took care of my mother, right up until I got the letter of acceptance to nursing school. Only then did I stop. That was the day I called Social Services and had them come to do an evaluation of her.”

  I link and unlink my fingers, fidgeting in the way I used to when I was a little girl. I haven’t done it in years. But then again, I haven’t rehashed the story about my mother in years either. The guilt over what I did is still fresh, as fresh as it was the day I made the call. And after all this time, the result of my actions still burns in my gut like a lifetime of swallowing battery acid.

  “I was so bitter. I didn’t want harm to come to her; I just wanted someone else to take care of her,” I explain, the slow trickle of tears down my cheeks starting anew. It has been so long since I’ve cried over Momma, but I never stopped missing her, missing what could have been. What should have been, but never was. I felt grief, grief for the other parent I lost. I didn’t lose her physically, but I lost her emotionally.