The Next Queen of Heaven

by Gregory Maguire

  “Be a brother, then,” said Mother Clare du Plessix.

  “I’m a sister, Sister.” But he grinned.

  “Small difference,” said Mother Clare du Plessix, shrugging. “I’ll be your brother, then, your big brother. And nag you to take care of yourselves. You hear?” She wagged a finger in Marty’s face. “Take care of each other. That’s the regula. That’s all it is.”

  As Jeremy drove home under a tormented sky, he felt Marty glance over at him. “That was bizarre,” Marty said at last. “I feel entirely too religious. Sort of slimed with it. This is fishing on a moonless night, I know, but I don’t suppose you’d like to come home with me and get out of those wet clothes? Get warmed up by getting naked?”

  Jeremy thought: It’s my talking of Sean’s sickness out loud that has pulled up the thought, the need, in Marty. I can feel it too. We’re all so damned proficient in reticence.

  He thought of admitting—If I only thought I could!—but he knew that would uncork the subject of Willem. “I thought Sean was the only one crazy enough to fancy me.”

  “Don’t give yourself airs.” Marty was curt. “Happens there are no other gay men in the car besides me. Sorry I mentioned it. Besides, I have to go to work in an hour. Can’t call in sick at the Craftique, not with Christmas coming.”

  So much for brotherhood.

  23

  TABITHA HAD NEVER had much truck with nuns of any variety. Even during the period that her mom and Daddy Booth had suffered some sort of Catholic madness—later they called it the Roman flu—Tabitha had stayed the hell away from any of those witchy women, even the ones who had left the convent. You could always pick them out. Linda Pearl once made Tabitha choke on a Coke by standing over one of these escaped prisoners and miming giving the poor woman a Sinéad O’Connor scalping. Collaborator! There’s no possible camouflage. It shows right down to what kind of pocketbook you carry; you pick whichever one makes you look the most uncomfortable with it.

  Therefore, Tabitha’s conversation with Sister Alice Coyne after mass had confused her. The woman was possessed with an obsession to comfort Tabitha, and Tabitha didn’t want comforting. Nor did she want the phone number of Planned Parenthood, which she kind of thought Sister Alice might have been hinting at, but then Tabitha had always sucked at the game of Clue. “You need to find out for sure,” Sister Alice had said.

  “I am sure.”

  “What is the young gentleman going to do about it?”

  “He didn’t say anything. I suppose he thinks I’m lying, or that it’s not his.”

  Sister Alice kicked a lower vestment drawer closed. “So you want to see Father Mike then. Shall I grab his calendar and make an appointment?”

  “No.” Tabitha had already changed her mind. The idea of Father Mike was even more upsetting than the idea of Pastor Huyck. Mike and Huyck. What made everyone think that she wanted to talk to men? She only wanted to marry one, not talk to him.

  “Look. You are in a bad way.” Sister Alice delivered herself of this pronouncement with relish. “Tabitha, I don’t know why you came to us instead of to your own pastor, but I’m not going to ask you to explain. I know how things are. The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. An outdated notion in this era of the Uncertainty Principle and millennial disgruntledness, but never mind. You’ve come here because you’re in your life up over your head.”

  Well, yes, perhaps, but wasn’t that the point about life? She didn’t say anything.

  “You’ve got a possible pregnancy, you’re unmarried, and your mother is suffering some sort of confusion of the brain. I can see that your two younger brothers are not much help these days. Hogan and—is it Kurt?”

  “Kirk, like in Star Trek.”

  “Yes.” Sister Alice didn’t look as if she knew much about Star Trek. “Tabitha, you’ve got to get to the root of your problems. You shouldn’t be going through this alone. Do I understand you have a series of Deadbeat Dads who were married to your mother? They should step up and help you with her, so you can concentrate on your own problem.”

  “I already tried them.”

  “Then when you get home, call me with their phone numbers. I’ll do a little advocacy work on my lunch hour today. No, don’t thank me, I feel like it,” she said, grinning like a bulldog that has cornered a chihuahua. “Nothing gives me a rush like doing works of mercy or menace.” But she was laughing at herself. “Share this burden. You needn’t carry it all alone, Tabitha.”

  “If only I knew what my mother wanted,” said Tabitha.

  “She wants to go back to her roots. Isn’t that what we all want?”

  “I’m not sure Grandma Prelutski was a barrel of fun for Mom.”

  “Your mom can’t take nourishment from her present day, she can’t help abusing her kids. She just can’t help it. She wants something in her past. One of her husbands might help. They ought to. Look, I know this, Tabitha. I was an adopted child myself. I spent twelve years in an orphanage in Troy, New York, run by nuns. Then I lived with my adoptive parents for nine years. I loved them and still do, but in the end the nuns were my first home. I needed to go back. We all do, especially in times of crisis.”

  What do I go back to, thought Tabitha, but didn’t say anything. She just thanked Sister Alice and left the parish house, and did as she was told: called Sister Alice with the dads’ phone numbers. What a peculiar feeling to do as she was told. She didn’t actually mind it.

  After homeroom and first period next day, she cut out. She tried to look as if she was running to vomit in the gutter, just in case Principal Jack Reeves was glancing out his window. In fact, she felt like throwing up, just a little, and she might have been able to produce something if apprehended. But if Reeves saw her, he just let her go. She wasn’t worth the chase. She knew it herself.

  She’d spent some time last night on the sofa thinking about roots, about her earliest memories. They seemed blank of mood, like stills from someone else’s childhood. Near as she could figure, her oldest memory was of Mom giving her a Cabbage Patch doll one birthday and then taking it back after Tabitha had ruined it by soaking its head in bleach trying to dye its hair. Mom had hung the doll upside down by clothespins to the clothesline in the backyard. Bald, glassy-eyed, rained on, swarmed by little red ants, the doll endured. Tabitha had camped out beneath, too small to reach, too stupid to think of a chair. By the time Mrs. Scales had surrendered the creature, Tabitha had lost interest in it.

  The curious thing is that she could see the picture in her head like a snapshot used in a Christmas card to summon up a year in the life of the family. But she couldn’t remember feeling guilty about her misbehavior, or angry at her mother, or sad for the doll. What kind of sorry oldest memory was that? Admitting the feebleness of her response made her feel kind of pukey.

  Bijou Motor Supply. She stood in front of the door-sized glass case that had once displayed movie posters. Now there was a hand-lettered sign that said:

  DID YOU KNOW?

  We Stock:

  V BELTS

  SHEAVES PULLEYS

  ROLLER CHAIN

  SPROCKETS DRILL BITS

  BAC-A-LARMS

  S-K TOOLS DUPONT PAINT

  EMERGENCY BEACONS

  We Make:

  HYDRAULIC HOSES

  We Press:

  50 TON HYDRAULIC PRESS

  We Turn:

  DRUMS AND ROTORS

  What the sign didn’t say was:

  We Supply:

  IMPLEMENTS FOR WHACKING YOUR MOM

  But Tabitha supposed that they did, and so she went in and found something suitable, a heavy-duty staple gun with convenient handle. Tape a couple of Pampers around it and wrap that up in a towel. You got maximum grip, considerable weight, padding for safety. And, Tabitha thought a bit uneasily, if there was bleeding you could just dispose of the Pampers in the traditional manner. Jack Reeves wouldn’t dig up the septic system looking for a couple of bloody Pampers, would he?

  She sp
ent the rest of the day hanging out at the Crosswinds Shopping Center, shoplifting a little lunch and thinking of other unpleasant moments of childhood in which she might have wept, or cursed, or snuggled, or run away. Why had she been so passive? She felt increasingly disgusted at herself. When she got home that afternoon, Kirk wasn’t there. “Where is he, I thought it was his turn to babysit?” she said irritably to Hogan.

  “He came home at lunch and was practicing scales. I think he’s converting so he can sing in the Catholic choir. I think he’s fallen in love with that faggot music director.”

  From her bedroom, Mrs. Leontina Scales began a wail, like the noon siren. “What, she’s going to join the choir too?” said Tabitha darkly.

  “You know, it’s all these Catholics’ fault.”

  It was so rare for Hog actually to converse that Tabitha stopped in her tracks. “Mom, cut it out,” she yelled, and turned and looked at her brother. Scarfing down a plate of cold beans, he stood against a metal folding chair he’d stolen from some community function or other. His butt bunched up over the back of it. He hadn’t shaved in a week and he looked like a high school graduation portrait of Fred Flintstone.

  The bag with the staple gun was heavy but if she set it down it might clunk, and she didn’t want Hogan to guess what she was up to. “What do you mean, it’s the Catholics’ fault?”

  “If the stupid bitch hadn’t gone over there, that Catholic statue wouldn’t have clobbered her.”

  “Yeah but, I mean, statues aren’t like responsible parties.”

  “Duhh. But she’s obsessed, she’s going there all the time. She’s possessed.”

  The Radical Radiant Pentecostals believed more in being possessed by the Holy Spirit than by anyone else; they were sort of snooty about Satan, as if Satan needed to be discussed only in lower-class churches.

  “Daddy Booth called today,” said Hogan.

  “You talked to him?” Hogan wasn’t much on the phone. Daddy Booth’s fluctuating delight and disgust in his son Kirk usually made Hogan indifferent to him. But Hogan was indifferent to everyone.

  He shrugged. “Said some stormtrooper nun called him up and told him he had to come see Mom and take care of her.”

  Tabitha put the shopping bag with the staple gun down on the floor gently. If she didn’t use it, could she bring it back for a refund? (Come to that, could she clonk Mom over the head with it and then bring it back for a refund?) “Yeah?”

  “He said he wasn’t answerable to any stupid nun and he hadn’t been a Catholic in ten years or more and she should mind her own fucking business, in those exact words.”

  And Daddy Booth was the educated one among them. “So I take it he’s not coming?”

  “He said he’d call Daddy Wally and Daddy Casey himself, and to tell you to tell the nun to get off his case or he’d get a court order restraining her.”

  “I don’t think you can restrain a nun.”

  Hogan shrugged. “Daddy Wally seems to have escaped.” He began to shove beans in his mouth forkful after forkful, even before he could swallow what he already had in there. It was as if he was trying to choke his own words. Well, Daddy Wally was his father. “His phone is out and his landlady said he moved without paying the last four months, and no forwarding address, and we’re supposed to pay it.”

  “Daddy Booth called to tell you that?” Tabitha was irate. “Mom, shut up!” The siren again. “You know, it makes him look good to make Daddy Wally look bad.”

  “I don’t care, don’t give a fuck how anyone looks. No stupid nun should be riling up the Daddies, however lousy they are. It’s those Catholics, they think they own the universe.”

  “They do,” said Tabitha. Hogan looked at her hatefully. “I mean, they do think that,” she said.

  “Mom’s off her rocker and goes playing the Curse of the Mummy every Sunday in the Catholic church. Kirk’s gonna slice off his nuts so he can sing the high notes in Catholic hymns for his new boyfriend, and you’re giving out our family phone numbers to some Catholic nun? What the fuck is wrong with everybody?”

  “Chill pill. Don’t get on my case. That nun said Mom needed to get back to her roots, since she’s sort of brainwashed about the present and isn’t really here. I thought it made sense, so I gave Sister Alice the phone numbers. Look, Hog, I can’t help it if Daddy Wally isn’t answering his phone.”

  “This is not about Daddy Wally, you cretin.” He went to the doorway and screamed, “Mom, will you cut out that racket before I strangle you.” His voice had wobbled with its own treble panic, matching her own. There was a moment of strange, curious silence. Then Mrs. Scales began again, down in the lower register.

  “This is called going back to her roots? Do you mean going back to baby talk? She hasn’t said a word in English for three days.”

  Tabitha picked up the bag again. “Let me go talk to her.”

  “Something’s gotta break here,” said Hogan.

  Her skull, thought Tabitha.

  “I’m gonna go assassinate that nun, first off, and then I have the evening shift,” said Hogan. “Don’t wait up.”

  “Mind yourself.” It just slipped out.

  “Mind myself?” said Hogan. “You want me to mind myself?”

  “I mean, I’ll mind Mom, leave me alone, will you?” And what, she thought, what will it do to my baby if I accidentally hit Mom too hard and kill her? They talk about original sin, does that mean anything to this baby, being part of me now, no larger than a—oh, how do I know, a lipstick maybe? Is this little baby going to have to share in the blame?

  She was glad Hogan was getting ready to go out. She didn’t want to have to explain the box of Pampers to him. She started to work it out. She could use two diapers for the gentle application of force, and if they didn’t rip or tear under stress she could put them back in the box and save them for applying to the baby when necessary. Having a project gave her a kind of rush she liked.

  Working in her room with the diapers and the staple gun, she could hear Hogan in the garage, cursing because the dryer had stopped mid-cycle again and his grease-suit was still mostly damp. A string of unimaginative profanities issued, at a volume to challenge their mother’s, from where Hog was no doubt standing in his grimy jockey shorts, his stomach pouching forward like his own pregnancy. He’d be wanting to beat the crap out of the dryer. She knew exactly how he felt, and she secured the Pampers with extra adhesive tape. She murmured “Holy, holy, holy,” under her voice just to be contrary as she tiptoed into her mother’s room.

  Sitting up in bed, Mrs. Scales was dressed in a housecoat that dated from the dark ages. It had pictures of a hundred identical dusky Jamaican women with big bee-stung lips the color of cranberry sauce; each woman stood beneath a palm tree and slung her hips at an angle. On each turbaned head balanced a tray with a whole produce section of tropical fruits. The housecoat had been washed so often that the lime green piping was reduced to a white frayed coil. On her head, perhaps in sympathy with the tribe of fruit ladies, Leontina Scales had wrapped a bath towel. Had she had some sort of premonition about what Tabitha intended to do? Or had she merely washed her hair? If the latter, Tabitha could look on this as a sign of improvement, maybe, and abandon the current campaign. She skootched the paper bag with the padded staple gun in it along the floor with her feet so that her mom wouldn’t see it. “Hi there, Mom,” she said, as brightly as she could, which wasn’t very.

  Her mother didn’t look over. She did, however, reduce the volume of her wails. She had two hands up to her face, one at each cheek, as if feigning an expression of abject surprise. Her feet, in bunny slippers that had once been pink but now were gray with old age, were tucked one on top of the other, as if the bunnies were comforting each other before being butchered. “Sheez,” murmured Tabitha. Her mom wasn’t going to make this any easier for her, was she. “What, you got a mess of hair there, Mom? You’re going to catch your death of cold.” Or of something.

  Tabitha pulled a bit of toweling a
way and felt at her mom’s scalp. This felt halfway between assisting Linda Pearl at an unwrap and testing a diaper. The hair was dry but there was a funny crinkle, a feel of dry raspy coolness. “What the hell you got up here?” A loaf of bread in its wrapper, bundled up in the towel. Two slices were gone and the twistie replaced like a topknot. “God almighty, Mom, you’re wearing day-old baked goods now? I can’t take this anymore.” Tabitha removed the loaf of bread and brought it to the kitchen. Her mom began to wail again, louder.

  “What’re you doing to her, she was settling down,” snarled Hogan from the garage. He was trying to iron his uniform dry, and he was farting in his underpants loud enough to be heard over their mother’s ululations.

  “I’m going to read the Bible to her, leave me alone,” said Tabitha. “I thought you were gone already.” She scooped up the Bible from the folding table in the living room. Something long and boring. Mom might fall asleep and then, clonko. Tabitha could arrange a broken lamp on the bedclothes and concoct some story about a housecleaning accident.

  And then? And then what? Mom could sleep in heavenly peace. They’d ask for a Catholic funeral. And Tabitha could have her child without fear that her mother would sniff it down and ruin it too.

  “You want a story?” said Tabitha. “Something to listen to. Shut up and listen.”

  She snatched up the stool from her mother’s kidney-shaped makeup table and dragged it next to the bed. Then she balanced the Bible on her lap with her left hand and let her right hand fall into the paper bag. She had to stoop a little to graze her fingers against what she was beginning to think of as Mother’s Little Helper. “Let’s see,” she said, looking in the table of contents for the shortest chapter of the Bible. She settled on something called Tobit and began to read.

  Mrs. Scales dropped her hands from her face and plumped up her pillow and lifted her head a little bit, and only then did Tabitha realize that her mother could probably see her in the mirror of the makeup table. Damn. She’d have to read until her mom actually nodded off.