by June Ahern
After dinner, the girls with full bellies and happy attitudes, prepared for their first day of school. The older sisters laid out their uniforms and supplies while June, too young for school, was also busy. She had told her sisters they should make a special place for remembering Helen. She found an empty cardboard box and transformed it into a pretty table by covering it with one of Cathy’s large colorful scarves. She then arranged small stones that she found in the flat’s backyard. She placed them on the box, carefully moving them until they were aligned in a perfect circle. She wished the stones were more like the huge ones in her dream, where she sat in the center of a circle made up of large rocks.
The girls petitioned Cathy for a photo of Helen to place on the table June created. The family albums were presented to their mother.
Cathy sat in the kitchen trying to decide which photo to give the girls. Each photo was too dear to part with, but after all, it was for a good purpose. She gently touched one of Helen at two-year- old, happily sitting on a fat Shetland pony at Ayr. “That was a happy day,” Cathy recalled aloud. Every summer, Granda and Granny B would take the family to the seashore vacation town of Ayr in Scotland for a week. She took the photo from the album and gave it to June.
“Oh, thank you, Mammy. It’s beautiful,” June said as she reverently held the picture in her open palms. “Helen will be happy she’s in our room. You can come visit her in there, too.”
June took the photo and tenderly placed it within the stone circle. When the table was ready, she joyfully announced, “Here’s Helen.”
Annie came forward with a small statue of Our Lady and placed it next to the photo. It had been a gift to her from Granny B.
Maggie put one of her drawings next to the stone circle. “This is Baby Kit.” The drawing was of a baby with saucer-shaped blue eyes, two pink dots for cheeks and yellow hair with a red bow in it. “That’s how she’d look if she didn’t die,” Maggie said. The girls agreed with a nod.
It was almost time to share their creation with their parents. Mary said, “Wait!” as she ran out of the room for a moment. She came back with small pink flowers she had plucked that day from the garden downstairs. The flowers completed the altar.
“Maggie, where’s the other picture?” June asked.
“Here!” Maggie said, holding up a large piece of paper. On it was a picture of a beautiful angel dressed in a long, flowing pale-green robe with wings extending to the width of the paper. The angel floated in a soft blue sky over a field of bright yellow flowers. A halo in a darker shade of yellow encircled her fiery red hair and dark blue eyes that stared out.
Cathy playfully snuck up behind the girls who were “oohing” over the drawing. “Oh Maggie! You’re so very talented,” she exclaimed.
Jimmy walked by the bedroom, holding a hammer, nails, and a large framed picture of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin. He had heard his wife’s voice coming from the girls’ bedroom “Where’d you want this hung?” he asked Cathy.
“Come and see this,” she said, holding up the drawing.
“That’s unbelievable!” he said, pleased with what he saw.
“Maggie drawed it for me. I told her how my angel looks,” June was also proud of her sister’s talents. She pointed out the picture of Baby Kit, saying that they were still all together.
“They’re lovely,” Jimmy said kindly.
Maggie glowed from the attention. She loved drawing and coloring, almost as much as dancing and singing.
“This is a good place for you girls to say your night prayers at, eh?” Jimmy said.
“But the angel one’s too big to put on our altar,” said Mary, pointing to the small box.
Jimmy took the drawing and, with a quick tap to a nail, secured it on the wall above the small table.
“It’s like she’s watching over Helen and Baby Kit,” Cathy said quietly.
Standing back, Jimmy looked at the table and said suddenly, “I know what we need.” He left the bedroom and came back with a dark wood frame that had held a black-and-white photo of his stern looking parents. He easily slid the photo of Helen into the frame. It was perfect. He also brought in a tapered white candle in one of the bronze candlesticks that had belonged to his mother. Lastly, he handed them a crucifix.
June looked at the cross with Jesus hanging on it. She was sad to see Jesus being hurt and didn’t want it in her room.
“Daddy, this is for girls in here and Jesus is a boy,” she said sincerely.
Cathy hoped Jimmy wouldn’t get angry with June for rejecting the cross. Surprisingly, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Aye, alright.”
He lit the candle and gave it to June. With both hands, she ceremoniously placed it behind the circle of stones and under her angel drawing. It was getting late and the room had grown dark during the creation of the altar. The family sat quietly in the small, sacred space illuminated by candlelight.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
HOLY SAVIOR SCHOOL
THE MACDONALDS ARRIVED in San Francisco with much promise of a new beginning and a note from their parish priest that secured the three older girls an immediate acceptance into a Catholic school. The family’s reputation was firmly established by the first day at Holy Savior, the neighborhood parochial school.
The March winds had died down and the day was warming up. The heavy, woolen sweater itched Maggie’s arms as she, along with her mother and sisters, walked up Diamond Street toward the first day at school. Annie had helped her mother iron the school uniforms to perfection. She was proud Maggie, Mary, and she looked clean and tidy in their white blouses and pleated navy-blue skirts. But Cathy wasn’t as satisfied. Even though she had stayed up late sewing the night before, the hem on Mary’s skirt was hanging on one side. She searched her handbag for a safety pin, called Mary to her side and knelt down to pin up the skirt. It didn’t help that her daughter was bouncing from one foot to the other while humming a little ditty that Granda B had taught her.
The days will come and the days will pass
when Orangemen will go to Mass.
And the Fenian boys will kick their ass
right up and down the chapel path.
Cathy tried to stifle a laugh, but it burst forth anyway when she looked at Mary’s twinkling dark eyes and joyous face. Impulsively, she gave her daughter a quick bear hug and said, as seriously as she could, “In America they don’t fight over religion. Let’s not sing that. Okay?” She stood back up, “Let’s go.” Cathy hoped her seven-year-old would do better in this school. The Scottish schools hadn’t been easy for Mary, with her rambunctious ways and slowness to grasp her letters and numbers.
On the walk to school, Maggie held her head high and sashayed down the street. Of all her children, Cathy knew Maggie would do well, no matter what school she attended. She had always been a popular and good student.
Maggie wondered aloud to her sisters about which boy’s initials would be the first written on her new school PeeChee folder. When Mary reminded her that Daddy told her to stop this boy crazy thing, Maggie boasted that a lot of boys were crazy for her and that maybe she’d invite a special one to her upcoming eighth birthday party, just two weeks away.
Cathy wanted them to enter the schoolyard together as a family, but Annie had walked ahead and was already at the gate. At nine-years-old, Annie was independent. She did what she decided was best, often without consulting her mother. She held back telling Annie that she was too bossy, like her Granny.
She tugged at June’s hand to rush her along to where Annie and Maggie stood waiting for Mary. No longer skipping, Mary trudged up to them.
“I don’t want to go to this school. Please can we go back to see Granda?” Mary asked in a wavering voice.
Taking her frightened daughter’s hand, Cathy told her gently, “We’re too far from him now, pet. You’ll make new friends here.”
The bell sounded.
“Mammy, you and June go now. We’re not babies,” Annie said in a matter
-of-fact tone as she pulled Mary into the yard. Cathy started to protest, then let them go.
Students began streaming around Cathy and June, bumping into them as they hurried inside the yard. Two girls stopped to look at the little girl. One touched June’s ringlets, pointing them out to a girl with rusty orange hair and pale colorless skin dotted with blotchy red brown freckles.
“Dee-Dee, look how cute she is!” the Dee-Dee’s friend said.
Dee-Dee smiled down at June. She then looked back up at Cathy and said, “I wish my hair was more like hers. I hate mine!”
Cathy didn’t see anything wrong with the orange frizzed cap on top of the girl’s head. She’d seen many variations of red hair in Scotland. Of course, her daughter’s titian-red had always attracted compliments.
June felt a special kinship with Dee-Dee. She touched her skirt and said, “Your Granda loves your hair.”
Dee-Dee gasped. Her face drained and her freckles stood out bolder on her sallow skin.
“Did she know your grandfather?” the other girl asked Dee-Dee.
“How could she? He’s been dead for three years,” Dee-Dee said with annoyance and fled into the yard.
Hearing her daughter’s comment, Cathy told June, “See, you hurt that girl’s feelings. You’re not being a nice girl.”
June began to say something about the girl’s grandfather, but her mother shushed her. Frustrated by her mother’s reaction, June leaned further into the chain link fence and watched the children entering the schoolyard.
Cathy waited by the fence, peering into the yard to see how her other daughters were faring. She saw the Mother Superior, the principal of the school, a tall, thin nun that she had met a few days before, directing her girls by pointing them toward two assembling lines, one for girls and one for boys.
Annie stoically walked to the back of the girls’ line clutching her new blue binder against her chest. Cathy wished she’d smile so she wouldn’t look so serious.
“Annie misses Granny,” June said.
“Och, stop blethering about grandas and grannys,” Cathy mumbled, keeping her eyes on the girls.
Maggie went towards the front of the line, slowly walking past Mother Superior and shooting her a dazzling smile. She stepped in between a gangly freckled-face girl and a short blonde. The freckled girl made a face and elbowed her out of the line. With a sad face, Maggie walked solemnly back to the tall nun. Standing in front of the principal, she whispered something and pointed at the insulting parties without looking at them. The tall nun had to bend low to hear the new pupil. Upon hearing the complaint, Mother Superior snapped up broom-straight with nostrils flared wide. She narrowed her eyes at the offenders and took the new student’s hand, placing her in the very front of the line. Maggie gave Mother Superior a gracious smile.
“Maggie won, huh?” June said excitedly.
Cathy didn’t answer her as she moved along the fence until she had a better view of Mary, who had disappeared between the two lines. Mary walked slowly, head hanging between her hunched shoulders. Her mother imagined Mary’s face was blushing a hot, embarrassed red. Without paying attention, Mary swayed over to the boys’ row and bumped into a big boy who immediately pushed her backward. Startled, she almost fell, but regained her footing. She dropped her newly bought school supplies and swung a fist upward with all her might, catching the big bully squarely on the jaw. He stumbled into his jeering friends who quickly propelled him back into the chubby girl.
“A fat girl beat you up!” they laughed loudly.
June gasped. “Them are proddy boys, huh Mammy?”
No response was needed for June to begin scurrying around to pick up small pebbles on the sidewalk. “We’re gonna have to beat them bad boys up,” she murmured to herself.
Before Cathy could run to interfere and before the bully and Mary got to round two, a leprechaun-sized nun with a beaked nose and black habit billowing behind her rushed to the dueling students. Swiftly, she dug her talons into Mary’s shoulders with a fierce grab that caused her to screech from pain. She pushed her into the girls’ line and reprimanded the other students with a wagging finger. Cathy would learn later that the little nun was Sister St. Pius, Maggie’s third grade teacher. The nun was known for not having to use many words to keep the students in line. Her looks alone could defeat the most rebellious students and the children knew better than to question her authority.
Silence fell across the schoolyard. Cathy wondered if the Mother Superior tolerated the fearless little nun’s method of quelling the pandemonium. She was sure that there were some students who needed it, but wished it hadn’t happened to Mary on her first day of school.
Mother Superior’s head turned minutely toward a round nun standing to the side of her. The round nun shook her head ever so slightly. From that interaction, Cathy had hope the Mother Superior would take pity on Mary and not punish her further for fighting with the boy.
The two lines began to move toward the school doors. June gaily waved good-bye to the passing students, some of whom snuck a tiny wave back to the little girl. Cathy took hold of June’s hand and led her across the street toward the church.
Mother and daughter stopped at a small garden at the side of the church. A bronze fence gave the garden a sense of privacy. In it was a statue of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin surrounded by spring flowers in early bloom, which added to the beautiful serenity of the small, sacred space.
In quiet respect, mother and daughter entered the garden. The sunny day created an aura of peacefulness and the only sound was the soft murmur of children saying a morning prayer at the school across the street. Cathy knelt on the lovely wooden prie-dieu in front of the statue.
June looked up to the serene face of the Our Lady, whose palms were opened outward in a welcoming gesture. The little girl felt a beckoning from the statue’s gentle smile. Her mother indicated to her to kneel. Slipping her hand into her cardigan pocket, Cathy took out crystal blue rosary beads and began to pray. Copying her mother, the girl bent her little head, although she was more interested in the small white and yellow daisies next to her. Peeking up at her mother, she gingerly extended her hand to pull out a flower, tugging it gently until it surrendered to her. She raised the flower as an offering to Cathy who was deep in prayer. Nudging her mother, she whispered, “Mammy. Mammy!”
The faint sound of June’s voice broke Cathy’s concentration. Gradually, she opened her eyes to see a yellow daisy in front of them. She accepted the gift. June then yanked on her mother’s sleeve and pointed up to the sky. “Look. See the angel watching us?”
Cathy looked dreamily upward to the sky. Maybe she did see some form in the clouds that could be wings. Or, she wondered, could it be an image of Helen in the clouds? It all seemed so surreal and peaceful to Cathy. It was the way she wished her life to be from now on.
“It is an angel,” June chatted away. “See her face, long dress and wings.”
She looked at her daughter’s little face, stroking it with a finger. “Yes, I see a wee angel with red hair right in front of me.”
Exasperated by her mother’s remark, June shook her head and encouraged her mother to look more carefully. “Look again, Mammy! No, not at me! At the sky. That’s my angel. She follows us.”
“Oh yes! Of course, I see her red hair.”
“Yes, you’re right. Her hair is like mine,” June said, smiling up to her mother, happy she could see her angel, too.
“Do angels have a mammy?” June asked.
“They have Our Lady. She’s the Blessed Mother to everyone,” Cathy answered.
With a lighthearted feeling, Cathy stood up and offered an invitation. “I think it’s going to be a hot day. Come on, let’s get an ice cream.”
It was such an unusual offering that June’s rosebud mouth fell open in surprise. “In the morning?”
Her mother laughed gaily and said in a hushed voice, “Shh. It’ll be our wee secret, angel.”
She took June’s hand, leading her
out of the magical garden and toward an enjoyment of one of life’s simple pleasures; cold ice cream sprinkled with brightly colored candy seeds on a warm spring day.
* * * * *
Chapter 11
THE NOVENA
THE SCENT OF pot roast and boiled potatoes filled the kitchen while constant chatter bubbled throughout dinner. Each of the older girls vied for a spot to showcase her achievements. Annie piped in first about her excellent grades in arithmetic. Then Maggie told how her artwork was chosen for display in the school hallway. Mary said she was the dodge ball champion.
“Good going, girls,” replied their father, motioning to his wife to pass the salt.
June announced, “I saw Helen today.”
Silence hit the room with a thud. At the end of the table her tired father perked up, “What did she say?”
Although Cathy knew Jimmy really was trying to be patient with the girls, she still worried his temper could flare at any time. She decided to take his attention elsewhere.
“Would you like some more meat?” she quickly asked him.
He grunted an answer as she hurried to the stove to fill the empty meat platter. With her back to the family, she tried to calm her growing fear. Her stomach began to tighten. She hoped desperately June would stop talking about the day’s events. But she didn’t.
“Me and my angel went to see Our Lady in the garden. She’s a real angel! Huh, Mammy?” June insisted on telling her story.
“Mammy, did you take June to the garden today?” Annie asked.
“I told you, just me and my angel went.” June wanted to be seen as a big girl.
Jimmy’s silverware fell to his plate, which accentuated the interruption. “Stop fibbing. Finish your dinner––all of you,” he yelled.
“Daddy, I’m not…” June tried to explain.
“That’s enough. Take your plate to the sink,” her father ordered.
June stood up, scowling and scraped her chair across the linoleum, not caring whether it bothered her father. She passed in front of her mother without looking at her and walked out of the kitchen.