Mercy of St Jude

by Wilhelmina Fitzpatrick

  “Must be why she put in the two fireplaces over there,” says Lucinda. “Her and Dad always had the heat raging.”

  “She sure did a fine job fixing the old place up,” says Joe.

  Annie is struggling to fix the child in her mind, but all she comes up with is an unsatisfactory composite of her two younger sisters. “What did she look like, Uncle Joe? I have a hard time getting a face in my head.”

  “Well, my Annie, that’s a good one, because she looked like you. That dark hair, and them lively eyes like you got there,” Joe says, pointing, “even your colour, kind of pale, but healthy all the same. When she was little, I used to worry she was so white, but she was never sick so I let it be. Thing is, it’s not only the looks. I’d say you’re like her under the skin too.” A frown darkens his face and he looks at Lucinda. “Let’s hope she ends up happier, hey Luce?”

  Annie pretends not to see her mother’s worried nod, the disappointed sigh. “Too bad we don’t have a picture from back then.”

  “My, but sure we never had no camera. I remembers once, some bigwig from St. John’s was out our way taking photographs for a book or something. I don’t know what became of them. People didn’t have money for stuff like that.”

  “Shame.”

  “’Tis indeed. Pretty as a picture she was, the very image of an Irish lassie. When she was young, she always put me in mind of something.” He pauses, then continues in a soft, low voice. “She looked to me like a Sheilagh.”

  Annie hears Lucinda’s quick intake of breath. She glances at her mother, then back at Joe. “What’s that, like a female leprechaun or something?”

  “No, my Annie, a Sheilagh is a child of God.” His tone is lilting, serene. “A dark-haired Irish angel with fiery eyes and pure white skin, a vision of heaven, she is.”

  “Sheilagh was Joe’s daughter,” Lucinda says in a hushed tone. She wraps Joe’s bony hand in her two plump, warm ones. “I know what a Sheilagh is, Joey. Our Mercie knew too, more than anyone ever imagined. There’s been too many Sheilaghs in this family. Boy or girl, doesn’t matter. Just ask our Beth.” She inhales a trembling breath, then gives Annie the saddest smile that Annie has ever seen.

  For the life of her, Annie cannot look away. Fear grips her. Dear Jesus in heaven, she prays, please let her only be talking about our poor Beth.

  1989

  The year Annie turned fifteen, Beth, who had been going out with Luke Ennis since Grade Nine, found herself “in trouble”. In a good Catholic family such as theirs this was certainly a sin, but a forgivable one as long as everyone behaved appropriately. Abortion was not to bementioned, especially in Lucinda’s house.

  The good news was that there would be a wedding, Dermot’s favourite reason to celebrate. “A good wedding beats an Irish wake any day,” he told Lucinda when they had recovered from the news of their daughter’s premarital activities. “No matter if the bride be six months pregnant or a blushing virgin.”

  Poor as Lucinda and Dermot were, they didn’t hesitate to pay their share for the reception and the standard meal prepared by the Lady’s Guild - a scoop each of Sadie Griffin’s potato salad and Ellen McGrath’s coleslaw, a slice each of roast beef, turkey and ham, two sweet mustard pickles, two baby beets, a leaf of iceberg lettuce topped with a wedge of tomato, and a white dinner bun with a pat of butter. Individual plates were prepared before the Mass, spaced out along the white paper tablecloths, then covered with a bit of plastic wrap. The fact that no one contracted food poisoning from the mayonnaise in the potato salad was a wonder never discussed. Then again, any subsequent illness would likely have been blamed on the whiskey or the rum.

  After struggling with the guest list for weeks, Lucinda and Beth ended up inviting far more people than they could rightly afford to feed. Besides being concerned that they might hurt someone’s feelings, they also knew that they would run into everyone they hadn’t invited in the weeks ahead, at the post office, at Burke’s grocery store, at Sunday Mass. The list grew longer; more potatoes would have to be peeled.

  An hour before the ceremony, all were shocked when Callum phoned Lucinda to say that Mercedes was sick. Illness rarely stopped Mercedes Hann. Lucinda insisted on going up to have a look at her. “I told you Dad, it’s no bother,” she said into the phone. A puzzled frown settled on her face. “What?” Her voice rose just enough to cause everyone in the kitchen to stop and listen. “Fine. So be it.” Lucinda slammed the receiver onto the hook and turned her attention to Beth, who stood large and flushed in the silent room. “All right, then. Let’s get you married.”

  Sadie Griffin did not attend the wedding, either. Then again, Sadie hadn’t been invited.

  Beth and Luke were young but, except for the oversight regarding birth control, they were sensible. Deciding it would be prudent to save towards a house, they moved in with Lucinda and Dermot. Beth had quit Trades School and gotten on at the fish plant - a dirty job, but a scarce one - and Luke had been hired on at Burke’s, stacking shelves, moving furniture, and whatever else was required, while training to be a meat-cutter. Still, savings from their minimum wage jobs were slow to accumulate.

  Everyone knew that Mercedes Hann had money. Decades earlier, after teaching for several years, Mercedes had hired Mr. Crosbie Cunningham, a well-known financial advisor from St. John’s, to guide her investments. Mr. Cunningham’s name had caught her attention for several reasons, not least of which was his ability to make money for his clients. In the years that followed, Mercedes became quite a wealthy woman. She had given loans before, to her brother’s widow after he was killed in the Springhill mines, to her nephew Frank Jr. when he was starting out as a fisherman, and to other family members as well. She charged negligible interest but the debtor did have to put up with her advice, which she offered freely, as if she’d acquired that right by granting the loan. She gave generously to charity as well, and not just the church. Her favourite cause was Meade House, a private home near St. John’s for unmarried girls and their babies. It seemed an odd choice, considering that Mercedes was quite vocal in her opinion of premarital sex. Besides which, the girls who went there were even choosing to keep their fatherless children. To top it off, Meade House was run by Margaret Meade, an ex-nun, a woman who had forsaken the convent, perhaps even Catholicism itself. Despite it all, Mercedes never wavered in her support.

  When Beth and Luke approached her, they expected to get a lecture and the loan.

  “We only needs a thousand dollars,” Beth explained, her cheeks rosy in Mercedes’ overheated kitchen. “But I don’t think I should work much longer at the plant. I’m always tired lately, and we don’t want to take a chance with the baby, right Luke?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said and stuck his thumbnail back in his mouth. Luke, like so many others, had always been intimidated by Mercedes Hann.

  “Well, anyway, Aunt Mercedes,” Beth said, “if we don’t buy the house we’ll be stuck in with Mom and Dad for ages. We’d never see a lick of privacy.”

  Mercedes glanced at Beth’s belly, which was huge even for seven months, then back to her swollen face. “What example do you think this is setting for your sisters?”

  Beth stammered something incoherent.

  “They look up to you, Elizabeth,” Mercedes continued. “As the oldest, you had a responsibility. And look what you’ve gone and done. Eighteen years old, unmarried, getting pregnant. For God’s sake, what were the two of you thinking?”

  Beth and Luke sat there mute and uncomfortable but still hopeful.

  Mercedes stood up. “I certainly do feel for you, really I do. But I cannot allow your sisters to think that I approve of what you’ve done. I’m afraid I have to say no.”

  Mercedes’ refusal made Beth even more determined to buy a house. Despite her size and persistent nausea, she decided to keep working at the plant.

  A few days before her due date, she sensed a lessening of movement in her belly. Lucinda and Luke took her to the hospital, where she was immediately sent to St.
John’s in an ambulance.

  Lucinda, frantic, called for a taxi to take her home. When it pulled up, Sadie Griffin got out of the front seat.

  “Whatever is the matter, girl? You looks awful,” said Sadie, standing in such a way that Lucinda could not get past her. “Bad news from the doctor?”

  “Please, Sadie…”

  “It’s not Dermot?”

  “Derm? No, he’s fine.”

  “Your father? Mercedes?”

  Lucinda blew out a sharp breath. “Beth’s gone to town in an ambulance.”

  She pushed her way past Sadie and into the car. Still, Sadie held the door open.

  Lucinda yanked the door from Sadie’s hands and told the driver to hurry. He sped off, leaving a spray of gravel behind him, along with Sadie clutching her bag on the curb.

  Once home, Lucinda jumped into the truck. It wouldn’t start, just as it hadn’t that morning, and Dermot wasn’t around to coax it back to life. Lucinda flung the keys out the window and across the yard.

  Annie, who had been watching from the doorway, came out. “What’s up?”

  “It’s Beth. She’s in trouble.”

  Annie shrugged, at fifteen more brazen than ever. “So what else is new?”

  Lucinda turned on her. “Don’t you care your sister’s baby might be dead? She’s gone to St. John’s in an ambulance and all you can do is mouth off.” She glared at Annie. “You’re worse than Mercedes, God help you.”

  Annie couldn’t move. She couldn’t think past the fact that Beth really was in trouble and her mother thought she didn’t care. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “I just don’t know how to stop it from happening.” Lucinda made a strange sound, somewhere between a moan and a cry. “I got to go after her.”

  Annie remembered Lucinda’s pregnancy two years before, how sad her mother had been when she’d returned from the hospital empty-handed. She wished her father was home but he’d left two days earlier on one of Murphy’s boats and would be away at least a week. And Callum had gone to St. John’s with Mercedes the day before.

  “Maybe we can borrow Uncle Frank’s car?” Annie suggested. “I’ll go with you.”

  Frank Hann was a miserly sort, but there must have been something in Lucinda’s voice when she called him. Within minutes, he was there with the car.

  Lucinda drove off, her foot heavy on the gas. Annie watched through the passenger window as the jagged landscape whipped by, the tough evergreens interspersed with rocky outcroppings and barren patches of land. In the distance, a dense fog hid the horizon. Annie hugged her coat closer against the fall air whistling through the crannies of her uncle’s old car.

  As she walked into the hospital, Annie thought she understood why Mercedes refused to enter one. The waiting room smelled of body fluids and antiseptic, of sickness and death. She tried not to breathe too deeply.

  She watched her mother’s fingers flying over her black rosary beads, her lips whispering feverishly. Annie had knelt through hundreds of rosaries, pretending to pray, angry with her mother for making her do something Annie professed to be a waste of time. Now, she put her hands together.

  Finally, Luke was walking towards them, his face drenched with tears.

  “Oh, dear God. Luke, what happened?” The fear jumping out of Lucinda’s voice terrified Annie. “How’s Beth? How’s the baby?”

  Luke stared numbly at her. “Beth is okay, but the baby…he’s gone.” Then he whispered in a voice that didn’t quite believe what it was saying, “He’s dead.”

  Annie’s skin shot up with goose bumps. Beth’s baby would not have been baptized and so would not be free of original sin. Annie envisioned an endless line of tiny souls drifting within a vast empty space, stuck in Limbo, hanging around with no place to go, no home, no fluffy clouds, no Jesus to belong to.

  Lucinda sat Luke next to Annie. “Stay with him, okay. I’ve got to go see Beth.”

  Lucinda wasn’t gone long when Annie heard a noise down the corridor. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Mercedes hurrying towards them.

  “How is everything?” Mercedes’ voice was rushed and anxious. “How’s Beth?”

  Annie tried to speak but instead started to cry. Mercedes touched her cheek and gestured for her to move over. Then she put her arms around Luke and held him.

  Annie imagined Lucinda holding Beth and comforting her just as Mercedes did Luke. Annie could not remember the last time she’d felt her mother’s arms around her.

  There was a whispering sound next to her. She glanced over.

  “Dear God, forgive me,” her aunt prayed. “I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

  In that moment Annie forgot her own misery. Never before had she seen such a picture of pure grief.

  The hospital that serviced St. Jude was located in Harbourville. Many citizens of St. Jude, Sadie Griffin included, felt the facility should have been located in their town, which, at almost four thousand people, was the largest in the area. They resented having to travel four miles for medical attention. Sadie, who had never driven a car, did not like having to spend three dollars on a taxi to have a doctor examine her feet.

  Witch! God, I’m some sick of her. Sick to the death.

  Sadie slammed her purse onto the chair.

  Frigging Lucinda. Practically knocked me over yanking that car door shut. I hadn’t grabbed that fence post, I’d been face down in the dirt.

  She flung her coat on top of her purse. “Make you sick.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Sadie spun around. Gerard was studying at the kitchen table.

  “Frigging Hanns.”

  What’s he doing home?

  “Oh Ma, they’re okay.”

  “Okay? How can you say that, the way them brothers acts? Picking on you all the time, calling you names. Especially that no-good Aiden.”

  Little prick, shouting at my boy, “Queery Gerry, your father’s a fairy.” And then hurling rocks at him. Gerard got the mark on his lip to this day.

  “Sure Ma, that’s years ago. I don’t pay him any mind nowadays.” “Like to pay him a piece of mine. Just like I did that Frank with his hand in the collection plate. I told Father, indeed I did, but he said there wasn’t much he could do, my word against Frank’s.”

  A Griffin’s word against a Hann’s more like it, I felt like saying. But sure it weren’t Father’s fault, I knows that.

  “Ah, what odds about them,” Sadie said. “Why you home, anyway? Thought you had work to do for Herself while she’s away.”

  Sadie knew it would annoy him to hear her refer to Mercedes as Herself. She didn’t care. She’d had quite enough of the Hanns for one day.

  “She left me a note saying I better study for my test instead. She paid me anyway, said it was a bonus or something. She’s really good to me, you know, Ma.”

  “A right martyr.”

  If he starts in about what a saint Mercedes is, I’ll throw up. I’ll lose that lovely piece of meatloaf I had for lunch before that frigging Lucinda tried to rip the hand off me. It’ll go right down the toilet. It really will, I swear to God.

  “… don’t think I should take that money, though,” Gerard was saying.

  “That one got lots of it, she won’t be missing a few dollars.”

  “I don’t know how she even knew about the test.”

  “Must have been that Annie told her. You’re in the same grade, sure.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Gerard said, looking down at his books.

  What’s he gone so red in the face for?

  Sadie laid her hand on his forehead. “You okay?”

  “Just hungry.” He shifted so that his head moved from under her hand. “Where were you?”

  “Over at the hospital getting them bunions looked at.”

  “Can they fix them?”

  “Huh? Oh, the bunions. Never mind them. They were just after taking that Beth Hann off in an ambulance. That young Annie might not get to be a aunt after all.”

>   Hope he’s not coming down with something. Can’t always tell with the forehead.

  He brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Why were you so mad when you came in?”

  Sadie remembered Lucinda’s pinched face and how she’d pulled the door from Sadie’s hand. “Nothing important. Let me get you something to eat and a cup of tea.”

  He smiled at her. “Thanks, Ma.”

  Look at that face. Them lovely white teeth, them big brown eyes. Most handsomest smile I ever did see. Hit the jackpot with him, I did.

  “That’d be great,” he said. “I’m starving.”

  Sadie smoothed his hair, letting her hand linger on the back of his head. He didn’t pull away this time.

  To hell with the Hanns.

  1999

  Gerry looks at his watch. It’s only ten thirty. He puts the lone teabag into the pot and pours boiling water over it. As he reaches for the cups, he feels his mother’s hand catch his arm as she staggers slightly on her way from the bathroom.

  “Steady on there, Ma,” he says, putting his arm around her.

  She squints up at him, then pokes at his lip, as if the action might make the scar disappear. She’d been furious when she’d first seen the cut. Gerry hadn’t told her that Aiden Hann was responsible; Sadie, as always, had her own sources. He hadn’t told her it was partly his own fault either, even though he suspected she would have been proud of him. It was the morning before the Halloween party at school, and Aiden, who made a habit of picking on anyone he deemed beneath him in the pecking order, started in - was Gerry dressing up as a fairy, how many costumes did he have in his closet, did he want a mop so he could come as his mother - calling Sadie a fishwife and a charwoman and getting increasingly revved up as people started to pay attention. Gerry usually ignored the taunts and left wherever he was as fast as he could, but that day he’d had enough. He stopped, turned around and smiled directly at Aiden. “Better than being a th-th-th-thief,” he said. Aiden’s face went purple. He bent down, grabbed a rock and whizzed it straight at Gerry’s head. Before Gerry could get over the shock of having his lip slit open, Pat stepped in and hauled Aiden away.