With that, she was gone. I had wondered what Luisa thought of the life I live here. She saw only that I work with the abbess and could have little to do with my daughter. From her final words to me, I do not think she judged me harshly for this.
7 January 1664
I have not felt the strength to write here for many months. The silent time that is intrinsic to the life here is proving an unexpected burden. Madre Mónica has noticed my struggle and so has reduced the hours I spend helping her. Yet, with naught to distract my mind, I dwell upon all that I have lost, and I can find no comfort. I call to mind the kindness of Providence and strangers, which brought me safe to a new world. I am astounded at all I have accomplished when forced to the task, but it is as though the feeling were for a character in a play. At times I rebel at the circumstances that led me to my actions, but even this defiance is only fleeting, and then a cold numbness comes.
I find that I can barely make myself rise in the morning, and the last two days I have lied to my sisters. Feigning illness, I have begged to be excused from communal prayers. Yet it is not a complete untruth. Surely some real malady is causing this heaviness that I feel. My legs do not wish to bear me, nor my hands to feed or clothe me. The sisters’ concerned questioning barely rouses me from my languor, and I see from their faces that at times my answers disturb them. They cannot reach down to that deep part of me to which my soul has retreated, nor can I bridge the chasm, nor do I desire to. Even the thought of my Mercedes cannot fill this emptiness.
38
RACHEL
Part of me lived alongside Juliana. She was a lover of books, so how could I, who had made books my life’s work, not feel an affinity for her? I was glad that she could, at least to a limited degree, pursue her studies. My heart ached at her longing to see her child. I lived through her thoughts, the thoughts of a woman who died centuries ago.
Juliana wrote of her depression, though she didn’t use that word. At times I’d also felt its downward pull, though my life was infinitely easier than hers. I looked through the lens of my own century and wondered briefly whether her dejection was some sort of prolonged or delayed postpartum depression. Then I mocked myself by asking whether she didn’t have enough to bring her to the brink of despair.
I thought of telling Lorraine about the papers. I knew that she’d be interested on a professional level, but of course she would want to read them, and I wasn’t willing to share them. I hadn’t even told Ned. No, for now at least, Juliana was mine.
I bought a book on genealogy, though its possible revelations had never before interested me enough to spend any time on it. I told myself that I really had no expectation of finding anything that would help to explain the diary, that it was only that the papers had piqued my interest in my own past. Besides, what more appropriate time to think about those who have gone before than when you are about to add a new name to the family tree?
The book advised readers to start off in an organized manner, by making templates for information that would be found on each individual, as well as another template for families, and finally a large tree for several generations, filling in as information was collected. Although I had achieved a certain amount of success in academia and I knew that good research techniques were of paramount importance, when it came to personal projects I usually preferred to jump right in and go back and worry later about the details. Time and again I’d regretted this, finding myself in the middle of a project, then needing to spend twice the hours making up for the prep work I hadn’t done. But I always reverted to my own inclination, forgetting past lessons, as one forgets the faults of a beloved friend.
Anyway, I soon discovered that even experts in the study of genealogy had no magic methodologies for finding information about ancestors who had lived centuries ago. Of course, I could not start with Juliana. I had to start with myself.
I was ashamed to admit how little I knew of my ancestors, but in this, I doubt that I was very different from most modern Americans. I knew my mother’s maiden name, but beyond that, I had no specifics. My mother’s only sibling, Sandy, had been several years older than Helen and had passed away just a year earlier. I decided to call her daughter, my cousin Carol, to see if she could help me. I would not, however, mention the papers.
On the day I went to see her, Carol opened the door and immediately hugged me. She was seven years older than I was, and though we hadn’t seen each other very frequently in adulthood, growing up she had served as the big sister I longed for. I had also always really loved Aunt Sandy. She didn’t look like my mother, who was tall and sturdy, while Aunt Sandy was petite, but her voice had been almost indistinguishable from my mother’s, and Carol had inherited that familiar timbre. When she said, “Hi, Rachel, come on in. How are you doing?” I heard my mother’s voice, but more open. Tears came to my eyes, and she hugged me again, hard. She took me by the shoulders and placed me in a chair, directing me as she had done when we were young. I was a grown woman, with a profession and a tall son of my own, but there was solace in her bossiness, blanketed with love.
“Now, now,” she repeated over and over again, rubbing the middle of my back, exactly as she had done when we had shared a double bed at her house for a sleepover and I had cried because I missed my mother.
“I’m sorry, Carol.” I finally managed to control my voice. “I didn’t come here to cry.”
She wiped the tears from her own eyes. “Well, what’s wrong with crying? I miss Aunt Helen, too. She was always so good to me, and so much fun.” I looked at her to check, but she seemed totally sincere, and I marveled at her impression of my mother. I had loved my mother deeply, but Carol had clearly seen her in a different light than I had.
Savoring a piece of the gooey butter coffee cake Carol had just made, we caught up on family gossip. I’d seen everyone at the funeral, but I hadn’t been able to visit long with any one person. Finally, I broached the subject I’d come to discuss.
“Carol, I’ve decided that I’d like to go back in the family history a little bit, and I wondered if I could pick your brain.”
She gave me an odd look and said, “I understand, Rachel.” I was so concerned with leading her to believe that this was only because I wanted to connect somehow with Helen that I dismissed the uncharacteristically stilted nature of her response.
“I don’t really know much, though. Of course, our moms’ maiden name was Jordan,” she continued. “I’m not sure what Grandma Jordan’s maiden name was, but I think it was Meadows, or something like that.”
“I think my mom used to talk about her Grandpa John and Grandma Scottie, but I don’t remember any last name for them, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I never got the impression that my mom was ever very close to those grandparents.”
I tried to make my voice sound casual. “You don’t know whether there are any old family papers, letters, or anything, do you?”
She looked at me, then quickly away, and said, “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I was just hoping there might be something around that I didn’t know about that could give me a lead.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel, but there’s nothing more I can tell you.”
I was about to say good-bye to her when I decided to tell Carol that I was pregnant. I hadn’t been planning to do it, since, at forty-one years of age, I could have problems. I had wanted to wait longer, to feel more confident that everything would go well. Still, as I looked at my cousin, I found myself telling her.
“Ned and I really haven’t told anyone else. Of course, Gabe knows, and I did tell Mom right before she . . .”
“Oh, Rach. Oh, Rach.” That was all Carol could say as she drew me to her.
Things were getting busy at school, and everything took me longer because my mind kept wandering back to my own mystery. I told myself that since this distraction was causing me to be less efficient in my schoolwork, it would be better just to go ahead and try to find out what I could about my family tree.
I knew that I was a part of Juliana, even if I bore no actual relationship to her, but I longed to prove the bond was blessed by blood.
I headed to the county courthouse, to see how far back I could go with minimal effort. As I quickly found out, there is no minimal effort when it comes to genealogy. I made my way through records of births, marriages, and deaths. I combed through surname indices, folio-size bound volumes called libers, and wills. I learned their language: imprimis, dower, testatrix, nuncupative, escheat. An entire language of death and property and survivors.
I discovered my great-grandmother Janet Maude Meades, née Scott, born in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 2, 1866. Her father was Gavin Scott, of Galashiels, Scotland, born 1830, and her mother was Maude Scott, née Compton, of St. Louis, born 1846. Could Janet be the Grandma Scottie I thought I remembered Mom talking about? Carol had said she thought our grandma’s maiden name might have been Meadows, but it could easily have been Meades.
Over the next days, I consulted the state Department of Public Health and Welfare, the county recorder, the state and local historical societies and public libraries. I was told that I was extremely lucky to have gone back as far as I did, since records so close after the end of the Civil War were generally very difficult to trace. Finding those before the war was purely a matter of chance. Chance did not smile. Further back I could not go.
I stayed away from Juliana’s diary while I was doing my genealogical digging. I knew that I’d been ignoring Ned and Gabe, so I didn’t want to take the extra time to read the papers. Still, I rationalized my time-consuming search by telling myself that the papers were mine, an accidental legacy from my mother to me. If some providence or chance had offered them, there had to be a reason.
I couldn’t forsake the diary for long, however, and finally, after failing to muffle the clamor in my head, to silence Juliana’s call, I decided to go back to it. Ned was on call that day, a euphemism for working at the hospital for twenty-four hours or more. When that happens, Gabe and I often had something easy for dinner. That night it was “every person for themselves,” our grammatically incorrect nod to a feminist perspective. Afterward, Gabe shut himself in his room to do homework and I took out the papers.
I had noticed the last time I stopped my reading that the next entry was several years in the future from the time period Juliana had fairly closely chronicled, nor were there many pages left to her journal. I could only hope that the ending would reveal her final fate, and how it was tied to mine.
39
Juliana
15 August 1668
I came across this book today, neglected these last few years, for what have I had to record? I did take my final vows three years ago, for I saw no favorable alternative to remaining here. What would I have done, and where could I have gone? I could not leave my Mercedes, and if I revealed the truth to try to assert my rights as a mother, I doubt that the good sisters would relinquish their charge to a liar such as I.
My life here is acceptable, if only rarely happy. Who can boast of better?
2 November
I record my thoughts here today because it is Mercedes’s seventh birthday. Only I know this, since her birth date was not stated in the letter that I wrote those years ago. Some of the sisters who care for Mercedes have at times given her a small token on the feast of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, but this is not a place for indulgent celebration.
Today I approached my daughter and asked her how she fared.
“I am well. I thank you for asking, Sor Teresa,” she replied shyly, startling and pleasing me with the use of my name. I had not been sure she knew it.
“The sisters tell me that you like to hear stories.”
“Only when there are no chores to be done or prayers to be said,” she replied cautiously.
“Of course I know that you are an obedient child. I have heard that the sisters themselves enjoy sharing with you tales they learned in childhood, and Our Lord does not look ill upon so innocent a pleasure. Would you like for me to tell you a story that I enjoyed when I was your age?”
“No, thank you, Sor Teresa.” I did not know how to reply to this unexpected rejection, and in my silence Mercedes seemed to fear that she had offended.
“The sisters tell me that you are often busy with Madre Superior, so I am sure that you have little time for such as I,” she added, by way of explanation, and started to hurry away, then turned and dutifully added, “but thank you for your kind offer.”
I stood bereft, deprived of even this small pleasure on my child’s birthday. But what could I expect? To Mercedes, I am just one of the sisters with whom she has little contact, to whom she must show respect but no affection. Indeed, she does not seem to feel a particular attachment to any of the nuns, although I have at times seen tenderness on the part of those who care for her. Still, strong earthly connections are not especially encouraged here.
The hope that I once nurtured to be able to spend time with her, to help with her education, has not come to pass. Those who are in charge of her care have already begun to teach her letters, numbers, and, of course, her prayers. I see now that, even as she gets older, it is unlikely that any other kind of knowledge I might offer would seem to the good sisters to be needed by a young girl.
I have considered appealing to Madre on this, but I fear that even she would not understand my insistence. I have struggled with the idea of whether I should tell her our real story, but I feel that any revelation now would seem like a betrayal: that I accepted confidences about her and kept this fundamental truth about myself and Mercedes so closely guarded.
I will never know what kind of mother I might have been out in the world. Not knowing my own mother, I looked to Silvia for what a mother should be. I know that she loved me, but patience and care were also requirements for her to retain her position. I would like to think that I would have been always loving and kind, but perhaps my patience would have faltered in the challenge and sometimes tedium of raising a child.
21 January 1669
Mercedes is very ill. I am told that she has had a sore throat, and now fever and chills take their turns in tormenting her. She will eat only with great coaxing, and then often vomits what little she has consumed. Today a rash has appeared, and she lies unmoving in her bed.
Dearest Lord, please do not punish my child for any offense of mine, for the deception I have lived in this house devoted to You. Please watch over and heal her, Lord. I have borne much. Losing her, I could not bear.
24 January
My work with our abbess enabled me to take my mind from Mercedes’s illness for moments at a time. I have tried to conceal my fear for her. This morning I waited for Madre in her room, as I had been told she would return soon from a visit with Mercedes. I looked up as I heard her enter, and she looked at me through tear-filled eyes. I clutched at myself and cried out in agony, collapsing and falling. Madre rushed to me and grasped me firmly in her strong arms.
“My child, what is it? Are you ill? Tell me what is wrong!”
One of the other sisters might have quickly crossed herself and cried to the Lord for whatever demon had hold of me to release me. But Madre Mónica was not of their temperament. She knows that this life has enough injuries and sorrows. It does not need to borrow any from the next.
Finally, I was able to choke out one word: “Mercedes!”
“You are ill, my daughter? The same as our Mercedes?”
I managed to shake my head no, still sobbing. “Mercedes, my only child, I cannot live if you are taken from me!”
“She is doing much better today. She even ate something this morning. I have just come from her room.”
“But your eyes were wet with tears,” I sputtered.
“Yes, my child, from joy. I am sure that Mercedes has passed the crisis.” Having quickly reassured me, she seemed to ponder what I had just said in my anguish. As she looked into my eyes and saw the immense relief so evident there, her expression changed, and for a moment
I saw understanding unfolding.
“I see.” She breathed very softly. “Oh, my daughter.” And she cradled my head in her arms, ever so tenderly. She was silent for several moments, then said, in an even voice, “The merciful Lord has shown us His kindness. Our Mercedes will soon be up and about. We must say special prayers of thanks.” There was complicity in the normal tone she had adopted.
“Are you going to be all right now?” she continued. “You must not allow the others to see you in such a state over Mercedes. It would . . . worry them.”
I nodded numbly, only half understanding the import of what she was saying to me. Madre lifted herself slowly from the floor, where she had knelt beside me. She is not feeble, but she is starting to show the slowness of age. I can tell that she experiences pain when she makes certain movements, especially on cold mornings or after sitting for an extended period. Despite her own discomfort, Madre bent over to help me up. It was difficult for me to rise, but I did not want her to have to bend over any longer. I pulled myself up and steadied myself on the edge of the table. Madre turned and walked deliberately toward the bookcase, extracting a book on the lives of the saints.
“I promised Mercedes that I would return and read to her, but I now remember that I must meet this morning with a family who wants their daughter to join us. I would like for you to go in my stead. She loves to hear about the saints. I believe that she is a very special child, don’t you?”
“Yes, Madre,” I murmured in reply to her melancholy smile.
As I entered the large room where Sor Beatriz cared for the sick, I saw Mercedes sitting up in a bed close to the window. The sun shining in emphasized the shadows around her eyes.
“Madre Mónica asked me to come and read to you. She must attend to some other things this morning.”
The Lines Between Us Page 21