Saints for All Occasions

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  Her class met every Monday and Wednesday night. She loved watching the teacher, a skinny American in a sweater and a dark suit jacket, tell them how important a job it was, to teach, to mold young minds. Her grandmother’s grandmother had taught in a hedge school in Miltown Malbay a century ago, giving the children of the town their lessons in secret when it was forbidden for them to go to school, a dozen of them gathered in a barn. Her gran had told her that teaching was her destiny, and the nuns at the convent school had agreed. Now finally, her chance.

  Theresa studied for hours. She went to the library near the house and took out as many books as were allowed each week. This in itself was a thrill, since there was no such thing as a library back home. She read and read. She was excited to one day have students of her own. Sometimes she taught a pretend lesson in front of the bedroom mirror when Nora wasn’t home.

  But much of the time, she was restless, bored. It was particularly hard at the weekend, when she’d see groups of girls out laughing in the streets. She missed Walter, wondered who he was dancing with now.

  One evening when she got home from work, Mrs. Quinlan handed her a letter, postmarked New York. It was from Abigail, her friend from the boat ride over. They had exchanged addresses and Theresa had written first. She sent a postcard with a picture of Boston Common in the snow.

  Abigail wrote that Theresa must look her up if she ever found herself in Queens.

  “Let’s go for a weekend!” she said to Nora that night.

  “She’s only being polite, she’s not inviting you,” Nora said.

  The next day before breakfast, Theresa mentioned it again.

  “We could borrow Bobby’s car maybe. Charlie could drive.”

  “Stop,” Nora said. “I don’t want to hear another word about New York.”

  “I’ll drop it if you’ll go to the dance with me.”

  Theresa smiled. She thought Nora would relent then, but her sister’s face was humorless, cold. Nora turned and went down to the dining room.

  On a Tuesday in late September, as the first autumn breezes came through the windows, Theresa could wait no longer. Nora was out with Charlie, over at Lawrence and Babs’s place for supper. Theresa was sore that they hadn’t invited her. Babs, newly pregnant, said she was too fat to be seen out anywhere. She seemed able only to socialize with other dull, coupled-up types.

  Mrs. Quinlan sat in the parlor listening to Bishop Sheen on the wireless, drinking the one Tom Collins she allowed herself each night. The bishop’s talks were the bright spot in her week. She said he had a voice like honey, the voice of an angel. Everyone in the house knew to be quiet or get out while she was listening.

  In her room, Theresa put on the green skirt Babs had given her. She tucked in her white blouse and slipped Nora’s white cardigan over the top. She added a black leather belt that Babs said made her waist look impossibly small and a pair of black pointed pumps, on loan from Babs. Nora said she looked like a child learning to ice skate when she tried to walk in them, but they were so beautiful, Theresa didn’t care. She brushed her hair gently so the curls would stay put. She walked down the stairs and out the door without anyone noticing. The cool air brushed her bare calves. A group of boys played ball on the green. They stopped and watched as she went by.

  She felt wonderful, riding the train alone for the first time.

  But once she reached the hall, her confidence faded. The doorman asked, “Aren’t you with anyone?” A group of girls glanced over, making their disapproval known. Still, Theresa climbed the stairs to the second floor. When she stepped into the room, she felt the same excitement as ever.

  No one spoke to her for the first half hour. She shuffled back and forth, feeling a fool, as if everyone were looking at her, even though they weren’t. But then a redheaded girl said, “I like your skirt.”

  “Thanks,” Theresa said.

  “I’m Rose. This is my sister Patty.”

  They were twins, with red hair and freckles and bright green eyes.

  “Did you come alone?” Patty asked.

  “I did,” Theresa said, feeling vaguely ashamed and remembering now how many Irish people in Roxbury and Dorchester Mrs. Quinlan knew personally. For all she knew, here were two of them. They might tattle on her. Then Mrs. Quinlan would tell Nora, and Theresa would be killed. Murdered.

  But Patty only said, “That was brave of ya.”

  At home, she never would have dared go to a dance alone. But life in this place didn’t feel quite real, like anything that happened here existed in a dream and would disappear when she woke the next morning.

  The twins went to the bar to get a soda and invited her along. Theresa was grateful. She stood chatting with them, until at last Walter walked in. Handsome in his jacket and tie, his hair slicked back. It had been weeks. She wondered if he would remember.

  He noticed her right away and came over.

  “Where have you been?” he said.

  They danced for an hour, never even considered dancing with anyone else. Theresa wanted to stay until the band finished and the lights went up, but she knew she had to beat her sister home. Walter rode with her on the train. He asked her to meet him again the following week. She promised she would. He kissed her at the corner before letting her go on alone to the house.

  Theresa had been kissed exactly seven times before. Six of them were with Gareth O’Shaughnessy, a boy whom everyone in Miltown Malbay called Bottle, because his skin was so pale you could nearly see through it. Gareth was sweet, but he had enormous, awful lips that seemed to want to reel her in like a fish on the line. When she pulled away, her chin would be all wet.

  She had once kissed a jobber in town for a fair day. Theresa’s whole family had been up early, getting the cattle ready to sell. At four in the morning, her grandmother splashed holy water on the cows, then sent her son-in-law and his children to town. Hours later, the jobber, having gotten a good price for his boss, had celebrated with several pints at one of the pubs on Main Street. He came upon Theresa alone just after. He said hello and next she knew, he was kissing her, the earthy taste of beer still in his mouth.

  Her first American kiss was something of a different order.

  Theresa glided down the hall on stockinged feet. In her room, she pulled the pins from her hair one by one, letting her brown curls fall against her shoulders. She hung her skirt and sweater in the closet.

  She felt a chill standing there undressed. She slipped into her nightgown and flopped onto her bed. She went over each moment of the evening in her mind, uninterrupted.

  Before leaving home, Theresa swore to her gran that she would say her prayers every night in Boston, as she had in Ireland. Though her eyes ached for sleep, she got to her knees. The prayer she always started with was the one Nora said their mother had recited over them in their beds when they were babies:

  Angel of God, my guardian dear

  to whom God’s love commits me here.

  Ever this day be at my side

  to light and guard, to rule and guide.

  Amen.

  Whenever she said it, Theresa thought of her family and her whole body hurt for missing them. She understood that it might be years before she could afford to go back. Years before she would hear her brother’s voice or the sound of her father laughing along to Living with Lynch on Radio Éireann. She thought of the worried frown on his face when he waited for the weather and the football results. She might never see her dear old gran again. Theresa pictured her, singing softly as she cooked dinner over the open fire. It must be quiet there now, with just the three of them.

  Boston was far more exciting than home. She liked the people in the house. But they would never be her family.

  Theresa even missed the animals. Since they were children, she and Nora had to milk the cows promptly at six o’clock in the evening. When they were young, they’d get a slap if they didn’t rise the froth. She hadn’t much enjoyed milking cows, but now she craved the quiet conversations she would h
ave with them. She missed the haughty cats that lived in the barn, and the sweet dogs, which she often snuck into the house at night if it rained. She had once been caught bringing a piglet into her bed and gotten hit on the bottom with a wooden spoon. It seemed a grave injustice at the time, but when she thought of it now, she laughed and laughed.

  To the usual list of people she prayed for each night—her gran and her father, her sister and brother, her mother in heaven—she added one more. Walter McClain. Her true love, who would be her family one day.

  Theresa crossed herself and got back into bed. When Nora came in, she didn’t suspect a thing. Theresa lay very still and kept her eyes shut, though she wanted to explode with the story of her night.

  She could hear someone walking about in the room upstairs. When she moved into the house, this was the hardest thing to get used to—the strange sound of footfalls overhead. That, and the way people came and went. For a time, there were three small children in the next room, Mrs. Quinlan’s great-nieces. Theresa assumed their parents were dead, but when she mentioned this to Charlie, he laughed. “They live in Quincy,” he said. “A few miles from here. They’ve so many children—fourteen, I think, or fifteen—that they sent a couple to live away for a while. A lot of people do it.”

  “Not any people I know,” Theresa said. She felt indignant on the children’s behalf. From then on she was nicer to them and gave them what was left over of her cake after dinner.

  —

  The following week and the week after that, Theresa managed to see Walter again. He kissed her with such passion when they parted. But then, on two occasions, he wasn’t there when he promised he would be, and after that it seemed Nora would never go out. Theresa skipped her class to go to the dance once but felt so guilty, so sure she’d be discovered, that it was hardly worth it.

  One night, after they had turned out the lights and Nora started to mumble in her sleep, Theresa slowly got out of bed. She reached into the closet in darkness, felt around for the right dress. She used her bare feet to find the shoes she was after and even dared to take a pair of nylons from the dresser drawer. All of it in her arms, she stood still as a tree and listened. Her sister was asleep.

  Electrified by her own boldness, she got dressed in the bathroom and quickly left the house. The dance would be ending soon.

  When she arrived, she saw him, laughing, leading another girl across the floor. But when he saw her, Walter came right to her side.

  “I thought you’d vanished,” he said.

  They danced and danced. The night felt like magic, something out of time. She could not believe that an hour ago, she was lying in her bed. That she might have missed this.

  Walter pulled a flask from his pocket and took a sip, offered her one.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She took the flask from him, sipped at it.

  “That’s good scotch,” he said. “Have some more.”

  They danced and they drank, Theresa feeling dizzy in a way she adored.

  Walter said, “You’re beautiful, you know.”

  All the boys she had ever met were too shy to say a simple thing like that. She smiled.

  “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  He led her out into the hall and down the stairs, his hand on the small of her back. Theresa thought maybe they would go somewhere for a late dinner.

  But when they reached the first floor, instead of descending to the ground level, he led her down a corridor.

  “What are you up to?” she said with a laugh.

  He shushed her playfully, took her by the hand. He opened a door into a large dark closet and guided her inside. Walter closed the door gently behind them. He kissed her. He hugged her tight. In the darkness, he ran his hands down the back of her dress. Theresa stood completely still. The room smelled like cleaning solution. She thought about confession, of how impossible it would be to explain this to a priest.

  She could hear him unzipping his pants, the cool sound of the fabric falling to the floor. Walter raised her skirt, pulled down her knickers, and pushed her gently against the door. He came closer and closer until she could feel him pressing against her and then inside her. Theresa gasped, and he laughed, kissing her neck. It hurt for a moment, but he kept going, and after a while it felt marvelous. This became a ritual whenever they met, and it was heaven. Better than any dance she had ever known.

  —

  On a Thursday in December, she crept up the staircase, willing her footfalls to be silent. She knew her way in the dark, knew that the fourth stair from the bottom creaked in the middle, that the rug on the final step was worn down to nothing and a person could slip if she wasn’t careful.

  She stopped halfway up, removed her shoes. The house was silent.

  Theresa made it to the second floor landing and stood there a moment, listening. The door to Mrs. Quinlan’s room was open a crack. She could tell it was dark on the other side.

  Tonight, Walter had told her he loved her.

  She was in the middle of a story when he said it. She was saying that she hadn’t thought much about being Irish until she came to America. She saw that it meant more to a person here. Mrs. Quinlan had told her that on Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone had the day off and the city threw a massive parade. Back home, the men might go to the pub or to the races if they had the money to spare, that was all.

  “I thought the people I knew here would be Americans, mostly,” she said. “But you’re the only one I talk to. I can go days without hearing an American accent, besides the Quinlans’. And you know there are clubs in Boston for people from every part of Ireland. Babs’s cousins go to the Tipperary. That’s where they’re from back home. Friends of theirs go to the Galway. I told Nora that—”

  Walter pressed a hand over her mouth. “I think I’m falling in love.”

  As she remembered it now, she felt the same rush she had gotten right there in the moment. Theresa opened the bedroom door, undressed, and slipped under the covers.

  Then Nora shot up in her bed.

  “Turn on the light,” she said.

  Theresa did as she was told.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Right here, you just woke me.”

  “I saw you coming up the road. A girl your age has no business being alone on Dudley Street at this or any hour.”

  “I just turned eighteen!”

  “Exactly.”

  “I haven’t been to Dudley Street, I was only out for a walk.”

  Nora sighed. “Theresa. I have enough of my own worries. Please don’t do this to me.”

  “It won’t happen again,” she said. “I swear.”

  “I won’t be here much longer,” Nora said. “You have to start behaving yourself.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Once we’re married, Charlie and I will move somewhere else. Not far, but still.”

  Theresa thought it would be ages before that ever happened, if that ever happened.

  Her sister kept a closer eye on her from then on, but still she saw Walter as often as she could. She loved him, though he was not the most reliable man. They might make a plan to meet for dinner, and he’d let her sit in the restaurant alone for hours, waiting. But when she saw him again, it ceased to matter. She loved him that much.

  —

  One rainy Wednesday in March, Theresa sat down at the crowded breakfast table.

  “He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen,” said one of the two Elizabeths.

  “Who is?” Theresa asked.

  “Senator Kennedy,” she said, as if it should be obvious.

  They had all seen him passing by in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade the weekend before.

  “He’ll be president one day,” Aunt Nellie said. “An Irish president. A Catholic. Imagine that. I wish my husband had lived to see it.”

  “Don’t count your chickens,” Mrs. Quinlan said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “It
’s bad luck, for one thing.”

  “Catholics don’t believe in luck.”

  “I loved his wife’s coat,” Nora said. “It was beautiful.”

  “I’ll get you one just like it,” Charlie said. “I bet it didn’t cost much, right? Heck, we’ll get two!” He laughed.

  Nora glanced at him quickly, then looked away as if she had mistaken him for somebody else.

  Mrs. Quinlan said, “Theresa, Nora, you’ll be getting a new roommate this weekend.”

  “A new roommate?” Theresa said, wondering who and for how long but not daring to ask too many questions while her sister was in the room.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Quinlan said. “Kitty’s coming back.”

  “Kitty?”

  “Charlie’s sister,” Nora said. “You know who she is.”

  Back in Miltown Malbay, Theresa was only vaguely aware of Kitty Rafferty’s existence. They were probably ten years apart.

  “Where has she been until now?” Theresa asked.

  No one responded.

  Aunt Nellie asked for the jam, and someone passed it. As she spread the strawberries across a thick white slice of bread, she looked at Theresa and raised an eyebrow, as if to say there was a fine story there.

  —

  Theresa and Nora returned from Mass on Sunday to find that Kitty had moved in her things.

  Kitty didn’t say much to them. She was gone a lot—out with friends late into the evening and off to work in the morning before Theresa and Nora were even awake. When Kitty got to Boston years ago, she too had worked in Mrs. Byrne’s shop, but over time she earned her degree and became a nurse at Saint Margaret’s Hospital. Theresa wanted her to know that she was on a similar path, that she wasn’t going to be stitching hems forever. But she couldn’t say it. Kitty left her tongue-tied.

  Before Kitty moved in, Theresa had spent hours in front of the bedroom mirror, turning her head this way and that. Pouting and smiling and laughing. Everyone said she was pretty. But once she had the up-close view of Kitty Rafferty, Theresa realized that she herself was plain.