Saints for All Occasions

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  “You think you can hide away here and feel superior to us? Make your grand proclamations from the safety of that ridiculous costume. I see right through you, Theresa.” She used her sister’s given name on purpose. “You will never see my son.”

  Theresa kept her voice calm. “I’ve learned that it’s best to be honest. With yourself, with others. With God.”

  “How easy for you to say when you’ve run away from every mess you’ve ever made.”

  She looked taken aback. Her skin was thin. No one ever said an unkind thing to a nun.

  “You don’t know how much I think of you, Nora. I worry for you. It’s not necessarily good to just take things on. To allow yourself to be burdened. Or to feel burdened.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I want to help you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You’ve had to live with so many lies. You married a man you never loved. You have a right to feel angry about it.”

  Nora turned for the door. Then she looked back at her sister.

  “I will never know how you sleep at night. Here, of all places. This is where you choose to hide?”

  “I’m not hiding. This is a special place, Nora. So much good is happening here. Let me tell you about it.”

  Nora opened the door and walked out. Her sister called after her, but Nora knew she could not follow. If nothing else, she took solace in that.

  What Theresa had said about Charlie stung the most. Poor Charlie might have given up more than either one of them. One Christmas Eve, after far too much brandy, his sister Kitty said to Nora, out of the clear blue, “You don’t love my brother, but you like him, that’s enough. Maybe someday, after he dies, after a nice long life, you’ll find real romance if you want it.”

  Nora burned with shame that anyone should know this about her now, after she had lived half a life with this man.

  Maybe it was true that Nora had married him without loving him, but then maybe he had only wanted her in the beginning for the land he thought she’d bring. Land they hadn’t laid eyes on in twenty years and would likely never see again. He was no older then, when such a thought occurred to him, than Patrick was now. Charlie claimed that it had always been about love. A nice idea, that. One she believed in on some days and not on others.

  Their marriage was never built on romance. It was built on a sense of duty. It could weather disappointment. They had had hard times and good ones, mostly determined by what the children were doing at a given moment. She thought a marriage that was only about the two of them, or any two people for that matter, would have been too much pressure. Your children, your family gave you a reason to keep on. Theresa wouldn’t understand a thing like that.

  —

  When Nora got home that evening, she started supper, then went to her bedroom to change. She stood before the mirror, staring at the newspaper clipping for the house in Hull.

  A thought came to her. She left the apartment and went up Sydney Street. Walter McClain was an executive at the Edison now, with four or five children. She knew just where he lived. After fifteen minutes, Nora reached the top of Savin Hill Avenue and saw the enormous yellow Victorian, covered in ivy.

  She found him watering the plants in his front yard.

  He recognized her right away, though it had been years since the last time they spoke.

  “Is everything all right?” he said. He looked over his shoulder.

  “No it isn’t. My son Patrick has gotten into some trouble. We’re going to leave here, you’ll be happy to know. We’re moving away.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. And I need money for a house. You’re going to give it to me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Nora kept her voice calm. “I told you the time would come when I’d need something and that you would give it. Now is the time. Don’t be mad at me. Your own son is to blame.”

  “He’s not my son,” he said, and Nora hated him with fresh intensity.

  He had lived all this time, she thought, really believing this. She didn’t think he ever wondered or worried about her boy. He was a contemptible man, and yet he probably appeared normal, even upstanding, to the people who thought they knew him. To his own wife. The two people responsible for Patrick’s creation were so unfit to love him. How could God account for such a thing?

  “I was talking about your Rory,” Nora said. “You two are the reason my children have to leave their home. So I suggest you help me, or I will ruin your life.”

  He scoffed. “I’ve been living with the threat of that for sixteen years, haven’t I?”

  “You’ll never hear from me again after this,” she said. “You’ll be free.”

  A girl about twelve or so came to the screen door then. Nora smiled at her, as if she was only a chatty neighbor making small talk. She walked on.

  The next morning, after Charlie had gone to work, someone rang her doorbell. She went down the three flights, heart pounding. Walter stood there, handed her an envelope, and walked away. Nora took it up to her bedroom and ripped it open. He had written her a note.

  No one can know about what we’ve done. My wife couldn’t bear it. Nor your husband, I would imagine.

  It was written on a plain white sheet of paper, wrapped around a check. She put the check in her pocket. She could hear someone coming toward her. Nora shoved the note into a shoe box on the floor, kicked it under the bed. John entered the room then, said they would be late for school if they didn’t hurry.

  Charlie made all the money, but Nora was in charge of the accounts. She paid the bills. When she told him she’d been saving all these years, socking money away, that they had enough for a down payment, he kissed her and said, “Clever girl.” He never questioned how for a minute.

  They moved just after the last day of school.

  —

  A neighbor showed up at the door of the new house not half an hour after the moving men were gone.

  “Eileen Delaney,” she said. “I was out pulling weeds when I saw the trucks go by and I thought I ought to come over and introduce myself.”

  But it couldn’t have been as spontaneous as that. She had brought them a spider plant, an almond cake.

  Nora wore a shapeless green maternity dress, no shoes. She was exhausted, but she smiled and insisted that Eileen come in.

  Eileen told her that the garbage got collected on Tuesdays and Saturdays, that the mailman’s name was Mort, and he liked you to remember it and call him by it, or else a bill here, a postcard there was likely to go missing.

  Nora stood surrounded by boxes, while Charlie sat in the living room, in a folding chair in front of the television. John and Bridget were running up and down the stairs like hooligans.

  “Two, and a third on the way,” Eileen said. “You’ve got your hands full.”

  “Actually, a fourth on the way. We have one more up moping in his room. Patrick. He’s sixteen.”

  “Ahh,” Eileen said. “Mine are eight and ten. I’m planning to run away when they reach that teenage stage.”

  They laughed, as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

  “He’s mad at us for making him leave a cramped apartment in Dorchester for this,” Nora said. “His own bedroom and a big backyard. Can you imagine?”

  She played back the words in her head, wondering if they sounded forced.

  “Dorchester,” Eileen said. “My husband’s cousin is a teacher there. Did your oldest go to Dorchester High School?”

  “No. He went to South Boston High. We lived closer to it, so that’s where the city sent him.”

  “Oh. South Boston? I understand. Such a pity, all that’s happened.”

  Eileen thought they were here because of the busing. Everyone seemed to think it.

  Nora had been fine with Patrick getting sent to another school. She told him to get on that bus to Roxbury and never mind the rest. But it was an easier explanation than the truth. She could tell already that Eileen
was the type of woman who would repeat and repeat the story to the neighbors. She herself would never have to explain. They could start over here.

  A few days later, Nora was back in the Dorchester apartment to sweep out for the new tenants. In the mailbox, she saw the familiar envelope—a letter from the abbey—and felt a hint of warmth toward her sister, despite what had happened. It surprised Nora that Theresa had found it in herself to apologize so quickly for the terrible things she had said.

  But then she saw that the letter was addressed to Patrick.

  Nora ripped it open.

  Patrick, You won’t remember me, but I know you are in pain, and that so much in your life feels confusing. If you ever have questions, I might be able to help answer them. Don’t hesitate to contact me at the address above. Yours, Mother Cecilia Flynn

  P.S. I include a medal, given to you when you were born. I hope you’ll wear it for protection. I believe in its powers. I should never have taken it in the first place. I’ll tell you the story if and when we speak.

  Nora’s chest tightened. She crumpled the letter in one hand. In the other, she held the medal.

  She had had no confidence, no voice as a girl. She was timid. Perhaps Theresa thought she hadn’t changed. But Nora’s children had made her tough. On their behalf, she was able to do whatever needed doing.

  She spread out the page and read the note over again and thought, You will never be allowed to know my family now. Theresa, what have you done?

  17

  NORA WAS ON HER BACK, bare legs stretched out before her, propped up on her elbows so she could see John and Bridget at the ocean’s edge. Beside her on the blanket, the baby lay on his stomach in just a diaper. Brian was threatening to walk soon. When that day came, she knew, she’d never rest.

  It was the Fourth of July. Charlie had the day off. After breakfast, before it got too hot, they had taken the children to Paragon Park.

  Patrick refused to join them. But John and Bridget were gleeful, whooping around in dizzying circles on the Tilt-A-Whirl, rushing down the high peaks of the flume ride, their T-shirts and shorts getting soaked. They let them each spend five dollars in the arcade. John used all his money on Skee-Ball trying to beat Bridget’s high score, which he eventually did. He always had to be the best, a quality Nora disliked in him.

  Charlie thought the boy would be president one day. He said John was the smartest of their children, and though Nora didn’t disagree, she thought there was such a thing as too much praise. She didn’t want him to get a big head. She told Charlie it wasn’t right to favor one child over the others and he just laughed.

  What? Nora said.

  You with your Saint Patrick, he said.

  After the arcade, they came to the beach. Nora had bought Bridget a new bathing suit for the season, blue with sparkling gold stars. Bridget wore it now, beneath one of Charlie’s old undershirts, the white cotton draping off her like a sail. She insisted on wearing the shirt, even in the water.

  Nora sighed.

  She picked up her book to read and then a shadow appeared, blocking the sun. Charlie. He wore khaki pants and a button-down shirt over his swim trunks. On his feet, a pair of sandals and thick black socks. Set against everyone else on the beach, in all their revealing glory, he looked like a man from another century.

  Charlie held out a cup of frozen custard. “For you,” he said.

  Nora took it, smiled up at him. “Sit.”

  “I thought I might go back to the house and mow the lawn.”

  They both knew he was going to check up on Patrick.

  “Come on,” she said. “Sit for a while.”

  Charlie plopped down beside her and tickled the baby’s cheek.

  They were exhausted in the beginning. But so far, they were having more fun than they’d ever had with the others. They felt at ease, they knew how to do it all; they’d done it three times before. They wouldn’t get to do it again, so why fret about anything?

  Brian was the first baby she brought home from the hospital to a real house. It made such a difference, not having to carry the child up three flights just to get to your own front door.

  Back in Dorchester, when it snowed, Charlie had to shovel out a parking space in the street and fill it with garbage cans or a lawn chair when they drove off. On the coldest days, people would slash your tires if you dared to steal a spot. Now they had a garage and a driveway and a backyard of their own, with no one looking down at them from above. She could sit out there in her nightgown if she liked and drink a cup of tea with the baby on her shoulder.

  In Hull, Charlie’s relatives couldn’t stop by at all hours, on their way to church or coming home in the evening. They had fewer houseguests, since not so many cousins wanted to stay so far from the city. Nora could read a book after dinner. There was a tiny room on the second floor that she claimed for herself. She had initially thought to put the baby in there. They had four real bedrooms besides. But as soon as they got to Hull, Patrick said he wanted to sleep in the attic. Knowing all that he had been through and how little he wanted to be there, she thought she might as well let him have his way.

  So what was meant to be Patrick’s room became the nursery, and the nursery—which wasn’t big enough for a child, anyway—became her sitting room. Each time Nora went in there and closed the door, she got a rush. Without her needing to say so, Charlie somehow knew not to bother her there. He’d stay downstairs watching television after the children went to bed.

  They still saw the family often, driving up to Boston almost every week for a wedding or a birthday party or a First Communion. Nora had thirty-five Raffertys at her house for Christmas Eve. When she came down in her bathrobe the next morning, half of them were still there. Piled on the kitchen table was a stack of hostess gifts as tall as she was; more bottles of Baileys and boxes of chocolate than they could ever hope to consume. She had seventy people for a luncheon after Charlie’s uncle died in the spring. The relatives marveled over how much space she had in the cupboards, over the big backyard and the size of the bedroom closets.

  When Nora and Charlie told them they were moving, some had acted offended, ever on alert for family members who thought they were better than the rest.

  “How can you swing a whole house on what you make?” Charlie’s brother Lawrence asked, as if it were any of his business.

  “Who would want to live all the way out there?” Babs said.

  John and Bridget hadn’t wanted to leave their cousins and friends behind, but they had adjusted well to Hull. Patrick, less so. He hadn’t made any friends at school. Nora accepted his somber disposition as something they would have to bear for now.

  She herself was happy here. She thought this could be the happiest time of her life, if not for Patrick’s struggles. But as far as she had seen, life rarely let you be purely joyful. There was always something there to torture you if you let it.

  She hadn’t spoken to her sister in more than a year. Nora knew it was up to her to fix things. Theresa didn’t have any way to reach her. Nora hadn’t told her about the move. Sometimes she thought she was ready, but then the memory of what happened filled her with such anger. Give it one more week, she told herself. One more month.

  —

  At noon, Nora looked up from her paperback to see John running toward them.

  Two young things in bikinis laid down towels a few feet away and then began to cover their lithe bodies in oil. Nora wore the yellow bathing suit with a ruffle at the belly that she had been wearing for the past several years. It had stretched, but so had she with Brian, so it still fit her fine.

  John reached them, out of breath, just as she was getting to the good part in her book. Nora pretended not to see him.

  “Are we going to drive into Boston for the fireworks tonight?” he asked for the hundredth time.

  “If you’re good,” she said without looking up.

  John had been excited about the Bicentennial ever since President Ford came to Boston in the s
pring, to light a lantern at the Old North Church. A week ago, John insisted they hang red, white, and blue bunting on the front porch.

  “How do they make fireworks, Ma?” he said now.

  Nora sighed. “They do them off the side of a ship so no one gets hurt,” she said. “You should never go near fireworks unless you’re a professional. Boys get their fingers blown off.”

  “But how do they get the fireworks in the air?”

  “Gunpowder.”

  In truth, Nora had no idea. She thought gunpowder had something to do with it, but she couldn’t remember what.

  “Someone shoots a gun?” John said, wide-eyed.

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, then ran back to join Bridget in the water.

  Charlie gave her a look. “Is that how it’s done, then?”

  She swatted him with her book. “Well, you weren’t any help.”

  —

  By late afternoon, the crowd thinned, people going home for the day.

  The older kids needed to shower before they ate dinner and went into the city. The baby needed a nap.

  Bridget and John approached the blanket.

  “We’re bored,” John said.

  “How can you be bored with all this around you?” Charlie said. “My God.”

  “We’re bored,” John repeated.

  “We should be getting home anyway,” Nora said.

  “No!” the children shouted.

  “Come play in the water with us, Ma,” Bridget said.

  “It’s too cold for me.”

  “It’s not cold once you get used to it. Please?”

  “Bridget, God gave you brothers so that I’d never have to go in the ocean if I didn’t feel like it.”

  “Dad?” Bridget said. “Will you come in?”

  “Ahh, second fiddle. That feels nice,” Charlie said. But he was already unbuttoning his shirt to expose the whitest chest in America.

  “Just a dip,” he said. “I’ve got my togs on underneath.”

  “Togs!” John exclaimed, embarrassed. “Dad!”

  “What am I supposed to call them?”

  “Shorts? Swim trunks?”

  Her husband pretended to consider this. “I prefer togs, thank you.”