Well, I thought this evening, we were certainly being tested.
Margaret was the fourth child of five and surely had been a beautiful woman when she was in her late teens and twenties. She had been working as an assistant hotel manager in Ireland when her husband set eyes on her. He had come to Dublin on business, and from the way she described their whirlwind romance, he wouldn’t leave without her. She was fond of calling her husband and herself soul mates.
Now she cried with us, she comforted us, and she led us all in prayer. It wasn’t a prayer that ended with what I wanted, “Please, dear God, return Mary to us,” but instead, “Please, dear God, help us to understand.”
John looked satisfied. I was too exhausted to complain about anything. My parents decided to go home to get more of their things and return, but John talked them into staying there.
“Come back in a few days,” he said. “You’ll only wear yourselves out with the traveling, and that won’t be good for anyone. Of course, we’ll call you with any news whenever we hear it.”
Reluctantly, my mother agreed after my father agreed with John and especially after Margaret promised them that she would look after us, get all the groceries and other things we needed, and prepare all the meals, at least over the next few days. John’s mother looked very tired, too, even more tired than my mom. She seemed to have aged overnight, or, I thought, I was just seeing more of her without her detailed makeup preparations and attention to her clothes and hair. In the end, everyone was grateful to Margaret. They left and said they would call in the morning and be close by if and when we needed them.
When it looked certain that we were going into late-night hours with still no phone call from someone asking for ransom, Margaret suggested that I try to get some sleep.
“Go on, dear,” she said. “I’ll sit with John until he wants to go to sleep. If you exhaust yourself with worry, you’ll be as useful as a lighthouse on a bog. I’m used to being up late, as you know.”
That was true. She seemed to need only a few hours of sleep a night to function, and as she often said, she was fond of watching old movies late into the night.
“Like with most people my age and older, television has become a close companion, you know. I fall asleep to it during the wee hours. Sometimes I turn down the sound and bathe in the light as if it were a heavenly glow sent to comfort souls like me,” she told me.
She hugged and kissed me, and I retreated to the bedroom. I didn’t need to take any more pills. I was struggling to keep my eyes open as it was. Despite my determination to stay alert and think only of Mary, I literally passed out. I didn’t even dream that night, and when morning came, and I could sense that nothing was different, I struggled to get up to start another day of defeat and loss.
In fact, the next three days seemed to take months. So much of what happened, what we did, what we said, felt exactly the same. It was like treading water, as if I was caught in some horrific version of the movie Groundhog Day. People who eventually leave Southern California or never settle there use the sameness in the weather as a reason. There’s not enough difference between summer, fall, and spring especially. When I looked outside now, it was truly as if the exact same cloud was in the exact same spot in the sky. There was no change in temperature, and even the breeze lifted the leaves on tree branches just the way it had the previous day.
The effect of all of this déjà vu was to deaden my reactions. I stopped jumping into the sea of hope whenever the phone rang or someone came to the door. I barely looked up or shifted my dead gaze. I ate and slept in spurts. Margaret was always there prodding me to do this or that. I wouldn’t have changed my clothes if it weren’t for her, nor would I have brushed my hair or put on any lipstick. She even ran my bath. She took over looking after the house, and just as she had promised my parents and John’s, she handled our shopping needs.
When I asked her how she could have such energy at such a tragic time, she paused and told me stories about family tragedies back in Ireland, stories she had never related. As I listened, I was even more astounded by her strength and demeanor. She had seen little cousins killed, husbands of relatives killed, in riots and terrorist bombings during Northern Ireland’s worst days. Her mother had lost a sister in a factory accident that was preventable. Yet she spoke without any bitterness. She would rage against no one. I didn’t have to ask; she would say it was all part of God’s mysterious ways.
Once, when John fell into a darker mood during those first few days of Mary’s abduction, he told me that we don’t die quickly even if we have heart attacks, are shot, or are killed in a car or plane accident.
“We die a little more with every defeat, every sorrow in our lives, until God decides we’ve suffered enough,” he said.
After having heard more about Margaret’s life, it didn’t surprise me that she agreed. This was why, to most people who believed in what John and Margaret believed in, death was not an end but a beginning. I knew he was trying to tell me that if Mary was dead, her suffering was over and her eternal life had begun.
As he spoke, it occurred to me that people like John and Margaret who said these things were saying them to help themselves believe them, even more than they were trying to get you to accept them. It reinforced them, strengthened them, and diminished their own skepticism. They were the ones who were truly looking for comfort. If I accepted it, if any listener accepted it, people like John and Margaret were satisfied more with themselves than with whomever they were talking to.
I said nothing to either of them, maybe because I was too bitter and was afraid of how whatever I said would sound. But the truth was that I had come to believe that God had only a vague interest in mankind now. We were just an experiment that had gone wrong. He was working on another planet. We were solely responsible for everything: climate change, wars, all violent acts against others, and our own personal destinies. Prayers and the vows we made were just good intentions or therapy.
The truth was, I craved anger and hate now. I wanted to turn them into weapons that would defeat my sorrow. I longed for vengeance and welcomed dreams in which I was able to get it, to inflict pain and sorrow on whoever had done this terrible deed to us.
Even though I said nothing, I knew John sensed my rage. I think my silence brought more pain to John than his faith brought to me. He did his best to ignore it. Maybe it was because of this more than anything else that he began to permit visitors after the third day. The FBI kept a tap on our phones, but they were no longer at the house. Finally, John decided to return to work. He couldn’t stand staring at the walls and waiting for the phone to ring, and then, when it did, and it was a friend of mine or even one of our parents, he would be short and snap back at them.
“I’ll go out of my mind here,” he said. “I’ll be close enough to come back quickly if you need me.”
I just nodded. It was as if neither of us was there anymore anyway, I thought.
Of course, John was told to report any calls he might receive at work, and both of us were told to keep our cell phones charged and on all day and night.
Occasionally, Agent Joseph dropped in to ask another question about a place where I had been with Mary or someone we had met or knew. He was always interested to see if something else had come to mind, some other person, detail, anything I had forgotten. He was very sincere and always apologized for seeming to be too annoying. Of course, I told him he couldn’t ever be too annoying.
I had yet to see Lieutenant Abraham again and asked Agent Joseph about him, adding that I assumed that because it was an FBI case, Lieutenant Abraham was off it. He confirmed that.
“They have a full plate with other things every day,” he said, “but he did a great initial investigation of this case. The law-enforcement agencies are straining with their workloads and budgets just like every other agency, not that telling you that makes it any easier.”
When she heard
this, Franny Hastings, one of my girlfriends, suggested that we consider hiring a private detective. I asked John about it, but he thought it was a waste of money.
“No private detective is going to have the facilities and capabilities of the FBI,” he said. “We have to be careful. People prey on people like us.”
The only thing he would agree to was an interview with a reporter from John Walsh’s America’s Most Wanted television show. John Walsh had suffered the tragedy I woke up fearing and anticipating daily. His and his wife’s six-year-old son, Adam, had been abducted and murdered.
When they aired our interview and showed Mary’s pictures, I nearly fainted. John held my right hand, and Margaret held my left the whole time. As soon as it ended, John said, “That’s it. No more of that.”
Margaret agreed and had story after story describing how people in some turmoil or other were exploited. She had heard many of these sorrowful tales at the senior center where she volunteered three times a week.
“Satan’s predators are out there,” she added.
When I used to hear her say things like that, I would just nod and sometimes even smile. If it made her comfortable and secure to believe in the world she envisioned, fine. She was amusing, almost like a character out of a Dickens novel. Even John would shake his head and laugh at some of the things she had said, but now her view of things and her remarks annoyed me. I snapped back at her a few times, telling her I didn’t want to hear about any of God’s plans. I didn’t want to hear any excuses for horrible things. I just wanted my daughter back. She was quiet, but she kept what was becoming that annoying damned soft smile of understanding. It was as if I had to be humored for mourning my daughter’s disappearance.
Finally, I told John to ask her politely not to come over so much. He looked at me oddly and suggested that if I didn’t want to go to church and seek solace, I might need more therapy, maybe even some stronger medication. I didn’t get upset. I knew that there were many reasons for him to suggest it. I no longer rose in the morning when he did. I spent the entire day in a nightgown or pajamas, and I rarely stepped outside. In fact, almost immediately after Mary’s disappearance, I started losing weight and paid little attention to my coiffure, my complexion, or my clothes. My vanity table began to look neglected, jars left open, eyebrow pencils scattered, and used cotton pads left in trays. Even the mirror had an unwashed haze.
Few of my friends revealed that they noticed my dreary appearance, because they all expected it, I imagined. John tried his best to ignore it, except any time I didn’t look clean enough because I had failed to wipe off a smudge on my cheek or at the corner of my lips. When he reached out to wipe it off, I anticipated that he was going to touch me lovingly, but instead, he held up his hand to show me the stained tip of his finger. I half expected him to wipe it on his forehead, like ashes on Ash Wednesday. That was how bad things were becoming between us.
Most days, I sat by the phone, waiting and praying. When it rang, I lifted the receiver so quickly that anyone calling knew I was hovering over it. I could hear the regret in their voices. They always apologized for bothering me, and after a while, friends stopped calling on a daily or even weekly basis.
“You’re eating very little when we’re not hovering over you and forcing you to eat,” John said. “And if Margaret doesn’t bring over something for dinner, you don’t prepare anything. Right? Am I right? I usually have to order in or bring something home on my way back from work. And look at the house,” he added, turning in a half-circle with his hands held out. “I don’t have to ask you if you’re overdoing your medication.”
“I’m not,” I said, tears burning my eyes. “I don’t want to be asleep or out of it in case something . . . happens.”
“You don’t want to be out of it? Where do you think you’ve been?”
He didn’t have to elaborate. I hadn’t vacuumed or dusted for days. I never made our bed or even changed the linen. There were dirty dishes everywhere, even cups and plates in the living room.
Ever since I had stopped working, I had cared for our home and resisted having maid service. My little Mary would try to help and actually had begun to be a real help. She had learned how to polish furniture, worked the hand vacuum to do some of the cushions, and was meticulous when she washed windows. She had even come up with the idea to use a Q-tip to do the corners of the windows, where it was difficult to get at them with just a cloth.
Now I found that if I started to do anything that Mary had helped me do, I couldn’t continue. I would envision her beside me, her face full of determination and seriousness, as if folding clothes after we took them out of the dryer was brain surgery. Occasionally, she would blow some air between her lips to move some strands of hair away from her eyes. My hands would tremble when I pictured her and realized she wasn’t there; she might never be there again. No, John didn’t have to tell me how bad things had become. He didn’t have to point to anything. I knew that when Margaret wasn’t pitching in, everything was quite a mess.
“You don’t want Margaret here all the time. Okay. But we’ll need a maid now.”
“I can’t help being depressed, John. It would be unnatural for me to be otherwise, in fact.”
“No, of course not, and I’m depressed, too, but I can’t live in a pigpen, and neither can you, Grace. I’m embarrassed even to have the FBI stop by.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, just to stop his badgering. “Hire the maid for once a week.”
“I’ll do that.” He paused. I could see that he didn’t want to say what he was going to say next. He hated it, but he couldn’t avoid it. “Perhaps you should return to therapy. Maybe there’s some other medication . . .”
“That won’t bring her back. There’s no drug to cure this pain,” I said.
“No, but maybe it will help keep you somewhat stable until we . . . until we know what’s what.”
He surprised me by putting a card on the table. It had the name of another therapist, someone who specialized in my sort of problem, and her phone number. I didn’t touch it. I just looked at it as if touching it might burn my fingers.
“It might be better if you worked with a woman this time. I asked our doctor about it, and he recommended her,” he said, and left it at that.
Eventually, I picked up the card and put it in one of the kitchen drawers. I knew it was probably a good idea, but I was afraid of any new medication, afraid of anyone being able to talk me into any sort of acceptance.
I learned that John had spoken to my parents and his own about it. Both my mother and my mother-in-law followed up, urging me to do as he had suggested. My mother basically had ignored my previous therapy, and I already knew my mother-in-law’s feelings about it, but both were ready to go along with anything that would make even the slightest change in me and in all our lives.
They all visited as much as they could, my mother and John’s mother sharing the responsibilities for our dinners when they came, but no matter how much everyone tried, family gatherings were more like wakes. Once the basic questions about the investigation were asked and answered, Mary’s name became forbidden. Any reference to her would bring a heavy and deep series of moments during which my mother’s eyes would tear up. She would quickly rise and leave the room. John’s mother would join her, and then our fathers would follow John into his office to have quiet men’s conversations about the abduction, what the police had done, and what else they could do. Everyone was whispering to keep me from hearing what they said about Mary. They had all become afraid that I would simply implode right before their eyes.
Of course, John insisted on our going to church every Sunday. In his mind, it was even more important for us to do that now. We had to show God that we had not turned from him. John muttered something like that every Sunday morning. Margaret often came with us in our car. I went along, moving like a robot, dressed in a mechanical manner, and avoided speaking to pe
ople as much as I could by keeping my head down, my shawl wrapped tightly around my face.
The first time we attended after Mary’s abduction, Father McDermott revealed our tragedy to the congregation. All faces turned our way, even of those who already knew. Special prayers were offered. To me, each and every expression of condolence and sympathy was another needle in my heart. Finally, after two months, I refused to attend another Sunday service.
“No matter what’s preached or said, I feel as if I’m attending a funeral,” I said.
John simply said, “All right.”
I thought he was thinking or feeling something similar about it, but he would never admit it. He went alone or with Margaret. When he returned, he didn’t mention anything Father McDermott or any other church member had said about Mary. He knew that if he did, I might cover my ears with my hands and scream. All he did do was talk about the therapist again, especially since now I couldn’t even attend church services.
Since the football season had ended, on Sundays he would simply retire to his workshop and begin another ship-in-a-bottle project. Rather than ridicule it, I began to realize that the meticulous work was his way of keeping his sanity. I actually became envious and wished I had developed a compulsive thing for puzzles or needlework, anything that would put my brain on pause and keep the echo of Mary’s voice and the ghost of her face out of my heart for a few hours, at least.
However, once, when I passed the doorway of his workshop, I caught him staring at the place on the floor where Mary would sit and patiently wait for him to acknowledge her, ask one of her questions, or just stare up at him in wonder at how he could manipulate tiny things with his big fingers and turn them into beautiful and precious old ships. His face softened. He looked close to tears, but then, either sensing me standing there or realizing his weak moment, he turned quickly back to his work and hunched his shoulders so that he looked like a bird of prey feasting on something it had just killed.
Capturing Angels Page 7