Household Saints

by Francine Prose

  “Oh, that. I knew. Joseph, she used to do his laundry. I’d find his socks and T-shirts in our wash. And I thought it was sweet. Because all those years, I’d prayed to find something like that—a boy’s sweater in her closet, a photo on her night table, some little valentine stuck in her drawer. But it was always like a convent in there. No matter what I did, it looked like your mother’s old room. So when I found those T-shirts, I thought: Thank God. How was I supposed to know that she was taking them back to his place and ironing them?”

  “How could you know?” Joseph shook his head.

  “Listen. She’s got the radio on.”

  Joseph listened. A man’s voice—some kind of talk show.

  “Did you get a look at that Leonard?” said Joseph. “Did you see that skin on that guy?”

  “His skin was the least of it. He could have had two heads and twice as many pimples and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Remember what they said at our wedding, Joseph? ‘You win your husband in a card game.’”

  “So?”

  “So Theresa won Leonard.”

  “Then she lost. If anyone ever had the Evil Eye, it’s that Leonard.”

  “The Evil Eye. You sound like your mother.”

  “My mother again.”

  “Your mother used to see things, too. Things that weren’t there. Your father’s ghost, who knows what else. Maybe that is where Theresa gets it from—”

  “Would you stop harping on my mother? My mother never ironed the same shirt for eight hours straight.”

  There was a silence. Then Catherine said, “We were wrong. We should have let her join the convent. If she had to do all that, she could be doing it for God like she wanted. Giving it to someone besides Leonard. You know what Jesus came to tell her today? Thank you. That’s all she wanted, Joseph. Thank you. She’s not so different from anyone else.”

  “Jesus isn’t the only one who knows how to say thank you. A two-year-old kid can say thank you, people say it all the time. Why did she have to hear it from Jesus?”

  “It’s never enough. Look what happened to your mother. She worked all her life for a thank you which just isn’t possible. Because the only way your husband can thank you like that is to live forever, the only way your children can thank you is to never leave your breast. It drove your mother crazy, it turned her into a wild Indian. But Jesus? Jesus will outlive you. He never leaves. That’s why they go into the convent. He keeps on saying it—”

  “Thank you!” said Joseph. “Thank you, thank you! I’ve been saying it all my life.”

  “I know it,” said Catherine.

  They listened to the radio from Theresa’s room. Finally Joseph said, “Want to hear something funny?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard enough funny things for one day.”

  “No, listen. I never told anyone this. But that card game, that pinochle game when Lino bet you … I didn’t cheat. The truth was, I actually pulled a handful of high hearts from the deck.”

  “No kidding.”

  “And after that, a day didn’t go by without my thinking, God can always deal the wild card. You think you can tell how the game is going, but you can never tell. He can deal you the wild card any time, and now He’s dealt us a daughter who sees Jesus at the ironing board.”

  “If He dealt it, He’d better tell us how to play it.”

  “He did before. He told me to put up a blast of cold air.”

  Despite herself, Catherine laughed, then got up to go check on Theresa. She knocked and, getting no answer, eased open the door.

  “Good God,” she said.

  Theresa was sitting on the bed, straining forward, her back and shoulders tense. The radio was playing so loud that she didn’t hear her mother walk in. Nor did she see her, for she was staring at the radio as if it were television.

  Catherine rarely thought about her first child. But now she wondered: What if the boy had lived?

  “Brothers and sisters,” said the voice on the radio. “After Judas betrayed our Blessed Lord Jesus, what did he do? What was the very first thing he did? He kissed Him, brothers! He kissed Him, sisters!” The deep male voice dropped lower and became threatening.

  “That was the first Judas kiss, brothers, but not—not by any means—the last. How many of you women out there have kissed your sister and gone out telling tales behind her back? How many of you brothers have kissed your own babies and spent their milk money gambling, drinking, womanizing? How many of you little children have given your mama that Judas kiss, then turned straight around and done the opposite of what she say?”

  “Anything you want?” said Catherine.

  Theresa pointed at her ears like a deaf person.

  “You want anything?”

  Theresa shook her head.

  An hour later, when Catherine returned with a plate of food, Theresa was sitting in the same position. Now there was gospel music on the radio.

  “Thanks, I don’t need it.” Theresa waved away the food. “Jesus promised He would bring me loaves and fishes.”

  “Well, if you and Jesus need silverware, feel free to use the kitchen.” Catherine closed Theresa’s door and burst into tears.

  Theresa didn’t leave her room for the rest of the night. At three, they heard the national anthem, the bedsprings creak once, then silence.

  “What about the bathroom?” said Joseph. “Has she gotten so holy, she doesn’t have to go to the bathroom?”

  “No.” Catherine shut her eyes. “It can’t be that bad, she’d forget how to use the bathroom.”

  It wasn’t that bad—but it was bad enough. For three days, Theresa refused to leave her room except to use the bathroom. For three days, she didn’t eat, but just sat on her bed, listened to religious programs on the radio and slept.

  Finally Catherine said, “This time she’ll starve.” She was honestly frightened and yet still hopeful that, like the last time, Joseph would say, “Wait. She’ll get hungry.” But now Joseph looked at her and shrugged.

  They both knew that this was different from the last time Theresa stopped eating. It was simpler then, when Catherine could outdo herself cooking because they were both so certain that Theresa wouldn’t starve. And all the troubles of the past seemed to shrink into insignificance as they longed for that time before Jesus convinced their daughter to hold out for the loaves and fishes.

  It was like falling in love (at that stage when nothing else is important, no conversation of interest unless it concerns the beloved) and discovering an entire radio station devoted exclusively to Him. It was like loving someone who can walk through walls and thus can arrive at any moment, unannounced by the doorbell, the phone. The doorbell might have given her a minute to fix her hair, prepare her face; loving a man who could appear out of nowhere, she had to be ready all the time. It had all the excitement of new love, with none of the anxiety, for Theresa never doubted that Jesus loved her. She hesitated to go out, for fear of missing His visit, and yet she knew that He could find her anywhere. There was no point eating, unless she could share it with Him, no point sleeping except to dream of Him. Yet everything had a point, a purpose, as she waited to see Him or just to find out when they would meet again.

  Meanwhile she was vaguely aware of the life around her, of footsteps in the hall, worried faces. Like any young girl in love, she wished that her parents understood, and pitied them for their ignorance. She heard the front door open and close, and knew only that it wasn’t Him. Out in the kitchen, people were talking in hushed voices which rose occasionally to shouts. Theresa listened as if from an enormous distance, the way a bride sequestered in her dressing room before the ceremony hears the murmur of arriving guests.

  A family council was called: Augie and Evelyn, even Lino Falconetti. Lino was the only one to go see Theresa. Perhaps after so much experience with a lunatic listening to the radio in a back room, he was less intimidated. He watched Theresa from the doorway for several minutes. Back in the kitchen, all he said was, “Christ,
that radio of hers sounds like hell.”

  “Like hell is right,” said Joseph.

  “She should have let me know.” Lino shook his head. “I could have fixed it.”

  “We should have let her join the convent,” said Catherine. “That’s what we should have done.”

  “Catherine.” Evelyn spoke in the smooth, assured tone of a toastmaster addressing the guests of honor. “Joseph. Mister Falconetti. The point is not to think of all the things we should have done. The point, as I see it, is to concentrate on now.”

  “I think we should get her to a doctor,” said Catherine. “For the not-eating, if nothing else.”

  “Catherine, sweetheart,” said Evelyn. “The not-eating is the tip of the iceberg. So what you’re saying is, you’ll take her to a doctor and keep her at home?”

  “What should we do?” said Joseph. “Throw her out on the street?”

  “On the contrary,” said Evelyn. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Joseph, but from what I hear, it’s gone too far for her to be home. She’s seeing things, hearing voices—there’s no telling what a person in that state will do. At the very least, you’ll have to watch her twenty-four hours a day. You want to saddle Catherine with that on top of everything else? Catherine, kiss your life good-bye.”

  “Then what?” said Joseph.

  “Joseph,” said Augie, “there’s places designed to help kids like Theresa.”

  It took Joseph several minutes to understand what his brother meant. Then he turned his palms out and shook his head as if refusing food.

  “No thanks,” he said. “We’ll manage. We’ll work it out. I shouldn’t have bothered you folks….”

  “Joseph,” said Evelyn, “listen to me. I’ve got some friends on the Island, nice people, I’m not mentioning names. The oldest boy’s a junior in the public high school, the top of his class. A handsome kid—friends, dates, everything. One morning, he comes down to breakfast and announces he’s Jesus Christ reincarnated. Sure, his folks say, sure you are. That very night, his dad finds him trying to crucify himself on some old rose trellises in the garage.

  “I’ll spare you the gory details. Things got worse. What could they do? They sent him to Stella Maris, in Glen Cove. It used to be a Franciscan seminary and now it’s a hospital—a rest home really, specializing in cases like his. Also priests and nuns who have been working too hard.

  “Now it’s a year later. Not so long. The kid’s home, back in school. Straight As.”

  “They cured him?” said Joseph.

  Augie and Evelyn exchanged glances.

  “He’s a quiet kid,” said Augie. “No way around that. But at least he isn’t nailing himself up anymore.”

  Joseph looked at Augie. Augie smiled—he was always smiling—but now his smile was forced. Who was Augie, thought Joseph, with his trucks, his ranch house, his life like some Italian Father Knows Best? Who was Augie to feel sorry for him?

  “I just don’t know about sending my kid to a nuthouse.”

  “It’s not exactly a nuthouse,” said Evelyn.

  “Bars on the windows?”

  “I’ve never been there personally. But from what I understand, it’s nicer than most Catskill resorts.”

  “I’ll bet it costs like one,” said Joseph.

  “Joseph, what doesn’t cost?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Joseph said. “It doesn’t make sense that a bunch of strangers could help her better than her own flesh and blood.”

  “That’s just it,” said Evelyn. “Sometimes flesh and blood are the last ones to help. They’re too close. There’s no … perspective.”

  “Catherine,” said Joseph, “what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d go for it.”

  But even as she spoke, Catherine knew that Theresa would be happy to go. For Evelyn’s nuthouse sounded just like the convent she’d wanted all her life. It seemed possible now that everything might still be turned around if she and Joseph would finally let go, and give Theresa what she wanted.

  Joseph took one look at her and knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “We could try it,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, she can always come home.”

  “I don’t know,” said Catherine. But she wasn’t saying no.

  “Joseph, Catherine, I think you’re making a wise decision.” Evelyn seemed elated, like a scientist who’s just been given the go-ahead for a new experiment. “Look, I know it’s a difficult time for you. If you want, Augie and I can take care of the details. Augie, you’ll call the hospital today….”

  After they left, Lino said, “You got a minute?”

  “Plenty,” said Joseph.

  “In private.” Lino glanced at Catherine.

  Lino put on his coat and Joseph followed him into the hall. Inside, Joseph hadn’t really noticed, but here in the dim greenish light, he saw that the old man’s skin had that pastry crust look, like Frank Manzone’s at the end. Lino made a fist and blew on it.

  “I saw them,” he said.

  “Who’s them?” said Joseph.

  “Nicky. And Madame Butterfly.”

  “Where?”

  “On television.” Lino spat out the word.

  “Wait a minute. You don’t even have a television.”

  “I saw it at the San Remo. Last night, I stopped off for a quick one.”

  “Now I get it.”

  “You don’t get anything. I was soberer than you are, if you want to know the truth. It was late, the place was empty, and the bartender—who knew the guy was such an opera-lover?—had the set tuned to some kind of educational station.

  “‘Look,’ he says to me. ‘Madame Butterfly.’

  “And that’s when I saw it, Nicky dressed up in a sailor suit, singing. And Madame Butterfly? Jesus, she wasn’t even Japanese. Just a big fat Italian mama, all painted with make-up to make her eyes look slanty. And you know what I thought?”

  “What?” said Joseph.

  “‘How silly!’ I thought. ‘Is this what he wanted? Is this what my kid lived and died for? All this silly braying and mooning and prancing around with daggers and baby American flags? Ridiculous!’ I couldn’t even follow the story. The only thing was, I did feel a little sorry for that Madame Butterfly at the end? Know why?”

  “Why?” Joseph had his eyes closed and was shaking his head: First Theresa, now this.

  “Because she married into the Falconetti luck. How was she supposed to know? She was Japanese.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” said Joseph. “There’s Falconettis in Japan, Falconettis everywhere. Guys who drink too much and feel sorry for themselves, guys who don’t talk and never love anybody, guys with businesses which never fail and never prosper and just limp along….” Joseph stopped. “What am I talking about? Madame Butterfly marrying a Falconetti? I must be going nuts, like you and Nicky and Theresa….”

  “Huh?” Lino was too old to afford the luxury of being insulted.

  “Never mind.”

  “The other thing I thought,” continued Lino, “was: Isn’t it perfect? Isn’t it just perfect that a guy with my problems—my history—should see such a thing on television?”

  “I don’t care what you saw. Or what you think you saw. But one thing’s for sure: You didn’t see Nicky. Nicky’s dead. Maybe that opera singer looked a little like him, or exactly like him—but it wasn’t Nicky. So just keep it quiet, okay? Or they’ll be shipping you off to the nuthouse with my daughter.”

  “The only way they’ll ship me off is in a wooden box.”

  “You never know,” said Joseph. “You in particular,” he thought. Only this time, he was afraid that Lino did know.

  “Take it easy,” Joseph said, and retreated back into his apartment where he drank three glasses of water in quick succession because the taste in his mouth was as sour as that of Frank Manzone’s vinegar-wine.

  That year, spring came so late that Catherine began to think that Theresa’s lethargy had infected everyth
ing. The sun was too tired to shine, the earth too passive to bother warming up. Catherine and Joseph were so resigned that they waited patiently through the week it took Stella Maris to admit Theresa, and did not protest the hospital’s suggestion that Augie and Evelyn be the ones to accompany Theresa out and that they themselves refrain from visiting her for at least a month.

  The bills started coming immediately, and Joseph was right: It cost like a Catskill resort. The business could sustain the extra expense without much strain. But often, in the shop, it occurred to Joseph that he was working to keep Theresa in a nuthouse. It took the fun out of everything—especially cheating. Gradually Joseph stopped tipping the scales and just raised his prices like everyone else.

  It was early March when Joseph and Catherine first took the Long Island Railroad to Stella Maris. It was a rainy Sunday, and the stuffy train smelled of damp wool overcoats, cigar smoke, wet hair—mysterious odors, of invisible origin, because the car was deserted except for one other family—three small children racing up and down the aisle, a silent father, and a mother who spent the whole trip licking handkerchiefs, dabbing faces, and crying, “Andy! Kevin! Michelle! What will Grandma say when she sees you such a mess?”

  Outside the windows, suburban lawns flashed by—neat rectangles of ice, pocked with patches of mud and shrubs which were little more than bunches of twigs. Neither Catherine nor Joseph had anything to say. After a while Joseph took out a packet of cheroots and lit one, enveloping them both in an anise-scented cloud. It was the first time Catherine had ever seen him smoke, but she let it pass without comment.

  At Huntington Station, they got out and took a cab over several miles of flooded two-lane road. The cab hit potholes, and sheets of water splashed against the windshield. Then the driver would slam on his brakes and they’d wade through the puddles which rippled out around them like wings. When they reached the gates of Stella Maris, the grounds were shrouded in fog, and the hospital—a brick Victorian fortress—loomed out of the mist.

  “Jesus,” said Joseph. “Dracula’s castle.”

  “Rebecca,” said Catherine. “It looks like that house in Rebecca.”