Molly and I had just started to plot out the rest of our day just as I noticed Joseph was back at the Nelson’s booth.
“Hey Joe,” I yelled over to him, unwilling to get up from the picnic table yet. “How’s it going?” The lunch crowd had died down, so Joseph came over to our table and sat for a minute.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I didn’t expect to be here,” Joseph said. “Heck, three days ago I didn’t expect to be anywhere. I definitely never expected to be spending my days cutting broccoli. I’ve cut so much, I’m not sure if I can ever eat broccoli salad again.”
“So it’s working out okay, then?”
“Yeah. I like it. Chef doesn’t seem to care if my skin is red or brown or purple. I figure it’s ’cause he’s from New York. No wonder Glenn likes it there.”
“Heard anything from Mick or Uncle Roger?”
“Since I got this job, I haven’t had time to do anything else. I heard Roger stopped by to talk to my folks, but I was at the restaurant. It’s good not to be around for all that. I’m so glad I’ve got this job.”
I smiled at him. “I’m glad you’ve got it too. We’re all so proud of you.”
“Not sure what there’s to be proud of,” Joseph said. “Pretty sure Chef Barone had no idea what he was doing, hiring someone like me. Most people are just waiting for me to punch a hole through something, but Chef says he sees something in me. And it almost seems like it’s something special he sees.”
“Almost seems like Someone was looking out for you,” I said.
“Right. I was thinking maybe it was you. Or your dad or mother. I mean, she did take the phone order for those broccoli. Did she put him up to this?”
I laughed. “I meant Someone with a capital S. You know, God.”
“Oh, right,” Joseph said. “I don’t know about that. But Chef does have two expectations for me as his sous chef. That’s what he calls me. It means assistant, but it sounds better. It’s French.”
I didn’t know, but I nodded as though I did.
“I’m supposed to ask any question that pops into my head, and he says I’ve got to go with him to church this Sunday. He wants me to go to church to learn about Jesus, I guess,” Joseph said.
I wondered what our minister would think about that. I was sure it wasn’t a Baptist church Chef Barone attended. But as I watched Joseph’s face, I noticed he never grimaced or hardened as he spoke about church. This was the first time I’d ever heard him say the name Jesus. I realized I’d never heard Mick say it either.
Joseph noticed my smile and shrugged. “But anyway, either it was God or your mother. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, I guess.”
“Joseph, I promise you: my mother is not God, and she never talked to Chef Barone about hiring you. Goodness, she’d never even heard of him before that phone call. But definitely, it sounds like Someone is looking out for you.”
Joseph turned back to Nelson’s tent. Chef Barone pointed to his wristwatch and waved him over.
“I gotta get back,” Joseph said. “Gotta do some cleanup and then prep for our supper service. Maybe I’ll see ya later.”
“Sounds good, Joe.”
Molly had been unusually quiet, but I figured it was a bit awkward for her. Her being seen with a Maliseet could be very bad news for her, if that news reached back home to her dad, at least. I could tell Joe was sensitive to that too, something he wouldn’t have been just three days ago. Perhaps being invited to ask questions and go to church was doing something to him.
Molly and I ate the rest of our lunches in silence, a silence broken only by the noise of the chatter at tables around us and the sounds of kids laughing and crying and the little boy behind us begging his parents to get him ice cream.
“Mol’, let’s get an ice cream and head over to the baseball game,” I said. “We’ve got to cheer on our Watsonville Sluggers. Ellery says they’re really good this year. Even beat the Mattawamkeags.”
“Yeah,” Molly said, “and their pitcher is really cute too.”
Mercy raised her eyebrows. Molly having eyes for another could be good news for Tommy Birger.
Chapter Fifteen
The game was as lively as the crowd was loud. I hadn’t been to a game since the previous summer. Of all the things that bothered me about being the “son” my father never had, baseball was not one of them. I knew all about the sport and loved it—playing it, watching it, sprawled out on the living room rug listening to it on the radio with Mr. Pop and Bud and Ellery. So much so that my comments bored Molly, who only had eyes for the pitcher and other cute boys in the crowd.
But for once during the festival, my eyes and mind were focused on nothing but this game. And it was a good one, a hitter’s game. Neither pitcher had good stuff, and the ball was flying out of the park. Unfortunately when the ninth inning ended, Brewer had beaten out Watsonville by one run, twelve to eleven. With lengthy innings due to all that offense, by the time the game ended, it was late afternoon and time to regroup and find Mother and Mr. Pop. After managing to finally put the Indian Rights Council out of my mind, I resented the fact that it had just taken up residence again.
Molly and I headed toward the front entrance to the festival grounds and found Mother sitting on a bench waiting. She spotted us almost at the exact time we spotted her.
“Hi there, you two. How was your day?”
“Good,” I said. “Some people-watching, good food, ice cream, and the baseball game. We saw Joseph too.”
“Joseph?” Mother asked.
“Yeah. He was helping Chef Barone at the Nelson’s booth. We ate some lasagna and got to talk with him a little.”
“How’s he doing?”
“A lot better than three days ago at the farm,” I said. “It seems this job has transformed him. It’s a clean slate for Joe.”
“Wow. That clean slate talk makes you sound like Pastor Murphy,” Mother said. “What’s that he always says? God’s in the business of offering clean slates and new mercies? Sounds like Chef Barone might be in the same line of work!”
“That’s funny,” Molly said. “Joseph was just equating you with God, Mrs. Millar.”
“Me? Goodness. Apparently Joseph hasn’t heard that I’m a confrontational shrew who humiliates her husband and drives him out to sit in the car.”
“Who says that?”
Mother smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Well, that’s what some of the talk is around here, I guess. Martha Brown introduced me to a woman who nearly fainted dead when she learned who I was. Her husband is bringing a very different view to the Indian Rights Council than your father. Certainly a different view than I’d have brought. But then again, I’ve gotten quite a reputation as a lover of Indians.”
“Mother!”
“I’m sorry. But I’ve just had enough. Enough of all this baloney. Enough of good, white Christian folks acting like Jesus died for us alone.”
“So have you heard anything from Mr. Pop?” I asked. “It’s felt good not thinking about it this afternoon. Now I kind of dread hearing news.”
“There won’t be much news today, honey. They’re just starting to raise these issues about Indian affairs.”
“I meant news about Mick. Or Marjorie and Glenn even.”
“Well, I’m hoping they didn’t talk much about any of that. Would most likely just be gossip and not helping the situation at all.”
Molly stared at her shoes. When she’d first gotten the shoes last fall, something about the smooth of the white overlaid with the black stitched saddles brought out an envy I didn’t normally feel. As I looked at them, I noticed how the scuffs overtook the whiteness, making the shoes less black-and-white and more shades of gray.
And within that gray area was where we’d all moved. Once life seemed so cut-and-dried, so right and wrong. Now it had gray areas, some rights seeming muddled and some wrongs seeming not so bad after all.
Mother had been talking while I stood lost in
my thoughts. Something about not seeing Mr. Pop and not holding out much hope either.
“But,” Mother said, “he did say he’d meet us for dinner. Maybe we ought to walk back over to the hotel and get ready.”
“Governor Cross was there,” Mr. Pop said. “Roger guessed he might be. The town council president of Presque Isle, mayor of Caribou, and mayor of Watsonville, along with a handful of other town council representatives from other small towns around the county.”
“Okay, okay. Never mind who was there! Don’t keep us guessing. What happened?”
“These are delicate issues, Mercy,” Mr. Pop said. “And one meeting doesn’t solve or fix everything. We began by talking about some of the broader issues related to Indians in Maine, like land rights and the recent passing of the law that allowed Passamaquoddy and Penobscot to vote in federal elections.”
“Like president?” I asked, making sure I understood.
“Right. Some people wondered why the Maliseet and Micmac weren’t included in this too. Of course, what they don’t understand is that each tribe has its own government that interacts with the state government,” Mr. Pop added. “There is the Wabanaki Confederation, with all four Maine tribes, but that only goes so far. The four different tribes don’t always agree on how things should happen or even on what needs to happen. Truth is, some tribes have better leadership than others. Some are better at knowing how to navigate politics than others.”
“But what about Mick?” I asked. My leg bounced under the table. I wasn’t interested in the grand scheme of things or in one of Mr. Pop’s lectures. I wanted to know about Mick. “Is he going to have to sit in the county jail forever?”
“Hold on, Little Miss Mercy. You haven’t hardly given me a chance to say anything.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just worried for Mick.”
“We all are,” Mr. Pop said. “There were good people around the table in this meeting today. We all don’t see eye to eye on everything, but we all want resolution. Even if resolution is wanted for the wrong reasons by some, I’ll still take that. God works in all kinds of ways to accomplish His business in this world. Everyone around the table agreed that things have to change. The way I see it, it’s the attitude of Whites that has to change.
“Look at what’s happening in the South with the ruling that came down in May on Brown vs. Board of Education. Schools there are going to be integrated. Now we already have that here, but the attitude toward Maliseet students in our schools certainly needs improving. And look how many Maliseet children don’t even go to school. Their parents keep them at home to help out, or they don’t want them going to school with white children. Certainly, not many white folks are complaining when the Maliseet children don’t show up. There are issues on both sides of the fence, but it’s easy to see who the major perpetrators of injustice are.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Mr. Carmichael!”
Molly’s mouth fell open, and she slapped her hands on her armrests. While I knew she was angry at her father for how he treated her in the wake of her sister’s scandal, Molly and I had managed never to talk about all this. When my eyes met her alarmed glare, I realized I had assumed too much. I had no idea whether she believed her father about Mick or how much she blamed the Maliseet for Marjorie’s disgrace.
I thought Molly would bound out of the restaurant. I immediately and rather dramatically pictured us spending the night not at the pageant but wandering through the streets, calling Molly’s name. But all that was thwarted when Mother placed a hand on Molly’s shoulder, offering a gentle invitation to stay seated.
“No,” Mr. Pop said. “Actually the injustice I’m talking about falls squarely at all our feet—at the feet of all white people, I mean. We were the ones who came in and took away Maliseet land.”
“I didn’t take anything,” Molly said. She had accepted the invitation to stay but now leaned back in her chair, arms crossed against her chest.
“No,” Mother said. “But your grandparents’ land and your home and Fulton’s and your schools are all built on land that was taken, even if it was ages ago.”
“So you think we should just give it all back then?” Molly asked. “Let the Maliseet move into the house my grandparents built, let them take over the hardware store my father gives his life for? Are you going to turn your farm over to Ansley when we get back?”
If I spoke to Mr. Pop this way, I might expect my mouth getting a nice visit from a bar of Ivory. Certainly, I’d have been sent away from the table with no promise of food till morning. But Mr. Pop only smiled at Molly. All the questions I had about how Molly felt about her father and Mick and Marjorie and Glenn were answered in her body language.
“Well now, Molly. You’re getting right to the heart of it,” Mr. Pop said. “How do you make right that problem? Now that’s complicated.”
“So was Mick’s situation even talked about?” I asked. “Were Glenn and Marjorie mentioned at all?”
“Well, the conversation regarding Mick started with the status of Old Man Stringer. His outcome is central to how we proceed with Mick. We also went around the table and asked for honesty about what members of the council had heard regarding the incident with Mick and Old Man Stringer. The good news is, there is confusion about what happened, and at least two versions of the story are being told. The bad news is that news travels fast. Who knew there were so many people wondering about what went on in our little neck of the woods? I suppose I should’ve gathered that an Indian ‘attacking’ an old white man would still be news.”
Mr. Pop sighed and looked down.
“But I’m sure none of these busybodies bothered to ask about Mick’s version of the story.”
“Now Mercy, they did ask what the police version was. And since they took down his statement, it included that.”
“Yeah, I know, but does anyone on your council believe Mick’s story? When it’s up against someone like—sorry, Molly—Mr. Carmichael? He’s a prominent businessman in town. What good is Mick’s statement against all that, Mr. Pop? It feels so hopeless.”
“Mercy,” Mr. Pop said, “I’ll remind you that it seemed quite hopeless when Jesus was headed to the cross, but we know there was resurrection. Hold out a little faith. Uncle Roger is still at work on the case. Governor Cross mentioned that today at our meeting.”
“So was there any progress at the meeting? It feels like a bunch of talk and no action.”
“With these delicate issues, there is always a lot of talk before there is ever any action. We had to be brought up to speed, get the issues on the table, and make sure we were all on the same page, at the same starting point, before we could move forward.” He looked gently at his daughter. “But Mercy, action will come. Mark my words: action will come. The next meeting is set for a week from today, the first weekend of the Northern Maine State Fair. We’ll meet in Presque Isle again. The land grant for the Maliseet is at the top of the agenda. But I’ve asked that we speak about more urgent issues: like how we as Christians are doing at loving our Maliseet neighbors. Uncle Roger will come again if he’s able.”
Action couldn’t come soon enough as far as I was concerned. And I still believed that if the tables had been turned, and it had been one of the council members’ teenaged sons accused of assaulting a Maliseet man, he wouldn’t have even spent one night in that cell. A lawyer would have easily managed to see the judge, and the boy would have been sprung before day’s end.
“Ah, look,” Mother said, “our dinner.”
After the waitress set our plates in front of us, Mr. Pop led us in prayer. We ate the rest of the meal in relative silence. Molly asked for salt and butter to be passed, but otherwise stayed quiet throughout the rest of dinner. I knew she wondered what was said about her family. As I watched her cut her steak with her face fixed squarely on her plate, shame filled me. I was her friend, just as I was Mick’s, and yet I had showed her no sympathy.
I breathed deep and put my hand on Molly’s arm, seeing
if Mother’s technique would work for me too.
“I’m sorry I talked about your dad like that,” I said. “I know this is hard for you.”
Molly just nodded and returned to her steak.
“I mean, I can’t believe your father’s doing this to Mick but—”
“Mercy,” Mother said. “That’s enough. No more.”
I huffed out a short breath and shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mol’. Really.”
This time she looked up from her plate and spoke. “I know my dad is wrong. I know he’s lying or at least mistaken about this. And I know that Mick didn’t hurt anyone. But he’s still my father, and we’re all going through a lot. You saying the same awful things as everyone else, it just hurts a lot worse.”
It was my turn to stare at my plate.
“We’ve all said and done a lot of hurtful things during this,” Mr. Pop said. “That’s for certain. There’s going to be a whole lot of forgiveness that needs to go around before all this is settled. It’s during times like this that we can discover that the mercy God offers us, and expects us to offer others, comes in many shades.”
We left dinner having offered and accepted apologies and forgiveness, but Molly and I were still cool toward one another. I figured we’d walk toward the pageant stage in silence and that the silence would continue throughout the night. But I also hadn’t figured the Birger family stepping out from the ice cream shop as we passed.
“Mercy! Molly!” Tommy said. “Been looking for you guys all day.”
“Hey Tommy,” I said. Molly just smiled.
“Did you see Joseph at Nelson’s booth?” Tommy asked. “It was funny seeing him decked out in that white outfit. Can you believe Joseph suggested that my mom try some eggplant dish? She said it was the best thing she ever ate. She’s making us all eat it for lunch tomorrow. You should join us.”
Tommy looked straight at Molly when he said this. Molly was standing in a building’s shadow, and he couldn’t see the red rise in her face.
Shades of Mercy Page 15