Chapter Eighteen
I feel like we were just driving this road,” I said.
“We were,” Mother said. “I don’t know why they have these two big events so close together. One at the beginning and one at the end of the summer would make more sense, but then when did they ever ask my opinion?”
“Well, it does make a nice last hurrah of summer before we have to head back to school.”
“So Molly,” Mr. Pop said. “I heard the Birgers were coming up to the fair today too.”
Molly blushed.
“Oh yeah?”
“Well, I thought that might be of interest to you.” Mother swatted Mr. Pop’s leg and shot him her best “stop it” glare before revealing a smirk.
Molly had to work to keep a straight face. Her nonchalance was noted but not believed by me or anyone else in the car. I could see Mother’s profile from the backseat; she had a big grin on her face. Even Mr. Pop cracked a smile. Poor Molly couldn’t cover her true feelings for long. We decided to let it go rather than embarrass her any more than we already had.
“So do you think the Henderson kids will win more Future Farmers of America ribbons this year?” I asked Mr. Pop.
Mother responded first. “I think they’d be devastated if they didn’t. They spend the whole year grooming their cattle just for the state fair.”
“Mr. Pop, what do you think?”
“I think it’s likely, but I’ve been hearing in town that the two Brown boys are finally at the age where they will be serious competition for someone. It should be fun to watch it all unfold.”
“You know what I want to watch? The Indian Rights Council unfold in a way that lets Mick out of jail. That’s what I’ve been praying for. That everyone will see that Mick being locked up is nonsense and wrong. Please tell me you think that’s what will happen after this meeting.”
Mr. Pop sighed. Though I knew this was foremost on his mind every bit as it was on mine, Mr. Pop had urged me before we left not to let it consume my every thought and every bit of conversation. I had tried, but I could hold back no longer.
“Mercy, I wish I could say I know what the outcome will be,” Mr. Pop said. “But I can’t. And these meetings are not about Mick and his situation. At least, not explicitly. I can tell you that there will be more forward progress just because your uncle Roger will be there. He’s used to working with politicians and knows how to push a meeting forward. He knows how to ask the right questions and raise the most necessary issues, and as you know, they have a number of things to discuss.”
He smiled kindly at me then said, “Try to enjoy your day. Take in all you can, and we’ll meet up at supper time and decide exactly what time we’ll head back. Since we’re almost there, Geneva, would you lead us in a prayer for this day? I know we all sense the importance of the next few hours.”
Mother turned around, making sure we’d closed our eyes and bowed our heads before she began.
“Almighty God, ruler of all, You know the end from the beginning, and we desperately need Thy help today. We need Thy presence in the meeting this morning. Give Paul and Roger Thy wisdom as they speak up for the least of these. Oh God, may Thy ways prevail, may You sway the hearts and opinions of men who would wish harm on any Maliseet. Remove the scales from their eyes. Do whatever it takes, holy Lord. Work a miracle, God! Lead them to see the truth this very day. Amen.”
A round of amens followed.
Mr. Pop reached a hand over to grab Mother’s and smiled. “Thanks, dear,” he said. “A real courage booster.”
Mother nodded. I never doubted Mr. Pop’s courage, but I suspected that Mother knew his weaknesses and fears better than anyone.
“That was beautiful, Mrs. Millar. Thank you.” Molly had confided to me that she’d given up on praying. She felt that either God wasn’t listening or He wasn’t even there.
“Oh, Molly,” Mother said. “You are welcome. I just took the words that were pent up in my heart and spilled them out into the ear of God. You know any of us can do that. He is always waiting for us to be with Him.”
“Doesn’t always feel like it,” Molly said in a small voice.
“No, it does not,” Mr. Pop agreed, slowing as we pulled into town and traffic began to build around us. “But if we always felt like this, I don’t think we’d need faith. Certainly, our faith would not grow. Well, look at this. Here we are already.”
I didn’t know what, if anything, Molly heard of Mr. Pop or Mother’s little sermons. As soon as we pulled into town, the crowds and passing cars had pulled Molly’s attention toward the windows. I scooted toward Molly and leaned to look out her same window. People bustled past carrying ice cream cones and pastries, pushing baby carriages, and pulling wagons. As Mr. Pop pulled into a parking spot, a familiar family stopped in front of our car, pointing and smiling: the Birgers.
Molly blushed once again and straightened up to see herself in the rearview mirror.
“You look beautiful,” would be just about the last thing I said to her all day before she and Tommy wandered off into the throngs of people in their own little fog.
“Really, Mercy. Why don’t you come with us?” Tommy had urged, turning around as they walked three steps ahead of me. I assured them I was fine and slowed my steps so they could carry on without me.
“See you at the entrance at 4:30!” Molly had yelled back. That was the time Mr. Pop had said we’d all meet up.
I turned away from the crowds of the fair and wandered back toward the Presque Isle Free Library where I figured I’d sit and finally finish The Catcher in the Rye, after I found where its Beulah Akeley Boardroom was, where the Indian Affairs Council meeting would commence, just after lunch.
I found the room without much trouble, that is, without having to ask the librarian. I was glad this librarian did not know me, so she wouldn’t be inclined to wonder why I was asking the location of a conference room.
But now that I knew where their room was, knew the place where Mr. Pop and Uncle Roger would gather with politicians from across the state—I needed to find a perch, a place comfortable enough that it would make sense for me to be sitting and reading there; a place where I could hear when the meeting started and, more important, when it ended but not be seen by anyone coming from or going to the room.
I selected a musty old wing back set in front of a window two stacks over from the boardroom. But no sooner had I settled in and started reading than did my stomach growl. Though a “No Eating. No Drinking” sign hung in a gilded frame not far from where I sat, the chair I’d selected and my deep bag that concealed my tightly wrapped sandwich and polished apple, offered protection from those who might want to catch me eating. So with one hand on my book and another dipping back and forth into the bag nestled up against me as I ate my lunch, I waited for the Indian Affairs Council men to assemble and start their meeting.
I read all of three pages in the next hour. My ears had been trained to the coming and going of folks behind me. I became accustomed enough to the regular library folks passing through the stacks, that it was easy enough to pick up a change when the politicians began arriving. They didn’t seem to care about staying hushed or walking gently through the library. Their steps hit hard on the wooden floors, creaking and clacking as they went. Their voices rang out above the whispers and the otherwise stillness of the library. I froze in my chair as they began filing in behind me. I kept my head bowed toward the pages as I tried to count the number of times the door opened and closed, letting new people in. I slunk a little farther down in my chair when I heard Uncle Roger’s quiet tone.
“Could be interesting, brother,” he said. “Lord have mercy, indeed.”
And with that, Uncle Roger and Mr. Pop walked into the Indian Rights Council and the door clicked closed for the last time.
For the next half hour I was able to roam the streets of New York with Holden Caufield, but I became quickly as restless as Holden was and I could sit no longer. Unwilling to leave the library or
risk being seen, I roamed through the stacks beyond the door, where I could still hear any loud rumblings or when the meeting ended, but wouldn’t be seen should Uncle Roger or Mr. Pop leave for any other reason.
My eyes wandered over the spines of the burgundy and black and brown leather-bound volumes of poetry that lined the shelves, seeing nothing really. But I stopped when DICKINSON appeared on a yellow-bound volume. We’d talked about Emily Dickinson in English class. “The best poet this country has ever known!” our teacher had declared. I pulled the volume from the shelf and opened it to “Grief.”
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled
Some thousands on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;
Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am told
The reason deeper lies—
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.
There’s grief of want, and grief of cold—
A sort they call “despair”;
There’s banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.
And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,
To note the fashions of the cross
Of those that stand alone,
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.
I hadn’t yet read enough American poets to form an opinion on who was the best. As I fought back tears reading this poem, I realized my teacher must be right. Because somehow, this woman who grew up in a broad white house in the best part of town, educated and well-fed and not without love interests, recognized grief in all its forms, and spoke words that even desperate boys from the worst parts of town in the worst sorts of shelter would recognize.
Trying to shake getting lost in my own grief and my despair over the conversation that I imagined taking place in the room not twenty feet behind me, I flipped through the pages, closer to the front and stumbled upon Miss Dickinson’s “Hope.”
I’d just begun to read,
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
when I heard a sharp shuffling of feet and the librarian’s voice. “Sir, please just allow me to knock first. You’ll disturb the patrons.”
I turned to see two deputies flanking who I’d later learn was Sheriff Dolling. He ignored the librarian’s request and flung the door open without so much as knocking.
With my volume still in hand, I slid along the shelves until just outside the door. I no longer cared who could see me.
“Gentlemen,” Sheriff Dolling said, “sorry to disturb you. But Mr. Millar—”
I heard two chairs push back and two men, both Mr. Pop and Uncle Roger, answer, “Yes?”
My heart pounded in my chest.
“Mr. Roger Millar. Judge Dodd is requesting your presence in his courtroom immediately.”
Now more chairs backed up, and the hubbub overwhelmed the room. It took two seconds for both Uncle Roger and Mr. Pop to exit the room. Both looked at me immediately but said nothing. Mr. Pop pulled the door closed behind him as Uncle Roger spoke to the sheriff.
“What’s this about?”
“It seems,” Sheriff Dolling said, checking his notebook, “one Arthur Stringer has woken up.”
PART 3
“I am with you.”
Chapter Nineteen
The return to Watsonville was a blur. Mr. Pop had sent me to find Mother, to have her meet us at the car immediately. I found Molly with the Birgers and told them. Mrs. Birger offered to have Molly stay with them, and they’d bring her home the next day. Mother was harder to find, but after some searching, I found her admiring the stitching and creativity of some of our state’s finest quilters. Though she’d been ready to purchase one of the blue-ribbon winners, instead Mother settled with getting the quilters’ address, with promises to write with an order.
I don’t remember racing back to the car. But when we arrived, Mr. Pop had it already running. Uncle Roger had left twenty minutes before. Supper would wait until we got to Watsonville. But none of us were really thinking about supper, only about what Old Man Stringer might have to say.
Once again, I was barred from visiting Old Man Stringer. Instead, I was sent to Nelson’s to rest and eat. Chef and Joseph had already heard. Joseph shook as he sat down at my table, putting a plate of cannoli in front of me. “What do you think he’s going to say?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t know. The truth, I hope.”
“Do you think he’ll remember?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to know what’s weird?”
I looked up from my plate. Though Joseph still shook, I noticed a serenity I’d never seen before.
“What?”
“Last night, I went to visit Father McMahon to ask him about what you said, you know, about God working miracles for all kinds of folk. Plus, I figured if I had to go to church, I might as well try to understand.”
I nodded.
“So I told him about Gluskap.”
“Gluskap?”
Joseph smiled. “Never heard of him? Really?”
I shook my head.
“He’s the one Maliseet—all the Indians here, all us Wabanaki—believe in. He’s like a creator and a hero because of how he said we should live.”
“So how does he say we should live?”
“He taught us that we should live together with respect—people and animals and everything and respect the earth. We don’t do a great job of it always. Actually, a lot of us—of them—do a pretty lousy job of it. But living together with respect is the thing we believe. It’s what we hear from the time we’re born. Whether we live it or not is a different story.”
“So what did Father McMahon say about that?”
“Well, maybe Mr. Pop wouldn’t like this, so don’t tell him, but he said Gluskap sounds something like Jesus.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like Jesus?” I was glad Mr. Pop wasn’t around to hear this.
“Well, Father McMahon said Jesus taught about how we’re supposed to live too, like loving each other, even our enemies. And how we should treat one another in the way we want to be treated. And that does sound like Gluskap. Finally, something about Jesus made sense to me.”
I took another bite and waited for Joseph to say more.
“Then Father McMahon asked if I wanted to hear more about what Jesus had to say. And about who Jesus is.”
“What did he say about that?” I’d never gone to a church like Father McMahon’s, and I wondered. Joseph continued. “And he said how Jesus is God’s only Son and he started to talk about how if I confessed my sins, Jesus would forgive me because He loves me. I told him Jesus didn’t even know me, and if He did, He wouldn’t love me. Because nobody really did. Besides Mick, maybe.”
“A lot of people love you—” I started to interrupt, but Joseph was still talking.
“But he said Jesus does know me, and loves me no matter what I’ve done. And if I truly believe, Jesus will make me like I’m brand-new. A fresh start and all that.” Joseph looked down.
“Like the fresh start Chef gave you?” I said.
“Sort of. At least that’
s what Father McMahon said. That Chef was acting on behalf of Jesus, maybe. Chef says he was just giving a boy who loved food an opportunity. But Father McMahon thinks how I got hooked up with Chef is more than that.”
“So what do you think?” I asked.
Joseph shrugged.
“I don’t know what to think,” Joseph said. “But if it’s true, if this Jesus does love me and offers fresh starts, then—”
Tears filled Joseph’s eyes as his chest heaved with struggled breaths. All those years in Sunday school should have prepared me for this moment. I should’ve known the right words to say that would lead him to the next steps to true faith in Jesus Christ. I should have been ready to recite, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new.”
But words failed me. And maybe they weren’t needed. It was clear God was reaching out to this boy—this young man—and could bring him where he needed to be without words from me. Instead, I nodded and stood up to hug Joseph. As his body shook in my arms, I felt the fluttering Miss Dickinson had written about—that feathered thing of hope in my soul.
Old Man first reported that he didn’t remember anything at all about the incident that landed him in the hospital. That is, he didn’t remember until someone told him that Mick had been sitting in a jail cell for two weeks because Frankie Carmichael said Mick tried to kill him.
Only then did Old Man break down and come clean. Mr. Pop told me all about it and soon everyone knew.
“I’d been so horribly drunk,” he admitted. “Worse than normal. And it was still morning. I’d stayed up all night, drinking. Just outside the Flats. Mick found me as he walked into town. He helped me, I think. But by the time we reached town, when we stood in front of Fulton’s, I told him to go on, to leave me. I wanted to go back to McGillicuddy’s Tavern, but Mick said no. He wanted to take me to the hospital. He said that I wasn’t looking too good. On a stack of Bibles, that’s all I remember. How did that cockamamy story get around that Mick tried to kill me? The Maliseet are my family. If I’m not at McGillicuddy’s or at the Millars’, I’m with them.”
Shades of Mercy Page 18