Faith (17 page)

Part 2
May

S
uffer the little ones to come to me.”

At the pulpit the priest paused for effect. He was the pastor at Mike and Abby's parish. I don't recall his name, only his voice, a lovely tenor with the barest ghost of a brogue. Our small family sat shoulder to shoulder in a single pew, Clare Boyle on the end, then Ma and me. Mike was beside me, and beyond him the twins, Michael and Jamie, their shiny blond heads like an ad for some children's shampoo. Ahead of us, in the front row, sat the First Communion class. They had entered in an orderly procession, like a miniature Moonie wedding: the boys squirming in dark suits, the girls eerily poised in their white dresses and veils.

It was a balmy morning, the second Sunday in May, sunlight streaming through the stained glass: Jesus with his lambs, his loaves and fishes, in colors bright and clear as lollipops. Like many parishes, Mike's had scheduled First Communion on Mother's Day—for me, two birds with one stone. I had driven up from Philadelphia for a long weekend—my second visit in a month, a lifetime record. I could tolerate my family in little sips, but this was a toxic—perhaps lethal—dose.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” the priest continued, “had a special love for children.” Around me a sea of heads, Ma's and Clare's included, bowed slightly. They were Catholics of a certain age, taught in childhood to show reverence for the Holy Name.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The priest extended his arms. His robes today were pale blue, Marian colors for May. He repeated: “Suffer the little ones to come to me.”

I felt a sudden chill.

It was a rote sermon, delivered, with slight variations, at every First Communion Mass I'd ever attended—at my own probably, some thirty years before. And yet that spring, in the Boston Archdiocese, the words had a sinister new meaning. I looked around at the congregation mostly staring into space. Kids fidgeted. A few fathers fiddled with camcorders. Only Mike seemed troubled. I felt him stiffen next to me. Cautiously I stole a glance at his face. He gave me a warning look.

Already we'd been sitting there for nearly an hour. Ma always arrived thirty minutes early, to say a rosary and frown at the latecomers
.

Some people will be late for their own funerals
, she'd whispered. To which Mike responded:
Beats being early.

“Suffer the little ones to come to me.” The first time he said it I caught my breath.

M
Y PARENTS'
house holds ten comfortably, twenty in a pinch. For the party Ma expected twice that many. “We'll be fine as long as the weather holds,” she said as we laid the buffet. “Keep the little demons out of the house.” The kids congregated in the backyard, Ma's brothers in the parlor around the television, where she'd pass through periodically to sweep away their empties and offer cold replacements. The basement belonged traditionally to the McGann men: Dad and Leo, Richie and Brian and Mike. In the kitchen the women would gather, chiming in occasionally when Clare Boyle paused for a breath.

The buffet was a slapdash affair: deviled eggs, a platter of cold cuts for sandwich-making, a supermarket cake with Crisco frosting, hastily decorated—
God Bless Ryan—
in sugary yellow script. There was a potato salad slick with mayonnaise, a relish tray of cut vegetables. A big basket of Clare Boyle's soda bread was the one respectable touch. I laid out paper plates and napkins and an assortment of cookies, also store-bought. “The boy is used to better,” Ma murmured, a comment that could be taken two ways. A backhanded compliment, an appreciation of Abby's domestic skills? Or an observation, probably true, that Ryan was a spoiled brat?

Once, years ago, I visited Mike and Abby at Christmas. Usually I plan more successfully, retaining, if possible, a boyfriend through those trying weeks, a human shield for under the mistletoe. That year it was not possible, and so I found myself driving back to Massachusetts for the holiday. I can still remember the fragrant wreath on Mike's front door, the tree festooned with salt dough cookies and garlands of popcorn. I felt trapped in a holiday photo spread for some glossy magazine, a showcase for Abby's domestic wizardry. Ma's First Communion buffet was pathetic by comparison, though in fairness, she'd been given short notice. Mike had called the night before with news of Abby's migraine, and Ma had done her best.

I left her to fuss with the cookies. In the kitchen Clare Boyle was stuffing celery with cream cheese. I offered her more tea from the pot.

“I've had enough of Mary's tea. You could skate across it,” Clare said, looking into her cup. “A pity about the boy's mother. A headache, is it?”

I glanced out the window. In the backyard Mike was putting up a volleyball net, spiking, with more force than necessary, an aluminum endpost into the ground.

“A migraine,” I said.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Interesting how you can plan them the day before.”

Clare Boyle is my godmother and Mike's, the great friend of my mother's life. As far as I can tell, she's the only friend Ma has ever kept, though they harp on each other like squabbling sisters. By all accounts they have done this since they were teenagers. I have seen pictures of Clare in those days, a doe-eyed beauty. That she never married is considered a mystery. According to Ma the boys found her too forward, a claim seconded by Henry Devine and Leo McGann, for whom, it is said, she nurses a fondness to this day. My uncles are old men now, and it is vaguely repulsive to hear them congratulate each other on their prescience, as if they'd somehow foreseen that Clare's voluptuous figure would triple in size. Clare today is a big woman, the largest I have ever seen walking—or, indeed, outside the pages of a supermarket tabloid. Her exact weight is a matter of some speculation. She hasn't seen a doctor in many years. My mother—herself no fan of doctors—calls Clare a walking time bomb; yet her health so far as been unexceptional. Until a few years ago she even managed to drive, though how she fit behind the wheel of her old Chevy is anybody's guess.

For Ma, Clare's weight is a project of sorts, filling a void in her life now that my father is officially irreparable. (Perhaps he was always so, but now that the diagnosis is definitive, she needs someone else to fix.) At the beauty parlor she tears pages from magazines: low-calorie recipes, exercises that can be done by anyone, no matter how decrepit, safely in a chair. In return Clare gives her books borrowed from the library:
The Co-Dependent Marriage, Adult Children of Alcoholics.
They take positive joy in each other's failures, and yet each is the other's staunchest defender. When we joke behind Ma's back, Clare will laugh wickedly; but she lets us know, sharply, when we have gone too far.

That day Clare seemed, as always, in possession of secrets. A woman who moves only when necessary, she had stationed herself at the kitchen table, an oracle to be visited.

“Sheila, don't be a ninny. Abby doesn't have a headache. She's in a snit about Arthur. She and Michael had words.” She arranged the celery on a tray. “I'm surprised he didn't tell you. You two were always thick as thieves.”

“We haven't talked much lately.”

Clare leaned in avidly, smelling gossip. “Mary said you'd had a falling-out. Because of Arthur, she said.”

I wondered what else Ma had told her.

“Art's my brother, too,” I said. “I can't turn my back on him.”

“That's true, I suppose. Still, Michael has a point. It's revolting business. These priests,” she said, disgust in her voice.

Clare is known for her disdain of the clergy, a sentiment proportionate to—and probably inflamed by—my mother's blind devotion. Yet her coolness toward Art predates the seminary. It reaches all the way back to his baptism, when Ma and Harry Breen chose a Breen cousin and his wife to be the baby's godparents. It was a slight Clare never forgot, compounded when the couple died a few months later in an auto accident, leaving Art with no godparents at all. Apparently Ma learned her lesson, because it was Clare who stood for both me and Mike. I have seen photos of each baptism. At mine she is shapely still, standing arm in arm with my godfather, Jackie Devine. Three years later, her waist considerably thicker, she stands holding the infant Mike, staring adoringly at Leo McGann.

“I'll give Arthur the benefit of the doubt,” said Clare. “Priests used to help out with children all the time, the CYO and that. Nobody saw any harm in it.” She opened a tin of Danish butter cookies and nibbled one daintily, her favorite treat.

“Father Fergus, I remember, was a great one for children,” she continued. “He was Mary's uncle. You won't remember him, but Arthur will.”

The doorbell rang.

“That'll be Leo and Norma. I understand they have a new Cadillac.” Clare lowered her voice. “As if the old one had a scratch on it. Sheila, go have a look.”

I went to the window. The new Eldorado looked like all Leo's cars, more or less: the landlubber version of the
Sweet Life
, another big, shiny boat.

Clare smiled broadly so I could check her teeth for lipstick.

“All clear,” I said.

“Thank you, dear. Now go and let them in. And bring Leo back to say hello.”

I headed into the dining room, nearly colliding with Ma, who was loaded down with empty bottles. “Leo and Norma are here,” she whispered, glancing at the sad buffet. “I didn't think they'd come.”

Her embarrassment was palpable, and I remembered how, as a girl, I'd been forced to write thank-you notes for my aunt's ten-dollar birthday checks, even though Norma's own kids never acknowledged gifts.
Prove you're better
, Ma liked to say.

I squeezed past a cluster of Devines, my uncles in their cups and growing louder, in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“My dad was in the Coast Guard during the war,” Uncle Jackie told his audience. “He was guarding the coast all those years, and we never lost any coast.”

I opened the front door.

“Sheila! What a surprise. We were so happy to see you in church.” Norma hugged me briefly, a perfumed formality.

“Hi kid,” Leo said, kissing my cheek.

It was a version of them I had never seen, these two icons of my childhood, now in their old age. Norma was pear-shaped and improbably blond, her hairline dotted with age spots. Leo was square as a dishwasher, with a bristly white crew cut. His beefy neck strained against the collar of his shirt. I felt Ma watching me from across the room, her anxiety and mistrust. Four years ago, at Gram's funeral, Norma had been surprised to see me without my husband. By then I'd been divorced for several years, and I realized with a kind of shock that Ma had kept it secret.
We split up
, I told Norma, knowing that Ma would never forgive me for it. And, indeed, she hasn't.

“We can't stay,” said Norma. “We want to stop and visit Mammy.” Incredibly, Norma's own mother was still living, at ninety-nine, at a nursing home in Milton.

I ushered them into the room. Trailing behind them was a lanky, curly-haired boy I recognized, or thought I did, from some past life. My heart did a little skip.

“You remember Jeffrey,” said Norma. “Brian's oldest.”

The kid stared at the floor, a dead ringer for the boy I remembered that afternoon on the deck of the
Sweet Life
, Brian McGann in his mirrored sunglasses.

“He's a senior at BC High,” said Norma. “He's going to be a Double Eagle like his dad.”

“Where
is
Brian?” I asked, flustered.

Norma pointed across the room, to a man I'd walked past without noticing. He was tall and red-faced, in chinos and a golf shirt. Except for a fringe of curly hair above the ears, his head was smooth as plastic.

“Oh,
Brian
,” I said, flustered. “Hello.”

My cousin gave me a bashful wave.

M
IKE SAT
on the back porch watching the clouds move, an open beer in his hand. The sky changed fast in Grantham. As a teenager, lifeguarding on Massasoit Beach, he had learned to recognize a storm head rolling in, to clear the water of swimmers before the first thunderclap. The signs were unmistakable, if you paid attention. If you kept an eye out.

The backyard volleyball game was in full swing, dominated by the bigger kids: his cousin Brian's boys, little Julie Devine, who was no longer so little, a tall, raw-boned girl who spiked the ball with surprising force. Though two heads shorter, Ryan held his own with the older cousins. It was good for him, probably, a lesson in sportsmanship. The kid was stronger and faster than any boy his own age, used to excelling at every game he played. The twins were less successful. Mike watched as little Michael took a turn serving, almost, but not quite, clearing the net. Jamie had lost interest entirely. He'd wandered off after Richie's girls, Meg and Sarah McGann.

Mike took a long pull on his beer. It was a relief, it was, to sit out here playing referee for the kids, safe from adult questions. Under different circumstances he'd be in the basement with the McGanns: Ted chuckling at Leo's stories, chiming in here and there with a memory from childhood, a scrap of the past he could actually recall. Leo's was one face he always recognized, and for long moments Ted would seem nearly intact, the person he used to be. But today Mike was avoiding the house entirely, the endless prying questions.
A migraine, is it? She must be heartbroken about missing his Communion. I hope you took lots of pictures.
In fact he'd taken no pictures at all. He wanted nothing to remind Ryan, years from now, that his mother had boycotted his First Communion, no mementos of this endless, humiliating day,

Until it happened Mike wouldn't have believed it. For all the arguing, the anger, he was certain Abby would relent in the end. But last night she'd been immovable. She would have no part of the ceremony, nor the party afterward. She would not set foot in a Catholic church again.