Miracleville (20 page)

“And why do I have the feeling the cilantro comes from Tante Hélène's herb garden?” Mom says.

“It certainly does,” Tante Hélène tells her. “You know, Thérèse, I could help you start a herb garden of your own. Colette says there's a sunny spot behind your kitchen.”

Mom doesn't say yes, but she doesn't say no either.

“I think I'll get some fresh air,” Tante Hélène announces after we've finished eating. “Colette, are you coming?”

“But there's air everywhere here,” Mom says.

I catch Tante Hélène and Colette exchanging a look. Ahh, I think, they want to give me some time alone with Mom. Only I'm not sure I want to be alone with her. I need for Colette to be here too. After all, what I need to talk to Mom about involves Colette too.

“Colette, can you stay?” I ask her.

Tante Hélène adjusts the brim on her sunhat. “I'll be off for a little while then,” she says.

It's hard to know how to start this conversation. “Mom, there's some stuff I need to ask you about.” “Mom, who's my real father?” “Mom, I'm losing my mind and you've got to help me.”

“Maybe you're not in the mood to talk today,” is what I end up saying. It sounds like I'm protecting Mom, but really I'm protecting myself.

Mom pats my forearm. “Let me decide that for myself, Ani,” she says. She folds her hands in her lap. “So, girls, what is it you want to talk about?”

Colette looks from Mom to me. I know Colette must be dying to ask Mom about my real father, but she's holding back. She knows I have to be the one to ask. “About me,” I say. “And about you and Father Francoeur.”

Mom's face gets pale, and for a moment, I'm afraid she's going to faint.

Her eyes have that glazed look they had after the accident. “I didn't know you knew,” she whispers. It's as if Mom's afraid the grass and trees will hear her.

“Look, Mom,” I say, my voice almost as low as hers, “you don't have to tell us. Not if it's going to make you sad. Or upset.”

Colette can't keep it in any longer. “You do too have to tell us,” she snaps. “We're old enough. You've kept the truth from us too long already. Besides”—Colette throws her hands up into the air—“the whole town knows.”

Mom presses her elbows down on the arms of her wheelchair. “You're right. You should have known by now. It's just…well…the time was never right. Maybe it never is when you've got something hard to do.” Now she reaches out across the picnic table, taking my hand in one of hers and Colette's in the other.

“I suppose I'd better start at the beginning.” Mom turns to look right at me. “Emil was my first love. I think I loved him even in grade two. When we were teenagers, it seemed natural for us to be together. He was my best friend and my lover.” I feel my cheeks get hot when Mom says this, but she doesn't seem at all embarrassed. All these years, I thought Mom was too shy to talk about sex. Now I think maybe it was her way of keeping her past a secret. “We should have been more careful, but then if we had been, I wouldn't have had you.” Mom squeezes my hand really hard when she says this. “Beautiful, wonderful you.”

Beautiful, wonderful
me. I feel like I need to take in Mom's words and keep them somewhere close—so I can remember them when I feel lost or overwhelmed or ashamed.

“Emil came from a religious family,” Mom continues. “Two of his uncles were priests, a cousin on his mother's side was a nun. Then after Marco's accident, Emil became even more religious. I think it was because he felt responsible—that he shouldn't have left Marco out on the street, drunk.”

Mom shakes her head at the memory. I can tell she's wishing things had been different. But if they had been, what would have happened to us? Father Francoeur might have been my father after all, but then what about Dad? And Colette? Even if Colette sometimes drives me crazy, I can't imagine life without her in it. Maybe that's what being sisters means.

“I'd just found out I was pregnant when Emil told me he'd decided to enroll in seminary school and that he wanted to become a priest. Lise thought I should try to talk him out of it. That I should have told him I was pregnant. But I couldn't do it. I thought there was no higher calling than to devote your life to God. There was no way I could interfere with that.”

Mom smiles a little at the memory. I can tell that even after so many years, Mom still thinks she did the right thing.

“What about Grandmaman and Grandpapa? What did they think?” I ask her. I can't remember much about Mom's parents, who died when Colette and I were little. Only that Grandmaman laughed a lot, and that Grand-papa had a silver tooth.

“For as long as I could, I didn't tell anyone but Lise. My parents—well, when they finally found out, they were upset, of course. But I wasn't the first girl this had ever happened to—and they loved babies. I'm sure there was gossip, but mostly the people in town were good too. Some of them must have known about Emil and me, but they never said anything. Not to me anyway. And they all turned up when you were born—with presents for you.”

“You must have felt awful after Emil left,” Colette says. I know she's thinking about Maxim.

“It was hard, especially at first, but I knew I'd done the right thing. And then”—Mom is smiling now—“your father came along.” I expect Mom to look only at Colette when she says that, but Mom doesn't. She's looking at both of us. She's saying that Dad is my father too.

“Tell us what he was like. Tell us why you fell in love with him,” Colette says.

“Well, at first, he made me laugh. Which was what I needed. And once I started to show, well, I had to tell him. He never judged me. And he told me that he loved me—and the baby I was carrying. His goodness won me over. Though I'm afraid that lately I haven't appreciated that part of him enough. You know what Lise used to say? She said your father was the real saint in our town!”

“Dad, a saint?” Colette thinks that's funny. “But you forgot to say he's handsome too!”

“Yes, he's handsome too. But that was a bonus.”

“Does he know about Emil?” I ask.

Mom sighs. “I finally told him. Last night.”

For a while, none of us says a word. Not even Colette. It's as if we're all listening to the sounds of the breeze, the rushing water, and someone—maybe Tante Hélène— humming in the distance.

“What did Dad say?” I ask. There, I've done it. I called him Dad. It wasn't so hard.

Mom's folds her hands and makes a steeple with her pointer fingers. This time, she looks up at just me. “He said it didn't make a whit of difference. None at all.”

Twenty-Five

T
oday isn't only Saint Anne's feast day, it's Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré's day too. Today, Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré is in all her glory. Our town is glowing like a bride on her wedding day.

I have never in all my life seen so many people. Monsieur Dandurand says it's because of the economy.

“People these days are more desperate than ever for miracles,” I overheard him tell Dad last night, when we ran into him on Avenue Royale.

It's impossible to get anywhere quickly. The sidewalks and streets are thronged with people. They're mostly pilgrims who've come to pray for their loved ones or themselves, but there are gawkers too. People who've come to watch us celebrate. When they're in our store, they turn over the Jesus statues to see where they are made. Gawkers hardly ever buy anything.

Because the town is so busy, Mom and I leave extra early for Mass. I have to weave her wheelchair through the thick crowds on the sidewalk. When I finally get inside the basilica, park her wheelchair at the end of our aisle and sit down on the pew, I take a deep breath. The Dandurands turn to wave at us; Mom and I wave back. With so many strangers in town, it's as if there's a new solidarity between the locals. We've all been invaded.

There isn't room for all the people who've come to attend Mass today. Many are clustered by the tv monitors; others are standing at the back of the basilica near the confessionals, their hands folded in front of them, their heads slightly bowed.

Mom is wearing a new dress she ordered online; it's the same pale blue as her eyes—my eyes too—and it has sheer sleeves that are an even paler blue. She's resting one hand on my knee. Father Lanctot is leading the Mass, but today, half a dozen other priests from around the province have come to join him. They are standing together behind Father Lanctot, near the altar. Father Francoeur is there. He is the tallest and most handsome. I try to see myself in him. He is too far away for me to see the long fingers Colette says I inherited from him. It feels so strange to know this man is my biological father.

The choir's singing sounds like birds and bells. I inhale the familiar scent of musty wood and incense. Father Lanctot reaches into the sleeve underneath his cassock for his Kleenex, blows his nose and stuffs the handkerchief back up his sleeve. “May God be with you,” he says.

“And also with you,” we respond.

“Today is a day of great celebration and great holiness in our little town of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré,” Father Lanctot says. Though I've heard the story of Saint Anne many times, I don't mind hearing it again. Especially today. Father Lanctot tells us about Saint Anne's parents, Stolan and Emerentiana. If Colette were here, she'd make a joke about those names. I can practically hear her whisper: “That poor Emerentiana. Boy, she musta got teased on the school bus. Let's hope her parents called her Emmie for short.”

“Stolan and Emerentiana were an exemplary couple,” Father Lanctot says, taking his time over every word, “who educated their daughter in the love of God and neighbor.” That gets me thinking about Mom and Dad. I wonder if Father Lanctot suspects the truth, and if he does, whether he thinks Mom and Dad are exemplary too. And when Father Lanctot mentions neighbors, I picture Marco, who was out on his balcony, lifting weights, when Mom and I were leaving for Mass. I noticed his boyfriend's car was parked outside and I felt glad for Marco.

When he is done with the story of Saint Anne, Father Lanctot reaches into his sleeve for his Kleenex and blows his nose again. “And now,” he says, peering up at the congregation with his watery eyes, “I'm going to ask Father Francoeur to say a few words. Father Francoeur was raised in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré and it's here that he found his calling. But he spent more than fifteen years in Africa, working in a leper colony, where he helped establish a church and a small school. And we've recently learned that Father Francoeur will be returning to Africa to resume this important work.”

I feel Mom's hand go limp on my knee.

My own heart is beating double-time underneath my blouse. How can Father Francoeur be leaving? He may not even know that I'm his daughter. It isn't right.

I'm shaking inside as I watch Father Francoeur take his spot at the microphone, next to Father Lanctot. Father Francoeur nods to the congregation. He doesn't seem nervous at all, not even in front of so many people. And then for a split second, he looks right at me and Mom. Mom is smiling too hard. She does that when she's trying not to cry.

“Saint Anne taught us to believe in miracles,” Father Francoeur says, and again I'm struck by his voice, the way I was that time when he drove me home from the hospital. How calm he sounds, how safe his voice makes me feel. Even though he's standing right here, I feel already how much I'll miss him when he returns to Africa. “Displayed right here in this basilica, you'll see crutches and walking sticks and prostheses that pilgrims left here after they prayed to good Saint Anne and were miraculously healed. Across the parking lot, in the basilica museum, you can read letters from pilgrims whose prayers were answered by Saint Anne. All of those events were miracles.

“But today, I want to talk to you about another kind of miracle. The kind of miracle that is perhaps somewhat less dramatic, but that is nonetheless a miracle. And that's the miracle of faith. It's here today. In this basilica. At this very moment. I can feel it. And you can feel it.”

Father Francoeur pauses. I know it's because he wants us all to feel the miracle he is talking about—the miracle of faith. And despite everything my family has been through, I can feel it. It's a kind of energy, a soulfulness that's in the air, filling the spaces between us and the golden ceiling that towers overhead. But the energy isn't coming from some mysterious place up high; it's coming from all of us. From every person in the basilica today. Even from the gawkers. And that, I decide, is because somewhere in all of us, there is faith. Faith that life makes sense. Faith that even though terrible things happen, there is still goodness and hope.

Now I remember Father Lanctot's words in the confessional: “True faith makes room for doubt.” If Father Lanctot is right, then there is room for all my doubts and all my questions.

I reach for Mom's hand and squeeze it hard. She squeezes back. I know what she's telling me. That she has not given up.

For me, the outdoor ceremony that comes afterward is the highlight of Saint Anne's feast day. A small group of specially selected ill or handicapped people gets to take part—and this year, Mom is one of them. Father Lanctot himself called her last week to invite her.