The Passion of Mary-Margaret (5 page)

Jude's stance sizzled with challenge that morning as, finished with my kitchen chores, I hurried to my room to fetch my schoolbooks.

I walked over to him, flipping my red braid behind me, my heart feeling as if it were rolling around in my chest, throwing itself against the front of my rib cage.

“It's just as pretty up close,” he said.

“What?” Not what I expected.

“Your hair. I seen it from the platform out at the light. You the girl that goes walking sometimes, right?”

I nodded.

“So it's pretty. You all need to not wear them stupid hats to church so I could see it better.”

“Thanks. I like your kites that you fly.”

“I make 'em.”

“I've never flown a kite before.”

“It's easy. What's your name?”

“Mary-Margaret.”

“Two names in one.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mine's Jude.”

“I know.”

He squinted. “How do you know that?”

“Sister Thaddeus. She says you don't live at the lighthouse anymore and that you have an older brother who went off to fight in the war.”

He placed his hands on the fencing. “I'm the youngest.”

“I'm an only child.”

“So . . . you're the youngest too.”

I nodded. “Did you go to the Labor Day parade yesterday?”

“Nah. Brister says who needs stuff like that. We sat around by the water and drank beer.”

Oh. At his age?

“You row a lot. How come?”

He shrugged. “Can I come into the yard?”

“Nope. No boys allowed. At least that's what I think's the rule.”

“I gotta get to school anyway. Bye.”

He pushed off the fence and picked up a stack of books held together by a rubber strap.

I looked behind him toward the drugstore, wondering what it would be like to sit and have a soda with a beautiful rose like that.

“You wanna meet me there after school?” He scratched his side, the plaid of his shirt rubbing up and down against his soft skin, revealing the tanned flank above his belt.

“I have chores.”

“After that?”

I couldn't figure out why someone so beautiful wanted to be with me. He was a Keller and I was a girl living on the charity of a convent school. I oozed chastity and dependence; he oozed carnality and freedom. Even at that age. Sister Thaddeus said some boys are just like that.

“Just for a minute. I could use some soap.”

“Good.”

He walked toward Locust Island Elementary School. Our bell rang and I ran into class. Sister Thaddeus touched my back before I sat down at my desk. “Can you come with me into the hallway?”

I followed her. She leaned forward behind the door. “Was that the young Keller boy you were speaking with?”

I nodded.

“What did he want?”

“He wants to meet me at the drugstore after school.”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes, sister.” I never could lie to Sister Thaddeus; she was that nice.

“Well, I need a new toothbrush if you'd like to walk over there with me.”

“Yes, sister. Thank you.”

Jude waited, sprawled on the steps, leaning back on his elbows, the sun shining down on him like a spotlight he soaked in through the membranes of his cells. He scowled at Sister Thaddeus, who touched his light brown curls and swung into the store.

“D--- nuns,” he said.

“She's not a nun, she's a religious sister. Nuns are cloistered.”

“It's a convent school, idn't it?”

“Well, yes. Some of them are cloistered, but Sister Thaddeus isn't.”

“She's a looker. Even in that penguin suit.”

I rolled my eyes. And he laughed, baring his perfect teeth.

I laughed too. “She's gone in to get a toothbrush,” I whispered.

He whispered back, “Is that . . . a secret thing? Nuns brush their teeth?”

“No. I . . . I don't know why I whispered.”

“Don't go whispering around me, Mary-Margaret. I don't shock too easy.”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“I'm nine.”

“I know. But you're older inside. Like I am.”

“How do you know that?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I just do.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a peppermint. “Here. I got it inside. I had a feeling the penguin would show up.”

“Thanks.”

“I gotta go. Brister wants me on the boat this afternoon and if I don't get there on time, there'll be hell to pay.”

“Does he beat you?” I remember the shock that spilled over the edges of my brain and into my heart.

“Yeah, the pansy. But I can take it.” He jerked his head to the side. “There ain't nothing he can dish out I can't take.”

Jesus sat down next to me. “Don't take his words at face value, my dear. Brister wounds his heart as well as his backside. There's more going on there than you can imagine right now.”

Do you love Jude too?

“Oh yes.”

“Well, it's been swell.” Jude jumped off the step and ran down the street, his gait graceful and untamed. I didn't see him again until Christmastime. Jesus accompanied Sister Thaddeus and me back to the dining hall. I remember we had fried oysters that night for dinner.

They might not have been from Brister Purnell's boat, but I pretended they were.

ANGIE, BLANCA, MARY-FRANCIS, AND I GATHERED AROUND the table for dinner last night. We don't live at the school anymore now that it's a retirement village. We reside next door. For years Mr. Johnson Bray lived in this house along with his wife, Regina, and their eight children who were grown up and gone by the time I graduated from high school. Mr. Bray was the first person to show me the proper ratios for drawing the human form and he explained color theory based on nature. I was the only girl to live at the convent all year long. I miss him more than I could possibly say. He was a tailor by trade who cooked up fancy dinners on Sundays. The sisters let me go over there to eat during the summer.

The Brays' cottage now witnesses simple meals, beans and rice most days. Mary-Francis cooks up a large pot on Mondays and we eat off of it the entire week. She used to be a missionary in Mexico and likes to remember the people there, so we eat the same dinners they do. On Sundays Blanca cooks a roast and on Saturday I bake bread, five loaves for us, five to share. Angie shops. We banned her from the kitchen when she first moved into the cottage after arriving back to Locust Island from her transient life, aging but still going strong. It's a hard place to be when your bones grow brittle while the fire's left inside. But we're all in it together and we always will be until Angie, who we all bet will be the last to leave, goes on to our motherhouse in Baltimore. We have a nice assisted-living place for all the retired sisters. It's a fine order.

After lives of much excitement, the motherhouse won't be a bad place. Anybody who thinks being a religious sister is boring work must not know any of us. Between the four of us, we've been on every continent, even Antarctica. Blanca visited her brother stationed down there. She spent a good deal of her life in the Ukraine, China, and Hungary. I've mostly been here, although I went to Africa for a year a couple of years ago to visit and serve with my son, John. Mary-Francis served in Central America, Mexico, South America.

If Jesus comes to them like he comes to me, they're not saying any more than I do. For I know this, the day I tell is the day he stops appearing. He didn't have to tell me this; I just know it.

Angie covered my rice with a heaping spoonful of black beans. We gathered our napkins and placed them on our laps like the ladies we were taught to be all those years ago when St. Mary's was somewhat of a finishing school as well. The simple bands on the fingers of our left hands glimmered golden in the overhead light. Blanca, who's 4'11” and has always somehow managed to look fifteen even though her hair is white and her skin creased from her days teaching in the sun, calls us God's Harem. And rolls her eyes after she says it. Every single time.

We crossed ourselves and said grace. And my heart was full of love for my sisters. I gave everyone a scare back in 1958 when Jude showed back up. Angie thought she'd never get me back again. And at times, I thought she might be right. But some days it just didn't seem to matter. Others, I felt a longing so deep for life at St. Mary's I wondered if my heart was just a fickle fist of flesh. Sorry, Angie, I know you're cringing at the alliteration. But it just fits.

“Amen.”

Jesus didn't need to show up right then, for he was smiling at me in the eyes of the women around me. My friends. My partners. Truly, my sisters.

I pulled on the chain of the lamp beside my bed in the room Angie and I share. She was already asleep, but she doesn't mind the light or the scritch of my pen as I write in this notebook. My goodness I've written so much today. These days Angie conks out right after
Jeopardy! The Tonight Show
is beyond us. Tomorrow is Saturday and we'll set this place to rights after the busy week. Blanca and Mary-Francis will give the house a deep clean. Angie will shop and run errands. I will bake bread, mow the lawn for the final time this season, and weed and mulch the flower beds for the winter. I'll finally get to planting those bulbs that have been sitting around in the toolshed for years.

Jude bought them for me back in 1964.

I wonder if they'll bloom. I doubt it, but I've been wondering about Jude a lot these days. Some people say our sins are purgated here on earth; others say there's a different plane. For Jude, I hope and pray the former is true. He deserves that, considering the way he died.

Angie mentioned John's letter. Here it is:

Dear Sr. Mom,

I wonder each day how you and the others are faring on the island.
Did Sr. Blanca get over her bronchitis? How is Mary-Francis's father?
What about Uncle Gerald and Aunt Hattie? It took quite awhile for
your letter to reach me, unfortunately, which explains my tardy reply. I
hope you weren't worried.

Everything is going well here in Big Bend. A church in the US
recently built a structure at a carepoint where orphans are being fed
daily. We've offered to teach two days a week those children who cannot
afford the school fees and they've accepted our offer. I'll still run the clinic
while Brothers Luke
and Amos will teach school, the basics: math, science,
English, reading in both siSwati and English. Religion, of course.

The medical needs grow here in Swaziland, as you can imagine. I
ran into a Pentecostal missionary the other day who said that when he
arrived fifteen years ago he was doing one funeral a week. Now, he's up
to several a day due to HIV/AIDS. Not that anyone really dies of AIDS
according to their relatives.

We need more antiretrovirals, but money is in short supply. We're
doing what we can with what we've been given. Even for the little we do,
the Swazi people are so thankful. But then, I'm sure this comes as no
surprise to you.