“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Michael. I didn’t mean to hammer you,” she said.
“No problem,” he said. “Look, it’s not that I don’t wish there was a God out there who knew the number of hairs on my head, but it’s just not something I spend a lot of time trying to understand. I have put years and years into trying to ease human suffering through science and research. And I try to be a decent human being by making my contribution to that science and research. If there’s a God out there, I think He would forgive me for not recognizing Him if I have lived a good life.”
“Well, I sure hope so, for your sake,” she said.
“Regina!” Frank said.
“Sorry, I’m pooped,” she said. “We’ll see you guys in the morning.”
Michael and I were left in the kitchen to wipe up the crumbs and turn out the lights around the house. Everyone else had turned in or gone home.
“Your sister-in-law is pretty adamant, isn’t she?”
I brushed the crumbs from the table into my hand, threw them in the sink and ran water to flush them away. “I don’t know what got into her tonight. She’s usually a pussycat.”
“No, she’s nice enough, and it’s not even that I disagree with her. Hand me a towel and I’ll dry.” I threw him a towel and he picked up a plate. “I mean, she sure holds the popular opinion on religion and so forth. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would be nice to believe in something with that kind of conviction.”
“Yeah, Regina really has her faith ducks in a row.”
“You think Frank does, too?”
“Who knows? I think it’s like he said—he’s hedging his bets.”
“So are you going to this shrine in Mexico?”
“Like I have a choice? Of course I’m going. I’m taking a bunch of Catholics on a pilgrimage, for God’s sake.”
“Better you than me,” Michael said with a laugh, and slapped my butt with his wet towel.
“Ow! Come here, you!”
“What?”
I put my arms around his waist and pulled him close to me. “I just want to say thanks for being here with my crazy family and all that. You know? Thanks.”
At the door to my bedroom, he kissed me good night again and stood there grinning.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“The world. The whole world is hilarious. Merry Christmas, Grace.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too. What time is it?”
We both looked at our new wristwatches and then smiled at each other.
“Nice watch,” I said, tapping the crystal on his. “Is it new?”
“Yeah. So is yours. Nice, I mean.”
“Yeah.”
Suddenly our lame humor faded away and we were faced with each other’s thoughts. We had celebrated a religious holiday we weren’t sure we believed in, in a house filled with people who were absolutely certain. We weren’t bad people; we were just hypocrites, measly, uncommitted-to-much-of-anything weasels who wished on some level that our philosophical differences with the others could be more easily resolved.
We limped through the remainder of the holidays without another confrontation. Michael and I resumed our lives in Charleston as though we had never spent a Christmas without my family. I thought that things were really good between all of us and I had thanked my mother a thousand times for inviting Michael for Christmas and New Year’s. She was unusually sweet about our visit, telling me that she understood how I felt and that she could see why Michael was so important to me.
January was moving slowly, but then Michael’s headaches returned. He didn’t say so, but I knew it. His eyes became dark and he was completely distracted. For me, it became a time of waiting, and the silence between Michael and me grew, deepening with each day.
There were only hours remaining before I left for Mexico. Michael was to join me in Cancún at the end of the week as we had planned. I organized his clothes for him and was looking for his sandals. The phone rang. It was Dr. Papenburg.
“Michael’s not here. Can I give him a message?”
“No. Um, HIPAA laws, you know. Just ask him to call me, okay?”
“Oh. Sure. Has he been in to see you?”
“Ms. Russo, you know I can’t discuss that with you.” Then his voice went from officious to kind. “Listen, I just think it’s best if I could get Michael in here to see him and talk to him.”
“Well, we’re going to Mexico together—that is, I’m leaving tomorrow and he’s coming down Sunday. Can this wait?”
He hesitated and then I heard him sigh. “Sure. You two have a good vacation and tell him I called. And to call me when he comes back. Okay?”
“Okay. Sure.”
He didn’t have to say the word. Once again, it was the unspoken that told me everything. I had no intention of telling Michael anything. I knew his cancer had returned. The phone rang again and it was my mother. My heart was pounding so fast I thought I might faint, and now I had to speak to my mother and pretend everything was all right? It was not possible because she heard the panic in my voice.
“What’s happened?” she said. “Do you need me to come?”
“No. It won’t change anything. Oh, Mom! I knew the minute I heard Dr. Papenburg’s voice that Michael had had another MRI and that something was wrong. I mean, I knew he was having headaches. I could see it! He wasn’t eating. He’s been nauseated. The whole evil thing is coming back! Mom! Michael’s going to die! He’s going to die!”
“Grace! No! Stop it! You have to get control of yourself! You’re not helping Michael or yourself if you’re hysterical!”
“You wouldn’t be hysterical?”
“Of course I would, but I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you…pray for him, Grace.”
“You pray for Michael, Mom! You pray! I can’t pray to a God I don’t believe in. He would laugh at me! Oh, what am I saying?”
I began to sob and I could hear my mother breathing heavily on the other end of the phone.
“Grace. Listen to me. You’re going to Mexico tomorrow. And you’re going to see one of the biggest miracles in the history of the Catholic Church. This story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is no joke. Go over to St. Mary’s and ask this priest friend of yours to tell you about it. Do it, Grace. Go right now.”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, call him, Grace. Call him.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Oh, Grace. I’m so sorry, honey…”
That was all I could bear. I disconnected my mother and cried for an hour. I wasn’t calling Father John. I would’ve felt ridiculous. I knew him, but I didn’t know him well enough to confide something so horrible. He wasn’t my pastor; he was my client. I knew Father John would make me feel better, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t about me. I wanted Michael’s brain cancer to be gone forever. I wanted it to disappear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MEXICO CITY
It had not been easy to leave Michael and it had been even more difficult to keep the secret from him that Papenburg had called. Surely he could see that I knew his cancer had returned because I was so acutely aware of his agony. But there was no reason to lay it all out then. He would’ve said that he wasn’t going to meet me in Cancún. Knowing what I knew, he would’ve canceled the last vacation we would ever have together. I would have said that I agreed with him, that I understood why he didn’t feel like flying thousands of miles to go to a beach when what he really wanted was to figure out how fast they could put his cancer into remission again and to get busy doing that. But he didn’t say anything and I didn’t either.
When I left the house, Michael and I hung on to each other. We were being brave for each other and we both knew he was doomed.
“I’ll call you as soon as I get there,” I said.
“Okay, good. And I’ll see you in a few days. Have a safe trip.”
“Yeah, and you behave yourself, Mr. Higgins.”
That was about all we said and I left with heaviness in my heart like I had
never known.
My group boarded the plane, settled in their seats and the flight took off without a hitch. There was nothing better or more desirable than an uneventful takeoff except for an uneventful landing. As soon as we were at thirty thousand feet and the seat-belt light went off, I got up to check on everyone. They were a sweet group of seniors who were very excited to be headed to Mexico City. I told them I had my grandmother’s rosary with me to be blessed and they agreed on the importance of it, encouraging me to buy one for every member of the family. Why not?
The dinner on the plane was chicken with rice and vegetables. I made sure everyone had what they wanted and was surprised to see almost all of them order double cocktails or double wine. Maybe the trip wouldn’t be so dull after all.
I decided to order some vino myself and drank it with my meal. Once I had any time to think, my thoughts turned back to Michael and what would become of him and of me. Then I thought about traveling with all these nice people who viewed this little jaunt as a pilgrimage. I was certainly an unlikely character to lead such a thing.
I remembered that in Sardinia I’d had that odd experience at the church, watching all the women praying the rosary, and then running outside, ill and fainting, waking up to a shake of my arm. What had happened to me? And then there was the weird business of being overwhelmed at midnight Mass by the vibration of all those people praying together.
Was Mary waiting for me in Mexico City? I laughed to myself then, remembering. If you were really in trouble, I’d been told as a child, she was able to intercede on your behalf with her Son, whom we all believed was anything but a number two guy. There had been many occasions when I had begged Mary for something to happen—a teacher to be ill on the day of a test I had forgotten to study for, or for someone to ask me to a homecoming dance. Mary had always pulled through, although she didn’t seem to be willing to render my enemies pockmarked by horrific acne. I laughed to myself remembering the depth of my youthful devotion. It seemed so ridiculous to me now.
Somewhere along the line I had surely fallen off the boat. There was a rule to be followed for almost every act of living and a penalty if the rules were broken. Ugh, the list was too long and dreary. What was I supposed to do?
Catholicism was inconvenient when you reveled in indulging yourself in the glittering world of material desire. The older I became, the less attractive religion became. I mean, I loved the ideas of Buddhism, and believed in not harming the earth, yourself or anyone else. And I was totally on board about the importance of compassion, with the possible exception of Marianne and a few others. But I wasn’t about to throw away my shoe collections and go join an ashram. And I doubted if I would ever see the Buddha that dwelled within Marianne.
It wasn’t like I could go out and join the Episcopal Church or some other Protestant denomination. Talk about awkward moments? Me receiving Communion in a Protestant church—that’s awkward. Being a Catholic progeny of Connie and Al was like being Brazilian. You couldn’t wake up one day and decide to be Swedish. You were a Catholic—good, bad, cafeteria style or indifferent—and that was it. I was somewhere in between lax and indifferent, but I didn’t believe for a minute that such a position would send me to hell. Okay, I fretted about it sometimes in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t possessed by it.
I looked up to see Father John. The seat next to me was empty. He must have heard my thoughts in the air and come around to issue a penance.
“Do you mind if I join you for a few minutes?” he said.
“No, of course not,” I said. I gathered the magazines in the empty spot and pushed them under the seat in front of me. I thought, Great, I’m trapped now.
“You appear to be concentrating on something serious. I thought I’d come over and see if I could help.”
I patted his arm. “Oh, thanks, Father. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”
“Well, I don’t mean to pry, of course…”
“Oh, gosh, no, it’s not that. You’re not the prying kind. I’m just sitting here thinking about life in general. And about what a lousy Catholic I am.”
“Why are you a lousy Catholic?”
“Well, I don’t go to Mass, I haven’t been to confession in years, I don’t think birth control is wrong, and I’m pro-choice.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t make you a lousy Catholic, Grace.”
“It doesn’t?”
“It doesn’t nominate you for sainthood, but it doesn’t mean you can’t reconcile your differences with the Church.”
“Well, how about this? I’m not opposed to gay marriage, but I am wildly opposed to the pedophiles within the clergy…”
“Grace.” Father John took a deep breath and then chuckled. “Oh, Grace. Anyone with a brain is opposed to pedophiles. It’s horrible! But the Church is deeply committed to an entire cleanup of the clergy.”
“It’s about time. Sorry, but it is.”
Father John shrugged. “I completely agree with you.”
“Okay, but what about all the other issues?”
“Look, the worst thing you can do is practice situational ethics. That is, it’s wrong to engage in something that’s strictly forbidden by the Church because it suits you to do so. But let’s take the issues one at a time.”
“Okay, but look, Father, I don’t want you to feel obliged to slug this out with me. I mean, you’re on vacation!”
“Yes, but the rest of our group is in a perfect state of grace.”
“How do you know that?”
“They’re asleep. Every last one of them.”
I stood up enough to glance over them, and sure enough, they all had their eyes closed.
“Amazing,” I said.
“Look, we can sum this all up in the same way we did when we discussed various ways to conceive a child. Churches have an obligation to provide us with their very best thought on how to live a righteous life, right?”
“Yeah, but Rome’s a little stringent for some of us.”
“Just hear me out…”
“Sorry.”
“Hundreds of dedicated people, men and women, come together all the time and try to tackle all the issues you mentioned and others. They think them through and have plenty of discussion. Loads of it! Their conclusions are based on what they believe would be the most pleasing to God. Then they advise us on how to approach things like birth control and attendance of Mass.”
“And?”
“And they issue guidelines.”
“Which only a saint can follow to the letter.”
“That’s exactly right! Look, the last time we discussed your family, I seem to recall that you implied their devotion seemed a little, well, too much for you. Is that right?”
“You have no idea.” I felt a pang of guilt. “Look, what do I know? They mean well. They really do. It’s just that they think there’s a novena or a saint’s intervention to solve every situation in the book and I don’t.”
“For example…your boyfriend, Michael? How’s he doing, by the way? He was sick, right?”
“Yeah, he’s very ill.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Isn’t he supposed to join you at the end of the week?”
“Yes. We’re going to spend a few days in Cancún…worse, he doesn’t know he’s as sick as he is. I do. Wait! This is a perfect example! Here you go! If we were on the ground and life was different for me, I would go to church and pray and then I would feel better about everything. But because I can’t swallow all the canon law of the Church, I can’t go there and feel welcome. That’s not right. Is it?”
“No, it’s not right and it’s also not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are welcome in my church anytime. In fact, you are welcome in any church at any time. I am sure of that much. But at some point, you have to commit.” His face was very kindly, in fact, so loving I was inclined to agree with his assessment that I used God only as necessary, like nasal spray.
“You mean, like have
a relationship?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Father John straightened himself in the seat and said, “Grace, if you want me to be your good shepherd and bring you back into the fold, you’re going to have to buy me a scotch.”
We burst out laughing. “Done!” I waved at the flight attendant, got her attention and ordered two scotches and a minibottle of Pinot Grigio for me. “Will save souls for booze?”
“Something like that. Now, where were we?”
For the next hour or so, Father John and I hashed it out. On some issues he agreed there was some latitude, and on others, he wasn’t budging. Finally, after agreeing to continue to pray for Michael, he returned to his seat, leaving me with enough to think about for the next fifty years.
That was his single goal—to make me think. How was I living my life, where was I going with it, and what kind of a woman did I want to become? Most important, did I want God to have a role in my life, and if so, how much of one?
There was time enough to give the revival of my spiritual life serious reflection. There was no imminent reason to decide anything at that moment or even that week or month. It was only important for me to have an open mind and a reasonably clear conscience. And to think.
Late in the afternoon, we landed in Mexico City, got our luggage and made our way to the hotel. Mexico City was a maze of ancient buildings and modern architecture. Everywhere you looked there was an interesting alley or side street filled with people, street vendors and the smells of food. Our driver, Miguel, barely spoke English, but it was better than my Spanish. He only needed to know where to take us, and somehow we managed to converse. The burning question was about where to have dinner and Miguel suggested a place in the north end of the city, near the famous Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was a charming and lively area and it would give our group a chance to get familiar with the neighborhood, since they intended to spend the bulk of the weekend there. I’d been given the name of a place near our hotel, but Miguel’s suggestion was infinitely more appealing. We agreed to meet in the lobby at six.
The first thing I did was call my father to thank him.
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