Mercy House

by Alena Dillon

  He returned at the same time the next morning, and he slipped his hand into hers to commend her for her efforts. Then he recommended she use more starch when cleaning his collars and cassocks. This was 1962 and she was a nun in training—she wasn’t used to being commended for anything, especially not by a priest. She didn’t care that it was followed by criticism; she had to stop herself from squeezing him back too eagerly.

  The day after that, his fingertips lingered over a strand of hair that had loosened from her veil. He rubbed it between his fingers. “I admit, sometimes I wonder what it all looks like under there. But I suppose there’s a reason it must be left to the imagination,” he said before tucking the piece back. Uneasiness flickered inside Evelyn then, like the hint of nausea before sickness hits, but she said nothing. She wasn’t allowed to.

  After a couple weeks of increasing intimacy—his hand lingering on her knee as he sat beside her in a pew; holding the small of her back as they walked down a deserted hall; the front of his body briefly pressing against her backside as he passed by her—Evelyn felt a strange mix of caution and fondness about their budding friendship. But he was a priest, and she trusted he knew where the line of propriety fell better than she did.

  Then, one morning after a service, Father Hawkins again appeared in the sacristy when he wasn’t supposed to. Evelyn was washing a wine-stained altar linen in the piscina, a basin whose drain emptied directly into the ground to prevent holy liquid from entering the septic system. He watched her work over her shoulder, standing so close she could feel his breath on her neck. He smelled of incense and all the leftover consecrated port he’d swallowed from the chalice after Communion had been distributed.

  “That’s some spot. I can’t believe I was so sloppy,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and Evelyn thought he felt guilty for adding more work to her load. She made a hand gesture to indicate it was nothing he should worry about. “I bet other priests are just as bad, if not worse,” he said, and Evelyn was aware then that his breathing was irregular. “But I don’t want you to think of me as just another priest.” He swallowed, and she could hear the thickness of his saliva as his tongue slopped against the roof his mouth. “I certainly don’t think of you as just another nun. Or nun in formation, I suppose.” Then he stepped forward and moved his groin against her, digging himself into her backside. “We have a special bond, don’t we?”

  She froze. Although she’d never experienced such a thing before, she recognized his hardness immediately, and it made her insides feel rotten. She moved toward the door but he held her waist in an unforgiving grip and said, “Stay. There’s work to be done. You have your chores. Your obediences. I admire you, Evelyn. When I’m with you, I can’t, I just can’t . . .” He trailed off and began rocking himself against her.

  Heat flooded from her neck down her chest. She crushed her stomach against the basin, trying to create distance between them. But he only shifted forward after her.

  This was the age of Vatican I; she was supposed to save all her words for the forty-five minutes following lunch and dinner. But one word, “Please,” escaped her lips.

  “Shhhhh.” His fingers clumsily groped her cheek and then fell down to clasp her waist again for leverage. His lurching quickened, and soon became urgent, causing the basin to shake the wall behind it. The silver Communion items on the adjacent counter—the chalice, ciborium, paten, and cruets—clattered against the marble top.

  The many layers of their holy clothes were not thick enough to protect Evelyn. Her back was clammy with sweat. Her throat knotted. She struggled to breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut and silently prayed Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” By the end of the verse, tears spilled down her face and dripped off her chin into the basin, joining the stream of sacred waters. Where are you, Lord? her mind screamed. Where are you?

  Finally, Father Hawkins quaked behind her. He groaned with parted lips and shoved his crotch into her body with four deliberate and ever-slowing thrusts, soiling both of their robes. After, released from the throws of his lust, he cleared his throat, dropped his hands from her hips, and stepped backward.

  “You tempted me, damn you,” he said, his tone derisive. “These cassocks will need cleaning. Consider it part of your penance.”

  When he was gone, she bent over the basin reserved for consecrated liquid and vomited down the drain. Stomach acid burned her nose and throat. She remained stooped over the ceramic, alternatively spitting and gasping for breath. Her gasps became sobs. She knew, even then, that he’d fractured something inside her, something that would never fully heal. She could never be the same, and the truth of that nearly brought her to her knees.

  When she’d caught her breath, she searched the sacristy for guidance, for answers. Should she run to her bedroom and hide there until someone came looking? Stay right here and scream for help? Go find somebody? But who? Another novitiate? A pronounced nun? The wicked Mother Superior? Some nuns revered Father Hawkins. What if it they believed she’d tempted him?

  What if she had? What if she’d inherited the trait of her biblical namesake—what if she’d turned a good man evil?

  Evie stayed quiet. She memorized Father Hawkins’s schedule and avoided his routes as best she could. But he knew where to find her.

  He joined her in the sacristy again the following week. In the passing years, what would terrify Evelyn the most would be the detached expression on his face as he cornered her. He appeared unmoved by her pleading. His jaw was set and his eyes were unseeing. He pressed her against the basin like a butcher slaughtering a lamb. This time he wanted more and gathered up handfuls of her robes until her backside was exposed. He wrenched her underwear aside and sliced into her like a hunting knife.

  When he finished he said, “Serving your priest is akin to serving your God.” Then he left her there hollowed out, her sacred virginity torn to shreds.

  She’d entered the convent as she was meant to—as pure and clean as fresh linens. But the blood and semen dripping between her legs permanently stained that fabric. And if she gave herself over to God, He would see that imperfection. It was part of her. It could not be erased.

  She continued to wear a white veil along with the other novitiates, although she felt her filth like sticky grime on her skin. She continued to pray, do chores, and keep her vow of silence. And he continued to rape her.

  After several months of regularity, his visits grew further and further apart until they stopped altogether. Evie didn’t know if he’d simply grown bored or if he’d found another target. And although she was relieved it was over, there was a small part of her tucked away in the darkest corner of her mind that felt rejected. He’d cast her aside, just as her family had. She was incidental. A throwaway. And she despised the part of her that seemed to want the abuse to continue. She tried to drown that part with sacramental wine, cough syrup, or Sister Mary Joseph’s secret stash of whiskey. She was drunk for as much of the days as she could manage, slurring through morning prayer, tripping through her chores, vomiting before lunch. But she didn’t care. That despicable part of her made her unworthy of not just the habit, but of life itself.

  In the dead of night, she stole the scissors used to shear the hair of women about to take their first professions, and brought them to the common bathroom. She sobbed without constraint, her face cracked open and ugly in the small mirror above the sink. Her family had put her in the convent, had forgotten about her, and was too busy with their own lives to notice she’d been desecrated. Father Robert Hawkins acted like he was entitled to her, until he grew bored of her. Her soul had been sullied and she was alone. No family, no friends, no intact identity—no sign of God, even. Maybe He was disappointed in her for what she’d done, or for what she hadn’t done—she was letting Father Hawkins move on to the
next girl, letting another person feel that destitute. But she was disappointed in God too. He’d let this happen to her. She’d lived her entire life by the teachings and rituals of the Catholic Church. Now a supposedly sacred man did something so wicked, she didn’t know what to believe. Evelyn pressed the sharp blade against her wrist so hard it cut through skin.

  That’s when Eloise found her.

  Eloise stepped forward as if this was exactly what she had expected to find. She took the scissors from Evelyn with one hand, wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the open cut, and squeezed to stop the blood. Then she broke the Profound Silence. “Tell me,” she said, looking directly into Evelyn’s eyes. “Tell me what happened to you.”

  Evelyn’s lips quivered around her opened mouth. She bent over and cried so hard the sounds were strangled in her throat until she heaved in the breath of the drowning.

  “I’m a fake,” she choked out. “I’m not good. I’m not holy.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Her knees buckled beneath her, but Eloise held her up. “How can I give myself to God when I’m so full of sin?”

  “We’re all sinners. You know that.” Eloise struggled to hold Evelyn up any longer; she let the scissors clatter to the floor, braced Evelyn, and lowered them both to the tile.

  Evelyn shook her head. “Not like me.” She pressed her eyes closed and said, “I’m Eve. A temptress. ‘For God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.’”

  Recognition hardened behind Eloise’s features. “Who was it?” she asked. “Father O’Reilly?” Evelyn twisted away from Eloise so she didn’t have to look at her and rested her forehead against the cool wall. “Father Hawkins?”

  Hearing his name flooded her insides with wretchedness like rising muddy water; Evelyn’s face cracked open. “I don’t deserve to become a nun . . .” Her shoulders shuddered with a new wave of sobs. “I’m ruined.”

  Eloise stroked her arm. “Something terrible happened to you. It’s him who doesn’t deserve to be a priest. He is the ruined one.”

  “I don’t know what to do. Even if I told the church what he did, nothing would happen,” Evelyn said between gasps. “They’d protect him.”

  “The church might protect him. But when the time comes, God won’t.” Eloise slipped her fingers through Evelyn’s. “And until then, I’ll protect you, if you like.”

  And so Evelyn stayed in the Catholic Church and continued to find her way through the dark—because, it turned out, there was light too.

  * * *

  January 2010

  “When is he coming?” Evelyn asked between clenched teeth. She was afraid if she opened her mouth too widely she’d be sick.

  “In one week.”

  That fact precipitated a cold sweat on Evelyn’s lower back.

  “How long does he plan to stay?” Maria asked as a shrill whisper.

  “As long as it takes. And that’s a quote,” Josephine answered. She patted the front of her body until she found what she was searching for in her front cardigan pocket—a pack of cigarettes. Winston Red, the same brand she’d smoked since Evelyn met her back in the late 1960s.

  Maria’s brow furrowed and she bit down on the knuckle of her index finger. “Goodness.”

  “It gets worse,” Josephine continued, tapping the bottom of the pack against the heel of her hand, without pausing to retrieve a stick. “He’s staying here.”

  “Here?” Evelyn demanded.

  Josephine nodded. “Here.”

  “But we’re women. He’s a man, and we’re women,” Maria said, gesturing clumsily to her female-specific body parts. Josephine shrugged.

  Evelyn knew some men could just elbow their way into anyone’s business, regardless of how uncomfortable it made them feel. To reassure Maria, she said, “I don’t think we’re his type,” although she knew that wasn’t true.

  “Evelyn,” Josephine scolded. “You have no reason to believe—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Evelyn interrupted. “I won’t allow him to sleep on our sidewalk, never mind under our roof.”

  Josephine’s head jutted forward. “I’m sure you realize sleeping arrangements are the least of our concerns. We can’t allow this.” She sighed, forced her shoulders to relax, lowered her voice, and said, “We can’t allow him to see what we do here, what we’ve done.”

  Evelyn pressed her eyelids closed. She thought of the five residents; they were all at varying levels of physical and emotional recovery, and none were ready yet to be on their own. And what of the other girls still on the streets, future residents yet to arrive? The sisters still had work to do. She’d have to swallow her odium as well as her pride and face the man she dreaded with courtesy and restraint.

  But that wasn’t all. Somehow, she’d also have to prevent the Hawk from investigating their operation. If he looked too closely, he’d find a reason to shut them down. And she couldn’t allow that.

  She would have thought it a terrible coincidence that the man who so violently attacked her also happened to be the man to investigate her. But because there was such a high incidence of sexual assault by priests, it wasn’t unlikely that one of the holy men participating in the apostolic visitation would be guilty of such a crime. And since they were visiting all orders in the United States, someone would have to be the nun to face her rapist. Evelyn supposed it might as well be her. She couldn’t bear to wonder how many other hers of Bishop Hawkins there were.

  When she opened her eyes, she said, “He’s coming. There’s little we can do about that. So let him come. Let him see what he can find.” Then Evelyn sighed, as if to exhale the stress of one issue from her body before addressing the next. “We have another problem. Our newest guest. Lucia.”

  “Lovely girl,” Maria said. “We’re both Libras.”

  “Yeah, well, she doesn’t run in lovely circles. You might be familiar with her boyfriend.”

  Josephine’s forehead wrinkled. “Does he belong to the parish?”

  “I wish. It’s Angel Perez, of Los Soldados. Needless to say, his first name is ironic.”

  “Crap baskets,” Maria said.

  “Yeah. Major crap baskets,” Evelyn agreed.

  Josephine shrugged. “Well, what can we do?”

  Evelyn leaned forward and made a point to keep her voice hushed despite her rising anxiety. “You don’t think this is an issue?”

  “It’s not ideal, of course. But what choice do we have? You aren’t suggesting we kick her out?”

  Evelyn sat back on her heels. Over the years her feet had lost their once angular shape, bloating and bowing into rounded hooves. They ached all day long. “No, of course not.”

  Maria’s arms wrapped around the front of her body, as if she were embracing herself. “But Evelyn has a right to be concerned. Angel probably isn’t the type to simply let ‘his woman’ go,” she said, using finger quotes and a macho voice for emphasis. “He and his boys are bound to look for her. We need to be cautious. Not just for her sake, but for the safety of the other girls.”

  The sisters knew the residents’ abusers could pose a threat. Over the past couple decades, they’d had several men—boyfriends, husbands, stepfathers, fathers, uncles, acquaintances—yelling on their front porch, pounding on their door and windows, dropping nasty letters in their mailbox, calling their phone, and lurking around the corner, waiting for the chance to spot their victim.

  Because of these hazardous interactions, the nuns activated a top-of-the-line security system at night and enforced a policy that the residents couldn’t answer the door themselves.

  But they’d never dealt with a gang leader before. Evelyn shuddered to think what Angel Perez was capable of. In his case, they’d need to take a further precaution.

  Evelyn said, “So we’re in agreement. Since she can’t be seen outside, Lucia is on house arrest. She can’t leave the premises for any reason whatsoever—at least until we can confirm Angel and his crew have moved on, or until we move her to another l
ocation, outside his jurisdiction, for lack of a better word.”

  Josephine shook her head. “This isn’t a prison, Evelyn. And we aren’t prison officers.”

  Evelyn stuffed her hands in her pockets. “True. But if a child was taken out to sea, would a mother not swim after her because she wasn’t a lifeguard?”

  Chapter 5

  Lucia

  My mom acted like she was just one good fuck away from becoming a millionaire. Every Saturday night she squeezed into the same hoochie dress from the G Spot, her ass hanging out one end and her tits falling out the other, and she wiggled her middle-aged-lady feet, bunions and all, into magenta strappy stilettos she had to glue back together every morning because they were plastic pieces of shit.

  While she clipped on her big hoop earrings, she saw my reflection in the hallway mirror and said, “Wish me luck, nena. I’m getting me some of that rich yucca tonight.”

  I was going out too, so I stood behind her, painting liquid liner onto my lids. I didn’t need a mirror. I could make my eyes smoky riding a bus on the fucking BQE. “Good luck.”

  “Mira,” she said, and turned to face me. Then she slid her hand down my tank top and scooped my tits up to the top of my bra. “Let those chiches out. They can’t breathe stuffed down in there.”

  “Don’t touch me like that. It’s weird,” I said, pushing her hand away.