Mercy House

by Alena Dillon

  According to the pope, Evelyn had committed a crime against the church, no matter her reasons. And according to Exodus, she should pay for that crime with her life. She prayed both sources were wrong, but worry still itched the back of her skull and crawled around her belly like a pile of worms.

  The next instance arrived almost a year later. A man murdered his wife, and then raped his fourteen-year-old daughter in the same room. That time, as Evelyn was leaving the house, prepared to escort the pregnant girl to a clinic, Josephine placed her hand on Evelyn’s shoulder. Her face was drawn when she whispered, “Let me help you.”

  * * *

  January 2010

  Evelyn holed up in the attic for days, descending only for GIA meetings, meals, neighborhood walks, and sleep. She relied on the other sisters to run the house: cleaning, cooking, administrative duties, counseling, and rehabilitating the girls. When Evelyn retreated upstairs, she was sent off with a grateful smile from Josephine or a hand squeeze from Maria. Though they didn’t often discuss the labors being conducted in the attic—morally questionable acts in their deceit and fraudulence—they all agreed about the necessity, and appreciated her efforts and willingness to conduct the dirty work. Occasionally Mei-Li surfaced with a sandwich, a genuine smile, and a tender touch of Evelyn’s hand that quieted the rough waters of her soul, if only for a moment.

  After hours of concentration, her mind was weary and needed rest. She allowed her gaze to wander the attic, and when it landed on her keepsake box, she indulged in a small break.

  She lifted the lid with some trepidation, knowing not all memories were fond. Some were haunting. This was where she stored her ghosts.

  Draped along the top of the pile was the rosary her father had given her when she joined the nunnery. His mother had given them to him when she sent him to the United States at fourteen years old because she couldn’t afford to keep him and his siblings in Ireland. They were made of plastic ivory-colored beads that appeared yellow with age, but Evelyn knew they looked that way from the beginning. When her father had laced them around her fingers in the car outside the convent, he’d said, “I hope I haven’t given you too much.” And she resented him for those words. What her father should have said was that he had no right to make such a vow to God in the first place. Their relationship in those years had become strained already. He was charismatic with children, but distant with adults; she, his youngest, had just entered womanhood, and he was finding more and more comfort in his bottle of Jameson. That send-off sentiment severed what little connection remained. A young Evelyn gripped the rosary in her hand and replied flatly, “You haven’t.” And then she got out of the car and began the process of becoming Sister Mary Michael.

  In the attic, Evelyn placed the rosary on the scarred wood floor beside her and lifted out a curling black-and-white photo of her parents and four older siblings standing in front of their brownstone apartment in Park Slope. The back was labeled with faded pen: All of us. 1962. She’d received this rare correspondence from her family in the period when Father Hawkins was assaulting her, back when she felt like a worthless shell of a human. The phrasing written on the back—all of us—had been like a kick to the ribs while she was already moaning on the floor. She’d thought, What about me?

  In the photo, Sean, her oldest brother, was standing on the edge of the group, a gap between him and their mother. It would be only a few years until he’d no longer be part of “all of us” either.

  The next layer was a wide-toothed wooden comb that had belonged to Eloise. She used to misplace it on a regular basis in the convent, and Evelyn always knew where it was. When Eloise left, Evelyn found it on one of the sinks in the bathroom and suspected, this time, it was forgotten purposefully. She kept it as a reminder of the person who had lifted her up from the fragmented heap Father Hawkins had left behind.

  Beneath the comb was a black-and-white photo of Evelyn and Eloise from the day they took their vows and became Sister Mary Michael and Sister Incarnata. They wore their full habits and stood shoulder to shoulder on the stone steps of the convent chapel. Eloise beamed at the camera with that open grin that showed the love she had for the world. And while young Evelyn faced front, she was looking at her friend in a way that still embarrassed old Evelyn.

  She reached in for the next item: a tarnished silver flask. Vatican II ended nun prohibition, and so, when Eloise left, Evelyn didn’t need to turn to cough syrup to dull her grief. They kept a supply of whiskey in the common room. Evelyn filled and emptied that flask more often than she prayed.

  * * *

  April 4, 1968

  Evelyn was drunk the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

  It had been almost a year since Eloise had signed the indult of secularization, was given a small sum called a charity by the church—so that she wouldn’t turn to prostitution to support herself, like another deserted nun had—and left the order.

  Evelyn had rolled out of bed at eight in the morning and gone straight to work at the hospital without speaking to anybody, and, when she returned, she retreated to her room to listen to Buddy Holly records. Those days, she acted more like a stranger with too many roommates than like a nun living in a community.

  On the night of April 4, Evelyn staggered into the recreation room, singing the Buddy Holly song she’d been listening to on repeat under her breath. When she saw a crowd gathered around the television, watching Walter Cronkite at his news desk, she said, “Guess I missed the invitation to the party.”

  Josephine said, “Didn’t you hear? Dr. King was shot.”

  Evelyn blinked, trying to fight her way out of her haze. After a moment, she gave up, staggered toward the liquor cabinet, and retrieved a fresh bottle. She cradled it in the crook of her elbow and teetered back to her room.

  The next morning, Evelyn shuffled into the kitchen wearing her modified nursing habit and found Josephine fixing herself a cup of coffee. Josephine smiled sadly and said, “I woke up this morning with such a heavy heart.”

  Evelyn pulled open the refrigerator door. “Why’s that?”

  “Because of Dr. King, of course.”

  Evelyn grabbed the pitcher of orange juice and placed it on the counter. Then she opened a cabinet to retrieve a glass. “What about Dr. King?”

  When seconds passed without a response, Evelyn abandoned her hunt for a clean glass and turned to Josephine, whose eyes were wide. Evelyn rolled her shoulders back defensively.

  “Oh, Evelyn,” Josephine said as an entreaty. “It’s time.”

  Just as Eloise had a few years before, over the next couple months, Josephine nursed Evelyn back to sobriety, through the shaking, insomnia, and vomiting, through the hopelessness and anger. And, in a way, she and Maria never stepped down from that post.

  * * *

  January 2010

  In the attic, Evelyn’s knees throbbed, so she shifted onto her backside and stretched out her legs. Her body wasn’t used to these contortions and would punish her all night.

  The next item she handled with care—a stiffened letter Eloise had penned after she moved to Washington, D.C., to promote the Poor People’s Campaign. It was just one of many letters and phone calls she’d received from Eloise over the course of the year that went unanswered.

  March 1, 1968

  Dear Evelyn,

  Things are going well in this neck of the woods as we fight to improve the economic disparity in this country. The more noise we make, the more likely we’ll be heard, and I do believe people—important people—are beginning to listen. What we are demanding isn’t radical. It’s basic human decency, an opportunity for people of all creeds and colors to earn a living wage. To give the possibility of prosperity to all. To right what has for so long been wrong.

  It’s true what you see on television. Dr. King is an inspiration, and a disciple of God. Any honest Christian knows he is a 20th-century model of Jesus’s teachings, with a love for God as well as a love for his fellow man. Of course he is fallib
le—susceptible to temptation like anyone else—but he is a powerful symbol, a visionary, and an engine of change. I thank the Lord for his influence.

  If you feel called to join the movement, there is always room for you here. We would benefit from your wry humor, work ethic, and intelligence. But if you feel you’d be of more use at the hospital and in the convent, I respect that. Either way, please get in touch with me. It saddens me that I haven’t heard from you in eight months. I wish you’d send a note, even if just to say you are okay. You are important to me. We were such friends. The kind that, even in silence, can make each other laugh so hard someone pees a little. (Remember trying to wash the urine out of my big old habit in that tiny sink! To this day, whenever I picture your impression of Sister James Marie sleeping in Mass, I have to look for the nearest bathroom.) We were the kind of friends you’re lucky to make once in a lifetime. I don’t expect to find another.

  I miss you. Let’s forget about what happened in Newark.

  Your friend,

  Eloise

  “Watcha reading?” Maria’s bright voice chirped, startling Evelyn. Her head popped up through the hatch like an alert prairie dog’s. Evelyn wiped her eyes and Maria’s facial expression dropped. “Took a trip down memory lane?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Is that a letter from Eloise?” she asked, craning her neck to see for herself.

  Evelyn dropped the letter back into her box, stuffed the other items on top, and closed the lid. “I should get back to our records.”

  “If you say so. Who’s up to bat?”

  It was day three of Evelyn’s sorting, and she’d managed to arrive at the year 2000. She might have worked her way through the records more quickly, but it was impossible not to reminisce. Her mind often wandered, reflecting back on each of their residents—on the many ways Mercy House had helped them, and the ways in which it hadn’t.

  She pulled out the next record. “A beauty, this one. Marina Esposito. Remember her?”

  Maria snorted, surely recalling Marina’s frequent display of personality fireworks. She often screamed at other residents over minor infractions, and one time even threw a coffee mug at another girl for daring to comment that Marina wasn’t much of a morning person. When Josephine insisted Marina apologize and take responsibility for her actions, Marina slapped Josephine across the face. Picturing Josephine’s fast blinking and sputtering expression of shock still made Evelyn snicker, albeit guiltily.

  “Which pile does our dear Mrs. Esposito belong to?” Maria asked, nodding to the two stacks before Evelyn.

  “Oh, she’s a keeper,” Evelyn said and slipped the file into one of the many boxes on her right. Evelyn wasn’t particularly proud of that case—Marina had stayed at Mercy House for only three nights before returning to her husband and children; Evelyn suspected the retreat was more of a statement to her family in an effort to be appreciated than a needed safe haven. But, in that case, the sisters had done everything by the book. There was nothing to hide. And so the record would stay.

  The box to the left—the files to . . . modify—currently held forty folders, which wasn’t so shocking considering the number that could stand untouched, but Evelyn knew the nuns had become even more progressive at the turn of the century, so the percentage needing modification was bound to increase.

  So far, their forty crimes included helping women secure birth control; encouraging divorce, and then guiding victims through the process; supporting lesbians without any attempt to make them repent their sexuality; releasing women into the houses of their unmarried lovers without encouraging marriage in the Catholic Church; confirming a woman’s autistic son in a private ceremony after a local priest reported the boy was incapable of such a mental commitment; Sister Maria’s practice of Eastern medicine; and providing marijuana to treat anxiety. What they didn’t contain, what Evelyn couldn’t bear to put in writing despite her years of training in compulsive record-keeping as a nurse, despite the house’s need for meticulous records in obtaining grants or using them as evidence in the women’s future court cases, was the most significant, the most blatant and shameful crime against the Catholic Church: arranging and accompanying women as they obtained abortions.

  Most women didn’t have the finances to pay for the procedures themselves, so the sisters often funded them too. They resorted to money outside church subsidies and grants—which sometimes meant participating in clinical trials and donating their blood plasma to pharmaceutical companies. “Well, Sisters,” Evelyn had once said, lying on a gurney beside Josephine and Maria. “We are quite literally selling our bodies for cash. Wouldn’t Mother Superior be proud?”

  Because Evelyn’s conflicted feeling about this practice prevented her from putting it in writing, at least she wouldn’t have to destroy the abortion files. But, sitting in the attic, she’d have to cook up new files to replace the other incriminating cases. It would have been wise if they’d behaved like corrupt accountants all along, keeping two sets of books for Mercy House—one for their own records, and one for Big Brother, or should she say Big Father. But Evelyn never would have guessed they’d have to undergo such scrutiny, that they’d have to defend the service to which they’d committed their lives. Especially when her male counterparts, the Catholic priests, had been and continued to be so fiercely defended, although many were guilty of the indefensible.

  “Evelyn, have we done the right thing?” Maria asked. There was something about the raw sincerity in her voice, the cartoon emotion in her eyes, and the way her head tilted to the side, that reminded Evelyn of the velveteen rabbit—the character from the children’s book her older brother Sean sometimes read to her—neglected by its owner, desperate for love.

  Evelyn wasn’t sure if Maria was referring to their past deeds—or misdeeds, depending on their judges—or if she was referring to the handling of these records.

  “Of course we have,” Evelyn said. Her certainty, no matter how artificial, made Maria smile.

  “Sister Evelyn, Sister Maria . . .” Josephine’s voice carried up from the first floor. There was something strained in her intonation. Suggestive. Maybe even foreboding. “Good news. Bishop Hawkins has arrived early. Won’t you come down and say hello?”

  Chapter 9

  Shit!” Evelyn spat into the dusty air. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Maria’s rounded eyes searched the attic frantically, as if the solution was hiding behind the clutter. “How do we . . . what should we . . .”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t finished yet. Not nearly.” Evelyn’s fingers stroked the forty files in the box to her left, and her eyes scanned the three boxes behind them—the ones she had yet to sort through. She was so concerned about the records over the past couple days, she hadn’t even allowed herself the time to worry about the Hawk himself. “Go, Maria. Go downstairs and say hello. Chat the prick up.”

  “And what are you going to do?” Maria whispered, as if the Hawk could hear them from two flights down.

  “Nothing good,” Evelyn answered without lifting her gaze from their twenty-five years of records, memories, accomplishments, and failures.

  Maria lingered for a moment longer. Then she reached across the plywood floor to pat Evelyn’s hand. “Bless you, Sister,” she said, and then she disappeared.

  Evelyn sat back on her heels and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I will sin.” Then she leaned forward, shimmied the top back onto the box to her right, gripped its handles, and heaved it onto another box of acceptable files. There were six boxes in all to show the bishop. Just over half their work, ending in the year 2000. It would have to be enough. She slid the six boxes aside, and then faced the remaining four—one of incriminating records and three of unsorted records—four boxes that would need to be destroyed. But how to camouflage them in case the Hawk flew upstairs? She patted her pockets, searching for a pen. None. Her eyes scanned the room, as if she might spot a box of markers stowed away—hey, stranger miracles had happened. Although appar
ently not to her, as all she spotted were mousetraps, dust motes, and the sisters’ keepsake boxes. Her eyebrow lifted.

  She crawled over to Josephine’s box, peeled off the top, and sorted through the items: a wooden Jerusalem cross pendant on a leather strap; yellowed copies of The Book of Margery Kempe and The Confessions of Saint Augustine; a suede bookmark, worn on the edges; a thin stack of lace handkerchiefs; the veil and starched guimpe from Josephine’s habit; a red-satin-covered photo album; a nickel-alloy pocket watch; assorted letters; and a stack of holy cards similar to Evelyn’s own collection—as a girl she’d collected saints the way boys collected baseball players. Nothing of use.

  Evelyn closed Josephine’s box and turned to Maria’s. She found a cream silk slip, so small Evelyn had trouble believing it had ever fit; an empty bottle of Gilbey’s London Dry Gin; a pink feather boa; a framed black-and-white family photo; several diaries locked with keyhole covers; a plastic bag of keys; some loose sepia photos of teenage girls sunbathing on the beach; a silver jewelry box; and a gold cylinder of Maybelline lipstick, sinfully red.

  Bingo.

  As strange as it was for somebody to save makeup for decades, Evelyn didn’t question it. This was her miracle. She uncapped the tube, crawled back over to the four inculpating boxes, and scrawled a red lipstick label on the side of each: “Evelyn,” “Maria,” “Josephine,” and “CHRISTmas Decorations.” Then she shoved each box toward the one with the label it duplicated. She pressed the cap on the lipstick tube until she heard it click, dropped it back into Maria’s collection, and closed the box’s lid. When she pushed herself to her feet and surveyed the room, she was out of breath, but surprisingly satisfied by the feigned organization of the attic. Everything seemed to have its place: records, memories, and decorations. It was hardly noticeable that the labels of four boxes burned with scarlet letters.