Mercy House

by Alena Dillon

  As Desiree sauntered into the room, still humming her tune, Evelyn realized what Katrina had observed in GIA earlier that week was true. While Evelyn’s body was still stiff from her conversation with the bishop, Desiree’s boundless energy was already defusing the tension in the room. “Morning, Sister,” Desiree said. Then her stare fell on the bishop. “Morning . . . creepy-as-fuck cracker.”

  Evelyn stifled a snicker. “Desiree, this is Bishop Hawkins. He’s visiting for a couple days. Bishop Hawkins, this is Desiree, one of our current residents.”

  Bishop Hawkins held out his hand in greeting. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  Desiree studied him, her mouth twisted with skepticism. When she concluded the man wasn’t worth her courtesy, she murmured, “Mm-hmm,” and turned her attention back to Evelyn. “Where’s Sister Maria at?” she asked. “I’m tired of being last in line for Reiki. She’s all out of the good energy by the time she gets to me. I woke up at the crack ass of dawn to get a primo spot, and she ain’t even here?”

  Evelyn sensed the bishop sit taller in his seat, but she refused to look at him. Damn it, Desiree. “She didn’t sleep well last night. She’s still in bed,” Evelyn said. Her mind frantically searched for a topic changer. “Hey, how about we surprise the other girls with donuts this morning? Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe you can help me place the order.”

  The bishop held up his hand to halt the conversation. “One moment, Sister,” he said and shifted his body toward Desiree. “I’m sorry, can you remind me of your name, miss?”

  Desiree took a step back and leaned up against the doorway. “Maybe you should have listened the first time.”

  His smile strained. “Please.”

  “It’s Desiree.”

  “Desiree. Very pretty,” he said. “Now, tell me, what did you say Sister Maria provides you with in the morning?” He shifted forward and clasped his hands on the table.

  Desiree’s tongue bulged beneath her lips. She eyed the bishop, clever enough to identify him as a threat, which was more than Evelyn could say for her younger self. “What are you, my probation officer? I ain’t on trial.”

  This time the bishop held up both hands, offering feigned surrender. “Of course you aren’t. You misunderstand me. I’m just curious. I simply didn’t recognize the terminology you used.”

  Desiree transferred her weight to her other leg and placed her hands on her hips. “You ain’t never heard of Reiki? It’s Japanese or Chinese or one of them eses. Healing through touch and energy and all that Eastern shit.”

  The bishop nodded thoughtfully. “Reiki. That’s what I thought you said, Desiree, I just couldn’t believe it.” He faced Evelyn. His voice was eerily pleasant considering his context as he said, “Since Reiki is a practice based on either hooey or sorcery, since it is a corruption of our Christian principles, to promote it in a Catholic-operated facility would be so clearly incompatible with our doctrine, I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Thank you so very much for repeating it. Now, I believe it.”

  Desiree’s arms dropped and her hands furled and unfurled at her side. She’d been used, a pawn in a man’s game—again. Evelyn wanted to reach out to her, to touch her shoulder, offer comfort, but she felt anchored to her seat. She ran Mercy House to save women, and there she was, allowing a man to manipulate and degrade one of her charges, right before her eyes. Because she was afraid what this man might do to Mercy House? No, more than that. She was afraid of him, plain and simple, even after all these years.

  Desiree’s mouth twitched, and then a shadow crossed over her face and seemed to still her, hardening her from the inside out. When she spoke to the bishop, it was with deliberate composure. “You may have more degrees than a thermometer, but you’re ugly as hell.” Her hands traced her figure. “These curves say God loved me best, you arrogant motherfucker.” Then she sauntered out of the room.

  The bishop’s cheeks reddened and he gripped the handle of his mug until his knuckles paled. He turned to Evelyn and said, “Wake the other sisters. I wish to speak to you all at once.”

  Chapter 10

  Upstairs, Evelyn’s heart pounded, and not just from her brisk climb. The bishop hadn’t spent more than an hour inside Mercy House, and already he’d stumbled over their skeletons and was acting as if Mercy House was a dishonor to the church. A disservice rather than a service. It didn’t bode well.

  She paused in the doorway of Desiree’s room, where she found the resident shaking a dresser by its lip and groaning her outrage.

  “Des,” Evelyn said gently, peeking her head inside. “I feel exactly the same way. But you’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Mei-Li sat up in her bed; her sweatshirt hood was pulled over her head and tied taut enough that only the very center of her face was exposed. She slept in this cotton cocoon every night. Mei-Li blinked through her grogginess, trying to make sense of Desiree’s alarming behavior.

  To her, Evelyn said, “If the bishop asks to speak with you, say as little as possible.”

  She issued the same drive-by warning in the next room, where Lucia, Katrina, and Esther stirred from their sleep. Then she continued down the hall to Maria’s and Josephine’s rooms, which were opposite each other. In her whirlwind, she felt like Paul Revere cautioning the colonists about the impending arrival of the Brits. Except, in this case, the threat wasn’t coming; it had already landed and was downstairs drinking the sisters’ coffee.

  From the hallway, Evelyn addressed both nuns, whose doors were open. “In our haste to ready the house for the bishop, we didn’t ready the girls. We didn’t tell them not to mention Reiki,” she managed to say between heaving breaths.

  “Good point,” Josephine said dazedly, squinting against the light. “We should mention that this morning.”

  “Too late.”

  Josephine pushed herself up onto her elbows. “How so?”

  “Because he’s here, and Desiree was with him, and it’s too late.”

  “He’s here?” Maria tugged her sleep mask onto her forehead. “Who let him in so early?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “He obtained his own entrance.”

  “Weasel,” Maria said.

  “Yes, yes. He doesn’t deserve the nickname the Hawk. Hawks are majestic. He’s a weasel, a mole man, a snake. He’s a lot of things, including displeased. He wants to speak to us downstairs. We need to prepare ourselves, Sisters. The nun-quisition? It has begun.”

  The three women found the bishop lounging in a living room armchair, his feet crossed at the ankle and swinging gently. Since nobody wanted to choose the seat directly beside him, the nuns crammed together onto the couch opposite the mantel. Evelyn couldn’t bear to make eye contact with the man, so she focused on the fireplace, or rather, on the wrought iron draft guard that covered the fireplace. The black square blocked the mouth of the hearth and made it look as if the sisters were silencing its once-vibrant flames—censoring it. And perhaps they were, because behind the screen lay their heap of charred files, which were too hot to dispose of the previous night. The draft guard was an iron curtain over their secrets, and sitting directly beside it was their investigator.

  “It has come to my attention that at least one of your approaches to service here is not in alignment with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. It is very troubling, and although I’m confident the offense I heard about this morning is a singular departure from our principles rather than a symptom of a more invasive malignancy,” he said, his lofty tone implying he was confident of the exact opposite, “it would be irresponsible of me not to take a closer look at your conduct. For the sake of thoroughness, I have no choice but to review the ins and outs of Mercy House, and perhaps the easiest way for me to do this would be to peruse your records. But before we begin down that path, allow me to address the infraction I’ve observed thus far. Your heretical use of Reiki will be discontinued immediately,” he said as a decree.

  Maria stiffened beside Evelyn. “Bishop, please. If
I can just try to explain the benefits,” she began.

  He held up his hand. “I’m sure one could fabricate benefits to fashioning voodoo dolls of the women’s aggressors and letting the victims stab the figures with pins, but that wouldn’t make it a proper practice, would it?”

  That was the first decent idea Evelyn had heard from the bishop. She could certainly see the therapeutic merit in such an exercise; she wouldn’t mind skewering a doll version of him, as a matter of fact. But the bishop held everything they cared about in his draconian hands; she didn’t dare utter a word that might inspire him to squash it. Instead, she rested her palm on Maria’s knee—a gesture to both quiet her and offer communion. The bishop’s nostrils flared with distaste. Evelyn retracted her arm instinctively, although she wasn’t sure why.

  “You seem to spend more time preaching hocus-pocus than the word of God. That will be remedied, in the interest of the church as well as your residents. In addition to ceasing your Reiki rituals, you will devote more time to Christian ministry. This shall include daily prayer and biblical readings as well as weekly confession and Communion. Administered by Father John, of course,” he added, as if to remind the nuns of what they already knew: the church considered them unqualified to perform the last two sacraments.

  This time, Josephine intervened. “Of course we are happy to provide religious mediation if requested, and often times it is. We pray with our residents quite frequently. But we must also respect their individual ideologies. What if they are Jewish? Should we ignore their wounds and instead tell them Jesus is the only way? What of Buddhists? Muslims? Atheists? If you are suggesting we help only those who share our faith, forgive me, but limiting our care to Catholic victims alone is not in the spirit of Christianity. Psalm 82:4 says, ‘Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.’ It does not qualify that we should attend to only the Catholic needy.”

  Bishop Hawkins sat taller in his chair so that he could look down his nose at Josephine. “‘He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”’ Mark 16:15. Do not challenge me with verse, Sister. You will not win.”

  Evelyn had another verse for him on her tongue, this one Matthew 23:28. “In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” But she knew its delivery would do no good, so instead she steadied her voice to sound as calm and rational as possible, despite the trembling in her bones. “I fully believe it is more effective to spread the word leading by example. We represent our beliefs in the way we live and through the loving support we provide. If we force Catholic doctrine down the throats of our residents, we risk driving them away. Because as soon as they feel uncomfortable, they will leave, rendering this place useless.”

  The bishop’s mouth quivered. “Your words, not mine.”

  “What I mean is, while conversion has its place, it is not the purpose of this facility. Rescue and rehabilitation—”

  His jaw hardened and he folded his hands in his lap. “This is not a debate, Sister. Have you forgotten your vow of obedience?” She heard his voice from those dark days in the sacristy: Serving your priest is akin to serving your God. Evelyn dug her thumbnail into her index finger. Her mind screamed, My vow of obedience is to God. Not to the Vatican, and not to you, you pig, you ogre, you devil! but she fought to keep her expression blank. The bishop allowed a beat of silence to fester before a taut smile pulled across his face. “I’m sure you’ll find these amendments will improve the results of your work here. Now then. Let’s be done with this unpleasantness. Please direct me to where I might find your records.”

  But Evelyn knew the unpleasantness was only just beginning.

  The sisters directed Bishop Hawkins up the attic ladder. Once he disappeared into the rafters, Evelyn was tempted to close the hatch and lock him in. The bishop shuffled around above them like a scavenging rat in the ceiling, and they returned to the first floor to await the inevitable repercussions of their transgressions.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Maria asked in a hushed tone, sounding like a true conspirator.

  “I’m not the mastermind behind this,” Josephine said when she found the other two looking to her. She plucked her cigarette pack from her pocket, shook one out, and stuck it between her lips. Then she thrummed her thumb against her lighter until it ignited and she leaned into the flame to make the end of her cigarette glow. She puffed twice and her cigarette-wielding hand fell back at the wrist, as if straining under its weight. Whereas once the habit of smoking lent her an elegance, now she looked dependent, desperate. She exhaled a stream of smoke between pursed lips and shifted the attention to her left. “Evelyn?” she asked.

  “This is just a temporary plug to buy us time. I say we call the girls down here and do what we should have done weeks ago—prep them for what is to come. What to say to the Hawk, but more importantly, what not to say.”

  “Do we have time for that sort of . . . debriefing?” Maria asked.

  Evelyn wasn’t sure how soon the bishop would realize the last decade of files was missing, but she figured he’d at least comb through the existing records before discovering the collection ran short, buying them at least an hour or two.

  “We have time,” she said.

  But they were barely through a cup of coffee when he thundered down the stairs. They exchanged knowing looks. Evelyn held her breath.

  “Where do you keep the rest?” he asked, standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Whatever do you mean?” Maria began, affecting innocence.

  Evelyn didn’t lower the cup from her lips. “Ice dam,” she said. She already had to visit the confession booth that week, she might as well add lying to her list of sins.

  “What was that?” the bishop asked, annoyed.

  She sighed and placed the mug onto the tabletop. “I said, ice dam. New York was smacked with a snowstorm last month. You didn’t hear about it out in sunny California? Well, we were slammed, and then the next week, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, brought a forty-eight-hour stretch of a springlike sixty degrees. Unbeknownst to us, an ice dam had formed on the roof during the storm, and when the snow melted, it leaked into the attic. Unfortunately, the water ruined a couple boxes of records, the ones that spanned the last nine years. We were very disheartened, you can be sure, but that’s Mother Nature for you. It was what you might call an act of God.” She was impressed by her own cool tone, given that the big storm she boasted about was actually a mere four inches of accumulation.

  “Really?” His question was soaked in skepticism, and he folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t notice any water damage on the ceiling or on the floorboards.”

  “A kind parishioner came to our rescue, along with his construction crew,” Evelyn explained. “Blessed be His name.”

  “And the damage just happened to destroy your most recent records?”

  “That’s what I told you. I’m not sure how I could have been clearer,” Evelyn said.

  “I wonder if there is another possibility,” the bishop said between clenched teeth.

  “What other possibility could there be?” Josephine asked with a convincingly benign laugh. She touched the end of her cigarette against the rim of her coffee cup, and ashes fell into the black liquid and whirled, as if pirouetting.

  Redness spread from the bishop’s throat to his face and, when he spoke, his voice was choked. “Some people might suspect you are lying in order to protect yourselves. Some people might suggest the church operated better back when nuns lived in convents under strict supervision, with a life devoted to prayer rather than to propagating their liberal agenda. Some people might say a lot of things, but I’m not saying anything, other than this: I came here to review your records, and it seems awfully coincidental that those records happened to disappear in a natural disaster just last month.” He jabbed his finger toward the women sitting at the table, causing Maria to flinch. “I want a list of nam
es of all the women who resided here in the last decade, as well as a means of contacting each—phone number, address, whatever you have. What I lost in records I will discover through interviews.”

  “Surely you realize that is impossible,” Josephine protested. “There have been so many. You can’t expect us to know where they all are.”

  “Don’t you tell me what I can or can’t expect,” he shouted. He then appeared to become cognizant of his simmering temper; he inhaled a calming breath through his nose, lowered his accusing index finger, and finished with wrath that was a bit more curbed, as if his interior monologue was consoling him: You have them. You still have them. “I’ll begin my interviews with the women upstairs. Private interviews.”

  Despite the way in which he intimidated Evelyn, she couldn’t allow that. “Are you out of your mind?” she demanded, heaving herself to her feet. “These are victims of abuse.”

  “And?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “And,” Evelyn said, assigning the word two syllables, “they shouldn’t be made to undergo questioning alone with a strange man.”

  The bishop upturned his hands so that his palms faced the ceiling in a mock shrug. “‘Questioning,’ Sister? Try to restrain your emotions. It’d make this process a lot easier for everyone involved. I’m merely going to ask them a few questions.”

  Evelyn imagined her heels digging through the floorboards and mumbled, “Isn’t that the very definition of ‘questioning,’ Bishop?”

  His mouth moved to speak, but this time Josephine raised her hand to interrupt him. “Bishop, with all due respect, this is a matter of the welfare of our charges, and we won’t budge on the issue. Sister Evelyn has the closest relationship with the residents and should be the one to sit with them. I swear she will not interfere with your interviews, not in words nor in body language, but I insist she remain present. If you find this arrangement problematic, I’d like to bring Father John into this discussion, or perhaps the Bishop of Brooklyn. Maybe we can all pray on it together.”