by Alena Dillon
It didn’t matter what some people said. Some people were morons.
She liked to think her residents were her children, individuals she delivered into a new life and nurtured until they were strong enough to live on their own. And so she satisfied her purpose, just in a different way. If she’d had a husband and children, they would have distracted her from saving the hundreds of women who’d stayed under Mercy House’s roof.
Although, she did often wonder what it would be like to feel the bare chest of the one you loved pressed against your own. But she didn’t desire it as often as she used to.
What was once skin wrapped tautly around strong bones and firm muscles was now tissue paper draped around soft and brittle matter. Her thighs were lumpy and her skin hung loose, rippling around her knees like water coiling around a dropped stone. Varicose veins, swollen and raised, snaked down her calves, looking like ripe Chinese eggplants ready to burst.
But she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the chrome bathtub faucet and remembered Eloise’s words. “You have such true eyes. Look at them. Such beauty.” There was a clarity about them that had withstood the years, so maybe her old friend had a point.
She held her breath as she lowered herself into the tub. The water lapped at her body in licks that began painful in their heat, but quickly turned soothing. When her rump hit the hard ceramic, she relaxed her entire body into the sides of the tub. The countless miniscule cuts on her palms stung as she lowered her hands into the water.
As her wrists immersed, she thought of the last time Hawkins destroyed her spirit, driving her to press scissors to her wrists. Thank God for Eloise, who appeared like the Angel of the Lord, took the scissors, held Evelyn until her sobs exhausted her, and then cooled her face with water from the sink, a kind of baptism. From that grim night, an alliance solidified. They made faces at each other during chores in a competition to see who would laugh first. They hid notes inside their billowy sleeves and passed them when no one was looking. They created code names for the other sisters. They developed hand gestures with secret meanings. And in moments of distress, they met in the garden to chat when speaking was prohibited. For the next ten years, through the first profession of their vows and beyond, Eloise was the most important person to Evelyn. Up until the day she left the convent, and Evelyn never saw her again.
Every now and then, Evelyn granted herself time to reflect on that friendship, which was still one of the most meaningful relationships of her life. Where was Eloise now? What was she doing? Was it possible she was in some other bathtub at that very moment, thinking of Evelyn? When she couldn’t bear to remember Eloise any longer, she turned her wrists over.
The back of Evelyn’s hands were speckled with liver spots the color of mud. There were about a dozen on each, half of them the size of pencil dots and half larger, like floating islands. The smaller ones were perfect circles, but the more significant spots were oblong, one even resembling a curvy cross. Evelyn was rather fond of that blemish, a natural tattoo of her mission and identity that her body had cunningly produced. She was generally, however, troubled by the marks, and by the shriveling of the skin around her knuckles, the yellowing of her fingernails. She was uncomfortable with how her body continued to change, to decay. If a younger Evelyn saw her hands now, she wouldn’t recognize them as her own. If a younger Evelyn saw her now, she might decide to have sex while she still had the chance. Or perhaps, if a younger Evelyn saw her now, she wouldn’t be thinking about appearances at all. She’d be too consumed by the disappointment that not enough about her had changed.
How had she allowed herself to be bulldozed again? From the time she was four years old she had let men bully her into corners. Sure, her father’s maneuvering was far more benign than the bishop’s technique, perhaps more luring than bullying, seducing with charm and paternal love, but the result was the same. She was intimidated by their grandeur, tempted by a possible connection, and time and time again, the men got their way.
She was nearly seventy years old, and though she was crusty, a tough lady by all appearances, she’d yet to stand up for herself when it really counted.
Her left knee bulged from the fall, protruding from her leg like an angry face. Her chest was scraped and puffy. Her hips were purpled. She resembled a Mercy House resident, a victim, but of course more wrinkled and doughy.
She didn’t know what her future held. Would the bishop really shut Mercy House down? Would he push to expel the sisters from their order? She felt as if she was driving without headlights, and the road was windy—perhaps even a dead end.
“Everything okay in there, popo?” Mei-Li asked from the other side of the door.
“Fine,” she answered. “Just fine.”
As the last traces of heat dissipated from the bathwater, Evelyn heard the front door open and close, followed by the sound of animated voices downstairs.
“What’s that? What’s going on?” She clasped the grab bar and hoisted her heavy body up. Water rushed down her limbs. Her injured knee cried out and her back twinged.
“It’s . . . it’s Lucia. She came back,” Mei-Li said.
Lukewarm water sloshed at Evelyn’s shins and trickled down the surface of her skin and off the tips of her hair. As she stood in the tub, naked and rejoicing, she smiled, closed her eyes, and whispered, “Thank you, Lord.”
Evelyn’s tired feet sank into the plush bath mat, made from the kind of shag that could have suffocated Elvis, certainly a Sister Maria purchase. She yanked her ratty robe off the door hook, eager to make her way downstairs to welcome Lucia and possibly assuage Desiree. She was tying the belt closed when she heard a thump on the front door.
“Lucia! I know you’re in there. I saw you. Come out,” an accented male voice called from outside. On the surface, he sounded angry and unwavering. But there was a current beneath it that vibrated.
Evelyn’s eyes widened. Angel Perez.
Shit.
Chapter 14
Evelyn threw open the bathroom door. “Go to your room and close the door,” she said to Mei-Li and then hurried down the stairs. Her body protested every move, her robe flapped at her sides, and she nearly slipped on the excess water dripping off her feet, but she never slowed.
Josephine and Maria crowded in the landing at the front door, and several of the girls strained their necks to watch from the kitchen. Evelyn waved them toward her. “Esther, Katrina, and Lucia. Upstairs immediately. Lock yourselves in your rooms, call the police, and don’t come out for anything.” They stared at her, stupefied, until Evelyn clapped her hands together and shouted, “Now!”
Once the girls scrambled past Evelyn and up the stairs, and she heard the sound of the door locks clicking into place, she closed one eye and squinted out the peephole.
Angel Perez. One of the formidable leaders of Los Soldados. He wasn’t especially tall—several inches short of six feet—but Evelyn could tell he was muscular, even under his puffy winter coat. His shaved head was bare, revealing a scar that sliced from his hairline down his cheek. Stubble shadowed his mustache and his chin. And there was that barbarous face tattoo, in which a cross, an icon of forgiveness and new life, was made into a weapon, wet with ink blood. His eyes darted up and down the block, as if he was afraid he had been followed.
Evelyn prayed the neighbors would stay inside.
He appeared to be alone. That was something, a salvation, even. Perhaps he was embarrassed to have to be there at all, ashamed his woman had left him, that he was forced to hunt her down. If that was the case, he would be reluctant to make a scene.
“The cops are already on their way,” Evelyn said through the door.
Angel’s mouth tightened. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a pistol. Its black polymer was sinister, like tar glinting in the moonlight. Evelyn gasped as he widened his stance and leveled the Glock at the door. “Then we better make this quick. Send Lucia out.”
“Gun, gun,” Evelyn said in a panic and pushed Josephine and Ma
ria into the living room. They stumbled back, but when Evelyn returned to the front door, they followed.
“It’s hard to concentrate with that thing out. Can you put the gun away and then we’ll talk?” Maria asked, too friendly for the circumstances. Evelyn pressed her face up against the peephole. The gun remained steady.
“Send out Lucia, or I’ll shoot this door down and take her myself.”
“You wouldn’t shoot a bunch of old nuns,” Evelyn said, hoping to appeal to the religious roots he had tattooed on his cheek.
Angel closed his eyes and pulled his lips back to expose clenched teeth. He shifted in his stance, opened his eyes, and gripped his gun harder. “I don’t want to kill you, but the nice thing about being Catholic is, after you sin, all you gotta do is ask for forgiveness and bam!” he said, making the nuns jump. “Fresh slate.” Evelyn opened her mouth to explain the other requirements for true forgiveness, but Angel jerked his hands to the side and shot a bullet through their living room window. The blast erupted inside their eardrums and was followed by glass shattering. The girls screamed upstairs, and Katrina continued to shriek, as if sounding an alarm. Evelyn’s heart pounded at the base of her throat. Angel’s impatience simmered to a boil. He yelled, “Open the fucking door, or the next bullet goes through your fucking heads.”
Evelyn wasn’t a stranger to the sound of gunshots; at night, they occasionally echoed in the distance. But she’d never heard one so close or so threatening. She sent another silent prayer to the heavens that the Sahas, the New School graduates, Joylette and her boys, and the rest of Chauncey Street would stay indoors. Then she took a deep breath to try to settle her terror and began speaking out loud. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” Evelyn signaled the other women to join in. Although perplexed, they conceded, and prayed together in the entryway. “Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Angel shouted, but they barreled on.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Another shot cracked against the house, just a couple feet from where Maria stood. The sisters jumped and the screaming upstairs doubled. Evelyn reached out for Josephine and Maria, and they reciprocated, embracing one another just beyond the front door. Tears welled in Maria’s eyes, and they began from the top. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” After this second round, a bullet exploded through the base of the front door and lodged itself in the floorboards beside their feet.
The idea of hurting prayerful religious sisters wasn’t deterring Angel as effectively as Evelyn had hoped. Apparently this wasn’t like in the movies, when sacred chanting would pierce the heart of a demon. As she gawked at the gouged floorboard just inches from her bare foot, she knew he had postponed a direct attack against the nuns as long as he was willing. The next shot would hit one of them.
“All right!” Evelyn called through the front door. “All right. You’ve made your point. I’m going to get Lucia. Just, please, don’t hurt anybody else in the house.”
Maria’s eyes rounded and Josephine shook her head vehemently. “No, no, no,” she whispered. How could Evelyn sacrifice one of their lambs?
Evelyn didn’t have time to explain. She needed to move. But instead of heading upstairs, she ran down the hall and into the kitchen.
She threw open the cabinet beneath the sink and grabbed a can of Lysol disinfectant spray. She didn’t bother closing the cabinet before moving to the drawer beside the oven. There she snapped up a multipurpose lighter. With those two items in hand, she sped back down the hall to where the other sisters waited, bewildered. “Back away,” she insisted. When they retreated into the living room, she prayed under her breath. “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,” she said.
Then she flung open the front door.
For a moment that lingered for eternity, Evelyn stared into the cavern of the gun’s muzzle, a pitch-black tunnel that ended at a bullet, just waiting to be released into her flesh.
But then she flicked on the lighter—a wavering ember alight in the darkness—and depressed the top of the aerosol can.
The flame flared as if from a dragon’s mouth. And though it didn’t have much reach, it was enough to startle Angel. Alarmed, his weapon-yielding arm retracted into his body. Then he fired.
The bullet ripped through Evelyn’s side, tearing open the skin at her hip like a grizzly bear slicing into a carcass. A bellow born in her gut tore out her throat; the sound she produced was not recognizably her own. It was primal, like an animal mourning her young. She dropped to her knees on the stoop landing. Angel, thrown off balance by the shock of the flamethrower and by the recoil of the gunshot, tumbled backward down the stairs. He dropped the gun. Upon impact, another shot fired. The sound filled Evelyn’s ears, followed by Angel’s own howl.
The sisters were beside her. Maria gathered Evelyn’s head into her lap and her tears dropped down onto Evelyn’s face. “You’re okay,” she said, her voice steady. “You’re okay.”
“Not my head,” Evelyn grunted. “My ass.”
“Right, right,” Maria said. She lowered Evelyn’s head to the frozen cement and pressed her palms against Evelyn’s side, igniting a searing agony. Evelyn clamped her teeth against a wail. Her blood spread down the small of her back, warm and sticky.
Josephine darted down the steps to where Angel’s gun had skidded a couple feet from his writhing figure. She bent over to retrieve it, pointed the Glock away from Angel, and ejected the magazine. Her membership at the shooting range was finally being put into practice. She tucked the pistol into the waist of her skirt and turned her attention to Angel. “Help is on the way,” she said, and clamped her hand over his bleeding abdomen.
“You did good. So, so good,” Maria said.
Evelyn had protected them. She had stood up to their attackers—one of them, anyway. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“Sister, are you all right? What has happened?” She heard the voice of Dr. Saha above her, and then seconds later he said, “Take this. Apply pressure. An ambulance is on the way.”
Sirens screeched in the distance and, as they grew closer, blue and red lights flashed in the darkness.
“Just a few more seconds, Evie. They’re coming,” Maria said.
Evelyn’s mind drifted to that place between consciousness and sleep. From its perch floating above the scene, she heard the screech of tires. Vehicle doors slamming. Male voices. Cold fingers pressed against her throat. The pain was present but dulled. Hands gripped and lifted her body, and the pain roared loud enough to yank her back to reality. She opened her eyes to see specks of white swirling around the night sky; it was snowing. She quietly sang the words to one of her favorite Buddy Holly songs—words of stars and shadows, and hearts. Then she was inside the ambulance, looking up at a smile forced across Maria’s red, tear-stained face.
“Almost convincing,” Evelyn croaked. A plastic bubble cupped her mouth and nose. Her arm was pinched, and then felt icy.
Maria’s brow furrowed and her smile strained even further. “What is?”
But then Evelyn sunk back into the haze, where the pain was quieter.
The bullet hit nothing but adipose tissue, avoiding all organs, muscles, and bone. For once in her life, Evelyn was happy to be fat; a nice plump roll acted as a buffer to everything vital. Although, if she wanted to be a pessimist about it, the bullet might have missed her entirely had she not been overweight. But this was no time for pessimism. As far as gunshot wounds went, this was the best-case scenario; all she required was saline to flush out the wound, a blood transfusion, and antibiotics. She was very fortunate.
Angel died on the operating table.
Evelyn wasn’t envious of the sisters who would have to inform Lucia. She knew from experience that a complicated loss didn’t make the grief any more bearable.
The next morning, Evelyn waited for the nurse wearing the cop
per bracelet and the Saint Juliana Falconieri religious medal to check her vitals and asked the apparent Catholic if she could visit Angel’s body. The woman’s lips compressed and wrinkled; Evelyn was sure she was about to say no, but then she turned to the collapsed wheelchair leaning against the wall and opened it with one decisive movement.
Open doors provided glimpses into the suffering of strangers: a leg lifted in traction; a pained moan; a face masked with oxygen; intravenous bags dripping antibiotics, saline, or morphine into peripheral lines. Through their discomfort, patients slept, talked with visitors, watched television on their laptops, stared up at the ceiling, wept. She felt a piece of each of them mirrored in her own heart. Her mouth moved but her prayer was silent. “Tend your sick ones, O Lord. Rest Your weary ones. Bless Your dying ones.”
At the end of the hall, the nurse pressed the down arrow for the elevator and crossed her arms over her chest. Her hands quavered. She flexed her fingers but, when the tremors continued, she hid them beneath her biceps. A realization shifted into place in Evelyn’s mind. The trembling. The Juliana Falconieri medal, patron saint of chronic illness. The copper bracelet. The nurse was too young for Parkinson’s disease. Huntington, then? Multiple sclerosis? Either way, there were treatments but no cures. Only kindness.
“What’s your name, dear?” Evelyn asked.
The nurse tucked a limp strand of cinnamon-brown hair behind her ear. She looked wearied, like she was coming to the end of a long shift. “Patty.”
“Thanks for doing this, Patty. I won’t forget it.”
The elevator descended to the bottom floor and opened into a sterile world of stainless steel and fluorescent lighting.
The left side of the room was lined with cabinets, inside which Evelyn knew cadavers lay cold, their souls having already departed on their journey to meet God. On the right were industrial sinks. And at the center was an aisle of tables, three of which were occupied by shapes encased in plastic body bags.
