Mercy House

by Alena Dillon

  “We both know I would.”

  Even if Father John was gay, what did it matter? Evelyn herself had had moments of temptation, was guilty of her own sins. They all were. He wasn’t hurting anybody, and it didn’t lessen his contributions as a priest. It certainly was no reason to dishonor a person, to excommunicate him. But she knew what the Catholic Church was capable of. And she knew what it was to live with shame. Father John didn’t deserve that. “Please,” she said.

  And with that, the bishop knew he had her. He raised his coffee cups into a shrug. “You are the one making this decision, Sister. It is up to you.”

  Evelyn’s breathing quickened. “I want you to get out.”

  “Sister—”

  “Leave.”

  “I need to know we are in agreement.”

  “Yes, you’ve won. Okay? You are untouchable. Now get the hell out.”

  The bishop lowered his shoulders, relaxing. “I pray for your recovery, Sister. And here, since it seems I won’t be seeing the reporter after all, enjoy this coffee—on me.” He placed the cup on her bedside table.

  He slipped through the doorway, but his memory remained as a sour taste in Evelyn’s mouth. She listened to the sound of his loafers disappear down the hall. He had beaten her. He would always beat her. She had committed herself to a life of defenselessness. The life of a nun.

  She remembered Holy Saturday of 1980, when a nun in Ohio had been slain: choked to death, stabbed in a ritualistic pattern, and then sexually violated. Her body was found in a sacristy—just like the one in which Evelyn had been repeatedly raped. Nobody was charged for her murder until 2006, when the state finally convicted her priest. The case had been reopened after two decades when that same priest was accused of ritualized sexual assault. It turned out he had been the prime suspect back in 1980—the letter opener used to stab the nun was found in his office—but the church had so much influence on that community, and all the police investigators were Catholic, so the priest had been protected. He, a murderer, continued to serve the community and congregation for over twenty years. He was finally convicted for the barbaric slaying, but sentenced to just fifteen years in prison, with the possibility of parole after ten. Only ten years of imprisonment for stabbing the nun with a letter opener thirty-one times, carving an inverted crucifix over her heart, and anointing her with her own blood. Only ten years for then defiling that nun, postmortem, with an altar cross.

  Then there was the study submitted to the Vatican by Sister Maura O’Donohue in 1994. Twenty-nine nuns were impregnated in a single African congregation. Because the surrounding population had a high incidence of HIV, priests considered nuns safe from disease and raped them. In many cases, when a nun became pregnant, the priest insisted on an abortion. The study was supposed to remain confidential but was leaked in 2001. Nearly a decade after it became public, the Vatican still seemed to have done nothing about it.

  Where was the justice? Where was God for those women?

  Evelyn ran her hands up and down the hospital sheet that covered her legs. She thought of the first time Hawkins grazed his fingertips along her hip. If she’d slapped his hand away then, maybe it would have stopped. And when he heaved her habit above her waist, if she had screamed loud enough for somebody to hear, or if she had reported him after any of the following violations, maybe they would have punished him. Who knows how many men, women, or children he had hurt since then. Maybe she could have prevented it. But all evidence seemed to suggest, when it came to priests, the truth rarely mattered.

  Evelyn pulled back her arm and smacked the Starbucks cup off the table. It crashed to the floor and spewed foam and creamy coffee across the tile below. While she seethed, the plastic lid floated like a stick in a river until the pool thinned and it stilled.

  Evelyn watched the second hand tick around the face of the wall clock. The reporter was due any moment, and the pieces of her new plan were still arranging themselves in her mind. She couldn’t fail—not again. The future of Mercy House women depended on her.

  The man was scrawny, below average height, and bald, with ginger-brown hair rimming his head like a withered Christmas wreath. A leather messenger bag was strapped across his chest and perched on his hip.

  “Derek Harding,” he said as an introduction. He paused in confusion when he saw the spilled coffee, but sidestepped it and extended his hand.

  Evelyn tucked her confrontation with the Hawk into a part of her brain she could access later. She couldn’t reveal any hostility; she had to play the role of the sweet nun, the faithful and obedient servant, the do-gooder. She assembled her features into a welcoming expression. “How kind of you to stop in.”

  Derek wore perfectly round tortoiseshell glasses and a tartan shirt buttoned up to the throat. He gestured to a nearby chair and raised his eyebrows, asking permission. When Evelyn nodded her consent, he dragged the chair forward. After he took a seat, he pulled a notepad from his bag and balanced it on a crossed knee.

  “Before we discuss the incident with Angel Perez, which of course I’m eager to hear about, was that Bishop Hawkins I just saw leaving the parking lot?”

  The memory of the conversation rattled in its cage. Evelyn’s mouth was dry and foul tasting, but her lips curved into a smile to disguise what was within. “It was.”

  “I know he’s on the East Coast on behalf of Cardinal Rode to investigate nuns, in what some people are referring to as the nun-quisition. What was he doing here at the hospital?”

  One negative utterance. One word against my good name.

  She had to leave the truth of the Hawk out of it. She had to find another entry point. “Checking in on me. He’s been quite attentive.”

  “Has he made his way to visiting your order yet?”

  “He has.”

  “Has he stopped in to see you and the others at Mercy House?”

  “Yes, we’ve all been blessed with his presence,” she said, surprised by how convincingly she was able to mask her sarcasm.

  He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t you feel a sense of betrayal by the Catholic Church, or resentment in regard to your dealings with Bishop Hawkins?”

  She blinked, innocent, doe-eyed. “Why on earth would I feel that way?”

  “You’ve devoted your life to service, and in fact you’ve proven you’re willing to lay your life down for your mission and your community. I just thought, for that reason, you might begrudge that the institution you’ve given your life to is now investigating you as if you’ve done something wrong.” He inched forward on his seat and leaned toward her. “You can be honest with me. Maybe I can help you. I’m not afraid of the Catholic Church.”

  Lucky you, Evelyn thought. She wondered where his passion for the Vatican visitation story came from; did Derek love Catholicism or hate it? Was he mentored by a priest and wanted to preserve the sanctity of the position, or was he abused by one? Was he tutored by nurturing nuns? Or did he have no experience with Catholicism, and viewed it as a fantasy that required debunking? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Evelyn had spent a lifetime without an income, having to piece together scraps of life’s cloth to make a workable quilt. She’d learned to be resourceful and, as she lay on the hospital bed, a hole gouged out of her hip, her home and purpose about to be yanked out from under her, Derek Harding was her only resource.

  “You know, Mr. Harding,” she said, “there may in fact be a way you can help me.”

  Chapter 16

  On the drive to Mercy House from the hospital, Sister Maria sat beside Evelyn in the back of the taxi and clasped Evelyn’s hand in her lap. The leather seats were split at the seams and revealed pale stuffing within. The car smelled like falafel and cinnamon sticks, which, after several days of bland hospital food, was not an unwelcome combination. They cruised through the streets of Clinton Hill—Bedford-Stuyvesant’s attractive sister who went on to marry into money—while Maria hummed “Amazing Grace” absentmindedly. As they drove, the glow of streetlights blinked and highlighted
Maria’s face in soft halos. It struck Evelyn how angelic her friend looked and sounded, but before she let herself get sentimental, she tossed the notion up to her painkillers.

  Leaves canopied Lafayette Avenue in every other season, but, in winter, the trees’ skeletal branches rounded like a series of wedding arches. Snow blackened by exhaust hugged the curb. They passed the stone Cadman Congregational Church, so charming in its Romanesque style Evelyn thought it would be better suited in a forest than on a city street.

  The driver slowed to a stop at a red light that burned in the darkness of evening, and the cane Evelyn had propped against the window fell on her knee. Back at the hospital, when Evelyn showed Maria her new accessory, Maria had said, “Don’t you worry about its plainness. We’ll doll it up with ribbons. Oh! We can Bedazzle it.” Plainness was nowhere near the top of Evelyn’s worry list.

  On the next block was the Underwood Park playground, with swing sets, benches, and three jungle gyms constructed of hardy plastic and green metal poles—a far cry from Bed-Stuy parks, in which tree roots had raised walkways and loose screws made equipment a hazard for children. Once, it took the city almost four months to remove a fallen tree limb from a sandbox. Pristine three-story redbrick row houses sat opposite Underwood Park, the owners of which, Evelyn was sure, wouldn’t be made to wait four months for anything.

  The Bed-Stuy border was three blocks away now, and petite town houses with varying facades, like a collection of muted Easter eggs, were interrupted by twenty-five-story apartment buildings and ninety-nine-cent stores.

  It felt good to be going home.

  She prayed her new plan would work and that this place could remain home.

  As they approached Chauncey Street, and the driver’s hands crossed over one another to make the turn, Maria squeezed Evelyn’s fingers tight enough that her bones scraped, and Maria’s features puckered, as if she were trying to contain a sneeze. Before Evelyn could ask what in the world was going on, she saw for herself.

  After the electric Christmas candles had been taken down, wrapped up, and set away for the following year, all the windows in all the houses up and down the block were relit. They looked like fireflies flickering in so many jars. Resplendent, like the glory of human goodness leading Evelyn home. It took her breath away.

  “They did it for you,” Maria said. “The girls, but the neighbors too. We all just wanted to share our gratitude.”

  Evelyn’s eyes teared. She wondered if this was what it was like for a victim of abuse to find the magic of Chauncey Street during the holidays and wished she made the street glitter all year round. “This,” she began, and cleared her throat of emotion in order to continue, “this really is something.”

  Maria also struggled to steady her voice. “I’m grateful we get the chance to see the street dressed in lights again. Back in December, we didn’t know this Christmas was our last here.”

  Evelyn turned to her friend, whose cheeks glistened in the night. “We need to talk about that, about Mercy House closing.”

  Maria smiled and patted Evelyn’s knee. “Not now. Tonight is a celebration.”

  Evelyn stabbed the asphalt with the foot of her cane and let Maria brace her elbow as she unloaded from the taxi. She paused at the bottom of Mercy House’s stoop, intimidated by the task of climbing the stairs, but also caught off-guard by the oblong copper stain on the top step, where the concrete had absorbed her blood. She was reminded then that she had been shot, but her life had been spared. Her stare dropped to the sidewalk below them where she found a similar discoloration spotlighted by the streetlamp—Angel’s blood.

  “Ready?” Maria asked.

  Instead of pressing down on her cane, she leaned into her friend, although she could tell Maria struggled under the added weight.

  “Welcome home, Sister,” Joylette called from her fire escape, where she clasped a steaming mug close to her face. “It’s good to see you on your feet.”

  Evelyn waved back. “It’s good to be seen.”

  By the time they reached the front door, Evelyn was sucking air through her teeth. The ache radiated from her side; it was time for another pill and a nap before the fire. Maria patted her coat in search of her keys while Evelyn anticipated the smell of the house: muffins, hairspray, burning wood, and light sweat—a welcome change from the disinfectant of the hospital. When Maria finally located her keys, they jingled in the lock, and a smile tugged on her mouth.

  “What’s so funny now?” Evelyn asked.

  Maria glanced up at her and puffed out her cheeks to mangle the grin. “A lot of things are funny.”

  Then she pulled open the door to reveal the residents huddled together on the other side, wearing party hats, blowing noisemakers, and holding up a makeshift banner of taped-together printer paper, each page a letter, that read “Our SHE-ro!”

  “Surprise!” Josephine said from behind the crowd with a prim finger wave.

  Evelyn clutched her pounding chest. “Mother of God, I didn’t survive a shooting just to die of a heart attack.”

  For dinner they ate Evelyn’s favorite meal: tomato bacon grilled cheese sandwiches with a side of overnight dill pickles from Simon’s Brisket House in Crown Heights. The pickles were cucumber-green and crisp, and Evelyn savored their fresh salty brine alongside the grease and fat of the grilled cheese. Why was it that God made sin so heavenly?

  “This won’t do my figure any favors,” Desiree said. She held a half-eaten sandwich in one hand and traced the side of her torso with the other.

  “Now you can charge people extra. More bounce per ounce,” Lucia said. Her face was almost entirely clear of bruising, and her hair, still wet from a shower, hung in ringlets and dampened the shoulders of her shirt. The waist of her sweatpants was rolled over twice so it circled her hips, exposing an inch of skin between her pants and her shirt. She opened a cabinet, grabbed a glass, filled it at the sink, and then took a seat beside Desiree—her new buddy, apparently. She looked comfortable in the kitchen of Mercy House, among the other women. She looked at home. This was usually one of Evelyn’s most satisfying moments, when the once-defensive resident began to assimilate. It proved their system was working, that progress was being made, and that it was possible to heal, grow, and rehabilitate. This time, though, it proved exactly what was at stake—what she, and now Derek Harding, were fighting to save.

  “Damn straight. I’m like a Cadillac. This ride is built for comfort.” Desiree swiveled her hips and then took a comically large bite of her sandwich.

  “More like a Lincoln Town Car. Room for the whole family,” Lucia said and slapped Desiree’s backside.

  Desiree stuck a finger in Lucia’s face. “I draw the line at the wrinkly asses of grandpas and grandmas.” She stilled in her position and then rotated slowly toward where the nuns leaned against the counter. “No offense to you, Sisters.”

  “That was wildly inappropriate, Desiree,” Josephine said, but without any conviction.

  “Yes, it was. Because my ass still looks good,” Evelyn added. After a beat of stunned silence, the girls broke into laughter.

  “Besides, how many grandmas do you know who would do what Sister did?” Katrina asked in her high-pitched voice. Her spine curved, as it typically did when she spoke in a group. But her eyelids, streaked with vibrant purple, suggested a different sort of confidence. Her grilled cheese was torn into pieces and scattered across her plate. She was more of a carrot sticks and couscous eater.

  Desiree gestured emphatically toward Katrina. “True, true.” Her enthusiastic affirmation inspired Katrina to straighten slightly. “Homegirl is more like Sarah Connor from The Terminator.”

  “Or Ripley from Alien,” Esther added.

  Mei-Li brightened at the opportunity to apply her breadth of film knowledge. “Or Lara Croft.”

  “Or Dirty Harry,” Maria piped in. Then she raised her hand like a gun and pointed it at Josephine, who stepped back uncomfortably. Maria squinted and said with a gravelly voice, “�
�You’ve gotta ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do you, punk?’” Pleased with herself, a giggle bubbled up from her belly, and the edges of her smile were almost lost in her round cheeks.

  Desiree shook her hand in the air, as if to clear the Dirty Harry impression like she was erasing a drawing on an Etch A Sketch. “Fuck Dirty Harry. He’s a racist.”

  Maria raised her eyebrows and promptly lowered her handgun. “I didn’t realize that. My apologies.”

  While Evelyn wished she could enjoy the praise, her attention strayed to poor Lucia, whose ex-lover had been the villain in this presumed action sequence. She chewed a pickle with slow, deliberate crunches and stared at a pile of ketchup on her plate.

  Evelyn clapped her hands together. “Enough about me. Catch me up on you. I see Desiree and Lucia made fast friends. What else have I missed around here?” Katrina raised her hand up by her shoulder, and Evelyn urged her on. “Go ahead. This isn’t fourth period history class.”

  Katrina smiled and tucked her hand back down by her side. “Well, Mei-Li has some news,” she said, and turned to her left, where she found her friend blushing. Katrina gripped her earbuds and tugged them gently against her neck. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s just that we’re so proud, and Sister will be excited.”

  Evelyn waited for Mei-Li to divulge the information, but when she only sat in her chair, smiling awkwardly, Evelyn prompted her. “Well?”

  Mei-Li met Evelyn’s gaze. Her smile was tight. “I got the receptionist job I applied for.”

  “Hey, that’s wonderful!” Evelyn held her hand out for a high-five, which Mei-Li obliged, although somewhat languidly. “Aren’t you happy?”

  “Yes, happy,” she nodded, but her fingers clamped the chair’s seat at her sides, perhaps fighting off the compulsion to spring up and away, to find a secluded place to spew her trilingual profanities. “And terrified.”