by Alena Dillon
After several minutes of small talk, Father John said, “Well, it is so nice to see you, Maureen. But is Evelyn around? I’d like to speak to her privately, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry to have gotten in your way,” she said, perturbed.
“Not at all. It was a pleasure catching up with you,” he said pleasantly, as if he was oblivious to her snipe.
“I may have to wake her. She sleeps a lot.”
Evelyn made a face from her side of the door. What a shrew her sister could be. Then she ran her fingers through her hair and cleared her throat. She didn’t want him to take her sister’s word for it and assume she had nothing better to do than nap in the middle of the day—although that was indeed the case.
Evelyn opened the door just as Maureen was poised to knock. “Father John came for a visit and he’d like to say hello to you while he’s here.”
“You don’t say.”
Evelyn followed Maureen down the hall and into the living room, where Father John sat on the couch, his ankle crossed over his knee. Maureen bent down and grasped his hand. “So nice to see you,” she said, more emphatically than before. “Come back soon.” Then she continued down the hall to her bedroom, where Evelyn was certain she would snoop from behind a partially closed door.
Father John unfolded his long legs and stood. He had been searching for her gaze ever since she entered the room, and she continued to evade him.
“How are you doing?” he asked, and his tone was so warm and sympathetic it made tears sting her eyes.
She flashed a fake smile. “Just peachy.”
“Sister Ev—” he began, and then paused and corrected himself. “Evelyn.”
The revision pierced her. She suddenly wanted him out of this living room, this house, this state. She didn’t want a reminder of all that she’d had and lost standing in the ruins of what remained. She focused her stare on her sister’s mantel, on the photo trail of family history, another life Evelyn lacked.
“What are you doing here, Father?”
“Let’s sit, shall we?” He returned to the couch and, after a moment of hesitation, Evelyn reluctantly settled into the armchair opposite him. “Something has been nagging me, and it’ll drive me nuts until I clear the air. When I told you the . . . bad news, in the motherhouse chapel, you said, ‘I am not the only religious person in this room to commit a crime against the Church.’ What did you mean by that, exactly?” He grasped his thighs and kneaded them.
She toyed with a fabric pill on the arm of her chair. “Jesus said to John, ‘Come forth and receive eternal life.’ But he came fifth and received a toaster.”
“Evelyn.”
“I guess you’ve heard that one a million times already.”
“Evelyn,” he said, more sternly.
She finally looked up at him. “You came all this way because you know what I meant.”
“I really don’t. Were you, uh, referring to me?” he asked, casually lilting his words.
Evelyn steadied her voice. “I was.”
An anxious smile pulled at his mouth. “And what is the crime you think I’ve committed?”
She stared up at the ceiling fan; a thin layer of dust coated the edges of the blades. At a certain age, she supposed, it just wasn’t worth climbing onto a step stool. Evelyn said, “Let’s just forget this.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “Evelyn, please.”
His gaze was steady and pleading. If he just wanted reassurances, she wished he would man up and ask for her confidence directly. “Fine. I know. I know your secret.”
He cocked his head and his smile tightened. “What secret might that be?”
“I know about your . . .” Her eyes scanned the room as she searched for the word. Her stare finally settled on Father John. “Proclivity.”
He sniffed. “Proclivity? For what?”
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. So it would have to be this way. “For men, Father. Your proclivity for men.”
He stiffened and lowered his voice. “Evelyn, that is a serious accusation. And a misguided one.” He stole a glimpse down the hall toward Maureen’s bedroom. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
His discomfort softened Evelyn. She knew what it was to be ashamed of feelings, of actions—to be terrified of yourself. “Bishop Hawkins told me,” she said, gently. “He told me about your relationship with Father Sal, and your activities at those retreats.”
“Well, that is ridiculous.” He forced out a laugh. “Those are lies.”
“He wasn’t lying.”
“It isn’t true.”
“Father John, please. Look at me. Look where I am, what I’ve become. If you can’t be honest with me, who can you be honest with?”
“Why—” Father John coughed and repositioned himself on the couch. He glanced up at Evelyn, and then looked down at his feet. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. “Why would he tell you those things?”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“That may be true, but he wouldn’t divulge something so significant, so damaging, for no reason at all. Unless—” His stare traveled up to meet Evelyn’s. His eyes were rounded. “Is he after me, Evelyn? Am I next?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because—” She recalled the bishop’s twisted, crazed expression as he threatened her. He’ll be humiliated first, and ultimately excommunicated. Is that what you want for your friend, Sister? All so she’d keep her mouth closed about the bishop’s terrible actions. “Because he didn’t give me that information because he wants you out. He gave me that information because he wanted me out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just trust me. As far as I know, you’re safe.”
“Evelyn.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he was calmer, restored. “He told you something inculpating about me, and you say it’s because he wanted you out. Well, I don’t want to have had anything to do with your excommunication. You are a good person, and you were a great nun. I want to know how I am involved, or, perhaps, to blame.” He leaned forward to reach across the coffee table and touched Evelyn’s knee. Then he slowly retracted his arm. “Please, tell me.”
She exhaled all her breath and tried to keep her explanation light. “You aren’t to blame. I had something on Hawkins, and I thought I could use it to keep Mercy House open.”
“And?”
“And he had a stronger hand.”
“He used what he knew about me against you?” he said. Evelyn shrugged. Silence hung between them for a moment before he asked, “What did you have on him?”
She shot him a look. “That isn’t any of your business.”
His head bobbed and his hands worked each other. “You’re right, of course. But, if you’d like to tell me, I’d like to listen.”
Evelyn crossed her legs, turned her body away from him, and looked out the window. Several ravens were still pecking meanly at the last crumbs of bread Maureen had thrown to them earlier that morning. Evelyn couldn’t stand that daily routine of her sister’s. She’d told her, A group of ravens is called an unkindness, Maureen. An unkindness. “It was so long ago, it doesn’t matter anymore.” Evelyn resented herself for it, but her voice wavered halfway through.
“It appears that maybe it does. Maybe it matters very much.” His compassion detached something inside her. It floated up her torso and gathered as a knot in her throat. She bit her tongue to distract herself from tears, and her face fought to keep its composure. “Did he hurt somebody?” Father John whispered. She lowered in her seat and turned her face into the arm of the chair. “Did he hurt you?” Tears welled in her eyes and crackled at the back of her throat. Her fist rose up to cover her quivering mouth. Father John again reached across the table, but this time lay his hand on Evelyn’s knee. He waited patiently in that position until Evelyn’s whimpers passed. “You don’t have to tell me w
hat happened, but I beg you to listen to me. If he hurt you or anybody else, I don’t want to be the reason he gets away with it.”
She swiped at her tears quickly, as if he might not notice if only she worked fast. His forehead was lined with concern. She swallowed. “But he’ll do to you what he did to me.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t live with myself if I thought he used my sins to hide his own. If they excommunicate me as a result of the truth you tell, so be it.”
Evelyn considered his words like rosary beads between her fingers. Even if she decided against exposing the bishop, it was something just to know she could, that she had Father John’s blessing. It was something to know that such goodness still existed. She pushed her heavy body up in the chair. “Father, your secret, you called it your ‘sins.’ Is that really what you consider it?”
He smiled sadly. “Some days I do,” he said, nodding. Then he turned his palms up toward the heavens. “On better days, I consider it my humanity.”
Chapter 25
Easter Sunday awoke sleepily, a chilly forty-three degrees with gray skies. But as it stretched its arms and yawned, pockets of blue broke through the clouds to promise the day would be brighter, if Evelyn could just hold on. She had been waiting for this morning since her meeting with Father John.
Holy Week had passed as it was meant to—in quiet reflection. She attended the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday to honor Christ’s farewell to his disciples, knowing some would betray him by morning. But when it was time for Maureen’s priest to wash the feet of his congregants, Evelyn remained seated. She couldn’t stand to have a priest stoop before her, touch bare skin that was so often covered, and feign subservience she presumed he didn’t feel. From afar, she wondered what he might be repenting during that week of self-examination and penitence, if he had done anything truly despicable. She wondered if she was capable of asking for forgiveness when she still wasn’t willing to give it. She didn’t have her feet washed, but she did take Communion—although, as an excommunicated nun, she should have been deprived of the sacrament. To hell with that, she thought. It was her rite.
On Good Friday, she circled the nave of Morristown’s Church of the Visitation, sat in a pew before each Station of the Cross, recited the appropriate prayers, and meditated on the events they represented. Jesus was condemned and forced to carry his cross. He fell three times. He was stripped of clothes, nailed, suffered, and died. Along the way, he was joined by women: his mother, who offered compassion; Veronica, who wiped his face; and the group from Jerusalem, whose sadness inspired Jesus to minister to them, to be true to his calling, even at the end. And he was helped by a man too—Simon, who carried his cross.
The Stations of the Cross depictions were mosaics, glass shards created by accident, arranged and bonded to create something beautiful, maybe even more striking than the original.
Although she knew she wasn’t supposed to, Evelyn ran her index finger along a slice on Jesus’s rib cage. Blood dripped along a sharp ridge. And she thought, What wonders can be built from broken stuff.
Now the day had come—Easter Sunday—and her stomach fluttered and knotted like a host of sparrows alternatively spreading their wings wide and huddling together in a feathery mass.
Evelyn wanted her sister to join her, but without understanding the magnitude of the request, Maureen insisted on attending Easter service with her children. She did, however, agree to lend Evie the car.
Knights took their trusty steeds into battle. Evelyn would take a Honda Odyssey. But if an Odyssey was good enough for Homer, she supposed it was good enough for her.
Church bells clattered and pealed in Bed-Stuy to announce the ten o’clock Mass, and Evelyn still hadn’t found a parking spot. It seemed everybody was Catholic on Easter Sunday. The only empty space was marked handicapped, and though she would have qualified, Maureen didn’t have a pass in her car. Sweat dampened Evelyn’s shirt. She prayed it didn’t blur the ink scrawled across the paper inside her front pocket.
She circled the block for a fourth time, and when she approached the still-empty handicapped spot, she swerved into it, parked, and tucked the crook of her cane over her review mirror so it swung where a pass would. “There, I’m handicapped. See?” she said to no one and limped unaided toward St. Joseph of Mercy Church.
Miss Linda sat in her signature place on the bus stop bench out front. She wore a Yankees baseball cap and white Jackie O sunglasses. “You’re late,” she said.
Evelyn huffed along. “Better late than never, and all that jazz.”
The heavy oak doors had already been closed for the service. Evelyn gripped the metal pull. How many times had she stood in this very spot to greet parishioners on their way into Mass and to say farewell on their way out? How many services had she attended, assisted in? How many Sunday school and confirmation classes had she led? How many times had she opened that door as if opening the door to her own home? A lifetime’s worth. And now she was back. This was her encore. She heaved the door open.
To her dismay, the creak and subsequent slam of the door announced her arrival to the packed pews. Several congregants, perhaps desperate for distraction, turned to look. Those who recognized her as the excommunicated nun, the infamous Sister Abortion, whispered to their neighbors, and the murmurs spread like a burning match dropped in a puddle of kerosene. Soon the entire place was lit.
Father John stood at the top of the chancel stairs wearing white robes to reflect the light of resurrection. He spread his arms and looked down the aisle, directly at Evelyn, smiled, and then lifted his attention to the entire congregation. “Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.”
Most of the congregation reluctantly faced forward and together recited, “I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned . . .”
Several clusters of people remained rotated in their seats, watching Evelyn. Theirs were mostly friendly faces, including Joylette beside her three strapping teenage boys and Sister Maria and Sister Josephine, too close to the front for Evelyn to join them. Maria waved, and though Evelyn meant to return the gesture, she couldn’t. Her brain was too busy talking down her sympathetic nervous system, which perceived this return to all that had rejected her as a threat to her survival. Close the adrenaline floodgates, her brain said. Call off the evacuation plan. This isn’t fight or flight. This is stay and speak.
“You waiting for a mailed invitation? Sit with us.”
Directly to Evelyn’s right, in the back row, Desiree sat beside all the residents of Mercy House: Lucia, Esther, Mei-Li, and Katrina. It was like a multitude of heavenly host appearing to Evelyn to say: Glory to God in the highest. And peace to his people on earth.
Their presence laid a steady hand on her nerves. Her body stilled; her adrenaline factory shut down. She lowered herself into the pew.
Desiree wore a hot pink bandage dress that cut deeply down her chest, wrapped around every bend and bow of her belly, and ended abruptly across her thighs. “You like my Easter finest?” she asked in barely a whisper while her hands outlined her sides. “God wants to admire the shit He made.’” She pressed the sides of her breasts together so that they rose like leavened bread, and her eyes lifted toward the ceiling. “He’s got the best view.”
Evelyn patted Desiree’s knee. “You look beautiful,” she said. Then she leaned forward and extended her hand beyond Desiree. The other four women reached back. Lucia’s face, which had once been swollen and bruised, now looked fresh and strong. A gold pendant in the shape of Haiti glinted on Esther’s chest, and her full lips were painted a more vibrant ruby than Evelyn remembered seeing her wear. Mei-Li wore a crisp white button-down shirt, collar pressed, and her hair was tied back in a neat, professional twist. Katrina’s hair was streaked with additional highlights; pink strands were now lined up beside shades of purple, blue, and green, like in a unicorn’s mane. But there was somet
hing else—for the first time since Evelyn had known her, Katrina wasn’t wearing earbuds. Evelyn’s fingers grazed theirs. “Good to see you, ladies.”
When she straightened, she spotted a far less pleasant sight: Bishop Hawkins roosted on the sanctuary, in the ornate celebrant chair. He’d left to investigate another order but had returned on Easter to show stability and solidarity during this parish’s time of uncertainty—a nun’s excommunication was no trivial thing. Evelyn knew he’d be there, but shuddered to see him all the same.
If he’d seen her enter, which he undoubtedly had, he was ignoring her—convincingly. He’d had years of practice.
Little bundles of anxiety scaled the interior walls of her stomach. She focused her attention elsewhere in the sanctuary: the vaulted cathedral ceiling with clusters of arches meeting at a central point; morning light streaming through stained glass windows; the altar, set with pristine linens and candles, a table ready for a celebratory meal; behind the altar, a wooden Jesus nailed to his crucifix; evangelists carved into the front of the pulpit. The congregation said, “Lord, have mercy.”
The Mass continued with readings from Acts, Psalms, and Colossians. When it was time for the Gospel, Bishop Hawkins ascended from his perch. He had donned a cream chasuble with a stripe of rich gold embroidery down the front. Evelyn couldn’t make it out from where she sat, but it likely depicted a biblical scene. Such vestments cost thousands of dollars. She thought, You can shroud a rodent in lavish garments, but it doesn’t make him any less of a rodent.
As he approached the pulpit, the congregation rose, but Evelyn remained seated. The residents followed her lead. Desiree’s hand covered hers.
The bishop took a moment to survey the crowd before beginning, perhaps allotting extra time for the reluctant. He wanted everybody on their feet. Finally, he said, “A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke,” and then he made a big show of tracing crosses over his forehead, mouth, and heart.
