The Lost Mother

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “Your father,” the nun said, setting the paper aside. She took off one pair of glasses, put on another. “You haven’t heard from him since you’ve been here, is that correct?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  The bushy eyebrows raised over the glasses.

  “I mean, Sister.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “No.”

  “We need to get in touch with your father, Thomas. Do you have an address? Is there some way we could write to him?”

  “I don’t know” He wasn’t about to admit that his father was in jail and make it even easier for her to ship him off to St. Leo’s.

  “Do you know where he is?” Again she picked up the paper. “According to what your mother’s written here, she has no idea where he went or what’s become of him.”

  He shrugged. His mother was ashamed to admit it. So she was coming. She was ready for them to go back.

  “And you don’t either?”

  “No.” He couldn’t help grinning, yet he was afraid he might cry.

  “Is everything all right, Thomas?”

  “I guess so,” he said with another shrug.

  “Have you been happy here?” This, he could tell, was a tricky question.

  “Pretty much.”

  She smiled. “Well, it appears that everyone here is happy with you pretty much of the time too. Are you working on your temper?”

  “I am. Yes, Sister.”

  She got up and told him he could go back downstairs now. She opened the door and the smell of cinnamon apples baking filled the room. It was almost dinner time. “You can come in now, Margaret,” Sister Mary Sebastian said.

  “Thomas,” Margaret whispered, her face drained with fright. She hurried past him into the office.

  Instead of going down to dinner he waited at the bottom of the stairs. Her visit was taking a lot longer than his had.

  “Margaret!” he called when he saw her skinny ankles turn on the stairwell above. He ran up to meet her. “What did she want? Was it about Daddy?”

  “Shh.” She whispered, afraid of them being caught together. She started down the stairs. He grabbed her arm and demanded to know what Sister had said. “She wanted to know where Daddy is,” she whispered. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  She nodded.

  “You said he was in jail?”

  “She asked me. She said Mommy doesn’t know. But we told her, didn’t we?” She looked stricken. “Maybe she forgot.”

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” He squeezed her arm.

  “No, what?”

  “That I’m going to St. Leo’s and then you’ll be here forever! Alone!” He didn’t know what anything meant anymore, but he wanted to punish her for not protecting their father, and, at the same time, he was afraid to raise her hope to the wild level of his.

  “She wanted to know about the Farleys.”

  “The Farleys! What’d you tell her about them for?”

  “She knew about them. I didn’t tell her.”

  “She ask about me hitting Jesse-boy?” He pressed her against the banister.

  “No! It was just about them. “Were they nice people and did they live in a nice house, things like that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I said they were rich.”

  “What’s wrong with you? You shouldn’t’ve said anything! You’re so stupid! You mess everything up! Everything!”

  She shoved him away. “I hate you, Thomas! I hate you so much! I’ll be glad if you go to St. Leo’s! I hope I never see you again!”

  After dinner he waited by the dining room door. As always, Margaret emerged in a cluster of laughing girls. When he called to her, she didn’t turn around.

  “Hey, Tailcutter!” Groomes said as he left the dining room. “You forgot your books.”

  He hurried back and slid the pile of books out from under his chair. Late for study hall he ran down the corridor. The only seat left was next to Groomes, who scribbled studiously in his composition tablet. Their assignment for English was to write an essay telling what they were most grateful for. Thomas stared into the distance. There wasn’t a thing to be grateful for. Even his shoes were still wet. His sister hated him. The food tonight had been awful by the time he got to it, cold peas and a mushy mix of potatoes and rubbery ham. Now that he thought of it, it was all his father’s fault. If he’d been a smarter man, say like Mr. Farley, he would have made enough money for them to own a big house in town and his mother never would have left.

  And he and Margaret wouldn’t have ended up in a mess like this. He didn’t like anyone here and no one liked him. Except maybe Sister Mary Christopher. He picked up his pencil, but what could he say about her? That she had listened to all his troubles, but then he was probably the only kid here that’d ever talked to her, which would only prove what an idiot he was when the essays were hung in the hallways for everyone to read. He could just hear Groomes’s singsongy voice, “Tailcutter’s grateful for the wall-eyed, gimpy nun because she can’t see how queer he really, really is!”

  “You’d better get busy, Thomas,” Sister Mary Martin, the study hall monitor, warned as she came down the row.

  “Hey, Monty! What did you write about?” he whispered when she had passed in a camphorous swish of black wool. The small boy’s eyes widened and he burst out laughing.

  “Thomas, stop talking and get started!” Sister Mary Martin called.

  “Peas,” Groomes whispered as Thomas picked up his tablet. “He wrote about peas.”

  The first two pages were stuck together with a thick green paste. So were the next, the next. Peas, smashed between every page. Around him everyone snickered.

  The open tablet in hand, he sprang from his chair. He wanted to rub the pages in that big, fleshy face, but Groomes easily batted him away. Thomas lunged again, pulling him onto the floor. “No-good fat bastard,” he grunted as they struggled to hit each other, wrestling between the toppled chair legs. Now Groomes straddled his chest, punching his face.

  “Stop that! I said stop it!” Sister Mary Martin shouted with a loud smack to the back of Groomes’s head. Groomes groaned. Thomas’s nose was bleeding. Groomes started to get up, but Thomas rose quicker. He dove, his panting, sobbing frenzy of blows knocking Groomes into the overturned chairs. Now three nuns were trying to pull the boys apart. One held on to his shirt as he strained toward Groomes, Groomes who was the true cause of all his unhappiness.

  “You’ve done it now, Thomas Talcott!” Sister Mary Martin said, shaking her finger at him. “Two weeks’ detention! No party! No Christmas! Nothing!”

  It wasn’t the somber, gravelly-voiced nun his arm batted away, but that finger wagging back and forth in his face. Why was it there? Why was any of this happening?

  “St. Leo’s,” it was declared as the nun lost her balance and staggered into the table. “That’s where this one belongs.”

  Detention again. But it wasn’t so bad because for two hours every afternoon he could be near Sister Mary Christopher. She had scolded him the first day, but now she seemed as pleased with his presence as he was with hers. Groomes, she confided, was a pathetic kid. Abandoned here as an infant, he had no known relatives. He was clever enough, but had no good sense about people. It was as much an ailment, she said, as bad eyes or crippled legs. He had long ago given up trying to be liked. “He has no friends,” she said.

  “Yes, he does,” Thomas said.

  “No. Just boys that’re scared of him,” she said.

  After the pans were washed and put away and it was time to leave the warm kitchen, she would turn her back just long enough for Thomas to fill his pockets with pilfered cookies. He usually shared them with his sister the next day in the play yard. And with her friend Katie. Katie had eyes as big and blue as Margaret’s, bright, rosy cheeks, and soft, golden curls. Her smile made him smile. She called him Tommy and always grinned when she said it. Tonight, the cookies had been gingerbread boys. He could only fit one in eac
h pocket. They were for Katie and Margaret.

  “Wait!” Sister Mary Christopher was wrapping two gingerbread boys in butcher paper. “I want you to do me a favor. Here. Give one to Robert Groomes.”

  “No. He’ll just start another fight.”

  “Thomas, you have to try very hard to get along with Robert. You may be here for a long time and you can’t always be fighting with him.”

  “I’m not gonna be here long. I’ll be going home pretty soon.”

  “What makes you think so?” She peered at him.

  “Because.” His brain reeled in a collision of all the questions he had been afraid to ask. His world existed in separate parts. His father. His mother. This place. Margaret. Himself. Moving any of the pieces was like a raft starting to break apart under him on fast-moving water. “Because it’s Christmas. Almost.” There. Of course. That was why.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and brought her face close. Magnified, her distorted eyes seemed to be searching through a layer of ice. “It’s beautiful here at Christmas. There’s ham and turkey for dinner, and everyone gets a present. Every single child.”

  The next morning he ran through the play yard looking for Margaret. He waited, scowling through the snow glare until she’d had her turn in the game. Their breath billowing in the icy air, the girls linked arms and screamed, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Margaret over!”

  She ran, hard as she could, but couldn’t break through. Margaret had gotten tough and the girls all knew it. That’s why she had so many friends, he thought. Or maybe followers, like Groomes had. Maybe they were afraid of her.

  “Here,” he said when she finally trotted over. He gave her the gingerbread boy and she slipped it into her pocket. If anyone saw it, they’d be mobbed. He had already eaten Groomes’s. He’d been going to give it to him, but then last night Groomes had put rocks under his sheet. He asked where Katie was. Why? Margaret smirked. Because he had one for her too, he said, feeling foolish. He liked Katie, didn’t he, Margaret said; she could tell.

  “No. I’m just trying to be nice to your friends, that’s all.”

  “Why don’t you have any friends? You’re always alone,” she said.

  “Because I don’t want friends. What’s the point? Here, anyway.”

  Silent for a moment, Margaret looked around. Sister Mary Marion watched from the top step, arms folded in her full sleeves, the long black veil whipping up in the quick gusts. Margaret stepped closer. “I think we’re going.”

  “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “When?” Suddenly he wished he still had Groomes’s gingerbread boy so he could smash it into bits and leave the crumbs on his pillow. Or in his footlocker. With rocks and water and peas. It wouldn’t matter anymore.

  Margaret wasn’t sure, but this morning Sister Mary Sebastian had called her into the office again. This time the nun had done most of the talking. She said Margaret’s mother was a very nice woman. She’d had a hard life, but had done her best in these difficult times to raise such fine children as the two of them were. Unfortunately, Margaret’s father still wasn’t able to take care of them. Her mother was very concerned that his circumstances had had a terrible effect on the children, especially Margaret.

  “What’s that mean?” he interrupted.

  “Probably because I cry sometimes,” Margaret said quickly.

  “Sometimes!”

  Margaret shrugged. Because that wasn’t the most important part. Because then Sister Mary Sebastian asked Margaret if she understood that her mother only wanted her to be happy. Margaret grinned at him.

  “What’s that mean?” He frowned to hide his own exhilaration.

  “That she’s taking us back!”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow. In her office. She wants me to be very polite, she said. Someone’s going to be there, she said.”

  “Yeah, your teacher probably.” Margaret hadn’t been doing well in school.

  “No. Because I’m taking my bath tonight. Don’t you see?”

  He stared blankly at her. It was a moment before he comprehended. Baths were taken on Saturday nights. Never during the week. This was Wednesday. “Yeah. They’re gonna clean you up before they send you to St. Leo’s,” he said, and tears filled her eyes.

  “I’m just kidding. Here.” He gave her the second gingerbread boy. What did it matter? After tomorrow, he’d never see Katie again either. “St. Leo’s is for boys. Not girls.”

  “I know!” she wept.

  “Well, so stop blubbering then!”

  “I will!” she cried and ran off, sobbing.

  All through the day, then into the night he waited to be called to the office, to his bath. Maybe they figured it was more important for a girl to look nice. Yeah. A boy had to take care of himself. That’s just the way it was. At bedtime he washed his face, ears, and neck with great care. He scrubbed his teeth so hard his gums bled. And when he’ climbed into his salt-sprinkled sheets, he rolled out and brushed them clean with the flat of his hand, not only impervious, but superior now to the wave of snickering and pillowed squeals that rose around him. He almost felt bad for them. His misery had become their greatest happiness. That’s what happened to kids when nobody loved them, he thought as he fell asleep.

  It was two days before Christmas. The tall tree in the dining room was covered with decorations the children had made these last few weeks. His call to the office came right after breakfast. Sister Mary Martin stopped him as he left the dining room. Sister Mary Sebastian wanted to see him at nine o’clock.

  “Should I bring my clothes?” He couldn’t stop grinning.

  “What you’re wearing is fine, Thomas,” she said, then continued her brisk way down the hallway.

  But it wasn’t. These clothes belonged to the orphanage.

  He didn’t want to go home in this awful tan shirt and brown pants. He didn’t even want his mother to see him dressed like this. It mattered how he looked. She’d always been careful about things like that. So fussy that after she left he’d liked not having to care if things matched, stripes, checks, colors. But now it would matter again. And he wanted it to, desperately.

  He and Margaret waited on the slat-backed wooden chairs outside the office. Instead of her uniform Margaret wore a pink and blue dress he’d never seen before. There was a pink ribbon in her smoothed-down hair. Patent leather shoes. Frilly white socks. They had made her look real nice, he thought, but she didn’t look as happy as he felt. Even in these dull clothes. Every now and again voices could be heard from inside. He would look at his sister and she would stare down at her shoes, trying to listen. Sister Mary Sebastian’s authoritative voice was the easiest to identify. The other two, a man and a woman’s, were low, muffled, as if they were revealing secrets. Which they probably were. After all that had happened. Sister Mary Sebastian probably had to be sure their mother and father were going to be all right together. That they could manage the kids and get along okay. Last week a little kid named Bernie Steele had been sent home with his mother and uncle only to come back three days later with awful bruises on his face and a long gash down the back of his head. His uncle wasn’t really his uncle after all. Monty said the uncle wanted him to do bad things, but Bernie wouldn’t. Bernie was still in the infirmary.

  The door opened and Thomas jumped to his feet, grinning.

  “It’ll be just a minute, Thomas,” Sister Mary Sebastian said. “I need to see Margaret first.”

  Margaret stayed in there a while. That was okay. Made sense. After all, Margaret had been such a crybaby, needing her mother so bad. They knew he could take the waiting and she couldn’t. His father wasn’t saying much. Mostly it was still Sister Mary Sebastian. Every now and then his mother would agree to whatever was being said. “Yes … of course … we know that … she’s such a dear child …”

  He leaned toward the door. His mother wouldn’t talk like that. Not usually. Never. Maybe she had missed them so
much, she was saying things she couldn’t tell them before. He wondered what she’d tell Sister Mary Sebastian when it was his turn. Usually she’d get real quiet when he came near her. He’d long ago given up trying to hold her hand. She didn’t like it. “You’re just like your father!” she’d said their last day in the cottage. He’d smiled until he saw the look on her face. Fear almost. As if she were afraid of her own son:

  His head shot up. His father was saying something about his jackknife, but he couldn’t make it out. He didn’t sound mad though. Thomas remembered the day his father had thrown the rusted jackknife into the pond. And how much he had hated his father for doing that. How much he’d hated not losing the jackknife, but his father’s rage and pain. He’d tried to act pleased when Gladys gave him the brand-new one on his birthday. But he hadn’t really felt it, because he didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Nothing could matter that much ever again. His father had scolded him all the way home in the truck that night, calling him an ungrateful whelp. He hadn’t been able to tell his father it wasn’t the jackknife he’d been disappointed in. It was his mother. For not coming on his birthday.

  “… a good companion,” his father was saying. “Very polite.” He leaned closer. The voice was different. High and nasally. “Believe me, if we could, Margaret, we would …”