Ash Wednesday

by Ralph McInerny

  “The poor woman,” Nathaniel had said when she expressed this thought during one of her visits to Joliet.

  “How can you say that?”

  “Who better? Carmela, look at her life. Surely you don’t think she’s happy.”

  “Why shouldn’t she be?”

  “She was unlucky in love,” Nathaniel said.

  “But she was married.”

  “That’s what I mean. She had hoped to marry someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “Nathaniel! Are you serious?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Tell me.”

  So he told her of his courting days, visiting the house with the two lovely sisters, Helen the elder, Florence the younger. He himself hadn’t been sure which one he was after.

  “What decided it?”

  “My appendix.”

  He had had an appendicitis attack, during a visit when only Florence was there. She took him in charge, called an ambulance, and waited through the operation, not telling her family where she was. In the recovery room, she sat beside him, holding his hand. It seemed destiny.

  “We were engaged before I was released from the hospital.”

  “That’s romantic!”

  “Yes. And ours was a wonderful marriage, as you must have noticed.”

  She had. She had thought more than once that if only she and Jason could be like Nathaniel and Florence everything would be right. But Nathaniel didn’t drink, he didn’t gamble, and he had no mother to smother him with a protective love that prevented him from growing up. Helen, of course, had become his implacable enemy, something she could barely conceal at family gatherings. She had married Burke, had Jason, buried Burke, and been left with no one but Jason to care for and no one but Nathaniel to hate.

  The downside of Nathaniel’s release was that Carmela no longer saw him. Joliet had been a neutral site, but she couldn’t show up in Fox River without running the risk of seeing Jason and his mother. Particularly his mother. When she telephoned Nathaniel, he told her of the St. Hilary center and Helen’s constant attendance.

  “You should stay away from there, Nathaniel.”

  “I like it. And my parole officer approves.”

  His parole officer. During those years that Nathaniel had been in Joliet, Carmela’s conviction that he was innocent of Florence’s death strengthened.

  He discouraged talk about it. “The important thing is that Florence received the last sacraments and died in the peace of God.”

  Hearing him say that, she wished desperately that she could share his simple faith.

  Her main source of news of Nathaniel—and Jason—was now Madeline. Poor Madeline. She still had a crush on Jason, making light of it by saying that he was her cousin, for heaven’s sake. Carmela learned of the Foot Doctor, of the sign on Jason’s office—DOCTOR IS IN—and it was too good not to pass on to Augie.

  “Is he a podiatrist?”

  “No!”

  “A pedophile?”

  “You’re awful.”

  “Hey, I like mature women.”

  Was that what she was? Sometimes she felt like the foolish girl she had been when she became infatuated with Jason.

  Then she did a stupid thing. She went to see Nathaniel. It was a weekday, so he was at the St. Hilary center. She drove there. She parked, wondering if she dared go in and ask for him, and then she saw him sitting on a bench. She got out of the car and went to him, just sitting beside him on the bench. He turned, and his reaction seemed all the justification she needed to be there.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked him.

  “Reading.”

  “Can’t you read inside?”

  “It’s better out here. Quieter.”

  They had such a nice reunion after what, months, just chattering away on the bench, happy as larks until Madeline came along.

  “Carmela!”

  “Hello, Madeline.”

  Madeline sat on Nathaniel’s other side. He asked, “Is Helen inside?”

  “I won’t tell.”

  “Tell what?” Carmela demanded.

  “About you two lovebirds cuddling here on a bench in sixty-degree weather.”

  Nathaniel chortled at this, but Carmela thought she detected an edge in Madeline’s voice.

  “Are you going to visit Jason, too?”

  “Not this time.”

  Carmela had given Nathaniel one of her cards, showing off, and Madeline saw it.

  “Can I see that?”

  Nathaniel handed it to her.

  “Could I have one?”

  Carmela opened her purse and got out another and gave it to Madeline. She should have remembered what a snitch Madeline was. Two days later Jason showed up at the offices of the Avanti Group and asked if his wife was in.

  Ever since Ash Wednesday, Marie Murkin had been brooding over the way she had treated Nathaniel Green when Father Dowling had brought him over for lunch. At the time, she had thought that, apart from his annoyingly Christian behavior that contrasted so pointedly with her own, Father Dowling just didn’t understand what Nathaniel Green had done. Done and then admitted he had done, been tried, convicted, and all the rest. Forgive and forget? What kind of world would it be if murderers rubbed shoulders with the rest of us?

  As Lent progressed and Marie got used to fasting and abstinence, these practices began to exert their intended result. She consulted her soul, she examined her conscience. She did not like what she saw. As matters went on as they had at the parish center, with the shunning of Nathaniel Green, Marie had the upsetting thought that she was as bad as Helen Burke.

  This muddied her motives, of course. Helen had always rubbed Marie the wrong way. When Florence was dying and Nathaniel was at his side, Helen had been an infrequent presence at the hospital, in and out, just a pro forma visit. Of course, she had never liked Florence.

  Florence was the sister whom Nathaniel chose when Helen thought she was the reason for his visits to the Burke home. How did she pick up gossip like that? No matter. Marie knew it was true. The man Helen had married, God rest his soul, had been a wimp, dancing to whatever tune Helen chose to hum. Marie could still remember them arriving at Sunday Mass. Helen would sit erect in the passenger seat until her husband scooted around to open the door. Then she would emerge and proceed to the church door, head high, ramrod straight, with poor Burke toddling along behind. Portrait of a mismatch. By contrast, even Marie’s rocky marriage seemed an idyll.

  Oh, admit it. During the trial, Marie had been as eager as Helen allegedly was to see Nathaniel sent away for good. Like Helen, she lamented the softness of a state that had abrogated the death penalty. When Nathaniel was sent away, it all might have drifted out of Marie’s consciousness if Helen had not been such a constant presence in the rectory during the reign of the last Franciscan pastor.

  If Helen ever asked to have Masses said for her dead sister, Marie did not know of it. It was during that time that Burke, too, died. Helen briefly tried to play an Italian widow, but then her usual crustiness returned. The Franciscans loved her. Her husband had been a member of the Third Order, and she had him buried in the habit. Marie couldn’t believe it when she saw him laid out at the wake. What kind of woman would want her husband buried in a religious habit? Of course Helen doled out pittances to the friars, who were as grateful as mendicants ought to be.

  The coming of Father Dowling had meant the eclipsing of Helen. She just disappeared. Marie heard she was going to Mass at St. Patrick’s downtown, but Marie suspected that she just couldn’t face the St. Hilary parishioners when her son, Jason, began disturbing her peace of mind. The boy was a drunk. He was a gambler. He was a bad husband. When they married, Marie had been astonished at the beauty of Jason’s bride, radiant, ignorant of what lay ahead. Well, what bride isn’t? But Carmela Rush would have a very tough row to hoe. The marriage hadn’t lasted five years. No divorce or anything, Carmela just decided to make a life of her own.
By all reports, she had. Eventually, when the scandal died down and Father Dowling had decided to turn the parish school into a center for older parishioners, the retired, the widows, Helen was back.

  The majority of those who attended the parish center came to Father Dowling’s Mass. Helen had not been among them until Lent started. What a shock it must have been to her when Marie escorted Nathaniel over to the center after his lunch with Father Dowling.

  Then scooted back to the rectory to tell Father Dowling all about the man. Remembering that now, her behavior seemed as bad as anything Helen was capable of. And then the idea came.

  Given her longtime service in the parish, it was pardonable in Marie that she from time to time assumed a pastoral role. The continued harassment of Nathaniel in the center called for action. She was about to insist that Father Dowling do something about it when the idea came. Marie was not the type who thought that the Holy Ghost spent his time whispering in her ear, but this seemed a genuine inspiration. Father Dowling seemed content to let the shunning wear itself out. Edna Hospers seemed helpless to do anything about it. Clearly this was a problem that required the skills of Marie Murkin.

  There was, of course, a problem. Since Helen now came to the noon Mass, she could easily be waylaid when she started back to the center with the other seniors, but that was when Marie had to serve Father Dowling’s lunch. She could prepare something beforehand, a cold lunch, salad, a sandwich, and put it on the table before going over to the church herself. No, that went so deeply against her grain, it pained her even to think of it. She intended to give a hundred percent to her job until they carried her out of the rectory. Contrive to get Father Dowling to invite Helen to have lunch with him? That would be to put the problem back on the pastor’s plate, and thus far he had shown no inclination to deal with Helen Burke. There was no alternative but to go over to the school.

  As she came along the walk from the rectory, she met a dapper little man who might have been waiting for her.

  “Mrs. Murkin?”

  He came up to her and took her hand before she could stop him. “Eugene Schmidt. I’ve never formally introduced myself.”

  Marie had seen him in church, sitting through the Mass, in the same pew as Natalie Armstrong, and wondered who he was. His smile had the same trained look as that of a church-goods salesman. She knew he had spent time with Father Dowling in the study, coming to the rectory when Marie was out shopping. Father Dowling had said nothing after the man left, and Marie refused to make inquiries, fearful that the pastor would begin teasing her about her interest in the man.

  “I’ve heard all about you, of course,” Eugene Schmidt said.

  Not from Father Dowling. From Edna Hospers? Marie continued on her way to the school, and Eugene Schmidt tagged along. “From Natalie Armstrong,” the man explained.

  Marie nodded. The thought of entering the school with this persistent little man brought her to a stop. “You come regularly to the center?”

  “What a great idea it is.”

  “Father Dowling has done wonders for the parish.”

  “Oh, everyone sings his praises, Mrs. Murkin.” The smile became shy. “And yours, of course.”

  How could she not respond to that? It was a pleasant thought that her own contributions to the flourishing of St. Hilary’s were recognized—and talked about. Then the reason for her coming to the school drove such thoughts away. She stopped. “Have you been taking part in this awful treatment of Nathaniel Green?”

  “Me?” He splayed a hand upon his chest. “Nathaniel and I have become friends.”

  “How has Helen Burke browbeat so many into doing her bidding?”

  “So you know about Helen.”

  The idea came quickly. “Would you go inside and tell her that I want to speak to her?”

  With a little wave, he headed for the door of the auditorium. Watching him go, Marie wondered if she had acted on an inspiration or done something very stupid. Now she had no alternative to just waiting out here to see if Helen came out.

  Minutes went by, and Marie was feeling increasingly foolish. Then the door opened, and Helen Burke came out, shielding her eyes from the weak sunlight. She saw Marie and came right to her. She stood before her, saying nothing, just waiting.

  “Helen, you know why I want to talk to you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “This treatment of Nathaniel Green has to stop.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “No. It’s an appeal to your good nature.”

  Silence. Then, “You don’t understand.”

  “Tell me.” She led Helen to a bench, and they sat.

  Helen joined her hands on her lap and looked across the parish grounds. All the snow had melted now, and the lawn looked soggy, but there was the beginning of buds on the trees.

  “He is a hypocrite.”

  Without pause, Helen went on, talking about the supposedly abject Nathaniel beside Florence’s hospital bed. A tragic figure. Helen snorted. And then to show up at St. Hilary’s, still trying to look like a tragic figure. Helen ran out of air. “Jealousy is a terrible thing, Helen.” “Jealousy! What do you mean?”

  “I know that you expected Nathaniel to choose you rather than Florence.”

  Helen jumped to her feet. She was speechless with anger.

  Marie uttered her ultimatum. “Either you stop persecuting him or I will make sure all the others know what your real motive is.”

  Marie stood and started toward the rectory. That wasn’t what she had meant to say to Helen—she had planned to tell her how incompatible her behavior was with her Christian faith and with her daily attendance at Mass—but now she had no doubt she had hit on the right means to get through to Helen. She inhaled deeply. She almost smiled. What is so satisfying as a job well done?

  When Carmela was told that her husband was in the reception area, she just nodded, avoiding her secretary Emily’s quizzical expression. No one in the office, except Augie, knew that she was married.

  “Show him in.”

  Emily left, and Carmela waited, realizing that she was posing. Pinstriped suit, pink blouse, her glasses still on, sitting upright and businesslike in her chair. Jason appeared in the doorway, looked across the intervening space at her, and then came toward her, saying, as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them, “Nice place.”

  Carmela took off her glasses and sat forward. “Do you like it?”

  He let his eyes go round the room. “No fridge?”

  “That’s down the hall in our lunchroom.”

  “I wanted to thank you for the beer.”

  She sat back. “What do you mean?” The question brought back one of the main reasons they were living apart.

  “I found the fridge in my office chock-full of beer. Thanks.”

  “Jason, it wasn’t me. Why on earth would I supply you with beer?”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “I didn’t do it. Are you saying someone filled your fridge with beer?”

  “It really wasn’t you?”

  “Jason, no one who had the least concern for you would encourage your drinking.”

  “I’ve cut down.”

  Carmela had heard that before. She had also heard him say that beer wasn’t really drinking. She had heard a dozen excuses, but Jason remained Jason. All in all, though, he looked good.

  Then he said, “Are you concerned about me?”

  “What a silly question.”

  He seemed genuinely surprised. Good Lord, did he think she hated him? If she had, leaving him would have been a lot easier than it had been. Helen Burke had made it seem necessary.

  “A wife should be able to manage her husband,” Helen had said, her voice heavy with reproach.

  “I want my husband to manage himself.”

  “I think you encourage his weaknesses.”

  Oh, the things she might have said to that insufferable woman. But she never had. Was it fear or just the sense that you didn’t say out loud th
e things she thought about her mother-in-law? Still, it was good to have it out in the open that Helen thought Carmela was responsible for Jason’s troubles.

  “Do you think I should leave him?” Carmela asked.

  Helen was silent for a moment. “Jason’s great mistake was having your marriage blessed by the Church.”

  How had that dreadful conversation ended? Looking back on it, Carmela was sure her mother-in-law was asking her to leave Jason. Did she really believe he would grow up if left to himself? From everything she had heard since their separation, that hadn’t happened.

  “How is your mother?” she asked Jason.

  He wrinkled his nose. “The same.”

  “She is backing you in your new enterprise?”

  “What else? And waiting for me to fail.”

  “Will you?”

  “I really don’t think so. People will buy shoes, you know. As long as I keep away from the casinos …” He grinned like a boy when he said it.

  “Why on earth gamble? You don’t need money, Jason. That can’t be it.”

  “If I did, the last place to get it would be in a casino. That’s where you leave it.”

  One of the theories Carmela had entertained was that Jason’s destructive habits were aimed at his mother. Helen thought she had ruined Jason; well, two could play at that game. Did Jason enjoy the thought of going back to his mother with bad news?

  “Have you seen your Uncle Nathaniel?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you intend to?”

  “We could go together.”

  He had spoken softly and then looked away. What on earth had brought him here?

  “Jason, why did you really come here?”

  “To see you.”

  “And ask if I had put beer in your fridge? When you thought I had, what else did you think? That I wanted you to start drinking again?”

  “I haven’t opened a bottle.”

  “You’ve quit?”

  “I’m not into dramatic resolutions. But it’s been a while. Ask Madeline.”