by Lisa Samson
And a religious sister? Even more wonderful.
But my mother never graduated at all. Yes, she wanted to be a teacher, and she planned to be a religious, but she lasted a month having met a fellow who led her down “the wrong path,” as people call it.
“It was then she was introduced to opium,” he said.
My father and I sat in the chapel at the mission. We’d eaten some of my vegetable stew and a bit of boiled meat over rice, drank a little of the wine, and eaten a square of the Dairy Milk chocolate bar I’d brought from Manzini.
As I write, I’m watching over him as he sleeps. John wanted to head over to Siphewe’s house to make sure she has enough supplies now that she’s housing three orphans. Only Jesus knows what will happen to that makeshift little family.
Anyway, back to my mother.
My father placed his arm along the back of the pew behind me but did not touch me. He sighed with such sadness, I wondered how any breath was left inside of him. “She went downhill from there, such as is the tale with that substance. The more she smoked or ate opium, the thinner she became. The fellow flew the coop, so she stole, begged on the street, making up stories to finance her habit, becoming more and more dissipated looking. Finally, she ended up at our mission.”
“Weren’t you still in seminary?”
“Yes. My third year, actually. I’d always taken an interest in rescue work. Sort of the emergency room of social justice I guess you might say.”
Outside, the sun had set almost completely, the great clouds still tinged golden, the mountains purpled in the twilight and ready to deflate just a little upon the coming of the darkness.
By this age, my father’s voice had hushed itself to just above a whisper, a little early-morning gravelly, but still possessing a throaty bit of warmth at its core, something that said he wasn’t going to hurt you. Did my mother feel that way when she entered the mission?
“So she came into the mission on a winter night. Somebody had stolen her coat and her purse, and she was highly inebriated.”
“You can say drunk, Joe, I won’t mind.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to defame her like that.”
He said the words with such sincerity, I knew for certain I was about to hear a new version of this man, one completely unlike what my mother, or my grandmother, or even myself, had concocted.
And yet.
There I sat in all my humanity, having been sired and conceived and then born. So something untoward happened, because I doubt they’d married beforehand.
He cleared his throat, holding his fist up to his mouth. “I want to say this as delicately as possible, Mary-Margaret. You’re my daughter—”
“And you are a priest,” I joked.
“Yes, that too. Your mother had nowhere to go. She was skin and bones, her stare glassy and frightened, darting all around. And jumpy. Yet still beautiful. You’ve seen pictures?”
I nodded. “We had a couple.”
“Then you know. So we set up a cot for her in the women’s dormitory and she began to withdraw. Do you know much about opium?”
I shook my head.
“Well, it starts off well. A nice sense of euphoria. But the body soon becomes tolerant of it, causing you to smoke or eat incrementally more to experience the same sensation. So you can imagine the resulting, addictive cycle. The skin develops a rash such that, by the time she came, she had scratched her skin until it bled, sometimes using a metal comb.”
“Oh, goodness me!”
“She was in terrible shape. Father Frank, who was in charge of the mission at the time, said she’d have to go to the hospital, but she went crazy at the idea. He was a brusque man and went back to his work, not up to convincing someone who was hell-bent on throwing her life away anyway.
“I felt I only had one option left—to accompany her to a motel somewhere and sit with her, take care of her while she withdrew.”
He told me about a little place out Route 40 that looked like a collection of little storybook cottages. “I had a little money from my family, so I checked us in and sat with her. Have you ever been with somebody while they’re withdrawing?”
“No. You took care of Jude for me.”
“Oh yes. His was one of the worst I’d ever been through.”
“Really?”
“Most assuredly. God forgive me of such little faith, but I think I was more surprised than anyone that he kicked it for good. I suppose sometimes it depends on why they started using in the first place. Did he use in high school?”
“No. He rowed out on the bay a lot though.”
“Hmm.”
The moon broadcast its thin beams through the clear glass of the narrow window, two panes by four, and shone on his slender hands, crabbed a bit, yes, but still lithe and expressive as he moved them for emphasis. I wondered what they would have felt like as they helped me learn how to ride a bike or tie a shoe. I bet he would have been able to do a little girl’s hair too.
“Had you known, would you have given up the priesthood for me?”
The words came out before my brain even realized they materialized somewhere in the dark creases of its folds.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But until your wedding day, I had no idea you even existed.”
“You left so suddenly. Didn’t Jude blame it on the crabs?”
“He did.”
“You were so pale.”
“Well, you can imagine what was going through me at the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. No, Mary-Margaret. I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth. If anyone suffered in this situation, it was you. You didn’t deserve any of it. Honestly, I don’t know how you turned out so well. Other than the grace of God,” he added quickly.
I laughed. I wasn’t about to tell him. But he was right. Maybe my life didn’t seem to be one fraught with tension and horrible people, but it was only that way because I was protected. I suppose I could have rebelled against the Divine plan, but honestly, deep in my bones I knew I wouldn’t escape, and can I just admit something I’ve never admitted to anyone? I was afraid to do anything else. I’d lost my mother, had no father, no family. What else could God take from me to put me back on the straight and narrow? My legs? My art? No, I wasn’t about to take that kind of chance.
Jesus asked a lot of me, yes, but it all worked out in the end, didn’t it? And these days, that’s something nobody wants to hear about. But I tell you this, my sisters, because sometimes it takes many decades for it all to become clear. If I had been writing this story just after Jude died, or following my hysterectomy after John was born, the tone would be quite different.
My life wasn’t perfect, sisters, but here I am, telling the tale. There’s always something to be said for the ability to pass on the details.
But I’ve rambled. I’m a bit tired after the funeral. And so sad. I haven’t cried like that in years. God knit Precious and me together in her listening silence.
My father finished the tale with his confession, one I knew I wasn’t the only one to hear. “I stayed with her in that room, cleaning up her vomit and her diarrhea, wiping her forehead when the fever raged. And I loved her. Perhaps it was because I was so weakened and tired from helping her, but the night before we left, she took me in her arms and you were the result. Not that I knew that then.” He cleared his throat. “I’d had a past I’d left behind only a few years before. Believe me, it’s easier to go back to where you’ve been than to where you never were.”
I nodded. “What happened after that?”
“I was ecstatic! Happy and in love with her and I had so many plans. All that night I lay in bed dreaming of running off, leaving seminary, of course, but I had a little money that would tide us over, and perhaps just get an advanced degree in theology and teach at a seminary somewhere. Of course, those were just rushed thoughts of a person destined to save lives, hers being no exception, and who knows if it would have all worked out that way. I wasn’t the on
ly one involved in the matter. Honestly, I didn’t have much time to think beyond that.”
His voice strengthened a bit and his closed eyes held the memories in tightly.
“What did my mother say about all that?”
“It never came to that, you see. I remember falling asleep at daybreak, I was so excited, you see, and fell into a dead slumber after having been up most of the night, and I was simply exhausted after caring for her.” He gripped the pew in front of him. “She was gone, Mary-Margaret. When I woke up, she’d left. And I tried to find her. People only knew her first name, and in Maryland . . .”
“It’s a pretty Catholic state,” I said, my voice dropping.
“It is. Do you know what happened to her after that? Jude kept mum as you might expect.”
I inhaled deeply. “She came back to the island pregnant, but I don’t know how far along she was. Grandmom took care of her and when she had me, she hemorrhaged and bled to death right there in the bedroom. My grandmother raised me, but she died when I was seven and I went to live with the sisters at St. Mary’s.”
“John did tell me about that when I started as his spiritual companion. I asked him about his maternal grandfather and he said both of those grandparents were dead.”
“As far as he knew, that was his truth. I just thought it was easier that way. Too much mystery . . .” I laid my hand atop the one he’d curled over the top of the pew. “I didn’t know what else to say. And I could have been right. I just didn’t know.”
“Did your grandmother give you any idea what happened?”
“I don’t think she really knew. She had her ideas. My mother had lied so much to her, as you might imagine.”
“Were they even close to the truth? At least about me?”
“All I really knew about you was that you were a seminarian. She told me my mother was about to say her final vows.”
“Oh my,” he said.
“She said you raped her.”
Though it was dim, I watched as the color drained from his face.
I reached out and held him as the words sank into both of us, at the massive injustice the lie had done to both of us. He was a good man, he’d have been a good father, and here we sat, seven decades later.
“But here you sit, T—.” Jesus sat down on the bench in front of us.
I hugged my father. “We have a lot to make up for and we’re both old.”
He kissed me on the forehead and wiped away my tears, then his own.
Who was Mary Margaret the First? I believe that is the saddest part of this tale. My grandmother didn’t know her and neither did Aunt Elfi. Perhaps I’ll find out someday. And yet, maybe it’s time to put the dear soul to rest, someone who’d beg for money, lie to those who loved her, and yet, who gave me life and sacrificed her own in the process.
Yes, rest in peace, Mary Margaret.
And rest in peace, Mary-Margaret, you have found your father and have borne a son, and have grown old with your sisters.
Rest in peace.
I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M COMING TO THE END OF MY TALE AND I think it’s only fair I tell you how Jude left us.
In the end, he gave his life for someone like all of us, someone unfaithful and completely undeserving of a sacrifice like that. I suppose, for the faithful follower of Christ, it comes down to that eventually—if not literally, than in some other way. Perhaps we’re called to serve a belligerent, selfish spouse, or tend to ungrateful children or parents. Perhaps we serve in a church or parish that expects too much and what we do is immediately criticized. Perhaps our boss gets all the credit for our hard work. I don’t know. But as a wise friend of mine, an Orthodox nun, once said, “Dedicated Christian life can be summed up like this: ‘Get on that cross and hold still.’”
Not exactly bumper sticker material, that!
But true?
If we heed Saint Paul’s words that we are crucified with Christ, then indeed, I’d say my friend is right.
The night Jude died, the off-season was in full swing. Early December in Ocean City would be categorized as bleak by the beachgoer, but for us, it was a time of reflection, building, and renewal. We worked on kites for the coming season and by that time we’d built a studio for me in the backyard. I didn’t have the space or the materials for my larger sculptures, and Morpheus there in Georgia was cornering the market for intriguing bent wood designs. So I began sculpting with clay and I found charcoal a most satisfying substance to manipulate on the paper I began making myself—crude-edged, chunky paper at least an eighth of an inch thick.
St. Francis’s on Locust Island needed new Stations of the Cross, so I made bronze reliefs that I ended up selling copies of to several churches. The years were kind for me and my work. Still no recognition or gallery showings, but Jesus sat with me quite a bit in my little shed and told me how much he liked what I was doing.
Jude took care of the kite shop on his own except from Memorial Day to Labor Day when I joined him there on the Boardwalk. We anchored kites to deep stakes we drove into the sand, some of them dipping and diving, others just soaring, scanning the horizon of the Atlantic. To some he attached twirling whirligigs; others made flapping sounds and whistles and screeches.
We didn’t realize how many kite enthusiasts flocked to the beach, and Jude found himself taking special orders that he’d mostly work on through the off-months. Oh, the shop was adorable there in a little frame house from 1902. We painted the shingle siding the blue of the sky and the trim, the porch spindles, and supports a lime green. I painted a new sign every year and after about five years it became a tradition for people to walk the boards, stop in front of our store, and see what that year’s sign looked like. Some were pretty, with birds and flowers, or fish and butterflies. We did Olympic themes and the Bicentennial year’s sign reminded me of something on Schoolhouse Rock! My favorite sign sported a peacock and an owl, birds representing Jude and myself, I suppose. Although I don’t view the owl as wisdom, more as something with an ancient outlook.
John continued excelling in science and math, winning state competitions in chemistry and physics during high school. He wasn’t popular, as he didn’t have an athletic bone in his body, but he was so friendly and laid-back, nobody gave him much trouble. He learned early on that being unflappable was the best way to coast under the radar and get done what he needed. He’s been successful at his mission because of this very trait. The day he realized he could be a physician and a priest, when he was in seminary, he called me. His voice was infused with relief. “I mean, I knew I wanted to be a priest, Mom, but there was more to it and I just couldn’t figure out the other piece. But I met this Jesuit named Father Ignatius today.” And he rattled on from there.
John finished his undergraduate degree in two years, utilizing CLEP tests and every summer and micro session. And, well, sisters, you’re basically caught up on John, so I won’t say any more about that here.
The last summer, though we didn’t know it was the last, Jude finally allowed me to do a lighthouse theme for our sign. He finally got over his aversion to them and I told him I’d do the typical conical variety, not the screwpile type that still stands out on Bethlehem Point.
John was in his second year of seminary when it happened. I was fifty-six and Jude fifty-eight. The life of St. Mary’s felt so far behind me, except for Angie, who’d join us for her vacations, regaling us with tales of her exciting life all over the world. She never made me feel bad either. Having once been married, sexually active, and, well, Angie’s celibacy came hard, she said more than once, “I may have all these battle scars, Mary, but you sleep regularly with the best-looking guy in the state. Let’s just be honest.”
And I’d laugh.
You see, I did come to love Jude with that sweet married couple love, and I was blessed not to take him for granted. Sure, he began as a study in holy obedience, but it all turned into something sweet and satisfying. Sort of like a warm donut fresh from the fryer compared to chocolate mousse.
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br /> We had tough times like all couples do, life wasn’t perfect. Jude never lost his rough edge and I could get “a little nunnish” as he called it. But we could iron out the wrinkles as they emerged. My goodness, I never knew how marriage could unleash a redheaded woman’s temper at times! Jude thought it was hilarious, and that made me even more angry.
The night Jude left, December 12, was quite mild. We’d just come back from a thirty-day spiritual retreat, and it was one of those sorts of days in December along the coast where the wind blows a little warm and the sun shines quite golden in response, it seems. That day was no different. We decided to walk across Ocean Highway and into town to get a beer at one of the few open bars that time of year. The Dutch Mill. Right on the Boardwalk.
Now, it sounds awfully friendly and Jude worked his way around the rougher element quite well, not surprisingly, but The Dutch Mill should have been called “The Bike Lane.” The people there all knew him from the mission and they respected him. No one could pull the wool over Jude’s eyes and they liked him for it. The bar was filled with locals mostly, bikers—some of whom had been on our deck at times for crabs or ribs (Jude had become fond of grilling ribs)—and some of the working girls who were tying one on to get through the night pounding the sidewalks in their six-inch heels. At least it wasn’t going to be quite so cold that night.
Two strangers walked in, dressed in suits and ties, but the fine clothing seemed more like costumage than daily garb. Their attitudes were more suited to glitzy, low-cut shirts and tight pants.
Nevertheless, they didn’t bother anybody, ordering beers and smoking cigarettes at the bar.
Jude nursed his drink, as did I, and we chatted with a biker couple named Janet and Ron as my husband smoked cigarette after cigarette. He never could break that habit. Honestly, he never really tried.
“After what I did, this is the least of my worries,” he always said.
I nagged him about it a little after John was born, but Jesus sat beside me one evening and said, “Let it be, T—. It’s not going to matter in the long run.”
