The Shape of Mercy

by Susan Meissner

  I didn’t hear Clarissa come in.

  On Friday morning when my alarm went off, Clarissa was in her bed across from mine, wrapped like a burrito in a jumble of loosely woven blankets. One leg stuck out, hovering in midair, half on the bed and half off. Her toenails were painted a deep shade of purple, and a sizable toe ring was snagged on a loop of one of her blankets. She didn’t have class until ten on Fridays, and I wasn’t going to wake her just to ask a question.

  I toyed with the idea of leaving her a note inviting her to come home with me, but then decided to just visit her at the coffee shop later that day. I didn’t want her to think I was still trying to make myself feel better. My asking her to come wasn’t a peace offering so I could ease my conscience, though I knew that’s what she would think. I had told the boys I would ask her to come. It was that simple.

  I attended my four classes that day, dropped by the dorm to unload my book bag, and then headed to the coffee shop.

  The place was a sea of students, books, and open laptops. And it was noisy. Conversations flew about the room, and every few minutes there was the loud pounding of metal on wood as saturated espresso grounds were emptied by hurrying hands. Clarissa was behind the counter, filling cups and calling out names.

  “Tall dark roast with steamed milk for Tyrel!” she yelled.

  The man named Tyrel reached for the drink she put on the counter. “Thanks, Clarissa.”

  “So when are we going to Morocco, Tyrel?” Clarissa asked as she sprayed a plume of whipped cream onto someone else’s mocha.

  “Can’t this week. Midterms.” Tyrel winked at her and began to walk away.

  “You better not keep me waiting too long, Tyrel. I might have to go with someone else.” She placed the mocha on the counter. “Super tall raspberry mocha for Claire!”

  Then she saw me.

  “Lauren. Hey.”

  “Hi, Clarissa.”

  “You ordered something?”

  “No. Just wanted to see if you wanted to come home with me this weekend. Cole and Raul will be there, and Cole asked if you were coming. Would you like to?”

  She didn’t look up from the espresso machine. “I’m working this weekend.”

  “Well, um, you could come down after you get off, if you want. It’s not that long a drive.”

  “I’ve got a double shift. I’m working Saturday afternoon at the bookstore and Saturday evening here. Sunday afternoon and evening too. Gotta pay the bills.”

  She grabbed the stainless steel receptacle of spent espresso grounds and whacked it on the side of a wood-framed trash bin.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “But thanks for thinking of me.”

  “Clarissa …”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Whatever it is you were going to say.”

  I sighed and said it anyway. “You’re not trying to punish me, are you?”

  She laughed heartily. “I don’t have to. You do a fine job all by yourself. It’s okay to be who you already are, Lars. In fact, I bet most therapists recommend it.”

  I stared at her. “Yeah, but it’s not okay to be who people say you are when you know deep down you’re someone else.” I wanted to add, And I’m not going to act like I’m better than everyone else just because you think that’s what I believe.

  Clarissa looked up at me and blinked. Then she turned to the clutter of people waiting for their afternoon jolt of caffeine and cream. “Skinny white chocolate latte for Denise!”

  She turned back to me. “I’m not quite sure where you’re going with that thought, but hey, you don’t owe me any explanations. Sorry I can’t come. Tell Cole I’m sorry I can’t come.”

  “All right,” I said, even though I did want to explain to her what I meant.

  “Hey,” she said, as if I had already turned to leave. I hadn’t. “I’ve got a prof who’s interested in that diary you’re working on.”

  “The diary?” I felt a tiny spark of devotion to the diary ignite inside me, a jolt of protective hesitation.

  “Yeah. He’s writing a book on the effects of stigma on culture and economics. He was lecturing today on the historical significance of the Salem witch trials and the role stigmatization played. I stayed after class and told him you were transcribing a diary from one of the women who stood trial. He got all excited. He wants to talk to you. Tall vanilla nonfat for Pete!”

  “He wants to talk to me? What about?”

  “About the diary, of course. What else?” She dumped two shots of espresso into a cup and pumped a tiny stream of hazelnut syrup into it.

  “Well, when?”

  “I dunno. After midterms, probably. He wants your cell phone number. Can I give it to him?” She spooned steamed milk into the cup.

  “Um. I don’t know. I guess so. I might need to talk to Abigail first.”

  Clarissa rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t own you or that girl who got hanged, whatever her name is. You don’t have to ask Abigail’s permission.”

  “I know, but …”

  “So I can give it to him?”

  “Give what?” Surely not the diary.

  “Your cell phone number, Einstein.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure.” But I didn’t want to talk to some professor about Mercy. She was still alive to me. It was October now, but I was with her in April. Abigail had already told me the hangings ended in the fall of 1692. I still had several months to spend with Mercy. She wasn’t yet a statistic of stigma and hysteria. She was a young writer in love.

  “Great. Tall hazelnut latte for Lauren!”

  I looked at Clarissa, wide-eyed.

  “You look positively panicked, Lars. Lighten up. He just wants to talk to you.”

  She pushed the cup toward me and then turned to the next order.

  Perhaps it was a good thing Clarissa didn’t come home with me. I didn’t see Cole or Raul at all on Saturday, though I knew they were just a few miles away at my aunt and uncles in Beverly Hills. I hadn’t e-mailed Raul back to let him know Clarissa wasn’t coming. I guessed because I hadn’t, Cole assumed she wasn’t. And apparently neither one of them wanted to see me. Fine with me.

  I spent the morning putting my last editorial touches on the proposal. I added a paragraph at the end about how the complex could become a truly multicultural venue by offering memberships via scholarships to median-and low-income individuals with interest in fine arts. Such an altruistic gesture would endear the complex to the community and inspire others to develop an appreciation for the arts.

  I knew Dad would probably call me later that week after reading it to ask me what in the world that was all about.

  I was fine with that too.

  With the draft printed out and safely tucked away in my dad’s study, I put on a swimsuit, grabbed A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the little library, and stretched out on a chaise by the pool.

  Mom found me a few minutes after one o’clock and told me we’d all been invited to Uncle Loring’s for dinner to see their pictures from Singapore. Then she asked me to go shopping with her for a new dress to wear to the ballet the following week. She didn’t need a new dress, but I went anyway. While we were at Nordstrom, she saw an outfit on a mannequin, a linen-looking thing with three-quarter-length sleeves in a honey-hued coral, which she said would look divine on me. She insisted I try it on.

  I had to admit it looked good with my skin tone and the toast color of my hair. She bought it for me.

  That’s what I put on a few hours later when we went to Uncle Loring’s for dinner. There was no use trying to tell myself I didn’t want Raul to see me in it.

  But he and Cole weren’t there.

  My aunt told me they’d been gone all afternoon and were having dinner with some of Cole’s friends. She didn’t know when they’d be back.

  We ate tri-tip on the veranda, devoured a baked Alaska after that, and then watched two hundred images of Singapore fade in and out on Uncle Loring’s widescreen TV.

&
nbsp; The food was excellent, the pictures lovely, but I was out of sorts. I usually didn’t mind socializing with my parents and aunt and uncle. I didn’t mind being the kid among the adults. That’s how it always was for me growing up. But it really bothered me that night.

  And I knew why. Cole and Raul weren’t there. And they hadn’t wanted me with them wherever they were. Not without Clarissa.

  I wandered into the kitchen a little after nine thirty, more bored than hungry. I toasted an English muffin and was slathering it with chunky peanut butter when I heard the garage door open from behind one of the kitchen walls. I knew who it had to be, but I had no idea why they were returning so early. I hurried with the peanut butter, wanting to be out of the kitchen and looking like I was having a wonderful time with the others when the guys came in.

  But I was putting the knife in the sink when Cole and Raul entered the kitchen. I could hear that Cole left the engine running on my uncle’s Porsche. They hadn’t come home to stay. They came to pick up something. Me, perhaps?

  I turned to face them.

  “Lars! Hey. How’s it going?” But Cole didn’t wait for an answer. He brushed past me and dashed out of the kitchen and into the interior of the house. Cole had come back for something, but it wasn’t me.

  I looked at Raul. He wore a sapphire blue shirt, silk. The sleeves were messily rolled up to his elbows like it was made of ordinary flannel.

  “Hello, Raul.”

  “Hi, Lauren.”

  “Guess you heard Clarissa couldn’t make it.”

  “Oh. Yeah, sure. Well, you didn’t e-mail back that she was going to come.”

  “Right. I didn’t.”

  Silence.

  “Did you get your project done?” he asked.

  Well, at least he remembered why I was even there. “Yes, I did. Thanks for asking.”

  More silence.

  “So have you really read Moby Dick?” He eased into a smile.

  I smiled back. “I really have.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “It was full of adventure.”

  He cocked his head and grinned. “You’re mocking me.”

  “It was full of adventure. And way too much detail on how to butcher a whale.”

  “So you liked it, but didn’t love it.”

  “I appreciated its deeper meaning.”

  Raul smiled like he’d just figured out something about me he hadn’t yet known. “Ah, the soul’s quest to understand God.”

  Cole dashed back into the kitchen, carrying a black and silvery white Xbox 360 and several controllers, which threatened to fall to the floor. Raul rushed to help him.

  “Thanks, man,” Cole said as he swept past me. “See ya, Lars.”

  I watched Cole disappear into the garage.

  Raul turned to me, looking apologetic. “We’re playing Halo 3 at his friend’s house.”

  “I see.”

  “Would … Do you want to come watch?”

  His eyes were kind, but I detected the signs of a mercy date.

  Mercy.

  “No, thanks anyway.” I picked up my muffin. “Have a good time.”

  “Yeah. Sure. You too.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  “Bye.”

  His hand was on the door to the garage when he said my name.

  “Yes?” I looked up from grabbing a napkin.

  “That’s a really good color on you.”

  And he was gone.

  Twenty-Two

  6 May 1692

  George Burroughs has been arrested and now sits in the Salem jail. Papa wants to go to his examination, and this time he wants me to attend with him. All the hearings are taking place at Salem Town now. Papa fears he would not be able to hold his tongue were I not there in the room with him. As long as I am there, he will think twice about shouting a protest such as put John Proctor in chains. He worries what would become of me if he were arrested and I was left alone at the cottage.

  We are both of us torn by the weight of knowing all these people cannot possibly be witches. If we speak in their defense, we become accused. If we say nothing, we condemn them falsely with our silence. What would God have us do?

  8 May 1692

  Papa has decided to write a letter to the magistrates Hathorne and Corwin and fill it with as elegant and insightful words as can be found to persuade them who have been so easily persuaded by less grand words.

  He is praying for the opportune time to give it to Hathorne. He is afraid no matter what he says or how he says it, he will be jailed and I will be alone at the cottage.

  I wonder—and I shudder to even write it—where is God in all this?

  I have been praying that the eyes of the deceived may be opened, or that my eyes may be opened if these people be indeed servants of the Devil.

  But my prayers go unanswered.

  9 May 1692

  Papa awoke with a fever today and could not attend Rev. Burroughs’s examination. I begged Papa to let me stay with him today, but he pleaded with tears in his eyes to see to what could be done for George Burroughs. He tried to raise himself from his bed, as though he might run to the meetinghouse himself and defend George Burroughs. Papa would have crawled to Salem in the mud to speak on his behalf if he had the strength. But he does not. He reminded me that I do.

  “Who will care for you while I am away?” I said. But Papa just said, “What need have I today that God cannot rightly meet? But who will stand for Rev. Burroughs in that place of deception, daughter?” And I said in my heart, “And where is God in that place of deception, Papa? If God is here with you, why can He not also be with George Burroughs?” But I did not say it. Papa asked me to carry his letter to the magistrates and pray that God would show me the providential time to give it to Magistrates Hathorne or Corwin.

  I am shaking as I write this. And my heart is shaking within me. For I was in that meetinghouse today, and I saw what happened. There was much need for God there. And I fear God was shut out of doors. The people do not want answers to their fear. They want reasons for it.

  I sat with Goody Trumball. She fidgeted the whole time. I perceived she is also of a mind that what is happening in our Village and in Salem Town is a spectacle from hell. I knew there had to be others. They are afraid to speak out, just as Papa and I are. The magistrates asked question after question, willing the reverend to confess to partnering with the Devil, but Rev. Burroughs would not.

  Rev. Burroughs is not the most holy man I know. He is large and loud and can be driven to arrogance, which is why I cannot believe he is a wizard. He is far too human.

  The magistrates asked when Rev. Burroughs had last had communion, as if they already knew it had been so long he could not remember. They asked if his children had been baptized, knowing, surely, they had not. Then they asked about his wives, since they had appeared to people and claimed to have been murdered by him. Here Susannah Sheldon, a young maiden I have known since a young girl, screamed that Burroughs’s dead wives were standing right in front of her, wrapped in sheets and calling out that Burroughs had murdered them. Others said Rev. Burroughs lifted a whole barrel of molasses with naught but two fingers. And that he held a heavy gun with one finger. And this six or seven years past! The Devil’s enabling, they said. During the questioning, the afflicted girls, or so they are called, began to scream and writhe. It was a dreadful sight. The magistrates ordered the girls out of the room so they could restore order. And when order was restored, Burroughs was taken back to jail.

  I came home and realized I still had Papa’s letter in my pocket.

  10 May 1692

  Papa is still feverish. John Peter came for eggs today and told us Rev. Burroughs has been transferred to the jail in Boston.

  He also told us Sarah Osborne has died in prison.

  Clarissa didn’t ask about my weekend. Perhaps she was waiting for me to volunteer information, but what was there to say? I saw Cole and Raul for all of five minutes, and I’m almost certain Cole’s
spontaneous decision to play Halo 3 at a friend’s house Saturday night would have trumped doing something else with Clarissa and me had she come. I had the feeling Cole forgot he even asked about her. So I didn’t mention the weekend and neither did Clarissa.

  Abigail seemed quiet and preoccupied that following week and as uninterested in my weekend as Clarissa, though I’m sure for very different reasons.

  When I arrived at Abigail’s house Tuesday afternoon, I was greeted by Esperanza, who had a pensive look on her face as she opened the door. She showed me into the tiled entry, and I could hear Abigail’s raised voice coming from behind the closed library doors on my left.

  “We’ve been through this before, Graham,” Abigail said, her voice laced with anger and frustration. “I am not going to let the family inheritance be slowly gambled away. I know that’s exactly what you’d do with it.”

  “Miss Boyles is on the phone,” Esperanza said quickly. “An unexpected call. Perhaps you don’t mind waiting for her in here?”

  She motioned to the sitting room. The doors were open today. Crisp autumn sunlight fell across the parquet floor and glinted off the crystal orbs on the chandelier. It was a lovely room, but I would have preferred waiting in the kitchen or the dining room or the patio. The sitting room seemed to exude a keen longing. Not the kind of longing that made you impatient for Christmas, but the kind that filled you with emptiness. The kind that made you feel alone.

  I turned to ask Esperanza if I could wait for Abigail in the kitchen, but she was closing the sitting room doors behind her as she left. Whatever Abigail was saying, I wasn’t meant to hear it. I didn’t know who Graham was, but it was evident Abigail was ticked at him, he wanted money, and Abigail didn’t want to give it to him. I could barely hear her voice now—just muffled sound waves and snippets of inflection. I couldn’t make out any of the words.