She looked at him very solemnly and in a way that made his navigator heart lose its bearings and reel drunkenly in his breast. Still caressing his fingers with one hand, she used the other to pull the coif from her head. Her golden hair, longer now than the last time he had seen her, fell to her shoulders.
“I’m not going to marry the Church, Ganny. I was never going to marry the Church. This isn’t even a real habit.”
“But, then...why?”
“I thought it would put a scare into Da. So he’d bless us to marry. I guess it worked. You’re here.”
She blessed him with a mulish smile, then dropped the coif to the carpet and stepped into his arms.
She was solid and warm and real, and her hair smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon, which made him think of babka, which made him think of his Mama and Baba and the rest of his family, at least half of which thought him completely mad.
“Can you come meet my family now? Really meet them?”
She laughed again. “Yes. So they will no longer think you’re a meshuggener.”
“Even if the moon isn’t full?”
“Full moon, no moon, day or night.”
“And the curse is off...for good?”
“The curse is off. You broke it, Ganny—you and that Miracle Baseball—just like you broke Da’s plate glass window.” She pulled back a bit and gave him a saucy grin. “Home Run.”
Now he knew. Mr. O was right: love was too enough. If it was really love. And God still did miracles, even in South Philly.
Or perhaps He merely allowed human beings to do magic.
Ganady didn’t much care. He gripped The Baseball and Svetlana more tightly and raised his eyes to the crucifix that the first congregation of Saint Stan’s had brought all the way from Poland. They had fixed it lovingly above the altar, where it seemed to float in the semi-darkness of the apse.
Ganady had no adequate words with which to offer thanks, and figured God knew this better than anyone. He sent up his prayer of gratitude without them.
And it seemed to Ganady as he gazed into the Lord’s face, that Jesus winked.
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Princess of Passyunk Page 29
