“I’m sorry if I was rude, but we’ve been getting a lot of gawkers, thanks to the television coverage. This morning, a woman actually tried to get Tina’s autograph.”
I thought of pointing out that the parish was also getting a new roof thanks to the television coverage. Instead I asked how close they were to their goal.
“We’re almost there,” the priest, whose name was Marcelli, said. He was a young man with large, out-of-focus eyes and a tendency to draw certain words out as though he were chanting them. “It’s quite remarkable. We’re expecting an extra-large crowd for tonight’s midnight Mass, because Tina will be ending her vigil then. The collection should put us over the top.”
I asked him how long he had known the Vasquez family.
“I baptized Tina. It was just after I was assigned here to St. Mary’s. Tina’s mother, Marguerite, is a sweet woman, but she’s had more than her share of problems. It’s the old story, I’m afraid. She fell in love with a guy who promised her the world and only came through with a baby. After he’d gotten her pregnant, the guy, Tony Donica, hung around for a while. He and Marguerite lived together and there was talk of them getting married. Then Donica found another young woman who believed his line. They ran off together to Las Vegas. Something happened out there, an accident or something; I’m not sure of the details. And I know you didn’t come here to listen to old gossip.”
His unfocused eyes grew slightly sharper. “Exactly why have you come? I have to say that I’ve been a little disappointed with the Star Republic. I was the one who called the story in to you last year. You ran a nice little article about Tina before Christmas, but nothing after the car arrived. And nothing so far this year. I was sure you’d forsaken us.”
I paraphrased Boxleiter’s concerns about the potential for abuse in the phenomenon the Star Republic had gotten started.
“You needn’t be worried,” the priest assured me. “This is the last year for the vigil. Tina and her mother both told me that. Tina only did it this year as a thank-you for the car. The Blessed Virgin came through for Tina last year, so Tina wanted to do something in return. A new roof for Our Lady’s church is a pretty big something, but that’s the kind of special kid she is.”
I asked Marcelli if he really believed the car had come from the Virgin.
He laughed. “Not directly. I know it was some kind soul who read your paper’s article and felt a welling up of Christmas spirit. But who’s to say what caused that spirit to well up? Tina believes it was the intercession of Mary, and so do I.”
He suddenly took me by the arm. “Listen. The thing for you to do is to meet Marguerite. That will put your mind at rest. She’s just down the hall in the room the Altar Rosary Society uses. Her mother-in-law, Tina’s grandmother, is there, too. I know there was no marriage so there can’t really be a mother-in-law, but Marguerite calls Mrs. Donica that, so I do, too.”
He led me down a hallway whose wooden floor not only creaked but also cracked and popped. The women in the Altar Rosary room couldn’t help but be aware of our approach. There were two of them, seated at a card table that held coffee cups and a plate of Christmas cookies. The younger one, Marguerite, was a future portrait of Tina. She had the girl’s dark eyes and slightly upturned nose, though the effect of the eyes was diminished by a much fuller face. The older woman’s face was very spare, and her eyes were narrowed by a sceptical, put-upon expression. I hated to think of Tina ever looking at the world in that sharp, cynical way.
After he’d introduced us, Father Marcelli excused himself and left. The awkwardness that followed wasn’t lifted by the grandmother’s opening remark.
“So, your newspaper is finally interested in Tina again now that it’s sure she’ll make it. You didn’t have the faith to come a week ago even.”
I pointed out that we’d had faith enough to run the original story about Tina, and that led us into a discussion of the prior Christmas’s miracle, the car. Marguerite gave me the whole story again, speaking without a trace of the older woman’s accent. Her voice did get husky, though, when she mentioned Tina’s father. Oddly, Donica’s own mother was much less sentimental.
“That one,” she all but sneered. “He’d be alive today if he’d married you like he should have and stayed with you like he should have. He had a good job at the Methodist Hospital. He could have supported you and Tina. But no. He runs away to Las Vegas with some fat blonde, drives drunk, and gets them both killed.”
Mrs. Donica made the sign of the cross when she mentioned her son’s fatal accident. She’d performed the same ritual earlier in her tirade, when she’d used the words “he’d be alive today.”
Marguerite calmly ignored the older woman. “The car turned everything around for us. You should have seen it shining in the sun on Christmas morning. So pretty. When I found the title and the keys in my mailbox, I couldn’t believe it. I cried and cried. Thanks to my little Saturn, I have a good job. Tina and I have our own place and our own life.”
She went on to describe the color of the car — red — and its reliability and mileage — both miraculous. I was happy to dwell on the subject of the Saturn. As Father Marcelli had predicted, meeting Marguerite Vasquez had settled any doubts I’d inherited from my editor regarding the propriety of little Tina’s fundraising. But there remained the challenge Boxleiter had tossed me as I’d left his office: proving the car had come from the Blessed Mother.
I asked Marguerite if she remembered the name of the previous owner of the Saturn, which would have appeared above hers on the title document she’d found in her mailbox.
Mrs. Donica thrust herself across the table, her arm extended, her palm flat. “Don’t tell him,” she said. “Don’t say another word. He wants to tell people it wasn’t a miracle, that it wasn’t the Virgin Mary.”
I told Marguerite what the priest had told me, that identifying the human donor wouldn’t prove that Mary wasn’t behind the miracle. The donor might even confirm that she was. But it was a waste of my time. Her mother-in-law’s outstretched arm and upturned palm had sealed her lips. I would never hear another word from Marguerite Vasquez.
I thanked them for the interview and started to leave. Then I decided to test a little theory I’d come up with. I turned and said that it was a shame Tony Donica hadn’t lived to see the good his daughter was doing.
Marguerite only nodded sadly, but Mrs. Donica made the sign of the cross for the third time.
Once outside in the cold, I started my Chevy and we sat there shaking together. While the engine warmed, I placed a call to the Star Republic, to the cubicle of Eric Neuman, once an unpromising copyboy and now the paper’s specialist in computer research, legitimate and not-so.
“Where are you?” he asked before I could say more than my name. “The Christmas parties are starting up. The one in Home Delivery is going full-bore. They’ll be dancing on their desktops by two.”
I told him I was on a special assignment for Boxleiter and that I needed to find a man named Tony Donica. The theory I’d carried away from the Altar Rosary room was that Donica was still alive. That was my interpretation of Mrs. Donica’s habit of blessing herself every time someone mentioned her son’s death. She didn’t seem the type to be praying for the repose of that black sheep’s soul. So I’d started to wonder if her signs of the cross might be little acts of contrition for an ongoing lie.
“Have you got anything besides a name?” Neuman asked. “It’s a big country, and somebody spiked my eggnog.”
I related the little I knew of Donica: He’d supposedly been in an automobile accident in Las Vegas and he’d once worked at Methodist Hospital.