“I don’t get cramps.”
“Not even the first day?”
I shook my head, no, feeling embarrassed. At that age, I felt inferior because I didn’t get menstrual cramps, which kept Angie and my classmates popping blue Midols in French class. Real women got cramps.
“Well,” she said, “you’re a lucky girl.”
I had never thought of it that way. Suddenly, I felt a violent squeeze around my lower abdomen, then another. I bit my lip, closing my eyes to the luminous cyclops in the ceiling. The pain came again and again, bringing tears to my eyes. I held on to Adelaide, and she to me, saying, “Just a couple more minutes. Hold on to my hand, honey.”
Then it stopped. No more pain, no more cramping. Adelaide explained about the curette while the doctor scraped the baby off the insides of my uterus. I felt nothing.
It was over when the scraping was done. The doctor left the room, saying a quick good-bye. Adelaide stood over me, smoothing my hair back from my face like my own mother would have. She looked so happy and relieved I felt like I had graduated from something.
“Adelaide, I have to tell you something. My name-”
“Hush, baby,” she said, smiling down at me. “You think I don’t watch television?”
She helped me to a recovery room. I had to leave her and was led to a chair near eight other patients. Some of them were having cookies and juice, others were resting in their seats. I stayed there awhile, leaning my head back into the cushions, feeling a mixture of relief and sadness. In time, another counselor came by and roused me. She had an intense medical-student look about her, and she told me in a technical fashion about the pads and the bleeding and the follow-up and the product of the pregnancy.
When I got home, I mumbled something about the flu and crawled into bed with my stuffed Snoopy. I felt raw inside, achy. I stayed in bed through dinner, fake-sleeping when Angie came in at night. I just lay there, bleeding secretly into a pad attached to a strappy sanitary belt. Thinking about how I went in full and came out empty.
The product of the pregnancy.
I knew it was a baby; I didn’t kid myself about that. But for me, that wasn’t the end of the question. We killed in war; we killed in self-defense. Sometimes killing was murder and sometimes it wasn’t. I was confused. I felt that what I did was right, even though I felt just as certainly that it was wrong. My church, being a lot smarter than I, exhibited no such ambivalence. It had all the answers from the get-go, so I knew my family’s prayers for me were lost for good. They would disappear on the way to heaven like the smoky trail of an altar candle.
I look up at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, searching in vain for her eyes. If anyone could understand, Mary could. She had also sacrificed her child. She had no choice either.
“Are you all right, miss?” asks a voice.
I look up, with a shock. An old man is peering into my face, not ten inches from my nose. He looks worried, and I realize, to my surprise, that I’ve been crying. I wipe my cheek with a hand.
“Here you go,” he says. He tucks a broom under his arm and offers me a folded red bandanna from the pocket of his baggy pants. “Take it.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Here.” Before I can stop him, he puts the bandanna up to my nose. It smells like fabric softener. “Give ’er a blow. A good hard blow.”
“Are you serious?”
“Go for it.”
So for a minute I forget that I’m over ten years old, a lawyer and a sinner to boot, and let the church janitor blow my nose.
“Good for you!” He folds up the bandanna and tucks it back into his pocket. He’s cute, with a wizened face and sparse tufts of white Bozo hair at each temple. His nose is small and blunted at its tip, as if by a common spade. A safety pin holds his bifocals together, but his blue eyes are sharp behind the glasses. “You got troubles?”
“I’m okay.”
He eases himself onto the bench, leaning on the wiggly broom for support. “That why you’re cryin’? ’Cause you’re okay?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why I came here.”
“For help. That’s why people come, for help.”
“You think the church can help?”
“Sure. It’s helped me all my life-God has. He’s guided me.” The old man leans back and smiles. His teeth are too perfect. Dentures, like my father.
“You believe.”
“Of course.” He looks at the statue, his back making a tiny hunch. “When was your last confession?” It sounds odd, coming from him.
“Are you a janitor?”
“Are you?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I’m a priest! Ha!” He cackles happily, banging his broom on the ground. “Gotcha, didn’t I?”
I laugh. “That’s not fair, Father.”
“No, it isn’t, is it? I’m undercover, like inMiami Vice.” His eyes smile with delight.
I turn away from his bright eyes, confounded by his ruse and his warmth. I don’t remember priests being like this when I was little. They were distant, and disapproving.
“I’m Father Cassiotti. I’m too old to do the masses, Father Napole does that. I assist him. I help however I can. I hear confessions. I tend the Virgin.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what to say. I look at my navy blue pumps planted in the grass.
“See my Darwin tulips? They’re doing just fine. The hyacinths should be up any day now. They’re always slow in coming. They need some coaxing, but I don’t push it. They come up when they’re ready. I just wait.”
I stare at my shoes.
“I’m good at waiting.”
I can almost hear the smile in his voice. My heart wells up. He’s a good man, a kind man.
He’s the best of the church, of what’s right about the church. I take a deep breath. “Where were you when I was a teenager?”
Into my ear, he whispers, “Waukegan.”
I burst into laughter.
“Exiled,” he says, without rancor. “And where were you when you were a teenager?”
“Here.”
“You went to school atOLPH? So, a long time ago, you were a good Catholic. Tell me, are we gonna get you back?”
“I don’t think you want me back, Father.”
“Of course we do! God loves us all. He forgives us all.”
“Not me. Not this.” I look up at the Virgin, but she won’t look at me.
He slaps his knee. “Let’s make a reconciliation! Right now.”
“Confession? Here?”
“Why not?”
“There’s no confessional. I can see you.”
“Silly! Why do we have to sit in a telephone booth! In Waukegan, I performed many confessions face-to-face, although I’ll admit I’ve never done one outdoors.” He chuckles. “You don’t need a booth for a confession, my dear. All you need is to examine your conscience. If you resolve not to sin in the future, confess, and accept your penance, you’ve reconciled yourself with God.”
I search the eyes behind the bifocals. He makes it sound so easy, but I know it isn’t. There are bodies on my back, big ones and little ones, and despite the kindness in his eyes, I understand that they’re mine to bear. I can’t confess, not to his blue eyes, not in the yellow sunshine, not before the white Virgin on the green grass. The colors are too dense here, like a child’s box of crayons, and too painfully pretty. “God won’t forgive me, Father.”
“I’m sure that God already has, my dear. But I don’t think you have forgiven yourself.”
Suddenly, we’re interrupted by a flock of apoplecticmammarellas in flowered housedresses. “Father Cassiotti! Father Cassiotti! Thank God we found you! The church door is locked, and the mass is in fifteen minutes! We can’t get in!”
Their agitation rattles him. His hands shake as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a jingling ring of keys. “My goodness, I’m sorry, ladies.” He looks at me worriedly. “I have to go open the church. Will you excuse me?”
“I should be going anyway.” I rise to my feet, uncertainly.