The piano is a mirror but Mercedes is not staring at herself, she’s staring at her father passed out beneath the crocheted blanket.
“Mercedes?”
“What are you doing up, Lily?”
“Is Frances home yet?”
“No.”
“Are you worried this time?”
“Yes.”
“I know where she is. Ambrose told me.”
Lily can’t tell Mercedes how she knows where Frances goes when she doesn’t come home. That would mean tattling on Frances for scaring the pee out of her that day at the old French mine when they were supposed to be at Brownies and Guides. It would also mean revealing that it was Frances who told Lily about Ambrose in the first place, and where he lives now and what he does at night. If Mercedes finds that out, she might start treating Frances as though she too were special to God. Frances wouldn’t like that. She might run away. Or worse, if Mercedes finds out that Ambrose is a gift from Frances, she might think Ambrose is evil.
Mercedes knows Frances is bad but loves her anyway, because however hard it is to be the good one in the family, it is harder still to be the bad one. Lily understands that. Who in the world does Lily love more than Frances? Not even Daddy. Who in the world does she fear more than Mercedes, whose cocoa tin has filled twenty times over against Lily’s fourteenth birthday, when they will journey to Lourdes along with throngs of other special people who come to bathe in Our Lady’s own creek and leave their specialness behind for ever? Lily has promised herself, her little leg, that — number one — she will never let it be cut off. And — number two — she will never let it be obliterated by a miracle. The idea of betraying so valiant a limb, which has carried and marched beyond the call of duty. To say, here is your reward: to cease to be — to become, instead, a false twin for the good leg. Her bad leg is special because it is so strong. Lily has learned, however, that to others it is special because it is weak. No one, not even Our Lady, will get their holy waters on her little leg.
I can’t tell Mercedes the true history of Ambrose, thinks Lily. Mercedes loves me because I’m special to God. If she thinks I’m special to the Devil, I might have to run away. I saw through the cracks in Mercedes’ fingers how Daddy wound up at the bottom of the stairs.
“Where?” Mercedes has no expression on her face.
Lily looks up at Mercedes and the bump appears faintly in her forehead. “Ambrose says not to worry. It’s not a bad man she’s with.”
Lily is fairly sure that at least the latter part is true. Daddy was away at work today, Mercedes was off cleaning the sacristy at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and Lily was in her room starting a diary — “Dear Diary, Allow me to introduce myself” — when Frances ran down from the attic and past the bedroom door, where Lily caught a glimpse of her and cried, “Frances!”
But Frances clattered down the front hall stairs, catapulting over the last five steps, hitting the floor with a thump and a spring to the door. Lily took the stairs as fast as she dared, “Frances, what happened to you?” stumbling and clinging to the railing halfway down. “Frances!” cried Lily.
“Fwances!” she mocked back, yanking open the door and turning to grin up at Lily, the left side of her face all bloody, her Guide neckerchief soaked. Tears sprang to Lily’s eyes but Frances said as though stating the obvious, “Don’t worry, Lily, it’s not real blood.”
And she was gone.
Lily went up to the attic but all she found there was the empty coal scuttle. She touched the lip of it and her finger came away red. She tasted it. Salt and iron. She washed the scuttle in the bathroom and took it back down to the cellar.
Lily can’t tell Mercedes that Frances beat herself up. Mercedes might think Frances is crazy. That too can be grounds for specialness to God.
“Go get dressed, Lily.”
Mercedes has never driven the car before. James always parks it in second gear so it has stayed in second the whole way, Mercedes gripping the wheel and peering forward into the lit-up darkness.
“She has a beat-up face, but the man didn’t do it.”
“I know, Lily.”
Lily looks sharply across at Mercedes and tests her cautiously; “I saw how it happened.”
Mercedes returns the look. “Did he see you watching?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t worry, Lily, he’ll never touch her again” — It’s on the tip of Lily’s tongue to say, “It wasn’t Daddy,” but she doesn’t. The fog has settled and they are in the midst of a soft void — it’s as though they’ve ceased to travel forward at all, the car just rocking gently side to side. Mercedes returns her eyes to the blind windshield — “I won’t let him.”
They crawl along in silence for a while. You can tell where the edge of the road is by reaching out through the passenger window till you feel the pine needles going by. Lily loses herself in this task but gives a start when something chilly alights on her other hand.
“Say a little prayer with me for Daddy, Lily.” And Mercedes closes her hand around Lily’s. “Let us ask God to forgive him.”
“Because he knows not what he does …” says Lily.
“Let’s say a decade of the beads.”
“Did you bring a rosary?”
“We don’t need a rosary, Lily. We have faith.”
But Mercedes needs to count something, so she counts the nubs of the wooden steering wheel, a nub for each whispered prayer, allowing them to slip beneath her fingers. One. By one. By one.
By the time Mercedes’ left hand has gone three times round the steering wheel, her other hand has drained the warmth from Lily’s and they both of them are cold. An increase in the pressure of their backs against the seat tells them that the road has started to ascend. The last strands of fog caress the car, releasing it back into time and space and night.
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be —”
“Turn here.”
“That’s not a road, Lily.”
“I know.”