voice dropped suddenly to a dramatic whisper. Rose’s back stiffened to
attention. “I have a very rare and sacred relic to share with you. I’m going to pass it around, and
you may each kiss it.”
She made the sign of the cross, then withdrew a silver locket from around her neck. It had been
hidden under her black habit. What else was under there? Rose wondered. Breasts? Pubic hair?
But the only picture that came to her was of a shapeless sack stuffed full of the Kleenexes Sister
was forever tucking up her sleeve.
Rose, fascinated, watched as Sister pried the locket open with her thumbnail that was square as
a man’s. Reverently, Sister placed the locket in the dovetailed hands of Mary Margaret O’Neill,
who sat at the first desk in the front row. Mary Margaret, in her white blouse with sleeves ironed
to a knife’s edge, red hair clipped neatly back over her ears, was the apple of Sister’s eye, for she
already had received the Call.
A jittery silence filled the classroom as each girl, wide-eyed, took the locket, then bent to peck
it with a tightly screwed mouth. Sister explained that it was a scrap of flesh from a martyr burned
at the stake in Mexico more than two hundred years ago.
Rose, waiting for it to reach her, had churned with morbid curiosity. What would it look like?
Could she bring herself actually to kiss it?
After an eternity the relic finally was passed to her. It was horrible, far worse than she’d
imagined. Black and shriveled. Like a burnt shred of pot roast picked off the side of the pan. She
could almost smell the smoke, the rancid stink of scorching flesh.
And then Rose had been struck with a terrible thought: My mother. That’s how she must have
looked when she died. God, oh God. And because of me. If I hadn’t been born that night, she’d
still be alive. That must be why Nonnie’s always telling me the mark of the devil is on me.
[38] She couldn’t kiss it. Not even with Sister and the whole class watching, waiting. She
would die first.
And for weeks after that she had not been able to eat cooked meat, either. Just the thought of it
made her feel like throwing up.
Rose, in the cramped darkness of the confessional, imagined now that she was that martyr.
Burning, her body roasting slowly beneath her white blouse and pleated navy skirt. Is that how
my mother felt? Did she suffer horribly?
The burning sensation now felt even worse. Moisture trickled between her breasts, and she
caught a whiff of her own perspiration, a stink like scorched rubber. Angelina deserved to die,
that’s what Nonnie said. Sinned against God, and He punished her. Her grandmother’s hateful
words scuttled inside Rose’s head like the mice behind the kitchen wall at night.
No, it can’t be true. I don’t believe it.
But what if it was true? Would that make her tainted somehow? Was she marked by her
mother’s sin just like the human race had been by Eve’s?
Yes, she was marked. After what she did last week, well, now she was sure of it.
But how, how could she bring herself to confess it? So much worse by far than any sin she’d
ever committed before.
Start with the venial sins first, she told herself. Work up to the mortal sin slowly, that way
maybe it won’t come as such a shock.
The first part she knew she could recite in her sleep. The same sins she’d been confessing since
her First Holy Communion, but with a little variation here and there.
She swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat, and it made a clicking sound in her ears.
“I lied to my grandmother. More than once,” she said.
Inside her head the silence that followed seemed loud as thunder.
Then came Father Donahue’s faint rustling voice, and yes, it did sound a bit like it was coming
over a long-distance wire.
“What kind of lies?” he asked kindly, a lighthouse keeper guiding a lost ship through dark
waters.
Rose hesitated. This was the tricky part, where the safe water ended and the
attention. “I have a very rare and sacred relic to share with you. I’m going to pass it around, and
you may each kiss it.”
She made the sign of the cross, then withdrew a silver locket from around her neck. It had been
hidden under her black habit. What else was under there? Rose wondered. Breasts? Pubic hair?
But the only picture that came to her was of a shapeless sack stuffed full of the Kleenexes Sister
was forever tucking up her sleeve.
Rose, fascinated, watched as Sister pried the locket open with her thumbnail that was square as
a man’s. Reverently, Sister placed the locket in the dovetailed hands of Mary Margaret O’Neill,
who sat at the first desk in the front row. Mary Margaret, in her white blouse with sleeves ironed
to a knife’s edge, red hair clipped neatly back over her ears, was the apple of Sister’s eye, for she
already had received the Call.
A jittery silence filled the classroom as each girl, wide-eyed, took the locket, then bent to peck
it with a tightly screwed mouth. Sister explained that it was a scrap of flesh from a martyr burned
at the stake in Mexico more than two hundred years ago.
Rose, waiting for it to reach her, had churned with morbid curiosity. What would it look like?
Could she bring herself actually to kiss it?
After an eternity the relic finally was passed to her. It was horrible, far worse than she’d
imagined. Black and shriveled. Like a burnt shred of pot roast picked off the side of the pan. She
could almost smell the smoke, the rancid stink of scorching flesh.
And then Rose had been struck with a terrible thought: My mother. That’s how she must have
looked when she died. God, oh God. And because of me. If I hadn’t been born that night, she’d
still be alive. That must be why Nonnie’s always telling me the mark of the devil is on me.
[38] She couldn’t kiss it. Not even with Sister and the whole class watching, waiting. She
would die first.
And for weeks after that she had not been able to eat cooked meat, either. Just the thought of it
made her feel like throwing up.
Rose, in the cramped darkness of the confessional, imagined now that she was that martyr.
Burning, her body roasting slowly beneath her white blouse and pleated navy skirt. Is that how
my mother felt? Did she suffer horribly?
The burning sensation now felt even worse. Moisture trickled between her breasts, and she
caught a whiff of her own perspiration, a stink like scorched rubber. Angelina deserved to die,
that’s what Nonnie said. Sinned against God, and He punished her. Her grandmother’s hateful
words scuttled inside Rose’s head like the mice behind the kitchen wall at night.
No, it can’t be true. I don’t believe it.
But what if it was true? Would that make her tainted somehow? Was she marked by her
mother’s sin just like the human race had been by Eve’s?
Yes, she was marked. After what she did last week, well, now she was sure of it.
But how, how could she bring herself to confess it? So much worse by far than any sin she’d
ever committed before.
Start with the venial sins first, she told herself. Work up to the mortal sin slowly, that way
maybe it won’t come as such a shock.
The first part she knew she could recite in her sleep. The same sins she’d been confessing since
her First Holy Communion, but with a little variation here and there.
She swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat, and it made a clicking sound in her ears.
“I lied to my grandmother. More than once,” she said.
Inside her head the silence that followed seemed loud as thunder.
Then came Father Donahue’s faint rustling voice, and yes, it did sound a bit like it was coming
over a long-distance wire.
“What kind of lies?” he asked kindly, a lighthouse keeper guiding a lost ship through dark
waters.
Rose hesitated. This was the tricky part, where the safe water ended and the
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