little, yes? Friday mornings nobody comes; church for him is like part of rectory.” She turns her palms outward to indicate that this is unfortunate but not to be helped. “You are from U.S.A.?” Maggie nods. “My brother and I, we are from Czechoslovakia. You are Catholic? You will come to Mass? Oh, but look!” All at once she seems to have noticed that Maggie’s hand is holding the strap of her top. “From him? Is terrible, he will apologize. Stay here, I get pin for you.”
Without awaiting a response, she goes down the aisle and vanishes through the door. From the other room comes the noise of her and the priest arguing. Maggie listens awhile,then hastens away. Across the church’s front lawn she goes, splashing through the soaked grass like a child let out from school. The rain has stopped and the road glistens. She runs along it in the direction of the farmhouse, dogged by the wet slap of her sandals, one hand holding her top’s broken strap while the other is clenched around the waterlogged letter to her grandmother. After a time she realizes there’s no point carrying the thing, it’s ruined, she’ll have to rewrite it, so she squeezes the envelope into a ball and throws it into the ditch. It floats away on the runoff and seconds later disappears into a culvert.
The first confession she ever made was to murdering her mother by being born. For some reason Maggie’s father blamed himself for the death, but Maggie was the one who’d gotten stuck coming out. At nine years old she admitted this before the priest in Syracuse, stunning him into silence, and later that afternoon she told Gran too. Then Gran smacked her across the ear.
“It was your mother’s doing, no one else’s,” Gran declared.
Maggie was tempted to argue, but she had to be careful. Gran owned the house in which Maggie and her father lived and, although no one ever said as much, Maggie felt certain that if she were to fall from Gran’s good graces, Gran wouldn’t hesitate to throw them out. The house was right beside Gran’s, built for Maggie’s father when he gained a wife, and a pregnant one at that, a girl who refused to live with Gran and insisted she have a home to herself. Gran said the girl had showed some nerve, threemonths out of high school, expecting to be given the Taj Mahal. Even when Maggie was young, she suspected there was another side to the story, but Gran’s was the only one she heard. Her father never talked about it.
Gran didn’t speak about Maggie’s mother so disparagingly when Gordon was around. In his presence she didn’t speak of her at all. There was a rule against it, unspoken but as fixed as the other rules in Maggie’s life: that she must attend Mass with Gran; that Maggie’s father would never come with them; that Maggie was to pray each night for the conversion of Russia and never to read at the table. Gran said only Protestants did that. Maggie wasn’t to enter her father’s bedroom, either, although this was a rule she’d created for herself. She had made it after Gran told her that he had always wanted a lock for his bedroom when he was a boy, and Gran had refused to humour him, so when finally he’d gotten a house of his own, the first thing he’d done was to install a bolt on the bedroom door. As far as Maggie knew, he never actually used it, but she decided to honour the principle behind the thing.
Another rule was that on Friday nights and no others, Maggie and her father ate dinner at Gran’s. Those evenings Gordon never spoke unless his mother addressed him first, and then he responded with the fewest possible words. The rest of the week he didn’t set foot in his mother’s house and Gran didn’t enter theirs, though the homes were separated by not even a fence, only a shallow, grassy depression that lay dry most of the year. If Gran needed to talk with him, she telephoned. This she did at least once a day, and although she was the only person who ever called,Maggie’s
Without awaiting a response, she goes down the aisle and vanishes through the door. From the other room comes the noise of her and the priest arguing. Maggie listens awhile,then hastens away. Across the church’s front lawn she goes, splashing through the soaked grass like a child let out from school. The rain has stopped and the road glistens. She runs along it in the direction of the farmhouse, dogged by the wet slap of her sandals, one hand holding her top’s broken strap while the other is clenched around the waterlogged letter to her grandmother. After a time she realizes there’s no point carrying the thing, it’s ruined, she’ll have to rewrite it, so she squeezes the envelope into a ball and throws it into the ditch. It floats away on the runoff and seconds later disappears into a culvert.
The first confession she ever made was to murdering her mother by being born. For some reason Maggie’s father blamed himself for the death, but Maggie was the one who’d gotten stuck coming out. At nine years old she admitted this before the priest in Syracuse, stunning him into silence, and later that afternoon she told Gran too. Then Gran smacked her across the ear.
“It was your mother’s doing, no one else’s,” Gran declared.
Maggie was tempted to argue, but she had to be careful. Gran owned the house in which Maggie and her father lived and, although no one ever said as much, Maggie felt certain that if she were to fall from Gran’s good graces, Gran wouldn’t hesitate to throw them out. The house was right beside Gran’s, built for Maggie’s father when he gained a wife, and a pregnant one at that, a girl who refused to live with Gran and insisted she have a home to herself. Gran said the girl had showed some nerve, threemonths out of high school, expecting to be given the Taj Mahal. Even when Maggie was young, she suspected there was another side to the story, but Gran’s was the only one she heard. Her father never talked about it.
Gran didn’t speak about Maggie’s mother so disparagingly when Gordon was around. In his presence she didn’t speak of her at all. There was a rule against it, unspoken but as fixed as the other rules in Maggie’s life: that she must attend Mass with Gran; that Maggie’s father would never come with them; that Maggie was to pray each night for the conversion of Russia and never to read at the table. Gran said only Protestants did that. Maggie wasn’t to enter her father’s bedroom, either, although this was a rule she’d created for herself. She had made it after Gran told her that he had always wanted a lock for his bedroom when he was a boy, and Gran had refused to humour him, so when finally he’d gotten a house of his own, the first thing he’d done was to install a bolt on the bedroom door. As far as Maggie knew, he never actually used it, but she decided to honour the principle behind the thing.
Another rule was that on Friday nights and no others, Maggie and her father ate dinner at Gran’s. Those evenings Gordon never spoke unless his mother addressed him first, and then he responded with the fewest possible words. The rest of the week he didn’t set foot in his mother’s house and Gran didn’t enter theirs, though the homes were separated by not even a fence, only a shallow, grassy depression that lay dry most of the year. If Gran needed to talk with him, she telephoned. This she did at least once a day, and although she was the only person who ever called,Maggie’s
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