Pearl by Mary Gordon

white, yellow. Oh, but the faithful did not want his food, so he convinced himself that he must train their appetite slowly: gradually, over the years. He included in his stock Carlo Dolci and Guido Reni, and then miraculous medals and then holy-water fonts in the shape of a lamb (glowing in the dark), rulers with the Ten Commandments printed on them, planters in the form of the Virgin’s head (a slot in the back of the neck for soil and philodendra). But in his mind he was the purveyor of the work of the great masters of religious art; when the time came to stock Christmas cards of Sister Corita’s penmanship and ones with a flower saying
War is not healthy for children and other living things,
Seymour Meyers filled the order forms, pretending he was not, casting his eye on the Byzantine image of Christ Pancreator, suitable for framing, 8 by 10, or laminated, 2 by 3, perfect for wallet or purse. Later, when the church, probably because of birth control, was losing its share of the consumer market (people didn’t parade their Catholicism as they used to, either in decoration, jewelry, sacred images for hallway or living room, or birthday and anniversary gifts; fewer Catholics had their children baptized or confirmed), the business did not go under. A commercial crisis might have undone Panis Angelicus, Inc., as it had undone others, had not Joseph, in the seventies, eighties, and now the nineties, branched out into less sectarian realms, adding to his stock Serenity Prayer mugs, angel pins, Velcro hearts that said I’M SPECIAL CHRIST DIED FOR ME , and chip clips (available to match the colors of Dorito bags) with the name JESUS embossed on the plastic in white script.
    But enough about the business. We’ll get on with the story. With one of the stories. For now we again take up the chronicle.
     
    Maria Meyers grew up a wealthy Catholic child in the suburbs of New York City in the 1950s, a successful and triumphalist period for both the United States of America and the Catholic Church, no longer adversaries but linked in their determined hatred of Russian communism.
    You must understand something of the history of that time, of the intersection in those years between the United States of America and the Roman Catholic Church, to understand Maria and Joseph and Pearl.
    You will remember that both Maria and her father and Joseph and his mother lived in Seymour Meyers’s house in Larchmont. The 1950s were famous for unexcitement. Maria and Joseph are good children, good students, and do not make public trouble; Maria and Joseph’s mother dislike each other to the point of silent hatred, but these are years in which such secrets are not made public but are feverishly kept.
    Then it is 1958: John XXIII is elected to the papacy; and 1960: John F. Kennedy is elected to the U.S. presidency.
    In the fall of 1961, Maria became the special pet of Sister Berchmans, to whom she confided everything. In those years, there was great glamour in being the pet of a particular nun, especially if she was considered demanding or difficult. And in those years, there was a particular strictness, a particular anxiety, about the chastity of young girls in the world at large, but in a special way in the world presided over by priests like Father John Lynch and nuns like Sister Berchmans, of Sts. Cosmos and Damian Church and School.
    Maria trusted Sister Berchmans and wanted to please her. To please her and to entertain her. To bring her the sweets of the outside world. Oh, they knew how to get you, did nuns like Sister Berchmans. They encouraged you to tell them everything and made you feel you were safe because you were special to them. They gave you little privileges: a visit to the nuns’ private chapel; a holy card with their signature on the back, in perfect blue-black script, the name preceded by a cross. They encouraged you to chatter. Sister Berchmans was fascinated by Maria’s father. For that kind of nun or priest in those days, a