fool hat of his, wanting to autograph copies. I tell him, ‘For God’s sake, Dominic, it’s not like you’re Pat Conroy. ’ ”
I laughed. As a child I’d often bumped into Father Dominic as I played on the monastery grounds, waiting for Mother to finish in the kitchen; he’d always told me knock-knock jokes. But there had been another side to him, something somber I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He had been one of the monks who’d come to the house that day bearing the remains of my father’s boat, who’d stood there as Mother burned the boards in the fireplace.
“He still wears the straw hat?”
“Same one. The straw is starting to rot,” she said.
We lapsed into silence as we skirted the back edge of the island, most of it an undeveloped tangle of wind-pruned trees. We came around a curve where the trees opened onto a prairie of 42
s u e m o n k k i d d
caramel grasses and, beyond it, the ocean. The water was inking into purple, and something about this brought everything back, the reason I was here, what Mother had done with the cleaver.
Her life had gotten so twisted and confused.
I wondered, if I’d been a better daughter, whether any of this would’ve happened. Shouldn’t I have seen it coming? As far as I knew, she could be home at this very moment lopping off the rest of her fingers.
Why her finger? I thought. Why that?
Benne was singing to herself on the backseat. I leaned over to Kat. “What happened to her finger? The one she cut off ?”
“It’s in a mayonnaise jar by her bed,” she answered matter-of-factly.
The spire of the abbey church came into view just as the paved road ran out. Kat didn’t bother to slow down, and we bounced a foot in the air as we came onto the hard-caked dirt.
Clouds of dust roiled up. “Hold on!” she shouted to Benne.
Kat’s hair flew completely out of its bobby pins and fluttered behind her as we sailed by the monastery gate. Just past it sat the Star of the Sea Chapel, the white clapboard parish church where the monks said mass for the islanders and where all Egret Island children, including me, had attended grammar school.
Every grade had been simultaneously taught by Anna Legare, who’d told me point-blank when I was ten that I was a born artist. She’d hung my endless sketches of boat wrecks on the chapel wall when I was eleven and invited the whole island to the “show.” Kat had bought one for a quarter.
“Whatever happened to that picture of mine you bought and hung in your kitchen?”
“I still have it. It’s hanging in the Mermaid’s Tale now.”
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
43
As we passed her driveway, I noticed the mermaid xing sign nailed to a post beside the mailbox.
A few seconds later, we slowed in front of Mother’s house, built in the style of an 1820s tidewater cottage, like most of the island homes. It stood on stilts in a forest of palmetto palms, with dormers and black shutters and a wide veranda that stretched across the front.
The house had always been some lush shade of green, but at the moment it was washed-out aqua. The yard was infested with yucca bristle and dollar weed, and standing in the middle of it was Mother’s appalling bathtub grotto.
Over a decade ago, she’d enlisted Shem to bury an upright bathtub halfway into the ground, and, being slow to grasp the point, he’d left the end of the tub with the faucets on it exposed.
Mother had gone ahead anyway and placed a concrete statue of Mary inside the porcelain arch. Now the tub had splotches of rust and some sort of plastic flower wired to the spigot.
The first time I saw the tub, I told Mother that all those tears Mary’s statues reportedly cried were because of the extreme tack-iness of her devotees. Dee, naturally, had thought the Bathtub Madonna was awesome.
As we rolled to a stop and Benne leaped off the back, I saw Hepzibah standing on the porch. She wore one of her African outfits, a batik shift in scarlet and saffron colors
I laughed. As a child I’d often bumped into Father Dominic as I played on the monastery grounds, waiting for Mother to finish in the kitchen; he’d always told me knock-knock jokes. But there had been another side to him, something somber I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He had been one of the monks who’d come to the house that day bearing the remains of my father’s boat, who’d stood there as Mother burned the boards in the fireplace.
“He still wears the straw hat?”
“Same one. The straw is starting to rot,” she said.
We lapsed into silence as we skirted the back edge of the island, most of it an undeveloped tangle of wind-pruned trees. We came around a curve where the trees opened onto a prairie of 42
s u e m o n k k i d d
caramel grasses and, beyond it, the ocean. The water was inking into purple, and something about this brought everything back, the reason I was here, what Mother had done with the cleaver.
Her life had gotten so twisted and confused.
I wondered, if I’d been a better daughter, whether any of this would’ve happened. Shouldn’t I have seen it coming? As far as I knew, she could be home at this very moment lopping off the rest of her fingers.
Why her finger? I thought. Why that?
Benne was singing to herself on the backseat. I leaned over to Kat. “What happened to her finger? The one she cut off ?”
“It’s in a mayonnaise jar by her bed,” she answered matter-of-factly.
The spire of the abbey church came into view just as the paved road ran out. Kat didn’t bother to slow down, and we bounced a foot in the air as we came onto the hard-caked dirt.
Clouds of dust roiled up. “Hold on!” she shouted to Benne.
Kat’s hair flew completely out of its bobby pins and fluttered behind her as we sailed by the monastery gate. Just past it sat the Star of the Sea Chapel, the white clapboard parish church where the monks said mass for the islanders and where all Egret Island children, including me, had attended grammar school.
Every grade had been simultaneously taught by Anna Legare, who’d told me point-blank when I was ten that I was a born artist. She’d hung my endless sketches of boat wrecks on the chapel wall when I was eleven and invited the whole island to the “show.” Kat had bought one for a quarter.
“Whatever happened to that picture of mine you bought and hung in your kitchen?”
“I still have it. It’s hanging in the Mermaid’s Tale now.”
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
43
As we passed her driveway, I noticed the mermaid xing sign nailed to a post beside the mailbox.
A few seconds later, we slowed in front of Mother’s house, built in the style of an 1820s tidewater cottage, like most of the island homes. It stood on stilts in a forest of palmetto palms, with dormers and black shutters and a wide veranda that stretched across the front.
The house had always been some lush shade of green, but at the moment it was washed-out aqua. The yard was infested with yucca bristle and dollar weed, and standing in the middle of it was Mother’s appalling bathtub grotto.
Over a decade ago, she’d enlisted Shem to bury an upright bathtub halfway into the ground, and, being slow to grasp the point, he’d left the end of the tub with the faucets on it exposed.
Mother had gone ahead anyway and placed a concrete statue of Mary inside the porcelain arch. Now the tub had splotches of rust and some sort of plastic flower wired to the spigot.
The first time I saw the tub, I told Mother that all those tears Mary’s statues reportedly cried were because of the extreme tack-iness of her devotees. Dee, naturally, had thought the Bathtub Madonna was awesome.
As we rolled to a stop and Benne leaped off the back, I saw Hepzibah standing on the porch. She wore one of her African outfits, a batik shift in scarlet and saffron colors
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