Eve's Daughters (34 page)

“Bridget Murphy and Mary Katherine Bailey said I’m in a state of mortal sin and I’ll surely go to hell if I die because I wasn’t baptized in the Catholic church.”

“Let them believe what they want,” she said with a wave of her hand, “we’ll believe what we want.”

“But is it true? Will I really go to hell?”

“Don’t be silly. Hell is for Catholics. We’re not Catholic.”

“What are we, then?”

“We’re Protestant.”

“Then why don’t we ever go to a Protestant church?”

“Because we don’t belong there.”

That’s the way Mother always was—cheerfully evasive. I would wear out long before she did and stop asking questions. Why bother when I couldn’t get any answers?

My questions changed once I started school. That’s when the other girls began hounding me for information about my father. I grew to hate the sound of the dismissal bell at 3:15, knowing they would quickly surround me in the cloakroom and the interrogation would begin.

“Where’s your daddy, Grace? How come he doesn’t live with you?”

Our teacher praised the girls for walking home with shy little Gracie every afternoon, but I dreaded the ordeal.

“The O’Malleys are the only other family in the entire school who don’t have a father,” Mary Katherine Bailey informed me, “but their daddy died in a mining accident.”

“Is your daddy dead?” Bridget Murphy asked.

It would have been easier to lie and tell everyone that he was than to try to explain something I didn’t understand myself. “I don’t know anything about my daddy,” I said tearfully.

“Liar! Liar! Pants-on-fire! You’ll go to hell for lying, Gracie.”

The other kids invited huge mobs of aunts and uncles and grandmas to
the Christmas program at school that year, along with their mothers and fathers. My mother invited O’Brien and Black Jack and Mick. They were easy to spot in the audience, wearing their white dinner jackets and black bow ties and cummerbunds. Black Jack grinned and clapped his enormous hands so long that Mick had to nudge him to stop. O’Brien put two fingers in his mouth and whistled through his teeth. Mick was so proud of everything I did that he got all teary-eyed, even though I didn’t have a speaking part.

“Which one is your daddy?” Bridget Murphy whispered as we pretended to be angels singing to baby Jesus.

“None of them.”

“Who are they, then? Why are they sitting with your mother?”

“They’re our friends from work.”

“Why doesn’t your daddy ever come?”

I asked my mother the same question when we got home that night. “Because he doesn’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t need a reason.”

“But where is my daddy?”

“He lives far away from here.”

“Why doesn’t he ever come to see me?”

“Because he lives far away.”

By the time I was eight years old, the harassment had evolved to a different form. Now the other girls talked endlessly about their own fathers, bragging about their strength or their good looks, telling stories about the things they did with their daddies. Their stories created a longing in me that was so fathomless that I began to invent stories in my head of what my father was like and what we did together.

My imaginary father was as tall and strong as Black Jack—much taller and stronger than their fathers. He was smarter and richer too—as smart as O’Brien and even richer than Booty because he owned a store, too, and let me eat all the candy I wanted. My father sang to me every night in a rich tenor voice that brought tears to everyone’s eyes, like Mick’s singing always did. And my daddy was the most handsome daddy in the world, blond and blue-eyed like Father O’Duggan, and as patient and kind as he was too. I whispered secrets to my imaginary daddy in the darkness of O’Brien’s office every night, then cried myself to sleep to the muffled sounds of drunken laughter and my mother’s piano music.

The highlight of my school week was Wednesday. That was the day that
Father O’Duggan met the other girls and me in front of St. Michael’s rectory and paid us a nickel for each of the books we’d read that week. I loved to read, and I loved to make him laugh with delight as I described all the stories I’d read. Five cents seemed like a lot of money, but his gentle words of praise were worth more to me than the nickel.

One Wednesday, when Father O’Duggan was more than ten minutes late, the girls began to tease me so mercilessly about my missing father that I finally ran away from them in tears, unable to endure their heckling any longer. My tears fell so fast I could barely see, and as I rounded the corner onto King Street, Father O’Duggan hurtled into me, nearly bowling me over.

“Whoa! My fault, I’m sorry!” He gripped my shoulders to keep me from stumbling backward. “Are you all right, Gracie?”

I nodded, keeping my head lowered and my face turned away so he wouldn’t see my tears, but he crouched in front of me and brushed my cheek with his thumb.

“You’re crying, Gracie! I’ve hurt you, haven’t I, lumbering into you like a great oaf?”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said.

“Well, won’t you tell me why you’re crying, then?”

I shook my head. “It’s wrong to tattle.”

Half a block away, we heard the squealing laughter of the other girls, skipping rope while they waited in front of the rectory. As another tear rolled down my cheek, Father O’Duggan tilted his head in their direction. “Those girls are jealous of you, you know. You put them to shame each week, earning twice as much money as they do—and you being so much younger than they are.” He stood and dug into his pocket for change. “So how much will I be owing you this week?”

“They’re not jealous of me,” I said softly. “They’re making fun of me.”

“Making fun? Why? Because you love to read?”

I looked down at the scuffed toes of my shoes. The tip of one sock peeked through the torn stitching “No . . . because . . . I don’t have a daddy.”

All the air rushed from Father O’Duggan’s chest as if he were blowing out a bunch of candles. “I see,” he murmured. “Do they tease you like this very often?”

“Sometimes.” When I realized that I had just ratted on the others I was horrified. “I didn’t mean to tattle, Father O’Duggan, honest I didn’t. You won’t tell them what I said, will you?”

“You didn’t tattle, Gracie, I made you tell. Besides, they’re wrong to make
fun of you, especially for something that isn’t your fault. And it isn’t your fault about your father, don’t you see? You shouldn’t let their words hurt you.” But they did hurt me, and he must have read the truth in my eyes, because he suddenly took my hand. “Come with me,” he said. We walked back to where the others were playing.

Maureen O’Flannery jumped breathlessly as the rope sailed over her head, then skimmed the sidewalk beneath her feet. Her sister and Mary Katherine Bailey each turned one end of the rope for her. The three Sullivan girls stood beside Bridget Murphy, chanting the sing-song rhyme to the beat of the rope slapping the pavement.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Maureen with a baby carriage . . .”

“Stop!” Father O’Duggan shouted. Maureen froze in place, her knees bent slightly as if still poised to jump. The rope whirled over her head and slapped against her ankles, stopping as seven pairs of eyes met the priest’s gaze.

“I just bumped into Gracie, here,” he said, his hand still clutching mine. “She was crying, and she didn’t want to tell me why. Might any of you girls be able to tell me?” All seven of them quickly looked away, staring at the ground or glancing uneasily at one another.

“If you’ve said or done something to upset her, then I expect you’ll be needing to tell me all about it in confession, won’t you? Suppose I save you the trouble and hear your confessions right now.” He turned to the nearest girl who was gazing steadily at her feet as if she expected to sprout an extra toe. Unlike my shoes, hers were shiny and new. “Mary Katherine? Do you have something to tell me?”

“We were only teasing, Father. We didn’t know she would cry.”

“What were you teasing her about?”

Silence.

“Won’t you tell me then, Maureen?”

“I wasn’t the only one, Father. We all . . .”

“I know. Just tell me what you said to her.” He waited patiently while they squirmed with guilt. Maureen was the first one to crack under the pressure.

“We thought . . . we thought if we teased her a little . . . about her daddy . . . we could make her tell us who he is.”

“What do you mean?” he said sternly.

“Everyone’s wondering . . . you know . . . about what happened to him and why he doesn’t live with them anymore.”

“My daddy says he’s probably a gangster and he’s rotting in jail,” the oldest Sullivan girl said importantly.

Not to be outdone, Mary Katherine suddenly found her voice. “We heard that he was a drunkard who beat them all the time and so they came here to hide.”

Bridget Murphy planted her hands on her hips. “You’re both wrong. She doesn’t have a daddy. Grandma says Grace is a
bastard
.” When the other girls gasped in shock, Bridget clapped her hand over her mouth. They stared fearfully at Father O’Duggan’s horrified face, waiting for him to deliver the wrath of God on poor Bridget’s head for using such a scandalous word. It took him a long time to find his voice.

“I don’t ever want you repeating such slander again, Bridget Murphy, do you hear me? Grace’s mother was legally married before God as surely as your own mothers were!” He glared at them, squeezing my hand so hard it ached. “And why are you tormenting poor Grace about it? It isn’t her fault, you know. Don’t you think she would love to have a home with a father like all the rest of you?”

“Do
you
know where her daddy is?” Barbara O’Flannery asked shyly.

Father O’Duggan gazed up at the rectory for a moment, until the glare of the afternoon sun on the windows made him squint his eyes. “It happens that I do, Barbara.”

“Where?” they all shouted at once.

“Is he dead, Father O’Duggan?”

I’ll bet he really is a gangster, right?”

“He’s neither one. Mr. Bauer’s whereabouts are none of your business, and you can tell that to your parents the next time their tongues start wagging about him around the dinner table. Tell them that Father O’Duggan said spreading gossip and rumors is a terrible sin. Would you like me to be sharing everything you tell me in the confessional with the very next person who comes along after you?”

“No, Father.”

“All right, then. Leave poor Gracie alone from now on. Try to show her a bit of Christian compassion. The Scriptures say,‘Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.’ From now on I want you to remember that. And don’t you be teasing Gracie anymore.” The girls had grown very still.

“Yes, Father.”

“We’re sorry, Father O’Duggan.”

I had never loved any of my fathers as much as I loved Father O’Duggan at that moment. He had defended me against my tormentors, just as my imaginary daddy did in all my fantasies. He dropped my hand as abruptly as he had taken it and strode up the steps of St. Michael’s church. Just as swiftly, all the girls vanished. I stood alone on the sidewalk for a moment, then followed Father O’Duggan into the empty church.

I had never been inside St. Michael’s before. It was cold and hushed, the afternoon sunlight barely able to penetrate the shadowy stillness as it slanted through the windows in a rainbow of color. Father O’Duggan didn’t hear me come in. He paused to make the sign of the cross, then slowly walked down the aisle, his shoes echoing hollowly on the stone floor. When he reached the front, he ducked into one of the pews and sank to his knees on the rail. He slumped forward and rested his forehead on the pew in front of him.

On the crucifix above the altar, Jesus hung in silent torment, the muscles of His arms stretched taut, His bare feet pinned to the rough wood with a spike. The same look of patient suffering that I’d seen at Mam’s church was etched on his face.

I tiptoed down the aisle so silently that I startled Father O’Duggan when I touched his arm and spoke his name. “Father O’Duggan . . .?”

“Wha—? Gracie!”

“Father O’Duggan, I want to find my daddy. You said he wasn’t dead. You said you knew where he was.”

“Oh, child . . . He closed his eyes.

“I know you can’t tell the others because it’s none of their business, but won’t you tell me? Please?”

“Gracie, I . . . I can’t,” he whispered.

I was so angry and hurt that I whirled around to run out of there, but he grabbed me by my arm and pulled me back. “Grace, listen to me,” he said. “The reason I can’t tell you is because it’s none of my business any more than it is those girls’ business—”

“Could you tell me if I was Catholic, like you?”

“What . . .? No . . . no, that doesn’t matter. Listen, you and I are good friends, but
it’s
your mother’s job to answer all your questions about your father. It’s not my place.”

“She won’t tell me either. She never answers my questions.”

“Then I have to respect that, don’t you see? When she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

“But I want a daddy now!” I couldn’t stop the tears that washed down my
face. “I don’t care if he is a gangster or a drunkard, I just want to run to meet him after work like all the other girls do and hug him and sit on his lap, and—”

He pulled me into his arms, holding me so tightly against his chest that he cut off my words. “Don’t, Gracie . . . don’t. He isn’t worth all these tears. Your mother loves you more than twenty fathers ever could. You’re better off without him, child.”

I clung to him, weeping, until I’d made a dark, wet patch on the front of his shirt with my tears. Finally he set me on the floor in front of him again and took both my hands in his. He was about to speak when I said, “Will you be my daddy, Father O’Duggan?”

“Oh, Grace . . .”

My longing came out in a rush of words. “It can be a secret, and no one else will ever have to know. I’ll call you Father O’Duggan like the other girls do when we’re with them, but when we’re all alone, won’t you please let me sit on your lap and pretend you’re my daddy?”