Faith

FAITH

a novel

JENNIFER HAIGH

For Jimmy, my first friend

It's a fight you'll never win

And now you bow your head in shame

For a sin no one forgives

—D
ROPKICK
M
URPHYS
, “T
HIS
I
S
Y
OUR
L
IFE
”

He lives for God, who lives by the Rule.

—S
T
. B
ENEDICT

Contents

 

 

H
ere is a story my mother has never told me.

It is a day she's relived a thousand times, the twenty-first of June, 1951, the longest day of that or any year. A day that still hasn't ended, as some part of her still paces that dark apartment in Jamaica Plain, waiting. I imagine the curtains closed against the five o'clock sun, hot and bright as midday; her baby boy peacefully asleep; her young self with nothing to do but wander from room to room, still filled with her dead mother-in-law's things.

At the time she'd thought it a grand apartment, her from Roxbury where the children slept three to a bed. Even as a boy her husband had had his own bedroom, an unimaginable luxury. His mother had been injured somehow giving birth and there had been no more children. This fact alone made the Breens wealthier than most, though Harry's father had only worked at Filene's stacking crates in the warehouse. The entire apartment had come from Filene's, on the employee discount, the lamps and brocade divan and what she had learned were called Oriental rugs. Mary herself had never bought a thing at Filene's. Her own mother shopped at Sears.

In the bedroom the baby slept deeply. She parted the curtains and let the sun shine on his face. Harry, when he came home, would pull them shut, worried someone might see him dressing or undressing through their third-floor windows. Sure, it was possible—the windows faced Pond Street, also lined with three-deckers—though why he cared was a puzzle. He was a man, after all. And there was nothing wrong with the sight of him. The first morning of their marriage, lying in the too-soft bed in the tourist cabin in Wellfleet, she had looked up at him in wonderment, her first time seeing him in daylight, his bare chest and shoulders, and her already four months along. Nothing wrong with him at all, her husband tall and blue-eyed, with shiny dark hair that fell into his eyes when he ducked his head, a habit left over from a bashful adolescence, though nobody, now, would call him shy. Harry Breen could talk to anyone. Behind the counter at Old Colony Hardware he had a way with the customers, got them going about their clogged pipes and screen doors and cabinets they were installing. He complimented their plans, suggested small improvements, sent them out the door with twice what they'd come in for. A natural salesman, never mind that he couldn't, himself, hit a nail with a hammer. When a fuse blew at the apartment it was Mary who ventured into the dark basement with a flashlight.

What did you do before?
she'd asked, half astonished, when she returned to the lit apartment and found Harry and his mother sitting placidly in the kitchen, stirring sugar into teacups.

We didn't burn so many lights before,
the old lady said.

It was a reminder among many others that Mary's presence was unwelcome, that Mrs. Breen, at least, had not invited her into their lives, this grimy interloper with her swollen belly and her skirts and blouses from Sears. As though her condition were a mystery on the order of the Virgin Birth, as though Harry Breen had had nothing to do with it.

She lifted Arthur from his crib and gave his bottom a pat. He wriggled, squealed, fumbled blindly for her breast. The sodden diaper would have to be changed, the baby fed. In this way minutes would pass, and finally an hour. The stubborn sun would begin its grudging descent. Across town, in Roxbury, girls would be dressing for the dances, Clare Boyle and her sister and whoever else they ran with now, setting out by twos and threes down the hill to Dudley Street.

She finished with the diaper, then sat at the window and unbuttoned her blouse, aware of the open curtains. If Harry came upon her like this, her swollen breast exposed, what would he do then? The thought was thrilling in a way she couldn't have explained. But it was after six, and still there was no sign of him. When his mother was alive he'd come straight home after work. You could set your watch by it, his footsteps on the stairs at five-thirty exactly, even on Fridays when the other men stopped at the pub for a taste. Lately, though, his habits had shifted. Mondays and Tuesdays he played cards at the Vets.

Once, leaving church, he'd nodded to some men she didn't recognize, a short one and a tall one sharing a cigarette on the sidewalk.
See you tomorrow, then
, Harry called in a friendly tone
.
The short man had muttered under his breath, and the tall one had guffawed loudly. To Mary it couldn't have been plainer that they were not Harry's friends.

T
HEY'D MET
the way everyone met, at the dances. Last summer the Intercolonial was the place to be; now it might be the Hibernian or the Winslow or the Rose Croix for all she knew. On a Saturday night, with Johnny Powell's band playing, a thousand or more would crowd upstairs at the Intercolonial, a mirrored globe hanging from the ceiling so that the walls shivered with light.

She was seventeen then, too young for such pleasures. But it had been easy enough to slip out on a Friday night with Ma dead asleep, exhausted by the work of getting three small ones bathed and in their beds. And it wasn't even a lie to go dancing on a Wednesday, when Mary really did attend the novena at nine o'clock as she was supposed to, the church packed with other overdressed girls and men who'd already had a drink or two, who'd meet up later across the street at Fontaine's Café and make their plans for the evening.
All right, then. See you at the hall.
The men were deep on Wednesdays; you could change partners all night long if you wanted. Thursdays were a different story, maids' night out, the halls packed with Irish girls. There was almost no point in going on a Thursday, the numbers were so against you. On a Thursday you were lucky to get a single dance.

Harry Breen hadn't chosen her, not at first. That first time they'd danced purely by chance. She knew all the dances—the reels and jigs, the wild
céilí.
At the Intercolonial waltzes were the thing, though once each night Johnny Powell would force the dreamy couples apart.
Line up, everybody, for the Siege of Ennis.
A mad crush, then, as they formed two long lines, men and girls facing. You'd take your turn with every one, herself and Clare Boyle laughing the whole way through. Some of the men were clumsy, some so strong they'd nearly swing you off your feet.

She noticed Harry a moment before he reached for her. He was taller than the rest, his movements liquid; he swung her gracefully, smooth and controlled. And that thing she first felt, that swooning joy: maybe it was simple geometry, the relative size and shape of their bodies, his chest and shoulders just where they should be, their hips meeting, her eyes level with his mouth.

The plain fact was that she'd chased him, courted his attention. Gone to greater lengths than any girl should. There was no point, now, in being ashamed. She had a ring on her finger and it hardly mattered how. They were married fast by her uncle Fergus, who'd skipped, discreetly, the time-consuming step of publishing the banns. Fergus had guessed what everyone would soon know, that Mary had gotten exactly what she wanted, and a bit more besides.

She looked down at the baby at her breast.

In the kitchen she took her beads from the drawer and found the station in time. Missing the Archbishop's greeting was like coming late to a movie; she'd be unable to enter into the spirit of the thing. When Harry's mother was living, they had knelt in the parlor for the rosary. Now the old lady was gone and no one was looking, so Mary dragged a chair to the open window and settled herself there.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Through the window a breeze came, carrying the Archbishop's voice from the two apartments below. Up and down the street, every radio was tuned to the same station. Through every open window came the same holy words.

It being Thursday, they started with the Joyful. As a girl she had studied the illustrations in her mother's missal. The Joyful Mysteries were the most straightforward, the pictures almost Protestant in their simplicity: the Blessed Virgin kneeling in prayer, waiting for the angel; the Virgin noticeably pregnant, embracing her cousin Elizabeth. The Sorrowful were haunting and in a way lovelier: Our Lord kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane, glowing in His anguish, perspiring drops of blood. But it was the Glorious Mysteries she waited for, Our Lord lifted into heaven, clouds bubbling beneath His feet like a cauldron of spirits. The Resurrection, the Ascension, the Assumption of the Virgin: all these stirred her deeply, even though (or perhaps because) she understood them the least. That was the beauty of it: contemplating the miracles, sublime and unknowable, and yet the words you repeated couldn't be simpler.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
A prayer you'd known since earliest childhood, familiar as your mother's voice.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the breeze, the baby's warm weight, the Archbishop's familiar intonations. She had seen him once standing beside the carousel at Paragon Park, eating ice cream with a dozen beaming nuns. In photos, in full regalia, he was imposing, and yet you never forgot that he was from St. Eulalia's in South Boston, that his own father had worked in the repair pits at the Boston El. He never forgot it, either. You could tell this from the photographs: the Archbishop tossing around a football with the CYO boys, or raising a glass at a priest's golden jubilee. The Archbishop wouldn't say no to a drink, according to her uncle Fergus, who'd met him on several occasions. Cushing was God's own, and yet he was theirs, too, in every way a regular man.

She heard two sharp knocks at the front door.

“Coming,” she called, drying herself with a tea towel, noticing all at once the wet stains on her blouse.

She threw open the door. A strange man stood there smoking a cigarette. He wore a thin mustache and was her own height, though she was barefoot and he wore heeled boots. It took her a moment to place him: the short man from outside the church.

“Is your husband at home?” He looked over her shoulder, his eyes darting around the room.

“I'm sorry, he's not.”

From the kitchen the Archbishop droned:
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.

“Listening to the rosary, were you? My mum does that every night.” The man dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his heel. He stepped past her into the apartment. “You're sure he isn't here?” He glanced into the kitchen as though Harry might be hiding and Mary felt a sudden urge to laugh, a nervous tic. She was forever laughing at the wrong times.

“He hasn't come home yet. Try the store, maybe?”

“I've been there. He left hours ago.”

“I don't know, then. He could have stopped off at the pub.”

The man frowned. “Never seen him take a drink, myself. Likes to keep his wits about him, doesn't he?” He smiled then, and she saw that on both sides his teeth were missing. It made the front ones look suspect, like the vampire dentures children wore at Halloween.

In her arms the baby let out a loud hiccup. She raised him to her shoulder. “Excuse me. I was in the middle of feeding him.” Patting him gently, waiting for him to burp. She was afraid to look down at her blouse.

The man stepped in close to her, smelling rankly of cigarette. “Sorry to miss that,” he said, and to her horror his rough hand touched her face.

Arthur let out another hiccup and vomited in a great burst.

“Jaysus!” The man stepped back, shaking his sleeve. It was coated in yellow spew.

“Oh, no! I'm so sorry.” Mary took the towel from her shoulder and wiped uselessly at his sleeve. The smell was terrible, sour as vinegar. The man tore his hand away, eyeing the baby like a snake.

“That's a real charmer you've got there.” He turned to go. “Tell your man Shorty wants to see him.”

She closed the door quickly behind him. The door, then the bolt, then the chain.

T
ELL YOUR
man Shorty wants to see him.

He had never, in her memory, stayed out after dark. Only for the card games, and then he always told her beforehand:
I've got the cards tonight, so don't hold supper. I'll have a sandwich or something at Taylor's.

If he stayed out all night, would she sit up waiting? Brushing her teeth a hundred strokes, a hundred strokes to her long dark hair. Always the counting calmed her—brushstrokes, rosary beads. Half the reason she loved the dancing was the counting of the steps. It gave her mind something to do.

A strange fear gnawed at her stomach. For the first time she wished for a regular man, who'd go to a pub on a Friday. Then, at least, she'd know where to find him. But it was true what Shorty had said: Harry liked to keep a clear head. There was nothing to do but go to Old Colony Hardware. As detectives did in the radio serials: she would go to where Harry was last seen.

I've been there
, Shorty had said.
He left hours ago
.

How many hours? she wondered. Where on earth could he have gone?

She went to the telephone. “Is Father Egan in, please? This is his niece, Mary Breen.” The name new enough, still, to have an odd flavor on her tongue.

“Wedding tonight,” the housekeeper said. “He'll be back late. I can have him call you tomorrow.”

“Yes, please,” Mary said.

Arthur was cranky and lethargic, his arms and legs moist. She coaxed him into his clothes. Downstairs Mrs. Ruocco was already in her housecoat. She looked startled when Mary came to the door.

“It's my father,” Mary said. “I have to go see him in the hospital. Could you look after the baby, please?”

Her father was dead five years already, and couldn't be hurt by her lie.

How light she felt, walking up the street with no baby in her arms. She had done it her whole life and never realized. Old Colony Hardware was closed, of course, the metal grille pulled shut in front. Upstairs was an office and a storeroom. Both sets of windows were dark.