The Wonder (31 page)

Anna was lying with her blankets off. The dresser was spread with a white cloth on which was a thick white candle, a crucifix, golden dishes, a dried leaf of some kind, little white balls, a piece of bread, dishes of water and oil, and a white powder.

Mr. Thaddeus dipped his right thumb in the oil.
“Per istam sanctam unctionem et suam piissima misericordiam,”
he intoned.
“Indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum, gustum, odoratum, tactum et locutionem, gressum deliquisti.”
He touched Anna's eyelids, ears, lips, nose, hands, and, finally, the soles of her misshapen feet.

“Whatever's he doing?” Lib whispered to Sister Michael.

“Wiping away the stains. The sins she's committed with each part of her body,” the nun said in her ear, eyes still faithfully on the priest.

Anger surged in Lib.
What about sins committed
against
Anna?

Then the priest took the dish of white pellets and dabbed each spot of oil with one of them; cotton? He set down the dish, rubbed his thumb on the bread. “May this holy anointing bring consolation and ease,” he said to the family. “Remember,
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
”

“Bless you, Mr. Thaddeus,” cried Rosaleen O'Donnell.

“Whether it be in a little time, or not for many years to come”—his voice was lullingly musical—“we will all meet again to part no more forever, in a world where sorrow and separation are at an end.”

“Amen.”

He washed his hands in the dish of water and dried them on the cloth.

Malachy O'Donnell went over to his daughter and bent as if to kiss her forehead. But then he stopped himself, as if Anna were too holy to touch now. “Anything you need, pet?”

“Just the blankets, please, Dadda,” she told him through chattering teeth.

He drew them up and covered her to the chin.

Mr. Thaddeus stowed all his equipment in his bag, and Rosaleen showed him to the door.

“Wait, please,” Lib called to him, crossing the room. “I need to speak to you.”

Rosaleen O'Donnell gripped Lib's sleeve so hard that a stitch popped. “We don't detain a priest in idle conversation when he's carrying the Blessed Eucharist.”

Lib pulled away from her and rushed after him.

Out in the farmyard, she called, “Mr. Thaddeus!”

“What is it?” The man stopped and kicked away a pecking hen.

She had to find out whether Anna had told him just now of her scheme to ransom Pat with her own death. “Did Anna talk to you about her brother?”

His smooth face tautened. “Mrs. Wright, only your ignorance of our faith excuses your attempt to induce me to breach the seal of the confessional.”

“So you do know.”

“Such calamities should be kept in the family,” he said, “not bruited abroad. Anna should never have entered on such a subject with you.”

“But if you reason with her, if you explain that God would never—”

The priest spoke over her. “I've been telling the poor girl for months that her sins are forgiven, and besides, we should speak nothing but good of the dead.”

Lib stared at him.
The dead.
He wasn't talking about Anna's plan to trade her life for her brother's redemption.
Her sins;
Mr. Thaddeus meant what Pat had done to her.
I've been telling the poor girl for months.
That had to mean that after the mission, back in the spring, Anna had opened her heart to her parish priest, told him of all her confusion about the
secret marriage,
all her mortification. And unlike Rosaleen O'Donnell, he'd been clear-sighted enough to believe the girl. But the only comfort he'd offered was to tell her that
her sins
were forgiven and she should never mention it again!

The priest was halfway to the lane by the time Lib recovered herself. She watched him disappear around the hedge. How many such
calamities
were there in how many other families over which Mr. Thaddeus had drawn a veil? Was that all he knew how to do with a child's pain?

Inside the smoky cabin, Kitty was throwing the contents of the little dishes on the fire: the salt, the bread, even the water, which spat fiercely.

“What are you doing?” asked Lib.

“They've the traces of the holy oil on them still,” the slavey told her, “so they have to be buried or burnt.”

Only in this country would anyone burn water.

Rosaleen O'Donnell was putting canisters of tea and sugar in a paper-lined cupboard in the wall.

“What about Dr. McBrearty,” asked Lib, “did you think to send for him before the priest?”

“Wasn't he in this morning?” Rosaleen answered without turning around.

Kitty busied herself scraping burnt porridge into a basin.

Lib pressed on. “And what did he say about Anna?”

“That she's in God's hands now.”

A tiny sound from Kitty; was that a sob?

“As are we all,” muttered Rosaleen.

Rage went through Lib like an electric shock, rage at the doctor, the mother, the maid, and the committee men.

But she had a mission, she reminded herself, and she couldn't allow anything to distract her from it. “This special mass tonight, at half past eight,” she said to Kitty in as calm a voice as she could muster, “how long do these ceremonies last?”

“I couldn't say.”

“Longer than on an ordinary occasion?”

“Oh, much longer,” said Kitty. “Two hours, maybe, or three.”

Lib nodded as if impressed. “I was thinking that I should stay late tonight so that Sister can accompany you all to the mass.”

“No need,” said the nun, appearing in the doorway of the bedroom.

“But Sister—” Panic in Lib's throat. Improvising, she turned to Malachy O'Donnell, who was brooding over a newspaper by the hearth. “Shouldn't Sister Michael go too, as the child is so fond of her?”

“Indeed she should.”

The nun hesitated, frowning.

“Yes, you must be there with us, Sister,” said Rosaleen O'Donnell, “bearing us up.”

“Gladly,” said the nun. Her eyes were still puzzled.

Lib hurried into the bedroom before they could change their minds. “Good day, Anna.” Her voice oddly bright with relief that she'd manage to arrange to stay late, at least.

The child's face gaunt, sallow. “Good day, Mrs. Lib.” Inert, as if her thick ankles fettered her to the bed, except for a shudder every now and then. Her breaths were noisy.

“A little water?”

She shook her head.

Lib called to Kitty to bring in another blanket. The slavey's face was rigid as she handed it over.

Hold on,
Lib wanted to whisper in Anna's ear.
Wait just a little longer, just until tonight.
But she couldn't risk saying a word, not yet.

It was the slowest day Lib had ever known. Yet the house was in a sort of low fever. The O'Donnells and their maid hung about in the kitchen speaking in doleful murmurs, looking in on Anna every now and then. Lib went about her business, propping Anna up on pillows, wetting her lips with a cloth. Her own breaths were coming quick and shallow.

At four, Kitty brought in a bowl of some kind of vegetable hash. Lib forced herself to spoon it down.

“Would you like anything, pet?” the maid asked the child in an incongruously cheerful voice. “Your thingy?” She held up the thaumatrope.

“Show me, Kitty.”

So the slavey twirled the cords and made the bird appear in the cage, then fly free.

Anna heaved a breath. “You can have it.”

The young woman's face fell. But she didn't ask what Anna meant; she just set down the toy. “Would you like your treasure chest on your lap?”

Anna shook her head.

Lib helped the girl a little higher up on the pillows. “Water?”

Another shake of the head.

At the window, Kitty said, “'Tis that picture fellow again.”

Lib jumped to her feet and looked over the maid's shoulder.
REILLY & SONS, PHOTOGRAPHISTS,
said the van. She hadn't heard the horse pull up. She could just imagine how artfully Reilly would pose the figures for the deathbed scene: soft light from the side, the family kneeling around Anna, the uniformed nurse at the back with her head bowed. “Tell him to make himself scarce.”

Kitty looked startled but didn't argue; she left the room.

“My holy cards and books and things,” Anna murmured, looking towards her chest.

“Would you like to see them?” asked Lib.

She shook her head. “They're for Mammy. After.”

Lib nodded. There was a kind of poetic justice in that, paper saints standing in for a child of flesh. Hadn't Rosaleen O'Donnell been nudging Anna towards the grave all along—perhaps ever since Pat's death, last November?

Once the woman lost Anna, perhaps she'd be able to love her without strain. Unlike a live daughter, a dead one was impeccable. This was what Rosaleen O'Donnell had chosen, Lib told herself: to be the sorrowful, proud mother of two angels.

Five minutes later, Reilly's van moved slowly off. Lib, watching at the window, thought:
He'll be back.
She supposed a posthumous composition would be even easier to arrange.

An hour later, Malachy O'Donnell came in and knelt down heavily beside the bed where his daughter was dozing. He joined his hands—his knuckles making white spots on the red skin—and muttered an Our Father.

Watching his bent, greying head, Lib wavered. This man had none of his wife's malignity, and he did love Anna in his own passive way. If he could only be roused from his stupor, to fight for his child… Perhaps Lib owed him one last chance?

She made herself go around the bed and lean down to his ear. “When your daughter wakes,” she said, “beg her to eat, for your sake.”

Malachy didn't protest; he only shook his head. “It'd choke her, sure.”

“A drink of milk would choke her? But it's the same consistency as water.”

“I couldn't do it.”

“Why not?” demanded Lib.

“You wouldn't understand, ma'am.”

“Then make me!”

Malachy let out a long, ragged breath. “I promised her.”

Lib stared. “That you wouldn't ask her to eat? When was this?”

“Months back.”

The clever girl; Anna had tied her fond father's hands. “But that was when you believed her able to live without food, correct?”

A bleak nod.

“She was in good health at the time. Look at her now,” Lib said.

“I know,” muttered Malachy O'Donnell, “I know. Still and all, I promised I'd never ask that.”

Who but an idiot would have made such a commitment? But it would do no good to insult the man, Lib reminded herself. Best to focus on the present. “Your promise is killing her now. Surely that cancels it?”

He writhed. “'Twas a secret and solemn vow, on the Bible, Mrs. Wright. I'm telling you only so you won't blame me.”

“But I do,” said Lib. “I blame all of you.”

Malachy's head drooped as if it were too heavy for his neck. A stunned bullock.

Valiant in his own dull way; he'd risk any consequences rather than break his word to his daughter, Lib realized. Would see Anna die before he'd let her down.

A tear jerked down his unshaven cheek. “Sure I still have hope.”

What hope, that Anna would suddenly call out for food?

“There was another little colleen stone-dead in her bed, eleven years old.”

Was this a neighbour? Lib wondered. Or a story out of the newspaper?

“And you know what Our Lord said to the father?” said Malachy, almost smiling.
“Fear not. Fear not, only believe, and she shall be safe.”

Lib turned away in revulsion.

“Jesus said she was only sleeping, and he took her by the hand,” Malachy went on, “and didn't she get up and have her dinner?”

The man was in a dream so deep that Lib couldn't wake him. He clung to his innocence, refusing to know, ask, think, question the vow he'd made to Anna, do anything. Surely being a parent meant taking action, rightly or wrongly, instead of waiting for a miracle? Like the wife he was so unlike, Lib decided, Malachy deserved to lose his daughter.

The pale sun edged lower in the sky. Would it never go down?

Eight o'clock. Anna was shaking.
“How long,”
she kept mumbling.
“Be it done. Be it
done.
”

Lib had Kitty warm flannels at the fire in the kitchen and then laid them over Anna, tucking them in on both sides. She caught an acrid whiff.
You,
she thought.
Every flawed, scrawny, or bloated part, every inch of the real, mortal girl, I treasure you.

“Will you be all right if we go to the votive mass, pet?” asked Rosaleen O'Donnell, coming in and hovering over her daughter.

Anna nodded.

“Sure now?” asked the father at the door.

“Go on,” the girl breathed.

Get out, get out,
Lib thought.

But then, after the couple withdrew, she hurried after them. “Say good-bye.” Her voice a low caw.

The O'Donnells goggled at her.

Lib whispered, “It could come at any time now.”

“But—”

“There isn't always a warning.”

Rosaleen's face was a torn mask. She returned to the bedside. “I think maybe we shouldn't go out tonight, pet.”

Now Lib cursed herself. Her one chance, the one possible time to put her outrageous plan into action, and she'd thrown it away. Did she lack the nerve, was that it?

No; it was a matter of guilt, because of what she was about to try. All she knew was, she had to let the O'Donnells take a proper leave of their child.

“Go on, Mammy.” Anna's head lifted heavily off the bed. “Go to the mass for me.”

“Will we?”

“Kiss.” Her swollen hands reached for her mother's head.