The Cape Ann (37 page)

“I broke the Third Commandment twice.” I could remember distinctly two occasions when I’d feigned a headache to stay home from church.

The Fourth Commandment was a real snake pit. “Honor thy father and thy mother.” I had labored long over my list, pulling together as much as I could recall of Papa’s criticisms, as well as my own recollections.

“I broke the Fourth Commandment about a hundred times, Father.”

Father Delias cleared his throat. “Could you tell me one or two examples?”

“I bit my fingernails when Papa had told me not to.”

“And did your papa punish you for that?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“With the brush.”

“Were you sorry to have upset him?”

“Yes.”

“I understand. Go on.”

“Sometimes I can’t stop being mad at Papa.”

“When has that happened most recently?”

I told him about the sin notebook, and about Papa reading it.

“When your papa read the notebook, you felt like you’d let him down?”

“Oh, yes, Father.”

“I understand. Go on to the next commandment, child.”

I hesitated.

“It’s the Fifth Commandment,” he prompted. “‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Have you been angry and fought with family or friends?”

“Yes, Father. About two hundred times.”

“Go on to the next commandment.”

“Father, I haven’t finished the Fifth Commandment.” I hurried on before I lost my nerve, blurting out, “I killed a baby.”

There was silence on the other side, except for Father’s breathing.

“Did you hear me, Father?”

“Yes. I’m wondering what makes you think you killed a baby.”

The story came pouring out in a tumbling torrent of words and tears: how I had set myself to watch for the stork and catch the baby when it fell, as the baby in my dream had fallen; how I had lollygagged around that field behind Aunt Betty’s house, failing to watch
all
the sky; and how the stork then had dropped the baby.

When at last I came to the end of the story, Father said, “There is such a bird as the stork, but the stork does not deliver babies. You recall that there was no mention in the Bible of a stork flying into Bethlehem with the baby Jesus.”

“Then who does bring babies?”

“Before they come into the world, babies grow in the safest, warmest place that God could find for them, a place that makes them feel loved even before they are born.”

“Where’s that?”

“Inside the mother. That’s where Jesus grew, and that’s where Baby Marjorie grew—inside your aunt’s body.”

That was why Aunt Betty’s belly was so fat. Why hadn’t anybody told me? “How do they get out?”

“There’s a small passageway. One of these days your mama will tell you about all of this. In the meantime, you mustn’t worry. God has designed it all, and you must trust Him.”

“Why did Baby Marjorie die?”

“I don’t know. God knows. He has the plan, and we must have faith in His wisdom. Let’s proceed now to the Sixth Commandment.”

The remainder of the confession was over in a wink. When I thrust aside the curtain and left, my feet were as weightless as I
imagined Fred Astaire’s to be. I floated down the aisle in a gauzy haze of light and lightness. In my life I had never felt such disencumbrance. If I lifted my arms, I would float up to the dark beams and along the ceiling, and my new innocence would hold me aloft. This was how angels felt.

WARM, SCENTED, TEN O’CLOCK
air hummed with the sound of bees in the lilac bushes beyond the church windows. One of the bees had got inside the church and was buzzing around the lilac branches massed in vases at the feet of Mary and Joseph, on either side of the altar.

The morning was unusually warm, and since the paper fans for summer had not yet been furnished, some worshipers were fanning themselves with missals or with the list of first communicants that had been passed out by the ushers in the vestibule. Men had dragged out their large white handkerchiefs to mop their brows and bulging pink necks, while ladies held dainty, scented hankies to their temples and blotted their noses and throats.

I knew neither heat nor discomfort as I waited in the front pew with the other first-time communicants, all of us starched and pressed, curled and combed, scrubbed and talcumed, more clearly and intimately connected to God in our impeccable innocence than we would ever again be in this world.

I thought that maybe I was beginning to understand God a little. Surely the most important thing about God was forgiveness. Yesterday he had forgiven me my sins, and I had become a brand-new girl. I had felt my brand-newness inside and out. Outside I was light and feathery; inside, blindingly white. If you looked inside me now, it would be like looking directly into the head of a flashlight.

The white, lacy dresses we girls wore, and the boys’ white shirts, were not so white as the blaze of light inside us. If I opened my mouth wide, you could see the light shining up.

Sisters Mary Clair and Mary Frances stood. It was time for the
class to stand and march to the communion rail. Hands clasped, white veil stirring in the current of air moving invisibly, like God, among us, I followed Lavonne Swenson to the altar.

Father Delias spoke but I didn’t hear. Assisted by an altar boy, he moved along the rail, raising the communion wafer, blessing us, placing the wafer on our tongues. Thin as mica, magic wafer.

Very dry and utterly without flavor, it absorbed the saliva in my mouth and cleaved to my tongue. We must not chew it or allow it to get into our teeth, as some minute part of it might then be lost, brushed away by the next brushing of our teeth, some tiny bit of Jesus’s body would go down the drain or, in my case, into the slop pail.

When we were back in the pew, kneeling and praying, I began swallowing, carefully working the wafer back to my throat. It wasn’t easy. When it got as far as the soft palate, it wanted to stay there. But I summoned all the spit I could muster and gave it one final shove, sending it down to my soul, to feed the fire of love.

Before yesterday I had not understood how you could love God. Respect Him, yes. And obey Him. But love? But His forgiving me had engendered love. I trembled with the intimacy of God.

Soon we were standing in the sun outside the church, having our picture taken, the whole class together, the Sisters standing at either side, like dark bookends.

Then our parents claimed us and fussed over us and laughed, releasing their nervousness. We had made it. We were one of them. More than confirmation, First Communion brought us into Christ’s circle of light, a circle our parents had known for so long, I wondered if they hadn’t grown used to it.

Mama threw her arms around me, laughing and nearly losing her pretty, little navy blue straw hat with the pink roses growing on it. “You looked so beautiful, Lark. Like an angel. Didn’t she, Willie? Didn’t she look like an angel?”

Papa was ill at ease in the midst of my celebration. He thought Mama was talking too loud. He turned away to remark on something to Harry Mosely. From out of the crush, Father Delias appeared, and he was laughing and shaking hands and telling funny little stories about the bees and the communion wine, or something like that. He gave me a hug and held Mama’s hand, and exclaimed over my catechism scholarship.

“She’ll make a fine bright woman, she will,” he declared, swinging around to include Papa. “You hear what I’m saying, William. You’ve got a fine girl.” Papa smiled obligingly and said thank you.

I loved Father Delias. It was he, as God’s surrogate, who had forgiven me, who had made me light, so light I could probably tap dance if I were at home. I looked down at the full-skirted organdy dress and the new, white patent leather shoes which had been sitting beside the crib when I woke this morning. Yes, if I were at home, I could tap dance, skirt billowing out from my legs, veil lifting and whirling around my head.

I grabbed Father Delias’s hand and kissed the back of it.

“What on earth are you doing?” Papa demanded.

“She’s kissing my hand, William,” Father Delias explained, and he bent and kissed mine.

THE SUMMER OF 1940
was like a movie starring Joan Blondell (as Mama) and Shirley Temple (as me). The first week in June, before the Majestic Movie Theater closed for the hot summer months, we went to see
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
, with Robert Donat and Greer Garson. Nearly everybody in the country had already seen it. We were always late getting anything that wasn’t produced by Republic Pictures, Mama commented to Bernice McGivern when we met in front of the theater.

Mama and I were feeling unaccountably festive when we left the depot that night to walk downtown. Mama said we couldn’t afford popcorn or candy, only our tickets, so we dressed with particular care. Mama wore a pair of homemade white sharkskin pants, which made her feel like Marlene Dietrich (and which Papa said only a chippy would wear on the street), and a silky-looking white top, trimmed with kelly green. I had chosen my navy-blue-and-white sailor dress with the big collar and red tie, and I was carrying my old red patent leather purse, from which the shininess was peeling. I had a Myrna Loy feeling as we stepped along, Mama humming, luridly off-key, “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.”

Before we left home, Mama had stuffed a hanky into my purse. “Just in case,” she said. Mrs. Chips’s death took me by surprise, and I completely wet that handkerchief and started on the hem of my dress. When the curtains closed and the lights came up, I was caught with my skirt to my face. The owner of the Majestic, Mr. Belling, short and pale and with an unnaturally smooth and un-creased look, as if he’d been made by a taxidermist, glided quickly down the aisle and onto the forestage. Mama admonished me to put my dress down.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, tonight is Bank Nite at the Majestic, and some lucky person will win our grand prize for the year 1940!”

Realizing full well that it was Bank Nite, everyone had remained in his or her seat, ticket stub in hand. Only the blue, adult ticket stubs were eligible for the drawing, Mr. Belling reminded us.

Trailing his father down the aisle was Jimmy Belling, Mr. Belling’s son and chief usher, toting a revolving wire basket filled with blue tickets. Sixteen-year-old Jimmy, like his father, was exceedingly pale, and he observed the world with worried, protuberant, skim-milk blue eyes.

“I need a volunteer from the audience to come up on stage and draw a ticket out of the basket,” Mr. Belling requested.

From the third row, where children usually sat, Sheila Grubb, owner of the nasty Pekingese who had bitten holes in my shoes, and buyer of a new living room suite with Papa’s poker losses, jumped up and squeezed along to the aisle.

“Mrs. Grubb,” Mr. Belling greeted her, bowing slightly.

Sheila Grubb inquired, “If I draw my own ticket, I still win, don’t I?”

“It’s never happened,” Mr. Belling told her, smiling.

“Yes, but I still win, don’t I?”

Mr. Belling looked uncomfortable. “I… I suppose that would be the case.”

“All right, then,” Sheila Grubb declared and turned to Jimmy. “Spin the basket.”

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Belling began momentously, “it is time for the first big spin. There are three prizes tonight in our final Bank Nite of 1940. The owner of the first ticket drawn will receive a lovely set of fine china donated by Lundeen’s Dry Goods. Several pieces of this china have been on display in the
lobby, where you have been able to admire them. Spin the basket, Jimmy.”

The younger Belling gave the basket a vigorous turn, and it whirled round and round. When it finally came to rest, Jimmy opened the little door and Sheila Grubb, closing her eyes dramatically, reached in to retrieve a ticket, which she handed to Mr. Belling after first checking the number against the stub she had in the breast pocket of her dress.

“Our first winner tonight, winner of the fine china, is number 10389.” He repeated, “Number 10389.”

“That’s me!” cried Magdalen Haggerty of the Loon Cafe. Running down the aisle holding her blue stub aloft, she kept assuring us, “That’s me!”

Wouldn’t Papa be pleased to learn that his friend Magdalen Haggerty, whom he’d often promised a ride in the Oldsmobile that we no longer owned, had won a set of china?

Mr. Belling verified her number. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner of the fine china: Miss Magdalen Haggerty of Harvester!”

We all applauded her good fortune and Mr. Belling continued, “If you will wait on stage, Magdalen, until the drawing is concluded, Harry Bjornson from the
Standard Ledger
will photograph all three winners.” Turning again to the audience, Mr. Belling heralded, “The winner of the second number drawn will receive either a man’s suit with two pairs of pants and vest, or a woman’s complete outfit—dress, shoes, stockings, hat, handbag, and gloves—from Barnstable’s Department Store in St. Bridget.” A hum of approval ran through the audience.

Again Mr. Belling addressed his son. “And now, Jimmy, if you will give the basket another spin.”

The number drawn this time was 10301. “10301,” Mr. Belling called out. “Is there anyone here with that number? 10301.”

“By God, it’s me, Blanche,” a heavy male voice boomed from the balcony.

We all craned to see who it was. I didn’t recognize the rubicund giant in gray overalls, blue flannel shirt, and red-and-blue-figured tie. A couple of minutes passed while we waited impatiently for the winner to come downstairs. When at last he mounted the three steps to the stage, he towered over the others.

Proffering the stub, he shouted, “Here’s the ticket!” His voice
must have been plainly heard across the street at Lundeen’s Dry Goods.

“And you are?” Mr. Belling inquired after verifying that the stub was indeed the winning one.

“Ernest Fraker from over near Red Berry.” The man laughed as though this information were hilarious. And we all laughed, so infectious was Mr. Fraker’s exuberant manner.

“You are the winner of a man’s suit with two pairs of pants and a vest, provided by Barnstable’s Department Store in St. Bridget.” Mr. Belling handed the beaming winner a certificate of some sort, motioning him to stand beside Magdalen Haggerty.