The Grave of God's Daughter (15 page)

“All of you here this morning?” he asked.

Martin and I looked to my mother, who deferred to my father.
He nodded, fast and silent, then touched his shirtsleeve to make sure it was down, covering his bound wound.

“What about last night?”

“I work the fourth shift at the mill,” my father explained.

“So you weren’t home until this morning?”

All my father gave him was another nod, then the policeman swiveled on his heel. “What about you?” he asked, addressing my mother, Martin, and me. “You were home, weren’t you?”

Martin and I waited for my mother to reply. She merely nodded, though that appeared to be a feat on her part. She sat motionless in her chair, barely blinking.

“Hear or see anything out of the ordinary?”

Martin piped in. “What’s out of the ordinary?”

The policeman warmed a bit and took a step closer to Martin. “It means something different, like you haven’t seen or heard before.”

Martin considered the definition, then shook his head.

“What about you?” the officer asked me. I glanced at my mother. Her body was there, but she had vanished. I shook my head as well.

“And you?” he said, addressing her again.

“No,” she answered, her voice thin. “I didn’t see anything.”

“I’ll leave you to your supper then.”

The policeman closed the door behind him, then Martin hopped up from his chair to watch him from the window.

“Sit down,” my father told him.

“But—”

“I said to sit down.”

Martin returned to the table while my father hastened into his overcoat.

“Where are you going?” Martin asked.

“I’ve got something I’ve got to see about.”

“What
something
?” Martin pressed.

“Something, is all. I’ll be back.”

Once my father was gone, Martin folded his arms heavily. “He’s always going
somewhere.
Why can’t
somewhere
be here?”

My mother glanced up from her plate. “I don’t know,” she said. We waited for her to go on, but that short phrase seemed to have drained everything from her. She set down her fork, as though even that small weight was too much for her to handle.

“I’ve got to lie down for a bit,” she said, then she drifted into her room.

“I don’t like this,” Martin fretted. “She always helps us with the dishes.”

“Maybe she’s tired,” I offered, though her sudden departure alarmed me too.

“Or maybe she’s scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of the man who killed Swatka Pani. Maybe she thinks he’s going to come after us.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said, grabbing my plate.

Martin trailed after me with his plate in hand. “How do you know?”

“It just isn’t. Now help me with the dishes.”

“You always say things like that. You act like you know the answer for sure but you never explain it.” Martin put his plate
down hard, causing a resounding ping. “You’re just like he is. Always saying things that you won’t explain.”

The insult stung, so much so that I couldn’t reply. It was true. I was constantly asserting truths for which I had no backing, no real facts, more to protect Martin than anything else, but he’d seen through me. My intentions were good. Yet that wasn’t enough.

Together, Martin and I washed the dishes without speaking. I was scraping and rinsing them while he dried. We finished quickly, and for once, part of me wished there were more dishes to clean, wished we could keep washing until things had gotten comfortable again and no one’s feelings were hurt.

W
E WENT TO BED
, lying back to back in an uneasy silence. My mother never left the bedroom and I didn’t hear my father come in, though he was the first one up the following morning. I awoke to his rustling in the washroom and his muffled cursing. When he stalked out of the washroom, cigarette bobbing at the corner of his mouth, the noise woke Martin as well. The bandages were hanging from my father’s arm and he was trying to rewrap them, but the tape had tangled into a snarled mess.

“I can help you,” Martin said, scampering out of bed.

“No, your sister’ll do it,” my father ordered, brushing Martin off. “Come round here and get this on straight for me.” The command was directed at me.

Martin climbed back into bed to sulk while I pried the mangled tape from my father’s arm and rebandaged the wound. Dried blood was crusted along the ridge of the cut and had stained the white thread of the stitches a blackish brown. The cut had become more gruesome than it was when it was fresh.

“Maybe we should wash it again,” I suggested.

“No, not now. After church,” my father said. “Go on and finish.”

I took care to rewrap the tape and was about to set the roll down so I could cut it when my father waved Martin over, saying, “Get your sister the knife.”

“She can get it.”

“What did I tell you?” My father’s tone was enough to send Martin trotting to the cupboard to get the knife.

“Here.” Martin laid the knife on the table loudly.

“Get over here,” my father snapped, putting down his cigarette. Martin remained where he was, clutching the side of the table. “I said come over here.”

Martin reluctantly approached. Once he was within arm’s reach, my father snatched him by the shoulder with his good hand, yanking Martin in close. Both Martin and I were then the same distance from my father, yet there was a world of difference in our positions.

“I won’t have any of that back talk,” my father said fiercely. “Now put your Sunday clothes on and get ready for church.”

Martin squirmed out of my father’s grip and went and hid in the washroom.

“Finish this up,” my father instructed. I listened for some trace of guilt in his voice, but heard none. Martin’s comment from the night before burned even hotter. I didn’t want to be compared
to my father or be like him. At that moment, I didn’t want to share a single trait with him.

I picked up the knife, grasping it firmly. Temptation welled up and possibility pooled in my mind. The previous night I had held the knife with delicate purpose. That morning, I was gripping it.

My father took a long drag off his cigarette as I ran the blade over the bandage. With each stroke, the knife edged closer to his arm. He was oblivious, staring down at the floor. All thoughts ceased as I watched the progress of the blunt blade. The tape was giving way. The cut was arcing downward, closer to the exposed underside of my father’s forearm. He flinched when he saw how close it was and the tip of the blade nearly nicked him just as it cut through the tape.

“Jesus!” he shouted, standing abruptly. “Weren’t you watching? You could’ve cut me.”

My mother threw open the bedroom door. “What happened?”

My father jabbed out his cigarette. “Nothing.”

Martin was watching from the washroom. I could tell from his face that he’d seen everything. He didn’t know that I had done it for him.

But had I?
I wondered.

I tried to trace the origin of the urge that had been flowing through me, but like a breeze, it was gone as quickly as it had come.

It was the lies. They were changing me. By lying, I believed I had opened some sort of floodgate. Every fear imaginable suddenly became possible. Was it my fault my father had gotten cut the day before? Was it me who had made my mother recede from us even further? Was it my hatred for Swatka Pani that had killed her?

I started praying in my mind, hoping God would hear me.

Our Father, who art in heaven.

My mother came out of the bedroom. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, more out of habit than suspicion.

Hallowed be thy name.

“Get dressed for church,” she said. She put the kettle on the stove for coffee and began to prepare breakfast. “And help your brother with his clothes.”

The prayer continued in my head, drowning out my mother’s voice.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

My father went into the bedroom to change. Martin was still standing in the doorway of the washroom in his pajamas. He took a step back when I approached.

On earth as it is in heaven.

I took his Sunday clothes from the closet, a white button-down shirt, a pair of gray trousers, and an ill-fitting blue blazer. The elbows on the blazer had thinned from wear and the cuffs had been shortened and re-hemmed so many times that the fabric buckled from the uneven underpinnings. Most young boys’ church clothes weren’t much different, though that didn’t make Martin look any less pitiful in the outfit.

Martin hesitantly took the garments from me and closed the door partway to undress. I waited outside as he climbed into his clothes and struggled into the blazer. Through the crack in the doorway, I saw my brother as I had never seen him before, as a little boy wearing a grown man’s outfit. Those clothes said more about the way he lived, the way we both lived, than I could ever bring myself to speak aloud.

Martin stepped out of the washroom, already itching to remove the blazer.

“I hate wearing this.”

“I know. But you have to. You don’t have any choice.”

For once, Martin did not question my tone of voice or press me for the deeper truth of what I’d said. He did not see beyond the plain meaning of those words.

W
E WALKED TOGETHER
, as a family, to church. My father was in his one good jacket, and under her coat, my mother was wearing her church dress, a maroon wool ensemble that had a matching sash. Though simple in cut, it was a beautiful dress that appeared as if it had been tailor-made to fit my mother when, in fact, she had purchased it secondhand. She wore her good gloves, the kidskin ones that made her fingers seem long and slender. With her elegant dress and gloves and her hair pinned up in a sleek bun, my mother looked completely out of place strolling next to the rest of us, and even more out of place on Third.

With each step, my guilty conscience weighed on me more heavily. As my boots broke through the top of the thawing mud, I thought I might get sucked down into it and drown right then and there. God could see me and He could see into the farthest reaches of my heart, always. He knew what I had done. I was terrified that I would be struck down the instant I stepped through the church doors. The fear gripped me tighter and tighter as we
joined the procession of other families making their way to Saint Ladislaus for Mass.

My father stopped outside on the church steps to finish his cigarette.

“I’ll be inside in a minute.”

My mother ushered Martin and me through the door, and I clenched my eyes shut in anticipation as I crossed the threshold. But there was no lightning, no pain, no thunderous voice condemning me for what I had done. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more frightened.

My mother guided us to our usual spot in the far-right-hand side of the church, halfway from the front. We always sat in the same place. We often arrived early enough that we could have taken seats in the very first pew, but my mother never let us. She claimed that from that one particular vantage point where we sat, we had the best view of Father Svitek as well as the rest of the church, including the statue of the patron saint. Sometimes Martin would put up an argument, suggesting we try sitting somewhere else to show that this one spot wasn’t the best after all. He would go from pew to pew, sliding along the seats, testing each position out while my mother remained, steadfast, in her favorite place. Eventually, he would give up and return, unwilling to concede that she was right, yet too afraid to sit by himself to prove his point.

That day as we took our seats, Martin offered no resistance. He plunked down on the pew and resigned himself to the service. I sat beside him, then my mother filed in after me, leaving room for my father at the end. This was the way it went every weekend.
The habit of coming to worship was so deeply ingrained in all of us that we could have been blindfolded and we still would have ended up in those same positions.

The church slowly filled. The musty-sweet smell of incense wafted through the air in waves, churned up by the people entering and taking their seats. The hum of moving feet and hushed voices was resonating off the stone walls, making it feel as if the pews were vibrating. The whispers mixed together, though there was no doubt what everyone was talking about. The hiss of Swatka Pani’s name punctuated the din.

Father Svitek mounted the pulpit, draped in his vestments, missal in hand, and the church quieted. My heartbeat began to bellow in my ears as I prepared to bear the consequence of my lies. Perhaps Father Svitek would call me out by name and unveil my sins to everyone. Perhaps he would make me stand at the front of the church, an example for all to see. Instead, Father Svitek simply began the service in his usual monotone. He went on to deliver a bland sermon on the virtue of being humble and the danger of pride. Everyone in the church appeared to be expecting Father Svitek to mention Swatka Pani’s murder, to rail against the evil deed, but he did not.

The priest brought his sermon to a close and the organist played as the altar boys, bearing the host, made their way down the main aisle. People turned to one another in the pews, wondering why Father Svitek had not spoken about Swatka Pani’s death. They got in line to receive communion, whispering all the while. It was clear that Father Svitek had not been told.

My father rose to get in line for communion while my mother
lagged behind, letting me get in front of her. Martin was too young to receive the host. He grumbled something about being left out, then slumped back in the pew and swung his legs killing time.

The line for communion crawled forward. I couldn’t see over my father’s shoulder to tell how far back we were. I didn’t want to know.

Soon we were at the front of the line and my father was receiving the host. I was trembling as Father Svitek took the wafer from a plate and held it up to me.

“The body of Christ.”

I was terrified of opening my mouth. The instant I parted my lips, Father Svitek forced the wafer between them. The wafer lay on my tongue like a coin, refusing to dissolve. I thought I might choke on it.