Traveling with Spirits (29 page)

  Monica wants to ask,
You mean the house you made her sell?
Instead, she says, “I’ll check my folders. I don’t think I have anything, but I’ll look.”

  “Fine,” Jeanne answers, hanging up before either says good-bye.

  Monica recalls Mom in the little kitchen, burns on her arms where she wasn’t black and blue. She smells chocolate and oatmeal rising from the cookies. Why did it take her so long to notice the bruises and blisters?

  Three Canadian geese fly by the window, heading south for winter. Time is short. With patients. With Mom.

  Jeanne is wrong about why she’s been going to Mass. She wants a different perspective on Mom’s death, on her own life. Maybe she won’t continue attending. Who knows?

  The garden comes into focus. And the brilliant oaks across the alley.

*****

  Lucia’s Café is louder in the cold, dark months. Snow on the ground since the first week in November. She waits for Eric at “their” table by the window, trying to concentrate on the book about lovingkindness for her study group. She hopes this is the right choice for their first dinner since the funeral in June. And their first meeting since they broke up over the phone in September.

  “Hello there!” Eric looks sharp in the maroon cardigan she got for his last birthday. His smile is provisional.

  The earth has revolved a thousand times since that interminable day five months ago. She’s been to Hades and back, with no sighting of Persephone.

  He bends over, kisses her cheek.

  Feeling the familiar heat, she is touched by nostalgia rather than desire.

  “You look great,” he declares.

  “You, too.”

  Glancing up from the menu, she confesses, “I’m sorry I ignored your calls for so long—”

  “Monica, don’t worry, I understand.”

  “I’m sorry,” she persists. “I was too full of grief. The suddenness of her death was unbearable.” She pulls out a tissue, but she’s resolved not to cry. “That and the shame. When I wasn’t numb, I was scared, guilty. My whole body was a huge ache, as if someone had ripped out major organs.”

  “Monica you have no reason for guilt. When my dad died his best friend said, ‘You’ll always think you could have done, or said, one more thing.’”

  She nods, remember his loss.

  “I guess you implicate me, unconsciously. She died during our getaway.”

  “No,” she takes his warm, comfortable hand.

  The waiter recites specials. They both order arugula salad and trout. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.

  “I should have been less persistent, more patient,” he says.

 
“Monica, please pick up the phone and let me know you are okay.”

  “I don’t blame you. And breaking up has nothing to do with—”

  “Don’t worry, Monie, I’m not going to ask you to come back.”

  Something in his voice, or her heart, makes her wonder.

  “I just don’t want to lose my best friend. I miss our talks and your wicked wit.”

  She clutches the tissue, surprised, a little sad that he’s not trying harder. No, what she needs, and seems to have is a loyal friend.

  The arugula is accented with sun-dried tomatoes and a dust of feta. Yuletide colors. Advent. Season of waiting.

  “Tell me about the church stuff. Is the bible class interesting?”

  “It’s a study group. We read books about Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Daoism, Buddhism.” She doesn’t mention attending Mass. She hasn’t told Beata.

  “Is it those people from the retreat?”

  “One of them, Mary Arneson, gave a stunning talk last night about the engaged spiritual life.”

  “The what?”

  “About finding a deeper way to practice your convictions by contributing…”

  “You already do that. At Lake Clinic. At the Free Clinic. With your tutoring. Your whole life is working for others.”

  “It’s about being mindful, too.”

  “Beata tells me you have a pen pal in India.”

  “Father Daniel wrote the day he returned home. I think we’re developing a kind of friendship.”

  “What do you write about?”

  “Medical stuff, like preventive health programs.” She doesn’t mention her spiritual questions and his judicious suggestions.

  Eric looks relieved.

  “So tell me about Macalester? That drama with the dean?”

  “They hired a firecracker in the development office. So I don’t have to hit people up for money or their kidneys.”

  She manages a couple of bites of the fish. Even the wild rice tastes too rich. She moves the food around her plate, hoping he won’t notice how much is left.

  “I’ve missed our talks.”

  “Me, too.” Sipping the wine that appeared on their table at some point, she worries about her tendency of jerking in and out of focus like an old TV.

  Eric describes his freshman seminar. She loves his enthusiasm and marvels at her own impatience with this lovely guy.

  “And Doctor Jill?” He surfaces from school. “Are you booked for a guest spot?”

  “Now, there’s someone I could practice lovingkindness on.”

  “Loving whatness?”

  “I’ll explain as I walk you to your car.” She’s suddenly wiped out. This exhaustion comes at odd moments and she can’t shake it.

  “I had to park way off, near your apartment. Uptown is hopping tonight.”

  She buttons her quilted parka. A little premature, but she’s feeling the cold lately.

  “I have a feeling we’re going to get hit with a blizzard.”

  “Eric,” she pokes him in the side as they walk outside. “You start fretting about icy roads in July!”

*****

  Monica slips into her favorite place, the aisle by the wall in the last pew. She kneels, rests her head between her hands. This is the right place for now. She glances at the altar—at the purple and green banners proclaiming, “Agape.” “Peace.” “Faith.”

  Beata walks up the aisle with Marion Bradley. Of course! Her old school friend is delivering the homily today. Monica evades Beata’s curious glance. How embarrassing. She’s been waiting for certainty before telling Beata. When will she be certain? She’s tried Quaker and Unitarian services, the Zen Center and none of them feels right. Is she comfortable here because the smells and colors and words are familiar?

  It’s childish to hide like this. She kneels straighter.

  Beata turns again, catches her eye, winks.

  She may not be ready to tell Beata. But Beata is ready to find out.

  On the way to the vestibule, Beata links arms with her. “Morning, sister.”

  “Hi there, old pal.”

  “Shall we go out for Sunday coffee?”

  “Aren’t you going to the breakfast for Marion? It was a fine homily.”

  “He’ll be swamped by people. I’ve already said congrats and good-bye.” Her voice is no-nonsense. “Explained I saw someone I really need to catch up with.”

  “I know we need to talk, but I can’t do coffee. I have an appointment with Father Tom in forty-five minutes. Maybe we could sit in the parish library?”

  She rounds those intense brown eyes and purses her lips. “Parish library. Father Tom. You know your way around. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  She ushers Beata into a long room filled with books. On the far wall is a projector and CD player. Beata sits on the green leather couch. Monica takes an easy chair.

  “Nice to see you,” Monica tries.

  “Come on, hon, what’s going on? You’re going to Church?”

  “To this one,” she whispers tentatively, “sometimes.”

  “Why not St. Olaf’s? My parish?”

  “Because it’s your parish. Your priest. Your community. I also didn’t go to Mom’s parish. I needed my own place.”

  Beata is beaming.

  “Don’t get carried away. I simply wanted to explore different spiritualities, as Father Daniel would say.”

  “Father Daniel? So you’re having a good dialogue with him?”

  She nods.

  The scents of coffee and hot sweet rolls and re-heated quiche rise up through the vents from the parish hall. Monica wishes they were mingling with Marion Bradley’s fans and not having this private, strangely raw conversation.

  “Will you tell me more?”

  Monica looks at her watch; it’s almost time to meet Father Tom.

  “Right, your appointment. OK, I’ll stop badgering now. But this is topic number one for Saturday night. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

*****

  She kneels in the confessional. The old church is redolent with scents of furniture polish and stale flowers and holy water. Cold in here this December afternoon.

  “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

  “You don’t have to be this formal, Monica.”

  “It has been sixteen years since my last confession.”

  “You’re so tense. We could simply sit and talk.”

  “Thanks, I prefer kneeling. I need…” She sniffs into a tissue.

  “There’s nothing to be frightened of. Relax if you can.”

  Nothing to be frightened of? Her whole life has crashed. Mom has died. Jeanne is drinking herself into oblivion. She hardly hears from Dad, despite his promise to be in touch. She hates her colleagues and for months she’s been prickly at work.

  “Tell me, what’s on your mind,” Father Tom suggests.

  “I feel so guilty, ashamed about Mom’s death. I should have been more alert for at least a year before. The burns, the bruises, the forgetfulness.” She can’t face the vastness of her neglect.

  “You visited her often. And you had patients, volunteer work, a life.”

  What does well-meaning Father Tom know? She’s wasting their time and is glad he can’t read her face through the grill. “I should have noticed more.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Silence between them. Footsteps in the aisle. A squeaky kneeler being lowered.

  “Can you accept, admit, that you didn’t notice?”

  “Admit,” she’s disgusted with herself, “admit that I caused—or at least contributed to—Mom’s early death.”

  “Monica, God took your mother. You weren’t ready for her to go. But God was. And maybe your mother was, too?”

  “Admit,” she repeats to keep afloat in the wreckage of blame and remorse.

  “Admit,” he advises, “in the sense of acknowledge. Yet also in the sense of ‘let in, give access, allow to pass.’ ”

  “Forgive myself?” she flares.

  “Admit, first, that you are human.”

  “Of course I know I’m human. A failed human. If I had understood Dad’s longing, I could have talked to him. And Jeanne, I’m a doctor and I can’t stop her drinking. Then Mom, the person I loved most, I failed to save her, too.” 

  “Monica, doctors do help people. But do you ever save them?”

  “Certainly not,” she snaps.

  “And those people you failed, you didn’t put yourself on the list.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I suspect the place you’ve truly failed is in loving yourself.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  He waits.

  She starts to cry. “I’m so flawed. There’s so much I’ve done wrong.”

  “How are you responsible for your father’s departure, Jeanne’s drinking or your mother’s death? Does it hurt more to think that perhaps that you couldn’t prevent the losses?”

  She’s had enough. What’s the exit line? Buttoning her sweater, she runs her hands over her cold arms. Time to go.

  “Monica, you have many fine qualities. But your humility could use some work.”

  “What is my penance, Father? Will you absolve me and give me penance?” Although she doesn’t believe in sacraments, she’s superstitious about simply leaving.

  “What do you think your penance should be?”

  Her knees hurt from the kneeler. She can’t think of an answer.

  He leans his head toward the grill, as if to hear if she’s still breathing.

  “Are you cold in there?” she asks.

  “Not particularly. What kind of atonement would you like to make?”

  “A rosary?”

  He’s quiet.

  “Two rosaries?” she tries. Maybe they’ve upped the ante since she was a kid.

  “Monica, do say the rosary if you’re inclined, but I’d like to ask you something.”

  Nervously, she tuches her head to the grill to catch his words.

  “This week, only for one week, I want you to do a kindness for yourself each day. Can you do that?”

  She refuses to cry. Quickly, she says, “Yes, thank you, Father.”

*****

  The lake is another world during the short January day. Frozen to the center. Still. Skeletal branches of black trees chatter. A few birds peck through the snow over the dead grass. How do they survive? Strollers are bundled in parkas and face masks.

  Beata’s solution is to stride vigorously and Monica works to keep up with her friend’s long legs.

  “Lucky with this sun,” Beata says. “Sun on the snow. All this brightness.”

  “So you’re converting to winter?”

  “I’m accepting winter. I’m admitting winter.”

 
Admit
. Monica smiles tightly.

  “Friend, I owe you an apology,” Beata says. “When I tried to drag you over to my parish, it was so wrong.”

  “I should have told you earlier.”

  “You weren’t ready.” She waits for Monica to respond and when she doesn’t, softens her voice. “I’m here when you want to talk.”

  “I have questions. But at Holy Spirit people talk about morality and ethics. I sort of traded those concepts for politics at the U. I wanted to be a good political person. Righteous. Progressive.”

  “You are.”

  “I want more. I want to work in a place with people who share my values.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Lake Clinic has some fine people, but it isn’t the practice where I can contribute how I need to.”

  “Now you have Father Tom, the study group, others at Holy Spirit.”

  They’re passing the docking area where all the row boats are tied for the season.

  “I’ve found comfort in the past few months, but I can’t buy the whole program. The Church’s stand on contraception, on condoms in the midst of an HIV/AIDS crisis.”

  “Many of us disagree with that. Catholics for Choice: I recently joined this group to lobby for women priests.”