My father died. I ended up crippled. The car was totaled. Adlai Stevenson lost the election. My mom married Harvey. And just in case you’re wondering, no, I never got that dumb cap, and I don’t want one. Ever.
Father O’Brien was giving me my penance, so I stopped thinking about the accident. I made a good Act of Contrition and went to work on standing up again. I knew Harvey watched for the light to come on over the confessional door, used it as a signal that I would be coming out soon. I could hear his footsteps. He’d always go back to the car before I could manage to get myself out of the confessional.
On the drive home, Harvey was quiet. He didn’t lecture to me or brag on himself. When I was slow getting out of the car, he didn’t yell at me or cuff my ear. That’s not like him, and it worried me. He was thinking hard about something, and I had a creepy feeling that it couldn’t be good.
The next day was a Sunday. Harvey and my mom went over to the parish hall after mass. There was a meeting about the money the parish needed to raise to make some repairs. I asked my mom if I could stay in the church for a while. Harvey was always happy to get rid of me, so he said okay, even though he wasn’t the one I was asking. My mom just nodded.
The reason I wanted to stay behind was because in the announcements that Sunday, Father O’Brien had said something about the choir loft being closed the next week, so that the stairs could be fixed. I wanted to see the window before they closed the loft. I had never gone up there in the daylight, but this might be my only chance to visit it for a while. As I made my way up the stairs, out of habit I was quiet. I avoided the stairs which creaked and groaned the most. I guess that’s why I scared the old lady that was sitting up there in the choir loft. At first, she scared me, too.
She was wearing a long, old-fashioned black dress and a big black hat with a black veil, which made her look spooky. She was thin and really, really old. She had lifted the veil away from her face, and I could see it was all wrinkled. She probably had bony hands, but she was wearing gloves, so that’s just a guess.
I almost left, but then I saw the window. It made me stop breathing for a minute. Colors filled the choir loft, like a rainbow had decided to come inside for a while. The window itself was bright, and I could see details in the picture that I had never seen before. I started moving closer to it, kind of hypnotized. Before I knew it, I was standing near the old lady, and now I could see she had been crying. Even though she still looked ancient, she didn’t seem so scary. I was going to ask her if she was okay, but before I could say anything, she said, “What are you doing here?”
Her voice was kind of snooty, so I almost said, “It’s a free country,” but being in church on a Sunday, I decided against it. “I like this window,” I said.
“Do you?” she seemed surprised.
“Yes. It’s the Mary Theresa Mills window. She died when she was little, a long time ago,” I said. For some reason, I felt like I had to prove to this lady that I had a real reason to be up there, that I wasn’t just some kid who had climbed up to the choir loft to hide or to throw spitballs down on the pews. I told her everything I had figured out about Mary Theresa Mills’s age, including the birthday part. “So if she had lived, she’d be old now, like you.”
The lady frowned a little.
“She was really good,” I went on. “She was practically perfect. Her mother and father loved her so much, they paid a lot of money and put this window up here, so that no one would ever forget her.”
The old lady started crying again. “She wasn’t perfect,” she said. “She was a little mischievous. But I did love her.”
“You knew her?”
“I’m her mother,” the lady said.
I sat down. I couldn’t think of anything to say, even though I had a lot of questions about Mary Theresa. It just didn’t seem right to ask them.
The lady reached into her purse and got a fancy handkerchief out. “She was killed in an automobile accident,” she said. “It was my fault.”
I guess I looked a little sick or something when she said that, because she asked me if I was all right.
“My dad died in a car accident.”
She just tilted her head a little, and something seemed different about her eyes, the way she looked at me. She didn’t say, “I’m so sorry,” or any of the other things people say just to be saying something. And the look wasn’t a pity look; she just studied me.
I rubbed my bad knee a little. I was pretty sure there was rain on the way, but I decided I wouldn’t give her a weather report.
“Is there much pain?” she asked, watching me.
I shrugged. “I’m okay.”
We sat there in silence for a time. I started doing some figuring in my head, and realized that I had been in my car accident at the same age her daughter died in one.
“Were you driving?” I asked.
“Pardon?”
“You said it was your fault she died. Were you driving?”
“No,” she said. “Her father was driving.” She hesitated, then added, “We were separated at the time. He asked if he could take her for a ride in the car. Cars were just coming into their own then, you know.”
“You mean you rode horses?” I asked.
“Sometimes. Mostly I rode in a carriage or a buggy. My parents were well-to-do, and I was living with them at the time. I don’t think they trusted automobiles much. Cars were becoming more and more popular, though. My husband bought one.”
“I thought you were divorced.”
“No, not divorced, separated. We were both Catholics. We weren’t even legally separated. In fact, the day they died, I thought we might be reconciling.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting back together. I thought he had changed, you see. He stopped drinking, got a job, spoke to me sweetly. He pulled up in a shiny new motor car, and offered to take Mary Theresa for a ride. They never came back. He abducted her-kidnapped her, you might say. She was his daughter, there was no divorce, and nothing legally barring him from doing exactly what he did.”
“How did the accident happen?”
“My husband tried to put a great distance between us by driving all night. He fell asleep at the wheel. The car went off the road and down an embankment. They were both killed instantly, I was told. I’ve always prayed that was true.”
I didn’t say anything. She was crying again. I pulled out a couple of tissues I had in my pocket and held them out to her, figuring that lace hankie was probably soaked already.
She thanked me and took one of them from me. After a minute, she said, “I should have known! I should have known that a leopard doesn’t change his spots! I entrusted the safety of my child to a man whom I knew to be unworthy of that trust.”
I started to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that she shouldn’t blame herself, but before the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had no business saying anything like that to her. I knew how she was feeling. It bothered me to see her so upset. Without really thinking much about what I was doing, I started telling her about the day my father died.
Since I’m being completely honest here, I’ve got to tell you that I had to use that other tissue. She waited for me to blow my nose, then said, “Have you ever talked to your mother about how you feel?”
I shook my head. “She wanted me to, but since the accident-we aren’t as close as we used to be, I guess. I think that’s why she got together with Harvey. I think she got lonely.”
About then, my mother came into the church, and called up to me. I told her I’d be right down. She said they’d be waiting in the car.
As I got up, the old lady put a hand on me. “Promise me that you will talk to your mother tonight.”
“About what?”
“Anything. A boy should be able to talk to his mother about anything. Tell her what we talked about, if you like. I won’t mind.”