Mary Clark - The Shadow of Your Smile

There is no medical explanation for this, Ryan confirmed to himself. Michael O’Keefe should be dead. Instead, according to these notes, he’s now a healthy kid on a Little League team.

He knew what he was going to do. On Monday morning, he was going to phone the Bishop’s Office in Metuchen, New Jersey, and volunteer to testify that he believed Michael’s recovery was not explicable by any medical standards.

After making the decision he leaned back in his chair, his thoughts on the day when he had been fifteen years old and at the bedside of his little sister, who died of brain cancer. That was the day I knew I wanted to spend my life trying to cure people with injured brains, he thought. But there will always be some people who are beyond our human skills to help. Michael O’Keefe was apparently one of them.

The very least I can do is to testify that I believe a miracle was performed. I only wish to God we had known about Sister Catherine then. Maybe she would have heard our prayers, too. Maybe Liza would still be with us. She’d be twenty-three years old now…

The wrenching memory of four-year-old Liza’s small flower-covered white casket filled Ryan Jenner’s mind as he left his office, went down to the lobby, and left the hospital. He walked to the corner and waited, as a Fourteenth Street bus thundered past him. The thought of Monica lying in the street in the path of that bus sent sickening fear rushing through his body.

And then, as if she were standing there, he remembered the moment when Monica told him she once played Emily in Our Town . I told her that I still get choked up at that last scene, when George, Emily’s husband, throws himself on her grave.

Why do I think about Monica as Emily? Ryan asked himself. Why do I have this awful premonition about her? Why am I filled with dread that Monica is going to relive the role she performed in that high school play?

It’s exactly the way I felt when I was kneeling beside Liza’s bed, knowing her time was running out and I was helpless to stop it…

On Saturday morning, Nan picked Monica up in a cab at nine fifteen and they drove uptown to St. Vincent Ferrer Church on Lexington Avenue. The funeral Mass for Olivia Morrow was scheduled for ten A.M. On the way up, Nan phoned the rectory and asked to speak to the priest who would be celebrating the Mass. His name, she learned, was Father Joseph Dunlap. When he got on the phone she explained to him why she and Monica would be present.

“We’re hoping you can help Dr. Farrell find someone who may have been a confidant of Ms. Morrow,” Nan told the priest. “Dr. Farrell had an appointment to meet her on Wednesday morning because on Tuesday Ms. Morrow had revealed that she knew the identity of the doctor’s birth grandparents. Dr. Farrell’s father was adopted, so she’s never known anything about her ancestry. Unfortunately Ms. Morrow passed away during the night. Dr. Farrell is hoping that someone attending the funeral Mass may have the information Ms. Morrow planned to give her.”

“If anyone can understand the need to trace family roots, I can,” Father Dunlap responded. “Over the years I have encountered that situation regularly in my pastoral duties. I intend to eulogize Olivia following the gospel. Why don’t I tell Dr. Farrell’s story when I conclude my remarks, and say that she will be waiting in the vestibule to speak with anyone who might be helpful?”

Nan thanked him and hung up. When they arrived at St. Vincent’s, Monica and Nan deliberately sat near the back so that they could observe the people who attended the funeral Mass. At five minutes of ten the rich sound of the organ began to fill the church. By then there were not more than twenty people in the pews.

“Be not afraid, I go before you…” As Monica listened to the lovely soprano voice of the soloist, she thought, Be not afraid, but I am afraid. I am afraid that I may have lost my only link to my father’s ancestry.

At precisely ten o’clock, the door opened and Father Dunlap walked down the aisle to receive the casket. To Monica’s astonishment, the only person following it was Dr. Clay Hadley.

As the casket was escorted to the foot of the altar, Monica did not miss the startled look Hadley gave her when their eyes met. She watched as he took a place in the first pew. No one joined him there.

“Maybe that man is a relation who could be helpful,” Nan whispered to Monica.

“That’s her doctor. I met him Wednesday evening. He’s not going to be any help,” Monica whispered back.

“Then I don’t think we’re going to get very far,” Nan said, keeping her naturally resonant voice low. “There are so few people here and that man is the only one in the area that’s usually reserved for family.”

Monica thought of her father’s funeral in Boston five years earlier. The church had been crowded with friends and colleagues. The people sitting with her in the first row had been Joy and Scott Alterman. Just after that Scott became obsessed with her. Monica stared at the casket. As far as family goes, that’s the way it’s going to be for me, she thought. Olivia Morrow apparently doesn’t have a single relative to mourn her and neither would I if that bus had hit me. Pray God that will change someday.

Unwanted, Ryan Jenner’s face came into her mind. He seemed so surprised when I told him I didn’t want any gossip about us. In a way that’s as disappointing as the fact that he’s involved with someone else. Is he so casual about his relationships that he could have a serious girlfriend at home and allow himself to be linked with me in the hospital?

The same question had made her lie awake during the night.

The Mass had begun. She realized she had been making the responses to the opening prayers by rote.

The Epistle was read by Clay Hadley: “If God is for us, who shall be against us…” His voice was strong and reverential as he read the letter of St. Paul to the Romans.

Father Dunlap offered the intercessions. “We pray for the repose of the soul of Olivia Morrow. May the angels attend her to a place of refreshment, light, and peace.”

“Lord, hear our prayer,” the congregation murmured.

The Gospel was from St. John and the same one Monica had chosen to be read at her father’s funeral. “Come all of you who are heavily burdened…”

When the Gospel ended and they sat down again, Nan settled back in the pew. “He’s going to talk about her now,” she whispered.

“Olivia Morrow was a parishioner here for the past fifty years,” the priest began. As Monica listened, he spoke of a caring and generous person, who after her retirement and until her health failed had been a Eucharistic minister who regularly had brought Holy Communion to patients in hospitals. “Olivia never wanted recognition,” Father Dunlap said. “Even though she had worked her way to a position of authority in a renowned department store, in private she was modest and unassuming. An only child, she had no relatives to be with us today. This was not to be, but she is now in the presence of the God she served so faithfully. There is a reason to wish she had been with us for one more day. Let me share with you what Olivia told a young woman only hours before her death…”

Let someone have something to tell me that will be helpful, Monica prayed. I’m finally understanding Dad’s need to know. I need to know. Let someone here be able to help me.

The final prayers were said. Father Dunlap blessed the casket and the attendants from the funeral home came forward and lifted it to their shoulders. As the soloist sang, “Be not afraid, I go before you,” the mortal remains of Olivia Morrow were moved from the church to the hearse. In the vestibule, Monica and Nan watched as Clay Hadley got into a car behind the hearse.