Barbara Callahan: My Mother's Keeper

In the parking lot, Mother hugged me and told me to cheer up, thinking I was upset about the scene with Grandmother. “Arguments happen, that’s all.”

When we sat down, I forced myself to look happy by digging up a thought that might bring the moot back. Bill Gordon hadn’t called Mother since he killed his cousin. Maybe he had lost interest, or his guilt would keep him away from her. I started to feel better and enjoyed the meal and the chat Mother started about high school next year. It wasn’t until we got into the car that my happiness exploded.

“I had some good news today. Remember Evelyn, my customer who went to the funeral? She told me that before Bill went with Chief Kearns he came over to her and told her that now that everything was over he was going to call me.”

I stiffened up. That was the reason we went out to dinner — to celebrate Bill Gordon’s return. Now I had no choice but to tell her. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get enough air. I started to gasp. Mother quickly pulled the leftovers box from the restaurant out of the brown paper bag. It usually takes only a few seconds for me to catch my breath, but that time it took longer. Mother started the car and said she was taking me to the hospital. We were almost there when my breath came back. I told Mother to pull over. I had something to tell her.

“You shouldn’t see Bill anymore. He murdered his cousin Tim. I overheard him telling Father Dennehy in the confessional.”

She didn’t scold me for listening to someone’s confession. She didn’t say anything. She pulled into the driveway and went right into the house and up to her room. I went upstairs to the bathroom and got sick.

At first, Grandmother looked pleased that our rare dinner out had ended badly, but the next day she looked concerned when Mother came home from work and went upstairs without dinner. She tried to pump me, but I wouldn’t tell her anything. I didn’t want her to know that she was right about Bill. Before going upstairs after work the next day, Mother told her to tell whoever phoned that she wasn’t taking calls.

And of course, the person who called three days in a row was Bill Gordon. Those three days were awful. Mother didn’t eat dinner and went right to her room.

On Mondays, Father Dennehy taught the eighth-grade religion classes. The Monday after I told Mother the truth, he spoke about the Sacrament of Penance and he glanced at me a few times. He knows, I thought. He knows that I know about Bill. But maybe I was imagining it. He looked at other kids too.

When he was finished, Sister Josephine thanked him and we all stood up and thanked him too. Since I sit in the first seat next to the door, I’m in charge of opening it for visitors. As I reached for the doorknob, he said softly, “Come to the cafeteria after the first dismissal bell rings, Catherine, so we can talk. It’s okay with Sister.”

So it wasn’t my imagination that he had been looking at me during his talk. He knew that I had sinned, no matter what Mary Anne’s mother had told me. And it was so serious that he had to speak to me in person, like he did with Bill Gordon. He was not just going to scold me; he was going to excommunicate me.

I dropped my book bag twice on the way down to the cafeteria where the boys’ basketball team was having a meeting. The second time Father Dennehy sent one of the boys he coaches to pick it up for me. It was Gerald Griffin, the boy whose confession I had overheard. Father Dennehy probably saw that in my soul, too.

Father Dennehy waved at me and pointed to a table far away from the team. I sat my zombie-self down and unfroze a little after he dribbled a basketball across the floor and passed it to me.

“Nice catch,” he said as he lowered himself onto the round seat opposite me and stretched his long legs under the table. He took the basketball from me, twirled it like a professional, and set it on the floor.

“Now, Catherine, would you like to talk about what’s bothering you? Sister Josephine says that you’ve not been yourself lately, and during my lesson today, I noticed that you seemed troubled.”

When I started to cry, Father Dennehy stood up and blocked me from the basketball team.

“Time to hit the gym, guys. Meeting over.”

I was so grateful for his thoughtfulness that I started to cry harder. He handed me his handkerchief and told me to take my time. That’s when I sobbed and hiccoughed out the whole story, from the confessional box, to ear-witnessing a crime, to the confessor being my mother’s boyfriend, to telling Mary Anne, who told her mother and father, to telling my mother, and to being the worst sinner of all time. And after I blew my nose, I remembered about Gerald and told him that, too.

After I had settled down, he tossed the basketball to me and for a few minutes we had a catch and I started to feel better.

“Hold on to the ball,” he said, “while we do some one-on-one.”

So I hugged the ball and listened to what he told me: There was no sin in overhearing unless it was intentional, for purposes of blackmail or some other evil; there was no seal of the confessional for the penitent; certainly no excommunication. Aside from telling me he didn’t need to give me absolution because I hadn’t sinned, he really told me the same things that Mary Anne’s mother did, except that he didn’t suggest I go to the police like she had because he couldn’t. If he did that, he’d be admitting he heard Bill Gordon confess to murder. And he couldn’t tell me if I was right or wrong to tell Mother about Bill for the same reason.

I let go of the ball and rolled it to him. He said he hoped he had helped and I said he had. He smiled a small smile, like he knew he had only partly pulled me out of a burning house.

I walked glumly home and opened the door to a beaming Mother. Smiling, she signaled me to stay on the porch. She closed the door quietly for a not-for-Grandmother’s-ears conversation.

“Bill came into the shop today and handed me a beautiful white rose. He asked me if we could go across the street to the park and talk so I could tell him why I wasn’t answering his calls. Of course, the customers were all eyes and all ears. I couldn’t explain to them why I’d refuse such a romantic offer, so I had to tell him I’d meet him at the gazebo on my lunch hour.

“I was so nervous when I got to the bench,” she continued, “that I almost ran back to the shop, but I knew that was cowardly and that I had to tell him the truth, well, almost the truth.”

“Almost the truth?”

“I didn’t tell him it was you who overheard his confession. I told him that a friend of mine was on the other side of the confessional and heard him tell Father Dennehy that he had murdered his cousin. And I said I had to tell my daughter about the confessional to explain why I wouldn’t take his calls, because we have no secrets from each other.”

She paused to hear what I had to say so I said the first thought I had, “You didn’t tell him it was me to protect me, didn’t you?”

“Protect you from what?”

I shrugged and asked something else, “How did he look when you told him?”

“Shocked, but then he smiled.”

“Smiled? He’s crazy, Mother. Bad people in movies always smile before they shoot someone dead. Stay away from him, Mother.”

The wind blew dead leaves onto the porch and I turned to go inside, but Mother pulled me over to the swing.

“Let me finish, Catherine. He smiled because he said the listener misunderstood.”

“Then I’m crazy.”

“No, sweetheart, you’re not and neither is he. He explained everything and he wants to explain it to you tonight at dinner at Alfredo’s. Please trust me and go with me.”

It took all the trust I ever had to meet him at Alfredo’s. He was already sitting at a table when we got there, making tracks in the tablecloth with his fork. A candle set in a wine bottle in the middle of the table dripped melted wax onto raffia streamers tied around its neck, giving me hope that a small fire might cancel our dinner.