Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

The priest leans over the crib where the infant lies on its little bed of coals and he asks it, “Quo nomine vocaris ?”

In the doorway, Mercedes and James answer together on behalf of the baby, “Lily.”

James hasn’t thought of a middle name. There hasn’t been time. He just prays that she’ll grow up to use this one.

The priest continues, “Lily, quid petis ab Ecclesia Dei?”

Mercedes and James reply, “Faith.” They have a special dispensation to reply in English because Mercedes is too young to have learned all that Latin — though she would have tried had there been time.

Mercedes is longing for a look at her new baby sister. She watches as the priest bends down and blows softly three times into the crib. He is blowing away the unclean spirit to make room for the Holy Spirit. The Consoler.

“Exorcizo te, immunde spiritus … maledicte diabole.”

The priest spends a long time blessing Lily and praying over her. Mercedes and James say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. And then the priest resumes his questions. “Lily, abrenuntias satanae?”

“I do renounce him.”

“Et omnibus operibus eius?”

“I do renounce them.”

The priest anoints Lily’s head with oil as the godparents attest to her faith in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Finally, he sprinkles holy water onto the burning forehead. It beads into the oil and simmers there as he baptizes her, “in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti .”

When the priest turns to Mercedes, she trembles with the gravity of the moment and hands James the precious white satin bundle she has been holding neatly folded in her arms. It is the family baptismal gown. James takes the gown over to the priest. Lily is too sick to wear it, so the priest merely lays it over her and tells her to accept this white garment, and never to allow it to become stained.

Thus, along with her father, and at the age of almost seven, Mercedes assumes responsibility for the soul of Lily Piper.

Now it’s the doctor’s turn. He peers into the crib, shakes his head, gives James the it’s-in-God’s-hands-now look, pats Mercedes on the shoulder and leaves with the priest.

Babes in the Wood

“Frances,” said Mercedes, handing her a mug of cocoa, “Mumma’s gone away.”

“Where?”

“To God.”

The graveyard was scary even though it was a sunny day with a breeze off the water. They watched Mumma’s coffin go into the ground. They each threw down some dirt. It made them feel a bit funny doing that — it didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do. Kathleen’s grave was right next to Mumma’s. Kathleen is down there, thought Mercedes and Frances — although Mercedes tried to remind herself that Kathleen was not down there, she was with God. Frances was very worried about Kathleen — it’s dark down there. How can she breathe? Is she scared of the other dead people? Most of them are skeletons by now. Are there worms?

Afterwards they went home and Daddy took a steak-and-kidney pie out of the ice-box and heated it in the oven. How could it be that Mumma’s cooking was on the table when Mumma was in the ground? James ate, but the little girls couldn’t touch a bite. They tried to stop breathing until they were allowed to leave the table. Frances tried not to picture Mumma cutting raw kidneys with the scissors. The snip-snap sound.

That night of Mumma’s funeral they couldn’t sleep. They crept out of bed and knelt outside the door to Kathleen’s old bedroom, where their new baby sister lay. How many Lilys can there be in one family, Mercedes asked herself. Frances was worried; babies called Lily lay perfectly still, then were taken away. Daddy called her Lily because of something I did, thought Frances. It’s to remind me. Of something. They prayed.

“Angel of God, my guardian dear, please save our baby sister, amen.”

They sang to her:

“‘Oh playmate! Come out and play with me. And bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree. Shout down my rain barrel, slide down my cellar door, and we’ll be jolly friends for ever more…. ’”

And they told her all the nice things they would do together when she got well.

“We’ll have candy for breakfast,” promised Frances.

“We’ll join the choir,” Mercedes pledged.

“We’ll put on a beautiful ballgown.”

“We’ll cook lovely things for Daddy.”

“We promise, Lily.”

“We swear.”

“On our graves.”

“On our bones.”

“On our kidneys.” Which made them burst out laughing and Daddy called upstairs for them to go straight to bed, which made them both start whisper-singing at the very same time, “‘The doctor sighed and he shook his head, and he said, Miss Polly put her straight to bed! ’”

Mercedes tucked Frances in with her favourite doll, a beautiful flamenco dancer in a red dress. Frances made the doll dance quietly for a while. She made her go home and make molasses cookies for her children. “Now be good,” said the dancer to her children, “I am going to study. And afterwards, if I’m not too tired, maybe we will go to the Old Country. Inshallah.” After a while Frances said, “Mercedes?”

“What?”

“What if Daddy dies?”

“Daddy’s not going to die, Frances.”

“We would be orphans.”

“Daddy’s not going to die.”

But Frances was crying, her twinkly face all crumpled, her tears hot like hot water from the kettle.

“Frances, I wouldn’t let you be an orphan.”

“I don’t want Daddy to die,” Frances sobbed, inconsolable because of poor Daddy, his two little girls lost in the woods with leaves for a blanket and no food. She cried because of the kind birds and the sad squirrels and poor Daddy can’t save his dear children. It was the warmest she’d been in days.

“Frances, I wouldn’t let you be an orphan.”

Frances was crying so hard now that Mercedes got worried.

“I want my Mumma to come ba-a-a-a-ack.”

Mercedes stroked Frances’s fuzzy braids and whispered tenderly, “It’s all right, baby, Mumma’s here.”

Frances stopped crying.

“I’m your mumma now,” said Mercedes.

Frances lay still for a while, then she said, “No you’re not.”

“Yes I am, sweetheart.”

Frances curled up into a tight ball.

“Mumma’s here,” Mercedes cooed, “Mumma’s here.”

Frances hugged her knees till her bones met one another. She turned her limbs into strong little tree branches. She made her spine into a springy switch and her skin into new bark. Not crying.

Frances never cried for Mumma after that night.

“It’s a good thing Mumma’s gone,” Frances would say to herself, going over and over in her mind all the terrible things she couldn’t quite recall — weaving the threads together into an ingenious cloak of motley. “Because if Mumma were here, she would know what a bad girl I’ve been.”

Lily Who Lived

The morning after Materia’s funeral dawns joyfully. James says to Mercedes, “Come and see your godchild.” Frances follows. They walk into the sick-room, now stripped of everything but the glorious sunlight pouring through the open window, bathing the crib in a dazzle of dust sprites. Frances and Mercedes approach and look through the bars. Daddy beams. The little girls expect to see a plump and peachy version of their doll babies, but lying there is a thin-cheeked thing under a mass of black hair that looks like a fright wig. Dark eyes full of intense and watchful concern — they seem to have seen plenty already.