Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

Mercedes is flummoxed. That girl is a cipher. Saint or no saint, why can’t anyone in this house ever just have a straightforward conversation?

Then she sees the sculpture:

Modest penis and vagina in coital embrace, already beginning to sag owing to the dough being overworked.

“Frances, why did you tell Lily that story about the bullet?”

“Because it’s true.”

This is the last thing Mercedes expected to hear. She was ready for an obscene joke or another lie, not this. What Frances is this? The same strange one who rose from the tub the other day.

“Do you really believe that, Frances?”

Frances is bundled supine on a camp cot on the front porch watching the afternoon street go by. Trixie is chasing moths in the yard. Frances does another un-Frances thing. She reaches out and takes Mercedes’ hand. Frances’s hand is warm. She smiles.

“I’m happy, Mercedes. I’m happy.”

Frances’s smile is true. It contains the memory of all her other smiles, the false grins of a lifetime, nothing has been banished from her face — but something immeasurable has been added.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Mercedes.”

Mercedes squeezes Frances’s hand and tucks the blanket up around her.

“Don’t worry, Mercedes, I’m not crazy.”

“I’m not worried.” Frances will always need me.

“Don’t be sad, Mercedes.”

“I’m happy, dear.” And Mercedes smiles through tears as she smooths back the curls from her sister’s brow.

“Mercedes.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Don’t be upset about Lily. She was too shy to say the words so she made a sculpture.”

“You’re right,” says Mercedes, serene, rising to leave, “Lily’s a complete innocent.”

“Either that or she’s possessed by the Devil.”

Mercedes turns sharply.

“Just kidding, Mercedes.”

And the white stripe appears across Frances’s nose, momentarily ruffling Mercedes’ best-laid plans.

“When can you start, Mercedes?”

“I can start today, Sister Saint Eustace.”

Mercedes savours the wood-polish smell of the principal’s office at Mount Carmel High School. The well-worn books ranged upon the shelves, Jesus on His varnished cross, broad oak desk with immaculate inkwell and pen, crisp memos scrolled into pigeon-holes. This is the type of office Mercedes would like some day. Someday I will cut off all my hair and enter the convent. I will teach. Or perhaps I will join a contemplative order.

Mercedes nips this fantasy in the bud, for it strikes her that her whole family would have to be dead or married before she herself could become the bride of Christ. And since marriage is extremely unlikely for any of them, her dream is tantamount to wishing them all dead. Or no. Frances could come with me as an invalid. Couldn’t she?

“How is Frances?”

“Oh she’s grand, Sister Saint Eustace, hale and —”

“Is she going to keep the child?”

Mercedes is flustered at the frankness of the question, even though she does not delude herself that the whole of Cape Breton Island is not fully apprised of the latest Piper scandal.

“Well I think — I should say quite possibly Frances may decide to put it up for adoption.”

“Really.”

Mercedes feels suddenly hot beneath the glare of Sister Saint Eustace’s spectacles. Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.

Sister continues, “God works in mysterious ways. Frances might finally come into her own. Raising a child.”

“Oh quite possibly, sister, without a doubt.”

Mercedes smiles and knows she is lying but is uncertain how to frame it as a confession of sin this Sunday, for is it one? Yes. And no. My head hurts.

“Shall I proceed to the grade ones, sister?”

“Yes.”

Mercedes rises. “Thank you, Sister Saint Eustace.”

But Sister Saint Eustace has returned to her paperwork.

James is enjoying his retirement. The wingback chair is surrounded by a growing turret of books. This is his other project, along with the secret one in the shed. He has opened the last of the crates and emptied the shelves of all the books he never had time to read. First he counted them all: a hundred and three. Then he began stacking them in the order in which he intends to read them, the last ones forming the foundation. It is a slow ruminative process. He knows what he intends to read first, however, and has set it aside accordingly for the pinnacle of his wall: Dante’s Paradiso . Having gone through Inferno years ago, he has decided to cheat and skip over Purgatorio , eager for the beatific vision and the reunion with Beatrice.

He rests now from his labours, in his chair behind his partially constructed parapet of words, and allows his mind to drift in place. His capable eldest daughter making things go. His wild middle daughter settling down to raise her coloured child — oh yes, he hasn’t forgotten that. He has simply forgotten how such a thing was ever able to call murder into his heart; the birth of an innocent child. And Lily. My consolation.

He is startled from his reverie by the distant boom of a cannon. Lily is standing beside his chair combing his hair, “It’s okay Daddy —”

“Wha —?”

“It’s eleven o’clock.” But James is still bewildered. “In the morning.” Lily gathers up a lock of his hair and begins to braid it, explaining gently, “It’s Remembrance Day.”

“Oh.”

They observe two minutes’ silence together, then James calls in his voice that has faded to straw, “Frances.”

Frances and Trixie enter slowly. “Yes Daddy?”

“Play something, my dear.”

“What would you like me to play?”

“Any old thing.”

She starts, “‘Swing low, sweet chariot, comin for to carry me home —’”

“That’s lovely.”

“‘Swi-ing low, sweet cha-ario-ot, com-in for to carry me home…. ’”

At four-thirty, Mercedes arrives home from her first day as a schoolteacher to witness the latest phenomenon: Frances playing “The Maple Leaf Rag” while Daddy dozes in his chair, his head sprouting a mass of tiny braids. Frances breaks off from playing and leaves; “I’ll get supper, Mercedes.”

Mercedes has no objection. Frances has recently revealed a natural talent in the kitchen. She cooks and cooks. Roasts and curries, stews and casseroles. It’s mystifying. Frances is like one of those strange persons who awake one morning and play the complete works of Bach with never a lesson.

“Daddy,” says Mercedes. He uncrinkles his eyes and blinks in several directions before focusing on her. She’s standing over him with a brown paper package. “This came for you.” She deposits it in his lap and leaves.

James looks at the postmark. New York City. The address is written in a spidery hand — old-ladyish. He notes with relief that it is not the same hand that formed the infamous letter of years ago. Who could it be, then? It takes him a while to undo the strings.

Inside is a lavender note folded on top of a bundle wrapped in white tissue-paper.

Supper.

Mercedes takes her seat at the head of the table. Lily places a platter of kibbeh nayeh in the centre, followed by a bowl of tabooleh , a brimming casserole of stuffed koosa and a pot of bezella and roz . Mercedes unfolds her napkin and wonders where Frances learned to cook — or not cook, as the case may be — their mother’s food. The kibbeh looks just like Mumma’s except that in the centre there is the impression not of a cross, but of a jack-o’-lantern grin —

“Frances.”

“Yes, Mercedes?”

“Oh, never mind.”

James’s slow foot is heard in the hall together with the syncopated clunk of his cane. He makes his way into the kitchen and over to his chair at the end of the table opposite Mercedes. Mercedes catches Frances’s eye but Frances doesn’t register anything unusual, oh for Pete’s sake — “Daddy,” says Mercedes.