Anna Quinn - The Night Child

Only one other person in her life had called her a liar.

“Liar!” her mother shouted, snatching the rosary from Nora’s six-year-old fist. “Where did you get this?”

“S-s-sister Rosa gave it to me.”

“Liar!” Her mother’s red hands shaking the rosary close to Nora’s face.

“P-p-please Mommy, give it back.”

“You want it back? Here!” And then her mother’s angry fingers wrenching the rosary apart until SNAP! The white thread breaks, and all fifty-nine blue beads pop into the air and clatter to the floor. Her mother leaving her there then, in the sudden silence of it all, Nora smearing tears off her cheeks and scrambling to find each precious bead.

“Liar!” her mother shrieked the morning she’d found an empty package of lemon-crème cookies in Nora’s bed.

“It wasn’t me, Mommy,” Nora cried. “It wasn’t me.”

“Liar!” her mother hissed after she’d pulled Nora out of the confessional at church. “You spit on the priest. The priest! Through the screen!”

“But I didn’t, Mommy! I didn’t!”

She remembers being angry with the priest. But she doesn’t remember why or what she’d said. And she doesn’t remember spitting on him.

Lying there in the dark, Nora remembers these things. But she doesn’t remember why there was an empty package of cookies in her bed. And she does not remember praying to St. Margaret.

“I’m worried about Fiona,” Nora says to David a couple of days later. She is clutching a paper cup of coffee with both hands. “She’s been getting stomachaches. The pediatrician thinks it’s anxiety.”

“What do you think?” he asks, cleaning his glasses with the bottom of his shirt.

“Well, I think he’s probably right.” She puts her cup down next to her ankles and rubs her fingers hard into both her temples. “I stayed home with her the last couple of days, and she seemed to feel better quickly. We had such a lovely time, but …” she closes her eyes and rubs her temples even harder.

“But it wasn’t enough,” he says.

“No.” She thinks of the last few days with Fiona, how they’d spent almost every moment together, played dress-up, Fiona becoming a princess in an evening gown Nora had found at a garage sale, read Heidi , Little House in the Big Woods , Charlotte’s Web . They’d written a funny story about an onion named Miss Pearl, sung along with Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” Fiona dramatically falling to the ground each time the chorus came around and then breaking into giggles. It had been such a relief to hear her laugh, the sound of it bright as a sunrise, and yet there had been moments, too, when Fiona reached for her and wouldn’t let go, whispering, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” and Nora had tried not to fall to pieces. You can’t keep secrets from children. Fiona knows something is wrong, and her worries are making her sick.

“Nora?”

She opens her eyes, folds her hands on her lap. “Presidents’ Day break is coming up next week, and I’m spending every free moment with her. I just wish I could understand what’s going on in my head and be done with it without … damaging her.”

David leans forward, giving her the whole attention of his being. “What you are working through is the opposite of damaging, to you or Fiona. Your healing will be the greatest gift you can give her. Concealing your pain keeps a part of you in darkness, and trust me, that isn’t good for anyone.”

She tells herself he is probably right, she is doing the right thing. In a few months everything will be fine again. She promises herself she will take charge of this; she will resolve it.

“Nora, do you want to talk about our last session? When you left you were pretty upset.”

She should tell him about the other times she was called a liar, about the broken rosary, but she is aware now that she is becoming sleepy, and she has the vague awareness these feelings are the ones preceding the appearance of Margaret. This awareness frightens her, and she quickly sits up straight and takes a large gulp of coffee. She is in charge here.

“Nora, what were you feeling the night after our last session?”

After Fiona had fallen asleep, after she had remembered the other times she’d been called a liar, she’d crept down to the kitchen and eaten a fistful of cookies, then bread with butter and jam, and then more cookies. And then she’d vomited it all into the toilet. But she doesn’t tell David these things—she can’t.

“Nora, how do you feel about Margaret calling you a liar?”

Nora tries to speak then, but when she opens her mouth, the silence in the room rushes into every pore of her, until, with the huge weight of it, she closes her eyes and her head falls to her chest.

“Don’t look at me,” she says, her head down. Her voice a higher pitch.

“Margaret?”

“Please—please, can you sit in the other chair?” Margaret says, and she carefully peeks as David moves to the green chair by the window. He is old and moves slowly, like her grandfather, and she thinks he also looks like him, which makes her feel safer. David turns his head to the window like last time. She can see the black of the night sneaking in through the cracks in the blinds. She needs to tell him. It is her job.

“I’m glad you are here, Margaret.”

“Mommy broke our rosary and I tried to find all the beads but I couldn’t find them all and it was me who spit in the priest’s face,” she says. She cannot stop shaking. His hands are wrapped around his coffee mug, and he stays looking at the blinds when he talks. It could be a trick, but she doesn’t think so because his body is leaning back.

“And I’m the one who ate the cookies in bed,” she says watching him, watching the door. “I ate the cookies because Daddy tasted yucky and I’m really, really sorry.” No one is coming in, but she will talk fast. “And I stole money from Daddy’s suit pockets and also I steal money from Paul. I keep it in an orange shoe box with the rosary beads in Nora’s closet … the one with the little white check mark.” She stops then and watches him look out the window for a long time without speaking, like he’s thinking and will never talk to her again because of all the bad things she has done. She can’t think of what else to do right now, but then he talks.

“Margaret, why did you steal money from your daddy?”

“Because … because … I needed it. I was saving up for me and Nora to run away.” She is really scared now and keeps looking at the door in case someone comes in and she has to get away fast.

“Margaret, can I ask you one more question?”

No one is coming in now, and David is not mad about the money, so she says, “Yes.”

“Why did you spit in the priest’s face?”

She closes her eyes tightly. She grabs the pillow and brings her legs up to her chest until she is a tight ball, but then she is right there in the smell of incense, and she is kneeling and waiting and waiting and waiting for the red light to turn green on the big box where the priest waits. Now the red light turns green, and it is her turn, and she tiptoes up to the big box, opens the large door, and steps in, heart stammering, kneels with her face close to the little closed window and now the window slides open and there is a black screen and she can see the shadow of the priest’s face and hear his breathing.

“Bless me father for I have sinned,” she says shyly. It is only her second time in the big box of confession and she does not know this priest because this is not the church where her school is and she doesn’t know why her mother came here instead of their regular church.