Absence of Grace (13 page)

Clen walked out of a history exam on November twentysecond to find clumps of girls in the hall crying.

“Kennedy.” “Shot.” “Dealey Plaza.” “Dallas.” The words drifted in the air, oddly disconnected.

She skirted the groups and ran downstairs to Thomasina’s office. The door was open, and Thomasina and her secretary were standing by the secretary’s desk listening to a radio. Thomasina nodded at Clen without speaking, and together they stood listening to the ebb and flow of the story.

Kennedy had been seriously wounded...he’d been rushed to Parkland Hospital...he was in surgery. Until finally, “At 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, died from an assassin’s bullet in Dallas.”

Thomasina gripped Clen’s hand so hard it hurt. “Walk with me, Clen.”

They hurried through deserted corridors to a side door to the outside. It was chilly, but Thomasina’s habit would keep her warm and Clen was wearing a sweater.

“I couldn’t stand being inside,” Thomasina said. She pulled in a deep breath. “The river?”

When Clen nodded, the nun set off at a brisk pace down the hill past the picnic area and onto the path along the river. The path was narrow, forcing them to walk single file. A sharp gust caught Thomasina’s veil and flung it out in an arc. She turned her head and caught the veil, then twisted and tucked it into the cinch around her waist.

After a fast mile, they stopped and leaned hands on their thighs, gulping in deep breaths of air.

Thomasina straightened, facing the river. “Thank you for coming with me, Clen, and for not nattering.”

That silent walk with Thomasina was the only grace note in the somber days that followed.

Winter that year seemed particularly dark and dreary, not only because of Kennedy’s assassination, but because of a more personal loss the Marymead community suffered in late February.

First came whispers at breakfast that an ambulance had been called and a nun was removed on a stretcher. Most were guessing Eustacia had finally succumbed. She had to be at least a hundred and ten. But then a blackedged announcement was posted on the main bulletin board. Sister Gladys was the one who had died.

“A brain aneurysm is what I heard,” said the woman who ran the switchboard.

“What’s that?” Clen asked.

The woman shrugged. “Whatever it is, it’s quick.”

Clen looked up aneurysm in the dictionary. A blood vessel had burst in Gladiolus’s brain—something every bit as cruel, in Clen’s mind, as God letting Joshua get leukemia.

Knowing Thomasina and Gladiolus were friends, Clen wanted to tell Thomasina how sorry she was, but she hesitated, remembering how Thomasina hadn’t wanted words when Kennedy died.

Instead of attending the Mass of Remembrance, Clen went for a walk in the winter-bare garden. In the corner next to the trellis used by girls who stayed out too late, she found a rose bush, and although spring was still weeks away, the bush held a bloom. She picked it and took it to Thomasina’s room, where she left it on the pillow.

After Sister Gladiolus’s death, Thomasina changed. When Clen stopped by to chat, the nun would give her a distracted look and cut the conversation short, when Thomasina walked down the hall, she barely acknowledged anyone she passed, and when classes ended that year, Thomasina was missing from her usual station by the door.

Clen spent the summer reading to Joshua, who found it hard to hold a book for very long. As she turned a page, he interrupted. “Mickey La, am I going to die?”

She sucked in a quick breath. “We all die sometime, Josh.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” She leaned over and touched his hand where it was lying on the covers.

“Mom won’t let me talk about it. She says I have to be positive so the cancer cells will go away. But they aren’t.” He sounded matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing something ordinary like which pair of pajamas to wear or what book to read next. It made Clen’s heart clench with pain.

“What do you think it’s like?” he asked. “Dying.”

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “I think it’s like going to sleep and having a wonderful dream. In that dream you can do anything you want, go anywhere.” Actually, she had no idea what death might be like, but Joshua didn’t need to hear that.

“What if I just want to be here with Mom and Dad and you and Jase and go to school, play Little League? Just...be a regular kid with an ordinary, boring life? Instead, all I get to do is lie here, and the only choices I have are which channel to put on the stupid TV and what to eat. Except, most of the time I’m too sick to eat.”

“The treatments make you sick, but they’ll also make you better so you can do all that.” Clen bit her lip to stop any more of her mom’s Pollyanna phrases from emerging.

“I don’t want to do it anymore, Mickey La. You’ve got to help me. Make it stop.”

“I can’t, Josh. I wish I could. I’d do anything—”

“Then tell Mom for me. I don’t want to go back to Denver. No more treatments. Please?”

“If you don’t get the treatments, you won’t get better.”

“I’m not getting better. Don’t you get it? I can’t make the cancer go away. Promise me you’ll talk to Mom. And don’t leave me alone. Promise me you’ll stay with me. That you won’t go away.”

“I promise, Josh.”

1985

Wrangell, Alaska

The ferry slid north at a placid pace, parting the quiet waters of the inland waterway which reflected shorelines dense with the growth of spruce, fir, and cedar. Clen stood near the bow, her hands clenched on the railing, bracing herself against the steady push of cold air and memories. Memories evoked most vividly by the smell—a ripe, tangy mix of seaweed, bird guano, and saltwater—all borne by the chill April breeze. That breeze swirled amongst rocks and evergreens, tossing her hair about and pulling tears from her eyes. Although, if she were honest, she would have to admit it wasn’t just the cold causing the tears.

The tears were also in remembrance of the woman she’d been the last time she came to this place—with Paul. Married only a year and not yet knowing how unhappy they were going to make each other.

“Let me look, Daddy.”

Startled out of her bleak thoughts by the piping little voice, Clen turned to find a small boy, standing on his toes to look over the railing. He pulled on the sleeve of a man with a matching crop of unruly brown curls who was peering through binoculars at the shore.

“Is it a bear? Is it?” the child demanded.

Clen looked where the father had the binoculars aimed but saw nothing that appeared to be a bear on the narrow rock ledge they were approaching. Then a slight movement caught her eye, right there—a black animal the size of a dog.

The child continued to chatter excitedly. The man handed him the binoculars, then lifted the boy so he could see.

She and Paul had talked about children on that trip to Alaska. He’d said he wanted Clen all to himself awhile longer, and when the unhappiness started, neither one of them mentioned having a child again.

After the man set the boy down, the child held the binoculars out to Clen. “D’you want to take a look?”

“Thank you. I would.”

“He’s right over there. He looks tiny, but it’s a bear all right.”

Glad of the distraction, Clen moved the glasses slowly across the ledge until, with a suddenness that startled her, she found herself looking into the close-set eyes of a large bear. For several seconds the animal seemed to inspect her, then it lowered its head and appeared to be grazing on the thick thatch of green covering the rocks.

“Do you see him?” the boy asked.

“Indeed. He looked right at me.”

“Oh, bears don’t see good. They hear good though.” His words held the authority of a much older child.

“Is he really eating that green stuff?” she asked.

“Yep. He’s awful hungry.”

She handed the glasses back and smiled her thanks, hoping he and his father would leave her alone again.

No such luck. With the ice broken, the man settled against the rail for a chat. “Where you headed?” he asked.

“Wrangell.” She kept her tone neutral and her eyes on the shoreline, regretting the fact she’d accepted the binoculars, although she had enjoyed seeing the bear.

“Hey. That’s where we’re going, aren’t we, son?” The man rubbed the boy’s head, further disordering the curls. “We’re staying a week, visiting my sister. How about you?”

“I’m there for the summer.”

“Wow. Lucky you. This your first time in Alaska?”

“Second.” They’d taken the ferry that first time too, she and Paul, disembarking wherever the ferry stopped: Juneau, Ketchikan, Haines, for a day, or two, or three. And here she was again, in Alaska. Alone this time, except for memories breathed in along with chilled air. Memories of herself, a thick white scarf around her neck, laughing and posing with Paul when some stranger offered to take their picture. In those pictures, they stood frozen in time—a glacier behind; the future, gleaming with promise, ahead. Carefree and happy.

Clueless.

At least she had been.

“This is our fourth visit,” said the man, pulling her back to the present. “We’ve been coming every year since my sister moved here.”

So where was the mother? Easier to struggle with memories of Paul than to deal with this talkative man.

“Daddy, I’m cold.”

Finally.

“How about hot chocolate?”

“Super.” The boy turned an eager look toward Clen. “You could come with us.”

Her thoughts tumbled uselessly for a moment before she was able to string words together, thanking the child but turning him down. He gave her a disappointed look. She angled away from him, biting her lip to keep from giving in and saying, on second thought, hot chocolate sounded perfect.

And if it had been only the child, she could have managed it, but she wasn’t yet ready for the other. More questions and chat from the father, that ordinary back and forth lobbing of words. Something she seemed to have lost the knack for.

The two left, and in their wake grief ballooned in Clen’s chest. She gripped the railing and bit down on a sob. What had she been thinking, returning here? On the basis of what? Those few days all those years ago when she’d managed for a brief time to believe happiness was possible? Although even then, she’d suspected happiness was a figment of fairy tales and the best one could expect from life was contentment, something she no longer expected to find.