Dirty (27 page)

“I’m not Catholic. Does it matter?” Dan eyed the front of the church with apprehension.

“Not to me.” I took in a deep breath and adjusted the lapels of my black suit one more time. I hadn’t had to buy something new, my closet was filled with black and white, but I hadn’t worn this in a while and it had gotten loose. It was not so much that I cared how it fit for vanity’s sake, but because I knew the Dragon Queen would be eagle-eyeing me for loose threads, missing buttons, runs in my hose, worn soles on my shoes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she held a color wheel up to my face and told me my shade of lipstick wasn’t in my palette.

“You look fine.” Dan rubbed my shoulder. “Are you ready to go in?”

“You should leave.” I turned to face him. My hands twisted my handkerchief into a ball and released it, over and over. “Go. You don’t need to sit through this. It’s going to be long and really boring.”

Dan’s brow creased. “Elle, I don’t mind. I want to be here for you.”

Faster my fingers twisted, as I looked from him to the church and the line of people slowly filing in. “Dan, I appreciate it, I really do, but I think maybe I should do this alone. My mother—”

“Your mother needs you to be here,” he cut in smoothly. His hand rubbed my shoulder again, then slid down to take mine, hanky and all. “But you need someone to be here for you. You want me to stay.”

I couldn’t refute that any more than I could any of the other things he’d shown me I wanted. I sagged, shoulders hunching, and he put his arms around me. His embrace was matter-of-fact, nothing sensual about it. An embrace without lust. And he was right. I needed it, and I wanted it.

“Are you ready?” He asked after a few moments, his mouth moving against my hair. “It looks like everyone’s gone inside.”

I nodded against the front of his suit. Today he wore a somber black tie. I missed the trout and the hula dancers. I ran the soft material between my fingers, up and down, then let go.

“I’m ready.”

He put a finger to my chin to lift my gaze to his. “Elle, I’m here for you. Okay? If you feel like you need something, let me know.”

I nodded, voice stolen by emotion I wasn’t ready to face. Dan smiled. And, as I usually did when confronted with Dan’s smile, I smiled, too.

St. Mary’s is not a large church, but it is lovely. It had seen my first communion. My confirmation. It had heard my first confession and all the ones that had followed. I’d spent my childhood here under the gaze of the Blessed Virgin and, stepping through the heavy wooden doors to breathe in the scent of incense and holy water, I was transported.

Dan’s hand fit neatly under my elbow, guiding me. I dipped my fingers into the holy water font, the odd oily slickness of the water proof to me it was more than just water but something else, something divine. I pressed wet fingers to my forehead, the hollow of my throat, each shoulder, then rubbed them together until they dried.

Father McMahon had already begun, and more than one head turned as Dan and I walked down the aisle toward the first pew where my mother’s black-garbed figure awaited. It might have been sacrilege to imagine this was how Hansel and Gretel had felt walking through the forest toward the witch’s house, but I figured if the holy water font hadn’t started to boil when I dipped my fingers into it, God would surely overlook a little harmless imagination. Besides, I thought as I genuflected and made the sign of the cross, the analogy was faulty. Hansel and Gretel hadn’t known they were heading to their doom. I, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea about what awaited me.

Dan hesitated behind me, not making the quick, one-kneed motion that Catholics have perfected before sliding into the pew beside me. I heard Mrs. Cooper, my mother’s neighbor, murmur something to her husband Fred in the pew behind us, but I didn’t turn around to look at her. Mrs. Cooper used to bake me cookies and had taught me how to crochet. I hadn’t seen her in at least ten years.

My mother grabbed my arm the moment I sat down and clung to me as though she were hanging over an abyss and I the only rope that could save her. Considering I’d often imagined my mother as hanging from a rope over an abyss, the irony of her sudden dependence on me wasn’t lost, but rather made me smile in an entirely inappropriate way I hid behind my hanky.

She ignored Dan, and Mass was not the time for introductions. Once more I was transported. I’d forgotten how the familiar words used to soothe me, or how the bars of colored light coming in through the stained-glass windows always added up to numbers with perfect square roots. I’d forgotten the ebb and flow of religion and how it could make you mindless, and that wasn’t necessarily bad. My head might have forgotten how to pray, but my heart had not. I murmured the words, counting the beads of my rosary. It was learning one could pray using numbers that had first convinced me everyone must have never-ending calculations in their heads. I’d been astounded almost nobody else did.

I was aware of Dan beside me, but he sat quietly without saying much of anything. He didn’t hold my hand, nor did he reach for a prayer book. He watched with interest on his face, like he’d never been to a Mass before, his eyes following the priest’s back-and-forth meandering around the altar as though he were viewing a particularly interesting tennis match. At the waving of the incense burner, he let out one stifled sneeze.

I looked at him. We both smiled. I gave him my handkerchief. After that, he held my hand even though my mother sniffed and muttered and stepped up her wailing on my other side.

My father was one of seven children and the first to die, so there was much commentary given about him before the Mass had ended and we could “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” I couldn’t avoid being part of the line of mourners at the door, shaking hands and accepting the sympathies of those who filed by us. Dan kept to my side, gamely taking hugs and shaking hands and murmuring thanks to those who must have assumed he had a right to be there. I was glad to have him at my side, a buoy helping me keep above the water my mother would have dragged me under. She kept her glare mostly hidden beneath the veil of her hat or her gigantic handkerchief, but every so often in a lull between mourners she’d turn and shoot me with venom, always adding an extra dose for Dan, who either didn’t notice or was calmly unconcerned.

By the time the last person had left the church and headed to cars for the procession to the cemetery, my feet and back ached, and my face hurt from trying to smile and look woeful at the same time. My head hurt, too, from tension that radiated from my skull down the back of my neck and knotted between my shoulder blades.

“I’ve rented us a car,” my mother said stiffly. “Since I knew I couldn’t expect you to drive.”

“I’ll be happy to help you to it, Mrs. Kavanagh.” They were the first words Dan had spoken to my mother, and I tensed, waiting for her to snap his head off.

Ah, but she was the queen of many things, the art of lulling her prey into a state of false security only one of them. “Thank you, Mr….?”

“Stewart.”

“Mr. Stewart,” she said with an imperious lift of her chin to indicate the disgrace of having to even ask.

The car she’d hired was big, black and ostentatious, but while I might have rolled my eyes another time, I was glad for her pretensions this time. It meant there was plenty of room for the three of us. There would have been room, even, for two more…but those two weren’t here.

“So, Mr. Stewart,” said my mother without preamble. “What did you think of the Mass?”

“It was very nice.” Dan’s answer was diplomatic.

“I noticed you didn’t pray along,” my mother continued.

I groaned. “Mother, for God’s sake—”

“I’ll thank
you,
” she said sharply, rapping me on the knee with her knuckles, “to watch your mouth.”

Precious advice from a woman who had once stood in the doorway of my room and told me I was a no-account whore whose lying tongue would rot and sprout maggots on my way to Hell. I glared at her, but Dan seemed unfazed.

“Well, no. I’m not Catholic. I didn’t think it would be appropriate. I was there to support Elle.”

She sniffed, sitting back against the expensive leather seat. “What are you, Lutheran? Methodist? Don’t tell me you’re one of those Evangelicals.”

“No.” Dan smiled with a small shake of his head. “I’m Jewish, actually.”

For once my mother seemed to have nothing to say. My own jaw dropped, though I recovered quickly. He looked at us both with a hint of amusement in his shining eyes.

“I see,” my mother said, though I was sure she didn’t. I was also sure she’d never met a Jew in her entire life. I was surprised she didn’t ask him to part his hair and look for the horns.

Dan met my eyes, his mouth quirked in a tiny smile. He gave a small shrug, which I returned. The revelation kept my mother quiet until we got to the cemetery. Not as many people came to the graveside service, which was fine with me. Fewer hands to shake. Fewer hugs to suffer.

We got out of the expensive hired car on a small hill of grass, and my stomach fell away. This time I was the one hanging over the abyss, and Dan was my rope. While my mother marched her completely competent self down the small gravel path toward the pile of dirt and open grave that awaited her approval, I gripped Dan’s hand so hard my nails gouged his skin. I had to turn away from the sight.

“Roses,” I said through gritted teeth.

He looked down the hill and put himself between me and the sight. “Doesn’t she know you’re allergic?”

I had forgotten I’d told him that lie, because really, what’s one amongst so many?

“She knows.”

He put his hands on my upper arms, rubbing lightly. “Then we won’t go down there.”

“I have to go down there, it’s my father’s service, she’ll be expecting me…”

I was babbling and knew it but couldn’t seem to stop. Dan shushed me, his hands stilling. I looked up at him.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Elle.”

I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. Sunshine streaked his face, showing his freckles and the lines around his eyes. In bright light like this I saw the gold flecks in the blue-green irises.

“We can listen from up here,” he told me. “You don’t have to go down there if you don’t want to.”

He was right, but what’s more, wouldn’t budge. I babbled some more about duty, respect, honor, and expectations, and he listened to all of it but did not step aside to let me move toward the service that had begun without me.

“You don’t have to go down there,” he insisted. His hand came up to smooth my hair. “It’s all right.”

It was not all right. None of it was. It was wrong, all of it, and I knew I’d pay the price for my cowardice if not then, then later. I always did.

My family is large and boisterous, happy for the most part and, for the most part, drunks. Alcohol is the thread that ties them all together, the jolly Irish aunts and uncles from my father’s side and my mother’s sentimental Italian relatives. I have all four living grandparents and a slew of cousins, many of whom are now married and starting families of their own. I hadn’t seen any of them in years, though a lot of them still lived close to the town in which my mother still lived. They probably saw more of her than I did, spent more time in her house with its never-changing decor and my father in his chair in the corner of the den.

The chair was empty now and looking forlorn, and though there were more asses than seats to put them in, nobody sat in it.

“Like some sort of shrine,” I muttered from my spot by the wall. I had indeed been drinking, but only one glass of wine. A drink at which my father’s family would scoff and my mother’s sing odes. “This whole house is a fucking shrine.”

Dan had been welcomed in with open arms by everyone but my mother, who was too distracted in her role as Grieving Widow to make much of a fuss. He’d shaken hands and suffered through good-natured ribbing with an aplomb I envied. He’d fetched and carried drinks and plates of food for the old ladies, flirting with such chivalry he set them all to tittering.

He leaned against the wall next to me. “Your family seems nice.”

I didn’t answer him right away, sipping wine and letting it fill my mouth before swallowing. “Most families do, don’t they?”

He didn’t have much to say to that. He looked around. My mother hadn’t changed much since I’d lived there. Her frenzy for having the latest and the best was reflected in her appearance less than the house’s. The television, a big screen that dwarfed the room, must have been my father’s idea.

My cousin Janet appeared in front of us, her face and form rounder than I’d seen her last but the infant in her arms the clear reason for it. She smiled at Dan and reached to give me a one-armed hug that didn’t jostle the baby. I admired her skill and supposed new mothers got used to doing things that didn’t wake their babies.

“Ella,” she said warmly. “It’s so good to see you. How…how have you been?”

“Good. You’re looking good. Congratulations.” I peeked down at the sleeping baby. “I got your announcement.”

“We got your gift,” she said. “It was lovely. You made it yourself?”

I glanced at Dan and my cheeks heated at his look of interest. “Yes.”

“It’s beautiful.” She turned to Dan. “She knitted us the most gorgeous baby blanket. Hi. I’m Janet.”

I made a quick introduction. “I was glad to do it.”

“We’d hoped to see you at the baptism,” she said. “Your mother said you were out of town.”

“Oh…yeah. I travel a lot.” Another lie.

She nodded sympathetically. “Well, don’t be a stranger. You know where we live.”

She looked across the room at Sean, her husband, who had graduated from high school with me. “We’d love to see you. And you, Dan,” she added. “Any friend of Ella’s is a friend of ours.”

The beauty of Janet’s words was that she meant them. She gave me another hug, this time one that woke her sleeping angel, and with a murmured apology about breast-feeding and diapers, she moved off through the crowd.

More family and friends came through, most of them pausing to talk to me and tell me how good it was to see me. I nodded and smiled at all of them, because I did appreciate their sentiments. I did. It wasn’t their fault I had run away and didn’t want to look back.