Full of Grace (19 page)

I took them and thought about him having no belongings to distinguish him from any other patient. Except for his plastic patient’s bracelet. I kissed him on his forehead and said, “I’ll be here bright and early.”

When I put my key in the lock, the house phone was ringing. I hurried in to grab it.

“Grace?”

“Oh, hi, Mom,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Nonna. She wants Juicy Couture velvet exercise clothes. Can you imagine such a thing? Doesn’t Saks carry that line?”

Nonna wanted Juicy Couture sweats? “Yeah, but not in
her
size.”

“Well, she’s got her heart set on Juicy Couture. I just can’t see my mother with
JUICY
plastered across her backside. But you know how she is, now that she has George in her life…”

Mom went on and on. I thought my head was going to explode from listening to her stupid ramble about what, once again, Nonna wanted her to do. At some point I put the phone down to grab a bottle of wine
from the refrigerator. By the time I found the corkscrew and a glass and picked the phone up again, she knew what I had done and was annoyed.

“Grace? If you don’t want to talk to me, you could just say you’re busy or something. You don’t have to insult me by—”

For the third or fourth time in the last forty-eight hours, I started crying again.

“Grace? What in the world? Darling…”

“You know what? You and Daddy and Nonna and Nicky and that stupid Marianne…you think you’re the only people in the world. You have no idea what goes on in my life.”

“We do not think that!”

“Yes, you do. It’s like every time I come down there I’m a bit player in some kind of reality show that’s real to everyone else, but when I walk out of there it’s into some kind of a fake life or something…”

“I do not!”

“Mom? Yes, you do.” I didn’t know how to say it as this whole conversation wasn’t rehearsed, so I just blurted it out. “No one, you included, has ever recognized my relationship with Michael. You don’t know him, but he is brilliant and talented and—” I really broke down then and I couldn’t help it. I sobbed and sobbed. I had finally fallen in love and I had fallen so hard it was shocking. It was such an improbability that I would be in love that even my own family never gave it a second thought, except to criticize and second-guess it. How could I explain how I felt to my mother, who seemed oblivious to everything except the shackles she wore? And the possibility that I might lose Michael was leading me to utter hopelessness. I was exhausted from the seesaw of up one minute—making a plan, going through the paces—and down the next—putting him in a hospital, considering the odds.

“Grace? Grace?”

I could barely speak. I took several sips of the wine I had poured and tried to compose myself. I knew I sounded horribly desperate and miserable. I couldn’t help that either. “He’s dying, Mom. He’s dying. He’s the only man I ever loved and I’m going to lose him. You all don’t understand how much this is completely tearing me apart.” My voice was a whisper then. “I feel like I’m dying, too. I am.”

“Grace, baby, I am so sorry. What’s the matter with him? What can I do?”

“Nobody can do anything. He’s having surgery tomorrow morning. I checked him into MUSC today. Mom, he has a brain tumor and the survival odds are about zero. He’s got about a year, even with radiation and chemo.”

“Oh, dear heavenly Mother! Grace! He’s so young!”

“And you know? I keep trying to bolster his spirits and give him hope and be strong for him, but like tonight I had to ask him for his aunt’s phone number and his cousin’s, too…I don’t even know his next of kin…I don’t know his next of kin. All I know is that I’m not it!”

“Oh, honey, this is no time to worry about being married. It really isn’t.”

I refilled my glass and thought about that for a moment and then I said, “Look, Mom. That’s not even the point. There’s just a lot about me that isn’t working as little Gracie Russo anymore. That’s just how it is, Mom.”

“I know, honey. I see that.”

“I’m tired of having to leave Michael every holiday. I run down there to try to help you with Nonna and to please everyone and then what? Does anyone appreciate the fact that I am leaving Michael out because his ancestors are from Ireland? No, they do not.”

“Grace? I don’t want to fight with you about that. You obviously have a lot on your mind and I would be upset, too, if I were in your shoes. Listen, honey, we have a prayer group at church that prays continuously for the sick. I would be happy to add Michael’s name—”

“What is all this bull about prayer? Why is everyone offering to pray for Michael? Do you really think it would make a difference? I mean, it’s so stupid! It’s just naive! Why don’t we fund stem-cell research and let them find a cure for all these horrible diseases?”

“First of all, prayer is not bull, Grace. And second, the Holy Father says—”

I hung up.

I had reached a new personal low. I had hung up on my mother. To my surprise and relief, she didn’t call back.

After the worst night of almost no sleep and that same horrible nightmare torturing me when I did sleep, I went down to the hospital before it was even daylight. I looked in Michael’s room and he was sound asleep. I knew they would be getting him up soon. He already had an IV and I suspected they had given him some pre-op sedative. Sure enough, minutes later the door swung open and a nurse and two orderlies came in with a gurney to move him.

“Good morning, Dr. Higgins,” the nurse said. “Are you ready to take a ride?”

I stood up as Michael stirred with the transfer from bed to gurney. I leaned over and gave him a kiss on his forehead.

“I’ll be right here, baby,” I said. “I’ll wait. Love you.”

He nodded and opened his eyes for a second. Then he smiled at me. I was so glad I was there. Even though I knew he probably wouldn’t remember seeing me, I was just glad that I had arrived in time. The nurse directed me to the waiting area and said that as soon as Michael was in recovery his doctor would come to tell me how he had fared during his surgery. I was so overtired and the waiting area was already crowded, so there was no place to curl up. Nonetheless, I must have nodded off because a while later, I felt someone shaking my shoulder. I looked up into the face of my mother.

“I brought you a carton of orange juice with low acid and no pulp,” she said. “And a sausage biscuit.”

“Thanks,” I said. I opened the Burger King bag and pulled all the food out. “What are you doing here?” Obviously, she was there to be with me, but I was surprised to see her.

“What do you think I’m doing here? I came to be with my daughter in her hour of need. That’s what I’m doing here.”

I looked at her face, and even though we had extremely different politics and views on most everything, I thought that her coming was just about the sweetest thing she had done for me in many years.

“Thanks, Mom. I mean it.”

“You’re welcome. Now tell me everything the doctors have told you.”

It all came pouring out, the illness, the prognosis, Bomze’s gift of the
time off to help him plan the little trip to Mexico, but most of all, I told her about our general terror. Mom listened with intense focus, occasionally shaking her head and taking my hand in hers. Her eyes were misty and I thought she might break down and cry, too. In the end, she put her arms around me and hugged me. She rubbed my back in circles and suddenly I remembered that she used to do that when I was a little girl and came running to her crying over one thing or another.

“So he has to have chemotherapy and radiation?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Well, it sucks because it will probably be worse to deal with than the operation.”

“He might lose his hair.”

“It’ll grow back.”

“And it might make him sterile, Grace, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah. We talked about it. He’s frozen some sperm so that if we ever change our minds about children and marriage and all that, there will be something saved.”

My mother lifted her chin and she inhaled profoundly with surprise. “Frozen sperm? You’re not talking about…I mean, you aren’t considering artificial insemination, are you?”

“Yeah, I am. Why? Is the Church opposed to
that,
too?” I could feel my anger rise.

“You
know
they are. It’s unnatural.”

“Look, Mom, if you wanted to come to Charleston to make me feel better, this isn’t making me feel better at all! Should I never have children because a bunch of old men in dresses have some hypothetical problem with a science they don’t even understand?”

“The Holy Father says—”

“Who
cares
what he says? Thousands of people have children with help from a lab. It’s not a sin! What is the
matter
with you? It’s like you don’t have your own mind—you just do what everyone tells you to do and—”

With that, my mother stood up from the sofa and said, “I’m leaving, Grace. I hope Michael comes through his surgery fine and that your sci
ence can heal him of something no one has ever survived. If I were you? At this point I’d try to find my faith and beg God for mercy.”

My face was buried in my hands and I didn’t even look up when I said, “Just go, Mom. Just go.” But when I did look up, she was way down the hall, walking out on me.

There went my mother, I thought, who spent her life parroting her mother, her husband and her pope. What a miserable way to be, I thought. It was worse than being Victorian. It was worse than anything because it kept us from being what we should have been to each other.

I wept and wept, for my mother, for myself and then for Michael’s mother. What was the universal demon that kept too many of us apart from the one woman we needed most? How could I ever hope to be a good mother with the lukewarm mother I had? I knew I had a smart mouth. I knew I wasn’t the perfect daughter. But why in the world couldn’t she bend just long enough to listen? Why couldn’t she walk me through an issue without a ceremony? Oh, I was so wrung out. I wished Regina had been with me. It was the longest day I had ever lived.

Finally, after waiting for what seemed like eons, I went to the nurses’ station. I was told Michael had just been returned to his room and was resting comfortably. The surgeon never came to reassure me and tell me what he had found, but the nurse said that Michael had done very well.

“He’s young,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. Too young to die.

After I was convinced he was stable, I went home for a while. When I opened the refrigerator door there were four Mason jars of my mother’s homemade chicken soup and four jars of her marinara sauce. On my table was her most loved chocolate coconut cake in her ancient Tupper-ware cake carrier. She had used the extra key to bring food to me. It was what she knew how to do. Bring food. She couldn’t put herself in my shoes. She couldn’t consider my feelings about the Church and prayer and Ireland and all the complete nonsense I tolerated from them. But she had left her bed very early that morning to arrive when she did and she had probably been cooking long into the night. I was so confused and so upset, I didn’t care.

I sank into one of our dining chairs, opened the cake carrier and put my guilty finger into the icing. It was just as delicious as it always was.

I wanted to call Regina and get some sympathy, but I was too tired to dial the phone and I didn’t have the energy required to relive it all. Besides, I would have had to hear Regina tell me that I didn’t accept advice or criticism well. She would say,
What do you expect from your mother? To go back on what she’s believed all these years? It’s how she’s wired, Grace. If she agrees with you then her whole paradigm is screwed up.

Oh, Connie? Why? Why are you so rigid? Especially today of all days? She hopes my science can take care of this?

And had my father called? No. My stupid brother Nicky? No. His twit? Thankfully, no.

I ate some more icing, but with less relish. I felt extremely bad about losing my temper with Mom, but it would be a while before I called her to apologize. She was just wrong. They were all just wrong.

I
t was October when I finally called Mom to apologize. We had spoken many times during the weeks. But I was so busy with Michael and taking him back and forth to the radiation oncologist and she was so busy with Nonna that we had somehow never gotten around to the apology part of the apology. I just wanted the air officially cleared.

“I always told you children, there are enough people out in the world to fight with. You don’t need to fight with your family.”

“You’re right, Ma, you’re right.”

“I know this is a very stressful time for you. I asked around and I know pretty much what you are facing. Worse than that, I know what Michael is facing and therefore what you are facing—”

“Just imagine if it was Dad.”

“I can’t.”

“I love Michael like you love Dad.”

There was silence and then a tiny voice from my mom said, “We have to have a moment together, you and I. We have to have a moment to talk. And when I tell you what I…I will tell you, Grace, what I have never told anyone. And when I tell you these things, maybe I will seem like someone who makes more sense to you, not like someone who is a doormat.”

“Okay. Anyway, I’m sorry, Mom. I really am.” What was she talking about?

“Let’s not speak of it ever again. I know how you love me because I know how I love you. And if you tell me you love Michael with so much passion, you have to know that a mother’s love is that passion times fifty or more times a number that doesn’t even have a number. I can forgive you almost anything, Grace.”

“Jesus, Mom. Let’s not be so dramatic, okay? I mean…”

To my surprise, she ignored that, but she was quiet for a moment and then she said, “May I just point something out?”

“Sure…”

“For someone who claims not to believe in God or the Church, you sure do bring up their names an awful lot, Grace. I mean that in the nicest possible way, sweetheart…”

“Right.”

“Anyway, we are all praying for Michael, Grace, whether or not you believe in the power of prayer.”

“It’s not that I believe in prayer or that I don’t, Mom. It’s just not about that at all.”

“Okay. What’s it about?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think God gets involved, because if there was a God who listened to your prayers and could change the outcome of things, we never would have had concentration camps or terrible hurricanes or any number of all the horrible diseases. I think prayer is a coping mechanism. It makes people feel better to think there’s a God on their side.”

“Grace, Grace, Grace. When did you get so cynical? Did you ever stop to think how much
worse
diseases and catastrophes and wars could be
without
prayer?”

“Well, I guess everything is point of view, right? Anyway, Michael is tolerating the radiation and chemo extremely well. Although he’s lost his hair and a little weight. He’s back at work, part-time. His youth is certainly helping, and the fact that he was in excellent shape when this whole party got started.”

“So his doctors are satisfied with his progress?”

“Yeah. You would think that brain surgery would have you locked
up in intensive care for months. But it is a superfast recovery, at least to get back on your feet anyway.”

“He’s not complaining? No headaches?”

“Nope. He feels better now than he did before the surgery. And he’s asking for another chocolate coconut cake.”

I could hear the pleasure in Mom’s voice. “Tell him I’ll bring him one the next time I come to Charleston.”

“I will. So? How’s Nonna?”

“How’s Nonna? Hoo, boy! Well, she’s using a walker, but she’s getting around better than ever. The good news is that she spends almost every day over at the senior center playing canasta and crocheting. She’s with this fellow George constantly. The bad news is that I have to cook everything. She’s given up cooking for love. And she’s on the South Beach Diet.”

“Please! Seriously?”

“I’m telling you the truth! At least she’s happy. She’s losing weight like nobody’s business and she thinks she’s in love. I caught them kissing. That was pretty embarrassing, let me tell you.”

“Ew! I think there’s a little bit of vomit in my throat.”

“Right? Mine, too. She says she saw Nonno and he was happy for her to have a gentleman friend. Anyway, that’s the story with Nonna.”

“Gross. Well, I’d love to come down and see y’all, but I’m taking care of Michael, his mother—to the extent that anyone can—and I’m still working on that trip to Mexico for January.”

Mom knew that Bomze had given me time to be with Michael and to plan a Mexican trip. But she didn’t know I was taking a group of devoted Marian Catholics to see the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. If she and Nonna knew that, they would have been on the plane with me. That was the last thing I needed.

With that I realized that I almost forgot I had to be at St. Mary’s rectory at three o’clock. It was two-thirty and I didn’t want to be late for my first appointment with a freaking priest.

“How is Michael’s poor mother?”

“Pitiful. Honest to God, Mom…I mean,
honestly
. Alzheimer’s has
got to be the most unfair illness there is. I mean, really. You live your whole life as a dignified woman and in your final years you’re reduced to this mindless, skeletal shadow of who you used to be. I’ve been out in Summerville with Michael like three times this month, because Michael’s still not driving and it’s terrible. Man, if that was you, I’d cry my eyes out. I really would.”

“Thank heavens we don’t have that in our family.”

“I think if I found out I had it, I’d drink the Kool-Aid. Seriously.”

“Don’t say that! Suicide is a very serious—”

“I’m kidding, Mom!”

“Oh. Okay then, give Michael our best.”

“I will, Mom. Thanks.”

Well!
That
was a change in the parental attitude. We had arrived at a place of pleasantries. Not bad. I’d take it.

We hung up and I scooped up all my papers and rushed over to St. Mary’s Church. If I had been a good Catholic, St. Mary’s is where I would have been attending Mass on Sundays. I wasn’t.

I rang the polished brass doorbell, and in a few minutes, a housekeeper answered.

“Hi! I’m Grace Russo from Bomze Platinum Travel. I have an appointment with Father John at three.”

“Please come in,” she said. I followed her into a room that looked like an office and a library. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

She left, closing the tall doors behind her. The ceilings of the first floor of the rectory had to be twenty feet high, with crown moldings trimmed in a Greek key motif. The walls were lined with bookcases filled with old leather volumes of every description. And the oversize oak desk looked to be at least a hundred years old. There was a framed picture on a side table of a Franciscan priest with Pope John Paul II and another of the same priest with Desmond Tutu.

“I was a much younger man then.”

I turned to face the priest of the photographs and found the kindest face I thought I had ever seen. In fact, it was startling. I had expected him to be larger and more ecclesiastical and threatening or something.
But he was wearing simple black cotton trousers, a short-sleeved black shirt and, of course, a small Roman collar.

“Please, let’s sit down. Martha is bringing us some iced tea.” Rather than sit behind his desk, he sat opposite me in one of two chairs in front of his desk. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet the face behind the voice.”

“Thank you, Father. It’s nice to meet you, too.” I handed him my business card. “What a beautiful rectory this is, and I know St. Mary’s is supposed to be beautiful, too.”

I saw him knit his eyebrows and glance at my card. I could almost hear what he thought.
What? Russo? She’s Italian and not a Catholic
?

“Well, we’ll have to see that you get a tour, Ms. Russo.”

“Please, call me Grace.”

“All right, it’s Grace, then.”

“So about our trip. Here’s what we have so far. And I guess I should tell you this first. Since this is a donated trip, it’s not exactly going to be luxurious. Your group can pay for upgrades where they are available. But we’re talking about basic rooms, traveling by nice tour buses, not limos, meals that are the same for everyone in nice restaurants but not five-star—”

“Ms. Russo, the parishioners who won this trip are very normal folks and not the kind of people who would demand anything. Mostly they are seniors and they haven’t stopped talking about seeing Our Lady of Ocotlán and the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is a huge event for them and we are very grateful to Mr. Bomze for his generosity.”

“Thank you. I’ll let him know. Anyway, I was thinking about adding in a tour of the Museum of Anthropology. It’s loaded with pre-Columbian art and artifacts. Fascinating place.”

“That sounds wonderful,” he said.

“Yes, and there’s an old convent I think they might enjoy in Coyoacán, right outside of Mexico City in San Ángel…” I went on and on about all the interesting spots I had put together in the itinerary and he listened carefully.

“My goodness! I can’t believe you have devoted so much time to this trip and it’s a gift!”

“Well, I’m working from home right now and—”

“Oh? Oh, of course, times have changed so much. With the Internet and so forth, an office is hardly necessary anymore, is it?”

“Well, actually, I am sort of helping my boyfriend recuperate from brain surgery, and he doesn’t feel up to driving yet, so I get to be nurse and chauffeur.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. That has to be a strain on you, a little bit anyway? Is his prognosis good? Can St. Mary’s offer you a free stab at divine intervention?”

He smiled as he said it, but he had no idea he had touched such a raw nerve. He could not have known how physically and mentally exhausted I was, or maybe it showed on my face.

“Father John, may I ask you a question without seeming like a complete philistine?”

“Of course! You wouldn’t believe the questions I take.”

“Okay. Here it is. Do you think—I mean, do you believe prayer really matters? I mean, do you think it makes a difference?”

He sat back in his chair and looked at me for what seemed like a few very long minutes, but I’m sure it was just seconds. First, there was a little sadness in his eyes and then the pastor in him saw an opportunity to save an errant soul. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees.

“Grace? You have asked a question that has been pondered by all the great minds for thousands of years. Saint Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Flannery O’Connor…The Church’s answer is yes, it makes an enormous difference. But if you’re asking me, John the
man,
what I think, I would have to admit that deliverance as a result of petition seems to be a little bit of a hit-and-miss affair.”

“Right? It is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you have to remember what the essence of prayer is supposed to be. It’s not just about begging God to give us what we want. Prayer is supposed to be conversation with God. If it’s true that God has a plan for each of us, and I believe He does or I wouldn’t be sitting here—”

“Seriously? You believe there’s a plan for me, Grace Russo, on God’s hard drive?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and that plan may be for us to experience many things. Didn’t He so ‘love the world that He sent His only Son’? And why? To have the human experience. The closer we are to God and the more we talk to Him…and, well, would you listen to me? I’m proselytizing like some television evangelist. I’ve taken up way too much of your time. This can be a discussion for another day, Grace. I like to talk about the nature of faith and why some people have it and others don’t.”

He stood and I did, too.

“I might like to listen, Father. I really might enjoy that.”

“Well, if you’re a good listener, I’ll reward you with a tour of the church and show you the painting of Saint Peter. It was done by Caesare Porta in the early nineteenth century…and the poor devil has six toes on his right foot!” He opened the office door and motioned for me to follow him out.

“I love it! Why does he have six toes?”

“No one knows. Maybe it’s to show that only God is perfect, or maybe Saint Peter really had six toes on his right foot? But you have to remember something.”

“What’s that?”

“Just because it walks like a duck doesn’t mean it’s a duck. Every chink isn’t a sign of something; sometimes it’s just a chink.”

I smiled at him, having no clue what his duck/chink joke meant. He wasn’t pompous and he wasn’t seeping theology from his every pore. He would be fun to travel with, I thought. Maybe interesting, too.

“Right! Well, here’s the itinerary and I’d like it if you could just give it a glance and be sure it’s not too rigorous for any of the people coming. And if you could let me know about food allergies and so forth—there’s a form in there for each of them to fill out for medications, emergency contacts and all that stuff…”

“My goodness, you are so thorough!” He opened the front door and
waited for me to pass through. “And don’t worry about Michael. I’ll say a Mass for him.”

“Thank you, Father. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I was walking back to my carriage house and I had a paralyzing thought. I had never spoken Michael’s name. Had I?