The Gathering (8 page)

The bad news was the discovery of a cancerous growth on the mother’s uterus. The growth was excised, of course. But to do so, the entire uterus had to be removed. There followed an extended period of watching and praying that the surgery had removed any possibility of recurrence.

The parents’ initial reaction was to lavish the twins with toys and games. Eventually, they saw the light and settled down to provide their children the only things they really needed—tender, loving care.

“It’s not that I was looking for a specific singer,” Alice said. “It’s the song I wanted to hear.”

“How come?” Mike asked.

“Oh, I dunno. I guess I was feeling kind of alone.”

“You should’ve told me,” Rose said with genuine concern. “We had plenty of time to talk about it upstairs. It certainly wasn’t going to do you any good to listen to such a sad song. Besides”—she was trying to be encouraging—“toward the end, it says, ‘Now I’m no longer alone … ’”

“I guess the melody is what I was looking for,” Alice said. “It’s sort of sad and melancholy.” She smiled. “But now that I’ve heard the song and listened to you guys, it’s better.”

“Remember,” Mike said, “you only get to feel like this”—he paused for emphasis—“once in a blue moon. That’s what it means: once in a very long time.”

“You would make this cerebral,” Rose scolded. “Al just was feeling down. I’m sure that it happens to everybody now and then.” She turned back to her friend. “Is something bothering you, Al? Don’t be put off by Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes there. Believe it or not, he does have feelings.”

“I know he does.” Alice smiled at the now blushing Mike. “I was thinking … I got to thinking about what we’re planning on doing.”

“Which is what?” Mike asked.

“Going into the convent,” Alice replied.

“Is
that
it?” Rose’s tone was dismissive. “Good gravy, that’s not for another five years. First we have to go through grade school
and
high school. That’s a long way to go. We’ve got plenty of time to decide for sure. Heck, Mike here has only one year to make up his mind. Once he finishes the eighth grade, it’s off to the seminary—if they’ll have him,” she said with a mocking grin.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t joke about that,” Mike said. “If Bob Koesler had a rough time, I’m not expecting a smooth slide.”

“Sorry,” Rose said. “But you shouldn’t be so touchy. You know you’re gonna be accepted.”

“Okay. But so do you two.”

“It’s different with us,” Rose protested.

“Oh?”

“We—the three of us,” Rose said, “along about this time next year will graduate from the eighth grade. Then Al and I will start high school at Redeemer. Nothing much will change for us. But you,” she addressed her twin, “will be going to a very special school where you’ll start a long process to figure out whether or not you want to be a priest.

“When the three of us graduate from high school, you’ll continue to be a student. Nothing much different will happen in your life. But our lives—Al’s and mine—will change terrifically. We’ll be in a convent. We’ll be postulants. We’ll be wearing a religious habit. We’ll be well on our way to becoming nuns.”

Silence for a few moments.

“I see what you mean,” Mike admitted finally. “Once we get out of grade school, my life will change—a lot. I’ll be a seminarian. But you and Alice; well, nothing much will happen to you two next year. Then, when we graduate four years later, I’ll still just be a seminarian … whereas you two will be beginning religious life in Monroe.”

“I’m not sure …” Alice hesitated. “ … about Monroe.”

“What?” Mike was puzzled. “You gotta go there. That’s where they make IHM nuns.”

The girls ignored Mike’s flippant phrase. “I’m just not so sure I want to be an IHM,” Alice said.

“What?” It was Rose’s turn to be surprised.

“The IHMs are teachers,” Alice said. “That’s what they do. Oh, here and there one might be an infirmarian, so she’d likely have to be a nurse. But there’s no real choice when you enter Monroe: If you stick it out, you’re going to be a teaching nun.”

“Maybe that’s why you were playing the Monroe record,” Mike teased. “You were thinking of being lonely in Monroe.” He chuckled.

“We can do without your feeble puns.” Rose turned to Alice. “I’m really surprised, Al. I thought you and I had the same plans. I mean, we know the IHMs. I didn’t think there was any question.”

“I haven’t mentioned it,” Alice admitted, “but I have been giving it some thought.”

“What is it?” Rose probed. “You getting cold feet about the convent?”

“That’s not it … at least I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s the question of having a choice.”

“I don’t understand,” Rose said.

“There are lots of different orders,” Alice explained. “There are teachers and nurses and … and missionaries! We haven’t even discussed missionaries!”

“Do you think you might prefer one of those alternatives? ’Cause if you do, I wouldn’t want to stand in your way. I mean, it’s too big a choice for you to depend on somebody else to make.”

Silence. Even though the girls were clearly aware of his presence, Mike felt as if he were eavesdropping.

“I want to be with you,” Alice said finally. “That’s part of it. But I also want a bigger choice on what I’ll do with my life in a religious order.” Her brow wrinkled. “I’m confused.”

“Well …” Rose shook her head. Her freshly brushed hair danced about. “We can’t plan that we’ll be together. We have to give up a lot of personal freedom when we become nuns. Far as I know, we’ll have precious few choices. Even our new names in the Order won’t be up to us. We can request, but others will decide them. And if we don’t even get to choose our own names, it’s not likely we’ll have much say in where we’ll serve or with whom.”

Mike might as well have been invisible.

“I’m confused,” Alice acknowledged. “I want to be a nun. I want to be a ‘Bride of Christ.’ I want to wear the habit and I want to live up to what the habit stands for. I want to willingly—gladly—accept any sacrifice that I’m called to make.

“That’s today. Yesterday I didn’t want to be a nun. Tomorrow I may want to get married and have kids. I don’t want to keep changing my mind, going backward and forward. It’s driving me nuts.” A tear slid down her cheek. More tears filled her eyes, waiting to fall. She wiped them away.

Rose moved closer and put an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “I had no idea,” she admitted. “I just had no idea. Isn’t there anyone you’ve talked to about your decision? Isn’t there anyone you could discuss it with? One of our teachers? Your folks?”

“Oh, Rose, I’ve got more confidence in you than in anybody else. I know … I really know that you’re the one to help me make up my mind once and for all.”

“I don’t know what to say, Al. I want to help you. But I’ve got to be objective. I’m just a kid. Like you. I don’t have any experience with something as important as this.”

“Prayer.” Mike spoke the word with no particular emphasis.

“Huh?” Alice wasn’t sure what he’d said.

“Prayer?” Rose echoed.

“I don’t mean to horn in on your discussion. But”—he shrugged—“I really couldn’t help it.”

“I don’t mind,” Alice said. “In fact, I was kind of hoping you’d throw your two cents in.”

Rose was smiling. “You hit the nail right on the head, brother. The one thing we should’ve thought of right away. Here we are, talking about a religious vocation, and we’ve done a great job of missing the point. We plan on spending our lives in prayer … and we forgot all about it when it most counted.”

“You two,” Mike said, “have been carrying on as if we were going to ship you off to the convent tomorrow. Migosh, you’ve got five years! Plenty of time, if you use it well.”

‘You’re right, pal,” Rose said. “And who knows what’ll happen during these next years?” She turned back to Alice. “You might even find a nun you have confidence in— somebody you can really open up to. But more than anything else we simply have to pray about it. And that means all of us: praying for ourselves and for each other.”

From upstairs, Mr. Smith’s voice cut through their thoughts. “Hey, it’s almost eleven o’clock! Aren’t you kids ever going to bed?”

“We’ll be up in a few minutes, Dad,” Mike called.

“Don’t forget the lights!”

“We won’t.”

   
SEVEN
   

T
HE TOCCOS REACTED
about as their son Manny expected.

He arrived home from his bout with Blade bloody but unbowed. Maria Tocco made a great fuss over his torn, dirtied, blood-spattered clothes. After she checked to make sure that the blood had not flowed from holes in her baby, her main concern was the condition of his hand, especially the thumb and index fingers. She was unfamiliar with the term canonical digits. All she knew—and that mostly from observation—was that those were the fingers the priest used to hold the communion wafer. Lacking one or more of those fingers … well, God knows; she assumed he would not be allowed to become a priest.

As a child in parochial school, she had listened wide-eyed, as the nuns related the martyrology. Now, she remembered all too vividly the tales of the tortures suffered by the early Jesuit priests and missionaries at the hands of their Native American captors.

Father Jean de Brebeuf—they cut out his heart and ate it while he watched. (A little hyperbole there, but what did the innocent pupils know?) Father Isaac Jogues—they chewed off his fingers and ate them. Brebeuf, of course, died. Jogues escaped and applied to Rome for—and received—permission to offer Mass sans fingers.

Maria took from these accounts two puzzles: How does one go about offering Mass without fingers? And why, though mutilated, would a living martyr need to apply for the Vatican’s permission to offer Mass?

After hearing this nausea-inducing tale, one of Maria’s classmates—the class comedian—had added his own contribution to the Litany of the Saints: “From the nuns who teach us precisely what the Indians did to the Jesuit missionaries, Good Lord deliver us.”

Manny had come through his violent altercation in one piece. The blood had to have come from the bully. And all fingers were present and accounted for.

His mother breathed a sigh of relief, then imposed penance: Manny must confess his misdeed to his father. And so, when ’Fredo arrived home from work he was met by a still-steaming wife and a browbeaten son.

Typically, Tocco wanted to know whether either Manny or his friend Michael had been injured. Then, having ascertained that neither Manny nor Mike had started the fight, the big question was had his son triumphed over the bully, or had he come out second best?

And, finally, the damage. A shirt beyond repair, pants torn but mendable. ’Fredo mentally shrugged; the clothes were Maria’s bailiwick. She would mend what was repairable; what was not would be replaced.

There followed a halfhearted lecture on the necessity of trying just about everything else before fighting might become inevitable.

’Fredo’s pride in his son was only thinly disguised. Manny had fought the good fight. There was laid up for him an extra dessert.

That was then. This was now.