women who thought he was handsome. Anna Djvorak was convinced that the doctor had miraculously saved her son’s life by not sending him to the tuberculosis sanatorium back in 1903. Almost everybody who did go to the “san,” as they called it, died in it. Anna didn’t know that the doctor had no practicing privileges there, just as he had none at Mercy. Nor did she know that the cure for tuberculosis in 1903 was precisely the one most detrimental to the patients. All she knew was that the doctor had prescribed a certain diet, hours of rest to be rigidly adhered to, and cod-liver oil twice a day. The boy survived. It was natural that she would want the miracle doctor’s daughter at the wedding of this son’s youngest daughter. Ruth went and when the congregation went to the altar to receive the host, she went also. Kneeling there with her head bowed, she was not aware that the priest was left with the choice of placing the wafer on her hat or skipping her. He knew immediately that she was not Catholic since she did not raise her head at his words and push out her tongue for the wafer to be carefully placed there.
“Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi,” said the priest, and then, to her, a sharp whisper: “Ssss. Raise your head!” She looked up, saw the wafer and the acolyte holding a little silver tray under it. “Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam…” The priest held the host toward her and she opened her mouth.
Later, at the reception, the priest asked her point-blank whether she was Catholic.
“No. I’m Methodist,” she said.
“I see,” he said. “Well, the sacraments of the Church are reserved for—” Just then old Mrs. Djvorak interrupted him.
“Father,” she said, “I want you to meet one of my dearest friends. Dr. Foster’s daughter. Her father saved Ricky’s life. Ricky wouldn’t be here today if…”
Father Padrew smiled and shook Ruth’s hand. “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Foster.”
It was a simple occurrence, elaborately told. Lena listened and experienced each phrase of her mother’s emotion from religious ecstasy to innocent confidence to embarrassment. Corinthians listened analytically, expectantly—wondering how her mother would develop this anecdote into a situation in which Macon would either lash out at her verbally or hit her. Milkman was only half listening.
“‘Are you Catholic?’ he asked me. Well, I was embarrassed for a minute, but then I said, ‘No. I’m Methodist.’ And he started to tell me that only Catholics could take communion in a Catholic church. Well, I never heard of that. Anybody can take communion, I thought. At our church anybody can come up on the first Sunday. Well, before he could get it out, Anna came up and said, ‘Father, I want you to meet one of my dearest friends. Dr. Foster’s daughter.’ Well, the priest was all smiles then. And shook my hand and said he was
“You didn’t know that only Catholics take communion in a Catholic church?” Macon Dead asked her, his tone making it clear that he didn’t believe her.
“No, Macon. How would I know?”
“You see them put up their own school, keep their kids out of public schools, and you still think their religious stuff is open to anybody who wants to drop in?”
“Communion is communion.”
“You’re a silly woman.”
“Father Padrew didn’t think so.”
“You made a fool of yourself.”
“Mrs. Djvorak didn’t think so.”
“She was just trying to keep the wedding going, keep you from fucking it up.”
“Macon, please don’t use that language in front of the children.”
“What goddam children? Everybody in here is old enough to vote.”
“There is no call for an argument.”
“You make a fool of yourself in a Catholic church, embarrass everybody at the reception, and come to the table to gloat about how wonderful you were?”
“Macon…”
“And sit there lying, saying you didn’t know any better?”
“Anna Djvorak wasn’t the least bit—”
“Anna Djvorak don’t even know your name! She called you
“That’s so,” said Ruth in a thin but steady voice. “I certainly am my daddy’s daughter.” She smiled.
Macon didn’t wait to put his fork down. He dropped it on the table while his hand was on its way across the bread plate becoming the fist he smashed into her jaw.
Milkman hadn’t planned any of it, but he had to know that one day, after Macon hit her, he’d see his mother’s hand cover her lips as she searched with her tongue for any broken teeth, and discovering none, tried to adjust the partial plate in her mouth without anyone noticing—and that on that day he would not be able to stand it. Before his father could draw his hand back, Milkman had yanked him by the back of his coat collar, up out of his chair, and knocked him into the radiator. The window shade flapped and rolled itself up.
“You touch her again, one more time, and I’ll kill you.”
Macon was so shocked at being assaulted he could not speak. He had come to believe, after years of creating respect and fear wherever he put his foot down, after years of being the tallest man in every gathering, that he was impregnable. Now he crept along the wall looking at a man who was as tall as he was—and forty years younger.
Just as the father brimmed with contradictory feelings as he crept along the wall—humiliation, anger, and a grudging feeling of pride in his son—so the son felt his own contradictions. There was the pain and shame of seeing
