Turn of Mind

I have a theory, that it is a good thing when you’re in that state, she says. That those are the times your soul is most open, the possibilities for healing greatest. The echoing silence, the sweet smell, the soothing filtered light. The Presence. This time was different, however. You roused yourself. You saw the people waiting their turn for confession. You got in line. You went behind the curtain. You stayed a very long time. When you came back you had tears on your face. Tears! Imagine that!

I can’t, actually. But go on.

But it’s true. I swear. You reached out, and took my Rosary. You closed your eyes. Your fingers touched the beads. Your lips moved. I asked you, What are you doing? And you answered, as clear as could be, Amanda. My penance.

That sounds implausible. I wouldn’t know how to say a Rosary. Not after all these decades.

Well, you gave a pretty good impression of knowing what you were doing!

I consider this. I am calmer now. I consider the written evidence. I accept that there was no betrayal on Magdalena’s part. Just my damaged mind. But this doesn’t lessen the agony. Amanda my friend, my ally, my most worthy adversary. What will I do without you?

I think of the time around Mark’s graduation from high school. He and James had fallen out. He had, disconcertingly, attached himself to me. Just as I was getting ready to let him go. He was then coming into his dark, dangerous looks. Always good-looking—the girls started calling when he was twelve—he had in the last year been transformed into a dangerous man, a walking risk to those around him.

That summer was memorable for that, and because Amanda was for once not teaching. We spent the long evenings together while the sun lingered on her porch. Fiona, a very mature twelve, preferred to stay at home reading, that summer it was Jane Austen and Hermann Hesse. But Mark would inevitably join Amanda and me, sometimes for a few minutes on his way to a friend’s house, sometimes for hours, and sit quietly, listening while we talked. Although he was a year from being of legal age, Amanda would pour him a beer and he’d drink it thirstily and fast, as if we might change our minds and take it away.

What did we talk about night after night in that waning light? Politics of course, the latest petitions and rallies and marches Amanda had participated in, which she was constantly pressuring me to join.

Take Back the Night. Walk for Breast Cancer. Run for Muscular Dystrophy. Books—we were both Anglophiles, both knew the works of Dickens and Trollope by heart—and travel. The many places James and I had traveled, and Amanda’s curiosity, despite her own inclination to stay at home, which I never understood. And Mark there, listening.

Something significant occurred on one of those evenings. James and I had just returned from St. Petersburg, where we had purchased an exquisite fifteenth-century icon of Theotokos of the Three Hands. It had been outrageously expensive.

I had seen it at a gallery in Galernaya Place and had fallen in love. James resisted and resisted and then, on our last morning, disappeared for half an hour and came back with a package wrapped in brown paper, which he held out to me with a mixture of amusement and anger.

I held it on my lap on the flight home, unwilling to trust it to my suitcase or the overhead bin. Now I carefully unwrapped it to show Amanda. Perhaps eight inches high, the icon showed the Blessed Mother supporting the Christ Child with her right hand. Her left hand was pressed to her breast as if trying to contain her joy.

At the bottom of the icon appeared a third hand. The severed hand of Saint John Damascene. As the legend went, it had been miraculously reattached to his arm by the Virgin. Now at her feet, a testament to her healing powers.

Amanda held the icon in silence for perhaps five minutes, intent as when she was deeply engaged in giving a lesson to a difficult student or preparing for an important school board speech. She finally spoke.

I like this, she said. I never really understood your passion for religious iconography, but this is different. This one moves me in a way I can’t explain.

Then she spoke. I want this, she said. Her voice was soft but firm. Will you give it to me?

Mark, who had been lolling on the steps, sat up straight. I could only look. There was a long silence before a car horn sounded on Fullerton, causing both Mark and me to jump. Amanda didn’t move.

Well? she said. I won’t ask if I can buy it, because I know I can’t afford it. So I think you will give it to me. Yes. I think so.

I stood up, walked over to where she was sitting on the porch swing, and took the icon from her hands. It took some effort, she was holding on so tightly.

Why now? Why this? I asked. You’ve never asked for anything before. Never.

And you’ve always been so generous to me, she said. Bringing me gifts from your travels. Lovely things. The most beautiful things I own in the world come from you. But I hope you won’t mind me saying that they meant nothing. Mean nothing. Such things never touched me. But this. This is something else.

Mark surprised both of us by clearing his throat and speaking. But Mom loves this. It’s not just a souvenir to her. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then blushed and closed it.

I understand that, Amanda said. Which is one of the reasons I want it so much. Not the only reason. But a main one.

No, I said. My voice came out stronger and louder than I had meant it to. This is mine. Anything else, you know I’d be happy to give you whatever you wanted. Money has never been an object.

No, it wouldn’t be, she said, and there was a warning in her voice. Mark was watching everything intently.

No, I said again. I rewrapped my icon and placed it back in its box. No and no and no. This time, you’ve gone too far.

I left her porch, and it was many weeks before I felt calm enough to speak to her again. Many lonely weeks. Then, she knocked on my door one Friday noon. Our standing appointment. And I got my coat and joined her. It