“I’m glad she’s helping.” Erica had heard the rumor floating around that Yvonne had married Erica’s ex- boyfriend, Bobby, which turned out not to be true-but she had finished social work school and was looking for a job. “Thankfully there are some good social workers in the world.”
Father Michael nodded. “Not all of them are like Joan Goulden. Some of them really do want to help.”
“Thank God they took that woman’s license!” Erica exclaimed and then caught herself. “Oops, sorry about that.”
“I am thanking God for that, actually.” Father Michael grinned. “So, have you heard from USC?”
She smiled. “They accepted me for the fall. They accepted Clay too.”
“I’m really glad, Erica.” He smiled and she searched that smile for the truth, returning his smile when she found it. She thought he really was glad for her. Relieved, even, that she’d found Clay and moved on. “Please don’t think for a moment that I regret… anything. Not a minute of it. You’ve given me so much, I can’t tell you. Because of you, I’ve rediscovered my calling in the church again. That’s priceless to me and I thank you for that.”
“I don’t regret it either,” she murmured. “And I won’t ever forget it.”
She couldn’t help but feel her love for Father Michael in that moment, although it had been transformed, somehow, into something less desperate and more tranquil in the months that had passed. She knew now that she had fallen in love with Father Michael because he was safe, a man she couldn’t have, a man she could idolize and worship from afar, a man she could use to torture herself with until her penance felt it had been paid-around the twelfth of never.
It wasn’t until she met Clay that she realized how much she went around trying to punish herself, not for being a bad girl, which she’d been working hard at when she met him, just like she worked hard at everything she did, but just for existing in the first place, like she had no right to be here in this world at all.
Clay made her realize that she did belong here. She belonged here with him.
Clay lived and breathed and loved her in the real world, where it was dirty and painful and hard and that was good too. It was better than good. It was perfect. Perfectly messed up. That’s what they had, a perfectly messed up relationship, and she didn’t think she had ever been happier in her life.
“So no more Mary Magdalenes?” Erica asked.
He shook his head. “No. Father Patrick was the center of that wheel. The hub. Without him, it all just crumbled.”
“What about the women who worked in the laundry?” she asked, thinking about Father’s Michael’s mother- and sister-poor abused Marianne, and the girl Leah had roomed with, the slow one, Jean.
“They’ve been relocated to new jobs or new homes,” Father Michael replied. “My mother is living in the nunnery here, and she’s quite happy.”
“I’m so glad.” Erica was also glad the fire had been contained to the church and hadn’t spread to the nunnery or rectory or the schools. Just one corner of the square block had been damaged.
“Father Michael?” A knock came on the door. “Have you seen-?”
Erica pulled the door open and there was Leah, holding Grace propped up on her shoulder, the baby looking around with big dark eyes, wearing the same christening gown her mother had worn.
“There you are.” Leah laughed. “We’re ready, Father Michael.”
Father Michael stood, smiling as he reached his arms out for the baby. She was just three months old, but she held her head up and laughed when she saw him, holding her arms out and squealing with delight.
“Okay, but don’t run off with her,” Leah warned.
“Leah’s going to have Grace surgically attached to her hip next month,” Erica said, rolling her eyes, but she winked at her sister, letting her know she was just teasing. She couldn’t blame Leah for being a little paranoid about letting the baby out of her sight.
“Let’s go bless you, beautiful,” Father Michael murmured to the baby, cuddling her in his arms. She cooed and kicked her feet under her long, white satin gown.
“Hey, Leah, can I talk to you for a minute?” Erica asked, tugging on her twin’s sleeve. Leah looked annoyed at first and then she saw Erica’s face, doing a double take.
“We’ll be right there, Father!” Leah called after the priest as he carried the baby down the hall. “What is it?”
Erica took a deep breath, blurting it out. “I’m pregnant.”
Leah gaped at her, blinking in response. No words, just blinking, like a mute’s version of Morse Code.
“No one else knows,” Erica rushed on. “Except Clay, and I was so afraid to tell him because he knows about the Mary Magdalenes and the operation and I know it’s impossible and it’s crazy but I went to a doctor sure I was dying or had cancer or something because I hadn’t had a period in two months but he did a pregnancy test, and I made him do it again, and then I made him to do
“Fallopian tubes,” Leah corrected, her voice just above a whisper.
“Right, those, he said if they had just done that, it was possible that the ends of those tubes could have grown back together so that my eggs could have been, I don’t know, ripe or something, and whatever, however it happened, I’m going to have a baby…” Erica stopped, looking at Leah in the silence. “Say something.”
Leah laughed, and then Erica did too, and they hugged and laughed some more and Leah, wiping tears from her eyes and kissing Erica on the cheek and whispered, “You are going to be a mother.”
Those words made Erica burst into tears instantly. She had become accustomed to her infertile state, had even moved into a place of acceptance with it-and then
“What did Clay say?” Leah asked.
“He thought I was kidding of course. Started making jokes about the immaculate conception.”
“Oh no!”
“Luckily I had the doctor give me a note.”
Leah laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Erica giggled. “The doctor wrote it on his prescription pad. And told Clay to call him if he had any questions.”
“And did he?”
“At four in the morning.”
“You told him at four in the morning?”
“I told myself I was going to sleep on it and tell him in the morning, but I woke up and couldn’t keep it a secret one minute longer.”
Leah and Rob and the baby had rented a little apartment until the house they were having built in the suburbs was finished-Leah had changed her mind about New York and dancing the minute Grace had been back in her arms-but Gertie had invited Erica to live with them after the fire-in the guest room of course. Clay slipped into her room after everyone was asleep though.
“Well, it looks like we’re going to be twins in everything again.” Leah took her sister’s hand, teasing. “You always do this. Steal my thunder. Gotta one up me on everything, don’t you?”
Erica froze, jaw dropping. “No!”
“Just a month or so along.” Leah grinned. “And I haven’t told anyone. Not even Rob. Not yet.”
“Mom is going flip.” Erica laughed, hugging Leah and congratulating her while trying to imagine their mother’s reaction. “Both of her daughters managed to end up unwed mothers.”
Leah smiled. “I have no doubt you’re going to have a ring on your finger before long. And we’ll get to plan another wedding!”
Erica groaned, following her sister down the hall. “I just hope we don’t both have twins.”
“Hush your mouth!” Leah gasped. “Anyway, that skips a generation. Doesn’t it?”
“I sure as hell hope so…”
Leah shushed her as they neared the chapel, where the pews were full of family, friends, Rob’s clients, people they had gone to school with, had attended church with. Solie and Ada were up front with Patty, Donald Highbrow sitting on her other side. Erica spied Judge Solomon up front and waved at him. He dropped her a wink. Erica even spotted Rebecca and her baby in the crowd, sitting with a few other former Magdalenes-Lizzie/ Carolyn and Frannie/Marguerite among them. No Marty though, although Leah told her she’d sent a lovely set of knitted
