apart.”
I had never had a pelvic exam. This was, in effect, my first trip to the gynecologist. I didn’t tell Adelaide that. I was supposed to be nineteen and was already feeling bad about lying.
“Now he’s going to give you two shots, into your cervix, to relax the muscle.”
“Needles?”
“Don’t worry. In about two minutes you’ll feel two tiny little pinches, not too bad.”
Adelaide was as good as her word. One. Two. Like little pinpricks.
“Now we’re comin’ up on the part of the procedure where the doctor’s going to dilate you. He’s gonna use two rods, one small and one large, to open up your cervix. This is gonna be a little uncomfortable for you, honey, and I want you to hold my hand good and tight. It’s gonna feel like cramps, just like the kind you get on your period.”
“I don’t get cramps.”
“Not even the first day?”
I shook my head, no, feeling embarrassed. At that age, I felt inferior because I didn’t get menstrual cramps, which kept Angie and my classmates popping blue Midols in French class. Real women got cramps.
“Well,” she said, “you’re a lucky girl.”
I had never thought of it that way. Suddenly, I felt a violent squeeze around my lower abdomen, then another. I bit my lip, closing my eyes to the luminous cyclops in the ceiling. The pain came again and again, bringing tears to my eyes. I held on to Adelaide, and she to me, saying, “Just a couple more minutes. Hold on to my hand, honey.”
Then it stopped. No more pain, no more cramping. Adelaide explained about the curette while the doctor scraped the baby off the insides of my uterus. I felt nothing.
It was over when the scraping was done. The doctor left the room, saying a quick good-bye. Adelaide stood over me, smoothing my hair back from my face like my own mother would have. She looked so happy and relieved I felt like I had graduated from something.
“Adelaide, I have to tell you something. My name-”
“Hush, baby,” she said, smiling down at me. “You think I don’t watch television?”
She helped me to a recovery room. I had to leave her and was led to a chair near eight other patients. Some of them were having cookies and juice, others were resting in their seats. I stayed there awhile, leaning my head back into the cushions, feeling a mixture of relief and sadness. In time, another counselor came by and roused me. She had an intense medical-student look about her, and she told me in a technical fashion about the pads and the bleeding and the follow-up and the product of the pregnancy.
When I got home, I mumbled something about the flu and crawled into bed with my stuffed Snoopy. I felt raw inside, achy. I stayed in bed through dinner, fake-sleeping when Angie came in at night. I just lay there, bleeding secretly into a pad attached to a strappy sanitary belt. Thinking about how I went in full and came out empty.
The product of the pregnancy.
I knew it was a baby; I didn’t kid myself about that. But for me, that wasn’t the end of the question. We killed in war; we killed in self-defense. Sometimes killing was murder and sometimes it wasn’t. I was confused. I felt that what I did was right, even though I felt just as certainly that it was wrong. My church, being a lot smarter than I, exhibited no such ambivalence. It had all the answers from the get-go, so I knew my family’s prayers for me were lost for good. They would disappear on the way to heaven like the smoky trail of an altar candle.
I look up at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, searching in vain for her eyes. If anyone could understand, Mary could. She had also sacrificed her child. She had no choice either.
“Are you all right, miss?” asks a voice.
I look up, with a shock. An old man is peering into my face, not ten inches from my nose. He looks worried, and I realize, to my surprise, that I’ve been crying. I wipe my cheek with a hand.
“Here you go,” he says. He tucks a broom under his arm and offers me a folded red bandanna from the pocket of his baggy pants. “Take it.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Here.” Before I can stop him, he puts the bandanna up to my nose. It smells like fabric softener. “Give ’er a blow. A good hard blow.”
“Are you serious?”
“Go for it.”
So for a minute I forget that I’m over ten years old, a lawyer and a sinner to boot, and let the church janitor blow my nose.
“Good for you!” He folds up the bandanna and tucks it back into his pocket. He’s cute, with a wizened face and sparse tufts of white Bozo hair at each temple. His nose is small and blunted at its tip, as if by a common spade. A safety pin holds his bifocals together, but his blue eyes are sharp behind the glasses. “You got troubles?”
“I’m okay.”
He eases himself onto the bench, leaning on the wiggly broom for support. “That why you’re cryin’? ’Cause you’re okay?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why I came here.”
“For help. That’s why people come, for help.”
“You think the church can help?”
“Sure. It’s helped me all my life-God has. He’s guided me.” The old man leans back and smiles. His teeth are too perfect. Dentures, like my father.
“You believe.”
“Of course.” He looks at the statue, his back making a tiny hunch. “When was your last confession?” It sounds odd, coming from him.
“Are you a janitor?”
“Are you?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I’m a priest! Ha!” He cackles happily, banging his broom on the ground. “Gotcha, didn’t I?”
I laugh. “That’s not fair, Father.”
“No, it isn’t, is it? I’m undercover, like inMiami Vice.” His eyes smile with delight.
I turn away from his bright eyes, confounded by his ruse and his warmth. I don’t remember priests being like this when I was little. They were distant, and disapproving.
“I’m Father Cassiotti. I’m too old to do the masses, Father Napole does that. I assist him. I help however I can. I hear confessions. I tend the Virgin.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what to say. I look at my navy blue pumps planted in the grass.
“See my Darwin tulips? They’re doing just fine. The hyacinths should be up any day now. They’re always slow in coming. They need some coaxing, but I don’t push it. They come up when they’re ready. I just wait.”
I stare at my shoes.
“I’m good at waiting.”
I can almost hear the smile in his voice. My heart wells up. He’s a good man, a kind man.
He’s the best of the church, of what’s right about the church. I take a deep breath. “Where were you when I was a teenager?”
Into my ear, he whispers, “Waukegan.”
I burst into laughter.
“Exiled,” he says, without rancor. “And where were you when you were a teenager?”
“Here.”
“You went to school atOLPH? So, a long time ago, you were a good Catholic. Tell me, are we gonna get you back?”
“I don’t think you want me back, Father.”
“Of course we do! God loves us all. He forgives us all.”
“Not me. Not this.” I look up at the Virgin, but she won’t look at me.
He slaps his knee. “Let’s make a reconciliation! Right now.”
“Confession? Here?”
“Why not?”
