Lily-white

Jack McCarthy would have crushed the alarm clock had he not moved it just out of reach the night before, knowing himself as he did. He threw one leg off the bed, then the other.

That’s all I need today, he thought, as he twisted to massage a stiff neck with a still-asleep arm. The movement aggravated a sore shoulder, and Jack cursed.

Stumbling toward the bathroom he caught sight of the unopened letter on his desk, addressed with flawless handwriting. Even the stamp, perfectly parallel with the top and side of the envelope, was positioned with obvious care, obvious self-congratulations. Jesus, he thought, it’s a goddamn stamp!

His eyes scanned the room for relief and found it in a wee bit of lukewarm bourbon in a tumbler on his dresser. Knowing not to think about the choice too long, he scooped up the glass and swallowed the liquor.

He coughed, trembled at the sensation, cleared his throat. That wasn’t quite right, not today anyway. But it was done. A drop of bourbon stained the envelope. His mind, trained to see what was not there, easily walked around the liquor.

He stood above the commode relieving himself. With his free hand he cracked the window so he could face the day a little at a time. Leaning awkwardly, he stuck his nose out.

Another day in the promised land, in Corazón, the heart of the great Southwest. The heart. Another body part came to mind.

Peering out the window, he thought only of desolation. The spruce and pine were now squat juniper, the holly twisted into cactus and agave. Snow was red dirt. Wreaths were ristras. Where was the beauty, the delicious acts of nature that surprised and renewed? He knew he should see the allure in the high desert, but he didn’t.

He opened the window another inch. Air, crisp. Sky, trapped between that eerie gloom and ascendant light. Houses, few and far between, dilapidated. People, none yet, for which he thanked God and his lucky stars. Grass, what a paltry portion there was, cracked and parched as his soul.

“Big day for them,” he said, disparagingly. “And I hate to shave.”

Jack was always startled by his image, but he didn’t turn away this day as he sometimes did. The mirror knew. It did not lie.

Basta! Enough. It needed to stop.

He didn’t shave. It was a small act of rebellion, against what he didn’t rightly know. He slipped on the blue guayabera that she had picked out for him when they drove for the first time to the big town of San Miguel, so he wouldn’t look so foreign. It was the first time he heard her laugh, her soft voice, pure and wholesome. She would hold her face to the sun, reach for it with her dark eyes. Gracias, mi señor. Thank you, my Lord, she’d say.

He watched her in amazement that day. A more innocent joy he could not recall.

Now he had to move. He wiped the fine dust of Corazón off what had once been a fine pair of Italian loafers.

Picking up a letter opened that resembled a Bowie knife, he contemplated the sharp point. The bourbon had disappeared, but the ever-present letter would not. He tossed the opener aside.

The sweet scent of hickory now became thick, Jack knew the bacon was frying and thought, damn, of all things, not this, too.

He stuffed the letter in his shirt pocket, which wasn’t deep enough. The impeccable handwriting still showed. It spoke a language he’d never understood.

“Buenas dias. ¿Tiene hambre?” she said, slapping hot grease on the eggs.

“Did I ask you to cook breakfast?” he said sharply.

He stood just outside the kitchen door, a fair distance from the woman. She didn’t turn to face him or bother to reply.

Jack caught himself staring at her hair. It was long, straight and black, tied up in some kind of knot that allowed the back of her neck to show. A few stray hairs dangled aimlessly around her forehead. She was wearing one of those Mexican dresses with all the colorful embroidery. What was it called?

He wished she’d turn, with her olive skin and penetrating, brown eyes.

Suddenly, she reached up into a cabinet to retrieve a plate and the whole outline of her body appeared. It confounded him, twisted his stomach. Was this how it felt, how it tore at the flesh?

Jack took a step forward, tripped slightly on the ripped linoleum, and stopped altogether when she whirled. She smiled as if handing him a gift.

“You need coffee,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Look,” he said, in as reasonable a tone as he could muster. “I can’t, you know, I don’t need breakfast. I have things to do.”

She poured coffee into two mismatched cups, added sugar to one, and placed them on the table. “You have time. Do you want orange juice, too?”

Oh, yes, time I have in abundance. Relentless time to watch the nothingness of life lash him, shred his skin.

He sat down. “What, no tortillas?”

She looked directly at him, arched an eyebrow, smiled again, paused until the silence settled like shadows. “I didn’t have time.”

He was caught momentarily off guard. “God help me,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Tell me again, Jack,” she said, turning back to the eggs. “Tell me about Chicago.”

He blew into his coffee. “It’s a little too early for that, isn’t it? Can’t we, uh, just leave it alone?”

“It helps me understand you. It might help you understand you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She scooped an egg out of the pan and placed it carefully on a plate. She made a show of adding pepper but turned a little so Jack couldn’t see her ignore the salt.

She handed him the plate.

“An egg fried in bacon grease is just as bad as a little salt, don’t you think?”

“A step at a time,” she said. “Enjoy the grease while you can.”

He let it slide. She smiled.

“Remember, you told me once about your first trip by yourself as a little boy on the … what did you call it … the ‘M,’ the …”

“The El, for crying out loud.”

“Yes, the El. Tell me about that ride again. I just loved it—not the part where you got lost—just all the stores you passed by, you know, and how amazed you were, how you wondered where all those people were heading, and what would happen if the train didn’t stop, and—”

“Well, damn! You seem to remember it all without me telling it again.” His voice yelled a little, cracked a little. “I’m not a tour guide. Chicago is tall buildings, the Cubs, people living and dying in the streets, lots of sidewalks and lots of tears. Satisfied?”

He looked past her to the window by the sink and saw Corazón yawning in the new sun. The guilt hit him with the first bite of bacon. It’s not her fault. Why am I cruel to the woman I …. I what? He wrestled with the thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Forgive me. I don’t understand why I get so angry. The food is good. Gracias.”

Through the window, dancing shadows made the nearby structure look like a magical kaleidoscope, more than it really was. It was a magnificent magnet, immovable, stifling.

He saw her look at the letter in his pocket.

“Yes. There is my mother.” He was calmer now, almost confessional. He sipped his coffee and cut the fried eggs, not looking at her. “A strong, strong woman if there ever was one. But you know that, too. Strong and cold and hard as your bacon. A true Anglo. Wouldn’t touch anyone, not even babies. Thought it was a crime, I guess. Can you
imagine that? I mean, you people, you touch all the time. It’s in your blood and—”

He stopped, feeling somehow exposed, and looked directly at the woman.

“She’d never overcook the bacon,” he said, changing tack. “You can count on that just like you can count on chickens running wild in the streets out here. But that’s not what you want to hear, is it?”

“I just want to hear about a little boy in Chicago.”

“I was never a little boy. Little boys screw up. That wasn’t allowed. Screwing up was for other people. The trash down the street, maybe. Anyone new, different. No son of Katharine Tyrone McCarthy was going to sully the family name. Why the hell am I telling you all this?”

She shrugged. “Maybe because I have ears.”

Jack leaned back in his chair and let his eyes roll, raising and lowering his brow to stretch his eyelids.

He let loose a nervous little laugh. “We had spring cleaning once. I must have been about 8. A Saturday morning, you know, and the air was cold and so clean you wanted to close your eyes and become the air. Nothing else. But she imposed her will, like always. We all had jobs. My brother got the cabinets, I got the windows. I have a fondness for windows, you know. Anyway, an enormous responsibility.”

He smirked. “So here I go, see, with the rags and soapy water, and I start at the kitchen windows around back. I scrubbed and washed and sang a little ditty my grandfather taught me. Having a great time, you know, so proud, grown up. I finish one window, then another. But then I go inside to get a drink, and I could see her. She was following behind
me, washing every window again. And I just stood there, hurting with young pain I couldn’t comprehend. She’d look at a window and her face would get all scrunched up. She’d start washing it again.”

The woman’s hands were wrapped tightly together on the table. “But, Jack, it’s such a little thing—”

“They were all little things,” he snapped, “every damn last one of them. You know what I did that night? I stayed awake ’til, uh, it must have been midnight—and then I snuck out, you know. I went straight to the alley, picked up a rock, and I smashed that kitchen window all to hell.”

She waited for more, but there was no more. “So then how did you feel?”

“For once, like an 8-year-old boy,” he said, staring down at his empty plate.

She was close. He could smell her, not perfume, for she wore none, or leftover soap, just her. He wanted her beside him.

“She really made me what I am. I owe it all to her.”

“My abuelo has a saying, “Que culpa tiene San Pablo que San Pedro sea calvo. What fault is it of St. Paul that St. Peter is bald?”

“Now you’re throwing the saints at me, too, for God’s sake. Maybe you’re forgetting who’s who around here.”

“I know who I am,” she said in a whisper.

Jack stared straight ahead for a long time, not even blinking.

“You have no idea. I was smothered. It didn’t start or stop with her. It’s always been here,” he said, pointing to his heart. “Suffocated by guilt. Choked by the right hand of the impossible. Sounds almost poetic, right? Well, it stinks.”

She picked up his cup, walked to the stove, poured more coffee and said, “So you’re trying to overcome it by being superhuman?”

There was a hint of pity in her voice, Jack thought, and it angered him. “What am I supposed to do? You tell me. You don’t have the faintest idea. Then I discovered Corazón … as far as I could get from a life—”

“But it is a life. My abuelo has another saying—”

“Please, spare me your grandfather’s quaint folk wisdom.”

Yes, there was Corazón. So far from his trials, he thought, but letters with perfectly positioned stamps still arrived, driving nails into … What a fool he’d been. But the woman was right. It is a life, a restoration. If he could only let it be.

“You have to forgive, starting with yourself,” Jack heard her say. “You have to go on. You tell us that. Why don’t you believe?”

He could not let it be. “Believe in what? Myself? My talents? Which really boil down to knowing good bourbon from bad. Believe in what? That those people out there need me? Dammit it all to hell, I’m a carnival freak to them, a magician handing out favors that won’t do a helluva lot of good in this world.”

“That’s not true,” she said softly, again moving close to him. “You’re hope and comfort to them. Your heart is good.”

“I’m a fraud. Even with you, I’m a fraud. I’m weak and broken and there’s no way out.”

Now her hand reached for his. He took it. “You’re not a fraud to me or anyone. Learn, forgive, love, hate if you want but move on. I see the good in you. You’re human. Find yourself.”

He shook his head no. “That may take a very, very long time.”

She sat close beside him. “We have time.”

“Why are you even here?” he asked.

“God put me here. He wants me to do … something. Not turn away. God wants me here. With you.”

He stared at her dangling stray hair. He smelled her body. He ached. “I better move along. Will you be coming over?”

“Yes, of course, Jack.”

He was almost spent. “And after, please, could we drive over to San Miguel? I’m developing a taste for cabrito and I heard of this restaurant there … well, we can talk about it later. And I hope a few other things.”

Jack looked down at his Italian loafers and saw the letter in his pocket. It hadn’t disappeared. Expecting the woman to step away, he started to rise, but she remained beside him. He brushed against her slightly as he stood up. He wanted to say … he thought he knew … but nothing came from his lips.

He reached into his shirt pocket, removed the letter and threw it on the table.

He opened the screen door, took a step outside, hesitated. Knowing not to think about the choice too long, he took one step, then another. He slipped a little on a flat stone wet with morning dew.

The adobe structure with thick walls toward which he trudged was prominent. It was the beating heart of the heart. It was nearby, but it seemed to Jack as if the distance was insurmountable. There were people around now, stopping and watching him. He returned their gaze, smiled, said buenas dias, stepped on a stone and stumbled a bit. Damn, he thought, what is this tripping about?

At the rear of the building, a side entrance, he pushed open a heavy wooden door, heard the familiar creak. Candles illuminated the small room. He knelt, buried his face in his hands. He cursed silently at the emptiness, his dark night of the soul, wondering desperately if he could finish, if he could begin.

“Dear Jack,” he heard, and it came to him that she had the letter.

He turned hard to face her, torn by the sheer weight of it all, the abiding questions of why and for what and why me.

“Do you want me to read it to you?” she asked.

He was still inside himself. “Sure, why not. Read on.”

“Dear Jack,” she repeated.

He laughed and said honestly, “You’re really trying to sound motherly.”

“Dear Jack,” she said a third time.

“As you can imagine, I am not accustomed to writing you letters. I was blessed for so many years to have you nearby.

“The cold is still with us here, although I imagine Corazón to be an island of warmth for you. I often think about you and your decision to leave. I know that I questioned it at the time, but only because I sensed your own hesitancy. Jack, what you felt was normal. Now I know it was right for you.

“The reason I’m writing is to tell you about a conversation I had with Father O’Hare over at St. Brigid’s. You remember him, don’t you? He certainly remembers you.

“I went over to see him because, well, let’s just say that sometimes I have lingering doubts about what my 70 long years mean. That may surprise you but it’s true. He told me a story about a little boy, a boy I wish I’d known.

“He said it was a long time ago, a Sunday, and the Masses were done for the day. He was leaving the church when he saw this boy, kneeling and crying in the first pew, looking forlorn as a motherless calf. He went up to the boy and asked what was wrong. What it came down to was that the boy felt he could never be strong enough or good enough—for them. And that he was lost.

“So, Father O’Hare told me, he finally looked the boy in the eyes and said, God loves us the way we are. He knows our weakness. And he doesn’t ask that any of us be perfect. He just asks that we be faithful.

“I wanted to know what had become of the little boy, but Father O’Hare said the story isn’t finished. He said the boy, just like his mother, was still a pilgrim, still on a journey.

“How I wish, Jack, that that little boy were here. I would tell him how sorry I am. I would tell him he is good and to be proud, because I’m proud. I would ask him to be forgiving and that would be enough.

“I love you, Jack.”

The woman carefully folded the letter and handed it to Jack. He took it without a word and placed it again inside the tomb of his pocket, letting his fingers rest for a while atop the written words. Letting his mind come to rest.

He suddenly saw resolve, plucked it from the air, opened the corner closet and removed a lily-white robe, slipping it over his head in a single motion.

He looked a long time at the woman with olive skin and dark eyes. “I … I love you, Linda. I love you. Please wait for me. As long as it takes.”

He took a step, hesitated. Then, knowing not to think about the choice too long, Jack walked around to the front of the building, entered and moved down the aisle, only vaguely conscious of the baby’s cry and the old man’s cough.

He turned and faced the people, not really seeing, not really understanding. With his left hand, through the white vestment, he clutched the words, the letter. He raised his right hand to his forehead.

“En el nombre del Padre, el Hijo, y el Espiritu Santo. Amen,” he said. “As we gather on this Easter Sunday, we have emerged from our Good Friday still a people of faith, a people of hope and forgiveness, for in the Resurrection we are born anew, given new life.”

“The Lord be with you,” Jack said.

“And with your spirit,” he heard.