Saturday was a major shopping day and as I walked along people crowded on
to Genesee
Street,
the main downtown shopping area. Most
either worked during the week and couldn’t shop or didn’t have their paychecks until Friday night. When I got to the City’s retail center, the Busy Corner as it was called, I found the going slow as I moved around
people and often had to step off the curb to move ahead of the crowds.
When I passed Woolworth’s, the floorwalker was
standing outside smoking. I ignored him
but I felt his eyes on me and that made me even more scared.
I passed the Kresge’s store and remembered how
Blanche often took me in to the lunch counter and bought me a soda when I was a
little girl. She brought me downtown on
the trolley and we jumped off in front of Grace Church and then crossed Elizabeth Street and walked through the wood and brass doors of the
store. Even if I didn’t need anything,
Blanche always made sure I came home with some little trinket so when we
finally arrived back in our kitchen, she could say, “Oh, let’s open our bags
and look at our treasures.” There were
the times Blanche punished me for things like not coming in the house when she
called or sassing back my English teacher in school. How unfair I thought she was, probably
because she wasn’t my real mother. But
at nineteen years of age I knew how much she loved me. Bringing up a another woman’s daughter must
have been a chore.
I was always worried about Jimmy, but this morning I
became more afraid. Why did he have me
wait around the factory for him? Maybe
he wanted me in a place where I couldn’t get to him quickly. If I had been home, I would have run the few
blocks to his house when I began to worry about him causing trouble or doing
something crazy. But he never planned to do those things. They seemed to come upon him, to ambush
him. Only if he planned something would
he have called me the night before. What
could it be? No, I pushed that thought
from my mind. Jimmy would never do
that. He knew he would go straight to
Hell if he ... hurt himself.
I
convinced myself Jimmy was safe, but I could not for the life of me figure out
what he was thinking. Maybe it was
nothing and I was just worrying too much.
I passed Grace Church as I continued up the hill. I would never be married there. Being Catholic I would settle for St. Francis
de Sales if it didn’t crumble and fall down before Jimmy Bean and I finally got
through all of this and he asked me to marry him. But the doctor had said the man I loved
wouldn’t get better, only worse. There
had to be some way to change that. There
just had to be a miracle waiting for us.
At the top of the hill I passed Mr. Proctor's Library,
turned on to Eagle Street and soon was about to pass St. Francis de Sales
Church. A car drove up and pulled to the
curb and Father Flaherty got out, thanking the driver for the ride. When he saw me approaching, he forced a smile
and said hello to me.
“Can I talk with you, Father?” I asked.
“Of course, Mary,” he responded, “how about Monday
night after the Altar Rosary Society meeting.
Now there’s a group you may want to join! Since you’re all grown up and working now.”
“I really need to talk now,” I said.
“Well, then come in, come in,” he said, but he
didn’t sound enthusiastic.
We walked to the Rectory next door. He inquired what might be the matter as we
climbed the stairs to the porch, but I just sniffled. I heard him sigh. I knew he was an old Irish bachelor who
probably didn’t look forward to hearing a young woman’s sob story, but he was
also a priest and that was his job.
Inside the hallway, Mrs. Cartwright, the
housekeeper, came up to us and Father told her we’d be in the study.
”We won’t be long,” he said. “There’s another meeting, I think, pretty
soon.”
Father Flaherty’s office was spacious with two
round-top stained glass windows. Without
electric lights, the place would have been as dark as a tomb. He sat down behind a large brown desk that
was piled with magazines and books. When
he leaned back in his swivel chair, it seemed like it would go all the way and
topple over. His face was back there in
the gloom, peering out just over his knees and between the stacks of books.
“What is it you want to tell me, Mary?” he
said. He didn’t ask me to be
seated. I felt like a servant standing
there, waiting for him to dismiss me. I
started to talk, but stopped. There was
a chair behind me covered in cracked leather, but when I sat in it Father
disappeared behind the right hand pile of books and papers. I stood and dragged the chair to my left and
sat down again.
Father pulled his tobacco pouch from one side
pocket, his pipe from the handkerchief pocket, a wooden match from his pants
pocket and looked at me. I sat
mesmerized by this display of a man
preparing his drug. He rolled far
forward in the tilted chair and scraped the match on the sole of his shoe. As soon as it exploded into a small fire, he
rolled backward as his hand came up to light the pipe. I thought he’d go over backward and I’d spend
the week explaining how I was with Father Flaherty when he fell out of his
chair, hit his head on the radiator and died before my very eyes. No, I
couldn’t catch him. The thought of death
brought Jimmy to mind. He’d never do
that to himself. I brushed it from my
mind.
