Today, she stared at the light streaming through the stained-glass windows. Saint Monica was wiping her tears as the light of heaven fell on her face. She remembered the story. She had never ceased to pray for the conversion of her son, Augustine. God had come to her in a vision and said, “Do not worry, woman. Your tears have saved your son.” All the light in the window entered through Monica’s radiant face. Her mother had told her that it was because of Monica’s tears, that God made her son a great man. And she remembered one more thing about Monica. When she was dying and she was far from home, she was asked if she was afraid to be buried in a foreign place, a place where she was a stranger. “Nothing is far from God,” she said. “Neither am I afraid that God will not find my body to raise me from my slumber.” It was Sam who had given her that detail about the life of Saint Monica. And so she had decided to name her first child Monica. Because Monica had not been afraid to die. A woman who was not afraid to die was not afraid of anything. But Monica, her first child, was stillborn. Sam had wanted a tribe. The second one, a girl. Another Monica, she’d died a few days after her birth. And Mister, too. Mister had almost died. But Sam swore to God that he’d go to mass every day of his life if God let this boy live. And Mister had lived. Their Mister. And he was all the tribe Sam had needed.
Sam had been as good as his word. Every day of his life, he went to daily mass. And when he’d died, Grace had picked up the ritual. Because she felt the world would be poorer and sadder without his prayers. So perhaps she would do her part to carry the load. She knew, of course, that he’d prayed for unorthodox causes—socialists, the demise of capitalism, Leonard Peltier. She’d never had Sam’s penchant for iconoclasm, nor had she shared his commitment for changing the social order. Hers was a more common calling. And, anyway, it was Mister who’d inherited his politics—though he hadn’t inherited his devout Catholicism.
She smiled. Here she was, in the middle of mass, recounting the history of her family—Mister and Sam. She chastised herself for not making enough room in her heart for Liz. Was it too late for family? For Mister and Liz and Vicente. She stared at the stained-glass window of Saint Monica. She spoke to her. You weren’t afraid to die. Teach me. Today, that was her only prayer.