Dear Blessed Mother, please don’t let me bounce out of this truck. They put me back here ‘cause there was no room for me in the cab once Clara decided to go back with us. She’s really big! It was a good thing Aaron Solomon tied down the surfboard; that gave me something to hold onto. Listen, will you please take Jesus aside, and especially God the Father, and tell them what really good girls we usually are? I’ll offer up the suffering of how freezing I am back here to weigh in our favor. Also, it would help if it’s not dark yet by the time we get home. I can’t be responsible for what kind of trouble Clara’s got into, but I can see her point about her baby. Daddy is really going to be mad. FYI: I’m too big to be spanked; I don’t know what he’s going to do.
The light had faded from the sky when Aaron Solomon’s truck rolled up the driveway. Luckily, he lived close by, as only one of his headlights worked. Shadows gathered as Sparky came barking down the brick path, so there was no way we could sneak in unnoticed. I stepped over the back gate of the truck with my foot on the fender and jumped down onto the asphalt. Looking behind me, I saw Madcap reach up and kiss Aaron Solomon. On the lips! Then he drove off and the three of us were on our own, Sparky looking up at us with his tongue out. Across the street the tennis court was quiet and dark. It was Saturday night—the Westridge girls were probably having some kind of summer debutante ball for all I cared.
We walked up the driveway to the back of the house, Sparky trotting up after us. My skin tingled from the sun and hours of cold wind, and I felt seasick from all that bumping around in the back of the truck.
The little kids came storming down the hall when they heard the screen door squeak open. No one was expecting Clara and when they realized it was her, they mobbed her, with Jude toddling towards her, then attaching himself to the back of the twins who were hugging Clara’s legs.
“Clara, Clara!”
“Oh, Clara look at you!”
“Clara’s back!”
They were supposed to be in bed by this time, a bad sign, meaning I hadn’t been there to give them their Jiffy Bath. But their hair was wet and they had their jammies on so maybe Jeannie got extra points for doing my job. Bully for her. I went hitchhiking to the beach in Ventura and watched surfers!
“Where’s Daddy?” I whispered to Dominic.
“I dunno, he took Bartholomew with him in the car in the afternoon.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“I’m right here.” She spoke up sharply as she stepped out of the kitchen, pulling off her yellow rubber gloves, still sudsy from doing dishes. “Where have you been?”
For the tenth time today, I was dumbfounded into silence. I waited to see if this was a rhetorical question, or if there was any room for a story. We were supposed to have been at Cinematheque, but of course, with Clara here, we could only have been in Ventura at the Mission. Now, the question was, should we tell we hitchhiked? Maybe I wouldn’t have to say anything. I hoped Madcap and Clara had their story straight. They might have had a chance to rehearse something in the cab on the way home. I was still shivering.
“Jeannie can you put the kids to bed? Say a short rosary with them and some extra prayers for Clara, Madcap, and Annie here.” Then she said, like I was the first business of the night, “Annie you go up to your room right now. Too bad you’ve missed supper. You’re grounded. Madcap, I’ll deal with you when your father gets home.”
Great, I thought. I can already feel Jeannie gloating.
“We got a ride in a pickup truck from a friend who surfs in Ventura,” Madcap inserted. “When we heard he was going to Ventura, we decided to go see Clara. We didn’t have a chance to call you.”
“Clara,” she said, ignoring Madcap’s explanation, “come in and sit down. You must be tired after that ride. In a truck?”
“Oh, Mother!” Clara threw her arms around Mother, their stomachs touching each other, (Clara’s bulging, Mom’s not so much). “I’ve missed you so much!” Mother hugged her somewhat stiffly, but she and Clara padded off together towards the living room, and it was the weirdest sight—neither of them screaming at the other.
I got upstairs into my room and grabbed a long-sleeved shirt to put over my arms and then quietly (so as not to creak the boards) tip-toed to Madcap’s small room at the top of the stairs. There were no lights on and I could see by her shadow that she was standing on the wooden bedstead, stretching up to the skylight, smoking a cigarette. The white smoke wafted up and out towards the night sky, which seemed blue, although it was dark outside. I loved the dry smell of it, because I always smelled it with Madcap in her room like this, and it was kind of exciting. You could see little twinkling stars through the space between the window frame of the skylight and the roof. I climbed up next to her on the headboard, so we wouldn’t be heard.
“Is that good or bad, Madcap? Mother and Clara aren’t even yelling at each other.”
“I don’t know, Annie. Daddy must have driven up today. When he arrived, Clara was nowhere to be found. She should have said something to the nuns.”
“I think escape was her only option,” I said.
“Mother didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her. Daddy must have called from the Mission. He’s on his way back now.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked, really hoping she would know.
She exhaled white smoke with a fish mouth, shaking her head.
I lay down on Madcap’s bed and squished myself to the side by the wall so there’d be enough room for both of us. I closed my eyes. Images of the day swirled around in my mind. The waves and the brilliant sun, the contents of the glove compartment, the small alcoves in the wall surrounding the Mission, the crucifix with gold around the edges. The tips of Aaron Solomon’s fingers. Even the bum crack of Mutter Man and Lily’s tiny lips, the shiny floors of the hospital, and the smell. I awoke to the sound of voices downstairs. My skin was tight and sore, my arms wrinkled with dryness, my face hurt. Sunburned again. At first, I only heard the words that rose in volume.
Daddy’s voice… “bringing shame on the family.”
“What about the boy?” Clara asked. “He should be ashamed, too.”
“Who is the boy?” Mother asked.
“What difference does it make to you? Is he gonna marry me? At seventeen-years-old? Besides, no one would believe me.”
It was pitch dark. I stretched my eyes open to let any light in, and only when I sat up and turned my head behind me did I see the face of the electric clock, whose hands glowed white at 11:20. I looked for Madcap’s form in the dark. I could feel that she wasn’t there. The room seemed empty. It was pretty late, but it was a Saturday night, and I didn’t know if the big boys had come in yet. I would have heard a motorcycle if Paul was home. John was too fat to have a girlfriend; I imagined he had gone to bed already, but there was no way to know. The house was quiet except for the voices downstairs. Where had Madcap gone?
“Don’t you understand that once you show yourself at the school your reputation is ruined? And so is the reputation of this family!” Now Daddy was yelling. I imagined him getting red. He was probably pacing.
“I don’t care about my reputation.”
“That child is going to live a good life with its adoptive parents. You’d rather shame your father and mother and throw away your education and good upbringing than go to confession and do your penance?” Daddy’s angry voice didn’t leave much space for anyone else to respond.
“And what are you doing for that child? How are you going to raise that child?”
I heard a murmur of Clara’s voice, as she tried to say something, but he interrupted:
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you lost your willpower in the presence of this young man. I for one am not going to raise that child; I didn’t bring it into existence. Your mother and I have enough on our hands with all of you.”
I was shocked by Daddy’s statement. It was like turning a beggar away at Thanksgiving just because you don’t want to pay for their meal. You want familiar faces around the table. Would Jesus do that? I don’t think He would. Would the Blessed Mother? I listened for what Clara might say. Maybe she was as shocked as I was and couldn’t form a sentence. Then I heard Mother’s voice.
“The Sisters of Saint Isabella are kind women, Clara,” she said more gently. “Don’t you want to finish your education? If you keep this baby, how can you finish high school?”
I hardly heard another word. Something inside me was evaporating like neon leftovers of fireworks against a black sky. How could Mother be against Clara, too? It would be so easy to take this baby into our family! Maybe Clara could finish high school from home. She’s a senior already. I could volunteer to get her assignments from school. Okay, so we’d have to show our faces to the student body and admit our sister has fallen in God’s eyes. But hey! St. Paul the apostle strayed before he repented, and now he’s a saint. That’s what confession is for. Otherwise, what? Leave Clara doing all the hard chores while the lazy nuns pray themselves into ecstasy? Waiting until she has the baby and they take it away from her at the hospital? Like they did to Bee Bee? And let’s think about the baby for a change. Are adopted babies really as happy as real babies? With fake parents? It has to have an effect.
Daddy must be trying to “teach” Clara something. Maybe he thinks if she gets away with it then Madcap would get pregnant out of wedlock, and next thing you know, bingo! I’d be expecting a baby without a ring on my finger. Oops, then Jeannie! (She’d probably have twins.) Watch out, as soon as Rosie started to grow breasts, she’d be pregnant. All his daughters, pregnant like the plague and no one married in the church. He’d have twenty grand children before he could say “Bless me, Father for I have sinned.” We’d be the famous Christian family that started a runaway ex-Catholic population explosion. We’d be the rabbits of St. Andrew’s High School.
Of course, I wouldn’t do it. The part about having no clothes on is pretty much a guarantee for me. Madcap can see what a jam this is and she wouldn’t do it either. There’s too much humiliation. I would be so embarrassed to be pregnant in front of all my friends. They’d all be able to picture what I was doing! Which I would never do in the first place! How can Clara can say she doesn’t care about her reputation?
Teresa Feeney, watch out, I’m going to look you in the eye while you’re getting all the medals for “A’s” in math, and Science. And my stare is going to say, “Look what your brother did to our sister Clara.”
No one even knows Christopher Feeney is doing it! And he’s getting away with it. Clara should tell, for justice sake. He doesn’t have to go through any of this. It’s not fair!
Everyone’s a phony.
I walked back to my bedroom and lay on top of my covers.
A sound woke me up. Something was grazing the window. It was still dark, no moon. There it was again. I got up and walked over, lifted the wood frame by the handles. I stuck my head out.
“Hey, Skinny!” I could barely make out someone thin looking up at me. It was Madcap. She whisper-spoke.
“The doors are all locked, can you let me in?”
“I thought you were grounded!”
“Shhhhh! C’mon!” She motioned to the back of the house.
I tiptoed down the stairs as quietly as I could. A few creaks. Luckily we were at this end of the house while Mother and Daddy slept at the front. I had no idea what time it was. I opened the door to the hall and then stepped through the laundry room to unlatch the lock on the back porch. Shadows of piles of clothes lay still on the floor around the washing machine. Just as we closed the screen door, I could see headlights beaming up the driveway. The Rambler pulled into the garage, its red tail lights glowing.
“Get in!” I pulled Madcap’s sleeve. “It’s Daddy’s car! What time is it?”
“About 3:30 in the morning.”
“3:30 in the morning!”
“Why is Daddy out at this time of night?”
We hurried up the stairs. There was no time to figure it out. I was in my bed when I heard the doors close and Daddy’s footsteps walking the floors. I listened for Clara’s snoring down the hall, but I couldn’t hear a sound.
The next morning, I slept through 6:30 Mass.