Close Your Eyes

2

St. Gabriel’s was a beautiful building, and inside, it was dim and cool, smelling of wood wax and incense. Mae was immediately calmed. The church had answers. It had rules and regulations. Her father had believed with his whole heart in Catholicism, which had to count for something.

“Mae! What a nice surprise.” Father Richard walked toward her, his arms outstretched.

“I’m here for confession,” said Mae.

Father Richard’s face remained exactly the same—a genial, welcoming arrangement of his features. Mae had to admit he was a professional. “Of course,” he said. “Follow me.”

One of the things Mae could not stand about Father Richard was that he wanted parishioners to sit across from him in his bright office while they confessed their sins. Mae, whose husband had never seen her in the altogether, squirmed under Father Richard’s aggressively benevolent gaze. She missed the old days, the shadowy figure behind the screen. She didn’t know where to look: there was the picture of Father Richard on the golf course, and there was his dirty coffee mug.

Mae decided to focus on her toes, then the wall to her right. Mustard-colored stucco. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began.

Father Richard sat back in his ergonomic chair, which squeaked. He crossed his stubby fingers over his stomach. After a minute, he tilted his head to the right, toward the window. Outside, Mae could see, it had started to rain. “It has been over a year since my last confession,” she said.

“Mm-hm?” said Father Richard.

Mae knew that this young (she didn’t want to use the word whippersnapper—who was she, her grandmother?—but that was the right word, it simply was), this young priest was allegedly able to absolve her, but what could he possibly know of sin?

“Well,” said Mae, “here’s the thing.”

“Go on, my child,” said Father Richard.

“When Victoria was a teenager,” said Mae, changing tack, “once, when she was a teenager, Victoria came home in a state.” She took a deep breath, remembering the morning when Victoria and Sylvia had come home smelling of beer, looking uneasy and frightened. She and Preston had giggled in the kitchen, thinking the girls had sneaked a drink or two at their sleepover. How naive they had been. She remembered herself, winking at Preston. So stupid. She was so stupid.

“Mae?” said Father Richard, piercing her reverie.

“One morning, when she was seventeen, Victoria asked me for advice.”

“Go on,” said Father Richardson.

“It was August,” Mae whispered.

“Okaaaay,” said Father Richardson in a syrupy tone. He wanted her to share more, to expose her heart. But Mae felt as she had always felt during Victoria’s stints in rehab, when she and Preston had to fly out to Hazelden or Betty Ford: all this disclosure was a bunch of hooey. What on earth was the point of blathering about your private affairs, your secrets? Saying them out loud didn’t change the truth—didn’t undo anything.

“I just wanted to say,” said Mae, realizing the futility of trying to make peace with God using Father Richard as a conduit, “I did not attend mass on many Sunday mornings when Victoria was growing up. I was extremely busy, and some Sundays I just didn’t get to church.”

“I see,” said Father Richard, lifting his index fingers, touching them to each other in the universal pose of someone who is trying to look as if they are smart. “I see, Mae. But I think God understands the trials of a mother.”

“How comforting,” said Mae.

Father Richard nodded. Why didn’t he wash that disgusting mug? And there on his desk was a broken pencil, the lead tip smashed to the side. What kind of an adult man broke a pencil and didn’t throw it away or sharpen it? Mae was seized with a desire to stand up and leave. “May I have my penance?” she asked impatiently.

“Say three Hail Marys, and try your best to attend mass regularly,” said Father Richard. “You’re not a young mother anymore,” he said with an obnoxious chuckle.

“Thank you for pointing that out,” said Mae.

Father Richard gave her the benediction, and Mae remembered the dark sacristy, the soothing voice of Father Gregory. Why hadn’t she tried to atone when she’d had a real priest to unburden herself to?

“By the way,” said Father Richard when he was done, leaving Mae frustrated and irritable, “please take a flyer on your way out. I’m starting a new rock-and-roll mass on Wednesday evenings to try to bring the youth back into the flock.”

“The youth?” said Mae.

“I thought you might give a flyer to your granddaughters,” said Father Richard. Mae pictured Georgia and Sunny, so worldly and disdainful that they scared Mae. There was something missing in them, and Mae lay awake some nights trying to figure out what it was and how it could be replaced. Father Richard’s orange flyer filled Mae with pity.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll be sure to pass one along.”

“The church is as relevant now as it always was,” said Father Richard to himself.

“I’ll let myself out,” said Mae. She walked slowly downstairs, enjoying the dusky smell. The scent had brought her so much comfort once. Mae could remember coming to St. Gabriel’s as a child, watching light pour through the stained-glass windows and filling with awe, clutching her mother’s gloved hand.

Next to her favorite window (it was Mary, her arms outstretched), Mae stopped. Had Mae’s mother, Dottie Pendelton, ever made a mistake? As far as Mae knew, her mother had died free of sin or complication. She was a strict Catholic and raised Mae to be the same. What would Dottie have done in Mae’s place?

I never would have let her go out in the middle of the night! Mae could almost hear her mother’s indignant voice. And furthermore, said Dottie.

Mae looked up at Mary Magdalene, who gazed back beatifically, though surely, thought Mae, Mary Magdalene had some secrets of her own.

Back out on the street, Mae saw a homeless person leaning against the wall. “Lady,” the person said, “can you spare a dime?”

Mae squinted. “Are you a man or a woman?” she asked.

“I’m a woman,” said the homeless person. “I have a mental problem.”

“I see,” said Mae, and she opened her wallet, took out eighty-some dollars in cash, and rummaged around in her purse. She unearthed a new tube of Clinique lipstick (Mulberry Morning) and handed the money and the lipstick to the homeless person.

“God bless you,” said the woman.

“Let’s hope so,” said Mae.