“No, ma’am.” I am trying to act like this is pure normal, but all of a sudden I feel the tragedy of it all. That Mrs. Randolph has been living here, waking up at night to look out of the high little window, where you can’t see anything but sky. That her husband is dead. That the thing about people is, we know what we’re headed for, and probably we’d rather be like animals, where time is only now and everything is just the greatest because animals never compare anything to anything.
“I’m so glad I’m getting out of here today. Isn’t it a madhouse?”
“I did just meet someone pretty strange.”
“Pardon?”
I lean closer, tell her again. She smells like baby powder. “Oh, yes,” she says. “There are some real characters in here. But tell me, how are you?”
I start to say fine, then stop.
“Katie?”
I move a chair close to her, so I don’t have to shout, and tell her that things are not looking so good at the Bartlett School. That I am worried I won’t fit in.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she says. “Everyone feels strange at first, but then you get to know people. You’ll fit in just fine.”
“Well, I have already seen that I won’t. Believe me. I actually asked if I could just go to my regular school, but my dad won’t let me.”
Mrs. Randolph’s face changes. “What happened?”
I tell her. I tell her about the party and how much I wanted to be a part of those girls. I tell her how I betrayed Cynthia. She says nothing the whole time I’m talking, just nods her head. When I’ve finished telling her the story, she says, “Well. You’ve got some problems.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maybe I shouldn’t have told her.
“But you also have some opportunities.”
This feels like the introduction to those pamphlets at the guidance counselors’ offices, which never get how anything really is.
“I’ll tell you something, Katie. All your life there are going to be defining moments. Turning points, where it will be up to you to decide about something. And your job is always going to be to know what is true for you, what’s right, and then to act on it. And you—”
“But I don’t always know what’s right!” Outside the room, an orderly passes by, whistling the “Aren’t You Glad You Use Dial” song. Shut up! I want to say.
“Well, what I believe is that we do always know,” Mrs. Randolph says. “But we don’t always like to admit it. We become distracted. Seduced. And we make mistakes, we all make mistakes. But deep inside, we always know what’s right.”
I look down, sigh.
“I also believe you know what to do. And when you’re ready, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll do it. I’ve seen the kind of person you are. I believe in you.”
I blink back a million tears. It hurts so strange to have someone be nice to you when you have done something terrible.
“I know I have to ask her to forgive me,” I say, and my mouth feels like the dentist has given me Novocain all over.
“Yes, that’s true,” Mrs. Randolph says. “And you’ll have to ask someone else to forgive you, too.”
“Who?”
Mrs. Randolph leans forward in the chair a little, resettling herself. Then she says, “You.”
I stare at her blankly.
“Before you ask someone else to forgive you, you’ve got to forgive yourself.”
“I don’t think I deserve to be forgiven,” I say, miserably.
“Well,” she says. “As long as you think that, you’ll keep yourself from doing anything.”
I sit there, thinking. I’m not sure she’s right. Finally, I just change the subject and ask her about where she’ll be living, and she says it’s in a part of the country Henry always loved, South Carolina, and that gets us going in another direction of what is the South really, and who lives there. Texas was one thing; South Carolina is another altogether.
After a few minutes, a tall blond woman comes in the room, her hair in a bun, gold earrings. A navy blue dress, tightly belted, little navy heels. It is Mrs. Randolph’s niece, Karen, and she shakes my hand and smiles. She has a soft southern accent, which I love so much. I can see the younger Mrs. Randolph in her face, and it practically kills me dead for so many reasons, and I don’t even know what they are.
I go out to the parking lot with them and wave good-bye. I can’t believe Mrs. Randolph is really going, but then I can’t believe Mr. Randolph is dead either. I wonder if Mrs. Randolph feels like she’s going along like in a dream and soon Henry will come back and they’ll say, Well, that was interesting, now let’s go back to our old life.
I sit on the steps to wait for Ginger, imagining what she’ll look like as an old lady. And I can see it. Then I try to imagine my father old, and I can see that too. But when I try to think of me as old, it won’t work. I just get my inside self saying, Are you kidding? The highest age I can go is about twenty. And even that is like science fiction.
I see an older man, dressed in black, getting out of a car and heading for the steps. And then I see that it’s Father Compton. I feel my heart speed up, because I know he’s come to tell me something terrible. My father got killed. Ginger got killed. They both got killed together.
“Well, hello there, Katie,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, I think. It is just Father Compton, just doing his routine things, saying hello to me. Normal. The word feels like my favorite quilt.
“I was visiting Mrs. Randolph—she just left. She’s moving away. What are you doing here?”
He sits down beside me, his old bones making him go slow. “Oh, I come once a week to visit a few people. ‘Randolph,’ you say. Her husband just died recently?”
“Yes.”
“Saw it in the paper. I didn’t know him.”
“He was nice,” I say, which of course doesn’t even begin to cover it, but then neither would anything else I could say.
Father Compton nods, a little frown of sympathy on his face, and then we just sit there in the sunshine, the breeze blowing so gently now and then, the birds cocking their heads and hop, hop, hopping down the sidewalk in front of us, happy seeming. I can see Father Compton’s arm out of the side of my eye, his folded hands, the hair on his knuckles. I guess he is my only friend at the moment. I think of Mrs. Randolph looking at me so serious, telling me I have to forgive myself. Then I think of Mr. Randolph and his suspenders, and the way he looked when he saw his wife with her hair curled. Their living room, with the triangle pillows. Gone, really, even though it is still there. Movers will come soon, Mrs. Randolph told me, to take their things away. Then the house will be empty, and then new people will be there. A little time will pass and then it will seem like the new people have always been there. The way time and situations shift is a mystery of life. The way you can’t count on anything staying, that’s a sadness. Only yesterday, I saw white hairs in Bones’s muzzle. I lay beside him, petting him, feeling so bad that he is getting old. For his part, he just wagged his tail and enjoyed the petting, which is what I mean about animals. They don’t pace around, worrying. All they do is say, fine.
A car pulls into the lot—Ginger, coming to get me. So that is the end of our little memorial service, where one of the mourners didn’t even know the departed. I stand up, smile good-bye at Father Compton. “Come visit me soon,” he tells me, and I say I’ll come tomorrow afternoon, if that’s all right. Because all of a sudden, I’ve got an idea.
I HAVE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT it’s like to be inside this confessional. I have seen it from the outside, I once took a look behind the heavy red velvet curtain, and I also once quick tried to look in the part where the priest goes. But that part had a door, and it was locked.
But here I am, kneeling, the real thing, because Father Compton has agreed to do a modified version of a confession for me. The curtain is closed behind me so there is that whoa! feeling of being in sacred darkness. Where you kneel there’s a velvet cushion so it doesn
’t hurt too bad, although if you had a lot of sins to talk about, it could get uncomfortable. Which is probably the idea. The priest gets to sit in a chair, because even though he is a sinner too, we are not doing that now. Above the little window you talk through is a crucifix with Jesus looking down. Well, what have we here? Like the scientist to the bug.
I looked up at Him for a second, but really, it is not my fault nor that of any of the other people who see Him these days, so I don’t see why He has to be hanging there with blood dripping, when He could be shown in heaven with his dad, all happy and risen. Once Ginger asked me about why I went so often to visit a Catholic church when I wasn’t Catholic, and I told her it was because of Father Compton, he was like a favorite teacher. And she said good, because Catholics are morbid. Which at first made me think they were like pale-faced vampires, but all she meant was that they seem to have a habit of thinking about the sadness of the world, always reminding you that you are not worthy, not worthy, not worthy. And looking at this crucifix, it does make you wonder.
Now I heard the sound of wood sliding over wood and the whisper of Father Compton. “Okay. Are you ready, Katie?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, and it is much too loud. So I whisper, again, “Yes, sir.”
“All right. You remember how to start?”
“I do.” My heart is beating so fast.
“Anytime you’re ready.”
I clear my throat. “Okay. So . . . Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Really, who talks like this? I feel a little like laughing.
“My sins are the following.” And now I don’t feel like laughing at all. I cannot say it.
A long time passes. Outside, a car honks. Which seems to prompt Father Compton to say, gently, “Go on.”
“I betrayed my best friend,” I say, really fast.
“Ah. And how did you do that?”
I stare at the screen between us, covered by what looks like a hanky. Through it, I can see Father Compton’s profile, his old head and his bent nose, glasses perched half way down.
“Do I have to say that part? The details?”
“Yes, that would be part of the confession.”
I blow some air out of my cheeks and shift my position on the kneeler. The curtain moves and a slim line of light pushes in. Out there in the light is not in here. Out there is freedom. I take in a deep breath, close my eyes. “Okay. Well, it was . . . I was at this party? And I pretended she wasn’t really my friend. I talked about her with someone else, and I said I was only with her because I had to be. And I revealed some things about her of a personal nature, which embarrassed her.”
“Some things of a personal nature.”
“Which I am not telling you no matter what, for one thing I’m not even Catholic, as you know.”
“But you know that you embarrassed your friend.”
“Yes, because she overheard me.”
“I see.”
It is too hot in this stupid booth.
“Can you tell me why you did it?”
A long moment. And then I say, “I wanted to make a good impression on the other girl. I wanted her to like me.”
“And so to make her like you, you made fun of your friend.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if you could tell me why you thought that would make her like you.”
I know what he’s trying to do. I know exactly. He’s saying, Now, what kind of person would want you to make fun of your friend, and why would you want to be involved with anyone like that? But he is a priest and he just doesn’t get it. He can’t. He is too far away from what real life is like, especially for someone my age. I think back to the night of the party, me in the bathroom with Leigh, her eyes growing wider and wider with what I told her. Her laughing. Finally, I say, “It’s just . . . it’s how she and her friends are. They make fun of things.”
“I see.”
“They don’t only make fun of things! They also . . . They’re . . . popular. And they go to great places and they look nice and it’s just fun to be with them.”
“It’s fun to be with them.”
When he says it back, it just sounds stupid. And then I think about being with them in the mall. “Well, when I was with them, it wasn’t so fun, actually. But I thought it would be.”
“You thought you would have fun with them, and it was worth it to betray your friend for that reason.” Father Compton has become Father Parrot.
“Yes . . . Well, no! I mean, I didn’t know she was listening.”
“So, if she hadn’t been listening, it would have been all right to do.”
One thing I will never be is Catholic. It is just too sticky. “It was something I did just at the moment. Like I didn’t so much think about it. It just seemed like it was the right thing to do at the time.”
“But now you feel differently.”
“Yes.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, because . . . I see now that I shouldn’t have made fun of her to try to impress them. Because it hurt her feelings.”
“Uh huh.”
“And now that she doesn’t want to see me, I understand how important she was to me.”
“Yes.”
He lets that soak in for a while. Then he says, “You know, it’s a sad fact that we often take for granted those whom we care about most. But one of the best things about people is that we are able to learn lessons from what we do wrong. I’d like you to think about a few things, Katie. One of those things is, Who else did you betray when you betrayed Cynthia?”
I roll my eyes. “Jesus, I guess.”
“Well . . . no, that’s not what I was thinking. Although I do believe that when we hurt ourselves, we hurt Him.”
“Right.” I don’t think so. I don’t think He watches us so closely. I don’t think He watches us at all. If He ever spent even one part of one day watching us, He’d smack His forehead and go right out of business.
“You don’t need to answer this question right now. It’s just something I’d like you to think about. And you don’t need to answer me, you need to answer yourself. Now there’s something else I want you to think about, too, which is this: Cynthia is not just Cynthia. Will you think about that? Cynthia is not just Cynthia.”
I nod my head, say okay. Maybe Father Compton is getting too old to be doing this. When I get home, I’m making a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and I’m going to eat the whole thing out of the big bowl I mix it in. With a big serving spoon.
“I want to give you a penance now, Katie. This is something you do to atone for your sins. What normally happens, is that I give a penance of prayers. But for you . . . Well, how about if you clean the house for your stepmother?”
My eyes widen. One thing Father Compton doesn’t know about is how many Venetian blinds we have. And what good will cleaning my own house do? “But . . . shouldn’t I just talk to Cynthia?”
“You should do that too, of course. But the penance I’ve given you is something separate from that. And when you’re doing it, I want you to offer it up.”
“Pardon me?”
“I want you to offer it up to God.”
“The cleaning?”
“Yes.”
I think for a while, then say, “No offense, but why in the world would He want that?”
“Well, I believe God cares about all of us. He wants us to learn from our mistakes and move our lives purposefully forward in the right direction. Doing a selfless thing for someone else is a start.”
Like Father Compton and God are lying on their beds talking on the phone for hours every night. How does he know what God would like? Cleaning the bathtub and the sink, my usual job, is bad enough. But now I’ll have to scrub the toilet. And vacuum. And dust. And the Venetian blinds will take forever. I had to do them once when my mother was sick; Diane did upstairs and I did downstairs. They are so boring to do even when you have music on, and you think you’ll crack up before they’re done. Do the main part,
okay, but then comes the dumb little ends and they all have to be dusted on both sides. Venetian blinds are what hang in hell, and every day Satan says, “My, my, I see we have some dust again.”
But “okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.” My voice is so low, if it were a person it would come up to my knees.
“Good. And now, Katie, I’m going to say a good act of contrition for you. You can just listen.”
This is the part you have to watch out for, when the Catholics try to rope you in. I will listen, but I will be well aware of brainwashing techniques.
“Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee . . . ” Father Compton begins. The words are actually kind of pretty, like a poem, and Father Compton reads like he’s an actor. When he finishes, I say, “Boy. That was good.”
“Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.”
I sit still for a moment. “That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well . . . Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
Forgiven. Just because someone says you are. And yet, millions believe this. For now, I will, too. “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.” I stand up, and it is a strange and wonderful thing, the lightness inside me.
I wait for Father Compton to leave first, but he doesn’t. I guess he’s giving me some privacy to make my escape. But I don’t leave the church.
I have seen the Catholics kneel at the rail after confession, their rosaries in their hands. I take off the single-pearl necklace Ginger gave me for my last birthday and hold it in my hands. Then I go down the red-carpeted aisle to kneel at the very center of the altar. I put my hands in the tentlike prayer position and let the necklace drape from between my fingers. It feels so pretty, like a ballet pose, and holding it brings a kind of white peace.
There are flowers on the altar, embroidered linens, candlesticks made of gold. Above the altar there is Jesus on the cross again, and off to the side is a statue of his mom, her face full of sad calm. It’s comforting looking at Mary, it’s like she’s saying, Oh listen, don’t I know how life can be! but of course in a much more elegant way. I look at her face and I hold the necklace tight and I all of a sudden feel a prayer which is too deep and private to be words. It might be able to be music, but never could it be words, as much as I like them. I kneel for a long time, listening to a feeling, which sounds impossible but is not. When I feel the feeling lift and then go away, I stand and start for home.