“Come, then, button your coat. You can ride with your mother to the hospital.”
As we drove through the icy streets to Sisters of Mercy Hospital, the blast of warm air from the car’s heater couldn’t melt the fear that froze my heart. Was my mother going to die like old Mrs. Mulligan? What would happen to me if she did? Was there no one who wanted me?
As soon as Father O’Duggan carried Mother through the hospital doors, the smell of disinfectant and the hurried squeak of shoes on the spotless tile floors thawed the edges of my dread. I felt hope returning even before the orderly whisked Mother away on a rolling bed.
“There, now. The doctors will take good care of her,” Father O’Duggan murmured. “The sisters will restore her to health in no time.” I didn’t know what he meant because I didn’t have any sisters and, as far as I knew, neither did Mother. But his voice was soothing, just the same.
As he filled out a bunch of papers, I took a long close-up look at Father O’Duggan, face-to-face, not through a crack in the door. He was big and sturdy and solid compared to Mother and the Mulligan sisters, like a wall of flesh and bone that I could hide behind. The only other man I knew was Clancy—and he was wrinkled and frail like old Mrs. Mulligan. Clancy smelled bad too, but Father O’Duggan smelled nice, like the spices in Mother’s kitchen cupboard. He had tiny golden hairs on his wrists, peeking out from the cuffs of his black jacket, and sparkling golden hairs on his chin and around his mouth. He had removed his hat inside the hospital, and I could see the marks of his comb on his slicked-back hair. It was golden too. I stared at him from head to toe, fascinated. I had never seen shoes as big as his.
When an elderly woman, dressed in a strange black gown and headdress, asked him into her office, he reached for my hand. His hand was huge and warm and strong. It swallowed mine completely.
“Please, sit down, Father O’Duggan,” the woman said. I sat beside him. “Dr. Kelly has just seen Mrs. Bauer and . . .”
“What did he say?”
“She’s gravely ill, Father. It’s pneumonia. You might want to administer the Blessed Sacrament before you leave.”
It was a moment before he spoke. “She isn’t Catholic,” he said quietly.
“One of my parishioners owns the rooming house where she lives.”
“She should have been hospitalized days ago.”
“I know, but she has no one to take care of her, you see. No family . . .”
The woman made a slight nod toward me. “Where is Mr. Bauer?”
“He’s not . . . that is . . . Mrs. Bauer’s husband has divorced her.” He cleared his throat. “About the child,” he said softly. “Could you possibly find a place for her here, near her mother? It’s just for tonight.”
“We’re already full with this influenza epidemic,” the woman said, spreading her hands. “Even if we had a spare bed, which we don’t, the child would risk infection herself if she stayed here.”
“I see. Well, might you suggest another place?”
“There’s always the county home.”
“Aye. I know all about the county home, Sister Mary Margaret, and so do you.” His voice sounded angry and tight. “That place is like a black-and-white photograph. Everything in it is a dreary shade of gray, from the stone walls that surround it to the dingy paint and grubby bed sheets inside it to the grim despair on the children’s faces. I can’t leave this child there. They would bleach the very life from her.” He stood, as if suddenly impatient to leave. “Please call me at the rectory right away if there’s any change in Mrs. Bauer’s condition.”
He steered me out of the office, then stopped near the door to button my coat and pull my knitted hat over my ears. I was so tirēd I stumbled when I tried to walk, and Father O’Duggan swept me into his arms to carry me to the car. I leaned against his chest. It wasn’t soft and yielding like Mother’s, but solid and firm. The ground seemed a long way down.
He glanced at me from time to time as he drove away from the hospital. I tried to stop my tears, but they kept falling and falling just the same. I saw the concern in his eyes by the light of oncoming cars. “Are you warm enough, Gracie?” he asked. I nodded, even though I was shivering.
“Dear God, what to do with you?” he said with a sigh. “I would gladly take you to the rectory for the night if it weren’t for the bishop’s visit. There must be another answer besides the county home. . . .”
He drove in silence for another minute or two. Houses and trees flew past my window in a blur. Then Booty’s tires squealed as Father O’Duggan suddenly jammed on the brakes. He made a U-turn on the highway and headed back into town. Ten minutes later, he stopped in front of a neat brick bungalow with lace curtains at the windows. Smoke curled from the chimney, and lights glowed from the rooms inside like a picture from a storybook.
“Come with me, Grace,” Father O’Duggan said. I slid across the seat behind him and climbed out on the driver’s side. We followed a sidewalk that led around to the kitchen door. Father O’Duggan knocked softly, then opened the door and stepped inside. “It’s me, Mam.”
A plump, white-haired woman stood by the stove, waiting for the kettle to boil. As I followed him inside, the warmth of the tiny kitchen engulfed me like bath water.
“For goodness’ sake! What’s wrong?”
He kissed her cheek. “Nothing, Mam . . . not with me anyway.”
“Sit down, take your coat off. I was just fixing m’self some tea . . . or maybe you’d like a wee drop to warm you on such a cold night?” She indicated one of the cupboards with a tilt of her head.
“Just the tea, thanks.” He remained standing.
I was half-hidden behind Father O’Duggan’s legs, and she didn’t appear to notice me. She bustled around the kitchen—retrieving the cups, warming the pot, measuring the tea, lifting the kettle off the stove when it boiled—all in one smooth, practiced movement.
“Listen, I need to ask a favor, Mam. I just drove a woman to Sisters of Mercy Hospital. They think she has pneumonia.”
Mam clucked her tongue in sympathy as she pulled the tea cozy over the pot. “I shouldn’t wonder if we all caught pneumonia, what with the weather such as it’s been lately.”
“The thing is, you see . . . she has no family here in the city, and so there’s no one to take care of her child.”
“Aren’t any of the other families from your parish willing?”
“The woman isn’t from my parish.” He waited until she paused to look at him. “It’s Emma Bauer.”
Mam froze. Her expression was so cold as she turned away from us that I expected frost to form on the inside of the kitchen window as she stared out. “And why is a divorced woman’s child any of your business, might I ask?”
“Will you take her for the night, Mam?”
“I will not. Emma Bauer is a shameful woman who divorced her husband, and if you had half the brains God gave you, you wouldn’t be mixing yourself up with the likes of her.”
“Mixing up! The doctor said she might die!”
Mam’s face turned an alarming shade of scarlet, and her chins quivered with anger. “And if she does die, how are you going to explain to your parish why you’re stuck with her child? Not only is the woman divorced, she isn’t even Catholic!”
“For the love of mercy, Mam, it’s not the child’s fault! She’s just a babe!”
He scooped me up in his arms so abruptly my hat fell off. He snatched his own hat from his head and threw it to the floor beside mine. “We’re all sinners. Every last one of us. Will you look at the child, for the love of God?”
Mam did look at me then, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She groped for the kitchen chair with one hand and sank into it. She stared at Father O’Duggan for a long moment, then turned away, pulling a linen handkerchief from her sleeve to dab her eyes. He set me on my feet in front of him again, resting his hands on my shoulders.
“Her name is Grace,” he said quietly. “Like the grace of God which covers all our sins.
”
“Aye. I know the word,” Mam whispered.
“Will you take her, then?”
Mam reached out and stroked my hair. Electricity from my woolen hat had made it stand on end, and she gently patted it down again. “There, there . . . such a pretty child. Would you like me to take care of you till your mam’s feeling better?”
Before I knew how it happened, I was curled up on Mam’s lap, enveloped in her soft arms and warm bosom. I closed my eyes and wept, secure in the comfort of her embrace and the familiar, floury smell of her apron.
Father O’Duggan bent to retrieve his hat. “I’ll come by in the morning,” he said hoarsely.
Mam nodded as she slowly unbuttoned my coat and slid it from my shoulders. “There, now . . . we’ll get on fine together, won’t we, Gracie?”
* * *
I loved Mam from that very first night. She must have heard my stomach growling because as soon as Father O’Duggan left, she set a bowl of bread pudding in front of me. It was thick with raisins and fragrant with cinnamon and cloves. I had never tasted such a wonderful treat before. After I’d washed it down with a glass of milk, Mam took my hand and led me toward her spare bedroom in the back of the house. I got no farther than her sitting room, though. I stopped and gazed around in amazement. If ever a house was made to fit a person, Mam’s cottage fit her. The room was small and soft like Mam, the furniture plump with pillows and topped with a white frosting of doilies, like her cap of lacy white curls. The house was as cozy and warm as her embrace, even when you weren’t standing near the stove. Framed pictures stood on every flat surface—photos of men, women, and children; all ages, shapes, and sizes.
“Look, that’s Father O’Duggan,” I said, pointing to one of them. “But he isn’t wearing black.”
“Aye, the picture was taken five years ago before he became a priest. He’s my son, you see. I’m his mam. These are his sisters and brothers. Six children in all, Lord bless them. And this is his daddy, God rest his soul.”
I studied each picture, and when I found one of myself, clinging to Mam’s skirts with my wild mop of curly hair all in tangles, I knew that I would be safe here, that I belonged in this house because they had a picture of me. I fell asleep in her spare room all by myself without even crying for my mother.
When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I did was go into the front room to look at the pictures again. I found the one of Father O’Duggan in his white shirt, but the one of me was gone.
“Where’s my picture?” I asked as Mam shuffled in from the kitchen in her robe and slippers. She lifted me into her arms.
“I don’t have any pictures of you, little luv. But I’ll get my daughter Agnes to take one when she comes over, and we’ll put it here by the lamp with all the others. Would you like that?”
She set me down at the kitchen table in front of a steaming bowl of porridge, sprinkled with raisins. I might have been dreaming about the picture, but at least the food had been real.
As I was finishing my second bowl, Father O’Duggan came through the back door. “Well, aren’t you up and about early this morning,” Mam said. “Will you eat something?”
“No, thanks. I’m having breakfast with the bishop in half an hour. Then I’ll be tied up in meetings all day. That’s why I needed an early start . . . to take care of . . .” He glanced at me and cleared his throat. “I’m going to talk to the Murphys this morning and see if they’ll take her.”
“Maggie Murphy and her clan, do you mean?”
“Maggie’s oldest son, Keith, and his family.”
Mam scooped me off the chair and into her soft arms as if she needed to protect me from something. I loved being held by her. It was like being surrounded by a mountain of lavender-scented pillows. “Now why would you be wanting to send the poor wee thing to that house?”
“Well, they’re the only ones who can afford another mouth to feed.”
“Aye, not that they’d willingly spend a cent on a stranger’s child!”
“I don’t know where else—”
“That Maggie Murphy is a bitter old woman, and such a miser with her money it would give you indigestion just to eat a tea biscuit with her!”
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Mam seemed to be turning something around in her mind.
“Let her stay here with me,” she finally said. It was what I had wished for with all my heart. “You’ll need to bring me her clothes and things, though.”
“There is nothing to bring, Mam.” Father O’Duggan’s voice was tight, his face angry. I was afraid he was mad at me for some reason, and I burrowed deeper into Mam’s bosom. “I went to their apartment this morning,” he said, “looking to find some extra clothes, a favorite toy . . . What I found would fit in my pocket.”
Mam’s arms tightened around me. “Poor little luv. Leave her with me, then.”
“It may be several weeks, you understand.” His voice was quiet again. “I stopped by the hospital this morning—”
“Never mind about that right now.” Mam set me down and began scrubbing the porridge off my face and hands with a wet cloth. “Go on with you then, or you’ll be late for your breakfast with His Excellency.”
“All right,” he said, kissing her cheek. “And thanks, Mam. You’ve got a grand big heart, you know.”
“Aye, go on with you,” she said, waving him away with a frown. “Save the blarney for all the Maggie Murphys in your parish!”
* * *
Even with me underfoot, Mam kept to her daily routine. On Monday she did the washing in her basement tubs, scrubbing linens and dress shirts for the rich people who were her customers. Her cavelike cellar was cold, and the steam from the hot water fogged the air with the scent of starch and blueing. Mam let me turn the crank on the wringer. When everything was clean and wrung, Mam gave me a pair of mittens to wear, and I played in the snow in her tiny backyard while she hung the wash on the line to dry. In the unspoken race against the neighboring housewives, Mam’s laundry was unfurled on the clothesline first.
On Tuesday she did the ironing and mending. Mam didn’t own a modern electric iron, and watching her juggle three irons on the coal stove as she pressed shirts and pillowcases and bed sheets was like watching a circus act. I loved the smell of freshly ironed linen and quickly learned the words to all the Irish ballads she sang as she worked.
Early Wednesday morning, Mam piled the careftilly folded washing in a cart made from an old baby carriage, and we pushed it up the hill to the rich people’s house. The huge mansion had tall columns in front and a wrought-iron fence all around it, but I never saw what it looked like inside. We weren’t allowed. A housekeeper in a gray-and-white uniform met us at the service entrance in back.
“Is this one of your grandchildren, Mrs. O’Duggan?” she asked.
“Grade’s mam is in the hospital,” she explained. “My son Thomas asked me to look after her. He’s a priest over in St. Michael’s parish, you see.”
The woman counted out Mam’s wages, and we walked to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping. On the way home she let me push the carriage full of groceries. Again and again, I heard Mam explain who I was to the people we met, and I saw the pride in her eyes when she mentioned her son Thomas, the priest. From everyone’s reaction, I learned that having a priest in the family was a truly wonderful thing.
On Thursday Mam turned the cottage upside down, dusting and waxing and scrubbing the floors. The best way to help her, she said, was to keep out from underfoot. But the next day was Friday, the best day of all. Mam did her baking on Friday. Wonderful smells filled the kitchen as cookies and pies and loaf after loaf of Irish soda bread emerged from the oven. Mam tied an apron around me and let me kneel on a chair to lick the spoons and mixing bowls. I ate fistfuls of sweet, gooey dough.
At first I wondered who would eat all these marvelous baked goods, but I soon found out. Every afternoon swarms of Mam’s relations filed in and out, staying only long enough for a cup of tea
and a bit of gossip. Everyone who came brought her something to eat—a bit of black pudding, a plate of leftover corned beef—and when they left they took something Mam had baked with them. This dizzying exchange of food and serving plates mystified me. I eventually met all six of Mam’s children as well as her eighteen grandchildren, who adopted me into their midst like one of their own cousins.
As word spread that I needed clothes, hand-me-downs began to arrive along with the visitors. Every evening Mam sat in her chair in the front room and mended things for me to wear, sewing on buttons, letting seams in and out, darning woolen stockings. Within days I had more clothes than I’d ever owned in my life, including three extra pairs of bloomers and a nightgown to wear to bed. Best of all, Mam made me a rag doll to sleep with so I wouldn’t miss my mother so much. I named the doll Nellie.
Once my wardrobe was taken care of, Mam resumed her usual evening task of making vestments for Father O’Duggan. She put such loving care into each stitch that I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d never once seen Father O’Duggan wear any of them. I loved to feel the luxurious fabrics—soft, warm velvet; smooth, cool satin; nubby white brocade. When she saw how much I admired them, Mam gave me the scraps and a needle and thread and taught me to sew.
Toward the end of that first week, I became the object of much discussion as Mam sat at the kitchen table with one of her daughters and sipped tea. “What ever will I do with the poor wee thing while I’m in church?” she wondered.
“She’ll have to go to mass with you.”
“But her people are Protestant.”