“Your real Father is God. He’s the only Father who will never disappoint you. And from the time He formed you in your mother’s womb, He already knew you and loved you more than Karl Bauer or any other man ever could.”
Father O’Duggan’s words fell on my heart like a welcome rain. I longed to believe that they were true, but I was afraid. “If my real father didn’t want me,” I said, “how do I know that God will want me?”
He pulled the familiar leather volume he always carried from his breast pocket. “Because God wrote everything He wants us to know about Him in the Bible. And one of the things He wrote was this: ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.’”
He laid down the book and held out his broad hands to me. I reached across the table and laid my hands in his. “Remember the statue of Jesus on the cross in front of St. Michael’s?” he asked. “God became a man, and He died on that cross to show us His love. The nail prints on the palms of His hands are the imprints of His love for you. Search for Him, Gracie, not Karl Bauer. He’s your real Father.”
“Mother says we’re not Catholic.”
“I know. Don’t tell the bishop this,” he said with a smile, “but God isn’t limited to one church or denomination. He will find you wherever you look for Him. But churches are a good place to start because they’re designed to help us meet with God . . . we can set up an appointment with Him every Sunday morning. And a priest or a minister can point you in the right direction as you search.”
“How will I know what to do? How do I look for God?”
“Simply sit in His presence and listen . . . and wait. He longs to speak to you, Gracie. Because one thing I know for certain—earthly fathers may reject us and hurt us and disappoint us, but God never will. He’ll never leave you or forsake you, Gracie. He already knows you and loves you more than you can possibly imagine. Isn’t He the kind of Father you’re really looking for?”
* * *
Mother knew I was still angry with her when I didn’t snuggle up to read the comics with her on Sunday morning. Instead, while she lay propped in bed with the newspaper and a mound of pillows, I made my own breakfast, combed my hair, and dressed in the nicest dress I owned.
“Now where are you going?” she asked. “You didn’t buy another bus ticket, did you? I thought I already explained that you’re not welcome in Bremenville.”
“I’m not going to Bremenville. I’m going to church.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, dear, we’re not Catholic.” She unfolded the fashion section and tried to pretend that she didn’t care, but I could tell by the sharp edge to her voice that she did.
“You said we’re Protestant, so I’m going to Peace Memorial Church over on Fountain Avenue.”
“You’re not a member there, dear. They won’t—”
“They’ll let me come. Father O’Duggan said so.”
She gave a short laugh. “What would a Catholic priest know about Protestant churches, for pete’s sake!”
“He said I should tell them that my grandfather is a priest in the same kind of church.”
Mother dropped the paper and sank back against the pillows as if she were suddenly very tired. “Not a priest, Gracie . . . they’re called ministers.”
“That’s what Father O’Duggan said, but I forgot the word. He said they’re the same thing, except ministers can get married and have children.”
“I’m surprised Father O’Duggan didn’t try to talk you into going to his church.” I detected a note of bitterness in her voice.
“I wanted to go to St. Michael’s, but he said you wouldn’t approve.”
“He’s right about that.” She picked up the paper again and snapped it open, pretending to read. I walked over to her bed and waited until she looked up at me.
“So is it true, Mother? Did your daddy work in a church like Father O’Duggan does?”
“Oh, it’s true all right.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about him?”
“About Papa?” Mother lowered the paper and gazed at me for a long moment, but she had such a faraway look in her eyes that it seemed as though she were looking straight through me. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Church services usually start at eleven,” she said softly. “You’d better hurry or you’ll be late. Protestant ministers don’t like people to be late.”
I walked to Peace Memorial Church that Sunday with a longing too deep for words. As soon as I stepped into the vaulted sanctuary, I felt the same tense excitement I’d felt as I’d waited in the bus station to go to meet Karl Bauer. My Father. I was about to meet my Father.
The Protestant church was less ornamented than St. Michael’s or Mam’s church had been, but it was beautiful, just the same. There were no statues, no alcoves with candles to light, and no figure of Jesus on a crucifix—only an empty wooden cross hanging above the altar. I slipped in quietly, while the usher escorted someone else down the aisle, and took a seat in the rear by myself. Stained-glass windows dappled light over me like a sprinkling of jewels.
At first the service seemed alien and confusing to me. The minister talked and read from a book, then everyone sang a song I didn’t know. Disappointed, I almost walked out. But when everyone bowed their heads to pray, saying the words in unison, I began to cry.
“Our Father . . . Who art in heaven . . .”
They were talking to God. He was my Father too. I could bow my head and talk to Him just as easily as I talked to O’Brien or Booty or Father O’Duggan.
We sang another hymn, and this time I turned to it in the book and found the words along with everyone else. The room seemed to spin when I realized they had been written just for me:
My Father is rich in houses and lands,
He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands!
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,
His coffers are full, He has riches untold.
I’m a child of the King, a child of the King!
With Jesus, my Savior, I’m a child of the King.
I allowed the words to sink deep into my heart. Here, at last, was the Father I had longed for all my life. He was rich-in wealth and wisdom and love. I was His child. He loved me.
I don’t recall everything else that happened that first Sunday. I’m sure there must have been Scripture readings, a sermon, more prayers. All too soon we were asked to stand for the closing hymn. The tune reminded me of the Irish ballads Mick used to sing to put me to sleep. But oh, the words! Once again, the lyrics echoed the longing of my heart:
Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord.
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee, one.
It was my prayer, my heart’s cry. As I sang, I felt the Lord’s presence for the first time in my life. His Spirit washed over me, surrounded me, lifted me. He shone His love in the deepest part of my heart where I’d carefully hidden all of my fears and hurts, and He healed them. I wept with pure joy. I’d found my Father.
As I walked out of the church in a daze, the minister stood at the door, shaking hands. He was tall and thin, with wire-rimmed glasses and silvery hair swept back from his lined face. He looked very kind, smiling at everyone as he greeted them. I thought of the grandfather I’d never met. He was also a minister, like this man.
“Good morning,” he said as he gripped my hand in his. “You’re not Grace Bauer by any chance, are you?”
I was stunned. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”
“We have a mutual friend—Father Tom O’Duggan. He mentioned that you might be paying us a visit sometime. Welcome to the house of God.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t you come an hour earlier next week, and you can join our young people’s Sunday school class? We’re studying the
life of Jesus this year.”
“The man on the cross?”
“That’s right. God’s Son.”
“I’ll be back,” I told him. And I was, though the week seemed ten years long.
* * *
That Sunday I took the first step in my lifelong journey to get to know my Father. I no longer cared about finding Karl Bauer. Eventually I professed my faith in Christ, was baptized, and became a member of Peace Memorial Church. The pastor, Reverend Hudson, gave me my first Bible.
The pastor led the young people’s class himself, held in the musty basement of the church. I loved Sunday school, even though the room smelled of stale coffee and fried chicken from all the church suppers. Our class was next to the furnace room, and every time it kicked on, the pastor had to shout to be heard above the ominous rumbling. It gave his lessons an added touch of drama if we happened to be studying the battle of Jericho or the fall of Jerusalem.
A few weeks after I started attending, I made friends with a girl my age named Frances Weaver. “You go to my school, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes! I didn’t know you were Protestant too,” she said. Nearly all of the other girls in our school were Catholic. “I thought you were a Papist because you always walk home with that priest.”
“Father O’Duggan? He’s an old friend. He knows Pastor Hudson too.”
“I’ll walk home with you from now on . . . if you want me to.”
Frances and I became best friends, even though we didn’t have much in common. I loved school and worked hard to get good grades. Frances loved movie stars and spent more time reading about their private lives than doing her homework. She was the youngest in her family, with two older sisters and an older brother, and Frances’s parents spoiled her. She ate all the sweets she wanted, any time she wanted, and was as plump as a cream puff.
“Want to come to my house after school?” she asked one day. I had never been invited to another girl’s house before. “We can do homework together,” she said. “You can stay for supper.”
For the first time in my life I saw what it was like to live in a real home with a father and a mother, sisters and brothers. The truth shocked me.
“You’ll never believe what it’s like!” I told Mother when I got home. “Frances and her sisters fight with each other day and night. Her parents yell and scream for them to stop, and threaten all sorts of punishments if they don’t, but they keep fighting anyway.”
I was suddenly grateful to be an only child, grateful for a mother who made me laugh, even if we were so poor that we ate soup all the time, and bought our clothes at church rummage sales. But I’d never noticed how dreary and run-down our apartment looked until I saw Frances’s apartment. The Weavers had three bedrooms and a rug on their living room floor instead of linoleum. They even had a bathroom all to themselves. In spite of all the bickering, life at the Weavers’ house fascinated me. I spent a great deal of time there.
One day when I met Frances after school she was fairly dancing with excitement. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked, laughing. “Do you need a privy or something?”
“No! Guess what? My two older sisters are going to be away next weekend, and my mother said I could invite you and Dotty and Marian to a pajama party!”
I had heard of pajama parties, but I’d never been invited to one. Now it was my turn to dance with excitement. But as we walked home from school the day before the big event, Frances and the other two girls came up with a new idea. “Wouldn’t it be fun,” they decided in a fit of giggles, “if we all wore our fathers’ pajamas to the party?”
“Oh yes, let’s! That’s what all the older girls are doing at their pajama parties!”
They must have forgotten that I didn’t have a father because they waved good-bye to me at the corner of King Street and went on their way assuming it was all arranged. I had wanted to go to the party so badly, but now all my fun was ruined. I couldn’t be the only one who didn’t wear her fathers pajamas. I sat down on the front stoop of our apartment house and cried. I didn’t want to go upstairs because I didn’t want my mother to know. She became as crazed as a mama bear if anyone hurt her cub, and I knew she would read the riot act to all three girls and their mothers if she heard about it.
I had just decided that the only solution was to pretend I was sick and avoid the party altogether when Father O’Duggan suddenly rounded the corner and came limping up King Street.
“Good afternoon to you, Gracie,” he called.
I threw him a halfhearted wave, shielding my reddened eyes. He halted midstride, turned, and came up our short front sidewalk to sit on the stoop beside me. Neither of us spoke for at least two or three minutes. Then he said, “Will you tell me what’s troubling you?”
I heaved a heartbroken sigh. “I know that God is my real Father, but He doesn’t wear pajamas!”
“Excuse me?” His voice sounded strangled. I glanced sideways and saw him fighting a gallant battle not to laugh. He frowned in an effort to look deeply concerned and pressed his fist to his lips to hold back a grin. When I realized how ridiculous my statement must have sounded I started to giggle. Father O’Duggan exploded into laughter like a cork let out of a champagne bottle.
“I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry,” he said at last, wiping his eyes. “I’m sure the situation isn’t funny at all. But why would God be needing pajamas, if you don’t mind telling me?”
“He doesn’t need them, Father O’Duggan—I need them. Frances Weaver invited me to her pajama party, and all the other girls are going to wear their fathers’pajamas.”
“Ah, I see the problem.” He took a moment to ponder my dilemma, stroking his chin thoughtfully as if my dilemma was as important as all the other issues he’d considered that day. “Could you borrow a pair from someone?” he said eventually.
“I don’t know anyone. There’s Mr. Harper, the traveling salesman, but Mother would never let me ask him because he’s sweet on her. And Mr. O’Malley, who lives on the first floor, is too old! His pajamas would give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Well . . . I was thinking you might borrow a pair of mine.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking Father O’Duggan for his pajamas, remembering how he had refused to let me call him Daddy years ago. I looked up to see if he was serious.
“Really?”
His blue eyes sparkled with laughter. “Aye . . . unless they would give you the heebie-jeebies as well.”
“Are your pajamas black, like all your clothes?”
He laughed and hugged my shoulder. “Nay, I’m allowed to wear other colors besides black at night. Come along, then, and we’ll see if my housekeeper, can rustle up a clean pair, shall we?” As we walked to the rectory together it was like old times. I realized how much I had missed talking to him since I’d started walking home with Frances Weaver.
“What should I tell the other girls if they ask whose pajamas they are?”
“Hmm. I suppose it isn’t nice to tell them it’s none of their business, which it isn’t . . .” He held the door of the rectory open for me. “But since I’ve been ‘Father’ O’Duggan to you all these years, I don’t think it would be a lie if you told them they were your ‘Father’s’pajamas—with a capital ‘F,’ of course. But they won’t be knowing about the capital letter, will they now?”
The rectory had a lot of dark, polished wood panelling like the inside of the church. It smelled good, like Mam’s soda bread, but I was surprised at how chilly the rooms were. As I followed him through the foyer and down a dark hallway to the kitchen, he called out for Mrs. O’Connor, his housekeeper.
“But what should I say if the other girls start asking me all kinds of questions about my father?” I asked when I caught up with him. He stopped short, as if surprised by the question, and turned to me.
“You don’t have to answer their questions, Gracie. The girls are wicked to be so nosy. You won’t be in the wrong if you use that excellent imagination of yours to avoi
d answering them.”
“You mean like Mother always does when I ask her questions?”
“Exactly. Make a game of it. You can do it without telling a lie, Gracie, I know you can.”
That’s precisely what I did. By the time we fell asleep at three A.M., I had won everyone’s admiration as the girl with the most mysterious father. And Father O’Duggan’s blue-and-white-striped pajamas—so huge on me that I looked lost inside them—had won the prize for the ritziest pj’s.
* * *
“What does your father look like?” Frances asked me a few days after the party. We lay sprawled across her bed, doing our homework together.
“My mother has a picture of him in her photo album,” I said. “It’s their wedding picture. Come up to my apartment sometime and I’ll show you.”
“Can’t you take it out and bring it over here with you?”
France’s question stunned me. I stared at her in surprise, watching her stretch her bubble gum out of her mouth with her fingers, then stuff it inside again. “What’s wrong, Gracie? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just realized something! We’ve been friends for more than a year, and you’ve never been inside my apartment—even on Saturday afternoons.”
Frances jumped up from the bed to get another candy bar out of her dresser drawer, but not before I saw the guilty look on her face.
“Want some?” she said, breaking a Hershey bar in half.
I shook my head. “Tell me why you’ve never been to my house. Is it because we live in such a run-down building?”
“No . . . I . . . I can’t say.” She quickly stuffed half of the candy bar into her mouth.
“Then I guess I’m not really your best friend after all, am I?” I gathered my school books together, preparing to leave.
“No, wait! Don’t go, Grace!” she said with a full mouth. I waited, hands on my hips, while she chewed and swallowed. “It’s because your mother is divorced.”