The Tender Birds, page 16
She did not wander far from home. Everything felt tentative, as hesitant as a spring day in Toronto. With the milder weather, she and Maggie would walk west to Queen’s Park, its trees in bud and jittery with songbirds. At first, she was afraid to walk alone. She felt terrified, frail as a blade of grass, naked under a terrible sky, the still opacity of God.
The park was close to the university, and she feared running into Gavin Moore. She had been too afraid to press charges, so he had not been caught. “It will happen,” said her therapist. “He’ll try again, with someone else.”
She kept the photo he’d taken of her in front of St. Basil’s Church, folded and tucked away in her father’s prayer book, an object of memory and warning, like some ancient image of hell that spoke of dire punishment for those who failed to change their ways. I dove into hell when I told him I liked what he was doing to me, but that was because his hands were around my neck, she thought. And that happened because I came to see him every day, and I let him think he could get away with it. Remembering the horror, she thought of the ancient image of the snake devouring its tail, sure she could not point to the beginning of her nightmare or its end, still uncertain of who was at fault, who began it.
“We nest in God,” said her father. “Tender Bird brooding on the world, save us.” The words and the memory of his voice made her cry.
She was ashamed to tell Maggie what happened with Gavin. Instead, she told her that she was sorry for the trouble she’d caused, that she found it hard to forgive herself, that the songbirds gave her hope.
Shame
FOR THE MOST PART, ALISON KEPT TO HERSELF. She eyed the other three sisters in the house, struck by their blandness of manner as they approached her, their sound like the quiet footfalls of nurses in hospital, of people whose normal voices fell on her ears like whispers. Although she had never spoken to any of them about Gavin, she began to realize that they must have known what had happened to her, that Maggie would have heard from the hospital. They were social workers and teachers, exposed to the sorrows of the world, yet Alison sensed that she troubled all of them, that her presence bore witness to a malign power that disturbed their home’s tranquillity, that mocked the calmness of daily work and hope.
This saddened her, yet she felt it might be a justified response. Still recovering from the feral lure of the ravine, she believed that she’d done some irreparable damage to herself that nothing could mend. Remorse went beyond the word itself. It was an acid burn, a corrosion of her spirit.
Maggie encouraged her to keep a journal, and at night, she wrote. Thinking of her dad’s reflections, she wondered if the hurts inflicted on her body had injured God’s as well.
“You didn’t cause what happened,” said her therapist. “Gavin is a criminal. He had no right to do that.”
Yet she couldn’t describe the shame that still encased her. She only felt free of it when she watched the birds.
School Days
ALISON’S MOTHER WROTE TO MAGGIE, apologizing for the inconvenience of her daughter’s misbehaviour, saying that she was prepared to pay for her enrolment in a first-rate Catholic school. There was one nearby on Wellesley Street — one with a dress code and good discipline — and that she planned to visit as soon as her schedule permitted her to do so. Maggie showed Alison the email. “I can get you into that school,” she said.
“Only I feel bad, taking money from my mother.”
“It’s for the uniform. You have to have one.”
Then Alison told her about her bank account, the money her mother had given her to rent a room, how she chose to spend some of it on everyday expenses (including weed) and that the rest was stolen. She fibbed that someone had swiped her PIN number from the pocket of a coat she’d left in her tent.
“You’ll feel better if you tell your mom,” said Maggie, her voice weary. “Just that someone stole your bank card. That’s plenty.”
Jeannette
“I WON’T ASK THE CIRCUMSTANCES,” wrote her mother, once Alison explained what happened. “I’m glad someone can keep an eye on you. This is your last chance. Is that fair?”
“Yes,” Alison wrote. “It’s fair. I understand.”
“I wrote to Jeannette,” she told Maggie.
“Who’s Jeannette?”
“My mom.”
She registered a pained look on Maggie’s face.
“She wants me to use her real name. Not a label.”
She showed her what her mom had written and how she’d responded.
“I don’t feel any better. I feel worse.”
Maggie sighed. “Pray,” she said, “that when school starts, you’ll forget this ever happened.”
Earworm
NONE OF THIS ERASED THE FACT that Alison felt unforgiven. As she recovered, she decided to join the sisters for daily Mass at the church on Sherbourne Street, glad for an hour of quiet ritual and intelligent reflection from a priest who seemed human and friendly enough. The church was an enormous, somewhat kitschy place, one that swallowed and digested its slight congregation in a cavernous maw of silence. No matter; silence was good. She received the Eucharist, but did not take wine. It was hard for her to feel that she belonged here.
One Sunday, she took home a bulletin from the church. When she opened it, her eye caught one word, outlined in a square box:
Reconciliation
It used to be called, “Confession.”
I can’t, she thought.
It was different now, she knew that. No need to step into a dark closet with a sliding panel and a disembodied voice doling out pious scoldings and three Hail-Marys as penance. If you wanted, you could sit in a room, in a comfortable chair, face to face, like therapy. She heard they even kept Kleenex boxes there.
To do that, you had to make an appointment.
No. That’s crazy.
Why the hell would I do it?
Because you feel you did something wrong, not just something stupid. Not just one thing, either.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind. Reconciliation. The word crawled into her head like those earworms that kept a dumb song spiralling deeper and deeper into her poor, tired brain. What was left of it.
It would drive her nuts until she did something. She could at least check. She could walk out if she didn’t like it.
It Had Been A While
SHE MADE THE APPOINTMENT, went to the church, and tapped on the door of the office used as a Reconciliation Room.
The priest let her in. His name was Father Bob, the one who said daily Mass, a young guy with a serious gaze, with moody grey winter in his eyes. Let it snow, she thought, remembering the ravine. Let it bury me.
What the fuck am I doing here?
He welcomed her, told her he knew her face from Mass with the sisters.
Alison felt in her pocket for a piece of paper. Before coming, you were supposed to examine your conscience and tick off your sins against each of the ten commandments. She’d taken her time with this. She’d thought of listing her mortal sins in bullet form. Section One, subsection A and so on.
Only she got nervous and forgot the opening prayer she was supposed to say. Instead, she blurted out that she was sorry, that it had been a while since she’d received this sacrament. A few years, maybe.
“I was living in the ravine,” she said.
“Have you no home?” the priest asked. His voice was quiet. Intense, as if his whole body were an organ of hearing.
“I had to leave home because I messed up,” she began. “I slept with my mother’s boyfriend.”
Silence.
“I know I shouldn’t have. He made it easy, and I did it.” She glanced at the sheet of paper. “I don’t have the exact number of times.”
“How old was this man?”
Alison paused. “My mom’s age, I would guess.”
“He took advantage of you. Do you realize that?”
“I went along with it.”
“You were only … how old?”
“Seventeen, the first time.”
“I know you’re sorry and that you shouldn’t have done it. But you have been made to carry all the blame.”
Alison was not expecting this.
“Mom threw me out of the house,” she said. “After she got me the abortion.”
Absolute silence. As if some dreaded explosion had ripped their eardrums open. She was afraid that when she spoke again, she would not be able to hear her own words. When she did speak, the sounds seem to come from a distance, as if she were watching a movie.
“I never questioned it,” said Alison. “ “I felt ashamed for cheating on her.”
“How did it make you feel, Alison?”
“The abortion? Not great.” She took a deep breath. “Except that I would have killed myself without it.”
He was still listening, this priest.
No turning back, she thought. Lowering her eyes, she told him about her life in the ravine, about what had happened with the young man on the bicycle path.
She was afraid to look up, afraid of the chill cold that would fall on her from those wintry eyes. At last, she raised her head and looked into a face so full of anguish that she wondered if she were imagining this. It was as if the drug Gavin put in her tea on that terrible day had come to life, and, having heard its name confessed, became demonic, thrusting itself into the body of the man before her. Yet moments later, she watched his anguish dissolve into a face of compassion and sorrow, as if he were carrying the weight of everything she’d told him, as if he were straining to lift a heavy load, one too great for her to carry alone.
“I am sorry for everything I’ve done,” she said.
The priest asked her where she was living now and what she was going to do with her life, and she told him. He asked her if she’d spoken to the authorities, if anyone had located her mother, if she had a therapist. “You’ve been through a very hard time,” he said.
“I feel that I’ll never be whole again.”
Alison started to cry.
“Alison.”
She wept at the sound of her name.
“God wants you to be whole and well.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Keep coming to Mass every day. Communion is a gift from God. It will help you to forgive yourself.”
She said she would try.
“For your penance, I want you to pray for those who have harmed you.”
The words pushed hard into the depths of her heart like an enormous splinter. “How many times?”
“Until the pain goes away.”
“That may be the rest of my life.”
He paused. “We are asked to believe that God loves everyone,” he said.
Alison was crying again.
He told her that God loved her and forgave her. She said an Act of Contrition, thanked him and left.
The church was empty. She knelt in a pew at the back, trying to absorb the words the priest had said to her. She would have to pray for her tormentors.
Dear God, help Wendell and Gavin to grow up.
“Love your enemies.” What a stinker.
She dried her eyes and left the church.
She felt that the priest had seen into her, that he’d sensed the depth of her inarticulate suffering. Yet all he had to offer her against the danger of suicidal madness was the frailty of prayer, the hope in a God of compassion. He was a kind man. She would just have to try.
She did not know that after she left the room, the priest sat alone and prayed for her, his face in his hands.
Absent
ALISON FELT SOME RELIEF THEN, sensing in an inarticulate way that life would give her strength with every hopeful step she took. She had only two years of high school to complete, and she did well, remembering her aptitude for science and math, finding comfort in knowing what was expected of her. She began to think about her future, sharing with Maggie her childhood dream of starting life all over again, of moving to Boston, her father’s city, of studying veterinary science. Her father, born of wealthy parents, had left money in trust for her, and when she turned twenty-one, it would help her begin her adult life.
She had been to Boston on a trip with her previous school as a junior entrant in a science fair, part of a team project analyzing the migratory paths of ocean birds. The team placed first. With that accomplishment in mind, she applied to a small college in the town of Newton, adjacent to Boston, and was awarded a scholarship.
“You see what you can do when you apply yourself,” her mother wrote.
Once or twice a year, her mother came to Toronto to visit.
Maggie attended her high-school graduation. Her mother had a busy schedule and could not make it, but she promised Alison a special lunch on her next trip to Toronto.
Empty Glass
IN JULY, ALISON’S MOTHER CAME to the city to take her shopping for a college wardrobe. Afterwards, they had lunch at a smart café in Yorkville. Jeannette wanted to order wine, to toast to Alison’s future.
“I don’t drink,” she said.
“Not even a sip from my glass?”
“It isn’t good for me, thank you.”
“You’ve been living with the nuns too long.” Her mother ordered a small carafe of Sauvignon Blanc and an extra glass, “Just in case you change your mind,” she said. Then, she told her that in two years’ time, she and Wendell hoped to move to British Columbia. His teaching commitments in Montreal would be over by then, and he had applied to teach journalism at UBC.
Alison felt stung. I guess we’re going our separate ways, she thought.
Her mother trained her eyes on her. “Drifting is in our DNA. I think you know that.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you’ll drink a toast to my happiness instead.” She glanced at her empty glass.
Alison didn’t.
“Do you wish me well?”
“Yes.”
“So, okay. We were rotten parents,” she said. “We had our troubles, your dad and I.”
“Because he was gay?”
“Because we weren’t cut out to be faithful.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It’s awfully common nowadays.”
“I’m never going to get married.”
Her mother laughed. “You’re going to become a nun?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.”
“With your track record, they’ll never let you join.”
“That’s a mean dig.”
“I’m sorry, dear. I should not have brought it up.”
Alison said nothing. She fiddled with the wine glass, the one she’d left untouched.
“Promise me you’ll go on the pill,” said her mother.
“I don’t have to. I told you, I’m not…”
Her mother gave her a package of condoms. “Grow up,” she said.
The Butterflies
ALISON THREW THE CONDOMS in the garbage as soon as her mother was out of sight.
In her room that evening, she looked hard at the picture of her parents on her desk, beside her father’s crucifix. They will be my witnesses before God. Then, she put her hand on her bible and promised never to have sex with anyone again. She vowed to live a humble and prayerful life, to be kind to the animals that would soon be in her care. She would be everything her mother was not.
She prayed for her mother, for Wendell, for Gavin.
Teach me how to forgive them. I don’t know how.
And then she found relief.
As she lay in bed that night, she closed her eyes and saw a vision of a pair of golden butterflies bearing a fine thread as they began their painless stitchery, closing up the parts of her body that were points of entry for the joy of men.
Boston Common
WHEN SHE LEFT FOR COLLEGE in 2006, Alison would sometimes travel into Boston for a weekend, where she would attend Mass at her dad’s old parish, close to the Boston Common and the Public Gardens. He used to talk about St. Bartholomew’s, how they had three priests in residence in the old days when everyone in the city went to church. “Before they put the rest of the priests behind bars,” said a college friend, “and before half the Catholics in town got disgusted and quit,” Alison added. St. Bart’s had only one priest now, a pleasant but harried pastor named Father Ron, who was often assisted in his duties by some visiting colleague in town for the weekend. He talked a lot about being inclusive, about making everyone feel welcome, so Alison decided that if she found a job in Boston, she would feel at home here.
She’d enrolled in a two-year college, so that by 2008, at age twenty-three, she’d completed her studies and found a job as a vet technician at the South Boston Animal Shelter. Over her mother’s objections, she rented an apartment near work. “Why not buy a condo?” she’d asked, but Alison said, “Maybe I won’t like it,” when she really meant that what she wanted was a simple life with few possessions. During her first week on the job, Alison walked through the Boston Common, noticing lonely people with buggies and backpacks, homeless men and women seated on park benches, huddled in the grass. She stopped to say hello to them. She asked them their names.
After a few moments, she could feel the stares of onlookers, hard on her back, just as they had been in Toronto, on her ragged forays to the library and ATM. Only once did she remember Gavin, his slow breath on her neck, the shiver of her body in the summer heat.
