Jennifer Haigh - Faith

For Jimmy, my first friend

Its a fight youll never win

And now you bow your head in shame

For a sin no one forgives

D ROPKICK M URPHYS , T HIS I S Y OUR L IFE

He lives for God, who lives by the Rule.

S T . B ENEDICT

Contents

H ere is a story my mother has never told me.

It is a day shes relived a thousand times, the twenty-first of June, 1951, the longest day of that or any year. A day that still hasnt ended, as some part of her still paces that dark apartment in Jamaica Plain, waiting. I imagine the curtains closed against the five oclock sun, hot and bright as midday; her baby boy peacefully asleep; her young self with nothing to do but wander from room to room, still filled with her dead mother-in-laws things.

At the time shed thought it a grand apartment, her from Roxbury where the children slept three to a bed. Even as a boy her husband had had his own bedroom, an unimaginable luxury. His mother had been injured somehow giving birth and there had been no more children. This fact alone made the Breens wealthier than most, though Harrys father had only worked at Filenes stacking crates in the warehouse. The entire apartment had come from Filenes, on the employee discount, the lamps and brocade divan and what she had learned were called Oriental rugs. Mary herself had never bought a thing at Filenes. Her own mother shopped at Sears.

In the bedroom the baby slept deeply. She parted the curtains and let the sun shine on his face. Harry, when he came home, would pull them shut, worried someone might see him dressing or undressing through their third-floor windows. Sure, it was possiblethe windows faced Pond Street, also lined with three-deckersthough why he cared was a puzzle. He was a man, after all. And there was nothing wrong with the sight of him. The first morning of their marriage, lying in the too-soft bed in the tourist cabin in Wellfleet, she had looked up at him in wonderment, her first time seeing him in daylight, his bare chest and shoulders, and her already four months along. Nothing wrong with him at all, her husband tall and blue-eyed, with shiny dark hair that fell into his eyes when he ducked his head, a habit left over from a bashful adolescence, though nobody, now, would call him shy. Harry Breen could talk to anyone. Behind the counter at Old Colony Hardware he had a way with the customers, got them going about their clogged pipes and screen doors and cabinets they were installing. He complimented their plans, suggested small improvements, sent them out the door with twice what theyd come in for. A natural salesman, never mind that he couldnt, himself, hit a nail with a hammer. When a fuse blew at the apartment it was Mary who ventured into the dark basement with a flashlight.

What did you do before? shed asked, half astonished, when she returned to the lit apartment and found Harry and his mother sitting placidly in the kitchen, stirring sugar into teacups.

We didnt burn so many lights before, the old lady said.

It was a reminder among many others that Marys presence was unwelcome, that Mrs. Breen, at least, had not invited her into their lives, this grimy interloper with her swollen belly and her skirts and blouses from Sears. As though her condition were a mystery on the order of the Virgin Birth, as though Harry Breen had had nothing to do with it.

She lifted Arthur from his crib and gave his bottom a pat. He wriggled, squealed, fumbled blindly for her breast. The sodden diaper would have to be changed, the baby fed. In this way minutes would pass, and finally an hour. The stubborn sun would begin its grudging descent. Across town, in Roxbury, girls would be dressing for the dances, Clare Boyle and her sister and whoever else they ran with now, setting out by twos and threes down the hill to Dudley Street.

She finished with the diaper, then sat at the window and unbuttoned her blouse, aware of the open curtains. If Harry came upon her like this, her swollen breast exposed, what would he do then? The thought was thrilling in a way she couldnt have explained. But it was after six, and still there was no sign of him. When his mother was alive hed come straight home after work. You could set your watch by it, his footsteps on the stairs at five-thirty exactly, even on Fridays when the other men stopped at the pub for a taste. Lately, though, his habits had shifted. Mondays and Tuesdays he played cards at the Vets.

Once, leaving church, hed nodded to some men she didnt recognize, a short one and a tall one sharing a cigarette on the sidewalk. See you tomorrow, then , Harry called in a friendly tone . The short man had muttered under his breath, and the tall one had guffawed loudly. To Mary it couldnt have been plainer that they were not Harrys friends.

T HEYD MET the way everyone met, at the dances. Last summer the Intercolonial was the place to be; now it might be the Hibernian or the Winslow or the Rose Croix for all she knew. On a Saturday night, with Johnny Powells band playing, a thousand or more would crowd upstairs at the Intercolonial, a mirrored globe hanging from the ceiling so that the walls shivered with light.

She was seventeen then, too young for such pleasures. But it had been easy enough to slip out on a Friday night with Ma dead asleep, exhausted by the work of getting three small ones bathed and in their beds. And it wasnt even a lie to go dancing on a Wednesday, when Mary really did attend the novena at nine oclock as she was supposed to, the church packed with other overdressed girls and men whod already had a drink or two, whod meet up later across the street at Fontaines Caf and make their plans for the evening. All right, then. See you at the hall. The men were deep on Wednesdays; you could change partners all night long if you wanted. Thursdays were a different story, maids night out, the halls packed with Irish girls. There was almost no point in going on a Thursday, the numbers were so against you. On a Thursday you were lucky to get a single dance.

Harry Breen hadnt chosen her, not at first. That first time theyd danced purely by chance. She knew all the dancesthe reels and jigs, the wild cil. At the Intercolonial waltzes were the thing, though once each night Johnny Powell would force the dreamy couples apart. Line up, everybody, for the Siege of Ennis. A mad crush, then, as they formed two long lines, men and girls facing. Youd take your turn with every one, herself and Clare Boyle laughing the whole way through. Some of the men were clumsy, some so strong theyd nearly swing you off your feet.

She noticed Harry a moment before he reached for her. He was taller than the rest, his movements liquid; he swung her gracefully, smooth and controlled. And that thing she first felt, that swooning joy: maybe it was simple geometry, the relative size and shape of their bodies, his chest and shoulders just where they should be, their hips meeting, her eyes level with his mouth.

The plain fact was that shed chased him, courted his attention. Gone to greater lengths than any girl should. There was no point, now, in being ashamed. She had a ring on her finger and it hardly mattered how. They were married fast by her uncle Fergus, whod skipped, discreetly, the time-consuming step of publishing the banns. Fergus had guessed what everyone would soon know, that Mary had gotten exactly what she wanted, and a bit more besides.

She looked down at the baby at her breast.

In the kitchen she took her beads from the drawer and found the station in time. Missing the Archbishops greeting was like coming late to a movie; shed be unable to enter into the spirit of the thing. When Harrys mother was living, they had knelt in the parlor for the rosary. Now the old lady was gone and no one was looking, so Mary dragged a chair to the open window and settled herself there. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. Through the window a breeze came, carrying the Archbishops voice from the two apartments below. Up and down the street, every radio was tuned to the same station. Through every open window came the same holy words.