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Pilgrimage

By Christine Sunderland

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Prologue
The day was balmy, one of those days when nothing could go wrong, when the blue skies and the sun on your skin made you happy and certain. It was Saturday and my clerical job at the bank seemed far away; I was young and my future stretched before me. There would be many days like this, I thought, full of sun, play, and children.
Mollie stacked rubber blocks on a pink blanket in a quiet corner of the back lawn. She could sit up then—she was nearly eight months—and could see her world, but she couldn't yet walk. Her crawl still held the wonder of movement; she wasn't even scooting. So she was content to sit, concentrating on the blocks, full of the promise of life.
Our Vancouver apartment was stuffy that warm afternoon, and we escaped to the crabgrass to try out my son's new wading pool, his third-birthday present from his father and me. With Mollie nearby and Justin hovering close, I pumped air into the white plastic. Justin shifted his weight from foot to foot, raised his hands with impatience, and darted around the lawn in a frenzy of anticipated joy. I had lathered sunscreen on my son's back, arms, legs, and face, and pinned his thrift-shop shorts together at the waist. I pumped, pushing the handle down slowly and pulling back up, watching my son's wiry figure dance across the lawn, return, stare at the emerging plastic sculpture, and pull his pants higher.
I remember how the moment held me in a trance of contentment—the sun, the children, the wading pool taking shape as I pumped. There was also the pleasure of control, the miracle of turning the flat folded plastic into a pool, a cause for my son's glee, a mother's great pleasure.
But where was his father? He said he'd join us, but Charlie remained inside, reading as usual, devoted to writing the Great American Novel when he wasn't sweeping warehouse floors. It had been six years since immigrating to Canada to escape the Vietnam draft of '69; work had been scarce for both of us. We were in dead-end jobs and barely made ends meet, but he wanted more and retreated into his books to find a shortcut to success.
I set down the pump, dragged the green rubber hose to the pool,
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and let Justin hold it, the water streaming out. His first pool. And Mollie was so cute sitting there on her blanket. Where was the Brownie camera I brought from San Francisco? It was in the kitchen next to the phone—I was sure of it.
The water rose an inch, two inches, three. . . . I turned the wall spigot off, moving the iron disc counterclockwise. “That's enough,” I said.
Justin dropped the hose, looking disappointed. Nevertheless, he hopped in, and I tossed him his bath toys—the battery-operated tug, the fishing trawler, the police boat.
Mollie crawled toward us over the grass. I lifted her, sat her in the water, and watched her slap her hands on the surface as she screamed with delight. The camera. I needed the camera. Where was Charlie?
“Charlie,” I screamed, “bring the camera!”
I looked at my beautiful children, so safe; there was barely any water in the pool.
“Watch your sister while I get the camera. I'll just be a sec.”
Justin nodded and returned to making noises for his boats as they conducted maneuvers in the mighty sea. Mollie splashed the water and laughed from somewhere in the back of her throat, a gurgle of happiness.
I ran into the kitchen. The camera wasn't next to the phone. I opened drawers and moved stacks of paper littering the dining table. “Charlie, where's the camera?” I gave up, suddenly worried, sick with foreboding, and ran into Justin in the doorway.
“Mama! Mollie fell over.”
My heart pounded as I rushed to the pool. I stared, frozen.
Mollie lay facedown in the water, her blond hair fanning like a halo, her yellow gingham jumper puffing out.
“No!”
I pulled her out and laid her on the grass. I put my lips over her tiny ones and breathed slowly in and out, filled with a terrified knowledge. “Charlie! Call an ambulance!”
Dear God, this can't be happening.
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One
Setting Out
I have considered the days of old,
and the years that are past.
Psalm 77:5
wenty-two years after Mollie drowned, my nightmares returned. Sleeping little, my fatigue weighted me, seeping through my bones, clouding my thoughts. It was time to seek help, to see if Father Rinaldi, my priest and friend, could do anything, anything at all. But I had never told him about Mollie and the thought filled me with dread. T
I walked through a cold and damp San Francisco fog past Saint Thomas's Anglican Church, then climbed the stairs to the Victorian rectory's sagging porch. I pushed the bell. The door creaked open, and Father's wife, Martha, smiling through her wrinkles, took my coat. I could smell bread baking, and it was comforting; Martha had been good for him and for all of us, I thought. It was Rome's loss and our gain when Anthony Rinaldi left the Catholic Church to marry.
“He'll just be a minute,” Martha said. “He's finishing the Lenten schedule for February. Do you mind waiting here in the hall? Would you like some tea? I've got scones, fresh from the oven.”
I smiled weakly. “No thanks. I'll be fine, Martha. Please, don't worry.” I sat down in a hall chair as she excused herself and returned to the kitchen.
A slow panic came over me. It wasn't too late to leave with an appropriate excuse, for how could I put such a thing into words? And what could Father do now? It was so long ago; he couldn't bring Mollie back. And if I did confess my part, could I retain my self-esteem? I smoothed my jacket with moist fingers. It was my lecture tweed, one I associated with rapt students and the safe confines of freshman history,
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with presenting papers at Stanford and chairing scholarly seminars. I had worked hard to restore my life to manageable standards since I came home; this moment might erase it all.
Martha returned. “You can go in now, Madeleine.”
I thanked her and, drugged with reluctance, moved toward Father Rinaldi's office, my mind a grim gray.
Usually the books lining the walls, the grandfather clock ticking quietly, and the fire burning in the grate were comforting on a cold February day like this. But today the heat of the fire was suffocating, the clock marking time. I wanted to flee his office and hide myself in the fog.
We chatted about the church's new garden. Then Father leaned forward, his earnest brown eyes searching mine, his parchment skin flushed in patches, his thinning white hair combed carefully over his balding crown.
“You said on the phone you had something you wanted to talk about? Something serious—something troubling you?” His frail shoulders, framed by the red leather chair, were hunched, and the black he wore, broken by the frayed white band too loose for his thin neck, reminded me he had heard worse than my confession.
I breathed deeply and forced the words. There would be no easy way. “My baby girl drowned, and it was my fault.”
“Oh, Madeleine.” His eyes were intense, questioning. His words held grief tinged with some perplexity that he had not heard of this before. “You never told me.”
I could not bear his gaze, the intensity of his love. I looked away, up to the Franciscan crucifix above the mantel, down to the worn carpet, then through the window where children played in a schoolyard, their screams echoing off the pavement. I smoothed a strand of hair behind my ear and fidgeted with my wedding rings; I adjusted my glasses.
It was a mistake to come. He could do nothing about these nightmares and the great fatigue that wrapped me and dragged me into the earth. He had helped me before, with Justin when he was little. He had found an attorney for my divorce from Charlie. He knew many of my secrets, secrets I held close but wanted desperately to share. But what could he do about Mollie?
I walked to the window, seeing only my little girl, floating.
“Tell me about it,” Father said softly, his voice far away.
“It was 1975—in Canada.” My words came slowly, measured, dragging this unbearable sorrow.
I heard the creak of leather as Father turned. “1975,” he repeated
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quietly. His gaze burned my back.
I turned and our eyes locked as I slowly related the events that never should have happened. He showed no trace of anger or disappointment, only a deep sadness. His hand rested on the chained crucifix around his neck.
“I killed her, Father. I left her alone in a wading pool. I killed her.”
“Madeleine, you are right.” He sat up straight, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. “You were responsible for her death.”
I waited, numb, watching him.
“But even this terrible act,” he said, “this tragic accident, has been redeemed by Christ.”
“I know.” I returned to my seat, suddenly bold. “But I wasn't a believer then—and nightmares haunted me. It was hard.” In my greener days I had drifted away from the vague faith of my childhood, such as it was. The bearded old man in the sky and the handsome blond Jesus never changed, always pastel and smiling, saccharine. What did they know of hurt? of suffering? or even sin? “Charlie, my first husband, blamed me. I blamed me. Our marriage was already in trouble and this finished it off.”
He seemed to be searching his memory. “You told me you had miscarried once.”
I nodded. “I wasn't brave enough to confess it, to say it out loud. I lied, Father, and I'm sorry for that.” But I did tell my husband Jack, I thought.
“You've been carrying this a long time.”
“Yes.” The love in his eyes bathed me. Why had I waited?
“Some marriages don't survive the loss of a child.” He looked into the fire as though visiting other losses.
“I relived every moment, thinking, if only I hadn't looked for the camera, if only I had carried her inside.”
“Grief over the past haunts us all,” he said, shaking his head. “Did the nightmares go away when you came home to San Francisco?”
“Not until I married Jack, four years later.”
“Love can heal, transform. Martha turned my world upside down, or maybe I should say right side up.” He studied his wedding band.
“But, Father, the nightmares have returned.”
“Do you know why?”
“They may have been triggered by the parish picnic last September. After you all left . . . there was this terrible accident . . .”
Martha knocked and paused in the doorway. “Anthony dear, the
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bishop is on the line. Something about last-minute changes before his flight. You can take it in the kitchen if you like.”
Father Rinaldi looked at me apologetically. “I'm sorry. Will you excuse me? I'll be right back.” He rose wearily and stepped into the hall.
The accident was months ago—why wouldn't the demons leave me alone?
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It had been an accident much like mine.
I had watched the little girl toddle far too close to the edge of the sea. She dug her toes in, bent over, and leaned forward to plant her chubby hands in the wet sand, her bottom, wrapped in a swim diaper, raised high. She wore a checked yellow sundress, and her wispy hair caught the light of the setting sun. Losing her balance, she wavered and plopped down on her behind with a gleeful cry, clapping her hands and sending sand flying into the air. Where was her mother?
The church picnic had disbanded. Jack and I had lingered on our towels on a stretch of beach near the Cliff House. Jack dozed, his long frame spread out, his hands clasped over his chest. His fair freckled face was beginning to redden and I considered waking him. Instead, I turned back to the child.
She was waddling in the swirling eddies, leaning over, falling, and clapping, in a repeating dance. There had been a brother there, I was sure, and I looked up and down the beach. Perhaps he was with the boys nearby, tossing a Frisbee. I stood and watched the toddler closely, shielding my eyes from the sun dropping to the horizon.
It happened suddenly. She was facedown in the water, her dress floating. I froze, then ran with leaden feet, fighting the sinking sand.
I grabbed her waist and held her up. She blinked, then let out a wail, and I cradled the soaking child in the hollow of my shoulder, looking once again for the brother, then dusting off the sand from her face. The boy was running toward us and with him a worried woman, screaming, “My baby, my baby.”
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Father Rinaldi lowered himself into the red leather, his face composed, his full attention on me. “Tell me about the dreams.”
I breathed deeply and tried to put in words the dark images of my nights, images that left me with a cold dread, a steely loss tinged with evil. “I hold Mollie in my arms, and she shrinks smaller and smaller to a two-inch skeleton, a pipe-cleaner body with soul-searching eyes, Walter Keene eyes. Do you remember the artist from the sixties? I tell myself it will be all right, she's alive, she'll get better and grow. I can see her insides—she's transparent—and I try to put her back together like a surgeon. I wrap her in a blanket. I rock her. Then she disappears.”
Pain fleeted across Father's face. “Martha had nightmares like that once, when she miscarried.”
“She lost a baby? I didn't know.” My words sounded hollow.
“We couldn't have children after that. But God helped her . . . and me . . . through it.”
“He did? How?” I studied him. “How did God help her?”
“It was a difficult time—she suffered so.” Now he stared out the window.
Pausing, I sensed I shouldn't pry. “But you adopted the twins.”
He smiled, turning toward me. “Stephanie and Susanna. Yes. They became part of our healing.”
“Father,” I began again, “something grabs hold of me and I feel pinched, twisted. I envy new mothers. I want to go back in time, have another chance.” Here I am, I thought, forty-nine. How could I even dream of such a thing?
“Madeleine, envy will devour you,” he whispered, his gaze still on the window.
“It is devouring me. It makes me sick. I hate them; I hate myself. It goes on and on. My brother and Kate have four children, four, and now she's pregnant again. I hate her, Father; I hate her! I don't want to have anything to do with them, and that's not right, is it?”
His gaze remained on the world outside, his thoughts seeming far away, perhaps with Martha all those years ago. I waited. Was I too extreme?
“Maybe hate is too strong a word,” I added.
“You have Justin.”
“I love him dearly, but I wanted more children.” Jack and I had bought a child-friendly house, a family house with extra bedrooms never filled. When I didn't conceive, we had fought, our first real fights. I wanted to adopt and Jack wanted to try in vitro fertilization, the latest
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technique. I was horrified; I refused to freeze living embryos. Finally, I let it go. Jack was nearing fifty back then, twelve years my senior, and had his own grown boys as well as Justin.
“And you have Jack. He loves you, Madeleine.”
“I do have Jack, don't I?” I rubbed my hands with their brown age spots and fine wrinkles. A phone rang in the outer office. Father had slumped in the chair, his eyes closed, as he often did when he was thinking or praying. Had he fallen asleep? Dear God, I thought, I can't go through this again. I needed to forget, not remember. I reached for my handbag.
“So,” Father said, slowly opening his eyes, “these beasts have returned to haunt you.”
I sensed he wanted desperately to take on my suffering, to add it to his load.
“You have confessed with purpose of amendment,” he said, opening his palms to heaven. “There is no need for nightmares. You are forgiven.” He watched me closely.
Was that it? Could he wave away the pain with open palms and a crucifix?
“But you need something more, I think.”
He tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. One minute, two minutes. Why didn't he speak? I wanted him to fix the problem. Three minutes. I reached for my bag and searched for my keys. Most of all, I wanted this to be over.
I glanced at my watch. “Father, I've an appointment.” A half-lie, a half-truth.
“Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?” He looked up at me, his eyes hopeful.
A pilgrimage? I saw a busload of strangers traveling to a shrine and sleeping in a church hall. I recalled how difficult my Lenten fast had been and how short-lived.
“No . . .” I wanted to nip the idea before it budded.
“Sometimes, such a journey helps.” He half smiled, seeing my dismay. “Madeleine, trust me. Have you forgotten our travels together? I know you like a little luxury.”
“Jack does research good restaurants since he retired.” Thinking of all the wine-buying trips for Jack's stores lightened my heart, restoring me to the present. I was ready to listen.
“Maddie, we often forget the living victims left behind when a loved one dies. You had a part in the death of your child. Sometimes, when the body is involved, it takes a physical act of penance to erase the guilt, ease
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the grief from the body's own judgment court, as it were. It's sacramental. Our spirits affect our bodies and vice versa.”
I heard his words, but Mollie filled my mind.
He paused. “Are you listening, Maddie?” He touched my knee lightly.
“Yes . . . of course . . .”
“I was saying, our bodies and souls are connected.”
“I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm frozen by that pool. I can't move. It's as though time stops.”
“I know.” He reached for my hands as though his words could travel through them. “You are forgiven, but your spirit won't accept absolution. Your grief brings back your guilt, as though never washed away.”
He released my hands and walked to a wall calendar, traced his fingers on the Sundays, then turned.
“Make a pilgrimage through Italy,” he said, “to work this evil out of your soul. Include decent restaurants and hotels. You don't have to stay in pilgrim hostels or keep a fast, although the discipline would help, but do visit some holy places, places I loved when I lived there, and pray sincerely for healing. Keep a journal. And let me know about the nightmares, okay? Will you do that, Madeleine? Will you promise?”
I considered his words. Perhaps a trip, even a holy trip, would be possible. Jack loved Italy, especially Florence and Rome. I had taken a year off from teaching at the university, thinking I would work on a book, but hadn't made much of a start. Still, it was a pilgrimage. “I don't know, Father.”
“Martha and I have an anniversary coming up, and if God grants me the grace and my doctor permits, we might return to Rome for a few weeks. After all, I'm just a thirty-year-old fellow in an eighty-year-old body. We could show you around, and if my bishop okays the time off, join you for the rest of the journey.”
“You might come with us? That would be wonderful. I'll speak to Jack, but I can't promise anything. He does seem at loose ends since he sold the wine stores. He watches his pennies, but he isn't interested in penance. He thinks he's had enough challenges in his life, and now wants pampering.” He had worked long and hard, first as an attorney with Gilpin's, then building his own wine import business.
“Then do your best. You could research some of your book in Rome. Wasn't it on the early Church?”
“I'd like to do something on the martyrs. I'm not sure. And the
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history of popular miracles, maybe weave the two together. Our history chairperson is breathing down my neck. Publish or perish, she says half jokingly. I may perish at this rate. Jack certainly likes having me home, now that he's home.”
“Do you miss teaching?”
My heart tightened. “I do. It's a bit of a thorn between us, to be honest.” The students' questions challenged me. I recalled their faces: thoughtful during lectures, probing in discussions. A few would disagree with my ideas, and the class would leap into a new world of thought. Inevitably, some would be bored, and when a flicker of interest crossed their faces, I was thrilled. Each student's mental maze was slightly different; it was my task to work my way into it, to open new doors of understanding, ways of interpreting the present with the past.
He nodded. “Give him time. He'll come around.”
I wasn't so sure.
“How does Jack spend his time? Retirement can be difficult. I'm a great believer in the sanctification of work, myself—I was once involved with Opus Dei.”
“We're adjusting to a new schedule, but I think he's enjoying his freedom. He plays golf, jogs, works with the Scouts. I think Jack misses Justin—it's been years since he settled in Colorado.”
“I miss him too. He was a challenge as an acolyte but a good lad.” Father Rinaldi chuckled. “I often recall the first time you came to Saint Thomas's. He was such a little boy then, around five? He stuttered, didn't he? But he got over that.”
Justin didn't speak for months after Mollie drowned. When his speech finally returned, he stuttered, as though his words were waiting for the right moment. The right moment was phantasmal, always dancing ahead of him.
“He hardly ever stutters now, mostly when he's stressed. And it was Justin who pulled me into Saint Thomas's on the way to the park—to hear the organ. I can't believe he's turning twenty-five.”
“Is he really? Where has the time gone? Jack said he was drawn in by the music too, but, my dear, he stayed because of you.” Father's eyes twinkled.
Dapper Jack Seymour had smiled across the church hall that morning, and I had smiled back. He was curly-haired, wore a gray three-piece suit, fuchsia tie, and matching pocket scarf. I felt my future touch me as I chatted with him, looking up at his closely set blue eyes. Justin, racing around the room, had bumped into him, and he had spilled his
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coffee.
“It's true about the music—it's wonderful.” I sensed I was blushing with the memory.
Father steepled his fingers. “We've been blessed with an outstanding organist.”
“Saint Thomas's has been good to us, Father. So have you.” He had taught me everything about the Faith, helping me with the first steps of belief. I was raised liberal Protestant, but when I grew up I couldn't see any reason to go to church. Man, they said, was intrinsically good, just misguided by genes and environment. He could be changed with education, taught to be good. God gazed upon us like a benevolent father, and, it seemed to me, I could live my life without church. I was saved, and that was that. Then I met Father Rinaldi and learned it wasn't that simple, or at least, sanctification was an ongoing process.
He smiled. “The family of God is a precious and powerful thing. Now, my dear, are you coming to tomorrow's mass, our Tuesdays in Lent? We missed you on Sunday.”
“Jack wanted to spend the weekend in Carmel. He read about a great chef at one of the beach hotels. I'll try to make tomorrow evening—Jack's in San Diego with a Scout meeting.”
“Do come. And, Maddie, open your heart. God can't work his miracles if you don't open your heart. Trust me,” he added, his eyes full of a confidence I wanted to own, “it will be all right.”
He walked me to the front door where he held my head in his hands like a precious jewel, kissing me on each cheek, Italian style.
I left lighter, the heavy weight removed. But the nightmares continued.
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“You told Father Rinaldi what?” Jack shouted over the phone. “Sorry, I've got a bad connection.”
“I told him about Mollie.” I gazed through the kitchen windows to the crashing surf below.
We had found the old Sea Cliff house to the west of the Golden Gate shortly after I proposed to Jack. Over the years we had papered and painted, remodeled and added on, and with each change our roots in the rambling three-story grew deeper, our tendrils winding through the
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rooms like the ivy pattern on the kitchen walls.
“You said you never would. Hold on, I've got another call.”
The line went dead. Should I have waited till he came home? Jack had a temper, and sudden news was not his strong suit. Had I misjudged this one? I picked at a fingernail, cradling the phone with my shoulder.
“Okay,” he said, returning, “why the sudden change of heart? What's done is done. Why bring all that up?”
“Jack, the nightmares came back, the ones about Mollie.”
“Oh no. Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't want to burden you.”
“Maybe you should see Lynn Beck. She's helped our store managers from time to time. She's a good therapist.”
“Dr. Beck?” I recalled an energetic and friendly face from a gathering in the past. Her eyes searched, evaluated, judged. “Father suggested a trip, Jack.”
“My kind of priest! I'm ready and willing. Hey, I've got my Michelin France here, an old copy from our buying days. Let's plan something. I was thinking of going back to Burgundy.” Jack loved travel and often looked for a reason to justify the expense. His frugal background insisted on a reason, to avoid major guilt.
“A kind of holy trip, Jack.”
“A what?”
“Actually, a pilgrimage.”
He sighed. “We're not going to a shrine in some remote wilderness, and I refuse to travel with a group. We may not have much, but we can still plan our own route, time our own day.”
“He said it could be a comfortable pilgrimage, but he does have a list of churches in Italy. He and Martha might come.”
Jack chuckled. “I should've known. Father Rinaldi does enjoy life. We'll make plans when I fly in on Wednesday. Maybe we could go in May before Italy heats up. I know you want to be home for Easter, and Father couldn't be away then anyway.”
“That's what I was thinking. How I love you.”
“And I love you too, my too-good-for-this-earth Maddie. Now, what did you have for dinner, after this horrendous interview with the venerable Father? And did you remember to feed Miss Kitty?”
“I heated soup, and yes, Miss Kitty is fed.”
“Soup? I'd better return and rescue you.” Jack was an excellent cook. “I'll call tomorrow night, Maddie.”
“Good, but after seven-thirty. I'm going to the Tuesday mass since
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we missed Sunday.”
It was a mass I would never forget.
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Tuesday evening I walked through the arched doorway of Saint Thomas's and into the white vaulted chapel, toward the stone altar. A sculpted Madonna stood on a pedestal in the left corner, wrapped in robes of gray and mauve, her eyes pensive, her child on her hip. I lit a blue votive and added three daisies to the vase alongside. Mary steadied me—she was the sacred feminine, the suffering mother. I knelt in the second pew, our usual place, and opened the prayer book to the service for Holy Communion.
Only a few others were there—a young banker who often passed around the collection basket, a elderly editor who kept to himself, and, in the far back, a woman I had not seen before.
Martha sat in front of me, her white head tilted like a sparrow as she waited for her husband to enter from the sacristy. On the altar, six brass candlesticks with tall tapers framed an antique tabernacle holding the Reserved Sacrament. A red candle burned to the side. As Anglicans, we believe that the hosts behind the bronze doors hold the mystical presence of Christ. The red candle signifies that the Sacrament has been reserved there.
The hammered brass of the tabernacle doors rendered a chalice, a sun, and a book. The doors glimmered, as though opening to a purifying love, and I sensed that in that love, answers to questions forever asked could be found. A white tassel hung on the key-handle, a delicate fringe guarding the gates of Paradise.
I wondered about God, my mind cloudy with fatigue. Could he really heal me?
Friends accuse me of living in an unreal world, of being religious and betraying the modern woman. I embarrass them with my walls of crucifixes, icons, and rosaries. But, especially before the tabernacle, I feel God pushing from without or listening from within. Perhaps I have a good imagination, or my world lies parallel to another world and the two merge. Or maybe I'm a genius or a saint, a fool or a lunatic, in touch with a great truth or a great lie.
That Tuesday evening, as my shins pressed against the soft leather
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kneeler, my arms resting on the oak pew back, I knew Christ would come again in a mysterious way. Soon the bread and wine would be infused with him, a transformation repeated in billions of masses over nearly two thousand years. Even so, to me, each time was new. Each time the seen world collided with the unseen. I said to myself, the altar, being so strong and heavy, will root this God for me. It will keep him here, draw him down along with our special words and phrases, our incantations ringing through time. And once he is here, once he becomes part of the bread and the wine, I will have him. I will graft him onto my body; I will consume him. He will ban my ghosts; he will strengthen me.
When I knelt, I prayed like a child. I searched out my heart for sins, sometimes obvious, sometimes wispy and vague and hidden. I repented. Like a child, I waited with breathless excitement, focusing on the chalice and the large round host. That bread was the earthly throne of God—surely a magnificent light would shaft through the skylight and strike the bread and wine. Surely Gabriel would blow his trumpet!
Steven, one of the high school acolytes—and not the Angel Gabriel—entered from the sacristy and lit the candles. Father Rinaldi followed, vested in Lenten purple, his cassock dusting the floor. Slightly stooped, he moved slowly, shyly and purposefully, as though not to be noticed, a pure channel for God. He faced the altar and spoke the words of the liturgy in nearly a monotone, yet with awe and intimate reverence, as though for the first time. Genuflecting, he gathered himself together, one hand gripping the altar. I waited expectantly.
I waited and I watched, carefully repeating the sacred words. Steven rang the Sanctus bells, and as they trilled through the chapel, Father Rinaldi raised the host. I crossed myself, praying My Lord and My God.
Then, as he raised the chalice, he wavered. The cup slipped from his hand onto the altar, rolled to the side, and fell to the floor with a hollow clang. Father Rinaldi collapsed slowly, his hand on his heart.
I stared, unable to move.
Martha cried out and ran to him. She knelt on the floor and lifted him up, wrapping him in her arms, like Mary and Jesus in the Pieta. She began to weep tiny, raspy sobs of panic, cradling his head, holding her white head next to his silver, their cheeks touching. “No, no, no . . .”
“Martha,” he whispered, “it's all right, love, it's all right.” He closed his eyes, smiling, and seemed to drift off to sleep, but he was gone from us all.
“I'll call 911,” Steven said, running out through a back door.
The banker approached. “Mrs. Rinaldi, let me help.” He lifted
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Father's small form and carried him to the church hall, Martha at his side.
The editor and I followed. We watched him lay Father Rinaldi on the couch under the portrait of Canon Schuster, one saint gazing upon the other. The woman from the back pew appeared. “I'm a nurse,” she said. “Would you like me to look at him?”
“Please,” I said, nodding. The room was close. I gripped the arm of the couch and studied the nurse as she moved toward Father's still body. I was acting a part in a strange play, a part with no lines. Surely I must be dreaming.
Martha sat with Father's head resting on her lap. She was crying quietly, touching his hair and face. His eyes were closed, and his half smile remained; his wrinkles had disappeared, his skin smooth and pale as a child. I stood behind her, helpless, my hand resting lightly on her shoulder as the nurse took his pulse, her face a trained blank. Steven reappeared, saying the ambulance was on the way.
The nurse looked at me and shook her head. “I'm sorry.”
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After all had been done that could be done, I returned to the chapel and cleaned up the altar, my heart aching. The chalice lay on the flagstone floor. The consecrated wine, now the mystical Blood of Christ, had spilled onto the corporal, the small linen square that had lain under the chalice, leaving a large magenta stain. The consecrated host remained on the silver plate, waiting to be broken for us few to receive.
I placed the host, now the Reserved Sacrament, in the tabernacle. I washed out the empty chalice in the sacristy sink. The floor appeared clean; all of the wine-blood had spilled on the altar linen. I removed the candlesticks and the service book, folded the corporal, and replaced the sacred vessels. I gazed at the cloth, wondering.
Something prompted me to take the linen with me. In the months that followed, in a journey that changed my life, the cloth was my companion. A little crazy? Maybe, but it has revealed some remarkable places in my soul.
h
14
The full Requiem mass would have surprised Father Rinaldi, a simple priest. Wealthy matrons and suited businessmen, toothless rummies and crack-heads, emaciated AIDS victims and homeless wanderers, the old and the young, packed the immense church as the solemn procession followed the gilded crucifix up the broad nave. Jack, serious in his charcoal pinstripe, followed with the other pallbearers, guiding the rolling casket toward the altar.
Justin stood tall beside me at the funeral, his presence reassuring. Leaving his construction business in Colorado, he had returned home with his friend Lisa Jane. He wrapped a heavy arm around my shoulders.
I looked up at him gratefully, then glanced at Lisa Jane on my other side. We had met at Christmas and I had liked her at once—her love of life, her devotion to Justin. Her highlighted chestnut hair flowed down her back; her hoop earrings reflected the candlelight. Fingering a silver cross in the vee of her white blouse, she seemed absorbed by the liturgy in the grand cathedral, the soaring chants, the robed procession. She told me later her Catholic parish at home observed a much simpler rite with guitars and folk songs. She liked this “higher” ritual; it was more artistic, using symbol, metaphor, and poetry. After all, she was an English major with an Art minor, now working on her teaching credential.
I fingered the linen cloth, which the bishop had allowed me to keep, thinking of the stone altar and Father's sturdy faith. I thought of the watching and the waiting and how he wove our prayers into the great miracle each week, as he worked our Lord in among us, like a baker kneading bread or a weaver weaving a fine fabric. I was thankful for his time with us.
I was thankful too for our little church of Saint Thomas. Like the Gregorian plainsong echoing in the cathedral's grand vaults, the chapel's sheer beauty had drawn me in—the rhythmic dance of the liturgy, the poetic Elizabethan language, the seriously festive processions, the sweet swirling incense, the bright flaming candles. But most of all, I liked the objective reality of belief, worshiping Someone real on the altar, Someone who healed, Someone who righted wrongs.
Father had taught me well; I learned that we had fallen away from God in the Garden of Eden and we continued to fall. We were half men, half women, seeking to be whole, living in a gray world, longing for the light. We were created good, but the good had been corrupted, twisted. For once, the human condition made perfect sense.
In the time I had known this priest whose body lay in the wooden coffin before me, I had leapt from despairing doubt to fragile faith to
15
joyous certainty. With his gentle guidance, I came to believe what these Christians preached—in a loving God and in sinful humanity. After all, no one's perfect, a truth I knew all too well. I continued to learn about Anglo-Catholic faith and practice, knowing I had only begun my journey. With each mass, each liturgy, and each sermon, my heart, soul, and mind drew closer to God, and I felt something broken inside me being made whole again. Where would I be today, I wondered with some fear, without having known Father Rinaldi? Without having experienced the mystery and miracle of the mass?
“Mom? You okay? It's nearly over,” Justin whispered as he handed me a tissue.
“I'm okay.” I nodded. But my lip quivered as I blotted my tears.
We recessed to Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee set to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, a hymn Father Rinaldi had loved. The pallbearers stepped alongside the casket, recessing down the aisle, their heads bowed as the pews emptied behind them, one by one. In the last verse, we slipped our hymnals into the pew slots and joined the hundreds of mourners stepping into the March rain.
h
We headed home to Sea Cliff after the funeral for some lunch, before Jason and Lisa Jane had to catch the evening flight to Denver.
The rain pounded the wooden deck outside the nook, making our society of four safe and warm. The kitchen remodel hadn't given us much more space, but the white counters and glass-paned cupboards lightened things on this dark day, and the green leafy wallpaper was cheery. The old house had been redone many times when we found it fifteen years ago, and we soon added our own memories, good and bad, sweet and sour.
I watched the moment, sitting outside it, as though it held great meaning and transition in our lives. Father Rinaldi was gone from this earth, but not gone from us forever. Jack sat next to me, so solid and real, his graying hair and lined face gracing him with even greater solidity. Justin with his Lisa Jane were the future. Where would we go from here, from this moment in time?
I heated leftover soup Jack had made the night before and toasted slices of sourdough, but we picked at the food, our thoughts elsewhere.
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Lisa Jane looked as though she didn't want to intrude. She would step carefully as she mapped our family nuances. She sat close to Justin, her dark eyes seeking his.
Justin looked up at me, then glanced at Lisa Jane. “Father R-Rinaldi was like a grandfather to m-me.” He had grown a thin beard and cut his blond hair short; construction work had kept his body in shape, and a man's muscles pushed against the white cotton of his shirt sleeves. He was no longer my little boy.
I rose and filled a plate with brownies from Sunday's bake sale. “He loved you like a grandson.” My father had died when Justin was five; Justin's other grandfather—Charlie's father—lived several states away. He had never contacted us.
Lisa Jane placed her hand, the olive skin smooth, on Justin's arm, connecting. “I wish I had gotten to know him.” She had met Father Rinaldi briefly at Christmas.
Jack leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his philosopher's manner, raising his brows. “He was a good man. He will live on in all our memories. In that sense he hasn't gone at all.” Our tabby, Miss Kitty, jumped on his lap, and he stroked her thick fur as she rhythmically pushed her paws into his leg, purring.
I frowned. I knew Jack believed in many tenets of Christianity, but this implied denial of heaven troubled me. Like all of us, his perceptions were colored by the spirit of the day, the zeitgeist, the assumption that this is all there is, ideas worn like a loose mantle. He seemed less concerned with the nuances of faith than I. My father, a liberal pastor, had left his faith and his flock, and I never truly understood why. “We read Tillich and Russell and Rogers,” my mother once explained. “They proved Christianity was a myth.” Had they never really known Jesus? How could they deny someone they had known?
Justin looked at Jack, then me. “I w-wish I had a chance to say g-good-bye.”
“We'll see him again.” The words sounded trite and I bit my lip. Expressions of faith were so difficult, so delicate. I often wondered why that was so.
Lisa Jane looked up and nodded. “We will.”
“Yeah, Mom, I know, but I w-wanted him to get to know Lisa Jane.”
Lisa Jane grinned, and a light flush spread across her cheeks. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it up and away from her face, then releasing it to fall in waves over her shoulders.
“He would have loved knowing you better,” I said to her.
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“Thank you, Mrs. Seymour.” Her eyes were serious, thoughtful.
Justin smiled for the first time that day, revealing a front tooth slightly gray from a sixth-grade skateboard accident. “He's not much like your Father Ted,” he said to Lisa Jane. “He didn't play the guitar, for starters.”
“But Father Ted is young. He might grow old to be like Father Rinaldi.”
Jack laughed. He set Miss Kitty down and rose to make coffee. “Maybe when we visit Denver next time we'll meet this Father Ted. Did you say guitars?”
“When's that?” Justin asked. “I want to show you my new rig. And there's an upscale project near Aspen I'm working on. It's pretty cool, the stonework we've got going.”
Jack looked at me as he pulled a tin from the cupboard. “Not sure, really.”
“We may be going to Italy in May,” I said. “It was Father Rinaldi's idea.”
Jack nodded. “That's the plan. I've got the hotels lined up and the airlines, just waiting for a few confirmations.”
Justin studied my face. “You look tired, M-Mom.”
T makeup hadn't helped. “Not sleeping too well. Father wanted us to visit certain churches—said the trip might help.” I searched a kitchen drawer, found the list Father had given me, and handed it to Justin. I wouldn't explain the dreams; I wouldn't make my son relive his sister's death.
Looking at me quizzically, he studied the paper, his blue eyes growing envious.
Santa Maria Maggiore, Roma
Chiesa di Santa Pudenziana, Roma
Chiesa di Santa Prassede, Roma
Chiesa di Sant' Agnese fuori le Mura, Roma
Basilica di San Pietro, Roma
The Duomo Crypt, Milano
Chiesa di San Zaccaria, Venezia
Basilica di San Marco, Venezia
Basilica di San Domenico, Bologna
Sanctuario della Verna, northeast of Firenze
Abbazia di Sant' Antimo, southwest of Siena
Chiesa del Gesu, Roma
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“This is sweet.”
“We hope to visit twelve churches in three weeks. The Rinaldis were going to come with us, at least for the Rome part.”
Justin breathed deeply, working to control his flow of his words. “But you're still going?”
“Jack thinks we should. I'm not so sure.” I watched my husband pour water into the coffeemaker and tap the on button.
“Maybe Father Rinaldi will watch over you, Mom.” My son's eyes mothered me.
“Maybe so,” I said, feeling a renewed sadness. “I'm taking his altar linen with me.”
“His what?”
“The corporal, the linen that lies under the chalice during mass. When Father died, the wine had been consecrated, turned into Christ's blood. It spilled onto the corporal.”
“Wow.” Justin looked incredulous.
Lisa Jane leaned forward. “Really? Could we see it?”
I left to find the stained cloth, the size of a large napkin, folded carefully in a bedroom chest. When I returned, Lisa Jane ran her fingers over it. “So you're taking this with you?”
I nodded. “It sounds crazy, but it comforts me.”
“And the bishop,” Jack added, “is letting your mother keep it. In spite of a persistent outcry from an influential parishioner, a McDougal . . . McDonaugh . . . what was the name, Maddie?”
“McGinty, as I recall. I gather he wants the cloth for the cathedral. He didn't know Father Rinaldi, but considers it a possible relic because of Father's saintliness.”
Jack looked at his watch. “We'd better head for the airport.”
h
On Sunday, April 27, we flew over Chicago, the Great Lakes, Nova Scotia, Greenland, and the British Isles. At London Heathrow we boarded a plane for Rome.
Mollie and Father Rinaldi wove through my mind, and I checked my bag often, touching Father's linen cloth. Was Father watching or was he sleeping, waiting for the last trumpet? He had left a gaping hole in my life, and now I mourned both him and Mollie. I pulled out the prayer
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book and turned to the Psalms for the day, reading slowly, singing the words in my head. As I finished, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift.
What, after all, was a pilgrimage? I had looked up pilgrim and found it meant a “resident alien, a stranger on earth.” I knew that Christians see themselves as aliens in this world, their true home being heaven, and the early monastics sought desert seclusion, an immediate withdrawal from the world. But pilgrimage, as a “journey to holy sites,” goes back to Saint Helena, Constantine's mother. The empress traveled to Jerusalem in 326 and returned to Rome with pieces of wood from Christ's cross. Pilgrims, traveling to the scenes of their Lord's life, or later to shrines of his saints, sought supernatural help, performed penances, and offered thanksgivings.
“Look, Maddie.” Jack had set down his Grisham paperback, a sales receipt marking his place. He peered through the window and focused his camera on emerging lands far below.
I followed his gaze. We flew low along the Italian coast in the late morning light, the hazy waters of the Mediterranean curving in and out. Then, banking east, we began our descent to Fiumicino Airport. I reset my watch. We had been traveling for seventeen hours and had lost a half day in time zones. It was close to noon, Monday, April 28.

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