Love Thy Neighbor

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR


There was something about the odor that reached the deepest recesses of her mind.

Pungent, almost sweet, it smelled of both death and life.

The wisps of smoke curled upward from the small golden orb that was swinging back and forth like a great pendulum. The motion and the smoke and the scent of the incense triggered a thousand memories, seemingly at once.

Her niece’s baptism. A brother’s wedding. Her parents’ funerals.

Her First Communion.

She could almost hear the titter of a school girl’s laughter barely reined in, feel the tentative pull of a snug, white glove on a finger, the pinch where the bobby pins held her communion veil in place on her thick red hair. She remembered the taste of the thin wafer that was placed on her tongue for the first time. Like a thin piece of cardboard.

“This is the body of Christ,’’ the priest said then. Or was he saying it now?

A slight pang of guilt creased her stomach and her thoughts. Pay attention for once, she thought.

She squinted in the sunlight that poured in through the open stained glass window then looked discreetly around her. There was old Mrs. Lewandowsky, her white head bowed as she clutched the rosary beads in her right hand, raising the crucified Christ to her lips over and over again. The cross seemed to be moving in rhythm to the silent prayer she mouthed every Sunday.

There was the Hendrix family towering above her even when they sat down. Five tow-haired children already too tall for their age. Future basketball stars who would no doubt make the sign of the cross every time they made a free throw.

Old Mr. O’Donoghue sat in his seat to the far right of the front-row pew, grudgingly standing to let others past but refusing to move in. His red nose and face betrayed the morning nip that preceded the holy wine. Or maybe she was being unkind. Maybe it was just the light from the altar reflecting on the capillaries of his nose.

The priest was praying now for the soul of someone’s dearly departed. It was just an ordinary Sunday but people paid and booked as much as a year in advance to hear their loved one remembered in a regular Mass that became a Memorial Mass just by the mention of a name.

It was the 11 a.m. Mass. For as long as she remembered, except for two distinct periods in her life, she had gone to the 11 a.m. Mass. Her first Mass came even before her memory, when the priest poured holy water into her eyes during her baptism, letting the entire parish know what a good set of lungs Mary Louise Frechette had.

Forty five years later, she was sitting alone near the open window and the exit door, struggling to pay attention to the priest’s words.

It was not really the sermon that she came here for. The space she occupied here, however distant from what was happening on the altar, filled some need in her life to be closer to God.

It didn’t make any sense to her, but the only thing comparable was floating on the open ocean and surrendering herself to the whims of the sea. The weightlessness of the ocean made her feel one with the universe and God.

But the church was her mooring, the one constant that connected her with her history and her faith.

Spirit and stone. Heaven and Earth. God and the Church.

And then the first beautiful strains of “Let There Be Peace on Earth’’ penetrated her thoughts. She turned around, as she always did, no matter how many times she heard it. She couldn’t see Maria, but she could feel her soul singing through the organ pipes that once seemed so somber but now sounded like the first robin of spring every time Maria touched the keys.

She found the church again on the day she heard Maria playing this song.

Just like it did then, Maria’s music made her soul light. Every time she heard her play, she was a school girl again, innocent and not yet burdened by guilt or expectation.


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“You are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.’’ Ephesians 2:19
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On this most ordinary of Sundays the sound of Maria’s organ descended and enveloped her. She was aware of movement around her as people in the pews stood up to go to communion. Mrs. Lewandowsky even put down her rosary beads. The crucified Christ seemed forsaken on the oak pew.

Mary stood up with them, praying as she always did that God would accept her communion offering for the soul of her dead father and mother and all the aunts and uncles whose names raced through her mind before the thin, cardboard wafer was placed first in her right hand and lifted to her lips.

If she was far enough back in line she even worked a prayer in for all the first-graders in her class at the Oak Street School. Then came the pleading missives for all the students in her Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes, even though some sullenly sulked and others absent-mindedly stared as she taught them about the Bible and God in the basement of the church.

She would try in vain to mention all their names in her mind before the wafer was placed in her hand, then feel guilty later when she remembered the ones she had forgotten.  She often felt guilty about the children, not only the ones she taught here but the ones she left behind in the school in Dorchester, where she taught for 10 years before returning back home burnt out from the uphill battle to give all kids the education they deserved.

Even before she studied education at the state teachers college, Mary never believed that education was something to be confined to a classroom. When she thought a child wasn’t getting the proper support at home, she would visit his home. Sometimes she found that the child didn’t have much of a home at all, just a filthy tenement where the parents were hard to find.

Other times she discovered a hard working single mother, juggling three jobs to feed children who would never know their fathers. She would sometimes return and leave an envelope stuffed with cash in the mailbox. She enlisted college students to help provide child care and often tutored kids at her small apartment on Tremont Street in Boston.
Her teacher friends who got married told her it was no wonder she couldn’t find time to find anyone of her own. Her principal, Mr. Martin, told her she had a white-hot passion for children but needed to make more time for herself.

He told her that before he grabbed her outside the restaurant he had invited her to and planted a white hot kiss on her lips. Mary tried not to jerk herself away from his arms because one look in his eyes told her his feelings were genuine. Three weeks later she resigned.

Inbetween Maria’s hymns, the CCD classes and the Masses, the memories of the Dorchester children she left behind sometimes assaulted her at Our Lady of Divine Mercy Church in Orange, Mass. As if reading her mind, Mrs. Laplante would often tell her that, if it weren’t for volunteers like Mary, these young people might never get the religious education they needed to make their own communion or confirmation. Mrs. Lucy Laplante, a heavyset woman with bleached blond hair and bright red lipstick, spent most of her time at the church, especially since her only son had died and her husband died a few years later. Mary, Mrs. Laplante said, was busy with her teaching job, but never too busy to volunteer at the church.

And never too busy to go to church.

It was not that she was beholden to the Vatican. The riches of the Holy City, compared to the church imagined by a barefoot Jesus, almost seemed obscene.

But Mary believed in God, and the church was how she first learned about him. The church was the first community outside her family she had ever known. Communion was as much a part of her life growing up in the small town of Orange, Mass., as eating or breathing.

Mary was returning to her seat when Maria walked up to get communion. She didn’t notice when Father Mulvaney ran out of the host just as Maria neared the altar. She didn’t notice the awkward moments Maria waited in vain for him to return before Maria made the long walk back to the bottom of the church and up to her organ.

Mary was kneeling down now, reciting in her mind all of the names and causes that needed her prayers before she finally ended with the final prayer.

“Thank you God for Maria. May her music play forever in my heart.’’

Now the Mass was in the home stretch. Father Mulvaney would recite some prayers before offering the final blessing. Like most parishioners, except for the little old ladies who fingered their rosary beads through seven Masses a week because they had no one to care for at home, most parishioners had the sense of fulfillment that comes from satisfying an obligation.

“God Bless You. In the Name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.’’ Those were the words Father Mulvaney should be saying now. But instead he cleared his throat and said he had an announcement to make.

Like a broken note, his words pierced Mary’s consciousness. Father Mulvaney was a creature of habit. Even after most priests had stopped using the incense to signal the divine offering to Jesus and God, he kept it up, to the point of adding “incense offering’’ once a month to the donations expected of parishioners.

“As you know there is an effort underway to reverse the Supreme Court decision that allowed gay marriage in Massachusetts,’’ he was saying now. “The bishop joins me in asking all Catholics to support this effort by signing petitions against gay marriage that will be made available in the church next weekend. Please plan to join all good Catholics in this effort.’’

Clearing his throat again, the priest returned to the final prayers of  Mass.

Mary sat frozen in her seat and then something happened that startled her even more. On the opening chord of  the closing hymn, an errant note broke the sweet sound of “Amazing Grace.’’ To Mary the sound crashed down from the organ like a roll of thunder.

Maria had made a mistake. Maria, who composed whole symphonies for her music students. Maria who played a dozen instruments. Maria whose very essence breathed music. Mary couldn’t bring herself to turn around. After a second that seemed an eternity, Maria’s fingers found the right notes and the song continued.

To most parishioners, who waited just long enough for the priest to pass them before they bolted toward the exits, the error was barely noticeable. To Mary, it was a broken record, scratching deep into her soul. She felt like she did over three decades ago, when Father Mulvaney caught Mary red handed opening the door to the tabernacle under the statue of the Virgin Mary on a Saturday afternoon, pulling out the Host and showing it to her friend Susan.

Outside, Mary nearly ran to the car, opened the door, shut it firm and sat still. She saw Maria walking out of the church, giving a quick wave to the others filing out. Then she heard the sound of the car door opening and the ignition starting as her hand turned the key.

As the car started the stereo blared. Maria always told her she played her music too loud.
Mary would always turn it up louder to tease her before turning it down. Today, she just turned it off.

They drove under a cascade of sunlight filtered through the overhanging trees, which on this fall day wore the color of the town they were driving through. Orange. It wasn’t until they got home that the silence ended.

Maria sobbed, telling her Father Mulvaney deliberately refused to give her communion, saying she could never go back.

“Why did you ever talk me into coming back to the Church,’’ she cried.

Mary stroked Maria’s thick dark hair.

“It’ll be all right,’’ she said.

But Maria snapped her head up. Her dark eyes looked like black labyrinths of pain.

“Don’t you get it?” she said. “They hate us.”

Mary looked deep into her eyes. “They can’t hate us,’’ she said. “We’re one of them.’’

Back inside the 18th century farmhouse they had worked so hard to make livable, the silence surrounded them like a shroud. Mary made coffee but couldn’t bring herself to make the pancakes that were a Sunday tradition. She wandered through the house with the cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other as Maria sat in her music room, shutting out the world with her headphones. Mary found the wedding album, lingered on the radiantly happy faces that posed at the small Provincetown Inn, saw the closeup of the linked fingers with matching gold bands.

A small group of family and friends clapped in the background. There was Mary’s brother Mike, who always looked to Mary more like a lumberjack than the environmental lawyer he was.

There was Mary’s brother Martin, the construction worker turned real estate agent, who came without his wife and kids and smiled slightly in the background with her mother. By then, her mother had already developed Alzheimer’s. They brought her to the service anyway, and she smiled vacantly.

The father she adored had died a few years before of cancer. Mary wondered how the shy, hard working man with the wry sense of humor would have felt if he had known.

Even then Mary couldn’t bring herself to believe her mother was really happy for her. Long before her memory faded she seemed to shut out any thought that was slightly uncomfortable. Or maybe she just worked hard at looking like she shut out such thoughts. Her brother Mike told Mary once how her mother reacted when he told her Mary was not like other girls.

It took Mary 36 years to realize it herself. She had met Maria in a music education class. It didn’t take long for the red-headed French-Irish woman to realize the feelings she had for the dark haired Italian friend were unlike any she had ever had before. She resisted the feelings for months, eventually losing touch with Maria before finding her again in of all places her mother’s church, where Maria was substituting for the regular organist.

Mary couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother, so her brother, who had come to his own grudging acceptance the year before, offered.

“Mary was raised to be a good Catholic girl,’’ her mother had said. “She’s under a lot of stress. It’s just a phase. I don’t want to hear one more word about this, ever again.’’

It was shortly after that that her mother started forgetting things. Mary was sure that the conversation with her brother was the first thing that was erased from her memory. When her mother unexpectedly died of a stroke a few years later, Mary wept openly for the first time in her life, not only because her mother was gone but because they had never really known each other.

Maria’s sister was at the wedding, but not her parents. They lived in Providence, Rhode Island, where they ran a popular Italian restaurant on a hill. Providence was only a little more than an hour’s distance by car, but they were a universe away from her world.

Ever since Maria had broken off her engagement to Mike Sciavone the day before they were to be married, her parents had never forgiven her. Mike was a distant cousin who worked in the restaurant and Maria and Mike were the heirs apparent to “Manga. Manga,’’ the busy little restaurant on Federal Hill that packed them in every night with reasonably priced specials like “Eggplant Manga Manga’’ at $9.95 and “Vince’s Veal Scallopini’’ at $10.95.

Maria cried the night before her first wedding, and she cried at the wedding she actually made it to.

But Mary didn’t cry at the wedding and she didn’t shed a tear now either. She didn’t even get angry at what had happened at the church that day. In some way she always knew this collision between body and soul was inevitable. It was her cross to bear that she couldn’t give up her faith and live comfortably in her own flesh.

So she did what she always did in times of crisis. Logic took over.

If Jesus loves everyone and the church is his church, how could the church not love them? She picked up the favorite fountain pen that Maria had given her for Christmas one year. Before they moved in together, Mary had won Maria’s heart with a poem she had written. Maria told her it was beautiful, but it would be even more beautiful if Mary wrote it in her own handwriting.

“Jeez,’’ Mary said. “You want the world..’’

But she stayed up all night writing it meticulously in her own hand.

Now, she sat down to write a letter to Father Mulvaney as a thought played through her mind. “We are not sinners, but even if we were, Jesus loves all sinners, doesn’t he?”

At least that’s what she was always taught in the church and in Catholic school. But even before she went to school, she had learned that Jesus was the essence of  love. The essence of her own love was a much harder lesson to learn.


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Love … does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
1 Corinthians

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Father Mulvaney was thumbing through his mail as he sipped a cup of hot tea in front of the fireplace. It was early afternoon on a Tuesday and his work was nearly done. He had already said the 9 a.m. Mass at the church. There was a time when the church was nearly full but now it was nearly empty. It got a little more empty after every Funeral Mass, and, judging by the white hair of the parishioners left, it would grow emptier still.

He had delivered the bishop’s message against gay marriage Sunday. Today he had visited the shut-ins - the sick, feeble and old parishioners who were too weak to make it to church but needed their daily spiritual sustenance just the same. The only exception was Mrs. Morrison, who was still young at 44 and apparently healthy, except for the fact she could not venture outside her front door without experiencing a panic like the one sinners experience in the throes of death.

Technically she was an agoraphobic, but Father Mulvaney always asked her how her cold was. Mrs. Morrison herself didn’t want to know she was afraid of the world. And she didn’t want anyone else to know either.

Her husband had long ago left her, but Mrs. Morrison still got a piece of his check even though they never had children. She always insisted on making the priest tea, and even though he had already had more than enough, he always graciously accepted.

The letters to Father Kevin Mulvaney ran the gamut from bills to the occasional note from parishioners. Some included a check and a note of thanks for the wonderful job he did at their child’s baptism or father’s funeral. Once in a great while, there was one where the writing nearly fell off the page and the parishioner was pleading for help. Father Mulvaney had referred a few to AA meetings held at his church every Thursday night. The meetings were run by another parishioner, whom Father Mulvaney welcomed in before retiring to the rectory to pour himself a few thumbfuls of whiskey.

Sometimes he thought he should join the group and sometimes he thought he drank in spite of it.

After all these years there was one letter that remained burned into his memory. It was the one from the Irish lad he knew very well. He was the first of eight O’Donoghue sons. Father Mulvaney had never heard from him before but his words were ones he would never forget.

Later the priest would realize, too late, that it was a suicide note. The young man described an impossible story. He said that Father O’Connor, the up and coming young priest who ran one of the largest parishes in Worcester, had befriended him when he was just a boy, only to violate him before he dreamed of being a man.

A sick sense of dread and shame filled Father Mulvaney when he read the letter. He found himself repeating aloud the words his Irish mother uttered when his father dropped dead of a heart attack at 47.  “What am I to do? What am I to do?’’

After some pacing back and forth he decided he would visit the young man. Wasn’t it possible he had just imagined all this? Or was he in the grip of some mental illness or drug abuse? Had he told his parents?

Father Mulvaney put on his coat and hat and drove out under storm clouds to the O’Donoghue’s house. When he got there he had to park nearly a block away because of all of the cars parked outside. When Mrs. O’Donoghue answered the door he didn’t have to ask for her son. He could tell by her red rimmed eyes and slumped body that he was already dead.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. O’Donoghue,’’ he remembered saying those 20 years ago.

“Oh Father. Father, it was so good of you to come,’’ she said in her Irish brogue. “I just don’t know why he did it. For the life of me, I have asked myself over and over again, why he did it. I called Father O’Connor. He was very close to him you know, but he said he couldn’t get away. Did he ask you to come?”

“No,’’ said Father Mulvaney. “I just thought I should.’’

The next day he had gone out to visit Father O’Connor. The cathedral on the hill near downtown Worcester seemed like the Houses of Parliament. When he got inside the rectory, Father O’Connor seemed more like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company than a priest as he sat in a large leather chair behind an enormous oak desk.  He denied everything and told Father Mulvaney that the O’Connor boy was always a little “off, if you know what I mean.” He hoped Father Mulvaney wasn’t so misguided as to bring this thing any further. If he did, he would suggest to the bishop that Father Mulvaney himself needed to get his head checked out.

Father Mulvaney remembered the sleepless weeks that followed. Could the boy have been delusional? Father Mulvaney remembered the rumors about some priests at the seminary, who were said to be fond of each other. But a boy? The O’Donoghue boy had said O’Connor began violating him when he was just 10 years old.

Up until then, Father Mulvaney had not been a drinking man. But that night he threw back a half bottle of Jameson’s whiskey before finally throwing the dead boy’s letter into the fire.

Just a few years ago Father Mulvaney began remembering that night over and over again. It was around the time that the newspapers reported that Father O’Connor had been accused by 12 other boys of molesting them. People more brave than Father Mulvaney had reported him, but the bishop had just moved O’Connor from the Worcester parish to smaller parishes in Spencer, then Barre, before O’Connor finally took a long leave from the priesthood. Soon the names of other priests followed, some of whom Father Mulvaney had considered good men.

When Father Mulvaney told his parents he had found his calling and wanted to become a priest, it was as if he announced that he was becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Such was the esteem priests were held in in those days. But now Father Mulvaney stopped wearing his collar when he went out to the town on his errands. By the backward glances of those he met, it seemed that the sins of the few had made all priests suspects.

He prayed every night that God would forgive the Church for placing itself above the children. He asked God to forgive him and all the other priests who suspected the worst and did nothing. He knew God was all forgiving. What he didn’t know was that it was not God’s forgiveness he needed, but his own.

He was still thinking about this when he opened the letter. It contained a little address sticker with a drawing of two kittens playing above the name M. Frechette-Abruzzione. He did not recall the name as one of his parishioners. The opened envelope revealed a letter written in meticulous penmanship, with the flourish of a fountain pen dotting every ‘I’ and crossing every ‘T.’

Dear Father Mulvaney:

The Bible says there are three gifts to be cherished above all others: faith, hope and love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

For the last year I have given my love to the church and its children as teacher of its Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes. I am a baptized, lifelong Catholic who was raised to believe that the church is my rock and my salvation and that God is good and kind. God brought me many forms of love and many ways to love.
It is God who brought me the love of my life. At first I couldn’t accept this gift of  love, but it was through God that I finally learned to rejoice with the truth. The love of my life has also given a gift to the church: the gift of music.

The church’s crusade against gay marriag has broken my heart. I am one of the couples who made history in Massachusetts last May by marrying the person I love. The love of my life happens to be a woman. We both happen to be good Catholics who educate the children and provide the beautiful hymns at Mass every Sunday.
We have not shared news of our marriage with anyone at the church, but we will not deny who we are. The message we received last week is that we are no longer welcome. My Maria cried a river of tears because she believes you deliberately didn’t give her Communion, pretending that you ran out of the Host. How could this church reject love when Jesus says we should not even reject sinners?. In the meantime, please accept my resignation as CCD teacher and Maria Frechette- Abruzzione’s resignation as music director.

Sincerely,

Mary Frechette-Abruzzione.

At the end of the letter was a notation saying that it had been copied to Mrs. Anne Laplante, chairwoman of the parish council. Before he could begin to contemplate the words and the relationship of the friendly Italian woman who played the organ and the red-headed French-Irish girl who taught CCD, the ring of the telephone interrupted Father Mulvaney’s thoughts.

It was Mrs. Laplante. She had just read the letter and wanted to see him right away. She arrived clutching the copy of the letter and began pacing back and forth the minute after she walked through the door.

“Father. I know what you think and I know what the bishop thinks, but I need to tell you something I’ve never told you before.’’

Was Mrs. Laplante now going to tell him she was a lesbian too? Father Mulvaney thought years ago nothing would surprise him anymore, but now he wasn’t so sure. He studied her more closely. No, she did not have any masculine qualities, but aren’t some of them feminine?

Her words interrupted his hypothesis.

“Father I know you know that I was devastated by the loss of my son Jeremy. He was the pride and joy of my life. He was kind and caring and brilliant and handsome. He was a doctor but he couldn’t cure himself. I know we told everyone that he had a rare, incurable form of cancer, but the truth is, Father, Jeremy had AIDS. When he died his companion wanted to stand in the receiving line and my husband, God rest his soul, refused. We had not seen Jeremy in eight years before he died. He never came home again after my husband disowned him when he told us he was gay. Father, for the past three years, I have gotten up in the morning and gone to bed at night with one prayer on my mind. That Jeremy will forgive us for not loving him for who he is. I know the church has taught that homosexuality is wrong, but I believe that God made all of his children special and different for his own special purpose. I beg you to consider the work that Mary and Maria have done for the church. I always suspected they were gay, but I’ve always known they have good, loving souls. The church needs them Father. Our church needs them. Maybe God sent them to us to teach us something about love and forgiveness.’’

Mrs. Laplante was calm and her words were measured, but the intensity of her emotion was betrayed by her eyes. Father Mulvaney was silent for a moment before clearing his throat.

“Mrs. Laplante, years ago I got a letter from a young man who said he was sexually abused by a priest. I have regretted every day since then that I never brought his allegations to the bishop. Now I am again faced with a decision on whether to consult the bishop. I know if I do he will tell me to accept these women’s resignations. I know if I do the church will lose two fine souls whose talents enrich our Masses. This is a church built on faith and doctrine. I am a man bound by rules and traditions. I have faith in God but have lost faith in the goodness of men.’’

He hesitated a moment, but Mrs. Laplante said nothing.
“Maybe the question to ask is not what would the church do, but what would Jesus do?’’ Father Mulvaney said. “I think Jesus loved saints and sinners alike. I think he revealed that some thought to be sinners had the hearts of saints. I am tired, Mrs. Laplante. I am 72 years old. Nothing is as it seemed when I entered the seminary so many years ago. But maybe nothing is as it seemed because life was never meant to be so black and white. I am tired of doctrine and in need of faith. I believe these women are God’s children and God never abandons his children.’’

The tears that were straining at Mrs. Laplante’s eyelids finally crested and ran down her face. She stepped forward and grabbed the priest and hugged him.

“You are a good man Father. I hope you know that.’’

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“The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Galatians 5:14
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After he closed the door he rustled through the phone book and found the number of Mary Frechette-Abruzzione. Her voice was guarded when he told her who he was and why he was calling. But he could feel the smile through the phone when he told her that he wanted her first to know that he did not intentionally pass over her … her companion in the communion line.

“Honest to God,’’ he said. “I forgot all about her. Please tell her how sorry I am. Now, regarding my sermon, I want you to know I had no idea of your, your status. The bishop has asked every church to deliver this message about gay marriage. But God …. And I must ask you to keep this conversation confidential … God alone can judge. I have talked with our parish council president about this, this matter, and she advises me that perhaps you two have been sent here to teach us something. So, please accept my sincere thanks for all of the work that you have done and all that I hope you will do for us in the future. Please don’t resign.’’

Mary Frechette-Abruzzione was beside herself with relief. She had been on the verge of exploding into a rage when the priest first called. Could this really be the same stern priest who had chased her and her friend Susan out of the Sacristy so many years ago? This must be a miracle.

But before she let him hang up, she had a question. “Father, I know you have your marching orders, but I can’t tell you how hurtful it would be if you passed around those petitions next weekend and asked everyone to sign them. Isn’t there something short of that you could do?”

There was a silence on the phone before the priest finally spoke. “Well, I suppose I could just leave them in the church foyer. I suppose that would be enough.’’

“Thank you so much father,’’ Mary said. “God bless you.’’

Maria could hardly believe it when Mary delivered the news. She couldn’t believe it the next Sunday either when the priest did not utter a word about the petitions during his sermon. But as she left the church that day she noticed some of the older parishioners signing the papers that declared their opposition to the union of Marys and Marias all over Massachusetts.

Mary noticed it too. She also noticed in the morning newspaper that many of the petitions had been ruled null and void by the secretary of state because they had been written on or tampered with after they were signed.

So, for the first time in years, Mary hatched one of the devilish plans that had so amused her friends years ago. In  the dead of night, she dragged a reluctant Maria out to the car after insisting she dress all in black.

They knew that Father Mulvaney left the church open all night on Sundays for parishioners who wanted time alone to pray. The parking lot was empty when they drove up just before midnight. Mary cut off her lights and let the car glide to a stop on neutral so as not to disturb the priest in the nearby rectory. Trying to muffle their giggles, the two women eased open the church door and rifled through the petitions left in haphazard piles on the counter in the foyer.

Maria wanted to read all the names written on them, but Mary stopped her. “Don’t torture yourself,’’ she said. “They don’t necessarily hate us, they’re just doing what they think they have been told to do.’’

Then she took out a thick red magic marker and uncorked it, sniffing it giddily before drawing its first blood. One by one, she scrawled the words over the names written on the petition. One by one, she effectively made them ineligible to be counted at the secretary of state’s office for a statewide referendum on gay marriage.

“LOVE THY NEIGHBOR.’’

Finally finished, she grabbed Maria in a tight embrace and kissed her deeply on the lips.

“Mary Frechette,’’ Maria whispered. “Are you crazy?’’

“Crazy in love with you. Because even though you’re weird, you’re the most beautiful soul God has ever created.’’

They walked arm in arm out of the church, stopping to dip their fingers in the holy water before they left. A full moon illuminated them as they made their way back to the car under the tall oak trees. Just before they got there a leaf drifted down from the heavens and Maria caught it in her hand.

She traced the orange skin and the brown veins with her fingers. This leaf was like so many others that fell from the skies, but God had made it with a pattern and a hue and a purpose all its own.


Inside the car, Maria heard the rustling of paper as she sat down. She pulled it out from under her and instantly recognized Mary’s writing. She turned down the stereo and read it aloud. Outside a light rain was falling just as the first tear fell from Maria’s eyes.

MY SOUL FRIEND

In this lifetime
I can find familiar faces
Run my fingers across the traces
Of an existence planned and unplanned
In this lifetime
I can recognize
Nuances in word and movement
Gestures fond and familiar
A language I can understand
In this lifetime
I can live up to expectations
And in a world of my imagination
In this lifetime
I can find you, lose you
and find you again
My Anam Cara
My soul friend.