Contrition
by Kathryn Haig
Snowflakes, heavy and dark, fell upon her lashes as she sat in the church’s courtyard, keeping Mary company. Or perhaps Mary was keeping her company. She could never quite tell who was doing who a favor and suspected that was exactly how Mary wanted it. Having tossed her gray jacket over one of the simple iron benches, her arms were naked, her skin rippling with gooseflesh as the biting air ravaged it. She didn’t mind. In fact, she preferred it that way, though she couldn’t decide if it was because the cold made her feel something or because it eventually made her feel nothing.
Before the statue of the Holy Virgin stood a small birdbath from which delicate icicles hung – water arrested, frozen in time and prevented from continuing along the cycle, from soaking into the ground, evaporating, condensing, and starting anew. The slate pavers were covered in an undisturbed dusting of snow, having begun after her arrival. No one ever found her here, not as they did at home or school, at work or Mass, in the grocery store or the dusty reference section of the library, where she had taken to flipping through dictionaries – snuffed, quietus, expiry, passed, dissolution. They would come across her, pause, stare, and, after pretending politeness with a small nod or wave, turn around and hurry back the way they came.
Leaning with her head upon Mary’s cold, bare foot, the girl closed her eyes and pictured his gravestone, imagining her fingers running over the grooves of his name and epitaph – Lost are those who find me, and found are those who lose their way. She wondered if he had come up with that, written it on a stray napkin their father found in his desk or in the notebook their mother now slept with, one of the many tidbits of wisdom rolling from his head to the page, part of some larger story he never had the chance to see through. She wondered why she didn’t stay with him that day, why she had simply rolled her eyes when his paddling turned frantic, and why she had stood paralyzed at her open window after hearing the dull thump, watching a halo of red seep from his head as he drifted away from the wall.
“Boy Has Seizure in Backyard Pool, Drowned at 14 with Older Sister at Home,” read the headlines.
“Why do the things we love hurt us, Mary?”
Silence from the Blessed Mother, from the Father and the Son, from the Holy Spirit and the angels. Silence from her parents who told her it wasn’t her fault but failed to realize she can hear everything said in the pantry from the vent in her room, from her friends who didn’t know what to say or think, and from the neighbors whose abruptly halted whispers left echoes when she passed. Silence for the negligent sinner.
She shivered then sighed. Rising, she reached for her jacket and turned to her companion, studying her serene face, her warm eyes, her smooth hair, the soft smile on her lips. Interlocking her stiff fingers, the girl bowed her head, as she always did when it came time to depart.
“With all my heart, Mary.”
Turning toward the church, she ran her finger along the edge of the birdbath, allowing each icicle to fall back into the earth.
