Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Chapter 3 - God Takes the Saints Early

18 H u n g ry H i l l that’s why the judges picked me.” He’s not listening, I can tell. There is a minute of silence until we reach Forbes, where the security guard is unlocking the front doors, and I jump out of the car and ride the escalator to the teen floor. Hoping that blackness will hide my perspiration, I buy the black peasant blouse with an elastic collar and three-quarter length sleeves and a new black straight skirt, spending twenty-four dollars in all. = 3. God Takes the Saints Early “God takes the saints early.” John Dowd, a white-haired man with a crew cut, shakes my hand, looking directly at me with his pale, watery blue eyes as he canonizes my mother on the first night of her wake. The saint remark brings out a chill on the back of my neck, making me think of my mother always ordering me to do some chore and my yelling back at her to ask one of my brothers for a change. “Why me?” I’d shout. How does Mr. Dowd know my mother is a saint? She, Elizabeth Marie McCue O’Malley, mother of eight, has not had time even to perform the three miracles required by the Catholic Church for sainthood. Maybe Mr. Dowd, with his acne-scarred skin and his petite blonde wife waiting patiently behind him, has had a course in funeral remarks at Holy Cross, the Jesuit college that is sometimes called the Cross. Now, because of him, because of the saint remark, I have to pretend that my mother is a saint. I feel all tight inside because I am not ready to canonize my mother. For me, my mother was enemy territory. But now that she’s dead I can no longer enter that motherdaughter minefield. The Thomas P. Sampson Funeral Home, the Liberty Street branch, is crowded. All of Hungry Hill is here. The folding chairs are full, mostly with women. It seems as if the men are sneaking off. The evening has a party feel to it. My father has lined us up in age order, so I am standing at the head of the line between Michael and Danny. My father thanks people for coming, so I start to copy him, smiling until I remember this is a wake so I should try to look serious. The neck of my blouse has slipped down to my shoulder, and I’m pulling it up when my father leans over to me. A Memoir 19 “Fix your blouse in the ladies’ room and take care of your brother Joey on the way.” “I’ve already fixed my blouse.” “Well, go see to your brother, then.” Joey stands on the side, where he is kicking the leg of a folding chair. Joey, seven and in second grade, has a fierce temper, making me, at thirteen, half-afraid he will kick me. “Daddy wants you to stop kicking the chair.” “Make me.” “Look, Dad sent me over. He said that Mr. Sampson would ask you to leave,” I say, improvising, though I think it could happen. “You’re lying.” He kicks the chair again. A gray-haired woman in a folding chair looks at us, frown lines deepening between her eyebrows as she twists her head, her cap of tight curls staying perfectly still. She purses her lips, opens the clasp of her pocketbook, reaches in, and pulls out a crystal rosary. “Joey, there are black scuff marks on the chair.” “So?” Joey puts his hands in his pockets. “What about standing next to Gerry? Where Daddy asked you to stand?” I suggest. The lady with the rosary makes the sign of the cross and kisses the crucifix, a devotion I usually—no, always—forget. Joey tugs at the sleeve of my blouse, pulling it way below my elbow. “What is it?” I ask, straightening my sleeve. “I’m not standing next to him. He’s a crybaby. Look, Carole.” I turn to look at Gerry who is wiping tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand as Joey kicks the chair again. “Joey, did you see the flowers from Cerago’s, we, us kids, sent to Mom? Can you find them? I will give you a clue. Read the writing on the ribbon. Dad sent them for us, but all our names are on the card.” “Is my name on the card?” “Yep. See...