Part 32 (1/2)

Instead, I lie facedown on the carpet, repeating the prayer about God takingit, I feel the words sucked from my mouth into a vacuum where God is not My head's a hurricane, and to pray at all is like screa there, I rearet specifically gavethis week, these pieces caive them to you How touched I'd been when she handed them over, but I hadn't picked them up

I find in Mother's still-boxed books a Bible, floppy and old, its binding cracked and peeling like a batwing Opening it, I see Mother's name carefully inscribed: For Charlie Marie Moore, fro Mother Mary, Christ Mother Mary, Christes to h twelve of Psalm fifty-one What I see makes the skin of my scalp prickle, for the lines are marked in pale blue chalk A child's hand has draavy line in the side the lines I've been steered to-verses seven to twelve, which very deliberately traverse two sections of verse fro, I sit back on my feet and feel the flesh on my scalp creep I read the words (Later, I'll learn this is the hanging psallish prisoners as they approached the gallows) read to English prisoners as they approached the gallows) 7 True I was born guilty, a sinner even as my mother conceived me

8 Still, you insist on sincerity of heart; inteach me wisdom

9 Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make ladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice

II

11 Turn away your face frouilt

12 A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit

How odd, I think, for I never thought of Mother as particularly devout in childhood-she wasn't But it seenificant still

Only when I flip to nment-St Paul's letter to Jae after page, there are no other blue marks in the Bible, not one, until I reach the New Testae about teh thirteen Mother's childhood hand hasthe sae

Blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life that he pro te tempted by God” for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and He Himself tempts no one Rather each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches ives birth to death

This is not the parting of the Red Sea This is not a dead friend arisen fro out of the stone to the waves about to upendof a leper, nor a bullet hole entering the front ofthe head that wore it

As o, it uided , to make two notes I'd very e that I could be made new, that I am-have always been-loved

I see the s like a shi+thouse rat into her own torned we are for each other I feel in a bone-deep way the degree to which I'm watched over-how everyone is And howas I eled out for souzzling of it-like what a baby gets at the breast The es,time, and sometime near dawn, enius what are the odds-in teres would've been marked of all the verses possible And she says, Very slender

Seeing the , I kneere born to be together a long tio Maybe you do now, too

Mock that experience as random chance if you like, but from then on, I start to arrive in the instant as never before, standing up in it as if pushed from behind like a wave, for it feels as if I was ht take-not to prove myself worthy but to refine the worth I'e it, own it, spend it on others

Easter, I visit Father Kane, recently ensconced in the ho across froratitude I've occasionally nurtured and fertilized like a garden of black vines Which posture rankles hiet up, Mary, he said, you know damn well God loves you

And I do I (mostly) always do

I'd like to say I never waver from that place, but on a crowded subway, I still pine for a firearh by the tier had been siphoned out of an systee, said the older ones

I'm sick of this shi+t, she said She'd set her jaw to die fast, I think To lodge one last cry of outrage against Daddy's lingering five years' death, she let go in as , I said to her I just got used to you

Well, I'or How old was she? She'd lied so

Your husband's outside, Miz Karr, the nurse said when one of her suitors showed up, hat in hand

He must look like hell He's been dead two decades