My Name Is Not Easy - By Debby Dahl Edwardson Page 0,75
affi
davits, and all he said was,
“I see.”
What else could he say?
“I see.”
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18/07/2011 8:25 PM
Good Friday
MARCH 27, 1964
Father Mullen needs a break. Lord knows he needs a break. He needs a break from all those brats and their nonsense. Th at’s
why he’s here, isn’t it, walking the deserted beach of Seward, Alaska, which seems suddenly calm. Too calm. He sighs, thinking unaccountably of his mother. He doesn’t remember her, of course. He was just a baby. But sometimes, at odd moments, he feels her presence. It seems by turns to be both an admonishment and a comfort.
Lord knows he could use some comfort now.
He picks up a stone and tries to send it skating across the rolling, smooth skin of the sea the way he used to do on the pond back home in Missouri when he was a boy. It sinks on the fi rst skip. He watches it, absently, thinking about those Native boys, the ones he’s supposed to mold into Christians, the ones trying to break their thick, senseless skulls against the mold. Th
e beach is full of fl at, smooth stones perfect for skip-ping, but Father seems to have lost the knack.
In the sanctuary at Sacred Heart School, hundreds of miles 228
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G O O D F R I D A Y
north of Seward, Father Flanagan pauses, briefl y, to wonder if they aren’t overdoing it a bit, making these kids sit through Mass more than once in the same day. Even if it is Good Friday. Making them say Mass every day, for that matter. Th
ere are better ways to model Christian charity, one would hope.
Luke Aaluk, in the bathroom at the Sacred Heart dorm, doesn’t think much of Christian charity, but he would agree with the part about overdoing it. He stares at his refl ection in the steamy mirror of the shower room, altogether sick of stepping out of squeaky showers, freezing cold, of getting dressed in stiff white shirts and choking ties and mumbling the words to Mass over and over until none of it makes any sense in any language. When he goes home, he’ll for sure go the rest of his life without ever taking one more single stinking shower or wearing one more stiff white shirt or sitting through one more mumbling Mass. Th
at’s his particular vow for this particular Good Friday, and he thinks it’s a good one.
Chickie Snow is not inclined to make vows right now. She takes her cookie and her glass of milk and sits down neatly at the table, all alone in the cafeteria. It’s a secret she and Sister Mary Kate share: her own private treat ever since that time when she fi rst came to Sacred Heart and got lost in the woods.
Fresh cookies and milk.
Even though she hasn’t said it out loud, she thinks of 229
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
Bunna and feels those words catch in her throat: fresh cookies and milk.
Milk. Bunna never liked milk.
Donna kneels on the cold fl oor of the Sacred Heart chapel, feeling that wordless sense of understanding that comes sometimes. She can’t quite say what it is she understands, but it makes her feel happy, fi lled with a sense of belonging as wide as the ocean. It comes to her when she least expects it: in the hush of Sister Sarah’s garden, in the sweet soprano of all their voices singing together, and right here, in the dusky, cold sanctuary with the swish of Father Flanagan’s robes, whispering against the edge of it like slow waves on an endless beach.
Sister Sarah kneels, too, nearly invisible in the darkness. Her old joints ache, stiff against the chill air. When she kneels too long, it always hurts to stand again. On days like today, she wants to pray to put a stop to it all.
No, don’t make me stand again. Let me go home.
Amiq, stepping out of the shower, studies his face in the mirror. Th
e Saint Christopher medal Donna gave him hangs on the metal shelf below the mirror. Saint Christopher Protect Us, it pleads. Amiq only takes it off when he showers and hardly ever looks at it anymore. Like it’s a part of him. He looks at it now and is suddenly struck by how strange it