He Told Me I Lost Our Baby, and Five Years Later I Met Him at His Door novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Parish

The hall of St. Margaret's smelled of floor wax and coffee, and forty women were waiting for me in it.

I had not been told there would be forty.

I had asked the parish office for the burial register, and a woman at the desk had gone pale and said Mrs. Shanahan would want to speak to me about that.

By the time I came down the church steps, Oonagh's Wednesday circle had laid out the long tables for a funeral tea.

There was a white cake, and cups and saucers, and a silver urn.

She stood in the middle of it in a navy suit and her good pearls, with her rosary in her hand.

"Maureen," she said, loud enough for the back row. "Come in, child."

I stopped in the doorway.

Forty faces turned.

I knew some of them.

One woman had slipped me a dish of soda bread when I was a bride.

Another had sat on the porch of the Shanahan house the afternoon my cast came off and said not one word to me.

"We're so glad you're home," Oonagh said, coming across the linoleum with both hands out. "Nine years we've prayed for you to come back to your family."

"Five," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I've been gone five years. You said nine."

A ripple went down the tables.

She smiled and took my hand in both of hers.

Her fingers were dry and cool, and they pressed the bones of my knuckles together.

"The girl's overwrought," she told the room, in the voice of a woman who has done this before. "Sit down, Maureen. Have a cup of tea."

I took my hand out of hers.

"My name is Siobhan," I said. "I'll stand."

Somebody coughed.

The priest had come out of the vestry in his black shirt and collar, a tall stooped man with reading glasses on a cord.

He had married us.

I had knelt at his rail at twenty-two in white lace with a bouquet of cheap carnations.

I had believed, for about four months, that it was going to be a good life.

"Father," I said. "I asked your office for the register."

"Ah. Yes." He looked at Oonagh and then away. "Siobhan. You're welcome here, of course."

"I'm trying to find where my baby is buried."

The hall went silent.

I heard the urn tick as it cooled.

"I lost a child five years ago in March," I said, clearly, so the women at the back could hear.

"My dear girl," the priest began.

"I was told this parish buried him," I said. "There's no marker in the churchyard and no name in any ledger I've been shown. I'd like to know where he is, Father, and I'd like to know today."

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