Mimi Malloy, At Last! by Julia MacDonnell

Author:Julia MacDonnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador

Twenty

A MILLION DREAMS AGO

Cassie shows up on Ash Wednesday and she’s got Delilah in tow. Delilah, the head bobber. Pretty as a picture, my Delilah, all smooth and soft and blond, unlike Cassie, who has starved herself into sharp angles, bones sticking out everywhere. Of course, Cassie’s ten years older, in her forties, and who knows what Delilah will look like in ten more years. Delilah’s been married twice, her first marriage short, anything but sweet, and childless as well. Now she’s with a hunky Boston cop named Steve O’Neil. Her second time around seems to be going better. So far, their marriage has resulted in two daughters who look exactly like her—blond beauties, as if Steve, black Irish, got left on the deck of the gene pool.

Cassie, without enough to do, her own son Mikey grown if not exactly gone—he lives off the fat of the land in that big house in Hingham—has taken Delilah under her wing. As if Delilah can’t fend for herself. Every time I turn around, Cassie’s up there, at Delilah’s lovely home in Reading, telling her how to run her house and raise her kids and probably what to do in bed with Steve. Delilah just smiles and nods like it’s fine by her. I’ve already told Jo and Patty, this one’s gonna blow up in a year or so. The cop will have had it up to here with Cassie’s meddling and Delilah’s head-nodding, and I hope I’m living on another planet when it does.

The three of us get ashes at Our Lady Queen of Peace, where the priests make a big deal out of burning last year’s palms. We carry in our palms from last year, my daughters’ covered with a furry layer of dust, but mine is clean as a whistle. It spent the past year wrapped around the crucifix hanging over my bed, and was dusted on a regular basis. We stand around praying while the priest sets them on fire in this special marble bowl in the front of the church. My daughters watch, but I turn away. I hate the sight, the smell of anything burning. Never been one for candles, or even cookouts. Never wanted a fireplace. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. The fire in the marble bowl burns out, small wisps of smoke rising in the chilly air, wafting away. We stay for Mass, take communion, then go to lunch at my favorite seafood place over at Marina Bay, McCrann’s, my daughters treating.

Driving from the church to McCrann’s in Delilah’s SUV, an Excretion or Exterminator or some such thing—a vehicle I need help climbing into—I keep thinking about the words the priest whispered as he rubbed ashes onto our foreheads: “Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.” Remember man that thou art dust.

The hostess leads us to a leather booth where we can see Quincy Bay out the window, the three of us with smudges of ash on our foreheads.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.