The Patron Saint of Ugly by Marie Manilla

Author:Marie Manilla [Manilla, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

In the narthex, Betty pulled mantillas from her purse for Mom and her to drape over their heads and took out a doily for me. As I pinned it to my hair I tried not to think of a blue pillowcase tucked in my underwear drawer. Inside the sanctuary Nicky was kneeling in a pew, head bowed, eyes shut. Ray-Ray sat behind him drawing anatomically correct stick figures in a hymnal. Mom slid into the last pew to read some novel, her crisp page-turning the only other noise in that hallowed nave besides the penitents clicking rosary beads.

Betty and I padded up the side aisle toward the confessional booths, three cell-like chambers, each with its own door. The larger, middle one belonged to Father Luigi. Red lights glowed above the two smaller doors, indicating that some poor schmuck was spilling his guts in one and another schmuck was waiting his turn. Finally, the left door opened and out came the sinner, eyes to the floor. Aunt Betty went in and I wondered, as always, what sinful thoughts she harbored. Lusting after muscle cars. Loving her dead husband more than this new one. Infanticide. I could easily imagine Uncle Dom’s offenses crusting his soul, though taking beatings for my father absolved him somewhat. I had also keenly studied Ray-Ray’s face whenever he exited the booth: he was always wearing a vacant ax-murderer scowl.

When it was my turn I entered and knelt, and eventually Father Luigi slid open the screen that separated us. I studied Father’s shadowy profile (and Abe Lincoln’s) as he made the sign of the cross. I began: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . .” then admitted my failings: Fighting with Nicky. Not doing my homework. Before doling out his penance, Father uttered his usual prayer. “May the person truly responsible for this child’s affliction repent of her sins.” I suffered his dig at Mom and tiptoed out of the booth to begin my prescribed prayers, though I thought that suffering through Father Luigi and Caruso was expiation enough. My other penance was to loiter in the narthex and allow all the First Friday nonnas to brush my cheek or touch my hair, letting them have some tangible element that they would run home to smear on their ailing kin. I had learned that it was useless to deny them.

Afterward, Mom and Aunt Betty walked home arm in arm. Nicky ambled somberly behind them with his hands in his pockets, as if he were still in the confessional booth or wishing he were because he’d left out one important thing. He’d been walking around like that a lot lately, especially after Dom and Betty’s last poker party at our house. Nicky and Ray-Ray had once again disappeared after supper, and not only did Nicky not come out of his room the next day for poker change, he didn’t even come out for Alka-Seltzer.

That postconfession day, even Ray-Ray must have sensed that Nicky was not to be harangued.

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