Absolution

by Alice McDermott

Holding the lovely child, I felt that gentle, familiar stirring of the blood, that physical tug—a literal movement, it seemed to me, of heart, of breath. I felt that gentle,

persistent stirring, longing, that hunger—the insistence no disappointment or sensible reordering of expectations could ever evade. I would have a child of my own. “What’s her name?” I asked, as I took her hand and kissed her little palm. Minh-Linh’s friend said, “Suzie,” nearly a shout. Charlene and I both laughed. And then Charlene said, “She’s yours.”

“Where there is love,” Charlene told me, patiently translating Minh-Linh’s words, “a smallpox scar is as charming as a dimple.”

She gazed at me. As disheveled as she was with the heat, she should not have managed such a cool, an icy, appraisal.

“You,” she said. And paused to let a particular loud band of motor scooters pass by on the street. “You can’t go to church without his permission, yet he doesn’t bother to tell you he’s quit. He’s booked your flight home.”

How many words are there for joy? I’ve heard other mothers say it, you said it yourself: the world begun again, in beauty and innocence, in goodness and hope. And entirely in your care.

INCONSEQUENTIAL GOOD, you said, describing your mother’s life, all her little efforts.

You needn’t apologize for the dizzying delight you felt, finding the doll on Dominic’s shelf, seeing again Lily’s careful handiwork. I would have felt the same. Something to take home. Something to preserve. Something of the girl in every small bit of thread, who she was, may still be.

On this third trip, Lily stayed behind. She would not be parted from her twin, your mother said. Her heart. Her own. And the Sisters gave up trying to dissuade her. Marcia Case, your mother wrote, is absolutely furious with me. Lily was her favorite girl.