ELEVEN
Ellen stood and left me standing there, my mouth still hanging open. I decided that getting out of the house was indeed the best thing to do. I spun the chair she’d been sitting in around and sat down in front of the mirror. I ran a brush through my hair as I argued with people who weren’t even there. Peter held the first position on my list. Tucker had managed to manipulate my fiancé into going into business with him. Tucker was looking to worm his way into the family, and their partnership had helped legitimize the bastard. In a separate confrontation, I had an imaginary conversation with Ellen, telling her that she was out of her cotton-picking mind if she thought I’d act as bridesmaid. Then I realized that I was acting petty, even if only in my own imagination.
I put down the brush and looked at myself in the mirror. The woman I saw squinted angrily back at me. I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t like how my feelings toward Tucker affected me. Maybe the man truly was trying to change? Maybe he was helping Peter get started in business as an olive branch to me? Ellen seemed to think he was worthy. Maybe I should do my best to accept him? Then the wave broke, and my dislike for the man washed over the levee of tolerance I’d started to build. Anyone other than Tucker.
I needed a quiet place to stop the noise in my head. I put on some sunscreen and moisturizer, a touch of pink lip gloss, and then drew on a little eyeliner. I changed into a very modest, nearly formal sundress with a collar that covered me up to the clavicle and a skirt that fell a tad below the knee. Then I went to church.
Other buildings had jostled their way in, robbing the towers of St. John’s Cathedral of their position as the most prominent feature in the Savannah skyline. None, though, had matched their soaring beauty. However, like an allegory in stucco, the French Gothic beauty of the exterior couldn’t begin to match the grace of the vaulted interior. I stepped through the doors, instantly comforted by the haint blue of the cathedral’s spangled ceiling and arches. I took a seat in the second row behind the font, and sat quietly, enjoying the play of the light that was filtering through the stained glass windows. My family and I weren’t Catholic. We weren’t Protestant. Frankly, we weren’t allied with any formal religion, but I had always loved St. John’s. Regardless of your religious affiliation, a sense of peace and holiness filled the cathedral. Tourists filtered inside, most of them appropriately respectful of the sanctity of the place, others a tad too boisterous as they snapped their photos. Loud or quiet, all were struck by the beauty they encountered. I closed my eyes, letting their exclamations and the sound of clicking cameras weave into a tapestry of prayer. A prayer for guidance. A prayer for humility.
“Pardon me, miss.” A voice startled me. My eyes snapped open. “I am so sorry to disturb you,” a congenial-looking grandfather in a straw fedora and plaid shorts said. “Is your name Mercy?”
“Yes,” I said nodding, confused.
“Your mother asked me to tell you that she is waiting outside for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, my heart leaping. I jumped up and hurried out of the church. I stood on the top step and scanned the camera-toting crowd at the foot of the steps for my mother’s face, but I couldn’t spot her. I looked up and down the road, trying to catch sight of her car, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t you look pretty?” My mother’s voice projected itself out of another woman’s mouth. I rushed down the steps and up to a plump, middle-aged woman wearing an oversized neon-green St. Augustine T-shirt.
“Mama?” I asked, trying to reconcile the sound of my mother’s voice coming out of the stranger’s bright mauve lips. I looked deeply into the woman’s eyes, the lids of which had been painted nearly to the brow in dark turquoise.
“Yes, in a way. I’m borrowing this body for a few moments. I cannot hold it for long, but I needed to tell you I am thinking of you always. I am creating a sanctuary for us, a place where we can speak freely, and I can take the time to get to know my beautiful daughter. I will send for you as soon as I can.”
This was ridiculous. She had to come home and face her sisters. She couldn’t keep running. “But I have so many questions now. I need to understand what happened. I’m confused, Mama.” I said, but the woman just shook her head, looking at me as if I were mad.
“If you think I’m your mother, you sure are.” She walked several feet away from me, keeping a concerned eye on me until the friends she’d been waiting on made their way out of the church. She whispered to her cohorts, and the other two turned to glance at me. “Don’t look at her!” the first woman said. “Let’s just get out of here.” At that, the other two started laughing, and all three made their raucous way to the next stop on the tour. I’d just been marked down as another of Savannah’s oddities, but frankly that was the least of my concerns.