Hail Mary

She was a beautiful woman, trapped inside of herself. I never knew anyone stronger than my mother, nor more vulnerable. Her strength showed when she stayed up long into the night, mending my clothes, when she worked extra shifts at the hospital so we could buy groceries, when she told my father, “No, Paul, you can’t see her this weekend, you’re not allowed.”

But then came the vulnerability—when she hung up the phone, and cradled her head in her hands. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” she whispered. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…”

I was nine, and the sound of my mother’s whispered prayers was soothing. I left the room to find her rosary beads, and carried them to her almost reverently, opening her hand and placing them on her open palm.

Her fingers twitched, and she opened her eyes and smiled. “Thank you, darling,” she murmured, and drew me close to her, stroking my hair—dark, like hers.

“Mama, what did Daddy say?”

She held me more tightly. “Daddy doesn’t want you to live with me anymore. But don’t worry, angel. I won’t let him separate us.”

I kissed her cheek and left her to her prayers. Mama was right; no one could tear us apart. It was only natural for a mother and daughter to be together. Mama said so every night when she tucked me in, after I said my prayers.

“Together forever, my sweet girl,” she’d say.

“Till Gabriel blows his horn,” I’d reply.

**

She cried more often as I grew older. Many days I’d come home from school and step from the brisk, autumn air into the dark, stuffy interior of our little apartment, where everything seemed to grow still. Outside, the wind whisked the leaves off the trees, but inside, everything slept—especially Mama.

It was rare for her to be awake when I came home. I didn’t mind though. I’d climb into bed with her and begin my homework, timing the scratching of my pencil to her breathing—my own private symphony. When I finished, I’d slip from bed and go into the kitchen, where I would call my best friend. We could only talk for ten minutes. Mama said that Daddy stole too many of our phone-time minutes for me to talk longer.

Mama would wake after dark, when she and I would make ourselves dinner and sit talking until it was time for me to go to sleep. I’d lie awake some nights, when I wasn’t tired, and listen to her talk on the phone.

“Don’t you dare call your lawyer, Paul. No, I don’t want you to send a letter to my attorney. You know I don’t have the money for it. No. No. You can’t talk to her, she’s sleeping. Stay away from my daughter, Paul. She’s mine. Do you hear me? Mine.”

I’d hear the click as she hung up, then the thump as she leaned against the wall, and, sliding her back down the wall, sit on the floor. Some nights I crept from my bed and peeked out my door (Mama always left it ajar). She’d hug her knees to her chest, rest her head on her arms, and cry—soft, miserable sobs that she muffled by covering her mouth or keeping her head down.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

I climbed back in bed, and prayed the same prayer. I didn’t know what it meant, but Mama prayed it so often that I thought maybe it helped her to feel better. After whispering the words over and over, often in the wrong order, I’d fall asleep, the prayer still falling from my lips.

“Pray for us sinners…now, and at the hour of our death…”

**

When I was ten, we spent two weeks studying fairy tales in school. My best friend, Jamie, liked Cinderella best.

“It’s the most romantic,” she said, laying her hand over her heart dramatically.

“It is not,” I argued.

“Yes it is. She’s stuck in that nasty old cellar, but then her fairy godmother comes and rescues her and she lives happily ever after with the prince. And those mean old stepsisters got what was coming to them.”

“And the stepmother,” I added.

“Yeah, her too,” Jamie said, looking satisfied.

“I like Beauty and the Beast.”

Jamie shrugged. “That one’s okay, I guess, but not as good as Cinderella.”

“It has a prince too.”

“But he’s ugly for most of the story.”

“I bet he’s more handsome than your old Cinderella prince,” I said. “I bet Cinderella’s prince was really mean. She just didn’t get to find out since she only saw him that one time before they got married.”

“The beast was mean,” Jamie pointed out. She looked smug.

“That’s because he was sick,” I explained.

Daddy was a beast, Mama said sometimes, but it was only because he was sick. Only it was in his head, not in his body.

At first I thought he could go to see a doctor, but Mama told me Daddy didn’t think he was sick, so he would always refuse. Then I very cleverly suggested medicines, but Mama said he didn’t think he was sick at all, and so didn’t do anything to help himself get better.

“He was not sick,” Jamie protested.

“Was so,” I said. “The beast was sick in his mind, and that’s why he was so ugly. Once he got better, at the end of the story—that’s when he looked good.”

“Maybe,” Jamie said.

I was glad that Mama kept me away from my father. I had seen only one picture of him. He looked like a beast, with his dark beard and dark, brown eyes. But he was handsome too, which made me think that someday he would get better, and we’d all be together again: handsome Daddy, the beast, exquisite Mama, the beauty, and me—the little rose that kept their love alive.

**

I was ten, and the sound of my mother’s whispered prayers at night was grating.

I dawdled after school. I didn’t want to go home to find my mother either asleep or crying. She said she worked while I was at school or after I had gone to bed at night, but she was always in the apartment at the same time as me, and I didn’t know how that could be true.

Maybe Mama had quit, and was going to get a better job.

Jamie and I played on the monkey bars that day.

“Why don’t you want to go home?” she asked, flipping upside down. Her pigtails dragged in the dirt.

I shrugged, swinging my legs back and forth, back and forth. “I just don’t. I want to stay and play with you.”

“My mother’s coming to get me in five minutes.” She held out the number on her hand, spreading her fingers wide.

“How do you know?”

Jamie showed me her new watch from her upside-down position.

“It’s pretty,” I said, admiring the way its face gleamed in the winter sun.

“Got it for Christmas. What’d you get?”

“Mama made me a new dress, and put some neat patches on my jeans. We had a real big turkey too.” Mama hadn’t eaten any of it, just told me that it was usually a man’s job to carve the turkey, but we could certainly manage. I didn’t think we’d done a very good job.

“Cool.” Jamie righted herself as a minivan pulled up near the playground. “Do you need a ride?”

I shook my head. “Nope. My mom will come and get me soon.” I was lying. We didn’t even have a car anymore. Mama said that Daddy had forced her to sell it so that she could fight to keep me.

“Okay, see you Monday!” Jamie waved over her shoulder as she ran to the minivan and settled herself into the front seat.

I trudged home. I had missed the bus, but the walk gave me time to enjoy the fresh air. Besides, it was almost warmer outside on the playground than it was inside our apartment. Mama said that Daddy had been taking her money so we couldn’t keep the house too hot.

“But that’s okay, isn’t it, darling? Hell is a very hot place. Here, in our cool little apartment, we’re much closer to God. Your father’s house is very warm. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

I shook my head. “No, Mama.”

“We’re going to be fine,” she said. “We’re going to be fine.” She kissed her rosary beads. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

I closed the door behind me, and dumped my backpack next to the sagging, old couch. My stomach growled, and I dropped my mittens on the coffee table on my way into the kitchen.

Mama was on the floor, sleeping.

I stopped, frowning, and knelt down beside her. Her crimson rosary beads were wound around her fist, and she was shaking.

“Mama, wake up. Come on, Mama, I’ll help you get to your bed.”

But when she wouldn’t wake, not even when I pried open her eyes, I began to cry, and hurried to the phone. I lifted the receiver before I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to use the phone—in case Daddy was listening in—and slammed it back down again. I paced back and forth in front of the telephone, wringing my hands, sniffling, terrified.

There was a bottle of wine open on the counter, but the glass beside it was broken, and its shards lay in a small puddle of burgundy that dripped steadily onto the floor.

Mama said that sometimes when she drank a glass of wine she could think better. Sometimes she drank much more than one glass, and then she’d pull me into her lap—even though I was too big—and tell me that angels were watching over us.

I always thought that maybe she could see herself better when she drank the wine, like the enchanted mirror the beast gave to the beauty. I couldn’t remember, though. Did the mirror break in the story? What if Daddy had done this—broken the mirror so that Mama couldn’t see clearly?

I called 911, and they took her to the hospital where she worked. They asked me a lot of questions I didn’t understand, about what medicines Mama kept in the house and how much wine she liked to drink, and how long it had been since she had let me talk to my father.

They let me stay with her in the hospital, and when we finally returned home, she apologized to me and threw out all the wine in the house. I wanted to ask her about the enchanted mirror, but she fell asleep on the couch nearly an hour before my bedtime.

She had a large bruise on her face, from where she’d struck the ground when she fell asleep in the kitchen, and one of her teeth had been chipped, but she was still my beautiful Mama. Beautiful, beautiful Mama, who’d only tried to use the magic mirror to find a way to break the spell on the beast. Lovely, lovely Mama, whose eyelashes fluttered in her sleep as she dreamed of ways to lift the enchantment.

Hail Mary, hail Mama, the most beautiful women in the world, fighting to protect their children.

**

I was eleven, and the sound of my mother’s whispered prayers was frightening.

I was tired all the time now, but I didn’t know why. It seemed to suit Mama, though, since I never asked her if I could play at a friend’s house, or asked her for help with my homework anymore. After a snack, I would crawl into her bed after school and sleep until I got up the next morning.

When my grades began to suffer, they sent me to a school counselor. I went and sat placidly, but answered very few of her questions.

They sent me to the school nurse, who handed me a cup and instructed me to pee in it. Repulsed, I refused. She assured me that even though this wasn’t routine, it would help me to feel more awake. I did as she asked, then, not wanting them to call Mama and upset her by telling her I wouldn’t obey (and who knew how much phone-time that would take up?).

They called me back to the office to tell me that my test results had come back positive.

“Positive for what?” I asked.

“For something inside of you that’s not supposed to be there. We’re going to have to tell your parents about it.”

I nodded mutely. This must have been Daddy’s doing, though I didn’t know how.

Mama agreed when I shared the theory that night, lying in her bed, both of us huddled beneath the old blue comforter.

“I’ll take care of you, darling,” she said. “Just do what I tell you, and we’ll be fine.”

I asked if this would make them separate us. “Are you going to get in trouble, Mama?”

“Nonsense. Together forever, right?”

“Till Gabriel blows his horn,” I agreed, before drifting off to sleep. It seemed I had done nothing but sleep for the last month, and if I wasn’t in bed, I wanted to be. I was always tired, but I didn’t know why.

They summoned Mama to appear in court, and to bring me along. I sat on the hard seat with my hands in my lap, wishing I were as pretty as Mama. She looked perfect in the courtroom, wearing a gray suit, high heels, and even a little makeup. She hadn’t put any on in months.

I tried to be very still throughout the proceedings, but I was distracted by a man on the opposite side of the room from Mama. He looked like the picture I had of Daddy, but this man didn’t have a beard.

Then, when he smiled at me, I knew. It was him! Maybe his absent beard meant that he was changing back to the handsome prince, slowly shedding his monstrous qualities along with his facial hair. My heart soared, and I disappeared into a cloud of hope for the rest of the day.

The court went into recess, but there was no playground nearby, so Mama and I just went home.

She took off her shoes and pantyhose, and I followed suit, removing my shiny, buckle shoes and tights. She went into her room; I went into mine. Once inside, I located a sheet of blank paper and some colored pencils, and began to draw the house that Mama, Daddy, and I would all live in once we were a family again. I used a dark brown pencil to sketch an animal pelt in the corner of the drawing, showing that Daddy had left it behind for good. Then I drew rose bushes beneath the windows of the first floor, and felt very accomplished.

I hadn’t heard any noise from Mama’s room for some time, though, so I left my paper and pencils on the floor and crept next-door, pushing open the door with one finger.

Mama was on her knees in front of her bedside table, where she kept her Bible and rosary. She lit a candle, then pressed her palms together, and prayed,

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

It was getting dark outside, and I don’t think I would have seen the gun if the light of the candle hadn’t made it glow, lying there on her unmade bed.

I nearly fell over backwards, but somehow managed to make it to the kitchen in silence, where I lifted the phone and called the police. “Hello, police?” I whispered. “I think my mama is going to try and hurt herself. Yes, she has a gun. No, it’s a little one. There’s only one bullet next to it. It’s on her bed. She’s praying. No, she doesn’t know I’m calling.”

I hung up and hurried back to my room, closing the door behind me. There had been a bottle of wine open on the counter.

I sat on my bed, hugging my legs to my chest, like Mama. My heart thudded in my chest, and it was hard to breathe, hard to stay awake, hard to think. Hail Mary, now and at the hour of our death.

I heard Mama rise from where she knelt one room over, heard her blow out the candle, heard her bed creak, heard an odd clicking, popping noise. I heard her open her door, heard her footsteps approach. I heard the cars turning onto our street. Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee.

Mama was inside my room, sitting on my bed, holding me close. She smelled of roses and wine and smoke, from the candle.

“They’re going to separate us if we stay here,” she said to me.

“You said they couldn’t do that,” I said, frightened. She was beautiful—so beautiful—and I felt like I didn’t know her at all.

“I know, darling, but it’s all right. I have been praying, and God has shown me what to do. Everyone knows a child’s place is with her mother, but your father is going to take you from me. He says I’m not taking care of you like I should.”

“You take care of me fine, Mama. We take care of each other.” My throat constricted. I heard the cars pull up in front of our apartment building, sirens wailing.

She continued like she hadn’t heard me. In fact, I don’t think she did. “But if I can’t take care of you, no one’s going to. I’m going to send you someplace safe, where your father can’t get to you.” Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Then the gun was in her hand, pointed at my head, and the police broke down the door and it went off with such a bang that I thought I’d never be able to hear anything again. They tell me what really caused all the noise was my screams, but I don’t remember doing anything but sitting there on my bed, watching my drawing trampled by the policemen’s heavy shoes, watching the blood flow from my mother’s leg, where she’d shot herself, watching the gun fall from her fingers, and the rosary with it.

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners.

A policeman with blue eyes and large ears wrapped me in a blanket as they carried my mother off in an ambulance, followed by a police car. He told me everything was going to be fine, but I was going to live with my father for a while. Now and at the hour of our death.

They made photographs in my room, and put things in plastic bags and took them from the house—including the picture I’d drawn of my family: the beast, the beauty, the rose.

And, watching, I realized something. Mama had been wrong, all that time. The beast hadn’t been Daddy—it had been something inside of Mama, hiding where not even she could see it, slowly killing her.

Hail Mary, slayer of the beast. Amen.