Immaculate Heart Read Free Page A

she’d mistaken me for.
    I got into bed and turned out the lamp, but I was too restless to sleep. There were basic things about that childhood visit I genuinely couldn’t remember. Had we stayed here or at John’s house, and what had we eaten besides Turkish delight, and had John played any card games with us? Had we seen any ring forts or castles? How had we occupied ourselves when it rained?
    And yet the most ordinary moments had never lost their clarity: Mallory throwing a pebble at me on the beach, Mallory asking our grandmother if our parents were getting a divorce, Mallory crawling behind a sofa in search of Gran’s gaudy fake-gold clip-on earring. Maybe the memories of Mallory were clearest only because there would never be any more of them.
    The silence weighed on me in that damp little room. I was alone, and yet there was a weird air of expectancy, the way it is when you’re in the midst of a difficult conversation and you’re just sitting there, fool that you are, waiting on the other person to speak.

 
    2
    NOVEMBER 6
    The mattress was worn, the springs digging into my ribs whenever I surfaced out of a dream, but I told Brona I’d slept well. The narrow bathroom still smelled of her husband’s aftershave, and the electric shower yielded little more than a trickle.
    After breakfast I drove out to “Apparition Hill,” where a brown sign marked GROTTO led up a gravel track from the main road. The level ground at the top was punctuated by a crag wreathed in thorny brush, into which the shrine was set. It hadn’t changed much since the newspaper photograph: in her niche the Virgin clasped her hands, eyes rolled heavenward in that signature expression of vacant serenity, and bouquets of faded synthetic flowers and pillar candles brimming with rainwater lined the cement ledges on either side. There was even a crutch propped against the ledge—but only one, as if the Mother of God had started on a miracle before changing her mind. I was pretty sure my grandmother hadn’t brought us up here.
    I parked my rented Micra behind a bench scored with the testimony of ancient teenage romances. From here you could see the little town laid out like a forgotten game of checkers, beyond it a muted green patchwork receding into hills and fog. The grass was strewn with potato chip bags, crumpled cider cans, and empty packs of cigarettes.
    On the far end of the lot, I found a little white truck with a counter along one side, facing the grotto to keep the wind out. Rosaries and prayer cards spilled out of the window on hooks and display racks. I came a few steps closer and saw someone hunched inside—closer still, and I found a gaunt little lady I guessed to be nearly ninety, if not past it. Her skin was crinkled like twice-used tissue paper, and her jutting chin gave her the air of a witch in a fairy tale. I could tell before she opened her mouth that she had dentures, and also that she wasn’t wearing them.
    â€œGood morning,” I said.
    She stared at me, then remembering herself, fumbled for a jar on a shelf by her elbow. “Beg pardon,” she said as she plucked her teeth out of the container and fitted them in. “I’d a pain in me jaw.”
    â€œToothache?”
    She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. “If you live long enough, you’ll have none of yours, either.”
    I replied with a smile as I looked around at her inventory. A fluorescent light buzzed and flickered overhead. The old woman drummed her yellow fingernails on the counter, inspecting my face through her dusty bifocals. “Now, what is it that brings a nice lad like you up here on such a filthy morning?”
    I picked up a prayer card, gave it a glance without reading any of it, and put it back. “Fresh air,” I replied. “You get much business up here?”
    She shrugged. “Enough.”
    I looked at her, and she parted her lips in a gummy grin. She