“You’d think the Holy Spirit could have at least heated the water,” he said, mimicking me.
Then he fell back and was submerged. My father surfaced with an expression like a child who had just walked in on his own surprise party. After a moment, he began to laugh, giddy, looked at me and said, “Warm.”
I thought he was making another joke, because when I entered the bath, the water made my ankles and calves go numb. I faced the tiny statue uncertain what exactly to say. So I said what I had said throughout the trip. “For myself I seek nothing. Grant my mother and father peace. May all my mother’s novenas not have been in vain. Give her a sign that her prayers have not gone unheard. And bless Mickie.”
No sooner did I sit, however, when I heard a voice. I know how that sounds, but trust me, that voice was as clear as the bells ringing in the steeple of OLM church.
Have faith, Samuel.
The words were spoken so clearly that I looked to the Italian volunteer, who was waiting for me to give a signal that I was ready to be submerged, but he showed no sign of having heard them. I held up my hand for a second and looked again to the tiny statue. “Help me to understand,” I said. “I want to believe. Help me to believe. Help me to have faith.”
And I was submerged. Surfacing, I felt the strange warmth my father had spoken of. It radiated from the center of my chest down each limb. The Italian volunteer, who had undoubtedly witnessed thousands of similar expressions, smiled knowingly at me, then he bent close to my ear and, speaking quietly, as if sharing a secret, he said, “Spirito Santo. Spirito Santo.”
10
I pushed my father’s wheelchair from the baths back into the stone portico to look for Mickie and my mother among the crowd. I remember that, at that moment, I felt light, as if a great weight had been lifted from my heart, and I had been liberated to see the world through a new pair of eyes and with a clarity that until that moment had eluded me. I felt sympathy and compassion for David Bateman and Sister Beatrice, and for every other person who had bullied, ignored, stared at, or made fun of me.
And I forgave them.
But that wasn’t even the strangest part. The strangest part was that I realized that by forgiving them all, I had forgiven myself.
My father spotted my mother and pointed the direction through the crowd. When my mother saw us, she gave a short wave. Then she stood. Mickie held her arm as my mother walked toward us, looking as radiant as I felt. I was dumbstruck, and, yet, at the same time, I felt as though we were tethered together, my mother and I, bound by some invisible force drawing her to me. As she neared, her eyes widened and her gaze shifted above my head and slightly to the left, a gaze so intense that I turned to see what she was considering, but I only saw the stone ceiling. When I turned back, Mickie gave me a slight “I don’t know” shrug, confirming that she, too, noticed my mother’s gaze.
After another moment, my mother lowered her eyes, a huge smile emblazoned on her face as she continued forward. Reaching me, she held out a closed fist and handed me her rosary.
Then she collapsed in my arms.
11
My mother’s vital signs stabilized when we got her back on the plane, but she continued to drift in and out of consciousness. One of the oncology nurses told me my mother was exhausted, and her body was without resources to recuperate. She also told me that her liver and kidney functions were declining. She did not tell me what I already knew. This was the end.
As my mother slept, my father lay in his hospital bed, holding her hand. The mask that had become his face continued to imprison his emotions. Only the tears that streamed down his face revealed his agony.
At two in the morning, somewhere over the Atlantic, I suggested Mickie get a couple of hours’ sleep. No sooner had she left, but my mother softly said my name. I checked the machines monitoring her vital signs. Her liver functions had worsened; her pulse had slowed. Her breathing was labored. I kissed her forehead and caressed her hair. Even then it remained soft as silk.