Bless Us Father (28 page)

Sister Timothy soon returned with Sister Agnes, the principal, in tow.

“Mary Margaret. I am going back to class now. Sister Agnes will deal with you.”

Sister Agnes was almost six feet tall and quite heavy, an imposing figure. She had piercing brown eyes, and wore wire rimmed glasses that perched on the end of her aquiline nose. Her hair was completely covered with her headdress, so you couldn’t see what color it was. Mary Margaret imagined she was bald since she had no eyebrows. Her lips were thin and pinched tightly together.

“Miss Riley. Come with me to my office,” Sister Agnes said and abruptly turned on the heel of her black, oxford shoes.

A feeling of dread washed over Mary Margaret as she followed the nun to the office. Her teachers had been warning her about studying harder, but she hadn’t paid attention. All she could think about was how miserable she was, how ashamed she felt, and how much she wanted to be away from St. Mary’s.

“Sit down, Miss Riley.” Sister Agnes pointed to the chair in front of her desk, then went around behind it and sat in her own high-backed wooden chair. She clasped her hands on the desk in front of her and stared sternly at Mary Margaret.

“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” Sister Agnes asked. “Your behavior is totally out of character this year. Your grades are dropping and you’re already at risk of failing, and it’s only October.”

“I...I don’t know. I just can’t seem to concentrate,” Mary Margaret said.

Sister Agnes slammed her clenched fist down on the desk, causing Mary Margaret to jump.

“You can’t seem to concentrate? Your dear parents are paying thirty dollars a month for you to have the privilege of attending Catholic school. The least you can do is make an effort.”

Hot tears welled up in Mary Margaret’s eyes and threatened to spill over.

“I’m calling your parents,” Sister said, picking up the receiver and dialing the black telephone on her desk. “We need to have a conference immediately.”

Mary Margaret held her breath, hoping against hope that her parents weren’t home and Sister would calm down before she tried to contact them again.

“Hello. Mr. Riley?” Sister Agnes said. “I have Mary Margaret here in the office and I need you and Mrs. Riley to come down right away.”

Mary Margaret hung her head and let the tears fall freely onto her hands which were clasped tightly in her lap. Of course her parents were home. Luck was never on her side.

“Yes, Mr. Riley that will be fine. I’ll see you soon,” Sister Agnes said. She banged the telephone back onto its cradle. “Your mother isn’t home, but your father is on his way. Sniveling isn’t going to help. I suggest you start thinking of ways to get yourself back on track.”

Mary Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. Her father she could deal with. Thank goodness her mom wasn’t home. She stopped crying and tried her best to compose herself. She watched Sister Agnes putter around the office, organizing piles of paper on her desk, and jotting notes to herself on a large tablet next to the phone.

In what seemed like hours, but in reality only fifteen minutes had passed before she heard a knock on the office door. Sister Agnes walked swiftly over to open it.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Riley. I’m so sorry to have to disrupt your day, but we need to have a chat.” She held the door open and stepped aside, allowing him into the office.

“I came as soon as I could,” Mr. Riley said. “What’s the emergency?”

“Please sit down,” Sister Agnes said, gesturing to the chair next to Mary Margaret. She waited for him to sit, then went back around her desk and sat in her chair.

“I’ll get right to the point. I’m very concerned about Mary Margaret’s performance this year. She’s failing her geometry class and her psychology class, and she’s deficient in her other classes. If it doesn’t improve quickly, I’m afraid we’ll have no choice but to ask her to leave the school.”

Mary Margaret watched her father’s mouth fall open in disbelief. She looked at Sister Agnes, who was showing no emotion whatsoever.

“What do you mean she’s failing?” Mr. Riley asked. “She’s always gotten very good grades in school.”

“Not this year. I’m going to have to put her on probation, and if her grades don’t improve in a month, she’ll be expelled.”

“Expelled?” he asked, letting out a whoosh of air with the word. “But what will we do?”

“Well, she’ll just have to go to the local public school, I suppose,” Sister Agnes said.

For just an instant, Mary Margaret allowed herself to fantasize about purposefully continuing to let her grades fall so she would be expelled and have to be sent to public school. That would be one way to get what she wanted. But reality set in and she realized she couldn’t do that. Her parents had sacrificed so much for her to get a good Catholic education; she would just have to figure out how to get back on track.

“What’s wrong, Mary Margaret?” Mr. Riley asked. “You’ve always been such a good student. What’s happened to you?”

“I don’t know, Daddy,” she answered, staring down at the floor. “I’ll try harder.”

The silence in the room was finally broken by the ring of the bell signaling it was time to change classes.

Mary Margaret looked up at her father, who was watching her with a combination of concern and confusion on his face.

“I’m afraid I must go visit one of the classrooms, so I’ll have to end this meeting. Perhaps it would be better if you took Mary Margaret home with you now so you can come up with a solution to get her back on track,” Sister Agnes said, standing up and clasping a black leather notebook to her chest, over the huge crucifix that hung around her neck. “As of now, Mary Margaret is on academic probation. Her grades must be back up to average or above by the end of this semester.”

Mary Margaret and Mr. Riley both stood up to leave as well.

“Thank you, Sister Agnes. I’m sure this will be the end of the problem. Her mother and I will make sure of that,” Mr. Riley said.

Mary Margaret bowed her head in shame and followed her father out the door.

“I need to get my books from my locker, okay?” she asked her dad.

“I parked the car out in front of the school. I’ll meet you there,” he said, not looking at her.

She watched him walk away from her, his head down and shoulders slumped. How had she gotten to this place in her life? What had she done wrong?

They drove the short distance home in silence. Once inside the house, Mary Margaret took her books and put them in her bedroom, then went to the kitchen where she found her father making a pot of coffee.

“Daddy? Can we talk?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then finally said, “I think we probably should wait for your mother to get home to discuss this.”

Mary Margaret took a deep breath. It was now or never. She’d promised Father O’Malley she would tell her dad what Father Antonio had done to her, and now was the time. If she could get her dad on her side, then maybe he could talk her mom into letting her leave St. Mary’s and she could finally put it all behind her.

“Please, Daddy. I really need to tell you something important and I don’t want to talk about it with Mom.”

“Now, baby girl. You know your mother and I don’t keep things from each other.”

“I know, Dad. You can tell her later. I just have so much trouble talking to Mom. Please, I’d rather you and I talk first.”

“Okay, Mary Margaret. If it’s that important.”

With heart racing and her throat tightening, she forced herself to begin. “I’ve wanted to tell you about this for a long time, but I couldn’t force myself to.”

“Go on, baby girl. Just tell me.”

Her eyes filled with the tears that seemed to be always there these days.

“Well...it’s about Father Antonio. He...he...did things to me that he shouldn’t have. He touched me....” She choked back a sob and was unable to continue.

“He touched you? What do you mean he touched you?”

She swallowed hard and swiped at the tears that were now rolling down her cheeks. “He touched the private places on my body, he kissed me, and he forced me to do some other things, too. And now all the girls at school are talking about me and that’s why I hate school and can’t concentrate on my school work.”

“Wait just a minute. Let’s not talk about school. I want to know exactly what that priest did to you.”

Mary Margaret could hear trembling in her father’s voice and it was lower than usual, too.

“You were gone for a long time, Dad, and he was around a lot while you were gone. Remember my birthday when you were in Oklahoma?”

“Yes, I know I was gone a lot and I feel real bad about it, too. What about your birthday?”

“Oh God, Dad. This is the hardest part. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Tell me!” he said, his voice loud and forceful.

“He took me to the mountains for my birthday. Mom let me go. Then when we got up there, he took me to this cabin that he was checking out for a retreat place. No one was there. He made me go in the bedroom and take my clothes off and get in the bed. Then he came in and took his clothes off, too, and got in bed with me.”

“I’ll kill him!” Mr. Riley said, jumping to his feet. “As soon as your mother gets home to supervise you I’m driving down to LA. I swear I’ll....”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Sean Riley!”

Mary Margaret turned to see her mother standing in the doorway. Mrs. Riley’s hands were clenched at her side and her face was red with rage.

“I knew she’d eventually get around to telling you the filthy lies she’s been trying to get me to believe for a long time. What’s her motive now? What’s she trying to get out of?”

Mr. Riley looked questioningly at Mary Margaret, then said, “She’s having trouble in school and was just telling me why.”

“I know why. It’s due to her associations with the public school friends she’s been hanging around with all summer. She never had any problems until she stopped running around with the girls from St. Mary’s and started up with the public schoolers.”

“I stopped hanging around with the girls at St. Mary’s because they were talking about me and Father Antonio. I told you that!”

“Why would she lie about this, Ellen?” Mr. Riley asked.

“She’s lying to get her own way, that’s why. She’s not our little girl anymore, Sean. Our sweet little Mary Margaret has grown into this evil young woman.”

Mary Margaret’s temples were pounding and she felt the heat rise in her face. “I’m not your little girl anymore because Father Antonio changed that for me! You should know. While Dad was gone you spent an awful lot of time with him and you seemed to really enjoy it, too. What were you and Father Antonio doing?”

“What are you implying, Mary Margaret?” Mr. Riley asked, his lips pinched together and lines furrowed on his forehead. “Are you accusing you mother of some impropriety?”

“See?” Mrs. Riley asked. “She’ll say and do anything. What kind of a girl accuses her mother of having an indecent relationship with the parish priest?”

“Go to your room, Mary Margaret. Your mother and I need to talk privately,” he said, sitting down and putting his face in his hands.

“But, Daddy?”

“GO, NOW!”

She’d never seen her father this angry in her entire life, so she ran to her room and closed the door behind her. She lay on the bed and listened to the raised voices coming from the kitchen. Not able to make out more than one or two words, she could only guess what was going on.

Finally, her bedroom door opened a crack and her father told her to come back to the kitchen. She looked at her clock and realized it had been an hour since she’d come to her bedroom. Dread filled her entire being as she walked back down the hallway.

“Don’t bother sitting down,” Mrs. Riley said as Mary Margaret entered the kitchen. “There will be no further discussion. Your father and I have decided what to do about your lying and disobedience.”

“But...”

“NO BUTS! I said there will be no more discussion.” Mrs. Riley took a drag from the cigarette she held in her right hand and blew a huge cloud of smoke into the air.

Mary Margaret stared at her mother who had quit smoking when Mary Margaret was just a little girl. When had she started again?

“You will immediately call your public school friends and tell them you can no longer associate with them. You will resign from both your job at the mall and your volunteer work at the hospital, and you will devote the remainder of your senior year to bringing your grades back up and preparing to graduate from St. Mary’s in June of 1966.”

A vise-like pain gripped Mary Margaret around the chest, causing her to feel like she couldn’t breathe. How could they take her friends away from her? They were the only good part of her life.

“Daddy?” She looked towards her father, who refused to meet her imploring gaze.

“Don’t Daddy him. He’s in agreement with me,” Mrs. Riley said. “If you refuse to abide by these rules, we will dip into our retirement savings and send you to St. Catherine’s boarding school for girls until you graduate. Do you understand?”

Mary Margaret massaged her throat with her hand, willing the muscles to loosen so she could speak. “Yes,” she muttered faintly.