Mothers and Other Liars
silver cross he wears on a chain around his neck gleams red, like an omen, from the sunlight that ripples through the eastern stained-glass window. This man is not the elderly rector Ruby has seen here before; he is young, not more than Ruby’s age. His patient demeanor is disarming.
    “What if someone has done something that they didn’t think was so wrong at the time, but turns out to have been very wrong to other people? What would God say to that?”
    “We Episcopalians don’t undertake confession as the Catholics do. Here, your confession, and your forgiveness, is between you and the Lord.” The pastor pauses, rubs the cross at his chest, as if it were a rosary, as if maybe he wasn’t sure those mackerel snappers, as her grandfather used to call the Catholics in their town, didn’t have the right idea after all. “Just remember that the Lord always forgives. Always.”
    One of Ruby’s fifth-grade classmates used to tell playground stories about catechism, which the Catholic children attended every Wednesday night for a whole year. Ruby thought it sounded like a pretty good deal: once a week you sit in a booth and tell a priest your transgressions. If you haven’t done anything bad that week, or maybe if you don’t want to say what you did do, you just say something minor, like that you had bad thoughts about your parents. And voilà!, you were absolved of everything, clean as the day you were born, all for a few Hail Marys and a lecture from a screen-shrouded priest.
    The pastor stands, places a hand on Ruby’s shoulder. She tries to channel his goodness, his grace, from his fingers, through her shirt, and into her skin. “I’m here, if you want to talk.”
    After he leaves, Ruby stares into the middle distance. It clings to her like the odor of mothballs on wool, the scent of unconfessed sin. Will everyone else smell it on her, too?

TWELVE
    At the Monteros’ front door, Ruby drapes her arm across Lark’s back and closes her eyes. She is trying hard enough to keep her head above water without wading into this emotional pool. You can do it , she thinks. Just act normal. Then the door swings open, and she and Lark are swept into the swirling waters of Monteroland.
    “Come in, come in.” Chaz’s mother, Celeste, smells of oregano and affection. She places her hands on Lark’s cheeks, kisses her forehead. Ruby flinches just a bit when Celeste hugs her. She’s wearing a loose sundress, but she worries that Celeste will notice her expanding bustline and thickening waist.
    When Chaz steps into the hall from the living room, his is a photo-negative of Celeste’s greeting, a big smack on the lips for Ruby, and for Lark a hug that lifts the kid off her feet. “Can you handle spaghetti two meals in a row?”
    Lark cocks her head. “As if you really need to ask.”
    Chaz pulls Lark into the living room, where the men are yelling at the television and elbowing and high-fiving each other. Lark squeezes into a spot on the sofa between Chaz’s father and an uncle, her “What’s the score?” barely audible over the macho roar.
    Chaz’s father, after whom Chaz is named, has been saddled with the nickname Chunk since he was a skinny little boy. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, he has long since grown into the moniker. He is shorter than Chaz and his sisters—their height comes from Celeste’s side—as wide as he is tall. He has always been uneasy if not unfriendly around Ruby, but he’s taken a shine to Lark. As he ruffles Lark’s hair, says something that makes her laugh, Ruby follows Celeste to the kitchen.
    From this heart of the house, Celeste is cooking her way around the globe alphabetically. This week they are in Italy; last week, Hungary. Ruby takes a seat on a stool at the counter and lets the voices and aromas wash over her. Chunk’s great-grandparents built the original house. Its bones, and grace, have been well preserved through several updates. The history, the legacy, are layers of the
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