Our Lady of the Lost and Found Read online

  She stopped and opened her eyes.

  —If you break this promise to keep my visit a secret, your life will never be the same. Do I make myself clear?

  —Yes, I whispered.

  —Do you understand?

  —Yes, I understand.

  She looked into my eyes.

  —May I stay?

  I knew that I was already in over my head. She was already here. She had already talked to me, eaten with me, used my bathroom. I knew there could be no turning back now. I knew there was nothing else I could do.

  —Yes, I said. Yes, of course you can stay.

  Visitor

  —Thank you, Mary said, smiling and patting my hand. I knew I could count on you. I would like to say that you won’t regret it, but that, I suppose, remains to be seen.

  I nodded and smiled back, limply, not sure whether she was teasing or not. I could not immediately think of what to do next. Mary glanced discreetly at her purse, suitcase, and running shoes where they still sat innocently enough on the kitchen floor near the doorway. I looked at them too.

  Both the purse and the suitcase were black. The purse was large, made of smooth leather with zippered pockets front and back. Her suitcase, like a million others, was made of nylon fabric, hard-sided, with pockets, handles, wheels, and feet. There was neither a name tag nor one of those coded destination tickets they stick on at the airport when you check in. The tabs of two zippers met at the top, secured by a tiny gold-colored lock. A rectangular silver badge on the front proclaimed the brand name in stylized black letters: JAGUAR. Whether meant to be evocative of the sleek luxury car or the fierce big cat, either way this name was a lot for a suitcase to live up to.

  The running shoes were white, a well-worn pair of Nikes. Most people who wear this brand do not know that Nike was the goddess of victory and constant companion of Zeus. She was one of a family of abstractions who were the offspring of the Titan Pallas and the goddess of the River Styx. Nike’s brothers were Cratus (Strength), Zelus (Emulation), and Bia (Violence). Whether or not Mary knew the genesis of their name, the backs of her runners were broken and the left lace was knotted and frayed.

  Despite their mythological, animalian, and/or automotive allusions, these objects, like most when taken at face value, told me nothing. Or maybe it was just that what they told me was not at all what I was expecting to hear.

  Mary cleared her throat and stood up.

  —Maybe I should unpack now? she suggested.

  —Yes, yes, I said, relieved to have been given this gentle nudge in the right direction. Let me show you to your room.

  Mary picked up her purse and I took the suitcase. We left the running shoes where they were. I led the way down the hall, wondering if the back bedroom was more or less presentable. Generally speaking, I am a passable housekeeper, as long as you don’t look too closely. I tend to concentrate on the visible, leaving that which is hidden to its own devices (which, I suspect, include a predisposition toward a form of parthenogenesis that enables both dirt and clutter to spontaneously reproduce themselves). My housekeeping mantra is: Out of sight, out of mind.

  Usually when visitors are imminent, I have a little cleaning fit. This is a reflex impressed upon me long ago by my mother, no doubt, for whom the words company and cleaning are synonymous. It also arises from my recognition of the fact that other people, even your own flesh and blood, are not likely to be as oblivious to or complaisant about your dirt as you are. But since this visitor had not been announced in advance (or, at least, since I had not recognized the announcement), I had not given the room any special attention beyond the usual Saturday vacuuming.

  I did not actually expect that Mary would perform a full-scale inspection, get down on her knees and scout out the dust bunnies under the bed, or run her fingers along the windowsill checking for dust. But still I was worried. After all, you know what they say about cleanliness being next to godliness.

  It had only been three weeks since I last had visitors. My sister, her husband, and their daughter had been here for the Easter weekend at the end of March. I distinctly remembered making up the bed with fresh sheets and blankets the day after they left. It had not been slept in since. I’d last had the sewing machine out to do some mending a few weeks before, and I had no arts-and-crafts projects in progress at the moment. Other than the few rejected items I had hung up on Saturday, the closet was empty and there were plenty of hangers.

  I flicked on the light and tried to see the room through Mary’s eyes. I was relieved: it was indeed tidy, and that which was hidden had remained hidden. It is a comfortable room, furnished with odds and ends accumulated over the years. Besides the bed, which is a queen-size with solid wooden head- and footboards, there is a night table, an old oak dresser with four drawers and a large mirror, a small bookcase, a wicker armchair, and a wicker trunk in which I store extra blankets and pillows. Everything was in order, if perhaps in need of a thorough dusting.

  I set the suitcase down beside the bed and opened the curtains. As forecast, the sky had clouded over and there were spots of rain on the window.

  —Lovely, Mary said. The room is just lovely. I’m sure I will be perfectly comfortable here.

  —I hope you’ll make yourself at home, I said.

  Still holding her purse, she sat down on the edge of the bed and I could see it again, the fatigue around her eyes and her mouth. It was there in the way she relaxed her neck and shoulders and in the way she let go of her purse, briefly patted the blue duvet cover, and then let her hands fall limp at her sides.

  The room was not large but with Mary in it, it seemed bigger. I had noticed back in the kitchen that she was, not surprisingly, the kind of person whose presence filled up a room. I know from experience that this is not always a good thing. I once briefly dated a man who so filled up a room that whenever I was with him, I felt crowded, squashed, backed into a corner. I suspected that, with him, this would have been the case even if we were in an empty ballroom with twenty-foot ceilings and windows on all sides. I soon realized this was not really an effect of his presence, not even of his personality, but of his ego, which was massive to begin with and possessed of an instant and relentless capacity for expanding to fill the space available. But with Mary, it was the opposite. The room itself seemed to have expanded to accommodate her. And the slightly shabby furniture had acquired a quiescent beauty that I had never noticed before.

  She was silent while I fussed around for a few minutes straightening the afghan folded at the foot of the bed and making sure there was room in the dresser and the night table for her things. I could not help but think that if this were a hotel room, there would have been a Gideon Bible in the night table drawer. While traveling to promote my books, I have stayed in many hotel rooms, some lovely, some not, and although I have never actually read one of those bedside Bibles, still I have always been comforted by finding it there.

  But here in the night table drawer, there was a yellow flashlight, a ball made entirely of rubber bands, a box of colored paper clips, a broken stapler, and an envelope of photographs I had been meaning to send to my parents for months. I pushed all of these to the back of the drawer. Then I pointed out to Mary what she could see perfectly well with her own two eyes: that there was a telephone on the night table and also a good reading lamp.

  Mary reached for her purse, rummaged in the zippered pocket, and took out a set of keys.

  Keys to what? I wondered silently. The seven heavens perhaps? Or the twelve pearly gates of the holy city, the post-apocalyptic New Jerusalem?

  She held them up so I could see the tag, which was a picture of her encased in clear plastic. There was a blue globe at her feet and fluffy white clouds all around. Her dress was pink, her robe was blue. Above her hovered a circle of blond angels, about to place a golden crown upon her haloed head.

  —It was a gift, she said, grinning.

  She lifted her suitcase onto the bed and separated a tiny gold key from the rest on the ring. A
s she inserted the key into the lock on the suitcase, I involuntarily took a step back. I thought again of Pandora’s box. In a variation on the theme this time, I imagined not a teeming swarm of evils let loose upon the world but a veritable stampede of angels tumbling over each other to get out. Having been cooped up in there for God knows how long, they would, I imagined, come bursting out, stretching and muttering, unfurling and flexing their white-feathered wings. Or perhaps they would be more graceful, wafting out like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp or unfolding one at a time like flowers blossoming on fast-action film.

  Barring an entourage of angels, I expected that there would at least be a beam or blaze of light, probably accompanied by harp music and the smell of flowers. Or maybe now was the time for the ten thousand blue butterflies or the million rose petals or the flock of doves to be released into the room.

  I held my breath.

  Mary unzipped the suitcase and lifted the lid.

  Nothing happened: no angels, no music, no fragrance, no special effects whatsoever. I was, I must admit, a little disappointed.

  The inside of her suitcase was at first glance as unremarkable as the outside. There was the usual compacted and flattened jumble of clothing, accessories, and toiletries. It looked to be as true for Mary as for anyone else that no matter how carefully you have packed in the first place, by the time you reach your destination, the contents of your suitcase will have been stirred, scrambled, and utterly rearranged while in transit.

  Mary began to extract the items from the suitcase one by one, spreading them out neatly on the bed: balls of socks, rolled shirts, folded pants, a pale green nightgown, a brown cardigan much like the one I had just rejected as dowdy, the long black dress she had been wearing when she arrived.

  She continued to pull things out of the suitcase, a great many more things than you would expect it to be able to hold. It was as if the suitcase were bottomless and bewitched, as if the more she took out of it, the more it filled up. I was reminded of the familiar cartoon sequence in which a tiny car comes tearing down the road, screeches to a stop, then all the doors are flung open, and dozens of large people get out. I also thought of a souvenir my young niece had brought back from Disneyland the previous summer. It was about the size of a checker to begin with, but when she soaked it in warm water as per the instructions, it slowly turned into a full-sized facecloth with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it.

  The bed was nearly covered now, with more shirts, more pants, two pairs of shoes, a blow-dryer, two matching cosmetic bags, a jewelry case, a spiral notebook, and a small pile of books with a black gilt-edged Bible on top (making Gideon in the night table unnecessary after all).

  —Obviously, Mary said, I still haven’t quite mastered the fine art of traveling light.

  I had to admit that I suffered from the same problem. Much as I may sometimes fantasize about setting off on a journey with nothing but a toothbrush, a notebook, and a change of underwear, in actual fact, I know I will never manage it. For me, packing, even for just an overnight stay, is a painful process fraught with anxiety and indecision. I know full well that this is the result of my need to control every little thing (including the weather), to predict and prepare for every possible eventuality, to try to take as much of home with me as I can wherever I may go. When packing, I have to keep reminding myself that I am not trekking off into the tundra, that I am going to a perfectly well-appointed city where anything that I have inadvertently left behind can be quite handily replaced. Still I never leave home without my travel iron.

  I also like to bring along a good selection of reading material. I cannot bear the thought of finding myself trapped with the wrong book on an airplane or a train or in a hotel room with no bookstore in sight. I need to take a choice of fiction because how can I know in advance what I’ll be in the mood for when the time comes? I usually also pack two or three weighty academic or philosophical volumes that I need to read for research but that I’ve been saving for months in optimistic anticipation of some future interval in which I will find myself suddenly smarter than usual. I always think that once I am away from home, I will finally be able to muster the focus and acuity of mind needed to make sense of these tomes. This almost never happens and so I cart these books back home again, unopened and still unread.

  As I was craning my neck to get a look at the titles of Mary’s books, the telephone rang. Automatically I reached to answer it, then stopped myself and looked at her, my left hand still hovering in midair.

  —Maybe you should let that go for now, she said.

  My hand fell back down to my side and I stood staring at the ringing telephone. Three, four, five rings and then the sound of the answering machine clicking on in my study across the hall, a female voice murmuring into the ostensibly empty house. I could not quite make out the message or identify the speaker but I thought it might be my agent. The voice rambled on and then the machine clicked off. I could picture its little red light flashing doggedly into the room.

  —I guess there are still a few details that need to be worked out, Mary said.

  —Yes, I agreed. I do have some questions. What should I tell people? How can I explain this without lying or giving the secret away?

  The other questions I wanted to ask seemed childish even to me: Could other people see her, could they hear her, was she as real to them as she was to me?

  —Of course there must be no lying, Mary said.

  —Of course not.

  —There is a Catholic doctrine, she said, called mental reservation. This means that when speaking or writing, a person can add certain modifications to solve the dilemma of how to keep a secret without actually lying.

  To me, this practice sounded more like a common characteristic of human nature than a point of theology. How many times have you exercised mental reservation to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings? How many times have you told a friend her new dress was beautiful while thinking: But not on you?

  —Although this doctrine is not taught as often as it used to be, Mary said, I think it would serve you well in this particular situation. You could just tell people that you’ve had an unexpected visitor, someone from the past, she said with a smile. That much is true.

  —Yes, true, quite true.

  —I am indeed someone from the past, she said, if not exactly someone from your past. But you don’t have to tell people that. Probably the best strategy is not to go into too much detail. Perhaps you could just warn people that you’ll be tied up for the week with an unexpected houseguest.

  This would not be difficult. My friends, knowing that I work at home, are not prone to showing up at my door unannounced. As for my neighbors, we are friendly enough but not especially curious about each other’s lives, and we seldom visit back and forth. Besides, no one would find it odd if I were more reclusive than usual for a while. As I have said, I am a very solitary person by nature.

  —If more complicated situations come up, Mary said, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle them.

  —I hope so, I said doubtfully.

  —Don’t worry, she said. I have faith in you, probably more faith in you than you have in yourself. Or in me, for that matter. And I know you will be able to tell the truth. If not the whole truth, still nothing but the truth.

  —I hope so, I said again. I certainly did not want to disappoint her.

  As it turned out, none of my friends called or came by all week. I had no more calls from my agent, nor any from my editor or my family. Even the telemarketers fell mostly silent for the week. Solitary though I may be, this almost total lack of contact was unusual, a convenient coincidence in which I suspected Mary herself had a hand.

  Now she had piled her books on the night table and started putting her clothes away in the closet and the dresser.

  —When I’m finished here, she said, I wouldn’t mind having a little nap.

  —That sounds like a good idea, I said, checking my watch.

  It had been quite the day already
and it was only two o’clock.

  —I’ve come directly from Mexico, Mary said, where the siesta, of course, is a national custom. I found it a very easy habit to acquire.

  This confirmed my original impression that she had recently been spending time in the southern sun, her skin so brown and golden at a time of the year when we in the north were just emerging pale and grublike from another long dark winter.

  —Yes, I said, I’ve always thought it was a custom that should be adopted here too.

  The truth was that even if I had been alone at home having a regular day, I might at that point have been thinking about a nap. I consider being able to have a rest in the afternoon one of the great advantages of working at home.

  —And there’s the matter of jet lag too, Mary said, leaving me to speculate as to exactly how she got here anyway.

  —I’ll leave you alone then, I said. My room is right next door if you need anything.

  —Thank you, she said. Have a good rest.

  —You too.

  —I will.

  I turned to close the door behind me.

  —Try not to worry, Mary said. Everything will be all right. Try to remember what Blessed Julian of Norwich said: All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

  I closed the door of her room and went into my study. I listened to the message that had been left earlier. It was indeed my agent, calling to tell me that a finer point of negotiation in one of my foreign contracts had been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

  —No need to call me back, she said. So I didn’t.

  I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and then the curtains. Furnished and arranged in much the same manner as the back bedroom, mine is somewhat larger, with two windows instead of one and enough space for a wicker loveseat. But in my bedroom, the color scheme is shades of white, off-white, and natural wood, with subtle beige and pale gray accents. The walls are eggshell, the curtains are ecru, and the loveseat is white with an oyster-colored cushion. The duvet cover is white eyelet cotton and the afghan folded at the foot of the bed is pearl gray. On top of the dresser I keep an assortment of fragrant white candles of varying sizes.