Stories

Mollie loved the Gregorian Chant Requiem Mass. She had been learning to sing it since first grade, and when she was in sixth grade, she was allowed to join the choir and sing Mass when someone died in the parish. She stood in the choir box over the people next to the Mrs. Grady, the organist, dirctly in front of Sister Julie St Francis, at least once a month. She looked down at the flowers, the casket, the people in black and sang for God's mercy. She did not have to read the Latin or hear the nun give the tone on her lilttle wheel. She knew the responses by heart, Et cum spiritu tuo. And with your spirit. When she got back to her room in the school, she ate cereal from a box at her desk with the rest of the choir while the boys got to read their books or color. She would look for music like that for the rest of her life, but all the Gregorian chant on records was by monks from this or that monastery in Europe and was not the same. She never knew the people in the caskets or their black clothes trailing after the casket with the priest spreading incense as they left the church. She felt nothing but the glory of the music. The shout of the Kyrie. Have mercy.
Once, when she was in third grade, she had had to leave school for some reason, and Jimmy had taken her home in his ancient Chevy, but he had stopped at his house first for some small errand. Maggie had gone into his house with him, chattering. She sat in the little living room while he went into the back, and she met Vera. Jimmy was old. He had fought in WW l and l lost the lower part of his right arm. Vera was , of course, old too, a thin, fluttery old lady, and she clearly loved Jimmy. She flitted around him, telling him to take a sweater, it was cold. She had eyes only for Jimmy and hardly noticed Mollie.
Then, in eighth grade, Mollie sang Vera's Requiem Mass. It was the first time Mollie had known the person in the casket, and she watched the pall bearers carry the casket with Vera down the center aisle. She watched the priest follow with the censer. She watched Jimmy, quiet for the first time since she had known him. She wondered how Jimmy would do without his Vera skittering around, cooking for him, making sure he had his sweater when he went out in the rain to help in the parish, to drive forlorn little girls home, listning to the Dodgers. Mollie did not see Jimmy again for some months, and she didn't think about him or Vera. Then she sang his Requiem. She stood in the box, next to Mrs. Grady, in front of Sister Julie St Francis and sang the clean, plainsong for Jimmy and thought about love. Jimmy could not live without his Vera. That was what happened when you married for the usual reasons, went to war, lost your arm, came home and worked. You bought a house and lived in it for maybe sixty years. Mollie had never heard whether Jimmy had children, but he had worked until he retired. Mollie did not know at what. He had lived with Vera so long that he could not live without her. He had true love.