Lucky by Marissa Stapley
The world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
—Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata”
February 1982
NEW YORK CITY
Someone had left a baby outside the nunnery. And it was Margaret Jean’s night to listen for the door. The rest of the sisters had their earplugs in and couldn’t hear the wails that pierced the air. But still, she stayed motionless in her bed, hoping someone else would wake and relieve her of the drama. Sister Francine, for example, who loved to be busy. Sister Danielle, who had a solution for everything. The baby’s cries grew louder, and still no one else woke.
Margaret Jean touched the gold crucifix around her neck. She had been at the nunnery only a few months; she was still undergoing her aspirancy. The nuns were supposed to decide the following week if she could become one of their order. This was the first night she had been left in charge—a test.
She wasn’t really Catholic. She had forged a baptismal certificate. It had seemed like a brilliant con, her best one yet, to pose as a young woman seeking to pledge her life to the church. No one would ever look for her here; she would be safe. Except—she was expected to be a saint. And she wasn’t one.
The crying continued. It was freezing out there. The child could die. She forced herself to stand, pull on a cardigan, and move off down the hall, a flashlight in hand.
She pushed hard against the wind to open the front door. A little bundle rested on the middle stair. Pink blankets. A tiny fist, curled and shaking. Dear God, if only this could be someone else’s problem, Margaret Jean found herself praying. This habit was as new as the one she had borrowed to wear tonight. It felt like a costume.
There was a man walking along the sidewalk toward the cathedral. He stopped and stood at the base of the steps, listening, then walked up them while Margaret Jean stood still, watching. He knelt. He said something to the baby, but Margaret Jean couldn’t hear what because of the wind and the crying. He lifted the baby into his arms, and she stopped her wailing.
Margaret Jean remained as still as possible. The man looked up at her. He placed his hand on his heart. “Sister,” he said. The wind died down. The habit fell back around her face and shoulders. The man moved up the stairs with the baby in his arms.
“Sister,” he repeated.
She nodded. “Hello.” The man was too handsome, like Cary Grant or Rock Hudson. She had met this kind of man before, had the kind of intimate knowledge of men like this that nuns were not supposed to have. The elbows of his jacket were threadbare, but his shoes were mirror-shiny. His hair was gelled so it barely moved in the wind.
“I’m John,” he said. “I’m sorry you were awakened by my child.”
“Your child?”
“Yes. And”—here, he raised his eyes heavenward—“thank God I found her. My wife, Gloria, has been struggling with… well, you know. The baby blues.” There was a faint hint of an Irish lilt in his rounded vowels. “Tonight, I went out to work and when I returned she was beside herself. She told me she’d gone and left the baby somewhere. A church. I’ve been walking around the city all night, trying to find which. And now here she is, thank God.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“And get my own wife arrested?” He was staring into her eyes, searching for something. She knew he wouldn’t find it. “Instead, I prayed. For a miracle. And here it is! I found my child. You can go back to bed now, Sister.”
Margaret Jean looked down at the baby. “Your wife should seek help,” she said.
“Of course. I promise she will. But my wife deserves another chance. Don’t all God’s children deserve another chance, Sister?”
The way he was speaking to her, it was as if he knew her—as if he knew all about the second chances she did or did not deserve. She felt a wave of compassion for him, coming upon her as quickly as the bread delivery truck now barreling down the street, about to begin its early-morning rounds.
“I hope,” she began, trying to think of the right thing to say, “that you and your family are blessed with good fortune.”
The man was looking at the gold crucifix around her neck. “We could use a little help,” he said. “I could sell that gold. Is there any way you could spare it, Sister…?”
“Margaret Jean,” she supplied.
“So we could pay for groceries,” he continued. “And for formula, since my wife’s in such a state her milk has dried up.”
The necklace was just a prop. Real gold, but a prop nonetheless. She took it off and placed it on the baby. “It’s fourteen-karat.” It felt good to do good, she realized. To give rather than take.
She peered down at the baby.
“What’s her name?”
A brief hesitation, but “Luciana,” he said. “We named her after my mother.”
Margaret Jean chose to believe him. She placed her fingers on Luciana’s brow and made the sign of the cross, just as the priest had done to her hours before, during the Ash Wednesday service. “Your sins are forgiven,” she said, raising her eyes to the man’s.
The problem with reading the Bible too often, day after day, the way an aspiring nun was required to, was that you started to believe miracles could happen anywhere. Even in Queens. Margaret Jean imagined that she really had blessed the child, and the man. That she was protecting them and would see them both again someday. That she had done the right thing.