Hold the holy water, Father Jerry’s coming to visit.  Meredith and her bright ideas.  First of all, I told her, he’s not a priest, he’s a seminarian.  You can’t refer to him as “Father”.  But it’s all one and the same to Meredith.   As far as she’s concerned he’s as good as the Pope, and he gets the royal treatment.  She wasn’t even Catholic until four years ago. Guess it took a cancer scare to get her going.  Breast cancer.  Double mastectomy.  Mine, not hers.

“Don’t you ever think about life after death?” she’d asked me one day.

“Nope.” I’d answered stubbornly.  Our parents hadn’t had much use for religion and neither did I.   I’m not saying I’m not a believer, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to jump on the bandwagon when Meredith started entertaining ideas of becoming Catholic--Cat-lick, as Sister Amirault calls it--just because death was supposedly knocking at my door. But Meredith remained persistent, doing everything in her power to get me to join the faith.  I overheard her one night, murmuring prayers while she stood vigilant over her soaking dentures.

“Pleath, Lord Geethuth,” she’d murmured fervently, tongue working against bare gums, “Sheeow Dorothy the light.  If you make Dorothy well again, I promith she will become a Catholic.”

 Ask and you shall receive or, as in Dorothy’s formula, barter for the goods.  I did get better. But I’m still not Catholic.

“Got the oil ready?” I asked, speaking to Meredith’s arse which was jutting out of the mustard yellow electric range, circa 1967.  I poured myself a tea.

“Oil?” she asked, backing out like a wood tick recoiling from a hot flame. 

“Yeah,” I said.  “To anoint Jerry’s feet.”

“Father Jerry.  You can’t just call him Jerry.”

“Call him whatever I want,” I said defiantly. “When he walks in here tomorrow I might just call him Jare, for short.”

“You have a check-up tomorrow,” Meredith reminded.

“Not. Going.” I said glibly . Meredith turned, rag in hand, and narrowed her eyes, pinning a glare somewhere between my nose and forehead. 

“You’re going,” Meredith said.  She stood her ground evenly, challenging me in her stance--willowy as it was-- daring me to speak against her authority, before returning her head to the oven chamber. 

“Get out of there and close the oven. Not suppose to breath in those fumes you know,” I warned.

“It’s your last one.  Uhff.  Uhhfff.  Five years without, uhfff,  any hint of the cancer and you’re, uhfff, home free,” she reminded me between a brief, spasmodic bout of coughing.   

“What difference does it make?  I’m old.  Gotta die sometime,” I said, sifting another teaspoon of sugar into my tea.

Meredith backed out quickly for a second time.  Her pinched face showed annoyance and the glistening pallor of over-exertion.  She was thin, I noticed, thinner than usual. 

“I want this place to be spic and span when Father Jerry comes.  Wouldn’t hurt for you to pick up a rag and help you know.”

“I just don’t see the point in going.  I’m seventy-five years old,”  I said.  Sighing, Meredith resumed her position in the oven--chicken legs splayed, knees pressed together, arse in the air.  Well, I thought to myself, the longer she keeps her head buried in there, the longer I’ll get some peace and quiet.  She’d already cleaned the rest of the kitchen, and I mean cleaned.  I’d never seen anything like it before in my entire seventy-five years.  Drawers, cupboards and pantry were systematically purged, cleaned and restocked.   She took down the eight inch wooden cross she’d hung over the door and rubbed it with lemon oil.  And, of course, she made damned good and sure there was a bible in the living room, the spare bedroom--where his holiness himself would be laying his precious head--and another one in the bathroom for good measure. 

“Besides,” I continued, “I wanna be here when Father Jerry comes.”  I had a habit of doing that, threading a conversation throughout an entire day, contributing bits and pieces of an unfinished thought like salt and pepper over our everyday routine.

“You did that already,” I said, watching Meredith, who’d moved to the refrigerator.

“Get over here and help me,” she said.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Move this thing,” she said.  “I can just imagine what it looks like underneath.”

My first instinct was to lift my hands in defeat and walk away.  Why risk a slipped disc or Lord knows what else, just to move the fridge.  But then, I decided the headache of listening to Meredith gripe would be a lot worse than anything else.  Besides, Meredith hadn’t been looking well lately. She was working herself to death over this visitor. 

“You feel good right now?” Meredith asked.  Straddling her legs shoulder width apart, she grabbed the front.  I went to the rear side corner and tried to wiggle the thing out a bit so I could get  behind and push.

“Yeah.  I guess so.  Harrrrummph,”  I pushed.

“What about that line dancing class you got lined up for next week.  You like going to that? Ewww.  Here she comes.  Here she comes.”  We got the thing just about all the way out before it fetched up on something.

“Bought myself some new cowboy boots and everything,” I answered proudly.

“The fridge is stuck on a piece of wood.  Must be that thing we used to prop the door open with,” Meredith said.  Her knees popped as she crouched to sweep several year’s accumulation of dust, pop covers and twist ties from beneath the fridge. 

“There,” she said, slowly clawing herself to an upright position.  “Kitchen’s done.”  With her left hand pinned to her lower back, Meredith propped her right elbow against the wall, her breath coming in short gasps until, at last, its rhythm settled. 

“So,” she said.  “There’s your answer.”

“What answer?” I asked.

“You wanted to know what the point was.”

“Line dancing is the point?” I asked.

“Living.  That’s the point.”

Sometime between eleven and midnight I went routing through the wastebasket beside my bed for the appointment card I’d thrown out weeks before.  Meredith knew exactly what time my appointment was, but I wasn’t about to ask her.  Instead, I sifted through damp tissues and blown out support hose using a pair of salad tongs.

“There it is,” I muttered to myself.  “Two o’clock. Dr. Westby.”  Using a dab of petroleum oil, I stuck the note to the vanity mirror and crawled into bed.  Lately, I found myself doing things like that--leaving reminders to myself strewn about the house--not so much because my memory was lagging but for fear that it would.

“Warm your hands, Dr. Westby,” I whispered into the lavender pillowcase.  “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

Initially, when I saw the pale blue Acadian parked in the driveway, I figured Dorothy had been visited by a vacuum salesman.  Then I remembered Father Jerry.  Casually, I took a quick peak at the inside of his car.  Religious propaganda.  Half-eaten candy bar.  Air freshener.  Kris Kristofferson tape. 

“Dorothy!” Meredith lilted, startling me into a near scream.

“Aiyyyyy!” I shouted, spinning around in the gravel.

“Father Jerry’s here.  Come in and meet ‘em,” she sang.  I sighed a breath of relief, my knees nearly giving way beneath the weight of my ever widening bottom. 

“Damned near scared the hell out of me,” I muttered under my breath, following Meredith so closely I nipped the heel of her shoe.  “One of these days you’re gonna do that and I’m just gonna up and collapse right in front of...”  My vision bumped against a pair of homely black shoes.  Not even shined.

 “Hello!  Father Jerry!  Nice to meet you!”  I said, my voice shifting into over-drive, my head snapping into an upright position like an ill-used Pez Dispenser.  My eyes darted up and around his face, avoiding eye contact, skimming the surface of his smooth, unwrinkled skin.

 On first glance, he didn’t appear to be more than twenty-five, twenty-six maybe.  But then, when my gaze finally met his--briefly--I saw something deep and peaceful in there that told me he was a lot older than his biological age.

“I hear you like country music,” he said, offering a handshake so damp it squelched on contact. 

“I’m a fan,” I said, shrugging, wondering if he categorized Kris Kristofferson as country.

“Father Jerry likes the accordion,” Meredith swooned, nearly falling over herself with delight.  Lord help us, I thought. She’s gonna play.

“I’m gonna play later,” Meredith confirmed.  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence while we each tried to get our bearings, clearing our throats and searching for the right things to say.  Only in our home a short time and already I resented the man’s intrusion. 

“Mind if I have a seat?” he asked, positioning himself over my favorite easy chair.

“No!  Of course not.  Let me get you some tea,” Meredith bobbed, lowering her head as she leaned into a little shuffle which resembled a curtsey. 

“So you’re a priest,” I began, meeting his gaze head-on as I lowered myself into the recently upholstered rocking chair.  He was dressed in plain clothes--black dress pants and a rugby shirt-- and could have passed as a first grade school teacher or an accountant.  Not a heavy laborer though, he didn’t look the type with his pale white skin and thin arms. 

“Seminarian,” he said.

“Is that what we call you then?  Seminarian Jerry?”

“Father Jerry’s fine, thank you,” he answered, throwing a careless chuckle into the air.  I kept my eyes pinned on his every move, absorbing the way he sat, the way he thought, the way his hands picked and caressed each ceramic dolphin lined across the window ledge. 

“SoyouknowallaboutGodandallthatstuffdoyou?” I asked, the words tumbling out so quickly I feared I’d have to repeat them.  He put the dolphin down.

“I know about God’s love.  Not all about God,” he answered, choosing his words carefully. 

“I suppose he’s pretty picky .” I said, keeping one eye peeled for Meredith. 

“If you mean who he picks to love...”

“When you die.  I mean when you die,” I said, hissing my annoyance, perhaps a little too loudly. 

“Who died?” Meredith sang from the kitchen.

“Nobody,” I answered.  Yet.  The damned cancer was back.  This time it’d spread into the lymph nodes.  I’d laughed when the doctor told me that.  Limp nodes, I’d called them.  The doctor didn’t laugh.  There was no amusement in his worried, tired, overburdened eyes.

 The first time around, five years ago, it’d seemed a lot easier.  Kicking cancer.  Sounded more like a new form of line dancing than anything mortally threatening.  This time was different.  I’d asked about undergoing treatment again, “Like the last time,” I’d said.  And for the first time in our twenty-year patient/doctor relationship, Dr. Westby avoided my gaze.  Lowering his head into my file, he’d begun to write, roughly scratching something onto the paper in a violent penmanship that I didn’t recognize as his.  He’d shaken his head softly.  “Not this time Dorothy,” he’d said.  “Not this time.” 

“Now.  I’ve got some great fish fritters for supper,” Meredith called from the kitchen.  “You like fish, don’t you father?” Meredith asked, her eyes twinkling with amusement.  Father Jerry smiled broadly and then broke into a nearly contagious laugh, threatening to spill the hot cup of tea he accepted from Meredith’s outstretched arms.    

“Well, I’ve gotta get washed up before supper,” I said, excusing myself from the room.

“Nice meeting you Dorothy,” Father Jerry said.  His voice was soft and raspy from too many whispered penances.  He stood when I stood, offering his hand in yet another gesture of goodwill, which I declined this time.  His brows were pinched in a concerned furrow, his lips pressed together in some sort of contemplation.  Something’s on his mind, I thought to myself.

I bypassed the bathroom completely, heading straight into Meredith’s all-pink, Country Rose bedroom.  She kept her accordion packed away in a trunk--a crude rendition of a hope chest built by our grandfather in 1925-- at the foot of her bed.    She’d embarrassed herself enough for one day, and I intended to put a stop to it.

   What’s she going to do without me? I thought to myself, cradling the cumbersome instrument in my arms.   For all of her proud, independent nature, Meredith was surprisingly dependent.  She couldn’t drive, she had no idea how to handle finances and she couldn’t fix  a good cup of coffee to save her soul.

“Dorothy!  You just about done?  Supper’s ready,” Meredith called from the foot of the stairs.  Quickly, I shoved the accordion into the back of my closet, covering it with a faux-fur jacket I’d bought at a second hand store the winter before. 

“Coming!” I hollered, smoothing my hands down the front of my pant legs.  I was nervous.  How the hell was I going to tell Meredith that I, her only surviving sibling, was going to die?  And I had to tell her.  Before Father Jerry left.  For some reason, that was important. 

“What the heck took you so long?” Meredith asked.  “Father Jerry’s waiting to say grace.”

“Well, go ahead and say it,” I said, seating myself ungraciously at the table.  Father Jerry cleared his throat and lowered his head into his hands.

“Father, we give thanks for the food we are about to eat and the blessings you’ve bestowed upon us.  May we continue to be blessed in your abundance.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” Meredith and Father Jerry murmured in unison.  They’re heads popped up in time to see me forking down my second mouthful of mashed potatoes.  Meredith scowled. 

“So Dorothy,” Father Jerry began, pointing his fork in my direction as he chewed,  “Meredith tells me you were out visiting your doctor this afternoon.  Hope everything’s all right.”  “Oh my land, I forgot the napkins,” Meredith said abruptly, pushing herself  from the table.

“Do you want a little salt for your potatoes Father?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” he said.

 I hesitated over my answer, using a heaping forkful of fish and turnip to procrastinate my reply. 

“Dorothy had a cancer scare a few years back.  Now she goes just for check-ups,” Meredith interjected, depositing napkins on the table which I could only guess she’d purchased at a Christian gift shop, judging by the Virgin Mary effigy splayed across them.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Father Jerry said.

“Oh, she’s alright now,” Meredith quipped lightly, frowning at the taste of her own cooking.

“I thought I got all the lumps out of these,” Meredith remarked of the mashed potatoes.

“Actually,” I laughed.  “That’s exactly what the doctor said to me!” 

“What do you mean?” Meredith asked, her fork suspended between her slackened thumb and forefinger.

“Oh, he found some more lumps.  I guess those things are hard to mash!” I said, laughing inappropriately and ridiculously loud. 

“Lumps?” she asked, the last bit of color draining from her face.

“Yeah.  They’re everywhere.  Can you believe it?  He says that gives me about six months to get some cross-stitching done.”   I laughed harder now.  Meredith wiped her mouth roughly with the Virgin Mary and threw the napkin across the table.  Rising roughly, she stormed from the room.  Father Jerry remained pensively silent.

 “Meredith,” I pleaded, following her into the laundry room.  She stood with her back to me, her forehead pressed into the wall. 

“This is how you tell me?” she said.  Her chest heaved with emotion.

“It came out wrong.  I’m sorry.” I said.   Meredith’s body shook but there was no sound.

“I’m sorry,” I shrugged. 

“THAT’S IT?  YOU’RE SORRY?” Meredith shrieked, startling me into a cry.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Father Jerry asked suddenly.  We were silent for a moment, both of us contemplating the young man who stood before us, each of us unwittingly sharing our pain with this stranger.

“There’s nothing you can do for us,” Meredith answered bitterly.  “You should probably find another place to stay.” 

Father Jerry registered the same degree of surprise on his face that I felt in my heart. 

“You can pack up your things and go anytime,” Meredith continued.  Father Jerry opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words.  His face softened with understanding and he excused himself graciously.

“I’ll keep you in my prayers and please, if there’s anything I can...”

“DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME?” Meredith shouted.  “THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO.”

“Please Meredith, keep your prayers...”

“YOU KEEP YOUR PRAYERS BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T WORKED FOR ME!” Meredith cried uncontrollably now, her thin shoulders heaving with each shuddered sob.  I stood still, as rigid as a statue, terrified to reach out and empty of speech.  There was nothing I could do or say to change the situation.

“Well,” she sighed heavily at last, pulling herself together with a shudder,  “May as well go clean up the dishes.”   She’d processed as much as she could for one day, tucking it away until she could summon enough strength to deal with the rest.  If I’d realized then the secret that Meredith carried, I’m sure I would have acted differently.  I might have spent more time with her.  But then, we always wish we could have done things differently in times like these.   

We spoke candidly about funeral arrangements over the next few weeks.  I remembered our conversations vividly as I watched them lower Meredith’s casket into the ground.  She died on October 10, 1998, exactly a month after I told her the news of my cancer. 

The first north eastern storm had made its way up the seaboard and landed on the night of October 10^th, sometime around two in the morning.  Rain slashed across the window panes, rattling the glass. The glow of the night lamp dimmed with each gust of wind, threatening to extinguish itself.  Meredith padded softly to my room, making her way into my bed, just as she had as a child.

“Scared?” I asked.

“Cold,” she said, shivering.

“You need more meat on your bones,” I said, watching the dancing shadow of the oak tree as it strained against the gusting wind, scraping branches across the glass.  It’ll soon be time to add the storm windows, I thought.

“Haven’t been feeling the best lately,” she said.

“You should go to a doctor,” I said.  “Get yourself checked.”

 Meredith laughed softly, so unusually relaxed in her manner that I began to worry.

“I feel guilty, Dorothy.”

“What for?”

“I feel okay about this, now.  Calm.  Not a worry in the world,” she whispered.

“Acceptance,” I offered.

“Maybe.  Maybe something else.”

“What else is there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.  I held myself close to the edge of the bed, waiting.  There was more to come, something she’d been trying to say for weeks now.  I’d seen it in the way she hovered while passing by my doorway, hesitating, and then moving on.  So I waited, believing that finally, Meredith would find a voice for what she had to say.   

“Are you asleep Meredith?” I asked.  Silence. 

“See you in the morning,” I whispered.  The wind had died but the rain still fell heavily, lulling me to sleep.

The Catholic Women’s League huddled together around the casket, chatting about bulb planting and turkey dinners.  Occasionally, one would crackle a laugh into the air, temporarily disrupting the even hum.  Nervously, I moved around the room, nodding politely to the few distant relatives present.  Some I knew by name.  

“How’re you holding up?” Father Jerry asked.  As he approached the closed casket, the chattering ladies backed away, parted, and rejoined themselves by the coffee urn. 

“The bitch had some nerve.” I said, surprising myself as much as Father Jerry.

 He stood speechless.

“It’s not suppose to be her time. It’s mine,” I said.

“Nobody can ever really say when their time is,” he said.

“She knew she was dying.  Didn’t she.”  I asked.

“She knew,” he said.  My hands slipped from the smooth surface of the casket.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” I asked.

“She wouldn’t give me a reason.  I had to respect that.”  He sighed heavily then, peering at me through worried eyes.  I barked a short, ironic laugh.

“That crazy old koot.  She loved to keep things from me.  Everything,” I said, thumping the top of the casket with the heel of my palm.  “Even this.”

“She worried about you,” he said.

“She always did.” I said.  I was tempted to push the casket open and sneak one last look at her.  Eccentric pain in the ass, I thought to myself.  Even in death.

“So now what?” I asked.  Father shrugged.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

“Times getting short.”

“If you ever want to talk, I’m just a phone call away,” he said, placing a sturdy hand on my shoulder.  With bible in hand, he turned to make his way to the alter.  The ceremony was about to begin.

“You like fish, Father?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he said, smiling.  “I do like fish.”

“I’m having some tomorrow night. If you stop by I just might share it with you.”

“Now Dorothy,” he said, smiling.  “What are people going to think if you start entertaining a priest at your house?”

“A seminarian,” I corrected.

“That’s right,” he chuckled. “Seminarian Jerry.”

“I’m never going to live that one down, am I.”

“Look at it this way, you won’t have to hear it for long,” he said.  His boldness shocked me.  And then it made me laugh.  God, it felt good to laugh.