It stung, the thought of losing her. “Why do you say that?”

“I dreamt it last night,” she explained, reaching for a candy bar. “My dreams always come true, you know this.”

“Well I really hope this one doesn’t,” I said, my voice small.

She peeled the wrapper from the candy bar and bit into it, chewing carefully and swallowing. “I don’t want you to be sad, though.” She smiled knowingly. “Someone new will be coming into your life.”

I smiled back, despite the queasiness I felt in my stomach.

Four days later, I was awakened by the oak grandfather clock. The coils wound and spun, then it chimed loudly. Startled, I sat up in bed. Jack wasn’t home yet. The clock had never worked, it was simply decorative.

I looked to the door, and my great-grandmother was standing in the entryway. She was glowing, beautiful, smiling and hazy, as if she were a dream. As she stared, a wave of peacefulness rippled through me. Then, she vanished.

I returned to sleep, feeling the warmth of maternal protection.

The next morning, as I sat in the living room drinking coffee and thumbing through an old magazine, the telephone rang. I lifted the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”

“Doll?” It was my mother.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got some bad news.” She paused, letting out a sigh. “Nanny died last night in her sleep.”

I turned the page of my magazine. “I know. You didn’t have to call.”

Chapter 48

When I was seven years old, my parents enrolled me in Sunday school.

I spent Sunday afternoons in the dusty basement of the Catholic church with a gaggle of shrunken, ancient nuns and the mothers of other children. We coloured images of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus using cracked crayons with frayed paper, sang hymns, and listened to stories about what made people good and what made them bad.

One afternoon, I was sitting by myself at a table, colouring a picture of Jesus on the cross. I clutched the nub of a red crayon, scribbling well outside the lines of His body. In my mind, He was covered in blood. Sipping from the straw of an apple juice box, I hummed to myself.

Sister Laracy, a ninety-year-old nun, hobbled toward me, dragged a chair alongside, and struggled to sit before collapsing into the chair with a thump.

“How are you, Grace?”

“I’m good, Sister,” I replied without looking up. “How are you?”

“I’m well, child.”

My legs didn’t reach the ground, so I allowed them to swing back and forth as I worked on my colouring sheet.

“Have your parents mentioned anything about their plans to get married?” she asked.

“No, Mother says she doesn’t want to get married.”

“I see.”

I glanced at Sister Laracy. Her eyes didn’t quite focus, her pupils were full of little spots. Returning my gaze to the sheet on the plastic table, I admired all the red, wondering if she could see.

“You know, having children out of wedlock is considered a sin in the eyes of God.”