"Forgiving Day"

Marina was fourteen when she ran away from home—away from being her step-father’s punching bag. She was eleven years old when her mother, Joan, married Frank, and during those first three years, Marina prayed every night for her mother to stop it all, to kick Frank out, to hold Marina in her arms and beg for her forgiveness. Her prayers were never answered. For six years she went wherever the wind and chance led her, crisscrossing across Nebraska, always near her home town of Omaha, but never through it. She hitchhiked across the prairies to California, up the West Coast, and then on to the East Coast, from Boston to Miami, never staying in one city longer than a couple weeks and determined never to return home.  

Now, on Thanksgiving Day, just one week from her twentieth birthday, Marina stood in a line of other homeless people outside the downtown Omaha shelter and soup kitchen waiting for a hot turkey dinner and a place to sleep. She had been sitting at the counter in a Brooklyn diner sipping coffee, watching the television in the corner when she found herself staring at images of her home town. Tornadoes ripped through the city, demolishing trailer parks and affluent neighborhoods alike. She had not thought of her mother in nearly four years, but at that moment, Marina’s heart sank and the coffee crept back up into her throat. She imagined Joan lying bloody and broken beneath a pile of rubble. 

She slapped a couple of dollars on the counter and rushed for the nearest truck stop. As much as she did not want to, she had to go home. She needed to make sure the one person left in the world who had loved her was still alive. On Thanksgiving Day, she arrived in Omaha, but the list of dead had not been released yet. She would have to go to her mother’s house, or what might be left of it, but not yet. She needed one more night to prepare herself. 

It had not taken her long to find the homeless shelter. Though she had never been to this particular one, she knew every city put them in the same place: downtown, not too far from the banks and law offices—what Marina called the fat wallet district—but far enough away so that the pan-handlers had to walk a few blocks to beg for a handout. 

The shelter was as ragged as all the others she had been to, with barely enough space for everyone. The outside of the building needed a good pressure washing and coat of paint. Bars covered the windows on the outside to keep thugs from breaking them. She peered through the bars. The linoleum floor inside was bubbled up in places and curling at the walls. Mismatched tables and chairs from the ‘70s to the ‘90s were set in neat rows. The only things that gave this branch of Hard-knocks Anonymous a feeling like home were the Thanksgiving themed paper placemats and electric tea candles lined up on the tables. 

A volunteer—a young woman about Marina’s age wearing a University of Nebraska-Omaha sweatshirt with an applique of Greek letters—stood at the door as Marina entered. 

“Happy Thanksgiving!” The woman smiled and made a tick mark on her clipboard. 

Marina only looked ahead, immune to the genuine cheerfulness of the volunteers who probably only wanted to feel good about themselves. The aroma of gravy and roasted turkey lingered in the air. She assumed there would be potatoes too—instant, of course. There was also a hint of cinnamon. Pumpkin pie, she guessed. That was all she could smell, but she knew tonight’s dinner would be more elaborate than most other nights, which usually consisted of soup and a sandwich. It was Thanksgiving, and always on Thanksgiving, no matter which shelter it was, local businesses donated money to make this night stand out. 

The line crawled and Marina’s stomach growled. She had not eaten since the evening before. A truck driver had picked her up at a gas station in Des Moines and offered to drop her off in Omaha on his way to Denver. For a moment, she had considered changing her plans—going to Denver with the driver. After all that had happened, she did not owe her mother anything. She closed her eyes, trying to force the memories back.

“It’s me or him! Can’t you see what he’s doing to us?” she had shouted at her mother. Joan sat in the living room clutching a cigarette in one hand, an empty whisky glass in the other, waiting for Frank to return from the liquor store. Joan muttered something about it not being fair. Marina slapped Joan’s hand and screamed. Joan stared hazy-eyed at her daughter, then at the cigarette smoldering in the carpet.

“That was my last one,” Joan said. 

Marina stood staring, dumbfounded. The front door to the doublewide opened behind her and Frank stumbled in, one of the whiskey bottles already a quarter empty. He glanced around the room, swaying a little. His eyes landed on the cigarette that lay melting the carpet fibers. 

“What’s going on here? Marina, leave your mother alone.” He stooped, legs spread wide and his beer belly hanging like a sack of potatoes, to pick up the cigarette.

“No!” Marina shouted and stomped on Frank’s hand. 

Frank bolted up and dumped the liquor bottles on Joan’s lap. “What did you say to me?” He grabbed a handful of Marina’s hair and yanked her head so that they were nose to nose, his hot whiskey breath invading her nostrils. “You don’t talk that way to me and stomp on my hand. I’m your father!”

Marina reared her arm back and punched Frank in his belly. He sucked in a breath and released her. She jumped to the far side of the room and grabbed a vase from the bookcase. Frank glared at Joan. “Are you gonna let her do that to me? I’m your husband.” 

Joan stared, her mouth slightly open, from Frank to Marina and said nothing. She lowered her gaze back to the now squashed cigarette. 

Frank pulled himself up straight and faced Marina, his hands knotted into fists. Marina raised the vase with both hands over her head, ready to bring it down in the middle of Frank’s bald spot.

He reeled back, his eyes wide, then he loosened his stance. “Ah, you’re not worth it. You ain’t worth nothing.” He sat on the couch and took a swig of whiskey. 

Marina turned, disgusted by both of them. A few hours later, after packing only what she needed and waiting until Joan and Frank were asleep, Marina left the house. No note. No goodbye. 

She shook the memory from her head. She did not want to go back to that, but she had needed to know her mother was still alive. She wondered if her mother was sober now. Maybe Frank was even dead or in jail. There was no way to know for sure staying so far from home. Marina once met a homeless physicist from Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, or some kind of -stan, who told her about an experiment referred to as Schrodinger’s cat, where a cat was placed in a box containing poison. The physicist explained that as long as the box remained closed, the cat could be thought of as dead or alive. As long as Marina stayed away from her mother’s house, Joan could be sober, caring, and responsible again, the way she had been before the aneurism took Marina’s father, when every night was spent sitting together, laughing and sharing the day’s stories. The box would stay closed, she decided. Marina would make sure the tornado had not killed Joan, but never reveal she was home.

The line moved and Marina studied the smiling faces of the people dishing up the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, pie, and sides. One face beamed across at her: a gray-haired man at the end of the line, overseeing its progress. He looked familiar. 

He crossed the room. “Hi, Marina. It’s me, Walter. Well, I guess I was Father Maxie last time I saw you.”

Marina blinked then smiled. She recognized him now. He had been a priest at the Catholic church Marina and her mother attended before Joan married Frank. After their marriage, only Marina continued to go to Mass and confession. Back then he was thin, his gray hair kept short, and his black suit always pressed and his white collar starched. Now his hair, streaked with white, hung to his shoulders, and though still thin, Walter’s skin had lost the firmness and healthy glow it once had. A faded plaid button-down and jeans, well-worn Navy bomber jacket, and tennis shoes that had seen better days replaced the black suit and collar. 

Marina hugged him. “Father Maxie, it’s so good to see you.”

“It’s just Walter now.”

“Right.” The smile fell from Marina’s face as she realized why he was here. “So what happened?”

Walter scratched his head and sighed. “Well, after your last confession, I decided to go to the police about the abuse, but they couldn’t do anything. You had run off, I’m guessing that same night, and your mother wouldn’t admit what he was doing. The church decided to take action, though—against me. They said I broke the sanctity of the confessional and took my collar.” 

Marina’s jaw dropped. “They excommunicated you?”

“No, no. They didn’t go that far. They did make it clear I wasn’t welcome anymore, though. For the past six years I’ve been working for the shelter and doing odd jobs here and there.”

“Walter, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. In a way, it was the best thing that could have happened.”

Marina had her doubts. Working odd jobs to survive had never made her happy. She forced a smile. “The best thing?”

Walter leaned in close to her ear. “I met someone, and as soon as I’ve got enough money saved up, I’m going to propose.” 

Marina laughed. “At your age?”

Walter shrugged. “Better late than never.” He sniffed the air. “Smells pretty good, doesn’t it?”

Marina agreed.

“I’m surprised you’re here instead of at home, though, being so close.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Besides, there’s Frank to deal with.”

Walter nodded. “Things have changed, you know. Your mother got clean and kicked him out.”

“Really?” Marina remembered the almost comatose woman she had left. She had a hard time imagining Joan doing anything different.

“Sure did.” The line moved and Marina grabbed a plate and plastic knife and fork. “As soon as your mom realized you weren’t coming back, she sobered up and told Frank to get out and give her a divorce. Said it was his fault she lost her daughter. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t go over too well and he started beating on her. The neighbors called the cops. They took him straight to jail. It only took a couple of months to make the divorce final.”

Marina let the smiling volunteers fill her plate. She did not speak until she and Walter sat down at a table in the back corner of the room.

“I’m happy he’s gone, but I can’t forgive her for all she put me through. She never should have married him. I begged her not to. That last day, I tried to get her to see what he was doing to us. I told her to choose and she chose him. Not outright, but by ignoring me, by letting him abuse me and not doing anything to stop it.”

Creases lined Walter’s downturned mouth. He looked at Marina’s plate. “You know, they say good home cooking can heal the soul. I guess that’s why they call it soul food.” 

She did not know if it would heal her soul, but it would cure the hunger pains. She took a bite of turkey and held it in her mouth, letting the juices drip down her tongue. She had expected it to be dry and taste like chicken, like all the other Thanksgiving dinners she had in the other shelters. She took another bite, savoring it. The seasonings, or perhaps the brine, used to flavor it tasted vaguely familiar. 

She shoveled in a spoonful of mashed potatoes next. Real potatoes! Not the instant freeze-dried flakes she had grown used to. The gravy, too, was homemade, made from the turkey drippings. Marina shoveled heaping spoonful after spoonful into her mouth, taking in the buttery flavor. Even the peas and carrots, which had that frozen-food texture, made her mouth water. She finished off the turkey and gravy and moved on to the fluffy, butter-glazed roll. When she finished it, she licked the butter from her fingers before moving on to the pumpkin pie. 

Flecks of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg dotted the pie. Unlike the store-bought pies, this one did not have an oily film on top, and the crust’s uneven scores around the edge gave away that it was homemade. She dug her fork down into the slice, getting a little of the whipped cream, and brought it to her lips. She closed her eyes, chewing slowly, feeling each texture—the creamy pumpkin, the crumbling crust—before swallowing. She took her time with each bite, identifying each flavor, but there was one unexpected one.

She had tasted it before, yet she knew it was unique to the recipe. She could not put her finger on the flavor—brandy? rum? 

As she finished the last bite, she dropped her fork onto the plate and leaned back, smiling, eyes closed. For once in a very long time, she felt peaceful.

“Good?” Walter said.

“Great.”

“Just like Mama used to make.”

Marina’s eyes flew open and she sat up. That was it. These were her mother’s recipes. It had been more than ten years since her mother last cooked anything from scratch. Before she could think what to say, Walter spoke. 

“She’s been volunteering here for almost as long as you’ve been gone, trying to make up for what she did by helping other people’s lost children. I’d say she’s even hoped you might walk through that door some day.”

Marina shook her head. “I can’t believe she kept hope for that long. She didn’t think I was dead?”

Walter shook his head. “She didn’t want to believe it, even though the cops told her that was what would happen, sooner or later.”

Marina stared at the crumbs and gravy left on her plate as she put the pieces together. Joan was here, cooking for her daughter. Marina’s heart raced a moment and then every muscle in her body relaxed and a warmth spread through her.

“You know,” Walter said, “she’s probably still back in the kitchen. I bet she’d give you seconds on everything.”

Marina pushed away from the table.

Walter stood. “Follow me.” He led her down a short hallway at the back of the building and pushed the door open. A short, fat woman sweeping the floor looked at her.

“This is Joan’s prodigal daughter,” Walter said. 

The woman’s mouth hung open then her lips widened into a smile. “Come on in, honey.” 

Marina entered the kitchen and the woman caught her in her arms. She nearly squeezed the breath out of her. 

“Your mother and the rest of us have been praying so hard for this day.” She squeezed Marina’s hands and studied her face. “You look just like her.”

Marina could not speak. Her chest swelled, each breath labored. These people had been praying for her? They did not even know her.

The woman patted her shoulder and pointed to the back of the kitchen where the door to a large pantry stood open. “She’s in there.”

Marina smoothed her hair as she walked toward the pantry. She hoped she did not look too much like a bum. Jelly replaced her legs as she paused outside the pantry. She took a deep breath then peeked around the door. 

Her mother tied up a bag of potatoes and stacked large canisters of flour and sugar. Bent over, it appeared she had the whole weight of the universe on her. Then she stood. Though her back was straight as an arrow, Joan’s shoulders bowed forward and her back was no longer defined by the strong muscles she once had. Joan had lost weight since the last time Marina saw her, and gray had replaced her black hair. The six years Marina had been gone seemed to age her mother sixteen years, and Marina fought back the tears that burned behind her eyes.

She waited. Sweat beaded on her palms. She wanted to apologize for the pain she had unknowingly caused. She stepped around the door and stood in the opening. Joan’s back was still to her as she organized the shelves.

“Mom.”

Joan paused, her hands raised above her head clutching cans of corn. She turned her head and looked toward the door. The cans fell from her hands and hit the floor.

“Marina.” Joan walked toward her. “My baby.” Joan’s eyes glistened and she reached out to her. “Is it really you?”

Marina fell into her mother’s arms. “Yes, Mama. I’m so sorry.”

Joan stroked Marina’s hair and rocked her back and forth. In that moment, their pasts did not matter. Hurt and anger melted away. What was left was love, and that was all they needed.