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ANASTASIA’S GRAIL

  By Mary C Pearson

  copyright 2008 Mary C Pearson

  For all of my daughters, but especially for Nikki and Kirsten, who refused to hear my Shroud proofs unless I wrote them as fiction.

  Anastasia’s Grail

  Rebirth

  “The Saints are not people who never made mistakes or sinned, but who repented and were reconciled…Hence, also among saints there are oppositions, discords and controversies, and this is very consoling for me, as we see that the saints have not ‘fallen from Heaven’…They are men like us, with complicated problems. Holiness does not consist in not making mistakes or never sinning, holiness grows with the capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness…”

  --Pope Benedict XVI , general audience, Jan 31, 2007

  “Guess where we’re going on vacation?”

  Groggy, Stacy looked up from the novel she had been trying to read, “Aspen.”

  “C’mon, Stace.”

  “Paris, then.”

  Rose shot her daughter a look.

  “We never vacate, Mom. What about the bread store?”

  Her mother adjusted the heat to a lower setting and nudged the car radio down a bit. “Your uncle can mind the register for a couple of days and we’ve got quite a bit frozen. They can do without the fresh stuff for awhile. I doubt if anyone will die until we get back.”

  Stacy was completely awake now. She firmly closed her book and shoved it in her pack. “Who all is included in this “we” that are going on vacation, anyway? For that matter, where are you planning to take me?” She was unable to disguise her alarm.

  “Emily and you. Reecie, of course. I’m hoping your grandmother will come to keep me company. Since I’m renting a van I thought Ezekiel and Arthur could come with us.”

  Hmm. Arthur was of interest, although the last thing she would do is let her mother know she thought so. Wait a minute. Where could she possibly be planning to take such an oddball group of people? Stacy was definitely suspicious. She locked eyes with her mother’s image in the rear view mirror. “Where are you taking me?” (against my will, was implicit.)

  Her mother cleared her throat. “It’s kind of a pilgrimage,” she said.

  “Absolutely not,” Stacy folded her arms and looked out the window.

  Her mother pulled the car to the side of the road and placed it in park. She turned to face her oldest daughter. “Stacie, sweetie, your sister and the boys need a retreat in order to be confirmed. There’s this conference coming to the Cities with a lot of top notch speakers. I had hoped we could all go as a family. We’ll get a hotel suite with a pool and hot tub. We can eat out in the evenings.” She flashed her daughter her most winsome smile. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”

  “Mom, you know how I feel about religion.” Stacy had not attended religion class since her mother had removed her from CCD in fifth grade, angry that her teacher at the time was not adhering to the doctrines of Catholicism. Stacy had quit going to church altogether when she was in ninth grade. “Can I just stay at the hotel and watch TV while you all do this conference stuff?”

  “I already enrolled you in the teen workshop. I wish you would just go with the others. Stacy,” her mother clasped Stacy’s hands in her own,”it would mean a lot to me. I know you’re almost eighteen. Soon you’ll be making all of your own decisions. Humor me with this last thing we do together. Besides,” she considered her eldest daughter gravely, “you might meet someone interesting.” There was the familiar glint in her mother’s eye. Where other moms tend to tell their daughters that it was just as easy to marry a rich man, Stacy’s mom would say it was just as easy to marry a Catholic. “I firmly hope I didn’t make a bad choice when I named you after St. Anastasia.” Anastasia, Stacy knew, had married a pagan who had treated her ill for her entire life, imprisoning her in their home and abusing her for her Christian beliefs. Stacy’s goofy mom tended to believe that the name you chose for your child could predetermine her life. “Oh well, at least you ‘will rise again’.” She said this glibly. Resurrection. That was the meaning of Stacy’s name. Stacy’s mom pulled out into traffic. “We can talk about this more at work,” she said.

  Stacy, along with her sister Emily and her cousin Ezekiel—his friends called him Zeke—worked in the family business. Ezekiel and his family lived in Florida, but after he graduated, Zeke came to live with Stacy’s grandmother and her uncle to help them start up Grandma Annie’s business. Stacy’s grandmother had invented an amazing bread that contained no real flour at all. It was made of various fibers and other extremely healthy additives like flax and a substance called barley beta glucons, which was a flour-like powder extracted from barley with extreme heat. The bread was crazy good for you, especially if you were a diabetic, and people everywhere had clamored for it so much that her grandmother had been forced to open a factory out of her home—which had been an industrial building, and was zoned commercial. Her mother’s mother had not liked the look of the place so she had had all of the windows replaced by stained glass ones depicting early church martyrs. She had gotten these cheaply when an ancient area church was demolished. Stacy’s grandmother was just as Catholic as her mother.

  “How’s business?” Stacy’s mom greeted her grandmother as they entered the shop.

  “Busy. More so all the time. We have so many mail orders that Zeke will have to make a second run to the post office today.” Grandma Annie was wearing an apron and her whole self was dusted with powdered fibers as usual. “Rose, can you and Stacy get the loaves into pans right away? There’s a big ball of dough ready to go in the steamer.”

  Stacy and her mother put on aprons and got to work. Her mother weighed 1 lb. blobs while Stacy deftly pounded, pinched and rolled the things until they were perfectly formed loaves. They were quick with it from much practice. On another bench bread loaves were cooling while still more loaves were being bagged and trayed for transport by her younger sister and Zeke. He was tall and thin, with a shock of black curls hanging in his face. Zeke was two years her senior and had not yet started university, so he was able to help Granny full time with her fledgling business. Likewise, her mother was at the place for most of the day. Stacy and Emily put in four hours every day after school. “Where is Reecie?” Stacy wondered aloud. Often her 4-year-old sister would be hanging around with them. She had a little TV/DVD unit they kept on the bench to entertain her with Veggie Tales, Barney and Blues Clues.

  “She’s hanging out with George,” Stacy’s Grandma told them.

  As if on cue Stacy’s great uncle came staggering through the door to the production room, his straggly white hair flying and her little sister, Clarice, perched precariously on his shoulders. Reecie’s hands were partly obscuring his vision so that he lurched and stumbled as he entered. “Off, tiny tyrant,” he hoisted her to the floor unceremoniously. “For your information, I am a very old and venerable gentleman. You’re wearing me out before my time.”

  “Again,” Reecie pleaded. “More horsie. Plea-ease!”“

  “All done!” Uncle George brushed his hands together with finality. “Anyway it’s 3:00. The perfect hour of divine mercy.” Stacy’s involuntary groan was echoed by Emily from across the room. Uncle George seemed impervious. “Who would like to pray a Chaplet with me?” He surveyed the room’s busy occupants.

  Before anyone could come up with a plausible excuse for non-participation, Zeke chimed in, “Let’s do it. Stace’ll lead.” George smirked. “In fact,” Zeke continued smoothly, “I’d kind of like her to sing it today. Do you need to warm up, Stace?

  George looked as though he were about to bust. “Ezekiel,” he murmured fondly, “you have
always been such a talent. You sing today.”

  Zeke nodded and began to intone the words in a fakey falsetto, at which Stacy muttered under her breath,”Oh you’re so-oo holy!” Surreptitiously she gathered a golf-ball size chunk of dough and just as surreptitiously flung it in the direction of her cousin, striking him smartly behind the ear.

  Zeke picked the offending blob up off of the work room floor and lobbed it back at her.

  “Enough!” Stacy’s mother intervened before the thing could escalate. “Stacy,” she said, but not unkindly, “let’s not waste Grandma’s dough. You don’t have to pray if you don’t want to. Just tune it out.”

  Stacy shrugged. It was a short one anyway, not like a fifteen-decade rosary.