Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Hamish
The oddest part about becoming a father is that no one hands you a list of rules. They hand you a onesie with a pun printed on it, a baby registry link, and a look that says, Good luck, bampot, but there's no playbook for parenting.
So I make my own list.
Do not drop baby.
Do not forget baby in Uber.
Do not teach baby swear words before age two. Age three is fair.
Do not let Mum enroll baby in football classes before she has teeth.
Do not bother with the baby wrap. Use your arms, man.
This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, a new item appeared on the list in my head. I'm horrified I haven't thought of it before, and mildly worried that I will spontaneously combust from sin.
Go to Mass.
In the kitchen, Amy is trying to eat Greek yogurt while typing one-handed.
"We should go ta Easter Mass tomorrow before we go ta Mendon."
She freezes mid-spoon, eyes wide, apparently opening a frequently used file in her bonny head labeled Hamish Is Being Weird.
"Okay," she says slowly. "Why are you saying that like you were splashed with holy water and it burns?"
"I've been thinkin'," I say, and immediately regret it. Nothing good has ever started with "I've been thinking." Doing, yes. Thinking? Not so much.
Amy lowers her spoon with the care of a woman disarming a bomb.
"About Mass?"
"About bein' a good da," I finally say.
Her face softens. Then she waits, assuming—correctly—that more nonsense is coming.
"And mebbe I should get right with God. Or at least go on Christmas and Easter. The basics. Although Mum used ta say, 'That's just tossing crumbs at God, Hamish. Yer soul willna get ta heaven wi' whatever falls from yer faith cookie.'"
"Faith cookie?"
"I was ten when she said that, but mebbe she's got a point? The bairn's only seventeen weeks away and that's no' a lot o' time."
"I don't know." She says it very gently.
"What d'ye mean?"
"I mean," she says, still gentle, "I'm not Catholic."
"I ken that. Ye can still come ta Mass wi' me."
"Maybe it would be interesting."
"Interesting and Mass dinna go together in the same sentence."
"I've never been to one."
I stare at her like she has just told me she likes to lick crusty chewing gum off strangers' feet.
"Amy."
"Yes?"
"How are ye thirty-two and ne'r been ta Mass?"
She shrugs. "My parents aren't Catholic."
"But ye grew up near Boston," I reply. "Ye canna blink wi'out hitting a church."
"I went to church. Just not a Catholic one."
"But ye must have had a First Communion?"
"No," she says. "Yes, I've taken Communion, but we don't do a 'First Communion' like you do when you're Catholic."
My stomach drops.
"Ye mean... ye've never gone ta confession?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never means not even once, Hamish."
"Not even when ye did somethin' terrible and needed ta tell a priest so he could make ye do penance and give ye a fresh start?"
Amy's mouth twitches.
"I have never told a priest my sins, no. I am guessing you spent entire weeks in a confessional booth, though. The priest offered you frequent flyer miles or something?"
"What did ye do instead?" I demand.
"Nothing. I just... felt bad? Then tried to do better?" She looks genuinely confused.
I stare at her.
"That's no' how it works."
"Hamish."
"So ye've no' been baptized Catholic, no' had Communion, no' been confirmed, no' been ta confession," I summarize, as if reading charges.
"Correct."
"Then what did ye do on Sundays?"
"Slept?" she offers.
"Slept," I repeat, stunned.
"Sometimes brunch," she adds, as if that makes it better.
I rub my face, hearing my mother's voice in my head.
"Amy, ma mum's gonna have a fit."
"About what?" Her spoon returns to the yogurt.
"About the baby no' bein' raised Catholic."
"The baby isn't being raised at all yet, Hamish. The baby is floating inside me."
"Exactly. Now is the time ta decide if we want the baby ta float Catholic."
Amy squints.
"You know I'm not Catholic. You know I don't have strong feelings about religion. I'm fine with the baby being exposed to it. I'm against anyone telling me I'm doing motherhood wrong, so if your mother is planning to hold this against me, she's in for a shock. But religion? Sure. Whatever."
This is the most Amy answer possible. Practical. Boundary-driven. Open-minded.
And ready to fight my mother in a parking lot if necessary.
"Then will ye come ta Mass with me?" I ask.
"Are you doing this because you want a better relationship with God, or because you want Fiona to stop texting you in all caps?"
"Both," I say immediately.
"Fine. We'll go. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do at a Catholic Mass. I might accidentally join the choir or wash my hands in the holy water."
"I'd pay money ta see ye in a choir."
"Don't encourage me," she warns.
That night, I lie in bed wondering if God is grading me on a curve now that I'm about to be responsible for a whole other human. Amy rolls over and presses a kiss to my shoulder.
"We'll figure it out," she murmurs.
"Aye," I say, but my chest still feels tight.
Because this is not really about Communion wafers and kneeling.
It's about me seeing all the ways I can fail, all at once, in high definition.
The next morning, we head to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the biggest church I can find. If God is watching, surely He appreciates a man who goes large. Go big or go to hell, aye?
The cathedral is massive. Stone and arches and stained glass that makes the morning light look like it has been filtered through jewels. It smells like incense and old wood and two thousand years of people trying to be better than they are.
And it is Easter, so the church has gone full spectacle.
Masses of white lilies bank the altar, so many that the air is sweet and heavy with them.
Gold cloth drapes the lectern. The clergy process in wearing vestments so elaborate, they could pass for medieval royalty—white and gold chasubles, embroidered stoles, the whole production.
The organ is thundering something triumphant, filling every corner of the nave with sound that vibrates in my chest.
We walk up the steps and Amy slows beside me, eyes lifting.
"Okay," she whispers. "This is intense."
"Aye. It's church, where ye feel small and guilty just for existin'. But Easter cranks the volume ta eleven."
"You're really selling this."
Inside, the place is packed. Everyone in their Easter best—women in bright dresses, men in suits, little girls in white with headbands, boys squirming in ties they'll rip off before they reach the car.
Kids with hair combed into submission. Older women with expressions that say the church has gone downhill since Vatican II.
Amy's belly is rounder now, obvious under her open coat, and people notice. They smile and soften, giving her that look that is half blessing and half curiosity.
"God bless you," a woman says, touching Amy's arm gently. "And the baby."
Amy blinks, then smiles politely.
"Thank you."
I wrap my arm about Amy's thickening waist and breathe a bit deeper, feeling quite respectable. We're a young couple at church, about to be parents. Good people. We are good people who go to Mass.
I hope God sees us.
The folks around us most certainly do.
Sliding into a pew, I feel heads turn. Someone whispers my name, then another voice, louder.
"Hamish McCormick?"
A man across the aisle nudges his son. The boy looks at me like I'm a living trading card.
"Are you getting recognized at church?" Amy asks quietly.
"Aye," I mutter.
"Of course you are. Even Jesus can't have a quiet Sunday celebrating His death and resurrection without sports fans."
"Be nice."
"I'm being nice. It's just that your fame has followed you into the house of God. That feels unfair."
I can't tell her I'm impressed that she knows about the whole resurrection thing, being that she's a heathen and all that. So I just squeeze her hand and smile at her with the patience of a saint.
The organ swells into the processional hymn. People stand. Then sit. Then stand again. There is a rhythm to it, an athletic choreography of devotion. Kneel, rise, sit, repeat.
It's like faith with squats.
Amy watches everyone closely, trying to anticipate it.
"Why are we standing?" she whispers.
"Because we stand," I whisper back.
"For what?"
"For God," I say. I'm not a theologian. I'm a striker with a repaired ACL and meniscus, a new job in June, a baby on the way, and a backlog of religion to squeeze in quickly.
The Mass unfolds with familiar ritual. The words are the same words I've heard my entire life, and hearing them here, in Boston, beside my pregnant wife who has never had a First Communion, makes my throat tighten in a way I don't quite understand.
I kneel. I bow my head. I let it flow over me.
The priest calls for Communion and people begin filing out of the pews. When our turn comes, Amy stands with me automatically. Panic shoots through me so fast, I almost forget my knee. I grab her sleeve.
"No' ye."
She looks down at my hand, then up at me.
"What?"
"Ye canna go up," I hiss.
"Why not?"
"Because ye have ta be Catholic."
"Hamish." She stares at me.
"Amy," I whisper urgently. "Ye could burn in hell."
Her eyes widen, then she makes a face.
"For drinking some grape juice and eating a wafer?"
"Grape juice?" I blink.
"Aren't they going to pass the little cups?" she whispers. "Or do you guys do the tiny plastic shot glasses? Please tell me it's shot glasses. I won't drink out of a shared cup that's half backwash."
Mum would be twice dead by now.
"It's wine," is all I can think to say.
"It's wine?" Amy's brows lift. "At ten in the morning?"
"Aye. It's the blood of Christ."
She squints. "At my church, it was always grape juice."
"That's silly," I blurt, and her mouth drops open.
"Excuse me?"
"The blood of Christ canna be grape juice," I say. I'm arguing theology in the middle of a cathedral with a woman who thinks Communion is a snack tray.