And You Will Find Love

Barbara pleaded. "Please, mother. Save your breath."

"No, I have to ... Please don't hate me for telling you this now. I'm not your mother. I brought you up, but you're my best friend's child. She died giving birth to you. Your father left you with me, before he died. There's more I want to tell you. I just can't..."

While Barbara tried to take in what her mother had said, Mrs. Markey gasped for breath, then spoke even softer.

"You've been such a good daughter. Have I been too bad a mother?"

"You've been a wonderful mother. I love you very, very much, and you will always be my mother."

With that, she gave her a final kiss.

Barbara's parting words seemed to affect the dying woman very deeply. With what little strength she had left, tears came to her eyes but she looked happy. It was as if knowing how Barbara felt, she could die in peace.

Barbara kept her mothers' secret from her friends, and Paul and Gail came to the funeral Mass at St. Stanislaus church. Afterward, they stood with her at the graveside service in Resurrection Cemetery west of the city.

With her best friends on either side of her, Barbara looked around briefly at the small gathering of those who had come to pay their last respects to her mother, as she knew she would always think of her. There was the neighborhood druggist and his wife whose shop Barbara traded at, and several other neighbors, but no relatives because Barbara had not known of any.

Then she saw another mourner, standing apart from the others, half-hidden in shadows beneath a tall but barren maple tree. He was a man dressed all in black, but even with his head lowered, she could tell that he had only half a face.

What is No Face doing at my mother's funeral? Barbara wondered. He's here as a mourner, but did he know my mother? He must have, or he wouldn't be here at her grave. But why? And who? Each time she had seen the man with only half a face, though frightened by the sight of his missing ear and half a nose, she always felt torn between two emotions. She felt that way again seeing him at her mother's graveside. One side of her wanted to look away, even run away from him. Yet, another side wanted to comfort him and tell him his disfigured face did not matter. It was what was inside a person that was important, and that side of her wanted to touch his face tenderly; perhaps even kiss it.