1. this is my beloved Son
The water runs red.
Maggie asks Sister Elizabeth to bring her fresh water half a dozen times and there is still so much blood left.
It’s everywhere, dried to his skin where the suit has torn, caked into grimy patches where it’s mixed with sweat and dirt and what might be soot, it’s impossible to know by sight alone. Sullied water drips in red and black rivets onto the sheets beneath Matthew’s body as quickly as blood appears. It bubbles up from under the suit when she cuts it off to reveal skin already swollen and flared with the first signs of infection.
Normally Maggie prays while she works, her thoughts taking shape around prayers the same way her fingers might over the beads of her rosary, but tonight her mind is empty, her focus dedicated solely to what her hands must do, flushing the worst from his wounds, her fingers steady as she stitches the skin back together where she can.
It’s ugly work, her own skin smeared red and dirty where her gloves don’t reach, where her shirt sleeves shift, but she can’t be bothered by it now.
Her back aches and her fingers have gone numb by the time she thinks she’s done enough to keep Matthew alive for the night, aware all the while that what he needs is a hospital, but Paul is adamant that this is where he’s safest and she can’t, despite every wall she’s built in the last thirty years, bury the instinct to keep him safe.
“Sister Margaret?” Sister Elizabeth asks at her back and Maggie straightens, startled when seconds ago she thought she was alone, going through the paces of cleaning the room. There’s blood on the cuffs of Sister Elizabeth’s sleeves, pink and bright in a way that tells Maggie it’s been diluted with water.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” Maggie apologizes, and Sister Elizabeth, showing the fullness of her youth, seems to pale at whatever Maggie wears on her face. She knows how the children see her, closed off and stern in her orders, as severe as the worst matrons of Maggie’s childhood. Sister Elizabeth isn’t that much removed from their oldest wards, and Maggie’s peer, not an unruly child caught hiding vegetables in a napkin. She relaxes her face, does her best to drop her shoulders out of their rigid line, nods at Sister Elizabeth to continue.
“I just—do you need anything else, Sister?”
Maggie looks at Matthew, stripped of his costume—uniform, maybe, if what she’s seen in the papers is true, it’s as much a uniform as it is a disguise—with his limbs still streaked with blood where the bandages aren’t holding him together. His hair is filthy, his face a mess of bruises and stitches and dirt.
“More warm water, Sister Elizabeth, please and thank you.”
He used to cry. She hasn’t forgotten it. He used to cry when she unwrapped his blanket and tried to bathe him in the sink. She was always sure the water was too hot, that it was getting in his ears or going up his nose, that it would fill his lungs and he would go quiet in her hands, a punishment from God for breaking her vows.
Matthew doesn’t cry now when Maggie runs a warm, wet towel over his skin, gentle but steady to clean away the blood that still lingers. Sister Elizabeth helps her lift his head off the pillow and pour warm water over his head, and Maggie runs her fingers through his dark hair—Jack, he looks so much like Jack, his bloodied face and busted knuckles. He’s taken after his father in so many ways, in all the worst ways maybe—again and again until the water runs clean.
2. My hour has not come yet.
Maggie considers telling him that night after Matt's ill-advised attempt at stepping back into the ring. She finds him seated cross-legged on his borrowed bed, shoulders hunched and face troubled and bruised, and she thinks of taking his hands in hers and telling him who she is.
Matthew looks so much like the boy who came to them years ago, burdened by grief and a pain none of them could understand.
She touches her fingers to his bruised face, mindful of the stitches she left there with her own hands and wants to tell him how much he looks like Jack. Not just in the blood collecting under the surface of his skin, but in the strength of his shoulders and the swing of his arms, in the stubborn clench of his jaw when he got back up. It truly was an incredible sight to see, like a memory brought to life before her eyes.
Matthew allows her to slip the black cord of the crucifix over his head and Maggie prays in her heart for God to watch over him, to comfort him, to guide Matt back to himself. She asks God to help her in her work as she attempts to do the same.
Her heart lodges in her throat, a painful reminder of the secret she keeps, when Matthew thanks her for her kindness and Maggie cannot find the strength in her to share her truth.
Maggie cannot tell him that she bore him once long ago, kept him safe beneath her heart even as her mind turned with thoughts of the wrong she was committing. She cannot tell Matthew she gave him away to protect him from herself or that she stayed away because she could not face her own shame at what she’d done.
Maggie cannot even tell him that she thinks God has sent him to her now to make amends for the path she set him on when she left him alone.
Maggie tells herself it is not Matthew’s confession to shoulder, not now when his back curves so deeply beneath the weight of the cross he bears, the responsibility of this city and his choices, the things he won’t yet talk of that have left him worn thin and jagged.
She is afraid, Maggie knows, just as she has always been afraid of what this truth will cost her. She has seen and felt the reproach of his anger, has experienced his rejection of her aid as he knows her now, a figure brought out of his past, barely more than a stranger to him now in his adulthood.
What will he think of her kindness once he knows what he is to her?
Matthew is her son, but Maggie knows she gave up the right to call herself his mother long ago.
3. the kingdom of God is at hand
“Last time we spoke, I confronted Father Lantom. I was angry. I’d change that if I could.” There’s regret in his voice, but contemplation as well, and Maggie knows, whatever troubles he brings with him today, he’s well on his way to finding his own answers.
“If God allowed that, there’d be no future. Just people endlessly rewriting the past.” Paul used to say that, back when Maggie was first coming out of her post-partum, when she was being torn apart by her choices. He would tell her there was no going back. Only striving to move forward, towards better.
Matthew doesn’t disagree. He seems like a new man entirely, not just in the way he speaks about the mystery of God’s design but in the way he holds himself, his shoulders unburdened, his head held high not in defiance but in hope.
“Maybe my life has been exactly as it had to be.” He says finally, face turned towards her.
Maggie doesn’t know if she can agree with him, that he should have been meant to suffer so much hardships. She never liked the martyr tales, not the ones full of blood and death, she preferred the saints, the angels. She named her son after both. But it’s not for her to tell him that. Maggie has been a nun long enough to accept that her perception is indeed limited by what she knows, what she’s seen. She can only guess at the grander design.
Today, what she sees is the man in front of her, his bruised knuckles holding steady around the black handle of his cane, the wounds on his face nearly healed. They’ll scar most likely, but he’ll live.
What Maggie knows is that terrible dangerous men have been put away because of what Matthew did, and that he’ll do it again, and again. She understands now, as she understands herself, that it is his calling.
“You have a generous heart, Matthew. To see the good in so much pain.”
Matthew sighs, tips his head back, his face tilted towards the warm morning light shining down on them through the stained glass. Maggie mirrors his position, closes her eyes and sends a short prayer of thanks heavenward, to Jack and to Paul and above all else to God, that they’ve weathered this storm and somehow, miraculously, survived it. Whatever comes next for them, Matthew will not hold the past against her.
Maggie exhales, bathed in sunlight.
4. his face shone like the sun
She doesn’t expect to see him so soon after the funeral. But Matthew is as bullheaded as a dog with the bone, as stubborn as both his parents combined she thinks with equal parts fondness and exasperation. He stands at the back of the church for a long moment, hands wrapped around the top of his cane, head tipped slightly to the side.
Maggie sits straighter, hands tightening briefly around the hymnal in her hand. The children who’ve accompanied her to Mass today see Matthew, whisper to each other about the odd man who once occupied a room in their halls. Most of them recognize him as one of their own, though Maggie doesn't know how they’ve made the connection between Matthew and the sullen-faced boy in a framed picture decorating the orphanage lobby. Perhaps Paul let them in on the secret.
Matthew must hear one of the children whispering or perhaps it's something else altogether that gives her away. He can pick up on six different trains cutting through the maze of tunnels running underground, he can surely hear a group of children gossiping about him. He straightens and resumes walking, cane leading the way as he comes further into the church. Maggie doesn’t know why she’s surprised when he approaches her pew. There is so much she does not understand about her son, the things he can do, and the things he does.
“Is there room for one more?” Matthew asks, polite and soft-spoken, so well-mannered Maggie sees how easily he must fool the world at large. But his knuckles are red and she knows that whatever face he puts on, Matthew is so much more on the inside. Loud and reckless, brave and contrary, caring and fragile and stronger than steel. “Always.” Maggie answers, and the children move over to make room, leave enough space for Maggie to slide over so that Matthew can take a seat.
“Hi Mr. Murdock.” Benji greets warmly, and then comes a chorus of greetings, suspiciously eager as the children peer curiously. Matthew smiles, offers a hand for shaking before the crowd falls silent, the familiar warm hush, like an inhale, as though the whole congregation were holding its breath before the temple is filled with piano music and the rich scent of incense as the procession begins.
Maggie has lost count of the number of Masses she’s attended, but it always feels special. The swell of the Gloria, the liturgy, praying as a community of faithful parishioners. Benji takes her right hand before they recite the Lord’s Prayer and Matthew takes her left in his broad callused hand, holds it in his steady grip and lifts them together as they offer their praise and their prayers.
“Peace be with you.” Maggie says to Benji, offering him her hand again, smiling when the boy solemnly takes it in his small hand and shakes it. “Peace be with you.” Maggie repeats, turning towards Matthew, who is waiting patiently at her left, hand extended towards her.
His grip is strong when he shakes her hand, “And also with you.”
“You got it wrong!” Benji whispers loudly at her right and Maggie nearly turns to stare at him but Matthew just smiles.
It isn’t the polite facsimile of a smile either, but a genuine crooked smile that shows his teeth, creases his face. Maggie can’t help but smile in return even if he can’t see it. He releases her hand, offers peace to Benji who models the correct response. “Sorry,” Matthew apologies in a bad whisper, “I’m old.”
Maggie scoffs under her breath.
She expects him to say his goodbyes after Mass, is ready to bid him farewell and walk her wards back for a late lunch. But Matthew lingers at the church doors again, answering Benji and Vanina and Samuel’s questions about everything from what he does to where he lives now and what he got up to when he was one of Maggie’s charges.
“Why were you hurt?” Benji asks, testing his luck, which he seems to know well enough when he falls silent at a look from Maggie.
“An accident.” Matthew says easily, and somehow he’s walking alongside their motley group, all the way to the doors of Saint Agnes’ Orphanage.
“Would you like to join us for lunch?” Maggie offers once all the children have run inside to help set the table.
Matthew shakes his head, scratches the back of the head sheepishly. “Thank you, but I can’t. I have a lot of work to catch up on.” Maggie doesn’t feel disappointment, resigned to seeing him walk away. She didn’t need to be his mother or any child’s mother for that matter to be familiar with the idea, she has let hundreds of children go in their own time to forge their own paths apart from her. It is never pleasant, but it is necessary. Maggie understands her role.
Matthew clears his throat. “I, um, I guess, I wanted to show you something.”
He reaches into his jacket pocket and removes a piece of paper; a page of a newspaper Maggie realizes as soon he passes it over to her. Matthew’s flushed pink as Maggie unfolds it, opens it to reveal a quarter page ad for the professional services of Nelson, Murdock, and Page. “I guess, if you know anyone who might need some help, you could send them our way.”
Maggie looks at the page, then at Matthew’s face, the glint of the late afternoon sun on his dark glasses, the nearly hopeful turn of his mouth as he waits for her response.
Maggie has met them both, Nelson and Page, in the chaos of the last month, in both terrible and less turbulent circumstances. Karen Page and her firebrand passion, her bleeding heart, her iron-will. Franklin Nelson, his gentle spirit and unrelenting determination, his steadfast devotion. Matthew’s friends. The people who have watched his back all this time. His family.
“I’ll be sure to let them know.” Maggie replies, smoothing the paper with her fingers.
“You should come by the office someday, if you have the chance.” Matthew says, something less sure now in his voice, “We’ll give you the tour.”
Maggie doesn’t know what he can perceive from her in that moment, whether he can feel the rapid beating of her pulse in her throat, the warmth that surges through her veins. She prides herself for the steadiness of her voice when she answers and hopes Matthew can hear the depth of sincerity in her voice when she answers, “I’d like that.”
5. took bread, and blessed, and broke it
“Sister Margaret! Right this way, ma’am.” Franklin Nelson says, pink-faced and fumbling as he pulls out a chair at the folding table that’s been set up in the middle of the room. This small set of rooms were obviously not originally intended to be anyone’s office, situated as they are over a deli and crowded with secondhand furniture. But Matthew is so clearly proud of everything he’s shown her, even if he’s invited his friends-not just friends, colleagues–to do the majority of the talking, standing back and offering only the occasional comment when necessary.
Maggie enjoys seeing him in this light, enjoys getting to see all three of them together in this setting. They look young to her in a different way, not overburdened by their tasks and cast adrift as they were in those terrible weeks when she first made their acquaintance. Seeing the three of them now with the warm light of late Spring coming through the bare windows, Maggie can clearly see the admiration that unites them, the excitement in their faces when they talk about their work.
Maggie takes the offered seat, unsure about this turn in event but at ease. Franklin pulls out the chair at Maggie’s left for Karen, who smiles graciously and thanks him. “I’m so glad you could make it today.” Karen says. “It means a lot.” Her blue eyes are startling, bright and earnest, eyes Maggie’s seen a hundred times. Maggie knows all about the desire to make amends, not only for oneself but for those around you. Perhaps in time, she’ll learn what planted that desire in Karen. Today, Maggie merely nods, “I’m glad to be here.” She looks over her shoulder towards what she saw was a kitchen, where Franklin and Matthew are making a suspicious amount of noise. “Though I’m not sure what part of the tour we’re on.”
“This isn’t officially part of the tour.” Karen jokes, then just as warmly, “This part is special, for you.”
Maggie has spent her life taking care of others, Matthew included though perhaps never in the capacity she could have in another life. She knows the many different forms care can take: a prayer, a listening ear, an honest conversation, a push or an embrace, and a hundred different gestures and actions beyond.
She recognizes care when she sees it, even in Matthew’s surliest, meanest moods she could see the compassion he couldn’t beat down inside himself, the concern he carried for the people he most bullheadly pushed away. She saw it in Karen as she sat in her care, brittle with anger and the need to do more. She saw it in Franklin when he strode into the church in the wake of Pointdexter’s attack, and in the flicker of confusion and hurt and amazement in his face when Matthew first introduced her as his mother. She recognizes the love both these individuals have for her son in the generosity with which they’ve extended their empathy to her.
Maggie recognizes care when see it and she sees it now as Matthew and Franklin exit the kitchen, Matthew holding a tray with glasses and plates and a bottle of wine, Franklin behind him holding a casserole dish.
“Since Karen did the cooking, we thought it was only fair to do the serving.” Franklin says happily. Matthew sets the table and Maggie can’t help but watch him, the curl of his mouth when he laughs at something Franklin says or how he blushes when Karen teases him for the wine he picked. “Matt has expensive taste.” Franklin adds on and Matthew doesn’t deny it, just moves right now to opening the bottle and pouring drinks for the table.
“You’re off the clock right?” He says, coaxes a grin onto Maggie’s face in response.
Maggie recognizes love in the manner in which the three of them talk over and around one another, a chaotic jumble of stories and retorts, questions and rambling tangents that make up the entirety of their meal together. Maggie listens for the majority of it, takes in everything she can. There is so much she wants to learn about the man Matthew is, who he's been.
Maggie doesn’t know what it means to Matthew to invite her into this part of his life, but she knows what it means to her, knows she’ll value it as highly as she does the confidence he placed in her when it came to his secret.
Her son, Jack’s son. He’s exceeded her wildest dreams in every possible way.
He’s so good Jack, she thinks, you should be proud.
Franklin–Foggy Karen and Matthew call him as easily as they breathe–pushes away from the table first and Karen after, both of them busying themselves with cleaning up.
“You’re our honored guest.” Franklin says when she offers to help, motioning for her to remain seated.
Matthew fiddles with the discarded cork, rolls it between his fingers. She’s beginning to learn this too, the way he moves his hands when he’s searching for the right words. Maggie sips her wine, content, waits for him to find whatever he’s looking for.
“Thank you for coming today.” He says finally, tapping the cork against the table. “It–” he bites his mouth thin, then relaxes into a smile, soft with kindness, “I hope we can do this again.”
“I’d like that.” Maggie agrees, overcome by how fiercely hope burns in her. “Thank you.”
Matt bows his head, as though in prayer, just for a second. He startles her when he reaches out towards her, his palm heavy and warm when it rests atop hers.
Maggie is momentarily at a loss. She doesn’t know what she expected from today, in all truth. She’s asked God for strength every single day since she walked away from Matthew, and she begged for it when she didn’t go to his side when he was a child, alone in the dark. She thinks of what retribution would call for, what some might call justice for her wrongs.
Paul would say that this, right here, is a greater truth. A divine truth. That love is a greater source of strength than rage, and that it would be unwise to not accept it just as readily as she would a slap to the cheek.
Maggie rests her hand atop Matthew’s and they remain like that, unhurried, a while longer.