"The Betrayal" by Mary Ann McGuigan

The Betrayal

My aunt fits the classic definition of an old maid: unmarried, childless, a caretaker for her mother, a devout Catholic, and a stickler for rules. She’s also a woman of keen intelligence who never attended college, took a secretarial job out of high school, became irreplaceable, kept everybody in line, and eventually was appointed to a seat on the board of directors of the International Paper Company.
The woman has major chops. When she isn’t riding herd for the Archdiocese of New York, she’s shuttling back and forth from Manhattan to Paris, assisting with multi-million-dollar contracts. Her name is Ann Kearney.
She scares me a little, mostly because I can’t always be sure what she’ll consider the right answer. She isn’t like my mother, who can be easy-going about a lot of things, especially the need to go to Mass, and has a way of overlooking the worst of her children’s sins.
Yesterday I got the news from St. Peter’s College about the scholarship, and I’ve made up my mind to talk with my aunt about it. I can’t exactly present my dilemma to my mother. She’s in the hospital, recovering from a stroke. Her mind is working just fine, and the doctors say she can make a full recovery if she does her exercises, but she  can’t speak clearly yet. And, of course, I don’t want to upset her. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I’ll lay out the facts for my aunt. No tears, no drama. Just the things she needs to know. She doesn’t care much for embroidery. I sit across from her at a table in a tiny coffee shop with lots of sunlight and no personality, about a block from the hospital. She wears a dark blue dress, the shoulders slightly puffy, feminine enough but strictly business.
The waitress comes finally, a heavy-set woman with dark roots and brittle fingernails. She has a thick, Jersey City accent. My aunt asks if they have Irish tea. Of course, they don’t, so we settle for Lipton.
“So what’s wrong?” she says, once the waitress leaves us.
“Well, I was offered a scholarship. A full scholarship.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Her voice rises, a laugh around its edges.
“It’s just that I don’t know what my mom is going to think.”
She looks confused.
“I got accepted a few weeks ago, but all I had was the State Scholarship, and that wouldn’t cover even half of the cost. So I wrote to them and explained that I was happy to be accepted, but I’d have to go to night school instead, so I could work.” My voice breaks then, and I’m afraid I’ll lose control, start crying in front of a woman who considers hardship a privilege. “But then a letter came and a phone call from Father Ryan, one of the Jesuits at the school, and he said the state had neglected to award me an Incentive Grant, that I was overlooked for that, and he had corrected it.”
The waitress returns with our tea, and my aunt stops the question she’s about to ask. The woman clanks down the cups as if she’s serving inmates, and I can tell from my aunt’s face that this woman wouldn’t last ten minutes on her staff. She asks us if we need anything else, and I tell her no thank you, because my aunt won’t acknowledge her, although she studies her clumsy retreat back to the counter.
“Why were you overlooked?” my aunt says stiffly. “Were your grades not sufficient?” She’s bracing herself for news she won’t approve of.
“No. Mom . . . we never filled out the paperwork, the part where you tell them your income and stuff.”
“I see.” She winces from the taste of the tea, tries adding more sugar.
“So anyway, now I have the incentive grant, and St. Peter’s is giving me a Presidential Scholarship for all the rest, to cover the cost of books and everything.”
“Praise be.” With the edge of her palm, she gathers the sugar crystals that landed by her saucer and brushes them into the ashtray.
“And they’ll make sure I have a part-time job every semester, and the summers too.”
“So I’m failing to see what exactly is wrong here. You’re a very lucky girl. You should be grateful.”
“Well, my mom wants me to get a job.”
“You are.”
“No, a full-time job. You know. So I can help out.”
She lets this sink in, and I fear she’s going to talk about responsibility, about how hard my mother works, the burdens of raising children on a woman’s salary, being on her own. But that’s not where she goes. “Do you want to go to school?” she says, returning her cup to the saucer without a sound. “How important is this to you?”
“I’ve always wanted it. Always.” I think about my friends at school, how they take going to college for granted, never have to argue with their mothers about what girls are supposed to do or not do. But I don’t mention any of that. My aunt has no patience for women’s lib complaints. And I don’t tell her how guilty I feel about wanting something all my own, about not helping out the way my sister June does, who found a job as soon as she graduated. I want to be a writer, but that’s the biggest secret of all. My English teachers say no one can write until they’ve read the best authors, the best literature. And that means college. Writers understand the world, and without college, without books, I’ll never know anything more than the dreary routines of making ends meet, making an ordinary job seem like it matters.
She takes another sip of her tea, puts the cup down and straightens her watch, which has slipped sideways on her narrow wrist. “My assistant, Michael, came to me about a month ago. I may have mentioned him. Very bright. Very quick. I hired him three years ago right after he graduated Cardinal Hayes. Fine young man. Very loyal. Anyway, he’d gotten an offer from another firm. A very good offer, but he thought it might be a mistake to take it. I could see he thought it might feel like a betrayal to me.” She slides her cup aside, as if eager to get to the point. “No matter what you decide, you should be proud of yourself, Mary Ann. St. Peter’s clearly sees you as someone with potential.”
I look down at my cup, untouched, my face feeling hot.
“Decisions like these are never easy. But if you’ve come to me for advice, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Michael: If you don’t take this opportunity, you don’t have the brains you were born with, do you?”
I don’t know what to say to her. But I say thank you. I say it several times, until I can see she wants me to stop. I leave feeling weightless, as if the mundane burdens of responsibility and family commitment are not mine to carry. I present my aunt’s advice to my family like it’s a grand exoneration. Surely accepting the scholarships is the right choice. My family is not happy with me. I become an outsider, not simply because I’m the first to attend college, but because I’m willing to pay such a dear price for it. I don’t think they’ll ever come to terms with my choice, see it as something I have the right to do. Neither do I.

Mary ANN MCGUIGAN

Mary Ann McGuigan’s creative nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, Pithead Chapel, Word Riot, the New York Times, Wilderness House, and other publications. Her fiction has appeared in The Sun, Image, North American Review, and other journals. Her collection Pieces includes stories named for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. That Very Place, her new collection, is due out in 2025 with Unsolicited Press. Mary Ann’s young-adult novels, about teens trying to make sense of the chaos grown-ups leave in their wake, are ranked among the best books for teens by the Junior Library Guild and the New York Public Library. Her novel Where You Belong was a finalist for the National Book Award. For more about her fiction, visit www.maryannmcguigan.com.

Headshot : Douglas Pritchard

Photo Credit: Staff