OCTOBER 2016
The day after the climb with Mr. Falso, Ben found Kyle at the quarry, sitting on the lip of the ledge, smiling dully. Every so often, a gust moved the wings of his hair, or he shifted, vertebral nubs snaking up and down his back.
Taking over the Cillos’ ledge was a symbolic move. It came from a primeval place, something laced into the boys’ DNA that made staking out the altar seem a noble thing. The stories had filtered beyond Bismuth, and kids from other towns started coming to the quarry even though it was off-season now, to check out the spot where the girls had jumped. When a pack of boys, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, came out of the clearing laughing, Piggy stood wordless and slapped his palm with the baseball bat he’d packed for the occasion. The encroachers looked at one another and moved away, to a lower, lamer ledge that barely fit them, and sulked.
Louis whispered to Ben. “Did Kulik get stoned while we weren’t looking?”
Ben sat cross-legged on his towel. He had the jitters, a nervousness that had started the moment they chained their bikes behind Johnny’s Foodmaster and begun the mostly silent hike. Besides Eddie, Ben hadn’t seen any of them since the day he knocked Piggy unconscious. Their fight had become mythic: Piggy didn’t remember, and no one was about to remind him that Ben Lattanzi, with his rack-of-bones chest and bulbous Adam’s apple, had taken him down. The quarry did mind-erasing stuff like that, so you were never sure if something had actually happened or it was just one more quarry story.
But that wasn’t the reason for his nerves. Ben had to make his case, and the guys weren’t making it easy. Piggy, hungover and rank with beer, kept trying to nap, and now Louis was climbing down two ledges to talk to some younger girls he knew, only one of whom was a shade over plain.
Worst of all, Eddie had joined them at the last minute.
Piggy pointed his chin toward Eddie at the tip of the ledge getting ready to leap for the nth time. “And that one. That one’s like a robot, jumping and climbing, jumping and climbing. He’s making me tired just watching him.”
Eddie leaped over and over. He had fixed a plastic bag over his hand with rubber bands and duct tape at the wrist, the bag blooming with condensation. Ben understood why Eddie punished his body: it was no different from Ben revisiting the places he had touched Mira. Their answers would be found in pain, and they welcomed it.
Piggy yawned. “This is boring. There’s nothing to look at.”
From the ledge below, the girls giggled at Louis.
“Anything worth looking at is dead,” Piggy added.
Ben hooked his thumb toward where Eddie would momentarily rise. “You might tone it down a little.”
“It’s true. My eyes are actually bored. That’s what Kyle’s thinking. Right, Kyle?” Piggy said.
Kyle stared out over the water. The warm fall was finally turning, and so no one else dove but Eddie. The water was smoked glass. Rumors about hordes of gawkers hadn’t proved exactly true: there were about half of the usual number of kids from whom to protect the altar rock from desecration, but that was a lot, given the season. Even they were subdued, their dull murmur broken by the periodic plunge of a sad boy.
“So, Benny, you got us here. Talk,” Piggy said.
Louis reappeared from below wearing a guilty grin. Ben wouldn’t have minded if Louis hadn’t come, but there he was, along with Eddie, whom Ben would have to work around. Louis flashed a look toward Kyle before joining the rest. “Somebody decide to smoke and not share?”
“He’s been spacey like that the whole time,” Piggy explained, not bothering to hush on account of Kyle’s bad ear. “Swear to God, between him and Michael Phelps over there, and then this one calling emergency meetings? I think the whole town’s gone freaking nuts.”
Louis shoved Piggy off his blanket and, after a scuffle, Piggy gave him a scrap to sit on. They fell silent as Eddie climbed up, positioned himself, and dove again.
Piggy lifted his watch, an old-man steel Timex wrapped around the meat of his hand. “I’ve been timing him. It takes one-point-six minutes to execute the dive, and eleven minutes to climb back up here. He’ll start tiring soon, and with that bad hand, we can assume fifteen.”
“You got fifteen minutes, Benvenuto,” Louis said. “Make your case.”
“I’m saying that something obviously drove the Cillo girls to become the way they became. Because it was sudden. Like, in a matter of months, they went from being sheltered but wanting a normal life to sheltering themselves and becoming shut-ins. That doesn’t happen for no reason.”
“I can tell you the day Francesca switched to granny panties,” said Piggy.
“How would you know that?” asked Ben.
Piggy fell back on his towel and smiled behind his sunglasses. “I’m a detail man.”
“He sat behind her in every class. Don’t give him too much credit,” said Louis.
Ben made a face, then looked at Piggy’s watch. “How well do you guys know Frank Cillo?”
“As in Eddie’s uncle? Jesus, Benny,” Piggy said.
“There were no other guys in that house. No other guys to protect them. Eddie himself said his uncle was ready to lose it, with those girls hitting puberty at the same time.” Ben’s words didn’t sound like he imagined, like some revelatory statement that everyone would be wowed by. They sounded seedy, and sick. Like they came from a diseased mind. He could hardly believe they were coming from his mouth. Then again, neither could he believe that he’d spent two hours excising a glued-down six-by-six-inch square of his bedroom carpet and the pad underneath before tucking Mira’s notes inside and patching it up again.
“You think he smacked them around?” Piggy said.
“I’m asking what you guys think,” Ben said.
“You’re the one who was the closest to them. The only one who got anywhere close to—” Piggy said.
“Okay, okay,” Ben interrupted.
“You if anyone should know,” Piggy said.
“She shut me out, all right?” Ben realized he was yelling, but he didn’t care. “She shut me out like she shut out every single one of you. She stopped talking to me at school, she stopped sneaking out and seeing me. She cut me off dry after Connie’s wake, but you know something? Piggy was right: something happened in January that changed those girls, and I’m gonna find out what it was.”
Kyle whistled, long and loud. The boys froze.
“That was a keeper, Eddie man,” Kyle called.
Eddie climbed onto the ledge and turned away from them. He was boxy, a straight line from his sloped shoulders to his hips. With his cylindrical torso, he reminded Ben of the Tin Man. Steam coated the plastic bag that encased his hand, and water puddled at the bottom.
“Give the hand a rest, dude,” Louis said.
Eddie flapped his arms at his sides, the bag slapping his hip. He pointed his feet and dove again.
Louis checked his own watch. “Fifteen minutes starting now. And by the looks of that bandage, this might be his last dive. Go!”
Ben began to speak, but Piggy cut him off. “I know the night the drapes closed and never opened again. It was January twenty-first.”
The boys crowded Piggy’s towel.
“I was on the top of the Winnebago with my Bushnells,” Piggy started.
They made disgusted noises.
“Aw listen! It was Thursday night; it was what I did!” Piggy said.
“Fourteen minutes,” Ben said.
“Don’t judge. I have to watch the chicks in my father’s bar ‘dance’ while I bust my butt busing tables. Can’t talk to them, can’t touch them. What else am I supposed to do?” Piggy said.
“I can suggest what else you might do,” Louis said, grinning over his shoulder for Kyle’s approval. A sulfurous crosswind kicked up Kyle’s hair, along with the dying ferns that grew between the cracks.
“Anyways,” Piggy said, rolling his eyes at Ben. “Something big was going down in the bedroom. They’d lit candles, red, yellow, and green ones, the kind with the webbing on the outside that you light on the patio to keep away mosquitos?”
“Who cares what kind of candles they lit?” said Louis.
“Go on,” said Ben.
“Point being, I could see everything. Right inside. The candles were set around the bed, even on the floor,” said Piggy.
“Go on,” said Louis, nudging Piggy’s leg.
“Francesca was lying on the bed in a white nightgown. Nothing hot: long, prairie-like.”
Louis made a scoffing noise.
“Even through the binoculars, I could tell she didn’t look good,” said Piggy.
“Because of the granny jammies?” Louis said.
“Nah, I don’t mean like that. I meant, she didn’t look healthy,” said Piggy.
Ben shifted closer. “You mean, she was pale?”
Piggy held up his hand. “I’m getting to that. At first I thought she was sick. I even wondered if I should tell someone, but then I’d have to explain how I saw.”
“Good call,” said Louis.
“Mira kneeled next to the bed, praying,” said Piggy.
“Like an exorcism,” said Louis.
“What was Francesca doing?” said Ben.
“That was the freakiest part. She was tossing her head back forth, and arching her back,” Piggy said.
“It was an exorcism!” said Louis.
“It wasn’t an exorcism, knuckle job. She had a big smile on her face. Whatever was going on”—Piggy paused for effect—“she was liking it.”
Piggy and Louis smirked at each other. Five feet away, Kyle was still but for his hair moving in the breeze.
“Then Mira went to the window and stood there for what felt like hours, but it must have been less than a minute. Scared the crap out of me, if you want the truth. Then just like that, bam! She shuts the shade. Then she goes room to room, flicking off lights, and yanking down more shades and pulling drapes together round the whole house! Swear to God: after that night, they were always shut.”
“He’s right,” Ben said quietly. “By February, the shades were always drawn.”
“What time was it?” Ben said.
“After I got outta work. So late—one in the morning? Maybe one fifteen?” Piggy replied.
“Was Mr. Cillo’s car there?” Ben said.
“’Course it was there. It was the middle of the night. But guess where it was before that?” Piggy grinned.
“His office?” Louis said.
“My dad’s bar,” Piggy said.
Ben stood and paced. “So you get home from the bar and you’re jazzed so you go to peep at the Cillo girls ’cause you got something on your mind. How hard is it to imagine that Mr. Cillo goes to your dad’s bar, gets himself worked up, and goes home to that house? Who knows what happens.”
Louis’s face contorted, chiseled angles wrong. “What are you saying?”
Piggy stood, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Yeah, what are you sayin’?”
Ben stood, turning fast to face every boy. “I’m saying nothing. I’m saying the girls got weird, fast. I’m saying something happened to them inside that house.”
“Jesus, Ben,” said Louis. “I wouldn’t go there.”
Piggy tore his hand through his hair. “Mr. Cillo and my father are friends. You can’t libel the man.”
“You mean slander. If you wrote ‘Mr. Cillo was twiddling his daughters’ in the newspaper, that would be libel,” Louis said.
Piggy flicked Louis’s temple.
“Does it matter?” Kyle called into the chasm.
The boys stared at Kyle’s back. The cicadas had gone silent, and the air fell thick between them.
“I believe it matters,” Ben said.
Kyle turned, his face in profile, hooked nose dipping down, lips curled up into a smile.
“If Mr. Cillo caused pain, enough pain to make his own daughters kill themselves?” Ben said. “I think something needs to be done.”
“Done about what?” Eddie stood dripping behind them. He had scaled up at a sharp angle and climbed up unseen from a skinny ledge behind.
Ben dropped his eyes; the others looked down and away. Kyle rose, shaking out his bones like an older man, tore his towel from the ground, and approached Eddie, whose square chest heaved from the climb. He handed him the towel. “We were saying something needs to be done about this place. It ought to be memorialized. It’s sacred ground.”
“You think so, huh?” Eddie panted. “I don’t agree. I think it’s crap.”
“But it feels wrong for people to be getting their kicks out of this place,” Ben rushed, hating himself for acting like they weren’t talking about what they were talking about. “And we can’t be here every day, like guards, can we?”
Eddie blotted his bad hand with the towel. The plastic bag was gone, and the bandages hung like the end of a soggy Q-tip. He dropped the towel to the ground and lined up for another dive. The sun broke violently through the haze and left them exposed; everyone but Eddie shaded their eyes and drew on baseball hats.
Eddie faced the water. “I suppose that depends on whether you guys feel like you owe them something or not.”
Piggy waited for the splash before charging toward Ben, his finger pointed. “You know what we don’t owe them? Dragging their father’s good name through the mud. I don’t want nothing to do with that. I’m outta here.” Piggy scraped up his blanket, hooked his fingers inside the plastic loops on his personal six-pack, and headed for the clearing. Louis stood behind, working his lips like he was trying to swallow something bitter.
“Go ahead, say what you have to say,” Ben said.
“Piggy’s right. You’ve got to give up this idea. It’s just”—Louis shook his head—“sick.” He threw his pack on his back and stalked away.
Ben turned to face Kyle. “You leaving too?”
Kyle shook his shaggy head. “No place else I need to be.” He swept up his towel from where Eddie had dropped it, returned to the tip, and spread it on the ground. He settled, facing out at the water, his long legs dangling over the side. He patted the towel beside him.
Ben eased himself down carefully next to Kyle, tucking his legs beneath him. The tip had never bothered Ben before; heights didn’t get to Ben, though he never hung out for very long at the tip, always dove fast, like something was at his back (after the time Francesca followed him in, it was always like that). Clouds appeared and cast a black pall on the surface, and Ben shivered. Together they watched Eddie do a compact backstroke, the water around him swirling, melted crayon wax, purple and black.
Eddie’s backstroke turned into a free-float. Kyle pointed. “You see that? He looks natural. Peaceful even.”
Ben wanted to say there was nothing natural about diving over and over like a robot with a banged-up hand. Ben tried to look more closely. He thought maybe he could see Eddie’s eyes, fixed on the sky, not slitted mean, like when he talked to Ben and the other boys on the ledge, but wide and searching, trying to find Connie among the clouds. For a second, Ben could tell himself that Eddie was fine, they were all fine.
“He does look peaceful,” Ben said.
“Don’t be fooled. There’s nothing peaceful about him. He’s in hell, dude.”
Ben frowned. “Obviously. I was just saying.”
“And he’ll be in hell a lot longer if you keep calling his uncle Chester the Molester.”
“But what if it’s true?”
Kyle gazed at Eddie, floating on his back, his hand a white blur at his side. “Those girls did something incredibly stupid and dangerous. And they had a terrible accident. And from that, you get that their father was abusing them?”
“I’m saying something was so bad in that house those girls decided to creep off in the middle of the night to do something they had to know might get them killed.”
Kyle made a scoffing noise.
“Think about it. Even if it was an accident—” said Ben.
“Was an accident?” Kyle said.
“Even if it was. You don’t play fast and loose with your life like that unless you don’t have much to live for,” Ben said.
“How about the fact that their cousin keeled?” Kyle asked.
“People die.” Ben waved to Eddie. “It happens. It doesn’t mean you decide you don’t want to live anymore either.”
“You ever hear of depression?”
“This is different. I know their father had something to do with it.”
“But you don’t know what that something was.”
Ben shifted and faced Kyle, sending shards of mica over the side and floating down to the water. “What else could be that bad?”
“Have you ever considered that we may never know?”
Ben clawed the ground, scraping for something to throw into the water, hard. The rock cut his fingers, and he wiped streaks of blood on his bathing suit, resentful. Usually Kyle was solid. He was close with Eddie, too, but their families’ bad blood was like an invisible barrier that kept them from getting too close. Kyle had been Ben’s protector, was the one he could count on to clock anyone who mentioned Coach Freck and Ben in the same sentence. Less so now, since Ben had gotten so big and his shame had faded, but he knew Kyle still had his back, if he needed him. Yet here he was, staying behind to give him a lesson.
“Maybe we won’t know,” Ben said finally, jamming his towel and a baseball hat hard into his nylon sack. “But if I could prove they were being abused, and if everyone knew they weren’t crazy, or stupid, it would make a difference.”
“It sure would.” Kyle stood, waving his arms in a lazy X over his head down to Eddie. “It would cast a pox on Eddie, and his parents. But for the Cillo girls? They’re gone. Least in the way you knew them. For them, it won’t change anything.”
Ben stood. “I gotta go. I got somewhere to be.”
Kyle stood. “You do what you gotta do.”
Ben walked down the side of the mountain through the sparse, ugly trees and rode his bike home. He’d never felt so alone in his life. Kyle-as-Yoda was right in line with his personality, but Ben didn’t need his closest ally to be preachy right now. He needed him on his side. The whole world seemed to be turning against him, but maybe that was what happened when you spoke truth to power. Ben pulled into his driveway with a hard scrape, and instead of going into the shed, where he knew he’d find Mira’s next note, he went directly into the house. It was time for him to stop screwing around. Mira had been trying to tell him what was happening to her and Francesca and he had missed it, had to have Mr. Falso point it out for him. But that wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t ready to go to the shed. He wasn’t sure how much he could handle. So he went into the house, through the front door, because formality seemed to make sense at this moment.
Normally, he would never consider talking to his parents. Unless he wanted his mother to reacquire the twitch that forced her to tape down her eyelid to sleep. The list of nine-year-old baseball players uncovered in a footlocker in Coach Freck’s basement, that included the words “B. Lattanzi: strawberry blond/dimples,” was the first clue that Ben had been among the touched. It yoked Ben with an imaginary sandwich board printed with words like “twiddled” and “broken,” and, worst of all, “special,” because that had been Freck’s word. His mother’s tears evolved into a hypervigilance that would last seven years.
Ben could not bring his suspicion to his parents. It would hit too close to home.
He took the center stairs in three giant steps, ignoring his mother’s calls from the kitchen asking if he wanted Vietnamese takeout. He was starving, but not for food. He ducked into his bedroom and hollered, “Pho, please!” as he locked his bedroom door and walked to the corner of his room. He strained to lift the end of the dresser. Something in his back popped, but he ignored it, shifting his weight into his thighs to lift the gleaming wooden hulk. Finally it budged. He dropped to his knees and peeled back the square of blue carpet, then the section of wood he had sawed with a tiny hacksaw. He slipped his fingers between the cracks and lifted the wood like a puzzle piece from the floor and set it aside.
The wad of notes felt heavy in his hand. Substantive, Real. He placed the rug back over the spot and lifted the bureau into place. His back did a painful, snaky thing as he sat leaning against the wall, holding the notes close to his face, trying to breathe in the scent of Mira, the hint of strawberry on her lips he remembered (or made up. He allowed for that). He wanted to reread Mira’s notes, get his facts straight before he made the case to his parents that Mr. Cillo needed to be arrested.
As he read, every note took on new meaning. An illumination. And when he overlaid the notes with Mira and Francesca’s behaviors, it became clear. The pain was sharp. Ben felt the old anger swell up again. Didn’t they always say that girls in these kinds of “situations” have intimacy issues? Mira with her push and pull, Mira with her erratic meet-ups, months apart, was classic abused. Mira who was obsessed with unlocking Ben’s heart—and his own pain, she whispered once—was projecting what had happened to her onto what had happened to Ben.
An ugly thought surfaced. Was that what she saw in him?
Stuff it away. Stuff it away.
If he could talk to his mother, she would agree. She saw twiddlers around every corner: mall Santas, school custodians, the dude that films every lacrosse practice but isn’t related to any player. She might believe Ben, but telling could send her into lockdown mode. And Ben could not become a prisoner again. Not when things were finally close to normal. The dreams about the flattened nose and orange-peel skin, the dip-stained fingers had ended years ago.
He placed the notes facedown and closed his eyes, resolving not to say anything. He would handle it himself.
* * *
“Buddy, it’s time we had a talk.” Ben’s father leaned in the doorway, holding the key to his bedroom between two fingers.
He covered the notes with his palm and froze. Ben knew the key existed, but it had never been used. And by the look on his dad’s face, his parents had been concerned about his behavior. Maybe even talked to Mr. Falso about it. Ben wondered what parts of yesterday’s chat Mr. Falso would leave out.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Mr. Falso is worried about you. And so am I.” His father flicked on the light. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”
Ben hadn’t noticed that the room had grown dark. Some part of his brain had heard the buzz of dinner conversation, his mother’s and father’s voices overlapping with Mr. Falso’s. They had invited him to stay for dinner, and hadn’t worked too hard when Ben had refused to come down, faking a stomachache. He was deep into his thoughts when the conversation had dipped, voices gone low so they wouldn’t be heard upstairs.
“I must have fallen asleep.” Ben raised his head off the wall. “Is Mr. Falso gone?”
“Yes, Ben. He left a few minutes ago. You must have had a pretty exhausting afternoon for you to fall asleep sitting up.”
Behind his father, his mother appeared. Even from far away, Ben could see the smudged mascara under her eyes, and the vertical streaks in her makeup that meant she’d been crying.
“May we come in?” she said softly.
Ben nodded. They exchanged looks, each waiting their cue to say their line, as if they were staging a play for the first time and not sure of their blocking.
“You don’t look comfortable,” his father said. “Why don’t you come off the floor?”
“I’m fine.” His voice sounded small, he thought. Weak. He had the feeling he was going to be doing battle, and he didn’t want to feel weak. What he needed was to feel Mira near him, to remind him to stick to his guns. He cleared his throat. “What were you guys talking about with Mr. Falso?”
His dad folded his hands and sat on the bed, easing into the role of good cop. Ben wished he’d thought to put his earbuds in, or spread some magazines out around him, or done something that didn’t make him look so tragic, there on the floor. He drew his knees up and pulled them in tight, suddenly angry at Mr. Falso. He should have said something to him, like let’s keep this between us bros. Ben exhaled hard and looked up. His mother was shattered, and his father was trying to hide how pissed off at him he was.
He was in trouble.
“That’s what we’re here to talk with you about, Benvenuto.” His father never called him by his first name, given in honor of his uncle he’d never known, who’d died in a car crash in the eighties. All Ben knew was that it involved speeding on the expressway, probably booze, but mostly being reckless and sixteen, Ben’s age now. “Mr. Falso is concerned about you. And so are we. Carla, do you want to begin?”
His mom scanned the room like she detected something different.
“Yeah, Mom?” Ben said. She was making him nervous, the way she kept staring at the pale indentations in the rug. Ben hadn’t placed the bureau back exactly right. He wondered if she could see the seam where he’d made the cut in the rug. She’d have to be crawling on the floor to see it, Ben told himself.
Still.
“Mr. Falso said you were talking about the Cillo sisters, next door,” she said finally.
“Not the ones down the street? You mean the ones right next door? I want to make sure we’re talking about the same Cillo sisters,” Ben said.
“This is not a time for sarcasm,” his dad said.
“The ones I’ve known my whole life? Those are the ones you mean, right?”
“Ben,” his mom whispered.
“Because they’re the ones who are dead. You know that, right?”
“You’re upset. But that does not give you the right to be disrespectful to your mother.”
“I want to make sure we’re talking about the same girls.”
His mom sank to the edge of the bed and trailed her hand along the crumpled sheet, smoothing it.
His father planted his legs wide. “This conversation is not about what your mother and I did or did not do right in your mind. This is about what you told Mr. Falso.”
“Aren’t I supposed to talk with Mr. Falso about stuff? Isn’t it his job to listen?”
His dad folded and refolded his soft hands. “We know you think Frank Cillo is to blame for Francesca and Mira’s accident.”
Ben’s eyes popped.
“We understand why you are looking for answers,” his dad said. “But you’re going down the wrong path.”
“A bad path,” his mom said.
His dad raised his palm in the air toward his mom, a now-slow-down move meant to gain Ben’s trust. “Why don’t you tell us in your words what you think Mr. Cillo did.”
Ben squirmed. This was worse than he’d imagined. Mr. Falso had mixed things up. Or maybe Ben was the one who came to the conclusion? What exactly had Mr. Falso said?
He picked a spot on the rug and stared at it. “If he told you, why do I need to tell you?”
His parents stood together. “Honey, Mr. Falso is concerned that you aren’t thinking clearly. He said you think Mr. Cillo drove the girls to take their own lives because he was abusing them. That’s a very strong accusation. How did you come to this conclusion?”
“How did I come to this conclusion?” Ben yelled, aghast.
“You must have some evidence,” his dad said.
“What, like I saw him?” Ben said, shifting on the floor.
“For starters!” his dad shouted.
“Paul!” his mother said, looking at the window.
“What, are you afraid he can hear us? The window’s closed, Mom.”
“Why don’t you try to treat your mother with more respect?” his father said.
Ben scrambled to his feet. “Why don’t you say what you really mean? That I’m making things between you and Mr. Cillo even more awkward. That you don’t want any more ugliness between you and a man who might have twiddled his daughters so much they went crazy and decided it was better to die than live in that house!” Ben pointed out the window.
“That is not what this is about!” his mother said. “We simply asked you what evidence you had to make the accusation. And you still haven’t answered us.”
Ben stuck his palms over his eyelids and dragged his hands down over his face. He wanted to say Mr. Falso told me, but even if they did believe him, that wasn’t exactly the truth, was it?
“She told me,” he said softly.
His mother approached him. “She who, Ben?”
“Yes, she who, Ben? Because if you think we’re asking too many questions, you can’t imagine what it will be like when you get grilled by the police, most of whom are related to or indebted to Frank Cillo,” his dad said.
His mother looked over her shoulder in horror. “Paul! This is not what we agreed to.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Ben said. “Why are you so afraid of Mr. Cillo anyway?”
For a second, Ben thought his father might slap him. Instead, he turned his back to them and placed his hands behind his head, elbows pointing out at both sides. “Who told you they were being abused?” he said quietly.
“Mira told me.” Ben closed his eyes, not to shut out the horror on their faces, but to envision the words, her words, their sweet girly curlicues belying their meaning. She makes excuses, says he can’t help himself. Only I know better. He couldn’t repeat Mira’s words: he’d have to show them the note, and then he’d have to show them all of the notes. He had looked up “signs and symptoms of sexual abuse,” and it was like he was reading about the Cillo girls in those last few months of their lives. He threw open the desk drawer, grabbing a sheaf of computer printouts. “Gradual and/or sudden withdrawal or isolation? Check! Change or loss of appetite? They had clothes hanging off their bodies! Check! Speaking of which, wearing many layers of clothing? Check! Francesca looked like a bag lady at the end!”
“What is that?” his dad said.
His mom grabbed the piece of paper from Ben’s hand. “Signs and symptoms of child sexual abuse.”
“Cruelty to pets? Everyone says Mira killed her kitten! That’s a big fat check!” Ben said.
“The Cillos are a tight family with connections all over this town. Why wouldn’t Mira tell anyone but you?” his dad said.
Ben snatched the paper back and read, line by line. “Sexual predators use dominance, fear, manipulation…”
“Ben,” his mom said softly.
“Seductive behavior? Uh, skip that one. Unhealthy/odd attachment to an older person? That would be Daddy! Check!” Ben cried.
“Those girls loved their father,” his mom said.
“Brainwashing!” Ben screamed, pointing at the page. “Look, it says right here: sexual predators brainwash their victims into thinking they’re doing it because they’re special, and they love them!”
“Ben,” his dad said.
“Anxiety, mood swings, eating disorders—”
“Ben,” his mom said.
“Sudden changes in behavior! Excessive paranoia? Delinquent behavior? Always acting like you have something to prove! This one time, at the quarry—”
“You could be describing yourself!” his mom shouted.
Ben swung around. “What?”
His dad stepped forward. “You gave Steven Pignataro a concussion. Mr. Falso said you seemed afraid he was going to drop you at Little Q.”
“Acting like you have something to prove,” his mom whispered.
“What are you saying? Are you saying I’m projecting what happened to me?” Ben smeared the back of his hand across his eyes. He hadn’t realized he was crying.
“Now, Ben. We’re not saying that. That chapter is over.” Her face contracted and hardened. “Closed.”
“What your mother is saying is that those descriptions could apply to anyone going through some kind of trauma.” His dad’s shoulders jerked. He looked as though he might run from the room. “Your mother and I are making an appointment for you to see someone tomorrow. In the meantime, there are medicines you can take to help you sleep and make you feel less anxious.”
“Drugs!” Ben laughed hysterically. “My parents, of all people, want to put me on drugs?”
“Lots of people get anxious or depressed when someone they loved dies. It’s not cowardly to admit that you need help,” his mom said.
“So you want me like Mrs. Villela at Connie’s funeral? Whacked-out and spacey, so I don’t have to feel anything?” Ben said, tears streaming down his face. “So I can forget what I know?”
His mom wrapped her arms around Ben in an awkward tent-hug. “No one is asking you to forget Mira Cillo.”
Ben broke away and charged to the corner of his room. “You’re asking me to abandon her.”
“You’re not abandoning her by trying to get back on track and live your life,” his dad said.
If that was what she wanted, she wouldn’t have given me the notes, Ben wanted to say. He caught his parents locking eyes. A familiar sense came over him. He’d been here before, come up against their tag-team interrogation. The logic and strategy that kept him off balance, that seven years before had got him to say what they’d never wanted to hear.
A sullen resolve rose in Ben. He took a deep breath and looked each of his parents in the eye. This time he’d give them the answer they wanted.
He dropped his hands at his sides. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said.
His mom descended upon Ben, drawing him from the corner to the middle of the room, where his dad joined them, fluffing his hair like a dog. Ben allowed his mom to squeeze him while he stared over her head, out into the night at Francesca and Mira’s bedroom window. Their reflection bounced back, a fractured slurry of streetlight and aluminum siding and something shadowy inside that Ben could not see.
* * *
Ben had to wait until their bedroom murmurs subsided and they were both asleep for a full three hours before slipping from his room and tiptoeing down the stairs and out the slider, through the backyard and into the shed.
The smells of WD-40, loam, and musty metal were unchanged. The streetlights seeped into the long cracks where the walls met, same as the night Mira and Ben had met alone. Ben scanned the shelves and saw hammers hanging upside down from hooks. Rakes and hoes leaned in corners. Tackle boxes full of things that stuck. No note.
It had been around the same time as now: past two in the morning. They’d agreed at school to sneak out when Ben ran a flashlight beam over Mira’s window. It was early November, so not only could they not go far, they ran the risk of freezing to death. Mira with a chilly red nose, parka zipped beneath her chin and over her pajamas, doing a hopping dance, stripes of bright hair blown across her face. He’d pulled her by the wrist, both of them laughing too loud, into the shed, their breaths blooming between them. Ben had lifted his father’s heavy plaid work shirt from its nail and slipped it over her arms for another layer. Ben’s goal that night was to kiss Mira: he couldn’t wait any longer, and was convinced she’d been disappointed that he hadn’t tried in Falso’s bedroom. When Mira finally stopped laughing, he tipped her chin and leaned in to kiss her, lightly, and lips-only. Her mouth was hot when everything else was cold, and Ben wanted to get farther inside and probe where the heat was coming from. More and more, he found himself thinking about the insides of Mira, healthy, pink organs and long, smooth muscle wall. The parts of Mira no one saw, whose actions were involuntary and unguarded. He imagined glistening blood cells, villi waving like sea anemone, velvety mucosa. Turn Mira inside out, smear his hands inside.
Lust and urgency made him bold. He nuzzled Mira’s ear, the only part he could get inside.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” he murmured.
Mira’s eyes widened in her solemn face. “You can’t imagine the things I want to do.”
Ben read that as he wanted. The shed was too cramped for the real deal, but there was plenty they could manage. He needed to convince Mira that it was okay, to make his case. He reached for Mira’s mittened hand and tugged it bare, then thrust it inside his jacket, through the gaps in his shirt against his thudding heart.
“Feel it,” Ben said, remembering Mira’s words. “Don’t you know what’s in my soul yet?”
“It’s not what’s in your soul. It’s what’s in mine.” Mira pulled him down to the dirt floor, heart racing, and they kissed in every way. He, baby kisses across the whole of her mouth. She, tugging his upper lip with her teeth. He, tracing her lips with his fingertips. She, grabbing the back of his head hard with her hand and pulling him in, then planting a kiss that left him breathless. He, kissing her fast then pulling away, in a game of keep-away.
The last one was too much for both of them. Mira rose up and wrapped her legs around Ben’s waist. She leaned in close to his ear. Ben groaned: this was it.
“I have to get back before Francesca sees I’m gone,” she rasped.
And with that she left, sawdust rising where she had kneeled. The shed door swung shut. Ben stayed unmoving for fear of shattering the memory, or for shock. At some point, his eyes fell shut, and when he awoke in the frigid morning light, an ache hung in his chest, worse than his frozen feet. His father’s shirt was tented over him.
Ben felt for his father’s shirt now and shrugged it on. The stiff flannel lined with down smelled of gasoline and mothballs. Ben tucked his fingers in the chest pocket. The hard edge of Mira’s note met his fingertips.
He opened it under a crack of light along the wall.
Francesca’s lips are so dry. Daddy says he will force
her to eat and drink from a tube in her stomach if she
doesn’t stop her protest.
For the first time, Ben found himself sorry for Francesca. She had done everything in her power to fight what her father was doing to her, including wasting away. He remembered how gaunt Francesca had looked toward the end, especially after Connie had died, but even before. Here he was, thinking this was a simple crush. He felt anger stir deep, the kind he felt for Mr. Cillo, the kind that might turn into a new hate for Mr. Falso, and for his own father, for trying to drug him to keep him impotent. He wondered if he was always going to hate old men.
Ben stepped out of the shed and looked up at the night sky. It wasn’t black; night skies were never black in Bismuth. The all-night artificial lights from the gas stations and the strip malls and the high-rises washed out the starlight. So much light flooded the sky that the electrical was constantly going out, superfluorescence jamming the power grid. In that moment, he knew Mira was not there, not in a heaven where she could look down and judge him for action or inaction. She was fire and heat, too volatile and angry to be exiled in some peaceful cloudy otherworld. Mira was beside him, in his ears and mouth and inhalations and exhalations, down his shirt collar and under his skin. Urging him to do something. Those notes were written to make him hold Mr. Cillo accountable. He breathed deeply, smelling a sweet thread of woodsmoke, and for him it was the smell of Mira, and he let it fill him. He closed his eyes and searched for something brave inside.
When Ben opened his eyes, he was staring into the dark holes of the Cillos’ windows, and he knew where he needed to go.
FEBRUARY 2016
If Mr. Falso had leaked Francesca’s news to Father Ernesto, he didn’t let on.
The near-deaf priest was happy to visit the girls, Francesca especially. The oldest daughter of Frank Cillo was his favorite: smart, levelheaded, and actually interested in Christian doctrine. She had so many questions he hardly knew where to begin. A good place seemed to be the pan of lasagna she set down in front of him.
The elderly priest tucked a napkin into his shirt. “Why don’t you slice into that delicious-looking dish and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.”
“Ragù, béchamel, and Parmigiano-Reggiano,” Francesca said, elbow sawing as she sliced the lasagna into a grid. “You won’t find any ricotta in here.” She set a plate down in front of him.
He raised a jelly glass of port wine. “To your mother, then.”
Francesca’s pride bristled. She played with her food, biting back the urge to tell him she’d taught herself to make authentic bolognese lasagna. There would have been no reason to invite the old priest over if Donata hadn’t died. The old napkin-folder hadn’t shown up at the food pantry for three days before her downstairs neighbor smelled her. Francesca had an actual healing right in the palm of her hand, to show Mr. Falso, and to make him love her. Now she was stuck pumping an old priest for strategy.
She raised a glass of water. “To my mother. Who taught us to cook at an early age. The right way.”
“She had priorities. The right ones.” Father Ernesto lowered his head and shoveled the lasagna into his mouth. “I’ve said it for years, and I’ll say it again. You girls are a testament to your mother and your father.” Smacking noises were followed by grunts. “When did you say your father was coming home?”
Francesca stole a look at Mira, who placed a carafe of sweet wine in front of the priest and sat. There was no answer to his question, since Thursday was the night Daddy stopped at Big Steven’s Gentlemen’s Club. The latest routine involved him checking in by phone every hour. He’d say he was working late in his office, but his office didn’t have men shouting and cheesy pop music in the background. The girls knew for sure after Francesca followed him one night. For Francesca, it was a puzzle that she needed to put together: how could her father, who never left them alone, suddenly leave them alone? After Francesca reported back to her sister, they never discussed it again. Sometimes, his hourly calls were handled in rotation, with one sister lying about the whereabouts of the other. Other times, it gave them reason to behave even more piously, superior and secure in the knowledge that they were the ones being good.
What Francesca did not know was that Mira shadowed their father. The compulsion was no different from her other unacceptable urges—to pinch the nose of a newborn baby, scream the C-word in silent study hall, flash her breasts at the priest across the table. Watching her beloved father degrade himself by paying for a lap dance was just another impulse that grew in the crowded corners of Mira’s brain. More and more, Mira gave in. More and more, she heard her mother’s voice telling her to silence them.
Francesca raised her voice, and Mira jumped.
“Don’t you remember, Father Ernesto?” Francesca overenunciated. “I said our father won’t be home tonight at all.”
“In the fall?”
“Not in the fall. At all. Daddy’s working late.”
The priest dragged a napkin over his lips. At eighty-five, with his health declining, he seemed to fear every meal might be his last. He smiled mildly at the girls, having given up on the question, or having lost the thought entirely. Sometimes, he called them by each other’s names.
The phone trilled. The girls stared out over their plates. Mira snapped to first, smiling sweetly as she pushed her chair from the table. In the kitchen, she forced a cheery voice, loud enough to drown out Father Ernesto’s voice, whose volume increased in proportion to his difficulty hearing. On the phone, their father was quick, ending his verbal bed check before the girls heard too much background noise and deduced Thursday nights at the office involved Manhattans and using a lint roller in the car to remove stripper dust from his suit jacket.
Father Ernesto pointed a shaky fork at the ruffled ridge of Francesca’s lasagna. “Remarkable! I wish you’d eat something.”
Francesca cleared her throat. “About the saints, Father. The path to sainthood?”
“Hmm?”
“The path to proving someone is a Catholic saint.”
“Oh yes.” He pointed the fork at her. “Canonization.”
Francesca considered the word. It sounded regal, like coronation.
He jammed a forkful of lasagna into his mouth and felt around his lap. Francesca handed him her napkin.
“Canonization?”
“Oh yes. A lengthy process. Can take decades, sometimes centuries to complete. Doesn’t happen overnight.”
Mira returned to the dining room and slipped into her seat. “What did I miss?”
Father Ernesto dabbed pearls of perspiration from his forehead with the napkin. “You girls are very slender. And you’ve hardly touched your plates! Are you trying to tell me your father’s going to eat that leftover lasagna by himself? How is your father?”
Francesca set her glass down hard. The priest’s head bobbed, startled. His eyes glittered, wet and wary, as he looked sideways at Francesca, who said, “You were about to tell us about the process of canonization.”
Mira’s voice pitched high. “Daddy’s great. He’s such a workaholic; he was so sorry he had to work late tonight and miss you. But really, this dinner was our idea. You have so many fascinating stories, Father. About the saints, for example.”
“Oh, yes! The saint stories. I’m surprised you girls are interested in the lives of saints. Their stories can be shocking.” He took a long draft from his glass. When he set it down, Mira refilled it. “It’s hard to understand how they could do such terrible things to their bodies in the name of God.”
“Terrible things to their bodies?” said Mira.
“Purification rituals, starvation. Exposing themselves to leprosy,” he said.
“I thought those were stories,” said Mira.
“And then, the things that were done to them! Relentless persecution, by the Diocletians, then the Romans. Saint Tatiana, thrown into the lion cage at the zoo. Saint Agatha—oh. Never mind.”
“Tell us how to prove that someone is a saint, Father,” said Francesca.
The priest settled back into his seat. “I understand. You don’t want to talk about the gory deeds. I don’t blame you. But I believe that’s a mistake. You have to accept saints for what they are, even when the stories of their lives repel you. Separate the horror from the faith system that drove the desperate acts—”
“The pope!”
Father Ernesto drew himself up and looked stiffly over his shoulder. “I’m sorry?”
“The pope. What does the pope say about the path to sainthood?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. Papal ruling says the path to sainthood involves either of two steps: successful completion of a miracle, or martyrdom.”
Mira’s hand flew to her chest. “Martyrdom?”
“Oh sure!” He leaned back over his plate and resumed eating. “Sacrificing your life for your faith in God. Very big in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. You don’t see it so much anymore, I suppose. Miracles, though. Those are another thing entirely.”
“How do you know if a miracle really is a miracle? Say a person was … lame, for example. And the saint put his or her hands on them, by accident, even. And the lame person could suddenly walk again?” Francesca asked.
“Miracles having to do with healing are hard to prove. The wheels of canonization grind slowly. To examine claims, the Church looks at hundreds, sometimes thousands of pieces of evidence. There’s no rubber stamp that says ‘Saint.’ The evidence must be incontrovertible. The situation or illness doesn’t have to be terminal or even dramatic. The cure simply has to be rapid, complete, and utterly inexplicable by ordinary means.”
“What do they do, exactly?” Mira said.
“First the original doctors who treated the sick person are interviewed by the Church. Then outside medical experts are hired to independently examine the records. Nothing is left to chance. Mother Teresa herself had to wait nineteen years after she died for them to prove she cured a woman of stomach cancer. And you’d think she would have been a shoo-in,” he said, winking.
Francesca ignored his wink. “You’re saying healings are considered suspect until proven otherwise?”
“That’s it. You see, the problem is, you’ve got these charlatans we call ‘faith healers’ mucking things up. Now there’s a win-win! They heal someone, they get credit. They don’t heal someone, they get to say that person didn’t believe hard enough in God.”
“It sounds hopeless,” Mira said. Francesca looked at her sharply.
“Unless…,” said the priest.
Francesca’s head snapped. “Unless?”
“We stop trying so hard to prove miracles, and accept them as the wondrous things that they are,” he said, gazing mildly at the ceiling.
Francesca’s head dropped. Father Ernesto shook his jowls. “Wait; that’s not what I was going to say at all.” He laughed softly. “I fade sometimes. The train of thought derails. What I was going to say was, it’s much easier to prove a resurrection.”
“A resurrection? From the dead?” Francesca nearly shouted.
“More than four hundred instances of saints resurrecting people from the dead have been recorded and verified. Saint John Capistrano, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Paul of the Cross. Saint Philip Neri, Saint Francis of Paola, Saint Peter of Alcantara. Saint Dominic! Saint John Bosco. Saint Joseph of Cupertino. Saint Bernardine of Siena, Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. Blessed James Salomoni…”
Francesca pawed at the table blindly, as though reaching for a pen.
“Saint Rose of Lima. Blessed Constantius of Fabriano and Blessed Mark of Modena…”
Mira tried to catch Francesca’s eyes, but they were ping-ponging around the room.
“Saint Padre Pio, Saint Charbel Makhlouf, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis Jerome, Saint James of Tarentaise, Saint Cyril of Constantinople, Saint Felix of Cantalice, Saint Bernard of Abbeville, Saint Gerard Majella, Saint Francis Solanus, Saint Hyacinth, Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint Peregrine, Saint John Francis Regis, Saint Philip Benizi, Saint Pacific of San Severino, Saint Stanislaus of Cracow, Mariana de Jesus of Quito, Saint Louis Bertrand, Saint Margaret of Cortona, Saint Andrew Bobola, Saint Rose of Viterbo, and of course, Saint Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. To name a few.” He chuckled. “I guess my memory is better in some areas than others.”
Francesca whistled.
“And Saint Vincent Ferrer! How could I forget Saint Vincent Ferrer? Did you know he marched right into a synagogue and converted ten thousand Jews to Christianity? And that was before he raised a dead man.”
“I did not know that,” Mira said.
Francesca stood. “The lasagna is dry.”
Father Ernesto held both sides of his plate, like a child about to have his food taken away. “It’s perfect, dear.”
“Coffee, then. You need coffee. I’ll get it. Is instant okay? That’s what Daddy likes, so it’s what we’ve got. Mira, can you help me in the kitchen?”
Mira smiled apologetically at Father Ernesto. “Do you mind sitting here by yourself?”
“I don’t mind, but I’m not quite ready for coffee, I’m afraid. I’m still working on my lasagna.” His head dropped sadly over his plate. “Though I think it’s gone cold.”
“Let me heat it for you!” Mira gently tugged the plate from the old man’s hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Mira backed into the kitchen and swung around.
Francesca was pacing back and forth. “Think,” she said, spinning on one foot. “Help me think.”
“About what?”
“About what else to do. We’ll never be able to prove to Mr. Falso that what happened in the soup kitchen was a miracle now that Donata is dead. Besides, she’s already been cremated. I made calls.”
Mira braced herself. Slowly, she set the plate in the microwave and reached for the instant coffee and a mug from the pantry shelf. “Then what are you thinking?” She moved to the gas stove.
“You heard Father Ernesto. My other choice is martyrdom. To die, Mira. For my beliefs. Or else I have to be able to perform a second, confirmable miracle.”
Mira tucked her lip. In times like this it was best to stay quiet and listen to everything Francesca had to say. She turned the gas to medium.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
“Dramatic. Incontrovertible. Undisprovable,” Francesca said, pacing.
The burner wouldn’t light. Mira removed the teakettle to a different burner and lifted the metal grate, then the burner cap.
Francesca stopped short. “I have to raise someone from the dead.”
Mira looked up, holding the cap aloft, back still turned. “How would you find someone who’s died?” she asked slowly.
“I missed my chance with Donata. It would have to be a recent death.” Francesca started pacing again. “A hospital, maybe. God, that would be impossible.” She stopped and whispered a prayer into her hands for taking the Lord’s name in vain. The pacing started again. “The VA hospital in Jamaica Plain is supposed to be kind of sketchy. Or the nursing home on Union Street! I bet that’s easy to break into.”
Mira set the cap down onto the burner port and turned the knob. Tick tick tick tick tick. The gas smell bloomed.
Francesca covered her ears with her hands and stomped. “Oh, dear Lord. Think, think! I have the power, I know I have the power. I just have to show him. But how do I find someone who died?”
Tick tick tick tick tick. Mira willed the blue flame to appear.
“Who do we know that’s close to dying? Nana Pignataro? She’s at least ninety-eight. Maybe I could start going over there to help with chores. Keep tabs on her. But what if she wanted to die? I mean, how much fun can it be to keep living when you’re ninety-eight and your friends and kids are dead and you’ve got a hump in your back? No. This has to be a miracle worth doing. A tragedy that someone has died. And a spectacular miracle that they’ve been brought back to life. Like a kid—”
“Don’t dry out that macaroni now! That would be a crime!” Father Ernesto called from the dining room.
“—but I don’t know any kids. Or kids about to die. I don’t even know any kids who take unusual risks. Unless you count Kamil Kulik and his heroin habit, and no one would want him back from the dead if he OD’d. It’s hopeless!”
Gas fumed thick. “Nothing’s hopeless,” Mira said brightly. “There has to be a way to make this a win-win for you and for some … deserving … person. Someone you can save who needs saving. It might be a matter of waiting for the right moment, but when it comes, you’ll know it and be able to act. Then everyone will know. And he’ll know.”
“Girls?”
“I wait until someone has an accident and hope that I happen to be there?” Francesca said. “That’s insane.”
“Not really. Think about it. The potential for accidental death is all around us.” Mira glided to the drawer and removed a matchbox. “The quarry is incredibly dangerous. Someone dies diving there every summer. I hear Steven Pignataro is into huffing these days; maybe he’ll go too far, and he’s right across the street. Then there’s a whole host of kids in school who have EpiPens because they’re deathly allergic to peanuts. A guy eats a peanut butter sandwich and kisses a girl in the cafeteria: it could be deadly. And you could be right there.” Mira lit a match and touched it to the holes in the center of the burner. The burner lit in a neat ring. Mira turned and smiled. “Your gift would be proven in front of hundreds of witnesses.”
Francesca grunted. She froze at the kitchen window and crossed her arms, hooking her index finger around her chapped top lip.
“The weak and vulnerable are everywhere. You just have to find them.” Mira licked her finger and drew it through the flame. It tingled, but it didn’t hurt.
Francesca parted the checked curtain and gazed out over the Pignataros’ cape to the shingled wedge of the Villelas’ rooftop. “Or I can create my own miracles,” she said.
Mira turned the knob until the flames reached high: blue, red, orange, white. If their house exploded, and they were consumed in an airless blaze and returned to ashes, it would be terrible, but it would also be quiet. The urges that tugged and bit at Mira would be evaporated.
Silence could be a wondrous thing too, Mira thought. Her mother would agree.