Beautiful Broken Girls Page 14

  “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, especiall
y 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 dr
ove 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.