Where No Gods Came

by Sheila O'Connor

  “My mother's looking for it. We might have lost it in the move.”

  “Yes. I phoned your mother, twice, but she never responded to my message. She can write and request your certificate from the parish where you were baptized. You were baptized?”

  “Yes. My mother has been busy. She started a new job.”

  “Wonderful.” Monsignor cups his hands in his lap. “Maybe she can clear up some of that back tuition. We like people to stay current. We can't run a school on good intentions. Just bring that certificate in so you can be confirmed. Will you do that for me, missy? I'm a busy man, let's put this matter to rest.”

  “Yes.”

  The cot heaves beneath us as Monsignor rises. He stands over me, his wrinkled hands resting on the top of my head. “May Almighty God bless you. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.” he says. “There has been altogether too much stew stirring around you. I can't remember another child who came to Cathedral with so much trouble.”

  “Was I baptized?” I ask Lenore. We're lounging in her bed again, like the old days, the two of us sipping our bowls of chicken-noodle soup, the TV tuned to Truth or Consequences.

  “Baptized? I don't know. You might have been. When you're my age you'll see you can't remember much.”

  “Was Cammy?”

  “She was christened. That's what we called it then. Mother arranged it. She bought a beautiful white gown from Young Quinlan. It seems to me there was a luncheon afterward at the Minikahda Club, but I could be confused.”

  “Then I was christened too?”

  “I suppose you must have been. Though everything's so different with the second. You wait and see when you're a mother. The novelty wears off.”

  “I need a certificate. In order to make my confirmation.”

  “A certificate? Faina, this is getting crazier by the minute. Sponsors. Papers. What do these people want from me?”

  “Well, do we have it?”

  “If we do, it would be in Papa Roy's papers.”

  I wait until Cammy's at work and Lenore's asleep to go searching. I need to find this certificate, the slip of paper Monsignor requires for my confirmation. I open the deep file drawer of Papa Roy's desk. It's full of green folders, each one with a labeled tab. Household. Dry Cleaners. Employee Taxes. Social Security. Insurance. Medical Records. Legal.

  The folders are stuffed with old papers, none of which mean anything to me. I pull out the file marked Legal, hoping it might contain family documents, the certificate I desperately need.

  I don't understand any of it. Will. Purchase Agreement. Order to Terminate Parental Rights. My dad's name, Robert Martin McCoy, and my name, Faina Margaret McCoy, written in bold ink. The party requests parental rights be terminated. The party requests to be absolved from further financial, legal, and physical responsibility. It's signed by Lenore and my dad. January 23, 1965.

  “Faina,” Lenore calls from her sleep, and I slip the file back in the drawer, quietly sliding it closed.

  When I've settled her in again, I go back to take a second look. This time I hide the paper under my shirt, tip-toe past Lenore's door and into my bedroom. It's a technical document; most of the language I can't understand, but the general meaning is clear to me. Request to terminate parental rights. What I want to know is whose idea was this? Lenore's or my dad's? Who ordered her out of my life? Does it mean she isn't my mother now?

  I know if I go into her room, shake her awake and insist on an answer, she'll blame me for snooping through Papa Roy's things. She'll say it's ancient history. She'll tell me she doesn't remember. So I write to my father. My father will tell me the truth.

  “Do you have secrets in your family?” I ask Jimmy. We're sitting on the fire escape stairs, my back pressed up against his knees, my quilt wrapped around me like a cape to keep the cold from seeping into my bones. This Minneapolis winter has lasted forever, this wind that burns like fire, this chill I can never escape.

  “I suppose. You know, the usual. Don't tell your mother. Don't tell your father. Don't tell your sister. But everyone knows, because as soon as they've said that, they're the ones that go blabbing the news.”

  “I don't think my dad kept secrets from me. But now I can't remember anymore. It felt like we told each other everything; there wasn't that much to tell. You want to get under this blanket with me?” I lift up my arm to make room for Jimmy.

  “No thanks. I was born here on the tundra,” he says, his teeth chattering.

  “Do you think secrets are a bad thing?” I'm happy I have my back to Jimmy, happy I can concentrate on the two cars stalled down in the alley, their hoods propped open, the occasional whine of an engine that won't quite start. A familiar sound in this city. “Bad?” Jimmy says. “That depends. Not if the truth would hurt somebody.”

  “What if telling the truth would hurt you?”

  “That's self-protection. It's necessary. You do what you got to do. What is this, a question on your religion quiz? I remember this shit from my Catholic school days.”

  “Do you think there's a difference between secrets and things you just don't say?”

  “Jesus Christ. I'm failing. Where the hell is this going?”

  “I have a sister,” I blurt out. The words puff out of my mouth like smoke. “I didn't want to tell you. Because she was gone for awhile, and now she just came back, and I didn't want to mention her when I didn't know for sure where she was.”

  “So?” Jimmy says. “What's that to me? I don't need to know all the details of your family.”

  “Just that I should have mentioned it sooner. Probably. Because she's home now, she lives with us, my mom and me while my dad's away. And you'll meet her someday.”

  “Why would I? I'm not bringing you home to meet my folks. They need to give up,” Jimmy says. “That battery's dead.” I glance over at the two men still struggling to start the car. “I'm going to give them a hand,” Jimmy says, standing up and stepping over me. “My brother was great with engines. Go on inside now.”

  “So you don't care that I never mentioned my sister?”

  “No,” Jimmy says. “Your sister means nothing to me.”

  Back in the apartment, I boil water for cocoa, toast a slice of Wonder Bread, melt the peanut butter over the top while it's hot. I plug in the Christmas lights still tacked up along the living room window, and watch the colors blink across the frosty glass. Now that Jimmy knows the truth, the secret is behind me; I won't have to worry he'll discover Cammy sometime through the window of Kenny's and hate me for hiding my beautiful sister. I won't have to worry, as long as they never meet.

  “We seen her.” I don't need to turn around to look; I recognize Hank's growl immediately. I try to pry open the door to the building, but he's got his ape hand clenched around the iron handle. “Not so fast, little lady. We seen it all. The comings and goings. Frances and me. Not much you can sneak past us.”

  I'm glad I've given up walking home through the alley, I'm glad I'm out on Dakota Avenue where people can rescue me. If he tries to grab me again and throw me into the basement, I'll scream.

  “You ladies got some company upstairs. Thought the police took that girl away for awhile. They let her out already?”

  “I don't know what you mean.”

  “She can't stay here. The papers say two tenants only. Been like that since the old man died. Lenore signed.”

  “I'm just visiting.”

  “Yeah, you said that six months ago. We're trying to keep this building clean. She's back, and we got the same losers showing up here at all hours of the night. People smoking dope. Your old lady's lease is up in June. Tell her to start looking.” He squeezes the back of my neck. “You got me?”

  “Cammy,” I cry out when I fly into the apartment. I'm shaking so badly I can barely unbutton my coat. “Cammy?”

  “What?” Cammy screams. “I'm in a hurry.”

  “Come here a second. Please.” I don't want to talk to her in our bedroom, or in our hallwa
y, or anyplace else Lenore might hear us.

  “What the hell?” Cammy stands there in her nylons and bra, a hotroller pick clenched between her teeth. “I got to catch my bus in fifteen minutes. Al will have my ass if I'm late for my shift.”

  I wave her toward me into the narrow entrance. “It's Hank,” I whisper. “He says Lenore has to leave. He says her lease will be up in June.”

  “He's been saying that since I can remember. He's crazy.”

  “He means it, Cammy. He says she should start looking. Three of us can't live here, it's not on the lease.”

  “He hates us. Always has. Because Lenore's loaded. They all do. Blow him off.”

  “Did something happen with the police?”

  “Which time? I got to get ready.” I follow her through the apartment, down the hallway, back to our messy room. Cammy's jeans and shirt in a heap on the floor, the covers bunched up on our bed. “Cool it,” she says, lighting a cigarette and handing it to me. “Hold this for me. Take a drag, it'll calm your nerves.”

  “Faina, is that you?” Lenore's wobbly voice floats from her room.

  “I'll be right in,” I scream. “I'm just hanging up my uniform. Hank means it, Cammy. He hates us.”

  “Not us. Hank hates me. Here's the short story. A while ago, I was running with some guys who broke into the bakery. Kicked in the back door. It was a joke; we were stoned and hungry. Frances lost maybe a hundred bucks and a few jelly rolls. So what?”

  “They knew it was you?”

  “Couldn't prove it. Never confess. They can't pin anything on you without a witness.”

  “You stole from Frances?” Frances with the accent, Frances with the crown of braids across her head. No wonder she asked me so many questions.

  “I've got a gift.” Cammy pulls her uniform over her head, straightens her hair in the make-up mirror, takes the cigarette from my fingers for one last drag. “You know that. I've lifted from everybody. Border Drug. Kenny's. You've helped me, St. McCoy. Those that got it don't miss it. Get my drift? Hank can keep his plumbing supplies; I'm not into pipes. Not that kind anyway. And still, baby sister, I got to work for cash. How do you explain that?”

  She leans over and kisses my forehead, rubs her thumb over my skin to wipe off the gloss. “I told you, I'm buying you your confirmation dress. Now keep all this crap from Lenore. It'll just make her nervous.”

  “I know.”

  “You worry too much,” Cammy says. “I'll see you when I get home.”

  But she doesn't see me when she comes home, and she doesn't see what I see. The car windows steaming over during her long hours in our parking lot, the different men who deliver her to our alley. Doesn't know I've seen her totter out the car door, lead different men by the hand across the snowy lot, their shoes making prints in the snow, her rabbit jacket hanging wide open. Doesn't know I've crept out into the hallway, spied on their secret sounds down in the stairwell. All those men who are buying my confirmation dress, all those men who leave her good tips, the money I get to count in the morning, the grand total I tally on a slip of Dahl Cleaners paper. The same tablet I used this summer to keep score of our card games. Cammy doesn't see all the fear I carry in me, the truth about Lenore's termination, Jimmy, the missing baptismal certificate. I can't tell my story to anybody. Not Lenore. Not Jimmy. Not my dad. Not Mrs. Lajoy. I can't even tell Monsignor, in the dark closet of his confessional, my face hidden behind a curtain and a screen. Because he might recognize me. My voice. The sound of the girl swimming in stew.

  Cammy - Sweethearts

  We worked Faina's assembly line. My mother clipped out the brown construction-paper dogs with her manicure scissors; I attached the tails with little gold fasteners she'd dug out of Papa Roy's desk. Faina printed the message on the dog's stomach: BE MY DOG-GONE VALENTINE. It was a design she'd mastered the year before in San Diego; she was wild about the way the tail wagged.

  My mother rose from the dead for this type of activity. The two of them had already wasted hours gluing paper hearts and Christmas ribbon on a sunken shoe box. I couldn't believe we were at the valentine project again.

  “Faina, you're so clever,” my mother said, wagging one of the tails. “I can remember how much I loved Valentine's Day as a girl. In our gang we wrote little poems, sayings mostly. Yours till Niagara Falls. You know. If a boy liked you, he left a sweet in your pocket. Of course, I always had a handful: saltwater taffy, licorice sticks, lemon drops. For most, chocolate was hard to come by, but then, we lived in Kenwood. We didn't often go without. Mother said she didn't think the boys would love me with rotten teeth, but I ate it anyway.”

  I passed Faina my stack of finished mutts. She'd been allowed to set up shop on my mother's sacred vanity, the mirrored perfume tray pushed to the side. “Maybe Jimmy will get you one of those cheap cardboard hearts filled with bad candy,” I said, just to stir her up. “You know, the kind you gouge your fingernail into before you eat it.”

  “Jimmy?” my mother asked. She was hooked that fast. She dropped the manicure scissors, forgot the clever wagging dogs. “Now who's this Jimmy? You girls and your secrets, you never tell me anything. Cammy and I used to love to talk about her beaus. Didn't we Cammy?”

  “Yeah, really,” I said. When I was a kid, she lived for “beau talk.” Tell me about the boys at school. Who has a crush on you? Who chases you at recess? With your face, you can't tell me all the little boys aren't begging for a kiss.

  Faina shot me that pissed-off scowl she'd perfected. “Jimmy's just a kid at my school,” she said. She was a master liar, never blew her cover, never got her stories crossed.

  “A boy at Cathedral, huh?” my mother sang. “Well tell me. Does he like you, too? I didn't think you were interested in boys, yet. I thought you were a late bloomer.”

  “I'm not,” Faina snapped. “He doesn't like me. Cammy was just making a joke.”

  “Everyone wants a sweetheart,” my mother said. “That's nothing to be ashamed of.” She wasn't one to let a subject die. “But if you're really interested, you should fix your face. And you could make him a very special little doggie. I think I've got a stick of Juicy Fruit in my purse you could tape to the tail. Cammy, hand it to me.”

  I grabbed her pathetic white patent-leather purse from the closet doorknob. I'm sure it'd been there since the sixties. She liked to keep it within easy reach, to pay the Dakota Liquors delivery boy, or write checks for the monthly bills.

  “I don't want the gum,” Faina insisted, with that black stubborn voice my mother always ignored. “He's a boy at school. That's all.” She inspected the next dog, wagged its tail. “Cammy, don't bend the fasteners back so far.”

  “You don't pay enough to complain,” I said. “Bend the fasteners back yourself.”

  “Girls, don't bicker,” my mother said. “This is a special occasion. Faina has a new sweetheart. Here it is.” She held up the stick of Juicy Fruit like a great treasure. “Tape this to the tail. Let him know how you feel.”

  “Cammy, did you check the mail?” Faina asked. School was done for the day; the big valentine bash was behind her. She stood in our bedroom doorway, clutching that ridiculous box to her chest.

  “Nothing came for you. How was your big party? Did Jimmy give you anything at school?”

  I was rushing to get to the Starlight early. Al was expecting a flood of lovers, regulars pouring in for the Sweetheart Special: Two for One Burgers and Beer. Wives eat free.

  “There was nothing in the mail for me?” Faina slumped down on the edge of the bed.

  “Don't worry about Jimmy,” I said. “He's no great catch.”

  “It isn't Jimmy. I was the only one who had homemade valentines.” She pulled the lid off the top of her box. I glanced at the collection of little cards and candies. They were store-bought, cartoon characters, the same junk I'd passed out in grade school.

  “So what?”

  “I want to go back to San Diego.” She threw her box of valentines down on our bed, ran to the b
athroom, slammed the door.

  “So go.” I shouted. I'd wasted my night off making those stupid little tails. It was impossible to make her happy. “I didn't get a valentine either. Do you see me bawling like a baby?”

  “I'm sorry,” she sobbed. “It's just that my dad always remembered.”

  “Remembered you, maybe. But he never remembered me.”

  I couldn't bear her little-girl disappointment; maybe it reminded me of some earlier time in my life. Whatever, I'm sure it was her tears that made me stop outside the Starlight, and lift that wretched kitten from the cardboard box marked FREE.

  It was an ugly thing, clumps of mangy orange fur and a white splash over one of its red-rimmed eyes. An albino look almost, a pink nose, tiny pink paw pads. Patches of pink skin showing through the fur. I took it in with me.

  “Hey, where you going with that?” Al asked, when I strolled past the front desk with the kitten poking its ugly face out of my apron pocket.

  “It's a Valentine's present for my baby sister.” I lifted the kitten and nuzzled it to my nose.

  The Starlight was decorated big-time for the holiday, red foil hearts at the end of each lane, red crepe-paper streamers strung from the ceiling.

  “Not in here,” Al said. “The health department will shut us down.”

  “Have a heart,” I laughed.

  “Ha ha,” Al said. My charms were wasted on him. He would've unloaded me the first week, but he saw the way I sucked in the customers. -He was a fat old pig, on his fifth wife already, owned a house with a pool somewhere out in the suburbs. He was pure bottom line, money. He called the Starlight Slum City, but it certainly kept him in cash.

  “Get rid of it, Cammy.” He was cashing out the register from the lunch crowd. “We're looking at a big night. The Sweetheart Special.”

  “Are we taking the sweethearts at their word, or do you want me to ask for a marriage license before I give them two beers?”