The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel

by Patry Francis

  She wasn’t sure why she’d brought her notebook to the cemetery. Her hands cramped in the wind, as brown leaves scuttled across the field of remembrance where Hallie found an odd peace and ease. She wrote about those leaves, and about the frozen weeds, trampled with unknown footsteps, about the yellow lichen on the ancient headstones, and how it often formed patterns like starbursts and daisies, about the flags and plastic flowers beside some of the newer ones. She described the grave that had been dug for the woman everyone called Jenny Z., who’d recently died at 102.

  She admitted that she had become like the old vovó who used to take a folding chair and sit beside her husband’s grave for hours. She planted flowers in the spring—delicate bluebells for his mother’s grave, and bold red geraniums for Nick. On holidays, she said there were always flowers or wreaths left on the Silva graves; she suspected they were from Alvaro. There, in the cemetery, she smoked as she mused on the patients whose symptoms defied the usual explanations—often finding answers that eluded her in the office.

  And then she told the truth that she’d been evading at home. Except in the strangely vivid dreams that still returned on occasion, she couldn’t remember him anymore. Not in any real way. Though she searched for him near the tower where they used to smoke before school and on the corner where he’d first hugged her, on Loop Street, Point of Pines Road, and especially here, he was gone. As elusive as the mother she’d barely known. Sometimes she thought she was being punished for her lack of faith in him, or for her years of resentment after he entered the seminary.

  When she was finished, she fished the envelope and stamp she always carried from her bag, and scrawled his address across it in bold letters. Fortunately, she’d memorized it. Then, before she could change her mind, before she could tell herself that the letter was too morbid or self-indulgent, she stuck the stamp on the envelope and dropped it in the mailbox on the way home.

  She was disappointed, but not surprised, when there was no response. But then, nearly a month later, when she’d all but given up, she went to the mailbox and found a thin envelope addressed in Gus’s handwriting. The letters, leaning forward optimistically, nearly caused her to break down right there on the street.

  Inside, she set the letter on the table and made a cup of tea she was too shaky to drink. She stared at the envelope, as if it contained a bomb, or a message that would save her life—she wasn’t sure which. She closed her eyes and was almost surprised when she opened them and saw that it was still there. The tea was cold before she reached for it.

  Dear Hallie,

  Do you have any idea how many times I’ve written those two words, thought them, dreamed them since I last saw you in the courtroom? When I gave up on everything else, they became my prayer, my mantra. Dear Hallie. Those two words, the beginning of the letter I was going to write someday, have gotten me through more than you’ll ever know.

  And then you wrote. For good or for bad, your voice has worked on me as nothing else has. You described the cemetery so well that I could feel that cold wind, and trace the deep cut letters of my mother’s name in stone. I could see your face as it was the day my father died. You were too young and unscarred to take on my horrible story, but you let me give it to you anyway. I can still remember your innocence, your determination to grow up as fast as I needed you to.

  Have I ever told you how grateful I am for that, or how lucky I’ve been to know you? Hallie, the child, the girl, the young woman? For a guy who swore himself to a life of celibacy at the age of eighteen, I have known as much of love as any man—and more than most.

  Now I know why they call greed one of the seven deadly sins. Once I read your letter, I wanted more. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d love to see a recent photo. Dr. Hallie Costa in her office maybe.

  There are no class pictures here, but here is a snapshot: My hair has gone from black to gray with a tuft of pure white in the front. I have replaced running with weight lifting (one of the only acceptable releases here) and that’s changed me too. In the mirror I see the face of a hard and bitter man, the man I never wanted—and still don’t want—you to know. So as much as I would like to see you, I won’t let you visit.

  There are things about the human race that you learn in here that change you irrevocably. Once you see them you cross over to a barren place where there is no room for hope or faith or what I used to think of as redemption. I have no children, no church, no real family anymore. The only thing left to me is the wish that the few people I care about in this world will never cross that border.

  But that isn’t the only reason I’m writing, Hallie. The other day I received another letter that demanded opening—this one from Ava Cilento’s daughter. The girl’s name is Mila and she’s sixteen now. She says she needs to talk to a priest, and she wants to visit me. At first, I thought it was a bad joke. Those were the same exact words her mother used when she pulled me into a storm that landed her in one hole and me in another. Obviously, the kid wants more from me than spiritual counsel. She’s gone to the trouble of having a phony ID made, and claims that if I won’t put her on the visitors’ list she’s going to come and stand outside the prison all day every Saturday.

  I suppose I shouldn’t care, but I do.

  If you could possibly get in touch with this girl before the 21st, I’d appreciate it. Tell her that I’m not a priest anymore, I don’t want to see her, and I have no answers to whatever questions she might have about her mother. Of course, you’ll have to get past her bastard of a father first. But for a woman of your brilliance, that should be no problem.

  Thanks, Hallie.

  Gus

  Hallie hadn’t allowed herself to weep for Gus since she learned of his beating. Now as she set the letter aside, she cried a different kind of tears. They were voluminous, but silent. They rose up from the deepest part of herself, rinsing her clean. She cried for all the ways he had changed, but mostly for the constancy she felt when she read his words. No matter what prison had done to him, he was still Gus.

  When the light changed, she got up and washed her face. Then she folded the letter and put it into her pocket, filled with resolve. The next day she would contact Ava Cilento’s daughter and do what she could to change her mind. As for Gus’s letter, she would carry it with her until she saw him again.

  Within twenty-four hours, she wrote back.

  Dear Gus,

  I can’t tell you how much it meant to hear from you. Like you, I’ve written that greeting so many times I feel my whole life is stained with it: Dear Gus. Do you remember what you said when we first got together? You said that we had time. I didn’t know entirely what you meant then, but when I got your letter, those words came back to me, and I think I finally understand. I only hope that someday we will have time enough to say the things we’ve kept silent about for so long.

  I’ll write more later, but for now, I wanted to let you know how I made out with your request. I wish I could say I’d been more successful. Oh, I got past the father, all right, but the girl herself is another story. I tried my best to dissuade her, but I’m afraid my efforts only made her more determined to see you. All I can say is expect a visitor outside your window on Saturday.

  Love,

  Hallie

  P.S. No pictures. If you really want to know how I look now, you’ll have to see me.

  PART FIVE

  KAFKA’S CASTLE

  { 2009 }

  The final mystery is oneself.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  Chapter 32

  Don’t ask me how, but the third time I went to the prison, I knew that all the efforts I made to get there—the fake ID that says I’m eighteen, the lies to the Bug, the nasty bus ride—would be worthwhile. This time, I was sure he would put me on his list. If nothing else, I figured he had to be a little curious.

  The guards already recognize me. “You back again, sugar?” one particular lowlife says. “Can’t you see that man don’t want to see you. Obviously, he’s getti
n’ all he wants elsewhere. Guys change inside, you know. Me, on the other hand, I know how to appreciate someone with your loyalty, your devotion—not to mention that valentine-shaped ass.”

  There are other rude comments, too, but I just sit there on my little orange plastic chair and pretend I don’t hear a thing.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, if it’s any of your business,” I finally snap when I can’t take it anymore. One thing I’ve learned in life is to never let anyone know when you’re scared.

  And they all laugh. “Sassy little thing, ain’t she?”

  Anyway, I’m so involved in my dissing match with the apes I don’t even notice that my prisoner had come down and taken his place opposite me, with only a wall of glass separating us.

  Then he says my name. Mila. No hello or anything.

  He looks absolutely nothing like I expected. At first, I even think it’s a trick. That maybe he sent someone else in his place. I know it’s sick, but I keep everything I can get my hands on about my mother’s case in a hatbox under my bed, and let me tell you, this guy is not the guy in the newspaper. The guy in the paper had a runner’s body and dark hair. I guess you could even say he was handsome in his own way. Someone I could easily imagine HER falling in love with. The man in front of me, on the other hand, has gray hair cut close to his scalp, a closed face, and the same hard-ass prison look everyone has here—even the guards. And though he’s still lean, he’s got the jacked arms and bulging veins in his biceps weight lifters get.

  But what really shocks me is that there’s absolutely nothing special about him—until he says my name. He doesn’t just say it, he PRONOUNCES it, bringing me to life in some way I hadn’t been before. If that makes any sense.

  Then he gives me this incredibly intense look, as if he’s seeing HER—just like my dad sometimes does. And though I’m hardly what you’d call shy, all of a sudden I’m feeling tongue-tied. It’s like all the things I’ve been wanting to say to him have turned to marbles in my mouth.

  He, on the other hand, is totally zen. “No wonder you’ve been having trouble with the guards. Your skirt is okay, but don’t you own a more appropriate blouse?”

  “No, I don’t. And I didn’t come here to get a lecture on my clothes.” But in spite of myself, I pull my shawl a little more tightly around my shoulders. Ever since I went to Mexico with my dad and one of his old girlfriends a couple of years ago, I’ve been dressing like Frida Kahlo: long skirts, peasant blouses, clunky ethnic jewelry. I even dye my hair black so I look more like Frida and less like HER.

  “So you’re still living with him? I had hoped your mother’s friend—Cynthia, I think her name was—would have gotten custody by now.”

  “Cynthia—against all my dad’s money, his lawyers? Was that the plan? Anyway, I barely remember her. She stopped visiting when I turned eleven.”

  “I wish I had been able to help,” the priest says with a sadness that confuses me.

  He pauses for so long that I think he started to meditate or something. Then he launches into his spiel: “Listen, Mila. I understand why you might want to meet me. You must think I have some answers for you about your mother’s death. Or maybe you just want me to listen to you tell me how difficult life has been without her, recite the victim impact statement you never got an opportunity to make. Well, if it’s the latter, I’m here to listen. But if it’s the former, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t expect you to believe this, but I wasn’t there when your mother died.”

  “Former . . . latter. What is this, English class?” I say, trying to pull myself together so that when I tell him what I really want, it will be comprehensible. “To use your terms, let’s start with the latter. I don’t think I have to tell you what it’s like growing up as ‘the kid whose mother was murdered.’ ”

  For a minute, I get the feeling that if he could, he would reach out and grab my hand. I tuck both of them under my thighs.

  “How did you know?” he asks.

  “Um, I can read.”

  “Of course. The papers must have rehashed all that old stuff and you went back and looked it up. I did the same thing a few years after I lost my mother. Read those articles so many times, I practically memorized them, especially the quotes from neighbors and friends saying what a lovely person she was. It was almost like getting a little piece of her back.”

  “All I ever heard about my mother was that she was a whore.”

  For the first time, I get the reaction I want from Father Gustavo Silva. Until then, he thought he was the badass. Joe Lifer and all that. But inside me, there’s a girl as hard as anyone in this godforsaken place. Sometimes she makes me strong. Other times, she scares the shit out of me.

  He stares at me a minute, then gets to the point. “In your letters, you said I owed you something. So tell me—what exactly have you come to collect?”

  Again, I start to feel a little uncomfortable. I automatically reach around in my little red purse for my cigarettes. But since I know you can’t smoke in here, I end up stuffing a piece of gum in my mouth instead. The rhythm of my chewing calms me down. After all the effort I made to get here, I’m not sure I know the answer to his question.

  “I want you to look at me,” I finally say. “I want you to sit on a chair behind the wall where they keep people like you, and spend five minutes of your life looking at me. Me. Mila Cilento. Her daughter.”

  “I see you, Mila,” he says. “I’ve always seen you. And I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through. Is there anything else?”

  For a minute, I wonder if that’s some kind of a confession. Like maybe I should call someone and get them to write it down. But then I focus on that last question. “Yeah, actually there is something else.”

  He waits.

  “I want to look at you, too. I want to see what a guy looks like who claims to be all about God and love and all that crap and then goes out and does what you did.” I thought I was going to be so cool, but all of a sudden my voice goes wobbly. “My dad did everything he could to protect me from knowing too much, but he couldn’t stop me from growing up, going to the library, digging out the old newspapers just like you said. Now I can’t even drive along the beach road because even if I don’t look, I’m gonna see that dumpy motel. And you know what else? I’m gonna see the blood that was everywhere.

  “I guess that’s another reason I came here, Father Silva. I want to know if you see that when you’re about to fall asleep.”

  He closes his eyes for the briefest second, and then he says, “Well, first of all, I’m not a priest anymore. I’m not even a believer. So whatever you think about me, the Church has nothing to do with it. If you want spiritual advice, you can go to St. Ben’s and see a priest named Jack Rooney. And as far as the crime scene I was lured into that day—the blood—yes, I see it. There’s not a day when it’s not before my eyes. Does that make you feel better?”

  The words sound sarcastic, but there’s something else in his voice, and again, I’m confused. Before I can say anything, he seizes control. “Listen, I’m sorry for what happened to your mother, Mila. But like I said, I didn’t kill her, and I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.”

  He gets up to walk away when I call after him. “Hey, one more question—”

  Though he can’t possibly hear me, he seems to sense that I’m calling him. He comes back and picks up the phone.

  “Are you saying you don’t believe in God either?” I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does. Is anything about this guy real?

  He rests his hands on his hips. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mila. I don’t believe in God or anything else—except a couple of friends and a cousin.”

  “You know what you are? You’re a dead man,” I yell at him. “And you’re not even good-looking like the guy in the newspaper!”

  By then the guard inside is telling him to come on, hurry up, but he just stands there, watching me. And it’s like the moment when he first said my name. There is somethi
ng so sad and deep about him, and it goes through me like a blade. I turn around and just about knock three people over, trying to get out of the place, tears wreaking serious havoc with my mascara, and people hollering at me to slow down, take it easy, until I finally reach the open air. By the time I make it to the street, the nasty bus looks like a limo with a driver; I’m that happy to get in it.

  Last year, after I went through a weird Kafka phase, I renamed my dad after the Bug in The Metamorphosis, and started calling my house The Castle. Not only is it the biggest, gaudiest mansion in town, it’s seriously goth. If my house was a person, it would be an emo girl with no friends who always wore black and cut herself in secret. Most people think I’m that girl. Especially my dad.

  Why don’t you bring friends home? the Bug says, his permanent scowl growing even deeper. You’re such a pretty girl, Mila. Why no dates? And why the fearsome eye makeup? Who are you trying to scare? Stuff like that. But if I ever started acting like the so-called popular kids, dragging a bunch of people home to watch movies or sleep over and counting friends online, if I started shopping at Hollister’s and spending my days texting, he could never handle it. And a date? Please! Bringing a boy to Kafka’s Castle to meet the Bug would be like setting the kid up for a neo-pagan sacrifice. Besides, I do have a friend. Just one, yes. But if you ask me, one true friend like Ethan Washburne is worth at least a dozen bitchy back-stabbers.

  But back to my house. We know each other very well, the Castle and me. I swear I can tell something is wrong in the place even before I open the door. It actually looks different. It’s made of stone (aren’t all castles?) and when things are bad, the stones turn a darker, more mottled gray. I call that bad sign # 1.