by Mara Leigh
I pulled them back to my lap. “No, she didn’t.” Promise me, Mother had said over and over up to the day she died. Promise me you’ll become a nun. “She didn’t pressure me.”
Aunt Astrid’s lips tightened as if she was trying to hold something inside.
“Did Britt ever tell you about your father? Or our father?”
“Of course.” I looked down, then shook my head. “No. Not really.”
“I’d like to tell you, if you’ll let me.” She squeezed my hand, and I looked up into her blue eyes, the same eyes as my mother’s, the same eyes as mine.
“Okay. Please. Thank you.”
Letting go of my hand, she settled back in her chair. “Your grandfather was very strict. A harsh man. Very religious. There weren’t many Roman Catholics in Norway, and that’s one of the reasons he decided to emigrate. He thought that here in the US he could keep his family safer, more pious.” She laughed. “He must have been watching TV shows from the 1950s or something.”
I nodded. It wasn’t my grandfather I wanted to hear about. “And my father?”
Astrid blinked. “We’ll get to that later.”
“Then Mother—what was she like as a girl?”
Astrid smiled so warmly. “When we were young, Britt and I were close, so close. She was only seventeen months older than me, you know…” Aunt Astrid’s expression turned wistful, her eyes glassy. “When your mother was a teenager, she went through a wild streak, rebelling against Pappa’s strict rules.”
“What kind of rules?”
“We couldn’t wear makeup, or date boys, or even have girlfriends over to visit.”
“Oh.” Those rules sounded pretty normal.
“When Britt was barely fifteen,” Astrid continued, “Pappa caught her leaving the house wearing lipstick.” Aunt Astrid’s eyes fluttered shut. “He rubbed it off with sandpaper, then beat her with his belt. She had to stay home from school for two weeks to recover.” Her voice caught. “From that day on, he made her kneel on gritty sandpaper for hours every night, praying and doing penance for her sin of vanity.”
Mirrors are windows to pride and vanity. Admiring your image is sinful. Mother’s voice repeated in my head.
“But still she fought back. She kept a tight sweater in her locker at school, a lipstick, and she’d change in the girls’ bathroom.”
“She got caught?” I had trouble thinking of Mother this way. As someone who broke rules, who wore makeup, who was ever as young as fifteen.
“Mamma caught her a few times but kept Britt’s secret, until…”
“What?”
“One night Britt didn’t come home from school. Pappa went looking for her.” Tears were streaming down Aunt Astrid’s face now. She reached across to take both of my hands in hers. “Your mom, she was raped. By at least two boys. They dragged her into the woods behind the school.”
I felt like I was choking. “She shouldn’t have worn that tight sweater.”
“No, Faith. That’s not what I’m saying. Not at all. What happened to Britt, it was terrible, but it could have happened to any girl. It wasn’t her fault.”
“But if she’d listened to her Pappa…”
“No.” Aunt Astrid squeezed my hands. “That’s what she thought, too, but it wasn’t true. Those boys, they didn’t target her because they thought she was easy. They were plain mean, evil, and thought she was a stuck-up little prude. They bragged around school that they tried to fuck some fun into her.” Aunt Astrid’s voice broke.
“How can boys, how can anyone…” I couldn’t form words. I knew about rape. I’d heard horrible warnings from Mother growing up and reports on the news since I’d moved here, but it was hard to imagine such cruelty.
“She was never the same after that. And even after that horrible ordeal, Pappa beat her, blamed her for what happened, and her acts of penance became more extreme. I…” She looked down. “I’ll spare us both the details, but Pappa was cruel.”
Tears rolled over my lips, and I brushed some of them off with the backs of my hands. I’d said my nightly prayers kneeling on sandpaper, too. Until I moved here, I’d thought that was normal. Part of the Catholic faith.
In fact, it wasn’t until Sister Henry had come into my room without knocking and found me that way that I learned everyone didn’t pray that way. But Mother hadn’t beaten me. Not often. Just when I was really, really bad, which I quickly learned not to be.
Aunt Astrid took tissues from her purse and offered one to me. We both wiped our eyes and blew our noses.
“Anyway, that’s why your mother decided to become a nun.”
“A nun? Mother?” I shook my head. I still hadn’t looked at the papers in the folders. Maybe I’d been right about this woman in the first place. Maybe all of this was a lie.
“She quit school at sixteen and entered the convent. Pappa was so proud. Mamma, too. They made me feel so inadequate in comparison, even though I’d always been the good child, the rule follower… Second-child syndrome, I suppose…”
“But Mother wasn’t a nun.”
“No. Before taking her vows, she got pregnant.”
“A virgin birth?” I shook my head as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “Of course not. Was she… Was she raped—again?”
“Honey, I’m not actually sure. She wouldn’t tell me what happened. I suspect it was one of the priests.”
“No!” That didn’t seem possible. But I realized much of what I’d thought impossible could be true.
Astrid blew her nose. “I had to sneak out of the house and take a bus to go see her. She was so ashamed…”
Aunt Astrid shook her head. “Britt was so confused. Even then, even though I was younger, when I tried to talk to her about what happened, about whether she had the option to marry the man who’d gotten her pregnant, or whether she wanted to consider other options…” Astrid shook her head. “When I talked to her, her responses were so full of shame and guilt and misunderstandings about life, about sex, about everything. And then you…”
“What about me?”
“Britt disappeared from the convent, and Pappa refused to ever mention her again. Mamma too. It was like Britt didn’t exist. I wasn’t even sure you’d been born, but when Pappa died, Mamma told me that he’d found Britt and her baby a safe place to live. I asked her where, but she’d never tell me. Claimed she didn’t know.”
“Your mamma…” I couldn’t bring myself to say, my grandmother.
“She lives in Minneapolis. She’s remarried. Happy. I tried to get her to come with me to Britt’s funeral, but she wouldn’t. Even after I told her about you… I’m sorry.”
Something sharp stabbed in my chest. How could I be hurt by a grandmother I’d never met, never even known existed? But I was hurt. She hadn’t even wanted to go to her daughter’s funeral.
The bells signaling vigil Mass rang, and I shot to my feet. “I’ve got to go.”
“Please. Faith.” Aunt Astrid squeezed my arm. “Please keep in touch. I put my contact information on the top of that first folder. I’m only in town for today, but I can come back. Anytime. And you can visit me. Stay with me as long as you like. Just promise me…”
“What?” My voice was a near whisper.
“Promise you’ll think long and hard about becoming a nun. Be sure it’s what you want, and not just something Britt made you promise to do.”
Mac
Shane burst through the door to our brother Keagan’s Shady Oaks apartment and then kicked it shut behind him so hard the wall shook.
Shane was the second youngest of the five Downey brothers, and, other than Da, the one who’d paid the highest price to date for our family business not being entirely legal. Okay. Our business was almost entirely illegal, and for some reason that had been weighing on me more since I’d met Faith.
Or maybe the weight had been there since Shane had done his time and emerged a coke addict.
“We need to plan this job! Now!” Shane stood over me as I sa
t on the sofa, feet up on the table, hands cradling my beer.
“Chill, Shane,” Keagan said from the kitchen where he was pulling cold cuts from the fridge. “Wait until everyone’s here.”
Shane paced across the room.
“Is Nick coming?” I asked Keagan.
“Sandwiches?” He nodded to the platter as he carried to the table. “What’s your guess?”
He had a point. When food was involved, Nick showed, but if the girl he was seeing could feed him, we might never see our little brother again. I’d barely met our little bro’s new girl, but I liked her so far. It did worry me how hard Nick had fallen so fast. Especially since Jade seemed to have a pretty strong mean streak, and of all of us Nick was the softie, despite his massive size and tough reputation.
“We’ve got to keep these plans under wraps,” Shane said. “I heard undercover cops are living in Shady Oaks now. They’re spying on us. Don’t trust anyone.”
The door opened, and Nick entered the room.
“Are you in?” Shane plowed toward him, but Nick shot Shane a look that stopped him in his tracks.
“How’s it going?” I asked Nick. “This girl… is it serious?” I had an urge to talk to my brothers about Faith, even though all we’d done was go on one date and there was little chance of a repeat.
In the light of day and without booze in her bloodstream, there was no chance she’d want any more of me beyond help with basketball. At least I hoped she’d still let me do that. I needed to keep seeing her, even if not in the way I wanted.
“It’s good.” Nick made a beeline for the sandwich table.
“Keagan.” Shane headed for the kitchen where Keagan was grabbing some paper towels to put out as napkins. “Tell Nick. Tell him how much we need him. How he’ll be letting us down, ruining it all if he doesn’t do this job.”
Nick shook his head, then took a huge bite of his sandwich, which contained about half the meat Keag had set out. Chewing, he plopped down onto the sofa beside me.
“Pig,” I said.
He shrugged as he took another bite. Keagan grabbed a beer from the fridge, then took his usual spot in front of the fireplace, almost identical to the one in the apartment I shared with Dill. None of them worked.
“I checked out Shane’s lead,” Keagan said. “Sounds legit.” He turned to my twin, who’d had his head buried in some half-dissected gadget since we’d arrived. “Dill, did you check out the security situation?”
Without looking up, Dill shook his head.
“What the fuck, Dillon?” Shane yelled. “This won’t work if we’re caught on camera. The guys I’m working with are idiots. Their big plan for a disguise is hoodies.”
“I’ll get to it,” Dill said.
“When?” Shane yelled.
I stood and blocked Shane, then wrapped my arm over his shoulders. “Patience.” He was obviously high. “You know Dill will come through.”
“Not like some people.” Shane glared at Nick.
“I’ve been working a few contacts,” I told everyone, but mostly Shane. “If this haul of electronics is as big as Shane says—”
“It is!” Shane shouted.
“Then I can’t unload it all with our usual buyers. Not without suspicion—might as well take out a billboard across from police headquarters saying we took the container.”
“Then what?” Shane’s voice was full of panic.
“I’m working some contacts in Vegas.”
“Great.” Keagan said. “Sounds like we’re in decent shape. As soon as Dill checks out the security and confirms what’s in that container, we’re set.”
“And everyone’s in, right?” Shane sounded desperate now. “Nick?”
“Nope.” Nick headed to the fridge to get a beer. “You guys are gonna end up behind bars.”
“Shane.” Keagan drew Shane’s attention away from Nick. “We’re good either way. Leave little Nicky alone. If he wants to desert his family, so be it.”
Nick frowned as he opened his beer.
Loyalty was ingrained in our family tree, in our entire identity, in our freaking DNA. Having Nick bail on this job was like discovering that one of us was adopted—or an alien.
And Dill had hinted he wanted out of the business, too. Who were the Downey brothers if we weren’t working together?
It seemed like the end of an era. When he found out, Da was going to freak.
Five
Faith
Mac avoided me in the days following our date, and after four very long days, I wondered if I’d ever see him again. It hurt to think he could be done with me, and I tried to focus my mind elsewhere as I broke the children into two teams.
And then there he was, sauntering onto the court and barely giving me a nod as he got the game going. My heart soared at the sight of him, then dove. Throughout the hour-long game, he barely talked to me. Barely even looked at me. Twice I suspected he’d been staring, but I couldn’t be sure as he quickly looked away.
It was okay, I told myself. He was being respectful, not wanting to show affection in front of the children. Please let that be the explanation.
As the game wrapped up, Mac helped Jael, one of the smaller girls, line up a shot at the basket. He retrieved the ball when she missed so she could try again. It reminded me of when he’d taught me to shoot, and it warmed my heart. On her fifth attempt, Jael stomped her foot in frustration and started to walk away, but Mac handed her the ball and lifted her up toward the basket. She squealed with glee when the ball passed through the net.
Mac was so kind and patient with the children, and it made me like him and trust him even more than I already did. Mother had warned me that men only wanted one thing from women and would stop at nothing until they got it, but that wasn’t true in Mac’s case. I’d offered him exactly what men supposedly wanted, and he’d said no. That I should wait.
I’d done as he’d suggested, but the sober light of day had not changed my mind. In fact, the more time passed, the more certain I was that I wanted to try sex. I wanted it a lot.
My bloodstream no longer contained alcohol, but Mac was most certainly lodged there. My blood, my entire body felt carbonated, effervescent like that wine we’d had in the limousine.
“It’s 4:30,” I told the children the second my watch hit the half hour, and they scattered, some shouting their goodbyes to Mac and me before they disappeared.
As Mac walked with Jeremy toward the gate, my stomach tightened. Was he going to leave without even talking to me?
“Mac!” I shouted. “May I have a word with you? Please?”
He turned and nodded. I picked up one of the basketballs, spotting the other one close to the fence.
Mac jogged over to pick it up, and we met mid-court. “What’s up?” He looked at my forehead, not my eyes.
“You done?” a male voice shouted.
“Yeah,” Mac shouted to the group of young men and women entering the court, and then he tipped his head toward the exit, and we walked off the court together.
“Mac.” I hugged the basketball into my stomach in a vain attempt to quiet its somersaulting. “I’m not sure now to say this.” What was the matter with me? I knew exactly what I wanted to say, so why couldn’t I spit it out? It felt odd like this, walking along a busy sidewalk in the sunshine. “Can we go for a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.” He tossed the ball between his hands. “Coffee is good. Beer is better. We could stop into Duffy’s on the way past?”
“Duffy’s?”
“The bar on the corner, across from St. Iggy’s.”
“There’s a bar so close to the church?”
“Sure is. When I was a kid, that’s where the men hung out when their wives and kids were at Mass and Sunday school.”
“Really?” Every day I learned more and more about how real people lived. “Is that where your father went?
“Sure. But he didn’t need Mass as an excuse.”
“So your mother took you and your brothers to ch
urch.”
He shook his head. “Ma died when Nicky was born. Dill and I were only two.”
I stopped and gasped. Wishing I had a free hand to comfort him, I almost dropped the basketball. He turned back toward me from a few feet ahead, the sun highlighting his brown curls, kissing his strong nose and cheekbones and focusing my attention on his utter handsomeness.
I hated to be shallow, especially during such a serious discussion, but Mac was one of the most attractive human beings I’d ever encountered. I couldn’t understand how everyone, man or woman, didn’t stop to gape as we passed. For me, the mere sight of Mac made the bubbles in my bloodstream dance.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I finally said.
He smiled and looked into my eyes. “It was a long time ago. I don’t even remember her. Not really.”
“I never met my father.”
“When did he die?” The compassion in his eyes tried to melt me, and I hugged the basketball into my body the way I wanted to hug Mac instead.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s probably alive. I don’t even know who my father is.” The words released without the shame I’d expected. It was easy to confess to Mac.
“That’s tough. Growing up without a dad.”
“You grew up without a mother. That’s harder.” I couldn’t even imagine. “Mother was my whole life.”
“So we’re both half-orphans.” He grinned, but there was a hint of sadness underneath his jovial expression. “Did you ever ask your mom about your dad?”
“Once.” I stepped over a small daisy that was pushing up through the concrete sidewalk. “I knew that I must have a father—I’d figured enough out from books and the Bible. I knew I was too much of a sinner to have been born from a virgin birth.”
He laughed, then went quiet when he realized I hadn’t been joking. “And most of your friends had two parents.”
“I didn’t have friends. Not real ones. Just the ones I made up in my head.” Samantha and Will had been loyal and fun, though, growing up with me, never arguing, always showing up in my mind when I’d most needed them.
