He raps again, harder. She shakes her head, her mouth pursed, waves her hand in dismissal.
“It’s closed!” she yells, loud enough to be heard through the glass.
“I need to get in. I need to see the Mother Inferior.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Please.”
She gives a tight shake of her head. He bangs both hands against the glass, making it rattle under the force. The guard gets up, walks over and yanks down the roller shutter, closing him off from redemption.
It’s fine. It’s fine. God is testing him. That’s all. It’s a test.
“You okay there, young lady?” a homeless woman says, leaning on her shopping cart full of junk: a toaster oven, an electric fan, a threadbare pillow shedding sequins. “You need help? I can find someone. Where’s your mom?”
“I’m fine. Really.” His breath catches in his chest, and pain seizes his stomach.
“You want me to find your mom?”
“That’s the last person I fucking need.” He reels away, gulping down a sob.
“Hey, you should be careful, dressed like that,” the woman calls after him. “Someone might mistake you for the real thing.”
He wanders back to the boardwalk. If you’re lost, go back to the place you last knew where you were. Wasn’t that the accepted wisdom? He only lasted three months at Boy Scouts. Better at video games than making fires and foraging. But it’s spooky-quiet in the bushy foliage that obscures his view, and he realizes he wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming up behind him over the crashing waves or the dulled beat of music coming from somewhere down the shoreline. The hotels in this section are dark and still, dim glimmers of the streetlights reflected in the cold black glass. Generosity was wrong: they’re not all inhabited.
He doesn’t know where he’s going. He just walks. Vaguely in the direction of the music, which means life and other people, maybe the club kids he saw earlier, or the girls in bikinis, who did not, as far as he could tell, make it to the Jubilation. A rat scuffles across the track in front of him, and he jumps back with a yelp.
He’s back at the mammoth, he realizes, operating on spatial memory. All those dumb treasure hunts they did back at Ataraxia. He sits down in the dark, alone, on the hard wooden decking, pulls his legs up and folds himself over his knees, keening. Cats purr to soothe themselves, he remembers. Mom facts. She ruins everything. Everything.
A soft scuffling in the dark. Another rat, he thinks, or Cancer Fingers, dragging himself up from the beach on long moldy fingers, his flesh the same pale milky color as the sand under the moonlight sifting through the clouds. His stomach is a knot of dread, racking his whole spine tight around the pain at his center.
“Mila?” Incredulous.
He can’t believe it either. He throws himself into Sister Generosity’s arms.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“I was trying to come back,” his voice hitches. “What are you—?”
“Looking for you. I was beside myself. I’ve been walking this part of town for hours, since you went missing. We all did, but the others went back. I stayed out. I don’t know why. God’s hand.”
“Mom. She…wants to leave. We left.”
“Ah,” Gen says. “But here you are.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” she says, her voice practical, lowering herself so she can sit, leaning against the fence. She pats the ground next to her. “People leave the Church all the time. You know that. It’s disappointing, but people have to find their own path, and sometimes they find their way back. Like you. Your mom has lost her way, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost for good. God will bring her back to us as He brought you back. But we can’t keep you without your mom. You’re still a minor. This isn’t the circus.” She nudges him, playfully. “Where is Sister Patience? Should we go find her? I know I can talk to her.”
“Getting on a boat. I don’t know. There was this sex club. Barbie-something, with a rocket ship. It was horrible. Why did she take me there?”
“She took you to a sex club?” Generosity is shocked. “That’s…terrible. That’s illegal. There could be a case for you to be removed from her custody for exposing you to that kind of immorality.”
“I don’t want that!” This whole trip trying not to be separated. Then why did he run away? His head is a mess. Is this what you want, God? Is this who you need me to be?
“I can see you’re in pain, daughter. Let me help you. I’m your friend.”
“I need to tell you something. It’s bad. It’s a secret.” Squeezing in his guts, long fingers swirling and tightening.
“Only God judges.”
“I’m…” The words stick in his throat. Pussy faggot. “I’m a boy. Biologically, I mean.”
Generosity is stunned. He can see her mouth moving wordlessly under the Speak. “Like the prophets,” she whispers. He hates the awe in her voice. “You are Elijah, come again, before the great and terrible day of the Lord, to restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of their children to their fathers.”
“Maybe I could stay with the Church? Maybe there’s room for me. As a boy. With my mom?”
“Our prayers answered.” Is she crying? “God’s promise fulfilled. You’re the gift of life. You carry the greatest gift of all. A seed that will flower everywhere.”
“No. Not that. Not you too!” He jumps up, kicks the fence as hard as he can in frustration. “Why does everyone—? I just want to be normal,” he screams into the night. “I’m not a freak. I’m not. I’m exactly the same person you knew before. Nothing has changed. I’m just a kid. A kid.” He’s sobbing.
She stands up, resolute. “Come.”
“Where are we going? Are we going to the Temple? Because I already tried and it’s locked, and Mother Inferior…are we going to see her?” Hopeful. Dreading.
Generosity shakes her head. “No. I’m going to take you to find your mom. We need to bring her back into the fold.”
58.
Cole: Hunting Party
Luna drives her back to the Temple of Joy, fast as the speed limit will allow, but by the time they get there, it’s all shuttered up, prayer ribbons strewn limp and sodden on the street like dead things. One peels loose and goes twirling and skipping down the road. It’s starting to rain again. The crowds have dispersed and the shops on the surrounding boulevard are closing up too.
There is no sign of Miles. Her son is not waiting in the shadow of the parking lot turned cathedral with his arms wrapped around his chest and his hair matted by the rain.
C’mon, you weren’t really expecting that.
She’s sitting forward in the passenger seat, tense and hunched and it’s not Luna’s fault. She’s talking nonstop, trying to cut through the fear like poison gas filling up the car.
“You were part of All Sorrows? Jeez. No wonder you’re trying to bust out. Did they know he was a boy?”
“No. No one did.”
“It’s okay,” Luna says, “It’s okay. We’re gonna find him, don’t cry. I lost my cat once, a whole week, he probably got locked up in someone’s garage because he came back skinny as hell and ate three tins of food in five minutes.”
“He’s not a lost cat.”
“I know. I was trying to help…crap. I’m sorry.” Shamefaced. “Sorry.”
“I never want to hear that fucking word again.” She feels faint. With worry, anguish, terror. Hunger too. She never got to eat that damn burger. How could she have gotten so complacent? She should have known, should have understood how deeply those hooks had penetrated. Stockholm syndrome.
It’s normal. Teenage rebellion.
He could have picked a better fucking moment, Dev.
“Okay, well, where next?” Luna says, trying to sound chipper.
“There’s a holiday camp for all the chapters from all around the U.S. If someone found him”—Generosity, she thinks, always trying to take him under her wing—“the
y would have taken him back there.”
“Holiday camp it is,” Luna says and heads back toward the bridge and Miami proper.
The houses are lit up on the little island; she can hear women singing. There would be more of an uproar if Miles was there, she thinks, if they knew he was a boy. Answer to all their prayers. She should never have let him attend the Jubilation. For all she knows, he’s in the Mother Inferior’s inner chamber right now, going through his own Mortification, or worse, deification.
A sleepy-looking Sister emerges from the security hut and comes over to where their car is waiting by the boom, her flashlight hung low.
“Can I help you?” she says.
“I’m a Sister.”
“Out of your Apologia?” The disapproval is clear in her tone.
“I ran away.”
“Oh! Oh praise be! Sister Patience, right? Everyone’s been looking for you. We were so worried! We’ve been praying for your safe return.”
“I’m sorry,” Cole says through her teeth, trying to sound apologetic. But it’s not in her, not anymore.
“You’re forgiven, of course you are. It does happen, you know. Doubt is the devil’s crowbar.” She lowers her voice, delighting in a bit of scandalous gossip. “Is it true you stole from your chapter? Oh, and that video! With the unbeliever girls at that horrible exhibition. They said Mila assaulted them. I haven’t seen it myself, but everyone’s been talking about it. It’s very bad for the Church. You’ve brought shame on us. Mother Inferior is very upset.”
“Repentance is the process of a lifetime,” Cole says, and starts, “Is my daughter…?” at the exact same moment the gate nun says: “But where is your daughter?”
“She’s not here?” Cole says.
“Isn’t she with you?”
“Swear that she’s not here,” she snarls. “On the souls of your men.”
“Why would she be here?” the nun stammers. “She should be with you. You’re her mother.”
“Let’s go,” Cole instructs Luna. Dull with horror. If Miles isn’t here…he could be anywhere. Anywhere in Miami. With anyone. Boy traffickers. Kidnappers. The police. Dead on the side of the road. Gone. And she might never know. The whole city a black hole he’s fallen into.
“Where to?” Luna says, as she does a swift three-point turn. The Sister runs after them, banging on the rear of the car.
“Sister Patience! Sister Patience! We can help you.”
You know where, boo. No choice.
“Police.” Cole swallows hard. “The nearest police station. Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah. Of course. But. Are you sure?”
No choice.
It’s almost a relief.
Toktokkie. The game kids play. What’s it called in America? Devon told her. Ding-dong ditch. There was a phone version when she and Billie were teenagers. The girls at school used to use the pay phones, ha, remember those, to phone random numbers. Prank calls. Try to convince the person on the other end that they’d won a radio competition and make them answer trivia questions. Billie was so good at it, so convincing, sometimes Cole started to believe her.
So when the call comes in on Luna’s phone, on the way to the nearest police station, she first assumes it’s a terrible joke. Luna is talking and driving, the phone wedged between her shoulder and her chin, which is dangerous. You could get arrested for that, Cole thinks.
“It’s Dallas. She says there’s a nun at the club,” Luna relays. “She’s got Miles with her. He’s fine. He’s okay!”
“What?”
“Here. Talk to her yourself.”
“Cole?”
“Miles is there?”
“Yes, kitten. Deep breaths. It’s all going to be okay. But I do need you to come get them. Your holy friend is upsetting the clientele.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Kid. Your mom wants a word.”
“Mom?”
“Don’t you ever. Miles. Oh my god.” Garbled fury and relief, her heart on fire. “I thought you were dead. I thought.”
“Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. I love you. Don’t move. Okay. Don’t go anywhere. Stay there.”
“All right, Mom!” She can sense his eye roll on the other end. How is he annoyed with her? She wants to laugh and cry and maybe break something. “Wait, Mom. Dallas says we should meet you at the docks.”
“No. I want you to stay there. I’ll pick you up. Stay right there. Don’t move.”
A muffled kerfuffle of someone passing over the phone. “Hey Momma,” Dallas says. “You still have time to catch your boat. But only if you go straight there. I’ll get your cub to you.”
“No. I need to see him.”
“Get while the going’s good. Before your nun friend spreads the word, if you know what I mean. Trust me. I’ll get him to you. Whore’s honor.”
She’s torn. So torn. She nearly lost him once already. More times before that.
What’s life without trust, boo?
And you know, the matter of their secret being bust wide open. They’re so close now. So close. For the millionth time, she wishes she didn’t have to carry this alone.
“Okay,” she says. “Meet you at the docks.” She jabs “end call” and holds the phone in her hand. Overwhelmed. And then lets out a howl. Of what she doesn’t know anymore. Something primal, deep motherbeast.
“Hey!” Luna whoops with her. “You’re going home!”
“We’re going home.” As if saying it will make it real. “Shit. I need to call my sister.”
The water slaps against the side of the dock. The yachts moored down the way form a pale forest of masts against the spiky palms. Some of them are splintered, broken wings. There’s been a big storm here, recently. More climate chaos. Palm fronds have been tossed across the grass in a spiky barricade, and a broken yacht is up on the shore, lolling on its side, among the wreckage of foliage. The rain has slowed to an intermittent drizzle.
Mistake. She’s made a mistake. Where are they? She stalks up and down the pier, checking her phone. Generosity and Miles in a borrowed church van, Billie racing from across the city to get to her. She shouldn’t have sent Luna away. “Are you sure?” Luna had said. “Really sure?”
But she doesn’t want any more people to have to think about. Doesn’t want to draw any attention from passers by. One lunatic pacing up and down the dock in the middle of the night and the rain is enough.
Seventeen minutes before the boat gets here. Down to the wire. She did a freelance job in her twenties working on one of those global travel-race reality shows as a production office manager, not so different from being senior designer at the studio where she worked before going full-time artist. That was all about timing, too. And shouting behind the scenes, panic and phone calls to make sure the next challenge was in place, tracking the contestants as they made their way to their final destination. She should bust out a welcome mat. First team to land on it wins immunity.
Timing. If they miss the boat, then they’ll have to wait weeks, maybe longer. And it won’t be safe for them to stick around Miami. Not if the Church knows about Miles. This is their best chance, their only chance.
Have a little faith. And Generosity.
Yeah, yeah, praise be. Assuming she doesn’t have ulterior motives. Isn’t leading the whole damn Jubilation down on them. She’s ready for her if she is. Ready to fight. Mood she’s in, she’d tear out someone’s throat with her teeth.
Who’s sorry they tossed the shotgun down the gulch now?
She stops, looking down at a half-sunken speedboat, flotsam trash and a faded orange life vest bobbling against the flooded interior.
Hope that’s not your ride.
Me too. Jerking upright at every passing car, headlights sweeping the road and away again. Movement, out of the corner of her eye. Two figures, a lanky teen, a burly woman in robes, picking their way across the darkened pier under an umbrella. She didn’t see them pull
in, but it doesn’t matter, she’s running toward them, sweeping the kid into her arms, crushing him.
“Miles.”
59.
Miles: Castaway
“Mom,” he squeaks, indignant. “I can’t breathe.”
“I don’t care.”
“Seriously, Mom. Too tight.”
“I’m never letting you go again.” But she does. She holds him by his shoulders and kisses his face and his hair, and looks at him like he’s a magical being from another dimension. Chill, he thinks, it’s only been a couple of hours. He feels weirdly empty, turned around. Like the spiral inside a hollow snail’s shell.
”I thought I’d lost you. Oh my God. Don’t you ever.”
“I know!”
She turns to Generosity, who is beaming with pride behind her veil.
“Thank you, Gen. I can’t thank you enough.”
“A boy needs his mother,” the nun shrugs. “But he wants to have a word with you.” She puts a steadying hand in the small of his back. He arches away. He doesn’t need encouragement.
“Mom. I want to stay.” He can’t look her in the eye.
She laughs, a nasty bark, disbelieving. “We can’t. No way, José.”
“With the Church. You can come back, Generosity said. They’ll look after us. It’s the right place for us. We found them for a reason. God led us here.”
“Stop. Right there,” Mom says in her kill-you-dead-if-you-even-think-of-disagreeing-with-me voice. “We are not having this conversation. Not now.”
Generosity tries. Not a good idea, he wants to tell her.
“Miles told me about your legal problems, the drug-smuggling and whatnot. But Patience, the Church has top-notch lawyers and good connections in high places. Senator Ramona McCauley is a member of our civilian congregation!”
Afterland Page 37
