by Kim Savage
Francesca ignored his wink. “You’re saying healings are considered suspect until proven otherwise?”
“That’s it. You see, the problem is, you’ve got these charlatans we call ‘faith healers’ mucking things up. Now there’s a win-win! They heal someone, they get credit. They don’t heal someone, they get to say that person didn’t believe hard enough in God.”
“It sounds hopeless,” Mira said. Francesca looked at her sharply.
“Unless…,” said the priest.
Francesca’s head snapped. “Unless?”
“We stop trying so hard to prove miracles, and accept them as the wondrous things that they are,” he said, gazing mildly at the ceiling.
Francesca’s head dropped. Father Ernesto shook his jowls. “Wait; that’s not what I was going to say at all.” He laughed softly. “I fade sometimes. The train of thought derails. What I was going to say was, it’s much easier to prove a resurrection.”
“A resurrection? From the dead?” Francesca nearly shouted.
“More than four hundred instances of saints resurrecting people from the dead have been recorded and verified. Saint John Capistrano, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Paul of the Cross. Saint Philip Neri, Saint Francis of Paola, Saint Peter of Alcantara. Saint Dominic! Saint John Bosco. Saint Joseph of Cupertino. Saint Bernardine of Siena, Saint Agnes of Montepulciano. Blessed James Salomoni…”
Francesca pawed at the table blindly, as though reaching for a pen.
“Saint Rose of Lima. Blessed Constantius of Fabriano and Blessed Mark of Modena…”
Mira tried to catch Francesca’s eyes, but they were ping-ponging around the room.
“Saint Padre Pio, Saint Charbel Makhlouf, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis Jerome, Saint James of Tarentaise, Saint Cyril of Constantinople, Saint Felix of Cantalice, Saint Bernard of Abbeville, Saint Gerard Majella, Saint Francis Solanus, Saint Hyacinth, Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint Peregrine, Saint John Francis Regis, Saint Philip Benizi, Saint Pacific of San Severino, Saint Stanislaus of Cracow, Mariana de Jesus of Quito, Saint Louis Bertrand, Saint Margaret of Cortona, Saint Andrew Bobola, Saint Rose of Viterbo, and of course, Saint Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. To name a few.” He chuckled. “I guess my memory is better in some areas than others.”
Francesca whistled.
“And Saint Vincent Ferrer! How could I forget Saint Vincent Ferrer? Did you know he marched right into a synagogue and converted ten thousand Jews to Christianity? And that was before he raised a dead man.”
“I did not know that,” Mira said.
Francesca stood. “The lasagna is dry.”
Father Ernesto held both sides of his plate, like a child about to have his food taken away. “It’s perfect, dear.”
“Coffee, then. You need coffee. I’ll get it. Is instant okay? That’s what Daddy likes, so it’s what we’ve got. Mira, can you help me in the kitchen?”
Mira smiled apologetically at Father Ernesto. “Do you mind sitting here by yourself?”
“I don’t mind, but I’m not quite ready for coffee, I’m afraid. I’m still working on my lasagna.” His head dropped sadly over his plate. “Though I think it’s gone cold.”
“Let me heat it for you!” Mira gently tugged the plate from the old man’s hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Mira backed into the kitchen and swung around.
Francesca was pacing back and forth. “Think,” she said, spinning on one foot. “Help me think.”
“About what?”
“About what else to do. We’ll never be able to prove to Mr. Falso that what happened in the soup kitchen was a miracle now that Donata is dead. Besides, she’s already been cremated. I made calls.”
Mira braced herself. Slowly, she set the plate in the microwave and reached for the instant coffee and a mug from the pantry shelf. “Then what are you thinking?” She moved to the gas stove.
“You heard Father Ernesto. My other choice is martyrdom. To die, Mira. For my beliefs. Or else I have to be able to perform a second, confirmable miracle.”
Mira tucked her lip. In times like this it was best to stay quiet and listen to everything Francesca had to say. She turned the gas to medium.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
“Dramatic. Incontrovertible. Undisprovable,” Francesca said, pacing.
The burner wouldn’t light. Mira removed the teakettle to a different burner and lifted the metal grate, then the burner cap.
Francesca stopped short. “I have to raise someone from the dead.”
Mira looked up, holding the cap aloft, back still turned. “How would you find someone who’s died?” she asked slowly.
“I missed my chance with Donata. It would have to be a recent death.” Francesca started pacing again. “A hospital, maybe. God, that would be impossible.” She stopped and whispered a prayer into her hands for taking the Lord’s name in vain. The pacing started again. “The VA hospital in Jamaica Plain is supposed to be kind of sketchy. Or the nursing home on Union Street! I bet that’s easy to break into.”
Mira set the cap down onto the burner port and turned the knob. Tick tick tick tick tick. The gas smell bloomed.
Francesca covered her ears with her hands and stomped. “Oh, dear Lord. Think, think! I have the power, I know I have the power. I just have to show him. But how do I find someone who died?”
Tick tick tick tick tick. Mira willed the blue flame to appear.
“Who do we know that’s close to dying? Nana Pignataro? She’s at least ninety-eight. Maybe I could start going over there to help with chores. Keep tabs on her. But what if she wanted to die? I mean, how much fun can it be to keep living when you’re ninety-eight and your friends and kids are dead and you’ve got a hump in your back? No. This has to be a miracle worth doing. A tragedy that someone has died. And a spectacular miracle that they’ve been brought back to life. Like a kid—”
“Don’t dry out that macaroni now! That would be a crime!” Father Ernesto called from the dining room.
“—but I don’t know any kids. Or kids about to die. I don’t even know any kids who take unusual risks. Unless you count Kamil Kulik and his heroin habit, and no one would want him back from the dead if he OD’d. It’s hopeless!”
Gas fumed thick. “Nothing’s hopeless,” Mira said brightly. “There has to be a way to make this a win-win for you and for some … deserving … person. Someone you can save who needs saving. It might be a matter of waiting for the right moment, but when it comes, you’ll know it and be able to act. Then everyone will know. And he’ll know.”
“Girls?”
“I wait until someone has an accident and hope that I happen to be there?” Francesca said. “That’s insane.”
“Not really. Think about it. The potential for accidental death is all around us.” Mira glided to the drawer and removed a matchbox. “The quarry is incredibly dangerous. Someone dies diving there every summer. I hear Steven Pignataro is into huffing these days; maybe he’ll go too far, and he’s right across the street. Then there’s a whole host of kids in school who have EpiPens because they’re deathly allergic to peanuts. A guy eats a peanut butter sandwich and kisses a girl in the cafeteria: it could be deadly. And you could be right there.” Mira lit a match and touched it to the holes in the center of the burner. The burner lit in a neat ring. Mira turned and smiled. “Your gift would be proven in front of hundreds of witnesses.”
Francesca grunted. She froze at the kitchen window and crossed her arms, hooking her index finger around her chapped top lip.
“The weak and vulnerable are everywhere. You just have to find them.” Mira licked her finger and drew it through the flame. It tingled, but it didn’t hurt.
Francesca parted the checked curtain and gazed out over the Pignataros’ cape to the shingled wedge of the Villelas’ rooftop. “Or I can create my own miracles,” she said.
Mira turned the knob until the flames reached high: blue, red, orange, white.
If their house exploded, and they were consumed in an airless blaze and returned to ashes, it would be terrible, but it would also be quiet. The urges that tugged and bit at Mira would be evaporated.
Silence could be a wondrous thing too, Mira thought. Her mother would agree.
PART 6
Throat
NOVEMBER 2016
Ben dropped his bike to the grass and shoved his hand in his front pocket, feeling for the mushroom-shaped bottle as he walked toward the brick buildings and grounds office. The pills were supposed to take the edge off. Ben shook the bottle as he walked. He liked how it reminded him of the wormy Mexican jumping beans he used to play with as a little kid. It was easier to tell himself the bottles were toys than the truth: that the pills were his insurance, in case he couldn’t handle being there.
Nobody understood why Kyle wanted to work in a cemetery, especially that cemetery. Never mind that it was the kind of job described as “semi-skilled,” where your coworkers might be prison inmates. Kyle was smarter than most people knew. He’d managed to complete the EMT course nights and weekends in the required eighteen months, though he lasted at the job less than one whole summer. Kyle said his new job was easy. All you needed were a strong back, a little knowledge of hand tools (read: shovels), and the ability to compartmentalize, with grief crowding you every day.
Also, it gave him lots of unsupervised time outdoors to smoke weed.
Ben peered into the window of an office hut. Seeing it empty, he turned to look for a sign of Kyle. As far as cemeteries went, this one was a nice place to land. It was the size of two football fields and framed by the Blue Hills, which meant some graves had views (though Ben couldn’t figure why this mattered to someone six feet under). It was considered fancy by most folks in Bismuth in the same way the boat club was considered fancy, but wasn’t. Ben had overheard his friends’ parents talking about it at the Villelas’ house after Connie’s wake. Mr. Cillo had pulled strings to get Connie in there, and to get the girls in four months later. You had to be a decorated vet or a Kennedy or Frank Cillo to get that kind of real estate, they joked.
An engine roared. Ben shaded his eyes toward Kyle driving a banged-up golf cart straight for him, then jamming on the brake just short of Ben’s toes. Kyle swung himself out of the cart and peeled off canvas gloves, tucking them in the back pocket of his shorts. Dirt crusted over his bare knees. He slipped a cigarette pack from his front pocket and tapped one out, flicking a retro, chunky metal Zippo and lighting the stick under his cupped hand, protecting it from an imaginary draft.
Ben eyed the lighter glinting in the morning sun. “They let you smoke on the job?”
Kyle blew a shot of smoke. “Anything that keeps the nerves tamped down is acceptable. Long as you’re not near sobbing guests.”
“Guests?”
“Family members of the recently departed.”
“You got the lingo down.”
Kyle eyed Ben’s fist. “Whatcha got there?”
“Oh, this?” Ben held the bottle out. “Something some doctor wants me to take.”
“Most prescriptions are. What is it?”
Ben held the bottle at a distance and read as if for the first time. “Ser-tra-line.”
“You mean Zoloft.”
“I do?”
Kyle took a long, slow drag and blew the smoke out even slower. “Yep.”
“Right.” Ben stuffed it in his pants, where it made a bulge. “So, you like your new job?”
Kyle looked over his shoulder toward the office. “If you rode your bike from Powder Neck for small talk, we can hang here. But if you’re here for a medicinal consult”—he pointed to the bulge—“we ought to move on.”
Ben tipped his chin at the golf cart. “In that thing?”
“Hell, yeah.” Kyle mashed the cigarette on the cement with his boot, then peeled it off the ground and tucked it in his back pocket. He smiled. “Some poor sucker’s gotta keep this place clean, you know.”
Ben swung himself onto the cracked cart seat. “I think I know the guy. Real loser.”
Kyle laughed as he slipped in next to Ben and turned the key. The ancient cart lurched into drive and they putted over the hill. Ben was grateful the motor was too loud to talk over. He surveyed the neat lines of graves on his left, realizing he had no idea where exactly the Cillo plot was, since the interment of their ashes had been private. Ben turned that off in his mind. Now even Mr. Cillo’s quiet burial of his daughters seemed suspect.
“How do you tell your way around this place?” Ben blurted, wishing his brain would stop chattering. “It all looks the same.”
Kyle squinted, one hand on the wheel, his hair catching wind. “You figure it out pretty quick. See that white thingy that looks like a Greek temple? That’s a whole family in there, the Neros. That’s the west side. It’s called a mausoleum, by the way.”
“Good to know.”
Kyle pointed off to the right. “Those granite tablets flat on the ground? You know what those are?”
“Graves of people whose relatives were too cheap to buy regular headstones?”
“Cremorials. Memorials for people who were cremated. Cremation, memorials. Get it?”
“I get it.” People or sisters, Ben thought.
“Most of the cremorials are on the east side, with the Blue Hills in the background, see?” Kyle said, rubbernecking. “Those plots get the best views.”
“Dead people prefer nice views?”
“Their loved ones do.”
“Loved ones. Nice.”
“The main gate is south. North is the only other way. If you get lost, you look for the hills.”
“You really seem to be fitting in here. Where are the other people?”
Kyle wrenched down the high brake pedal next to a granite bench. “We’re surrounded by people, dude.”
Ben stung. To think that Kyle had become indoctrinated into this ultrasensitive new cemetery world, where Corpses Are People Too.
“Where are the guys you work with? I mean, I assume they’re guys, right?”
“It’s a big place. Not much natural interaction. No water cooler to stand around and chitchat.” Kyle hopped from the cart and took an expansive breath, as if the air was cleaner here.
Ben sat down hard on the granite bench. “Is it lonely?”
Kyle smiled. “Not so much.”
The bottle dug into the crease of Ben’s leg. “Good. That’s good. I’m glad.”
“So. Last time I saw you, you had some anger issues. Those worked out?”
Ben dug his toe into the ground, remembering how good Piggy’s cheek had felt under his knuckles. “My parents don’t think so. Thus…” Ben gestured loosely at his hip.
“Zoloft’s serious stuff. You taking it?”
“Nah, not yet. I mean, I’m not sure I will. I don’t want to be relaxed, if that makes any sense.”
Kyle threw his gloves on the cart and collapsed onto the grass, hands behind his head. With his rangy legs sprawled and his work boots flopping to the sides, he looked peaceful. It was a pretty spot, Ben realized. Nicest grass he’d ever seen, even late in the season, the lush blades tight, like a cushion. He imagined Kyle came here a lot, to smoke and to think. It seemed nice. For a moment, Ben let himself forget about what Mira was trying to tell him, what she wanted him to do. He swung his feet onto the bench and lay back, knees folded upward, the granite cold through the back of his too-thin jacket, taking in the wide blue expanse. He was surprised at how chill a cemetery could be.
Ben eased into the silence. “See, Kyle. I got a job to do. And it’s hard to get work done when you’re … unfocused.”
“And a little high.”
“Exactly.”
“Except I don’t imagine it takes much concentration to operate the hot dog rotisserie at the boat club snack bar.” Kyle sat up on one elbow. “What kind of work are we really talking about, Benny?”
Ben stared hard at the sky. “I know why the girls jumped. Mira left me
notes. The papers you saw at the quarry: that was them. She told me that her father caused their suicides. And I’ve got to make it right.”
Kyle dipped his head so his hair fell over one eye. The effect was cynical, and Ben felt a stirring defensiveness. “She left you notes that said ‘my father touched my private parts’?” Kyle asked.
“Not exactly. Well, basically. He was touching both of them, all the time. She said that.”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive, man, but did you ever consider that you’re thinking this because of what happened with Coach Freck? I mean, what didn’t happen, but almost could have happened. Like maybe you’re prone to thinking this way?”
“What the hell, Kyle? She told me.”
“She wrote to you.” Kyle softened his voice. “And now you can’t exactly ask for clarification. You get me?”
“I do not get you.”
Both boys fell to their backs, silent. Ben steamed for a minute, then two. Finally, Ben spoke to the sky. “I’m gonna do something about it. Mira wanted me to.”
He wondered if Kyle didn’t hear him, on account of his bad ear. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m gonna do?”
“Nope.”
“Nope?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Ben turned his head. “You’re not going to ask me any questions?”
“A real man knows what he believes in. Once you know what you believe in, you don’t have to check in with your friends or your parents or your priest before you go ahead and do something. You know what’s right, and you do it.”
Ben sat upright on the bench, his sense of peace vanishing. He was becoming annoyed. Here he was pouring his heart out to Kyle because he’d assumed Kyle wouldn’t give him a hard time. Kyle had stood up for Ben, and backed Ben more times than he could remember. Been like a big brother to Ben, trying to make up for what a turd his own brother was to him, maybe, or because he felt bad when Ben’s name turned up on Coach Freck’s list. The reasons didn’t matter to Ben. Yet here Kyle was, talking about old shit that didn’t matter anymore, playing games with him. Something was off. Ben craned his neck to check Kyle’s eyes. Maybe he was on something and Ben hadn’t noticed.
