by Betsy Ashton
“You were raised in the church, weren’t you? What about your old priest? Could he help?”
I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. I stopped and stared out the window.
Ducks picked up his book. Something faint brushed my cheek to reassure me.
“Father Bernardo was old when I was a kid. If he’s still alive, he’s most likely living in a retirement home.” What was the answer hiding in plain sight in my brainstem? Every synapse went on high alert.
“Start with your old church and see where it leads. Someone has to be able to help.”
I paused in mid-step. I had the answer. It’d been there all along.
“Bug.”
I ran out of the bus before Ducks could ask any more questions. His last words chased me back to my dorm.
“Well, I’m glad I was able to solve your problem. What the hell is bug?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Mississippi, week of January 30
Alex remained busy coordinating the building of the park, and waiting for the equipment to arrive. Every night at dinner he gave us an update.
“I’m tracking the progress online.”
“How are you doing that?”
“The shipping company sent me a tracking number.” Alex looked smug.
“Is that new?” It made sense. After all, big rigs and smaller delivery trucks had GPS units built in.
“Yeah. It’s way cool. I know where the truck is every day. I know when it’ll get here.” Alex took a long swig of milk.
“And that will be when?” Whip looked over at Johnny. They’d soon have work to do on the park on weekends.
“Next week.”
####
Emilie walked around in a semi-fog. She threw herself into studying while she waited for me to find some way of helping Marianna. She reminded me of me when Junie was being molested. Why shouldn’t she? She’d read my journal, for God’s sake.
“I feel, like, totally helpless.” She fidgeted at the breakfast table before bouncing up to pour orange juice. “I want to do something, but we don’t dare call Marianna to see if she’s okay.”
“I agree.” I put two bowls of oatmeal on the table. “As long as Father Alvarado isn’t around, we have a little time to get it right.”
“Is this part of what Auntie Eleanor meant at Mom’s funeral?”
My hand paused midway to the brown sugar bowl. What had Eleanor said that resonated with Emilie?
“You know. About your doo-wop.”
“Auntie Eleanor and Auntie Raney gave me the doo-wop to help me improve my relationship with your mother, but we ran out of time. They extended it to cover raising you and Alex.” My hand finished its journey to fetch brown sugar.
“I’m sure they’d extend it to cover Marianna and Junie, don’tcha think?”
Marianna and Junie were part of my doo-wop. I handed her my phone, “Why don’t you call Auntie Eleanor and ask?”
I hadn’t told Emilie I’d reached out to my second husband’s foundation, the same one that gave Alex the park grant, to see if it could do anything to help the Sanchezes. I couldn’t offer charity, because Isabella’s pride wouldn’t let her accept it. If I located a potential job in Richmond, however, that would be different.
“You’re in luck, Mrs. Davies.” The foundation’s executive director was looking for a replacement for a clerk who was relocating to Tucson for her husband’s new teaching job at the university. “They’ll be closer to their grandkids in Phoenix.”
I wanted to do a happy Snoopy dance around the dorm.
“I have someone who needs sanctuary and a job. She’s in trouble.”
I gave the briefest disclosure about Isabella’s plight as I could.
“She’s a US citizen and needs to get out of Mississippi, right now.
“No, she’s not running from a jealous husband or from the law. She’s been abused, though. Once I get her out of the situation she’s in, I guarantee she’ll never see her tormentor again. I wish I could tell you more, but I’d be breaking a confidence.
“Yes, I believe her.”
“Does she have the skills we need?” Susan clicked computer keys.
“Not a one, but she’s smart, and she can learn.”
“I don’t know,” the director said. “The job’s not high stress, but we need someone we can rely on.”
“She’s reliable. I’ll underwrite her salary and training if it’ll make you feel better. She can’t know, though.” I’d do about anything to get this family away from Father Alvarado. I had to take baby steps, though, in spite of my growing concern that time was running out.
A long pause stretched into silence. I listened to computer keys. Was she answering e-mail?
“Sorry about the clicking, but I was checking our training schedule. We have a work-skills program starting in April. We’ll teach her how to use the software she’ll need for the job.”
“I should be able to extract her before the workshop begins.” I smiled at a blurry monster hovering over my bed.
“You don’t need to underwrite her salary. You do enough as it is.”
I thanked Susan. My second husband’s fortune might have funded the foundation, but I had nothing to say about its daily operation. Even so, I was grateful the director would give Isabella a chance. Okay, job found. I needed a safe place for her and Marianna to live.
My e-mail chirped with an incoming message. My favorite private investigator, Tony, left a phone number and an e-mail address. I sent a message to Ducks’s daughter.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Mississippi, week of January 30
After a few phone calls, I discovered my childhood priest had retired, but a grade-school buddy, Sean Regan, had entered the priesthood. I tracked him to my old parish.
“You’ll never guess who this is,” I said when Father Sean came on the phone. “It’s a voice from your distant past.”
“I’m not so old to have a distant past. A past, maybe.” Father Sean’s voice was warm. “Do you want to tell me who you are, or should we play twenty questions?”
“Much as I’d like to see if you could remember me after all these years, I won’t torture you. You used to call me Mouse.” That was dumb. How many Mouses was he likely to know?
“Mouse? Oh my God. Max. How the hell are you? Where the hell are you?” Father Sean’s unrestrained joy lifted me out of my funk.
“I’m well. I’m living in a trailer park of sorts in southern Mississippi.” It was the truth after all.
“Last time I heard you were living large in New York. Don’t tell me you lost your husband’s fortune and are reduced to a single wide.”
At least the wicked sense of humor I remembered hadn’t been beaten out of Father Sean by the strict discipline of the priesthood.
“Nothing like that.” I caught him up on the recent events in my life. Father Sean stopped me when I mentioned Merry’s murder.
“I read about that. I’m sorry. Are you doing all right?”
“I’m stronger. Something about raising grandchildren full-time puts bad memories into perspective. I’m loving being with my family, but I have a problem.” I laid out the Sanchez situation in no uncertain terms. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m absolutely shocked. To think such practices have been allowed to continue into this day and age. I mean, they were prevalent in Central and South America decades ago, but here? In Mississippi?”
“Are you being sarcastic, Bug?”
“No one’s called me Bug in a very long time.” Sean got the nickname because he wore thick glasses. “I’m not being sarcastic. I’m being honest. I’m revolted.”
“You can’t imagine how sick I was when I realized what was happening.” I clasped the cell to my ear and swallowed hard.
“I thought we’d cleared out the bad priests during the purge following the pedophilia scandals.”
“Well, you missed one.” I said. “Or maybe no one knew what was going on. Maybe no one
ratted this bastard out. Mrs. Sanchez told me her family tradition goes back at least five generations.”
“There are always options, but if her family has a history of bearing illegitimate children under the secrecy of the church, I can understand why she’d see no alternatives. Hard as it is to accept, at least a girl child had a chance to grow up and grow old. It lifted a burden from the family.”
“So would becoming a nun.” My bitterness came through.
“Still the same old Mouse, huh?” Father Sean laughed. “If you’d been a man, you’d have been Don Quixote, tilting at windmills of injustice.”
That fit. “You think I’m not tilting at windmills? Get real. Why did you call me Mouse back in school anyway? Was it because I was small or because you didn’t think I had any backbone?”
“You had more steel in you than most of us realized. So, Mouse because you were vertically challenged.” Sean laughed.
“Steel? What do you mean?” Hadn’t I hidden my fears throughout school? Was Bug telling me my acting was for naught?
“You pretended everything was right at home, even when I could see it wasn’t.”
“I didn’t realize it showed.”
When Junie died, I grew quieter, even more studious. I lost weight. We weren’t as attuned in those days to what behavioral changes meant. Today, someone would have diagnosed me as clinically depressed or having post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It did, but I didn’t know how to intrude.”
“I have more means to help people than I did when we were in school.” I set thoughts of Junie aside.
“I’ve followed your path over the years, Mouse. You’ve done well. You give back to your communities. You make me proud to have grown up with you.”
“Thanks, Bug. That means more than you can imagine.” I choked and blinked away stinging tears.
“Back to the trouble at hand. You want this priest stopped. Let’s look at options.” Father Sean recited the list Ducks and I’d already discussed.
“I know the police drill. Rape kit, statements, photos. We went through this with a young woman who was gang-raped. Isabella wouldn’t be able to endure it. She’s not strong enough.”
“You’re worried this priest will rape Marianna next.”
“Yes. I can’t live with that.”
“None of us can, so we must prevent it.”
Tears spread across my face. I wiped my nose. Blowing would have to wait.
Father Sean put on his counselor’s voice. “If you go to the police, what would happen to Mrs. Sanchez?”
“That’s a question Ducks asked.” I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve. It came off between my fingers and found a new home in the wastebasket.
“Ducks?”
“Our homeschool teacher. He’s become a great friend and confidant since we moved to Mississippi after Katrina. I’ll tell you more about what we’re doing later.”
“If you allege child abuse in a house where the mother knew what was going on, she could be charged. The child would be taken away and turned over to protective services.” Father Sean continued down the list of options.
“Shit! Sorry—”
“I’ve heard the word before.”
“Almost worse than the potential of abuse is the risk of losing her mother. Marianna knows no one except her, my family, and Father Alvarado.”
“We could report him to his bishop and let the church deal with it.”
“Hah!”
“I figured you’d say that.” Father Sean remembered me well, perhaps too well. At least he believed me. “Remember, his bishop might not know what’s going on. However, if he’s from a similar ethnic background, he may be covering up Father Alvarado’s actions.”
“My fear is Father Alvarado’s behavior has been institutionalized. After all the scandal-filled headlines over the past few years, can I trust the new church to clean up this mess?” I couldn’t focus on anything outside of the problem at hand.
“Give me a day to locate his bishop and speak with him. Where can I call you?”
We exchanged cell numbers.
“Don’t take too much time, Bug. Marianna needs our help. Now.” I hung up.
My right hand was cramped. Looking at it, I realized I had crossed my fingers for good luck. Maybe a prayer, too, would be appropriate. I knelt by my bed and prayed to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in to protect Isabella and Marianna.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Mississippi, week of January 30
I knocked several times before Isabella came to the door. I’d checked the back of the church to be certain her car was the only one in the lot. I wouldn’t put it past Father Alvarado to sneak in and hide his car. When Isabella told me Marianna was napping, we walked outside. We headed across the road toward the empty clearing that would become the park. The breeze blew from the south, bringing salty reminders of the nearby Gulf.
“How are you?”
“Better.” Isabella stared off into the distance. “I wish he’d leave us alone.”
“Do you think there’s any chance he won’t come for Marianna?” Much as I wanted to spirit the Sanchezes away in the middle of the night, all cloak and daggerish, I could do nothing without her cooperation.
“No. I try to protect her, but he won’t let me. There must be something I can do, but I don’t know what.” Tears on Isabella’s cheek gave me an opening.
“If you could do anything, what would you do?” I directed the conversation to the end I desired. I clasped my hands behind my back.
“I’d take Marianna away.” Isabella wiped her face with her palms. She squared her shoulders.
Her change of posture was what I needed. “What if you could get away from him? I mean, really get away? Never see him again. If I help find you a safe place, will you leave?”
Isabella stared at me. “Please understand. Women in my family have served the priests of the church for five generations. It’s all I know.”
“It doesn’t make it right.” It made it prostitution. Or indentured servitude. Or slavery. At the very least, it made it immoral. “Let’s say we find a way to get you and Marianna away. Will you go?”
“You can do something? My mother cried when I became a woman and was sent to a different church. I had my first baby when I was fifteen. I don’t want it to happen to Marianna.”
Her first baby?
“How many children have you had?” I had only seen Marianna.
“Six. Four boys, two girls. Marianna is the last.” Isabella turned toward me. “When I was in the hospital, I told the doctor to make sure I couldn’t have any more. It’s a sin, but I didn’t want any more children.”
“Let God sort out the sin part. What happened to your other children?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“The boys were sent for adoption after they were born. I never even got to hold them. Rosa stayed with me until she was seven. She was taken to a church in Mexico, but we aren’t Mexican. We’re from Colombia. I don’t know what happened to her.” The empty park reflected the emptiness of Isabella’s life.
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” I put my hand on her shoulder.
“You know, you’re my first friend. I’ve never talked to anyone outside of the church or my family.”
I was warmed by Isabella’s confidence in me. “I have some ideas to get you to safety. When does Father Alvarado come back? I don’t want you in danger.”
“He’s not supposed to be back for three more weeks. He called yesterday to check on us. You know, making sure we were obeying his orders. I don’t trust him. He’s dropped in without warning several times lately. He could do it again.” She shook her thin shoulders.
“What do you want to happen to Father Alvarado?”
We walked to an area where the park gates would be. We’d cleared enough debris to eradicate the smell of decay. On this sunny day salt-tinged Gulf air surrounded us. For the first time, I could imagine how beautiful this place must have been pre-Katrin
a. Poor, to be sure, but with its own brand of beauty.
“I don’t know what you mean, happen to him?”
“How do you want him punished?”
“Oh, I don’t want him punished. I just want to get away.” Isabella’s eyes opened wide.
“Think about it. Has he abused more women and girls like you and Marianna? Could he have another woman in a different church? If we don’t stop him, could he order another girl to serve his needs?”
Isabella stared at me. “Others? I never thought about that.”
“Look, you need to protect Marianna. I’d like you to think about sending her to stay in the compound with us. We have plenty of room.”
The words hadn’t left my lips when Isabella shook her head. Even I knew this wouldn’t work. “He’ll only beat me harder.”
“Mama, can I come over?” Marianna stood on the empty front porch.
“Of course,” Isabella called to her daughter. She wiped tears away.
I chatted with Marianna about the park we’d build in a couple of weeks. I told Isabella I’d see her soon. I was drained by the events of the day. I wanted to build a blanket fort and crawl inside with crayons and a coloring book. I settled for a power nap before dinner.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Mississippi, week of January 30
Where the hell was the bishop? Why hadn’t he called? Didn’t he believe me? When my cell buzzed, it was Bug.
“Imagine my surprise when I learned Father Alvarado’s bishop was my old seminary friend.” Father Sean’s high spirits were infectious. “He was two years ahead of me.”
“You know him?” Could it be the stroke of luck I waited for?
“I sure do. Joseph Spellman’s one of the good guys, Mouse.”
“Bishop Spellman? He doesn’t sound Hispanic.”
“He isn’t.”
