Where No Gods Came

by Sheila O'Connor

  “No,” she said. I hated her stubborn streak. “I'm not leaving Lenore. I want to go to the hospital and see her.”

  “Okay,” I lied. “I'll take you there now. We'll go downtown, make sure she's okay.” I needed to make her move. I couldn't show up in San Diego without Faina, my father's one daughter. He wouldn't want me without her.

  “We can't go to San Diego,” she said, wiping her tears with her sleeve. “He won't be home for another year.”

  “Liar.” I saw through her trick. She was stalling, scamming a way to stay, to nursemaid my mother. “He's supposed to be back in June. My mother told me.”

  “No. It's a two-year contract. He was going to tell Lenore pretty soon, when he sent some money. I've got his letter at home. I'll show it to you. Cammy, it's the truth.” Her chin quivered.

  I wanted to wrap my hands around her scrawny neck and choke her until she changed her story. She was unraveling my plan, ruining everything. “It doesn't matter,” I said. “We can't stay here. We'll find someplace to live while we wait. Guys will take us in. That part will be easy. We don't have a chance in this city. They've got files on me. Shoplifting, truancy. And you're here illegally. You know as well as I do my mother doesn't have rights to you. I found the papers in your drawer. Even if she pulls through, they won't let her keep you.”

  I knew I had broken her. I could see her desperate search for a trapdoor, her beady black eyes darting frantically. “Who knows that?” she asked.

  “It'll be right in our file. Hennepin County has everything on record. They'll take you, Faina. Lock you up in some kiddie prison where I can't protect you. You want some creep with zits humping you while you sleep? I'll be eighteen in a year or so. Free. But you're going to be the one serving the long sentence.”

  “Per,” she said. “Where is she? I won't go without her. I won't.”

  “Forget Per. Someone will take her in. Feed her. Some sucker like me.”

  “No,” she said, dropping down on a crumbling concrete wall. We were losing too much time; if we didn't catch the 6B for downtown soon, the cops would be on us. “I'm going to go get Per. And then you'll take me to see Lenore?”

  “Don't be stupid. The cops will be at the apartment.”

  “I'll wait until they leave. I'm not going without Per. I'm her mother. I'd never leave her alone.”

  “Okay. Go get her. Let them haul you away.” I hated that cat. I should have left her to die that night in the cold. “I'll wait for you in the bathroom at Dakota Park. I'll give you an hour. If you don't show up, I'm leaving. I'm not letting you take me down.”

  “Can't you come with me?” she begged, her eyes filling up again with tears. “I'm scared, Cammy.”

  “I got to save my own ass,” I said. “You want that cat, you go get it.” I didn't think she'd do it alone.

  Faina - Empty

  First, I check Dakota Avenue for cop cars like Cammy told me. There's no sign of anything, not police, not an ambulance, not the crowds I imagined. Not even Frances or Hank. Maybe Cammy made up the whole story to get me to go to San Diego, maybe Lenore is still up there, struggling to breathe, just waiting for us to come home. Through the big glass window of Kenny's, I see Jimmy loading groceries. If I really am boarding a bus for San Diego today, I need to say good-bye to him, to let him know I didn't disappear. Jimmy, the only true friend I have here; Jimmy, who said I saved his life.

  In the back alley it's quiet, too. Everything is just the way I left it this morning. The dumpster still screaming SLUT, the wet blacktop, the soggy cigarette butts left over from all the nights Jimmy and I talked out here, perched up on the fire escape, staring out over the rooftops and into the sky. Sometimes cloudy, sometimes full of stars, the moon always changing its shape. The things I'll miss. Jimmy's last kiss, the way he tugged at my braid to tease me, the little gold cross earring shining in the streetlight.

  When I open the heavy back door, Hank's there, blocking the sea-green staircase, the one bare lightbulb swaying from a frayed cord above his head.

  “Fina,” he stammers. “You're home early. Looks like your ma's real sick.”

  Then it's true. My heart drums against my chest. “She's not my mom.”

  “Well, whatever she is. She's real sick.”

  I try to squeeze past him, but he blocks me with his thick body, his filthy hands.

  “What's your hurry?” He squints at me.

  “I want to go upstairs to see her.”

  “Not there. Ambulance took her to Hennepin County drunk tank, I bet. Same place they take them all. You can't live up there alone now. You know it's against the law.” He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “The older girl's gone. Took off with a duffel bag. Didn't even stay to see if her own mother lived or died. Anyway, those two won't help you. Bad blood the both of them. Crazy. That Lenore ain't fit to raise a dog.”

  “I'll stay with a friend. Don't call anybody, please.”

  “Ain't up to me. I just own the plumbing shop, caretake the building. I was up there when they came. The girl left her alone, close to dead. They needed your names.”

  “Our names?”

  “I answered what I could. I'm not here to mind your business. You kept the place up real nice. I don't blame you. I seen you go off every day in your uniform. Cathedral. That's my church. We've got that in common. It's that older girl who ruined it. I saw it coming the minute she showed up.”

  “I have to go,” I say. “I'm sure Lenore needs me.” I know Cammy's starting to worry. I don't want her to give up and leave without me. I don't want to have to find my way to the Greyhound depot alone.

  “That cat. The lease said no pets. I'll keep the damage deposit to pay for the cleaning.”

  “Per. Is she okay?”

  “The ambulance folks left her alone. I got pets of my own. Nobody messed with her. You should be so lucky.”

  I have never been alone in the apartment. Never been here without Lenore. I'm terrified by the silence. I dead-bolt both locks, draw the chain.

  When I look in her room, her empty bed seems like a dream. I want to believe that she'll hobble out of the bathroom, ask me to turn on the TV. I stretch out in her spot, next to Per, who meows at me. I press my face into her pillow, so I can breathe her memory. The sad, sour stench of sickness. Smoke, vodka, Final Net hairspray, White Shoulders perfume. On her TV tray, the little white bag of chocolate-covered almonds she never ate, this week's TV Guide, her ashtray, finally empty.

  I wonder what it's like in the emergency room, if she's scared or lonely, if she's worried I might not come. I wonder if they've fixed her breathing, if she's swallowing food, if the gurgling has stopped. Hank said the drunk tank, but that's not what Cammy told me. I know Lenore will feel better once I get there, when I can hold her hand between mine, tickle her arm until she falls asleep. Maybe then, Cammy will change her mind. She'll see Lenore needs us, she'll let us stay home until we're sure Lenore is finally well.

  I open Lenore's closet slowly, half-afraid a stranger will pop out and grab me. Hank again. Or Tom Payne. Her purse is there, just like Cammy told me it would be. I empty it on the bed: the Juicy Fruit she wanted me to glue to Jimmy's valentine, the fake leopard-skin cigarette case she never used, Papa Roy's lighter with his initials engraved on the front. Old Kleenex, lipstick, loose tobacco. I open her red vinyl wallet. The checks Cammy told me to bring are there. In the small plastic rectangles, there are school pictures of Cammy. Cammy as a little girl in pin curls, Cammy in bangs, Cammy with pink barrettes, Cammy in pigtails, Cammy with her hair pulled back from her forehead, Cammy with straight hair draping her face, Cammy with blue eye shadow, Cammy refusing to smile. All the years they lived without me. I open the dark slot, pull out the money, her social security card, a little square photo of me in kindergarten. My first school picture. My hair cut short as a boy's, my front teeth missing, that silly crooked grin. Faina, age 6, my dad printed on the back in pencil. Maybe this is the same picture Lenore told me about, the one Papa Roy carri
ed in his wallet until the day he died.

  I take her wallet with me, throw it into a brown Kenny's bag. In our room, Cammy's clothes are scattered everywhere, on the bed, the floor, spilling out of her dresser drawers. I add my uniform and blouse to the mess, pull on my dirty jeans, one of Cammy's ripped T-shirts. I fill the paper bag with the things I can't leave. My diary, Per's food, her little china dish. My dad's letters. The napkin with Keith's address. My Shepherd Psalm bookmark. Lenore's family Bible. Croc. The wooden boomerang. My winter boots. I leave the confirmation dress hanging in my closet. I wish we could take it back to Sears, get our money. I wish I could cut it into a million pieces, throw them on the steps of Cathedral, let Sister Barbara figure it out.

  I double Jimmy's choker, tie it around Per's neck for a collar, pull the string from my sweatshirt jacket and attach it for a leash. If Per had a little nametag with our address, I could never lose her. Even a stranger would know where to send her home. But there is no home now, not for Per or me. She scratches her back paws against the choker frantically, rears backward to wriggle out of the leash. “It has to be done, Per,” I tell her. “Please.” I dump out Eileen's wicker sewing basket, the one we used last summer to hem my uniform. The day Lenore told me I'd need to be a sheep.

  All of this I do quickly, afraid I'll hear the front door open or footsteps on the stairway. I know Cammy's in the bathroom at Dakota Park, angry. I know I have to get there before she leaves.

  When I step out of our apartment, I have Per tucked up against my chest, the sewing basket looped over one arm, the bag of keepsakes cradled in the other arm. I don't bother locking the door. Why should I? We're all gone now. Forever. Sometime soon, someone will come here and find us missing, will load our things into boxes marked MCCOY just the way my dad and I did in San Diego. Hank probably. Or Frances. They'll pack Papa Roy's Great Poems of the English Language, Cammy's record albums, Eileen's rosebud china, Lenore's mirrored perfume tray. Boxes and boxes of belongings. And a year from now, no one will remember we lived here.

  As soon as we step into the sunlight, Per digs her claws into my skin, then leaps down to the sidewalk. She's never seen spring, never smelled the rain, or put her paw in a puddle, never been startled by cars, or pounced on litter fluttering past her feet. I'll never make it all the way to San Diego with Per scrambling at the end of her string. I tuck her into the sewing basket, fasten the lid closed. “Per,” I whisper between the cracks. “I'm sorry. But we have to hurry.”

  Across the street, Jimmy's loading groceries into the trunk of a gold Cadillac, helping a white-haired woman into the driver's seat. “Take it easy,” he says, slapping the hood of her car.

  “Jimmy,” I call out, hoping he'll take a chance and talk to me.

  “What're you doing home from school already?”

  Just as he says this, a hand lands on my shoulder. I see Hank standing in the doorway of his plumbing shop, pointing toward me, Frances spying through the bakery window. I don't turn to look at the person who's holding on to me; I just keep staring at Jimmy, the fear and confusion splattered across his beautiful face.

  “Faina?” When Jimmy steps out into the traffic, cars screech to a stop.

  “It's okay,” I scream, waving him away. He just stands there, frozen. “Go back to Kenny's. I'll tell you about it tonight.” I know there's nothing he can do. In a few days, he'll leave New Directions, go home to his family. “Go on. I'll tell you the whole story tonight.”

  “Fina McCoy? I'm Officer Williams. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  Maybe I could run from him, the way I did today from Cathedral, make it the few blocks to Dakota Park. But he'd trail me, on foot or by car, and Cammy would never forgive me. So I follow him to the squad car parked at the end of the alley, behind Hank's Plumbing.

  “I haven't done anything,” I say.

  “What you got there?” he asks, pulling his pad from his belt holder. “In that little sewing basket?”

  “My cat.”

  “Your cat?” He unfastens the latch, lifts the lid a crack. Per pokes her little orange face out to sniff the sun. “You taking her for a walk?”

  “Yep.”

  “Like that? And the bag? Mind if I take a look?”

  I set it down on the ground, careful to find a patch of cement that's dried since the morning storm. He reaches in, takes a look through my things. “Locked, huh? Got a key for this?” he asks, holding up my diary. “Just in case we need to take a look.”

  I reach down under my T-shirt and pull out the purple ribbon. It hasn't been off me since I left San Diego. Not even in the shower. I pull it over my head, clutch it in my fist.

  “I suppose you wouldn't want me to read it. Private. That kind of thing,” he says. “But I need the key. Don't worry. I'm just going to hold on to it. Keep them together. You have a seat.” He opens the back door of the squad car for me.

  I balance Per's basket on my lap, prop the rumpled paper bag between my feet. The steel-mesh grille between the front and back seats reminds me of Monsignor's confessional. Only there's no velvet curtain to hide my identity.

  He twists around in his seat to look at me. Lifts the handset to radio in my story. “You're not under arrest or anything,” he smiles. “I'm really just here to help.”

  Help. Like Mrs. Lajoy. Like Monsignor. Like Sister Linette and the Atwoods. Like Frances. Like Hank. Today I've had more help than I need. “I haven't done anything wrong,” I repeat. He can't arrest me for carrying a cat and some keepsakes. I'm sure it's Cammy they're after, Cammy with her record for shoplifting and truancy. I know if they put me in prison, my dad will come for me. He won't let it go that far.

  “We're also looking for the older girl. Cammy McCoy. Is she your sister? There's some confusion. Your caretaker isn't sure; your school says she is.”

  My school? He's already been to Cathedral? I don't know what to answer.

  “Yes, she's my sister. I don't know where she is. At work maybe?”

  “Where would that be?” All the time we're talking he's writing notes in his heavy black book.

  “I'm not sure of the name. Some kind of bowling alley.”

  “And this is your mother, then? The one in the hospital?”

  I stare out the window of the squad car. From here I can see New Directions, the upstairs room I always imagined was Jimmy's. I've told so many stories this year, some I can't even remember. Is this my mother?

  “Yes,” I admit. “It is.”

  “And your father?”

  It's too late for me to tell more stories, too late to remember my lies. “He's on an oil rig in Australia. I'm just visiting here while he's working.”

  “Australia? You're visiting? From where?” I can tell he doesn't believe me.

  “San Diego.”

  “Okay,” he grins again. “Well, you're certainly far from home. Then your mother doesn't have custody?”

  “No,” I sigh. “I don't think so.”

  By now, I'm sure Cammy has quit waiting. She's left the bathroom at Dakota Park for the Greyhound bus depot. At five o'clock, she'll be on the bus headed for San Diego; she'll work at Keith's Coffee Shop and wait for my dad. Without me.

  He closes his pad and sets it down on the seat beside him. “Fina,” he begins.

  “Faina,” I say. “It's Faina.”

  “Faina, then. Your mother's quite sick. They've taken her down to Hennepin County Medical Center and admitted her to ICU. It's too early to tell what will happen, but there are good doctors watching over her. Some of the best.”

  “I want to go see her.”

  “Not today, I'm afraid. They don't allow patients in her condition to have visitors. Let's give her a few days to get on her feet, and then we'll see what can be arranged.”

  “A few days?”

  “We're going to need to place you in protective custody. There's no one home to take care of you. Child Protection will handle your case until your father can be found. Do you have an address or anything?”
<
br />   “Yes.” I reach in the bag and pull out one of my blue airmail envelopes.

  “We'll try to contact him. Let him know the situation. Hopefully, he'll respond.”

  “He'll respond.” When I look down the alley, there's Cammy, poking her head out from behind Mead's Mortuary. “What's protective custody?”

  “We'll put you in a temporary shelter. Good Shepherd Children's Home if there's room. You'll have a social worker on your case, someone to watch out for you. Someone to recommend what should be done.”

  “Done?”

  “You know, in terms of a guardian. Don't worry about that now. Let's just get you settled into a place with food and a nice warm bed. Everything will look better tomorrow.”

  “Is this a prison?”

  “No,” he laughs. “It's to keep you from ending up in one. But the cat,” he says. “It can't come with you.”

  “She has to. I'm her mother. I can't leave her.” No matter how hard I try to stop them, tears stream down my face. I hug Per's wicker basket to my chest. He already took my diary key; I'm not going to let him have Per.

  “It's regulation. Isn't there a neighbor who can care for her?”

  “A neighbor?” Frances or Hank?

  “Just someone to keep her until you can pick her up in a few days. When your dad comes for you. A day or two, that's all.”

  I tug at my eyelashes to stop the tears. The only one I can think of is Mrs. Lajoy. “One of my teachers might take her.”

  “That brown-haired lady? With the curly hair? She seemed pretty concerned when I spoke with her. She offered to help if she could.”

  “She might take her. She has cats of her own.”

  He looks at his watch. “Okay,” he says. “Let's go ask her.”

  “I don't want to go back there.”

  “I'll handle it,” he says, turning the key in the ignition. “You can wait in the car.”

  When we pull out of the alley, Cammy's gone. Jimmy's standing on the sidewalk in front of Kenny's, watching us drive away. I lift my hand in a little wave.