Sins of the Mother

by August Norman

  Both Caitlin’s and Sheriff Martin’s heads whipped toward the open doorway. A pageboy cut of straight brown hair topped a short but full-bodied woman wearing a wine-red blazer over matching pants. The woman walked past a twentysomething deputy and met them both in the doorway.

  “Damn it,” Martin said, almost pulling the door shut in the woman’s face. “Why are you here, Gwendolyn?”

  “I’m acting as Caitlin Bergman’s attorney. As such, I’m advising her not to say anything until we’ve had a chance to discuss recent events.”

  Caitlin stared at the older woman’s determined expression and necklace of chunky wooden beads. “As I’m not under arrest, I have no need for an attorney. More importantly, who the hell are you?”

  “Gwendolyn Sunrise.” The business card she offered affirmed the unlikely combination of words. She broke into a smile so white and wide that Caitlin thought she’d been lost in the surf on a summer day. “I represent the Daughters of God organization and therefore am available to any family members in need of legal service.” She turned toward Sheriff Martin, and her smile disappeared. “Desmond understands you’ve found both Magda’s body and her murderer.”

  Martin took a step back. “Well, if Desmond understands it, it must be some sort of cosmically enlightened magic. I know nothing of the kind.”

  Ignoring his dig, Lady Sunrise turned back to Caitlin. “If you’re not under arrest, then you’re free to go. May I offer you a ride?”

  The sheriff put a hand out. “Miss Bergman doesn’t need a ride from anyone in your organization.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” Caitlin said, grabbing her things, “but Miss Bergman can decide who she goes home with, if she’s going home at all.” She turned to the crimson-clad attorney. “Lead the way, sunshine.”

  The woman flashed that smile again. “It’s Sunrise.”

  “Right,” Caitlin said, almost squinting on her way out the door. “And this is a brand-new day.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  CAITLIN FOLLOWED THE woman to the parking lot.

  “I have a lot of questions, Gwendolyn.”

  Gwendolyn opened the back door of a ten-year-old town car painted nearly the same color of red as her suit. “Everyone does. I’ll be glad to answer anything you’d like on the way to wherever you’d like to go.”

  “Coos Bay,” Caitlin said, climbing in.

  “Of course.” She shut Caitlin inside.

  Though aging, the car’s vinyl interior, also the same shade of red, looked well kept.

  A slender woman in her late teens waited behind the steering wheel. Caitlin made eye contact in the rearview. “Hello.”

  “Yes,” the young woman said, not quite connecting. Her eyes moved away, not an aversion, but fixated on something behind the car.

  Caitlin turned to look.

  The lawyer in red, in transit to the car’s passenger side, had turned back toward the government building. A woman in jeans and a polo shirt with dark roots poking through blond hair yelled from the sidewalk. Wearing no scrubs this time, Leslie Kramer, the medical examiner, started running toward the red town car.

  Caitlin glanced back to the girl’s eyes in the rearview and saw a high chance of tears in the forecast. She felt around the door for the control to lower the windows so she could hear what was being said but couldn’t find a toggle.

  The passenger door opened and Gwendolyn Sunrise got in. “Coos Bay,” she said, slamming the door behind her.

  The driver’s eyes didn’t leave the rearview.

  Gwendolyn leaned forward and touched the girl’s shoulder. “Now.”

  “Of course.” The car popped into reverse with a lurch that sent both Caitlin and the lawyer toward the red vinyl of the front seats.

  Just as they pivoted to face the main road, Leslie Kramer arrived at the driver’s side window.

  “Lily,” she screamed, pounding on the glass. “I know you’re in there. Talk to me.”

  “Go,” Gwendolyn said.

  Her daughter Lily ran off with the Daughters of God, Sheriff Martin had told Caitlin.

  Now Lily Kramer, the girl behind the wheel, put the car in drive and hit the gas.

  The thud of the senior Kramer’s palm shook Caitlin’s window, the woman struggling to keep up.

  Caitlin leaned forward. “What is this shit?”

  “A family dispute,” Gwendolyn answered, her hand still on the driver’s shoulder. “Stay in your center, Eve. I’ve got you.”

  Caitlin watched the medical examiner fall behind. “I don’t know you people, and I’m not gonna be part of any sort of religious abduction.”

  Gwendolyn sat back like the moment had already faded into history. “Abduction? Eve isn’t being kept away from anyone.”

  “Then have her stop the car. You said you represent the Daughters of God and some shit about how that means you help their families as well.”

  “That’s right, Miss Bergman.” Gwendolyn’s hand went to the wooden beads around her neck. “Sometimes that means creating a safe distance from harmful family members. Eve’s mother—”

  “Calls her Lily, not Eve,” Caitlin said. “Stop the car and let her talk to the woman, or let me out of here.”

  Gwendolyn held her necklace inches from her neck with one finger, shifted it from side to side twice, then let it drop, looking toward the front. “Stop.”

  Neither Lily nor Eve Kramer seemed relieved. “But—”

  Again, Gwendolyn’s hand went to the girl’s shoulder. Her voice came out with the soothing calm of a spa commercial. “It’s okay. She can’t hurt you here.”

  The girl let out a deep exhale, then pulled the car over. Caitlin checked the rear window and saw Kramer bent over, panting.

  “Back up,” Gwendolyn said. “It’ll be fine.”

  The young woman backed the car toward her mother and rolled a window down. Leslie Kramer jogged up and planted her hands on the windowsill.

  “Lily? Baby, is that you?”

  Lily kept her hands and eyes on the wheel. “Hello, Mother.”

  “Come home, Lily. Come with me right now.”

  She threw her arms around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her toward the window, but Lily brushed her off.

  “What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” Kramer wiped tears from her eyes. “I want to see you.”

  Lily faced her. “Here I am. I’m fine, I’m happy, I’m safe. I have to go now.”

  “No, you don’t,” Leslie said, grabbing her wrist. “You don’t have to do anything these people say. They don’t know what’s best for you.”

  Lily pried her mother’s hand off. “I’m nineteen years old and am fully capable of deciding what’s best for me.”

  She dropped her hand to the center console and the driver’s side window went up, almost closing on the medical examiner’s hand.

  “Lily, no—”

  The girl put the car in gear. “Move, or I’ll run over your feet.”

  “Lily—”

  “Good-bye, Mother,” she said, then pulled away.

  Leslie Kramer fell to her knees in tears.

  Caitlin looked back to the driver, who once again found solace in the touch of Gwendolyn Sunrise’s hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s not even noon on a Sunday,” the girl said, fighting back tears, “and she’s halfway through a bottle of Wild Turkey.”

  Gwendolyn patted her shoulder again. “You did great, Eve.”

  The girl wiped her eye, then focused on the road in front of her. “We’ll be in Coos Bay in twenty minutes.”

  Gwendolyn sat back. “You see, Caitlin. We’re not keeping anyone from their families.”

  “Sure,” Caitlin said, her heart pumping from the exchange. “I get it. Let’s talk about your group. Are you the Dayans or the Daughters of God?”

  The woman smiled. “Our religion is registered as a 501(c)(3) under the name Daughters of God, but we tend to use both names.”

  “Why Daughte
rs? Aren’t there men in your group?”

  “Perhaps I’m not the right person to answer your questions.”

  Caitlin held back her first thought: You literally said you would be happy to answer any of my questions. Instead she went with, “I thought you were at the sheriff’s station to help me.”

  “One of our members is missing. I went there for answers, only to learn that she’d been killed.”

  “And you believe the dead woman is my birth mother?”

  “Wasn’t she? I understand you were brought here to identify the body. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Not much of a loss. I never knew my mother. I don’t know anything about her life, and she didn’t know anything about mine.”

  Gwendolyn Sunrise started to say something, then stopped and reached into a briefcase near her feet. She moved some papers aside, then came up with a framed photo of Caitlin. “Then how did I know who you were?”

  Caitlin took the four-by-six frame and stared at a familiar black-and-white image. Her publisher had used that same press shot on the back of Caitlin’s first book, almost four years old at this point.

  “Your mother knew all about your work,” Gwendolyn said, in the same calming tone she’d used on the girl. “She was your biggest fan.”

  Caitlin fought past the million ways she wanted to tell Gwendolyn Sunrise to screw herself and forced a smile. “Isn’t that precious?”

  Gwendolyn’s hand ventured tentatively toward Caitlin’s knee. “I can sense your anger.”

  “Picked that up all on your own?”

  The look in Caitlin’s eyes must have burned a hole in the lawyer’s hand, because Gwendolyn withdrew toward her own side of the car. “Desmond can explain it better. He knows all things under the Light.”

  Caitlin set the frame in the space between them. “So Desmond’s still alive?”

  “Of course. He’d like you to come see him.”

  “Where? When?”

  Gwendolyn laughed. “Whenever you feel ready.”

  “Not now,” Caitlin said, stopping the knee-jerk “Right now” that had almost jumped out of her mouth. She hadn’t found the car’s window control yet, let alone the door handle. She didn’t know all things under the Light, but she did know that hitching a ride to a cult’s compound in an inescapable blood-red car without telling anyone had to be on every culture’s list of no-nos. Still, the idea that Mama Maya had been keeping tabs on Caitlin’s life had her mind racing with the questions she thought she’d stopped asking years ago.

  Why did you leave me?

  Did you ever try to come back to visit? To get to know me?

  Who was my father?

  Why wasn’t he good enough?

  Why wasn’t I?

  “You have my card,” Gwendolyn said, flashing her full-mouth smile again, an instant reminder that the woman’s last name was Sunrise. “Desmond can answer all of your questions.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  ONCE AGAIN, CAITLIN waited in the hotel lobby to see how long the driver would linger. Unlike Johnny Larsen’s truck, the Dayan town car left immediately.

  “Can I help you, Miss Bergman?”

  Expecting to see her broomstick hero, she turned toward the front desk, but a chubby man in his late thirties that Caitlin had definitely never met stood behind the counter. She knew the hotel staff probably gossiped with each shift change, but she didn’t like that this complete stranger, like the employee the day before, knew her name.

  She flattened her palms on his counter. “How do you know who I am?”

  He stepped backward. “Sorry. Someone asked about you earlier, described you and everything.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman,” he stammered. “I don’t know.”

  “A woman? Yeah, right.” She stared the man down, but he either had no more words to give or was too scared to try them. She turned and walked toward her room. “I’m checking out.”

  First step: find a secure home base. She packed her bags and considered her options. Everyone in the county seemed to know where she was staying, even though she’d really only spoken to three people: Sheriff Martin, Johnny Larsen, and Hazel from the Lumberjack.

  With a population under twenty thousand, Coos Bay was minuscule compared to LA. But combined with North Bend, the area became the largest metropolitan area on the Oregon coast. Not exactly a small town where everyone knew each other’s business. Still, they knew a lot more about Caitlin’s life than she knew about theirs. Might as well pick the spot with the most cameras.

  By four thirty that afternoon, she’d unlocked the door to a suite at the Mill Casino Hotel and RV Park. By five thirty, she’d dropped two outfits with the front desk for laundry service and finished a goat cheese and spinach salad in a waterfront dining room. By six, she’d placed an order with a local marijuana delivery service. By seven, she’d grabbed the next entry of Mama Maya’s journal, drawn a bath in the whirlpool, and lit a joint.

  * * *

  March 8, 1993

  So much has happened. It feels like there’s hardly time to write anything down.

  I stayed at God’s Hill, obviously.

  I sleep in a massive tent with thirty others, though I’m right next to Bev. She’s been my guide. There are four other tents like ours.

  Actually, we don’t sleep a lot.

  It’s all too exciting.

  Every day, we wake to our morning song.

  Daya stands near the prayer fire and starts.

  The fire is dying, so come let me build

  A light that can shine through to heaven above

  So he’ll see me trying, and doing his will

  Building my fire with light and with love

  (Linda wrote it, the song, I mean. It came to her in a dream. Not the end of the world dream, which we call the Cataclysmic Vision, but the Hopeful Morning, her message of joy.)

  Soft, no mic or anything, but as soon as any of us hear Daya’s voice, we join in. One by one, the song grows until the whole camp is singing. Once we’re ready, we step out of the tent and head to the woodpile. We each grab a piece, take it to the fire, then form a giant circle, arm in arm. Then we spin like a galaxy around a massive star. Slow at first, just walking in a big circle, still singing our verse.

  The drummers start pounding out a beat, and we speed up to match their tempo. We really get going, but no one falls. I don’t think you can, because everyone else would just carry you, but you do get sweaty as shit. Then, either Desmond or Daya yells, and we come to a stop and start jumping in place. Each ring of the circle takes a turn leaping, all the way down from a squat to as high as we can make it, then the next ring, then the next, like we’re sending a pulse out into the world. Finally, we all collapse in place and Daya announces the day’s message.

  Each day has a central mantra to meditate on, and each one has blown my mind so far. Like yesterday’s—Allow yourself to be touched. At first we all took it as an excuse to tickle or play with each other—there are some serious hotties here, both men and women—but by the afternoon, I could hear deep meaning in everything people said. Later, I cried when I found a handful of baby birds in a nest, helpless little things waiting for a mom to return with a meal.

  That was nothing compared to today’s message: Your fear only protects you from your possibilities. I thought about it all through first session.

  The people who’ve been here the longest have regular assignments, like food prep, laundry, farming, and all the stuff that keeps us going on God’s Hill. I found out we’re not actually on parkland up here, but right on the edge of the park on some old man’s farmland. He lets us stay here if we work his fields, so most of the men are sent to work until the afternoon. For the rest of us, first session means we divide into Thought Clouds in the woods.

  I swear, I feel like I’m eighteen again. We sing songs and have these talks, deep talks, about the meaning of life. Money, sex, drugs, God—nothing’s off limits.

  And the phys
ical stuff. We move around so much. Sometimes we run, like we’re playing tag. Sometimes we jump up and down for as long as we can, ten, twenty minutes. We’ll chant the day’s message over and over until the words are gibberish. Somehow that makes them stronger.

  I passed out last week, woke up in my tent. But I had dreams. So strong. I’m dreaming every night. And my skin looks great. Like when I saw Bev’s face at that party. I’m losing weight, too. Not in a bad way, but I feel so much stronger. I’m seeing muscles I haven’t had since my days on the pole.

  I feel so good.

  There’s so much more, but I’ve got to sleep. We’re going on a midnight hike tonight. God, if I’d have written that a year ago, I’d have said no freaking way. I hated the woods, was afraid of them, even.

  Now I know my fears were only protecting me from my possibilities.

  * * *

  Caitlin stood slowly. She’d been in the bath for half an hour, and either her high or Mama Maya’s woodland adventure had brought a steady throb to her temples.

  She toweled off and took the rest of the journal back into the bedroom. Her earlier attempt at a healthy dinner wasn’t going to be enough. Room service promised her a large sausage-and-pepperoni pizza in under thirty minutes.

  She grabbed the next page of Maya’s journal, pulled the comforter from the king-sized bed, slid into the clean sheets, and went back to the woods.

  * * *

  March 17, 1993

  Sex is my gift, not my curse.

  Daya told me this today, a private message, just for me.

  Sex is my gift from God.

  Some are given wealth and prosperity. Some get the ability to sing or play an instrument. Some, like Linda, get dreams of the Spirit. Desmond gets the ability to channel and heal. Daya gets messages from communing with people.

  I was given sex.

  I am sex.

  I’m crying. Right now, I’m freaking crying and it’s crazy, because it’s so pure.

  I have been so ashamed for so long. Ashamed of how early the act came to me, of the hands that took me there, of the paths I followed.