by Kim Savage
Ben stood, turning fast to face every boy. “I’m saying nothing. I’m saying the girls got weird, fast. I’m saying something happened to them inside that house.”
“Jesus, Ben,” said Louis. “I wouldn’t go there.”
Piggy tore his hand through his hair. “Mr. Cillo and my father are friends. You can’t libel the man.”
“You mean slander. If you wrote ‘Mr. Cillo was twiddling his daughters’ in the newspaper, that would be libel,” Louis said.
Piggy flicked Louis’s temple.
“Does it matter?” Kyle called into the chasm.
The boys stared at Kyle’s back. The cicadas had gone silent, and the air fell thick between them.
“I believe it matters,” Ben said.
Kyle turned, his face in profile, hooked nose dipping down, lips curled up into a smile.
“If Mr. Cillo caused pain, enough pain to make his own daughters kill themselves?” Ben said. “I think something needs to be done.”
“Done about what?” Eddie stood dripping behind them. He had scaled up at a sharp angle and climbed up unseen from a skinny ledge behind.
Ben dropped his eyes; the others looked down and away. Kyle rose, shaking out his bones like an older man, tore his towel from the ground, and approached Eddie, whose square chest heaved from the climb. He handed him the towel. “We were saying something needs to be done about this place. It ought to be memorialized. It’s sacred ground.”
“You think so, huh?” Eddie panted. “I don’t agree. I think it’s crap.”
“But it feels wrong for people to be getting their kicks out of this place,” Ben rushed, hating himself for acting like they weren’t talking about what they were talking about. “And we can’t be here every day, like guards, can we?”
Eddie blotted his bad hand with the towel. The plastic bag was gone, and the bandages hung like the end of a soggy Q-tip. He dropped the towel to the ground and lined up for another dive. The sun broke violently through the haze and left them exposed; everyone but Eddie shaded their eyes and drew on baseball hats.
Eddie faced the water. “I suppose that depends on whether you guys feel like you owe them something or not.”
Piggy waited for the splash before charging toward Ben, his finger pointed. “You know what we don’t owe them? Dragging their father’s good name through the mud. I don’t want nothing to do with that. I’m outta here.” Piggy scraped up his blanket, hooked his fingers inside the plastic loops on his personal six-pack, and headed for the clearing. Louis stood behind, working his lips like he was trying to swallow something bitter.
“Go ahead, say what you have to say,” Ben said.
“Piggy’s right. You’ve got to give up this idea. It’s just”—Louis shook his head—“sick.” He threw his pack on his back and stalked away.
Ben turned to face Kyle. “You leaving too?”
Kyle shook his shaggy head. “No place else I need to be.” He swept up his towel from where Eddie had dropped it, returned to the tip, and spread it on the ground. He settled, facing out at the water, his long legs dangling over the side. He patted the towel beside him.
Ben eased himself down carefully next to Kyle, tucking his legs beneath him. The tip had never bothered Ben before; heights didn’t get to Ben, though he never hung out for very long at the tip, always dove fast, like something was at his back (after the time Francesca followed him in, it was always like that). Clouds appeared and cast a black pall on the surface, and Ben shivered. Together they watched Eddie do a compact backstroke, the water around him swirling, melted crayon wax, purple and black.
Eddie’s backstroke turned into a free-float. Kyle pointed. “You see that? He looks natural. Peaceful even.”
Ben wanted to say there was nothing natural about diving over and over like a robot with a banged-up hand. Ben tried to look more closely. He thought maybe he could see Eddie’s eyes, fixed on the sky, not slitted mean, like when he talked to Ben and the other boys on the ledge, but wide and searching, trying to find Connie among the clouds. For a second, Ben could tell himself that Eddie was fine, they were all fine.
“He does look peaceful,” Ben said.
“Don’t be fooled. There’s nothing peaceful about him. He’s in hell, dude.”
Ben frowned. “Obviously. I was just saying.”
“And he’ll be in hell a lot longer if you keep calling his uncle Chester the Molester.”
“But what if it’s true?”
Kyle gazed at Eddie, floating on his back, his hand a white blur at his side. “Those girls did something incredibly stupid and dangerous. And they had a terrible accident. And from that, you get that their father was abusing them?”
“I’m saying something was so bad in that house those girls decided to creep off in the middle of the night to do something they had to know might get them killed.”
Kyle made a scoffing noise.
“Think about it. Even if it was an accident—” said Ben.
“Was an accident?” Kyle said.
“Even if it was. You don’t play fast and loose with your life like that unless you don’t have much to live for,” Ben said.
“How about the fact that their cousin keeled?” Kyle asked.
“People die.” Ben waved to Eddie. “It happens. It doesn’t mean you decide you don’t want to live anymore either.”
“You ever hear of depression?”
“This is different. I know their father had something to do with it.”
“But you don’t know what that something was.”
Ben shifted and faced Kyle, sending shards of mica over the side and floating down to the water. “What else could be that bad?”
“Have you ever considered that we may never know?”
Ben clawed the ground, scraping for something to throw into the water, hard. The rock cut his fingers, and he wiped streaks of blood on his bathing suit, resentful. Usually Kyle was solid. He was close with Eddie, too, but their families’ bad blood was like an invisible barrier that kept them from getting too close. Kyle had been Ben’s protector, was the one he could count on to clock anyone who mentioned Coach Freck and Ben in the same sentence. Less so now, since Ben had gotten so big and his shame had faded, but he knew Kyle still had his back, if he needed him. Yet here he was, staying behind to give him a lesson.
“Maybe we won’t know,” Ben said finally, jamming his towel and a baseball hat hard into his nylon sack. “But if I could prove they were being abused, and if everyone knew they weren’t crazy, or stupid, it would make a difference.”
“It sure would.” Kyle stood, waving his arms in a lazy X over his head down to Eddie. “It would cast a pox on Eddie, and his parents. But for the Cillo girls? They’re gone. Least in the way you knew them. For them, it won’t change anything.”
Ben stood. “I gotta go. I got somewhere to be.”
Kyle stood. “You do what you gotta do.”
Ben walked down the side of the mountain through the sparse, ugly trees and rode his bike home. He’d never felt so alone in his life. Kyle-as-Yoda was right in line with his personality, but Ben didn’t need his closest ally to be preachy right now. He needed him on his side. The whole world seemed to be turning against him, but maybe that was what happened when you spoke truth to power. Ben pulled into his driveway with a hard scrape, and instead of going into the shed, where he knew he’d find Mira’s next note, he went directly into the house. It was time for him to stop screwing around. Mira had been trying to tell him what was happening to her and Francesca and he had missed it, had to have Mr. Falso point it out for him. But that wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t ready to go to the shed. He wasn’t sure how much he could handle. So he went into the house, through the front door, because formality seemed to make sense at this moment.
Normally, he would never consider talking to his parents. Unless he wanted his mother to reacquire the twitch that forced her to tape down her eyelid to sleep. The list of nine-year-old baseball players uncovered
in a footlocker in Coach Freck’s basement, that included the words “B. Lattanzi: strawberry blond/dimples,” was the first clue that Ben had been among the touched. It yoked Ben with an imaginary sandwich board printed with words like “twiddled” and “broken,” and, worst of all, “special,” because that had been Freck’s word. His mother’s tears evolved into a hypervigilance that would last seven years.
Ben could not bring his suspicion to his parents. It would hit too close to home.
He took the center stairs in three giant steps, ignoring his mother’s calls from the kitchen asking if he wanted Vietnamese takeout. He was starving, but not for food. He ducked into his bedroom and hollered, “Pho, please!” as he locked his bedroom door and walked to the corner of his room. He strained to lift the end of the dresser. Something in his back popped, but he ignored it, shifting his weight into his thighs to lift the gleaming wooden hulk. Finally it budged. He dropped to his knees and peeled back the square of blue carpet, then the section of wood he had sawed with a tiny hacksaw. He slipped his fingers between the cracks and lifted the wood like a puzzle piece from the floor and set it aside.
The wad of notes felt heavy in his hand. Substantive, Real. He placed the rug back over the spot and lifted the bureau into place. His back did a painful, snaky thing as he sat leaning against the wall, holding the notes close to his face, trying to breathe in the scent of Mira, the hint of strawberry on her lips he remembered (or made up. He allowed for that). He wanted to reread Mira’s notes, get his facts straight before he made the case to his parents that Mr. Cillo needed to be arrested.
As he read, every note took on new meaning. An illumination. And when he overlaid the notes with Mira and Francesca’s behaviors, it became clear. The pain was sharp. Ben felt the old anger swell up again. Didn’t they always say that girls in these kinds of “situations” have intimacy issues? Mira with her push and pull, Mira with her erratic meet-ups, months apart, was classic abused. Mira who was obsessed with unlocking Ben’s heart—and his own pain, she whispered once—was projecting what had happened to her onto what had happened to Ben.
An ugly thought surfaced. Was that what she saw in him?
Stuff it away. Stuff it away.
If he could talk to his mother, she would agree. She saw twiddlers around every corner: mall Santas, school custodians, the dude that films every lacrosse practice but isn’t related to any player. She might believe Ben, but telling could send her into lockdown mode. And Ben could not become a prisoner again. Not when things were finally close to normal. The dreams about the flattened nose and orange-peel skin, the dip-stained fingers had ended years ago.
He placed the notes facedown and closed his eyes, resolving not to say anything. He would handle it himself.
* * *
“Buddy, it’s time we had a talk.” Ben’s father leaned in the doorway, holding the key to his bedroom between two fingers.
He covered the notes with his palm and froze. Ben knew the key existed, but it had never been used. And by the look on his dad’s face, his parents had been concerned about his behavior. Maybe even talked to Mr. Falso about it. Ben wondered what parts of yesterday’s chat Mr. Falso would leave out.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Mr. Falso is worried about you. And so am I.” His father flicked on the light. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”
Ben hadn’t noticed that the room had grown dark. Some part of his brain had heard the buzz of dinner conversation, his mother’s and father’s voices overlapping with Mr. Falso’s. They had invited him to stay for dinner, and hadn’t worked too hard when Ben had refused to come down, faking a stomachache. He was deep into his thoughts when the conversation had dipped, voices gone low so they wouldn’t be heard upstairs.
“I must have fallen asleep.” Ben raised his head off the wall. “Is Mr. Falso gone?”
“Yes, Ben. He left a few minutes ago. You must have had a pretty exhausting afternoon for you to fall asleep sitting up.”
Behind his father, his mother appeared. Even from far away, Ben could see the smudged mascara under her eyes, and the vertical streaks in her makeup that meant she’d been crying.
“May we come in?” she said softly.
Ben nodded. They exchanged looks, each waiting their cue to say their line, as if they were staging a play for the first time and not sure of their blocking.
“You don’t look comfortable,” his father said. “Why don’t you come off the floor?”
“I’m fine.” His voice sounded small, he thought. Weak. He had the feeling he was going to be doing battle, and he didn’t want to feel weak. What he needed was to feel Mira near him, to remind him to stick to his guns. He cleared his throat. “What were you guys talking about with Mr. Falso?”
His dad folded his hands and sat on the bed, easing into the role of good cop. Ben wished he’d thought to put his earbuds in, or spread some magazines out around him, or done something that didn’t make him look so tragic, there on the floor. He drew his knees up and pulled them in tight, suddenly angry at Mr. Falso. He should have said something to him, like let’s keep this between us bros. Ben exhaled hard and looked up. His mother was shattered, and his father was trying to hide how pissed off at him he was.
He was in trouble.
“That’s what we’re here to talk with you about, Benvenuto.” His father never called him by his first name, given in honor of his uncle he’d never known, who’d died in a car crash in the eighties. All Ben knew was that it involved speeding on the expressway, probably booze, but mostly being reckless and sixteen, Ben’s age now. “Mr. Falso is concerned about you. And so are we. Carla, do you want to begin?”
His mom scanned the room like she detected something different.
“Yeah, Mom?” Ben said. She was making him nervous, the way she kept staring at the pale indentations in the rug. Ben hadn’t placed the bureau back exactly right. He wondered if she could see the seam where he’d made the cut in the rug. She’d have to be crawling on the floor to see it, Ben told himself.
Still.
“Mr. Falso said you were talking about the Cillo sisters, next door,” she said finally.
“Not the ones down the street? You mean the ones right next door? I want to make sure we’re talking about the same Cillo sisters,” Ben said.
“This is not a time for sarcasm,” his dad said.
“The ones I’ve known my whole life? Those are the ones you mean, right?”
“Ben,” his mom whispered.
“Because they’re the ones who are dead. You know that, right?”
“You’re upset. But that does not give you the right to be disrespectful to your mother.”
“I want to make sure we’re talking about the same girls.”
His mom sank to the edge of the bed and trailed her hand along the crumpled sheet, smoothing it.
His father planted his legs wide. “This conversation is not about what your mother and I did or did not do right in your mind. This is about what you told Mr. Falso.”
“Aren’t I supposed to talk with Mr. Falso about stuff? Isn’t it his job to listen?”
His dad folded and refolded his soft hands. “We know you think Frank Cillo is to blame for Francesca and Mira’s accident.”
Ben’s eyes popped.
“We understand why you are looking for answers,” his dad said. “But you’re going down the wrong path.”
“A bad path,” his mom said.
His dad raised his palm in the air toward his mom, a now-slow-down move meant to gain Ben’s trust. “Why don’t you tell us in your words what you think Mr. Cillo did.”
Ben squirmed. This was worse than he’d imagined. Mr. Falso had mixed things up. Or maybe Ben was the one who came to the conclusion? What exactly had Mr. Falso said?
He picked a spot on the rug and stared at it. “If he told you, why do I need to tell you?”
His parents stood together. “Honey, Mr. Falso is concerned that you aren’t thinking clearly. He said y
ou think Mr. Cillo drove the girls to take their own lives because he was abusing them. That’s a very strong accusation. How did you come to this conclusion?”
“How did I come to this conclusion?” Ben yelled, aghast.
“You must have some evidence,” his dad said.
“What, like I saw him?” Ben said, shifting on the floor.
“For starters!” his dad shouted.
“Paul!” his mother said, looking at the window.
“What, are you afraid he can hear us? The window’s closed, Mom.”
“Why don’t you try to treat your mother with more respect?” his father said.
Ben scrambled to his feet. “Why don’t you say what you really mean? That I’m making things between you and Mr. Cillo even more awkward. That you don’t want any more ugliness between you and a man who might have twiddled his daughters so much they went crazy and decided it was better to die than live in that house!” Ben pointed out the window.
“That is not what this is about!” his mother said. “We simply asked you what evidence you had to make the accusation. And you still haven’t answered us.”
Ben stuck his palms over his eyelids and dragged his hands down over his face. He wanted to say Mr. Falso told me, but even if they did believe him, that wasn’t exactly the truth, was it?
“She told me,” he said softly.
His mother approached him. “She who, Ben?”
“Yes, she who, Ben? Because if you think we’re asking too many questions, you can’t imagine what it will be like when you get grilled by the police, most of whom are related to or indebted to Frank Cillo,” his dad said.
His mother looked over her shoulder in horror. “Paul! This is not what we agreed to.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Ben said. “Why are you so afraid of Mr. Cillo anyway?”
For a second, Ben thought his father might slap him. Instead, he turned his back to them and placed his hands behind his head, elbows pointing out at both sides. “Who told you they were being abused?” he said quietly.
“Mira told me.” Ben closed his eyes, not to shut out the horror on their faces, but to envision the words, her words, their sweet girly curlicues belying their meaning. She makes excuses, says he can’t help himself. Only I know better. He couldn’t repeat Mira’s words: he’d have to show them the note, and then he’d have to show them all of the notes. He had looked up “signs and symptoms of sexual abuse,” and it was like he was reading about the Cillo girls in those last few months of their lives. He threw open the desk drawer, grabbing a sheaf of computer printouts. “Gradual and/or sudden withdrawal or isolation? Check! Change or loss of appetite? They had clothes hanging off their bodies! Check! Speaking of which, wearing many layers of clothing? Check! Francesca looked like a bag lady at the end!”