“Sister Amanda?” Cee-Cee shrugs. “I think she’s good at cards.”
“Indeed.” Sister Edward says. “I suspect that she is capable of just about anything. You know she’s friends with that horrible priest accused of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger? Flannigan? Oh yes, she knows all the unsavory elements of the Catholic Church.”
Sister Edward watches Cee-Cee’s face for a sign that she understands. She is trying to decide whether she can confide in the girl.
She has no one else.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” Sister Edward’s breath smells like coffee. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interested in your beloved Sister Amanda’s activities.”
Sister Edward has seen with her own eye the avalanche of envelopes addressed to “Amanda” from known political zealots. She has steamed open the seal and read one or two, noting that they sign off with their first names, dropping all religious titles: Father, Brother, Sister, Mother.
Sister Edward gives Cee-Cee a meaningful look. “The FBI is under the impression that she is heavily involved with the radical underground. And do you know what they call that, Little Miss?”
“No, Sister,” Cee-Cee says.
“They call that abetting terrorists.”
Sister Edward is on a roll now: “The federal agents suspect that somewhere at Our Lady there’s a secret room or tunnel, perhaps even a stockade of weapons. And they believe that the Mother General is somehow participating in the conspiracies of those depraved hooligans.”
“Did they ever find anything, Sister?” Cee-Cee asks. “Tunnels or weapons?”
Sister Edward sighs. “Not yet.”
In fact they have found exactly nothing. Not a single thing: no secret bunkers, no bombs or materials to make bombs, no shred of evidence that the Mother General committed crimes on or off Our Lady’s campus. They couldn’t even unearth a single letter from a single criminal or even a measly radical peacenik. The cagey woman must have burned all her letters somewhere in one of Our Lady’s fireplaces.
“Mark my words,” Sister Edward says. “She’s up to something.”
Sister Edward still occasionally gets a call from her own special bureau investigator. Most recently he’d wanted information about Mother General’s Peace Circle, when it meets and where. She told him what she knew: how it was voluntary, mostly involving the sisters and brothers from Our Lady, occasionally a young candidate to the Sisterhood from Canada. They meet several times a month in the back offices.
Have you ever attended? the agent asked Sister Edward over the phone. What exactly do they do in there?
The answer came as a surprise as much to the agent as to Sister Edward. They pray for peace.
Come again, Sister, he said. There’s static on the line.
Sister Edward cleared her throat. What they do in the Peace Circle is pray.
Later Cee-Cee does her homework in Father Giuseppe’s inner office with Sister Edward supervising. Really, though, Sister Edward hardly pays attention. She is caught up in the week’s accounting—red wine for Mass, tiny orthopedic shoes for Sister Pius, a miscalculation in last week’s collection for the poor. She shows the ledger to Cee-Cee, who points out the error.
Sister Edward is so impressed with the girl’s eagle eye that she almost doesn’t hear the police officer knock.
He is tall and dark with kind eyes. “May I interrupt you for a moment?”
He pushes the door open with a large hand and gently steps inside.
“I’m afraid Father Giuseppe is in Albany all week.”
The policeman nods, putting away his badge. “Maybe that’s good.”
Sister Edward maintains a calm expression. “How may I help you, Officer?”
He looks at Cee-Cee and smiles. “Well, look who it is!”
“Step out into the hallway, Miss Bianco,” Sister Edward instructs. “Finish those math problems, and I will be out in a minute to check your work.”
The police officer motions for Sister Edward to take her seat behind the enormous mahogany desk. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the good Father, if you don’t mind.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Sit down, Sister,” the officer says. “Relax.”
In her heart, Sister Edward knows that Father Giuseppe, an irritating man to be sure, is in no way involved in treasonous activities or conspiracies brought upon Our Lady by the Mother General and her radical, bomb-making friends. Sister Edward is certain he hasn’t fallen for any of her activist nonsense.
Perhaps Father Giuseppe has bad breath; perhaps he is stubborn. But he is no criminal, political or otherwise.
Sister Edward sits. “I think you’re quite mistaken about Father’s involvement.”
“Involvement in what, Sister?”
For a moment, Sister Edward waivers. Her lip trembles, a tiny movement. “Involvement in anything,” she says, recovering.
It is odd that Father Giuseppe indulges the Mother General, managing to ignore her suspicious behaviors. As a pastor, he plays favorites among the flock. Nonetheless, Sister Edward is not about to abandon him now. She has placed her trust in Father Giuseppe, as she has in Jesus, and the Church.
She prepares to defend him when the officer says, “I’ve received a tip that your priest owns a blue winter jacket. Is that true?”
Sister Edward inhales more air than her lungs can hold. He’s not here to ask about radical plots and bombs. She sifts through her memory, hoping to ascertain the significance of the article of clothing in question. “A blue down vest, you say?”
“A ski jacket, actually. Does Father own a blue down vest?”
At last Sister Edward alights on her current student’s situation. Cee-Cee Bianco: an assault, a drowning, a blue ski jacket.
“Heavens, no!”
“No, he doesn’t own a down vest?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. But you couldn’t possibly think…?”
“Think what?” The police officer trains his marvelously mysterious eyes on Sister Edward’s face, as if only she exists. He smiles warmly. “Is that a coat closet behind you, Sister?”
Sister Edward doesn’t turn around, but keeps her gaze steady on him, stung. She does not interest him as much as the coat does.
“I don’t believe it is, Officer.”
The handsome man gets up. Walking close to her chair, he pauses at the closet door, hand on the knob. Sister Edward doesn’t stir.
“Will you join me over here, please, Sister?”
She gets up quietly, pushes in her chair, and calmly walks to the closet. “I really don’t see the point.”
“NASA,” the officer says under his breath. Or perhaps Edward has misheard.
When he swings the door open, they both freeze a moment, standing and looking at the contents. Three casual winter coats hang on wire hangers—all of them navy blue, one of them puffy and filled with down.
“Oh!” Sister Edward’s hands flutter like pale butterflies to the officer’s wrist.
If someone were to be standing in the doorway, hidden by the barely closed door, snooping around, say, instead of working on math problems, it might appear that a Catholic woman of faith were taking a police officer’s pulse, seeking a suppler heartbeat under the stiff, starched uniform.
In the dark before the sun rises, Cee-Cee gets up and dresses in her Sunday best for the Monsignor’s visit.
Nonna is already at the breakfast table, perfectly groomed in a gray wool dress, deep in prayer. She sits as tall as her shrinking form allows and begins her litany using the school roster tucked inside her kitchen Bible: “La Suora Eduardo.” She pauses and opens one eye, waiting for Cee-Cee to sit down and join her.
“I don’t see why I can’t just wear my school uniform,” Cee-Cee whispers. It’s the same question every time.
“Sisters Robert-Claude and Eugene,” Nonna says, switching to English for Cee-Cee, but keeping her head bowed. “Sisters Alouicious, John of the Cross, and Sebastian. Si
sters James and Lawrence. Sister Pius—the dwarf. Brother Ignacio of the Gym, and Brother Joe, the Janitor.” She takes a breath, pausing for effect: “And bless Amanda, my friend, the Mother General, and, last but not least, Father Giuseppe.”
When she has made all the rounds, praying for everyone who is sick in the parish, all her old friends, the Italian gumbas, plus the dead and the dying, they cross themselves and sit for a moment in silence.
“I need a new notebook,” Cee-Cee says.
Nonna lifts her eyebrows. “Si?”
“It’s not that; nothing’s happened. I just want to write about this part too.”
“L’abbandono?” Nonna asks.
“Yes, the abandonment.” Cee-Cee yawns. “And do you think I could have an allowance? I’d like to buy a yo-yo.”
Nonna frowns. “You sleep here, home.”
“It’s what people do in junior high, Nonna. They sleep at each other’s houses. I want to stay over at Mary Margaret’s.”
Sighing deeply, Nonna gets up to prepare the toast and tea. Making the sign of the cross again, she cracks open a new jar of jam.
As it is, the Monsignor from Albany is Nonna’s main consultant concerning Cee-Cee’s situation. But like all Nonna’s advisers, when he arrives and listens to her concerns, he mostly urges patience.
“No demands on the girl,” he says.
“No,” Nonna confirms. “No?”
His eyes drift lazily over to Cee-Cee, then back to his coffee cup, pinkie ring flashing bright gold.
“Let her be the one to bring things up. That means no talking about the past, no having spiritual expectations, no bringing up pious topics, no reading aloud about the saints or Christ’s Passion, and no forcing conversation or prayer.”
“What’s left?” Nonna wants to know.
The Monsignor smiles. “I understand it seems strict, but we must let these things happen in God’s time, not ours, Marina.”
In the driveway, a chauffer sits at the wheel of a very long shiny car that has brought the Monsignor to Nonna and Cee-Cee. Now at Nonna’s kitchen table, he waves his hand and snaps at the archbishop and his two assistants, then continues tasting Nonna’s Italian cookies.
The archbishop leans forward and removes Cee-Cee’s gum with his fingers. He looks inside her mouth and ears. One of his assistants passes a flashlight over Cee-Cee’s eyes.
“Nothing,” the archbishop says, giving back the gum.
They all write something down in different files on different clipboards.
The Monsignor looks at Cee-Cee. “You have had a quiet time lately, yes?”
“Yes, your eminence,” she says because Nonna has told her how to respond.
“You have had no divine visitations?” He wears a crazy satin outfit made up of purple robes.
“No, your eminence,” she says.
“Holy apparitions do not last forever, my child,” he says. “Few are ever repeated. This can be disappointing?”
“Kind of a relief, your eminence,” she says. “To tell the truth.”
He personally runs through the checklist today, taking the paperwork out of the archbishop’s hands. He has Nonna coughing out answers as usual: Yes, Cee-Cee has felt fine lately. No, God hasn’t said anything important to her. No, she hasn’t heard the virgins singing. No, God’s Holy Angel has not reappeared. No, she hasn’t written down anything important this week. Yes, she eats regularly and sometimes sleeps through the night. No, there hasn’t been blood, other unusual signs, or stigmata.
After the interview, Nonna hands over a week’s worth of Cee-Cee’s worn underwear, and the two assistants get busy zipping them into separate plastic baggies.
“Is that really necessary?” Cee-Cee asks.
The Archbishop tucks them away in a briefcase without answering.
Next, they rip away pages from Cee-Cee’s notebook and put them in a manila envelope marked “Private and Confidential.”
“Hey!” she says. “I want those back!”
They pat Cee-Cee’s head, amused at her antics.
“You think I’m kidding?”
Next visit, she will have to create a dummy notebook, one that doesn’t matter. From now on she plans to hide her writing under the mattress.
“We must encourage humility and acceptance,” the Monsignor tells Nonna. “It’s not easy for a child who is…special.”
Cee-Cee rolls her eyes.
The Monsignor’s committee in Albany will be on the lookout, he tells Nonna for the hundredth time.
They will know about a second divine intervention before anyone else does. If and when such an event occurs, he will alert the proper authorities.
“By which I mean the Vatican,” he says—as if Nonna has never heard of The Congregation for the Cause of Saints.
The conversation causes Nonna to glance obsessively in the rearview mirror on their drives to All Saints, as if she is searching for holy undercover investigators. How else will they know if another miracle occurs? How else will they know if Cee-Cee performs all three miracles needed to justify an official investigation?
“We will observe, assess, and evaluate,” the Monsignor says. “In certain special cases, perhaps exceptions may be made concerning the subject still being alive, concerning the necessity of documenting three miracles.”
“Si?” Nonna asks.
“It hasn’t happened yet,” the Monsignor answers carefully. “But let us say, for example, if there were extenuating circumstances. Let’s say the child’s brother were to waken without medical justification from the coma…”
Nonna shakes her head sharply, indicating that there’s no chance.
“Well,” the Monsignor says. “We needn’t worry about that now.”
Sister Amanda tells Nonna not to hold out hope for the Monsignor anyway. She says His Reverence hardly has the budget to follow up on every miracle.
Nonna takes this under advisement.
At the end of the visit, Cee-Cee gathers her books and walks across the street to meet Brother Joe, who walks her to her tutoring sessions with various Sisters, depending on a carefully scheduled calendar of who’s available when. Some mornings Brother Joe and Cee-Cee take a stroll around the garden. Others they stand before the statue of Fatima tucked behind a huge yew bush near the Manse, barely visible from the road. They chew gum, and play cards, or just sit around and think about things. The eyes of the alabaster statue stare back kindly as if they too were tending sheep somewhere in Portugal.
“What happened to the children of Fatima?” Cee-Cee asks. “I mean after they saw Our Lady.”
“Two died right away of the Spanish flu,” says Brother Joe folding his arms. “The remaining visionary became a Carmelite nun, Sister Lucia. They say she’s the keeper of the Secrets of Fatima.”
“What secrets?” Cee-Cee touches the tallest statue of the Fatima children—about her height.
“Nobody knows.”
“I didn’t get secrets,” Cee-Cee tells Brother Joe.
“Secrets are hard.” His voice is deep and warm. “Maybe you’ve been spared.”
They stare at the statue a moment longer. Brother Joe tells Cee-Cee that the statues of Our Lady were moved to the back of most churches once Vatican II removed The Hail Mary from Mass.
“Why would they do that?” Cee-Cee asks.
Brother Joe says, “Some men don’t like women very much. I guess they worry she will steal the show.”
“She would never do that. She only ever leads people to her son.”
He holds her hand as they walk.
“Pretty soon you’ll be in class with the other students,” Brother Joe says. “Are you ready for that?”
“I don’t know,” Cee-Cee says. “Are they ready for me?”
Brother Joe chuckles.
Cee-Cee imagines how strange the two of them must look from behind: a large black mountain of a man beside a little white reed of a girl.
“Who are Mother Stephen’s Orphans?” Cee-Cee asks. “The
older girls who come in pairs and stay at Nonna’s sometimes?”
Brother Joe rubs a hand over his face. “You must never speak of them to anyone. Do you understand?”
“Okay,” Cee-Cee says. “Just wondering.”
“It’s better not to.”
On the way back to the classrooms, Cee-Cee stoops to look at an anthill in a crack in the grass.
“Ants can’t think on their own,” she says, inspecting the insects. “But a colony is like one gigantic brain, only smarter.”
Brother Joe has a look at the ants, then ties his shoe before standing and fluffing his enormous hair, an Afro the size of a small fourth grader.
Nothing in all the rest of the day is quite as good as Brother Joe.
After weeks of tutoring, Cee-Cee is finally ready.
She stands before Sister Edward’s Earth Science sixth grade class prepared to give her first public presentation.
“The Ecosystem,” she says.
Sister Amanda slips into the back of the room next to Father Giuseppe and smiles at Cee-Cee. A few of the other of Christ’s Most Precious Wounds wander in to offer support. The presence of so many adults makes everyone nervous.
One of the Iaccamo kids bounces a rubber-band ball under his desk. His name is either Cork Quinn or Quinn Cork, but no one can ever remember which. He is chiefly known for his bright orange hair and his missing sister. He claims to have seen her twice since her disappearance, but you never get to ask where or how because he spends half his time in the office with Sister Amanda.
Eileena Brice Iaccamo still haunts the town.
Kids say she kills farm animals and eats them raw, a rumor Cee-Cee writes in her notebook for later investigation.
Now Sister Edward bangs a ruler on the desk to call the class to attention.
Sitting up front, the popular girls quiet down on cue. Sister Amanda calls them damp little flowers in their dewy pots of faith. They believe whole-heartedly that any girl could turn famous at any minute: like poor battered St. Christina, or confused St. Dymphna or athletic St. Joan. They love Rose of Lima best, that saintly glamour-puss for Jesus. From Sister Amanda’s office, Cee-Cee has seen them on their way between classes, peering into the doorway to catch sight of her.
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