They stand outside the church, waiting for the big gray car to cough up Nonna’s body. The driver and one of Il Duce’s brothers from the funeral home help Frank, Moonie, Anthony, and Roadie roll Nonna’s casket out of the back and wheel it through the church doorway, heading for the center aisle.
Glory marches behind them, pulling Cee-Cee by the wrist.
The church is almost cheerful with its streaming sunlight from the stained glass windows. The votive candles flicker as the wall sconces cast off thick shadows. Jesus plays out His passion flatly from one colored-glass pane to the next, rolling out the most compelling story ever told like a dime-store comic book. Sweat falls off Jesus’ lovely face in little ballooning drips as He carries a huge wooden cross all the way to Calvary. St. Veronica wipes His face and walks away with a cartoon image of His visage on her handkerchief. There’s nothing in His expression at all that shows pain, Cee-Cee notices; He doesn’t seem to feel a thing when He is strung up on the cross, wounds prodded with rags soaked in vinegar. When He rises from the dead, there’s a yellow dinner plate stuck to His head to represent the light of the world.
Two elfin altar boys appear at the back of the church from behind the cast-iron Virgin. They slowly make their way through the dark church carrying tall brass candleholders with long lit tapers that glow far above their heads. One of them trips on his red robe, hitting his chin on a stiff white collar. Behind him, a shrunken visiting priest displays an open Bible at his chest, as if to ward off evil.
The Sisters of Christ’s Most Precious Wounds bow and cross themselves as Father Giuseppe passes up the aisle looking tired in a festive purple robe. He clanks the smoky machinery of incense from one side of the aisle to the other. Carrying the Eucharist in chalices behind him is the one and only McNulty family: Mr. and Mrs. McNulty in front, followed by the popular blonde twins from Our Lady. Mary Ellen and Maureen trail behind like faint carbon copies of their much prettier mother.
Nonna’s Italian-witch friends beat their breasts in unison, praying in a foreign tongue.
The pallbearers take the aisle—Frank, Moonie, Roadie, Anthony, and two men from the funeral home—each with a hand on Nonna’s casket. They wheel her straight up to the altar where Jesus looks on from the cross.
Glory and Cee-Cee follow behind.
An old woman leans out of a pew and presses her rosary beads to the back of Cee-Cee’s head, bringing them up to her lips. Cee-Cee doesn’t know what to do, so she nods at the people who meet her eyes. No one knows for sure whether Cee-Cee performed a miracle out at that pond, or whether she’s just another Bianco in trouble.
It will be a long, long time before Cee-Cee gets to show Nonna a new card trick, or anything at all, for that matter. The sad thought flies away as soon as it lands in her mind. Feeling a little faint, she tries to concentrate on the people in the pew; she tries to stay on her feet.
Almost unrecognizable in regular clothes, Vinnie kneels at the end of a pew and crosses himself. Mary Margaret whistles and waves at Cee-Cee from a seat between Mary Margaret’s strange giddy mother and big Norbert Sasso who bounces with joy when Cee-Cee passes.
He reaches out to hold Cee-Cee’s hand, and she squeezes his fingers. His long happy tongue unfurls.
Mary Margaret gives Cee-Cee two thumbs-up and a sympathetic grimace.
“Keep moving.” Glory tugs Cee-Cee’s arm. “This isn’t social hour.”
Somewhere in the middle of the church, among the poor farmers, the Iaccamos huddle together; Cee-Cee finds the face of the Italian man she saw in her vision, a man who growled at Eileena. Next to him is his silent suffering Irish wife.
Try it again, touch me or my sisters, Eileena told him, pointing a shotgun in his face, and I’ll blow you to kingdom come.
Next are the humble railway workers in frayed coats and the shopkeeps. They smell like sweat and work. They clasp their hands in prayer, breathing out their petitions, hoping they will live long full lives and die in their sleep like Nonna. They bury their heads in their hands to hide the faces Cee-Cee has known all her life.
The military men and their wives and children sit up front, closest to God, with the owners of banks and department stores and the freight-exporting families. The women wear colorful spring coats with matching hats; their shiny earrings catch the light.
Have mercy, Cee-Cee prays. And please don’t let me faint.
Glory moves up the aisle at a fast clip, squeezing Cee-Cee’s arm just tight enough to stop the circulation. Distant relatives wait in the first pews, anchored by Grandma Bianco with her green oxygen tank and wads of Kleenex. Frank and Moonie flank her on either side.
In front, Roadie and Anthony sit in their own pew. Glory seats Cee-Cee with them at the end near the aisle, transferring Cee-Cee’s wrist to Roadie and taking her place in the second row next to Frank.
Roadie’s skin is sweaty. He smiles at Cee-Cee and doesn’t let go of her hand. She sees him for a moment in a circle of trees. In the church, Anthony’s bluish skin shimmers darkly. Cee-Cee can barely see the shadowy smudge of his eyes, nose, and mouth. She sticks her tongue out at him. He twitches slightly, facing squarely forward, waiting for the priest to invoke the first prayer.
Cee-Cee sees Anthony in the same circle of trees.
Snapping his head oddly, he slices his eyes over at Cee-Cee, and sticks his tongue out at her. She feels the lights instantly flicker. It’s as if someone somewhere is pulling a plug.
Everything sizzles and burns.
A dull buzzing drowns out Father Giuseppe’s droning.
For a moment Cee-Cee worries that somewhere a girl group is singing in the sky to Jesus, but it’s only the static in her ears, the sound of someone abandoning herself.
When the congregation stands, Roadie pulls Cee-Cee up with him. Wobbling, she flashes on the image a third time, a circle of trees, a circle of brothers.
In this church, her family surrounds her, those who gave her life. They know who she is and where she came from. Despite everything, they care about her most in the world. Will they always love her best? Does that mean she’s tied to them? Her thoughts start to swim together: Mother, father, sister. Brother, brother, brother.
Why can’t they see who she is? Why can’t she just be a weird girl with good connections? A person like her could come in handy for a family like theirs.
Anthony and Roadie pray. They are Cee-Cee’s brothers, and yet not her brothers. She reaches inside for an answer to the puzzle.
Is she their sister? She is, but she’s not.
Somewhere—very, very far away—someone is lying on a forest floor.
In the church, Cee-Cee’s body remembers what her mind cannot grasp. Her bladder twinges as if it might empty. Her breath expands as if her ribs could crack. Her eyes go blind, blood roaring in her ears.
If she were not temporarily deaf, she would hear Roadie whisper, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Cee-Cee. I’m so sorry.”
Does an apology make any difference? Does it change who they are to each other and who they will become?
Cee-Cee can only hear the sound of her own blood rushing around her head, an echo of Father Giuseppe inviting the congregation to stand. Her knees will not hold her up. Her eyes begin to roll back. Roadie grabs her under the arms as she starts to slip down to the stone floor.
Like magic, two stealthy Sisters appear at the end of the pew to catch Cee-Cee before she hits the ground. They prop her limply up and deftly pry open Roadie’s hands.
“She’s having a febrile seizure,” Sister Eugene says. “We’ll take her home.”
For a moment, Roadie thinks they mean home for real.
“I’m sorry,” he tells them. “Please forgive me.”
Sister Robert-Claude presses a hand so firmly on Roadie’s shoulder and looks so deeply into his eyes that for a moment he believes he is forgiven.
“Bow down and pray,” says Father Giuseppe.
The church echoes with the sound of people scuffling and bowing.
Mar
y Margaret and Vinnie watch the Sisters whisking Cee-Cee back down the aisle, past the holy water dispensers, out the gigantic church doors, and into the weak April morning.
The Sisters carry Cee-Cee all the way to the tiny cell, once a broom closet, sandwiched between Sister Amanda’s room and Sister Pius’ room. It is already piled with Cee-Cee’s things from Nonna’s house. A few of Sister James’s cats pad around her pillow, jump on the window sill.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Cee-Cee tells the cats, but it comes out jumbled from the fever, nonsensical.
Nonna is dead, Cee-Cee reminds herself, a hard fact that sinks in and makes her feel terrible.
There is a neat stack of folded clothes, two pairs of shoes, a tower of notebooks, several packages of fresh blue pens, her jacks, jar of marbles, a rubber-ball on a paddle, two yo-yos, and some gum. Cee-Cee moves toward the desk to touch her things, wanting to show Sister Pius how to do Lord of the Flies with a yo-yo, but instead they steer her toward bed.
They strip off her dress and wrap her in cold wet sheets and towels.
They argue over ice cubes. “Too much! She’ll catch pneumonia!”
“Fevers can make a child go deaf; I’ve seen it happen.”
“We’re teachers, not nurses.”
“Someone scare up some aspirin!”
When the Mother General arrives at last, the Sisters abruptly leave their tasks, scattering out the door.
“I’m sorry, Cee-Cee,” Sister Amanda says. “This must be awful for you.”
“They’re going to bury Nonna,” Cee-Cee says.
“We can visit the cemetery as soon as you feel better.”
“She was here yesterday,” Cee-Cee says.
“I know,” Amanda hugs her. “It’s difficult to understand.”
“No, I mean the missing girl. Eileena Brice Iaccamo,” Cee-Cee says. “I saw her in the chapel. She was here. She was looking for you.”
“She was here?” Sister Amanda says. “You saw her?”
“She wants to join your army.”
“Army—is that what I have?” Amanda laughs. “We’ve been trying to reach her for weeks. Sister Pius has been sending messages every day, leaving them everywhere. I’m sorry I missed her.”
“She ran away from home and can’t go back,” Cee-Cee says. “She’s been living down by the railroad tracks.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can hear her heartbeat.” Cee-Cee strokes one of the nearby cats. “I hear all their heartbeats.”
Mother clears her throat. “All?”
“Missing kids from everywhere,” Cee-Cee says. “Even the ones you keep here under Our Lady.”
Amanda does not move her eyes away from Cee-Cee’s face. “Those children are passing through, Cee-Cee. Do you understand? None of them are here to stay.”
“Where are they going?”
“They are on their way to a place that’s better than their home, a place that’s safe,” she says. “But we must never mention them to anybody; that’s what makes this possible. Brother Joe takes them to safety.”
“To Canada.”
“Yes.” Amanda measures her words. “Do you want to go to Canada, Cee-Cee? Do you want a new start? The girls I send to Canada are free and never ever harmed by anyone, ever again.”
“I have to wait for Baby Pauly.”
“Okay, but the girls must be a secret,” she says. “It’s very important.”
Cee-Cee feels her exhaustion double, her sadness overflow. When she closes her eyes, she sees a few desperate girls crammed into close quarters, waiting to be freed.
“Perhaps you’d like to meet them?” Amanda says.
After dressing Cee-Cee in sweaters and warm tights, Amanda leads her to Father Giuseppe’s office.
In the back of his coat closet, behind three jackets on hangers, Amanda pries free a large loose plywood board. Snapping the plank out of place, she puts it aside and switches on her flashlight. They use a rickety ladder in the crawl space to go down into the darkness underneath Our Lady.
Amanda heads down first, then she shines the light as Cee-Cee feels for each rung with her feet.
Once under the building, they follow a dirt floor through a long tunnel, which opens out into a small brick room.
Cee-Cee stands at the entrance holding Amanda’s flashlight. Six insistent heartbeats echo in her ears; beyond those come dozens and dozens of faint palpitations, the ghosts of girls who have passed this way previously.
Amanda pulls the string on a light bulb attached to the low ceiling; Cee-Cee looks around the musty room at the mossy brick walls. The air is dank.
“We are inside the church’s foundation,” Amanda says. “Deep underground below Father Giuseppe’s office in the Manse.”
Cee-Cee shivers. “Wow! It’s creepy down here.”
In the center of a big room with dirt floors, three cots are lined up together, each with two small drowsy girls lying head-to-foot.
Sister Pius watches over them from a wicker chair, reading her book with a flashlight. “Is anything wrong, Mother?”
“Everything’s fine.”
When Cee-Cee edges nearer to inspect the six little ones, they pop their eyes open, anxious as fidgety owls. One stands straight up on the bed and points at Cee-Cee; she is about nine years old and speaks with a southern accent. “Who are you?”
Wrapping a blanket around the girl’s shoulders, Amanda presses her back down in the bed. “Shh. Go back to sleep.”
Another pops up on her elbows. “Are you Eileena Brice Iaccamo?”
Amanda whispers. “No, darlings. This is Cecilia Marie Bianco, a friend of mine. Say hello, then rest again and stay quiet. You have a long journey tomorrow, and when you get there you’ll be free and cared for and happy.”
Sister Pius gives the last girl a sip of something from a plastic cup. “Drink this and sleep. It will warm you up.”
“Where do they come from?” Cee-Cee asks.
“From everywhere,” Amanda says. “Someone from their family took pity and brought them here. Someone who wanted to help them.”
“I’m from Georgia,” one of the little owls says.
Another pipes up: “Pennsylvania.”
“Syracuse, New York,” says a third.
“Shh!” Sister Pius tells them. “You mustn’t talk. Mother General just came to check on you.”
The girls put their heads back on their pillows. All but one closes her eyes and dozes off. It’s the girl from Georgia. She smiles and shows Cee-Cee a bruise on her neck the size of a grapefruit.
“I’m going to Canada,” she whispers. “I’m going to be on a mission for peace.”
Cee-Cee thinks of the grown-up Mirandas who have slept on Nonna’s living room floor. She can taste the girls’ excitement in her own throat, the fear.
The first girl had shown up at Our Lady’s doorstep shortly after Amanda was installed as Mother General: a bedraggled and desperate child named Enid who had been sleeping in the garage like an animal since her mother’s death. After her father used an oil rag to strangle the newborn child he’d made her bear, she started planning her escape. Two years passed before Enid was able to get free, thanks to a neighbor who drove her to Our Lady.
Sister, please! The girl clasped Amanda’s garments. Don’t make me go back!
Wild-eyed, Enid needed more than Our Lady could provide: a safe home, a new identity.
During a religious conference months earlier, Amanda had heard a Canadian order of religious women discussing their petition to form a new community called the Sisters of Peace. They tossed around the idea of turning an old orphanage into a peace camp for girls. They’d described it as a safe place for rebuilding crushed souls, renewing faith, healing wounds—a kind of life-school for anti-violence education and pacifist training, girls only, a place where feminism and salvation would meet.
Perhaps it was divine intervention.
The night of Enid’s arrival, Amanda bathed and fed the girl, tu
cked her into a cot in the safe room under the Manse. The previous Mother General, Augustus, had revealed the secret room to Amanda on her deathbed. Tell no one, the dying Mother Augustus advised. A secret room comes in handy around here.
As little Enid dozed off with the help of some sedating Benadryl, Amanda made a single phone call to Canada.
When the girl’s father came banging on Our Lady’s door looking for his daughter, Amanda knew she’d made the right choice. Hidden in the little room under Father Giuseppe’s office, the girl trembled and whimpered in her arms.
Sister Eugene woke Father Giuseppe, who knew nothing about the situation, which turned out to serve them well. Suppressing his irritation at being awakened in the middle of the night, he refused to let the man in.
I assure you that no one is here but members of our religious community, Father said. We’ll pray for your daughter’s safety.
Before dawn Brother Joe drove Enid to the train station. He placed her on the train with instructions to get off at the Northeast Line’s last stop, where the Sisters of Peace would be waiting to take her across the border to Canada.
In the hallways of the school, the Sisters who had helped passed knowing glances but spoke not a single word.
As it turned out, Sister Amanda’s knack for turning doomed daughters into anonymous orphans grew steadily over the years until it evolved into a full-fledged operation with several headquarters and participating orders. The whole enterprise seemed miraculously fueled by the enthusiasm of industrious communities of Catholic Sisters positioned at key geographic locations up and down the coast from Florida to Maine. Contrary to their orders from The Holy Mother Church, they operated in secret, and thought of it as a radical duty to save girls in trouble whenever they could. Amanda was considered the engineer of the project; all who knew of her role in this work revered her, especially the young girls who grew into women and came back to thank her.
Before long more than fifteen religious communities were funneling girls to Canada and many more were providing safe havens along the way. Most churches in the surrounding areas harbored hidden rooms, used over the years for runaway slaves, suffragettes, radicals, even women fleeing violent husbands. When a new congregation wished to take part, Amanda had the Sisters poke around in closets and basements looking for concealed rooms, locked tunnels, barricaded bunkers. Nine out of ten times, the Sister found one.
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