Miracle Girls (9781938126161)

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Miracle Girls (9781938126161) Page 16

by Caschetta, M. B.


  There’s a room in the basement with stacks of files, one astonished Sister from Rochester reported. Hand-copied letters from Frederick Douglass to John Brown!

  Another, from Maryland, wanted to send photographs: I think Harriet Tubman had one of her famous divine visions in the hidden wine cellar under our rectory!

  In no time girls were being sent up the coast routinely, each given her new identity, derived from the same name: Miranda Pax.

  “The name means Witness of Peace,” the Ad Hoc Committee’s Chair Sister said. “It links our radical orphans together forever as soldiers for peace wherever they go.”

  Each wayward child initially received papers for a new identity, and a hundred dollars spending cash from Amanda herself. As peace orphanages multiplied from Ottawa to Toronto to Montreal, the young women could choose to live in any number of communities with open access to good psychological treatment, nursing care, and schools. If this did not suit their needs, they could opt for a loving Canadian family to adopt them. And if all else failed, there was always emancipation. The Sisters of Peace owned real estate all over the provinces; they could set up graduated Peace Orphans in apartments and help find them clerical jobs. A few of the young women have even followed in the footsteps of the Catholic Sisters who raised and nurtured them, seeking their novitiates at orders involved in the cause.

  The only payback any graduate of the program owed the Sisters was to participate in three peace demonstrations a year, and to vow to organize at least one passive resistance protest during her lifetime.

  Amanda has managed mostly to keep her work secret, sparing Father Giuseppe all but the necessary details.

  How goes the Nunderground, Mother? he sometimes asks.

  Do you really want to know, Father?

  He’s always treated Amanda fairly: Perhaps just the broad strokes.

  Swimmingly, Father, she answers. We’re making great progress.

  She prays for those who have joined her cause throughout the years. Those who willingly assisted: Brother Joe, Brother Ignacio, Sister Eugene, Sister John of the Cross, Sister Robert-Claude, and Little Sister Pius. Several of the others had a fairly good notion of what was going on, but chose not to intrude or get involved.

  I pray for you, Mother, they said to her privately. I pray for missing girls everywhere.

  The problem is that Amanda can never control how her colleagues understand the mission; she knows they speak to one another in shorthand, mentioning their work as building peace armies and running an underground railroad.

  And only once has anyone ever outright questioned the good of the mission. Brother Ignacio and Brother Joe had taken her aside to express their concern.

  Saving one or two children from a bad situation is one thing, Mother, Brother Ignacio said. But a crusade is quite another.

  The word upset her—a misunderstanding, in her estimation—but she kept to her point: Need I remind you how long it’s taken Congress to pass a simple protection against child abuse? Animals have more federal rights in this country than children do!

  Brother Joe bridged the gap gently: There are local protections, Mother. We are bound by New York law to hand these children over to the state.

  And I am bound by God’s law to save them! she said.

  She’d wanted to ask where exactly they thought she should draw the line. At which child? Was not every single poor creature a part of the human family? Weren’t those girls valuable too? Didn’t she have a duty as a mother to save them if she could? She has saved children in circumstances so dire and so beyond repair that not helping would be unChristlike—cruel even.

  People sought her out with hard luck cases, frantic relatives, troubled teachers, bewildered strangers asking for help.

  These girls, every one of them, came to her.

  Back in Father Giuseppe’s office, Cee-Cee breathes the warm air. Sister Amanda snaps the plywood board back into place.

  “Is it legal?” Cee-Cee asks. “To save those little girls?”

  Amanda gives her puzzled look. “Helping people is always the right thing.”

  “But what about their families?” Cee-Cee says. “Don’t they care?”

  “Girls go missing all the time.” Amanda says. “Especially around here.”

  “Is it kidnapping?”

  Amanda clears her throat. “Of course not. These are children who deserve a better life than the one they’ve been given. Now let’s pray that our little travelers have a safe passage, shall we?”

  They kneel behind Father Giuseppe’s mahogany desk.

  Trying to slow her excited heart, Cee-Cee concentrates, but feels unsettled. She taps on Amanda’s shoulder for a final question.

  “Don’t they miss their mothers?”

  “God gives each of us a hundred mothers, Cee-Cee.” Sister Amanda opens her eyes. “Those little girls will have hundreds of mothers to love them, just like you will.”

  Cee-Cee feels her skin getting warmer as she thinks this over. A piece of gum might help her about now, but she forgot to grab a pack from her desk.

  “I have an idea!” Sister Amanda says. “A couple of my graduates are coming from Canada tomorrow. Maybe they can tell you what happened to them.”

  “Where will they stay now?” Cee-Cee thinks about Nonna being gone.

  “There are many wonderful women like your Nonna who will take them in for a night or two.” Sister Amanda puts her cool hand on Cee-Cee’s forehead, feeling the fever spiking under her skin. Cee-Cee wishes they could stay like this forever, with Sister Amanda holding her head.

  “Let’s get you back to bed.”

  Eyes closed, Cee-Cee floats in a reverie through all the places where girls are hidden and buried. She sees them alive, trapped, looking for escape. Instantly she gets a headache at the back of her neck.

  Tomorrow six little girls will fly away and be free.

  Through the window, Cee-Cee sees the tiny tree buds sprouting across Our Lady’s property. Sister Amanda strokes her forehead. In the distance somewhere a hearse is driving Nonna up a hill to be buried in the ground.

  After the funeral, Vinnie waits around the church parking lot.

  He is hoping he’ll see his mysterious Sister. Yesterday after the coroner came and took the old woman’s body, he found a note tucked under his windshield wiper: Must talk soon! Saw the missing girl!

  Vinnie’s partner Al folds his arms across his chest. “Again with the religious shit?”

  Vinnie stuffs the note back in his pocket.

  They are standing between two parked cars, uncomfortable in civilian clothing. A couple of feet away, Al’s wife is chatting with a woman in a red hat.

  “I never accused the priest, Al,” Vinnie says. “I said he happened to own a blue jacket. That’s all.”

  Vinnie had spent a few not unpleasant minutes with Sister Edward the previous week discussing a number of things. She was adamant about the priest’s innocence, but Vinnie still wanted to run his theory by a few senior guys at the precinct to make sure he wasn’t letting something important slip by.

  “Accusing a priest?” Al shakes his head. “And now—what? You’re solving crimes with one of the Sisters of Perpetual Motion?”

  “She just wants to help, Al.”

  “A piece of tail in a black veil. Knock yourself out; it’s your day off.”

  Vinnie watches his partner stalk off.

  The churchgoers disperse. A line of cars—in one sits Glory Bianco—follows the hearse, Vinnie knows. He sits in his own car and reads the Sunday comics, then the Romeville Sun crime log.

  The church is dead, not a soul around.

  Where do nuns go when they’re not praying at Mass?

  Driving across the street to the Bianco girl’s grandmother’s house, he waits some more. He’s glad to have the rest of the afternoon off to mull things over. After another half hour, he checks his watch and decides to go home.

  He’s hungry.

  The next day, pulling up to the Rome
ville diner, Vinnie takes out the nun’s note and looks at it one more time, trying to decide what to do. He has a few minutes to kill before picking Al up for their morning shift. He could always drive over there, knock on the church door, and ask if Sister Edward is home. But maybe Al’s right; maybe it’s just a waste of time.

  Before all the missing children, the Mohawk River Valley was a sleepy little part of New York State; he had plenty of time to sit and think. It was partly why Vinnie had picked Romeville, hoping for an easy time. But several tragedies had struck locally early in his career—a kid stolen here or there, a small body floating in the river, a husband bludgeoning his wife with a toaster. The kind of tragedy that makes a person want to change careers. Vinnie has always wanted to do something creative with his hands; plumbing, maybe.

  Still, he knows the most valuable lesson a cop can learn: Trust your instincts…no matter what. They are really all you have when stepping into other people’s messy lives. Forget guns and shields and bulletproof vests; instincts were the only real weapon.

  Now, outside the diner in his patrol car, he notices a couple of longhairs making a racket in the parking lot.

  Damn hippies. Just what he needs to start his shift.

  He lays on his horn, hoping to break up the ruckus without having to leave his squad car. It’s starting to rain. Technically, his shift hasn’t started. He flashes his headlights.

  He could drive away. He waits another half minute, watching the hippies wave a brown paper bag and something small and black: a gun? Vinnie can’t be sure.

  Suddenly he catches on: what’s taking place is a crime.

  “Two Caucasian suspects armed and dangerous on Utica,” the police scanner buzzes. “Possible robbery in progress.”

  This kind of thing happens to Vinnie all the time now. His most peaceful hour of the day turns into a felony in progress. If he’d just chosen another place to pull over, he’d have missed this scene entirely.

  Stay calm.

  These are the moments he dreads.

  The two criminals have made a clumsy dash for their car parked diagonally behind a dumpster. By the time he reaches their side of the parking lot, he’s switched on his silent siren, a flash of blue and white light to indicate he’s serious. The Pinto doesn’t move, headlights on, engine revving. Vinnie pulls up along its right rear bumper, flashers pelting out a blinding light. He gets out of the car and unsnaps the gun-strap on his holster. Already he’s made a mistake, leaving his squad car without calling it in.

  Technically, he is still off duty.

  “Hands up!”

  The car door opens. A coatless figure steps out, hands in the air, long red hair flowing, mouth already in full gear, voice high and hollow.

  “Don’t shoot. Okay? Peace and love, man. All right? Just don’t shoot; we don’t mean any harm…”

  “Shut up,” Vinnie says.

  The driver is short and stocky with a tuft of facial hair and too-white skin. Wearing sneakers with holes and tattered dungarees, his lips are unattractively large; his nose spreads unevenly across the center of an unfortunate face. There’s something Vinnie can’t quite place: apple cheeks, wispy red eyebrows, frizzy hair, pigmented freckles. Maybe he’s mixed-race.

  “Okay. No violence. I’m shutting up.”

  Vinnie slides him up against the hood of the car, checking for weapons. The second suspect in the passenger seat is more attractive, young—maybe fifteen. She reminds him of his oldest daughter in Syracuse, a pretty kid with a mouthful of crooked teeth he will someday have to pay to straighten.

  Vinnie signals for the passenger to get out of the car. “Slowly, please.”

  In response, the girl exaggerates her movements, as if climbing through molasses. “Is this good?”

  He can’t help but smile, waving her over to his side of the Pinto. He pats down her jacket.

  Cuffing the two suspects together, he leans them up against the car.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he says.

  The driver gives him the thumbs up. “Right on, man!”

  Vinnie always feels self-conscious blurting out their rights. When he’s done, the pretty one smiles at him. He starts to doubt that there was a gun.

  “Mind telling me what you two are up to?”

  “Scrambled eggs, silly!” The pretty girl nods toward the diner. “What else?”

  The driver cracks up into strange birdlike laughter, and it occurs to Vinnie that this is no strange mulatto man with a high voice and slim build, but a girl! An ugly, flat-nosed girl.

  Vinnie looks from one to the other. "What are your names?"

  They answer in unison: “Miranda!”

  “Both of you are named Miranda?”

  Again, the answer is a duet, a strange boastful song: “Miranda!”

  “Are you high?” Vinnie asks. “Doped up?”

  This makes the ugly one double over in laughter.

  Vinnie can’t help still thinking of her as a man, or perhaps some other scrappy breed, neither female nor male. He wouldn’t mind hauling off with a punch or two.

  “I told you to shut your mouth.”

  Pretty Miranda intervenes. “Don’t mind her. We’re just happy, officer! Witnesses of Peace!”

  “Your friend rubs me the wrong way.”

  Neither of them answers.

  “Did you rob that diner?”

  They stare at him.

  Vinnie can’t quite pinpoint what bothers him. Maybe they are just a couple of teenagers goofing around with him, putting him on. Pretty Miranda has green eyes that sparkle and a very pleasant nose, small and triangular like a tiny beak. She looks familiar.

  “Are you two sisters?”

  “In a way.” Ugly Miranda hiccups.

  A clammy layer of doubt rises off Vinnie’s skin. He wants to send them on their way, to be rid of them completely. He’s glad he hasn’t called the incident in to dispatch. He can free himself easily, if he can just manage to let go of the unanswered questions.

  “What about the gun?” he asks, remembering. “Didn’t I see a gun in your hand when you came running out of that diner?”

  They look at the ground.

  “You’re not from here, are you?”

  “We're Canadian,” Ugly Miranda says.

  Maybe it wasn’t a gun; maybe it was a transistor radio, a small purse or wallet. He should let them go with a warning and be done with it.

  “I’m going to ask you again. Did you rob that diner? Because we can go find out.”

  Vinnie is nervous. He can’t be late picking up Al again; can’t go through another day of silence and sulking, accusations about how Vinnie doesn’t really respect him.

  Ugly Miranda opens her knit vest, exposing a patch on her shirt: the letters B.L.A. in tri-colored rainbows crossed by a lightning bolt. “Do we look like robbers?”

  Vinnie gets into their Pinto and takes the key out of the ignition. Feeling under the car seats for drugs, he checks the mats and glove box for weapons. Nothing.

  Somewhere across town, Al is probably lingering over a cup of coffee, the newspaper, looking out the front window for the squad car. The thought calms Vinnie. Everything is fine. There’s plenty of time.

  “Law’s the law, ladies,” he says. “May not be that way in Canada, but it’s that way here.”

  Ugly Miranda looks worried. “Okay, okay. So, maybe we forgot to pay the bill, but we can give you a couple of bucks to make up for it. There isn’t a law against forgetting, is there?”

  “And the gun I saw?” Vinnie wants to believe.

  “I swear we’re not criminals.” Pretty Miranda pouts. “We’re just on our way to Seneca Falls for the Women’s Peace March.”

  “You can’t go around making everyone think you’re up to no good. People get the wrong idea.”

  What Vinnie really means is he got the wrong idea. He can feel Pretty Miranda’s eyes on him: fourteen years if she’s a day. “Do your parents know you’re attending a lesbian rally?�


  “It’s a peace festival!” says Ugly Miranda.

  Pretty Miranda steps close to Vinnie, leaning into him. She smells of apples and soap. The gentle childlike pressure of her body makes it hard for Vinnie to think. “We’re good girls, Officer. We stand for peace.”

  Agitated, Vinnie walks to his car, leaving the two suspects standing in the rain. He gets in and turns up the dispatch radio, which is buzzing out details about the bank robbery on Utica Street downtown.

  “Utica Street,” Vinnie mutters. Through the drizzle, he watches something tangible pass between the two suspects—fear, maybe—or a secret. He rubs his face, takes a deep breath, and walks back over to their car.

  “I’m giving you a warning.” He unlocks their handcuffs. “Consider this your lucky day.”

  They smile at him.

  He hands over their car key. They get in, rolling down their windows.

  “Take it a little easy, then,” Vinnie says.

  Bank robbers on Utica Street, not peaceniks on Utica Avenue. He has to laugh: these girls are as harmless as they come.

  Pretty Miranda smiles. Ugly Miranda makes a peace sign. “Thanks for the break, man.”

  “Don’t go giving anyone else a heart attack today,” he says.

  Then, as if magically pulling a coin out of thin air, Ugly Miranda sticks a gun in Vinnie’s face: “You mean like this?”

  Vinnie flinches, ducking.

  He is about to hit the pavement and throw his hands over his head to save his life when the girl pulls the trigger. A little orange flag inscribed with the words FLOWER POWER pops out of the barrel.

  “Got you!” Ugly Miranda lets out a peal of laughter.

  “Peace and love!” Pretty Miranda says as the car starts to move.

  Vinnie tries to laugh at himself, ashamed of his paranoia. If you think everyone is a possible criminal, all you have is suspicion. What kind of guy walks around with that kind of dim view of the world?

 

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